As an on-again, off-again, part-time student of Eastern
philosophy, I have always been intrigued by the role of paradox. Wikipedia
defines paradox as: “A paradox is a statement or group of statements that
leads to a contradiction
or a situation which (if true) defies logic or reason, similar to circular reasoning.” From my
observations, Taoism and Buddhism are full of paradox.
“If you could not
laugh at it, it would not be the Tao.”
“If you meet the
Buddha on the road, kill him.”
Herein is the paradox that I see relating to the Chinese
intern who worked with us during February, March and April of this year. Ji
Qiao is a Chinese citizen who attends university in America. The private
university he attends charges tuition around $50,000 (US$) per year. That
university has an overseas programme in New Zealand. The programme used to be
centred in Christchurch, but since the earthquakes it has been centred in
Wanganui. Part of the programme engages students in two-days-per-week
internships.
Put another way, this Chinese young man’s family pays
$50,000 (US) per year to a university in the states for him to work for me in
Wanganui for free.
Although this is an unfair characterization, it emphasizes
the paradox of the situation.
The next paradox is that although Ji Qiao had never swung a
hammer in his life, he was an AWESOME intern. Herein lies the tale of Ji Qiao,
his Smartphone, and a pile of wood.
Throughout February and March, Ji Qiao and I worked on
various little projects around the property, but he kept reminding me that the
one he was looking forward to the most was “paving” – as he called it – the
kitchen floor. Finally, following his “spring break” trip to the South Island,
the time had come to pave the floor!
What made Ji Qiao such an amazing intern was his genuine
enthusiasm and willingness to learn. He used his Smartphone to take notes on
new words he learned – plies, bearers, joists – and on one sunny April day, to
add up the linear metres of Tasmanian oak I bought on TradeMe (see last week’s
Chronicle), and calculate the square metres of coverage we could get out of the
random lengths of timber stacked under roofing iron in the yard.
Together, we stacked the oak in groups of lengths within 200
mm of each other. I measured the size of the kitchen while Ji Qiao listed the
quantity of boards in each grouping. Then he used his mad maths skills to spin
his arith-magic. According to his calculations, we could get 15.2 square metres
of coverage from a total of 15.5 square metres of random-length stock. This may
not sound impressive on the surface, but what it means is that the total
off-cuts would be 300 mm, or 0.02%. That’s low.
The way we were able to achieve such a small amount of
‘waste’ was by matching short and long lengths, and medium and medium lengths,
to the near-exact total lengths required for different parts of the floor. The
easiest place to visualize this is to look at the photos in last week’s Chronicle. Barring that, I’ll do my best to explain.
The largest section of floor to cover measured 2.9 x 3.4
metres. We laid the boards in pairs that measured nearest to 2.9 metres, and
alternated between short-long, medium-medium, and long-short for the best
visual effect. This part of the job went quickly once we had a system in place.
But after that, we had to change our strategy as the dimensions of the flooring
needed changed around the Shacklock 501, the kitchen bench, and a short
entryway. Despite the slowdown, we nearly finished the job in one day, much to
the surprise of my wife Dani who returned home from work at 5:30 pm not knowing
the floor was on the schedule for the day. And she says I’m never
spontaneous!
Peace, Estwing
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