The Jamaican in China’s “Best of China!” Travel Rhyme

As a *guest travel blogger for ChinaTravel.net (sounds glamorous, doesn’t it?), I’ve been asked to do a special post summarizing my time in China. By the terms of our unique *exclusivity agreement (sounds official, doesn’t it?), the post is only available on THEIR site.

For the benefit of those who wish to do the same thing, I’ve consulted with my *crack legal team (sounds impressive, doesn’t it?) and shall herewith present: THE INTRICATE LEGAL DETAILS OF ESTABLISHING A GUEST BLOGGER EXCLUSIVITY AGREEMENT: (Take notes. This gets a little complicated.)

STEP 1. Ahem. Basically, I emailed Aimee Groom at ChinaTravel.net and begged her to let me write for them, and she emailed back and said….”Okay.”

(um, allright, allright. Her exact words were: “Okay. Don’t beg. It’s not attractive. Now, get up off your knees….”)

(..and I really don’t have a legal “team” per se. It’s really just two, okay, okay, more like 1 person….an advisor, or more like a voice, (sigh) okay, if you must know…it’s actually my voice…in my own head. But, I do listen when it speaks. And I never interrupt.)

So, with that said, click on the image or link below to read what I’ve coined  a “TRAVEL RHYME!”

Click here to go to ChinaTravel.net to read the Travel Rhyme

What would Kermit the Frog think about the Coffeepot Cookbook??

Kermit the frog and the coffeepot cookbook

What would Kermit the Frog think about The Coffeepot Cookbook? This is an important question. YOU may not think about it, but this is the type of question that keeps me up at night. Fortunately, I won’t have to spend time thinking about this particular puzzler any longer.

I got an email this morning from a gentleman named Seth, who, coincidentally is in Italy, and…well, I’ll let him speak for himself:

******

Hello,

My name is Seth. I have been living on the road for 10 years, touring with [from Walt: a live performance of popular children’s show which shall remain namelss]. I am in hotels 47-50 weeks a year. Most of the time, I travel domestically in the USA, but more recently I have been spending about 6 months a year internationally. I have been fixing meals in my room for quite a long time. Currently in Italy I bought a electric Kettle/ coffee pot and some metal lined (because I couldn’t find glass) Thermos(es). A vegetarian on my current tour handed me your book. Good read, very nice.

My schedule can have me work from sun up to sun down or three days off; I never know what shopping opportunities will or wont be available. I constantly look for what we call crate foods/ suitcase foods for days when there are no food sources available. Your book has given me some new things to try.

FYI when I am making pasta I take the dry ingredients and put them in the thermos ad boiling water and close it up for the time it takes to cook, freeing the Kettle up. We also use the American coffee maker to make soups (not run through but heated and water added to). Also the clothes Iron can make good sandwiches and if you are careful, cookies.

I don’t know how it fits into your diet but wakame seaweed rocks and in dryed form stores well, great for a bad shopping day meal vegetable.

Last but not least in your book you have a section on extra essentials, Zinc, Oil of oregano, tea tree oil, chlorophyll, and vitamin C. In what forms do you have them and how do you implement them into your food?

If I get any good pictures I send them your way.

Best Wishes,

J. Seth Leach

******

Thanks, Seth! Sooooo…..it seems a copy of my Coffeepot Cookbook has found its way to Italy, and at this very moment, may be keeping Kermit, Grover, or maybe even Miss Piggy alive and healthy for an appreciative crowd of kids in Italy! Isn’t that heart warming? >sniff<

Um, Seth? Would it be inappropriate for me to ask you, to um, maybe slip a mention of the cookbook into your dialog while you’re on stage? Like, I’m thinkin’ that when the Cookie Monster asks you for cookies, you can, you know, hand him an iron and some cookie dough, and tell him, “Things are going to be a little different around here, from now on, Cookie…thanks to The Jamaican In China’s Coffeepot Cookbook! Here’s your iron!”


Just a thought. Let me know!
No actual endorsement of the Coffeepot Cookbook by any celebrity is intended. Appreciated, but not intended.

My Beijing buddy, Ben, is cycling across America!

I finally wrote my “Best of China” post for ChinaTravel.net. Stay tuned for the big reveal!

Meanwhile, speaking of China, I met some cool people while I was there. I met my friend, Ben Partan, while I was at a club in Beijing. We were invited by a mutually-just-met stranger. We discovered he actually has family on Saipan, and we hit it off.


Me and Ben at a smoke-filled club in Beijing, China.

Turns out Ben is a cycling enthusiast with a unique story to tell.

And since, for now, I’ve got nothing more exciting to share than scenes of seabirds searching for salmon…..

Saipan seabirds

…and tourists being towed across the tide….

Always something to do on Saipan

…Here’s the beginning of Ben’s fascinating story:

In the fall of 1986, I felt sick at school and ended up going to the nurse’s office and then to my pediatrician. He took some blood tests. The next thing I knew I was at Children’s Hospital in Boston receiving many more tests. I spent the night at the hospital and was admitted so that more tests could be done. One that I remember was the bone marrow biopsy because having a large bore needle stuck into your bone and having the marrow sucked out is painful enough to be remembered for a long time.

The result of the tests at Children’s Hospital and the further tests across the street at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute determined that I had a form of myelodysplasia and was missing half of chromosome 13…. It was also know that my specific problem had only been diagnosed in a handful of people. (Later, I think I remember hearing I was number three…..

The Bone Marrow Transplant…

Previously to 1986….(see link below to continue reading)

Ben is now celebrating 25 years of life after the bone marrow transplant by indulging his passion for cycling, and riding across the United States. I invite you to read the rest of Ben’s story here: https://www.cycling2celebrate.com/home/?page_id=2. Tell him Walt sent you and encourage him to keep writing about his cross-country adventure!

Di bus CAN, in fact, swim (Free download of Holland basement house remix of Nobody Canna Cross it!)

All the way from Holland, comes proof positive that di bus can, in fact, swim! You should never doubt Clifton again.

Once again, I’ve converted the flv to an mp4 file for your easy download and viewing pleasure! No need to thank me, just tell a friend!

Click here to download Di Bus CAN Swim!
Click here to download

Download The Original Nobody Canna Cross It Video

Encyclopedia Goodridge presents Unfinished Business: Harvey The Rat returns with a vengeance!

If you recall from page 74 of Jamaican on Saipan, I had a little run-in with a rat while I was living in Chalan Kiya. I thought that that sordid episode had ended. Well it seems that “Harvey” didn’t think so. He’s back……and he’s pissed. But let me start at the beginning.

A few nights ago, I returned from a night out at the Liberation Day festivities here on Saipan to find this:


A hole in the bottom of the screen door to my bedroom balcony with a paper towel sticking out. (Crime scene recreated for the benefit of the investigation.)

I know why it happened. Without getting into too much detail, I use coconut oil for massages. (For more, see I want to date a Jamaican in China (“Don’t speculate! Ja-Make-A-Date!”)

In any event, while I was out that night, I had left a little measuring cup of coconut oil and an oil-soaked sheet of paper towel on the floor by the bed. (Neatness has never been my strong suit).

Harvey must have caught the aroma of sweet oil as he was making his nightly rounds, and decided to take a souvenir home with him. My measuring cup was gone and the paper towel, as I mentioned, was stuck halfway through a hole in the mesh at the bottom of the sliding screen door. It’s the sort of mesh screen that keeps out mosquitoes, but was never designed for determined, committed, goal-oriented rats.

So, just so we’re clear: “Yes, officer, a rat broke into my apartment from the balcony, stole my plastic measuring cup, came back, and was halfway through his second incident of breaking and entering and first degree theft, when my return scared him away.”

The next morning, I measured my screen door, then went to Ace Hardware and got some higher/stronger gauge screen, some screws, bolts and washers to construct a rodent barrier!

I had the mesh cut about two feet high, as the sales rep at the hardware store and I both agreed that the rats wouldn’t climb up the mesh to get to the weaker mesh above. I took my purchase home. (I felt like Wile E. Coyote with a new contraption from ACME, or Elmer Fudd)

I attached the higher gauge screen to the smaller gauge.


I’ll stop you yet, you wascally wodent!


I was so proud of my handiwork

Well it seems the hardware rep and I were wrong. I went to bed thinking that all was right with the world. However, at 4:00am this morning, I was awakened by the sound of some scratching. I opened my eyes and found myself staring at the underbelly, and into the glowing yellow eyes of a rodent, two feet off the ground, perched on the top of the high gauge mesh, still outside, but about to begin his toothy assault on the smaller gauge mesh to gain another entry into my apartment.


Re-enactment featuring professional rat actor paid rodent scale. No animals were harmed in the making of this.

A few milliseconds later, a thought entered my mind: “Excuse me, you’re lying on a bed two feet off the ground and you’re staring at eye level at the furry underbelly of a rat hanging from a mesh screen, suspended in the air two feet above the ground about to gnaw his way into your apartment. Hello?”

 At that point I sat up, and my quick movement scared him away.

Ah! yes! I love a battle of wits and will! (even if it’s with a rodent!) Bring it on! I lay in bed staring at the ceiling and spent the next few minutes figuring out my retaliatory (or would that be “defensive”) strategy. Would I have to use high gauge mesh on the entire screen door? Would I have to keep my glass door shut at all times (unacceptable, since I don’t believe in or use air conditioning, and  prefer to have a breeze flowing through my apartment). Think, man! Think!!! Poison? Rat trap? No good. I don’t believe in  killing–not even ants–plus, a dead Harvey the Rat would simply be replaced by another, angrier friend or family member. I’d have to launch what would eventually become known as “The Great Jamaican Rat Massacre of Saipan!” I’d have to sleep with a shotgun. Frankly, I don’t have the resources.

And then, as I stared at the mesh, and the sliding door picturing the rat climbing up, it hit me! I think I found the solution!

Encyclopedia Goodridge and the Mystery of the Bypassed Barricade

I’ll pay homage to Encyclopedia Brown, Boy Detective, one of my favorite series of children’s books growing up, and ask: “What did Encyclopedia Goodridge realize that could make all the difference in the world to keeping the unwelcome rat outside the apartment?”  If you think you know the answer (or if you simply want to make a suggestion), email me (walt@jamaicaninchina.com) enter, and then click the link below for the answer!

CLICK HERE to learn the answer!

Diabolical, don’t you think? Well, I’ll let you know how it works out…..stay tuned!

Moral: If you run away to a tropical island to escape the rat race, beware, the rats might not be too far behind!

 

Are you really ready for “The BIG TIME!?”

Are you really ready for the BIG TIME!?

If you’re a fellow author, blogger, passionpreneur, nomadpreneur or hip hop entrepreneur seeking to get to the next level of success and perhaps even “hit the big time,” then this is for you!

Now, if you’ve read Living True to Your Self, then you might already know my basic philosophy of life. Consistent with my belief that the universe is perfect, is the certainty that everything happens in divine order, how it should, and when it should. The unfolding and manifestation of that desired reality is more under our control than we might believe. However, there are some limitations. Yes, we have the power to create our desired realities. But, we’ll only allow ourselves to experience the reality that is consistent with what we believe about ourselves. We’ll only allow ourselves to experience what we’re really ready for.

So, how do we get ready? On psychological level, we must modify our self-concept and remove any untruths about our identity, about life, and the world we live in that might be holding our success at bay. At the same time, on a practical level, a key part of a good strategy must be to remove all the excuses and hindrances we might be using to sabotage our own success. By that I mean, if we know in our hearts that we’re really not ready emotionally or practically, then we won’t really give maximum effort to achieve the goal.

Whenever I’m working towards a specific goal, if things aren’t moving at the specific pace and if I’m not producing the specific results I’d like, I spend some time brainstorming about what I need to do in order to bring about the “when” it should. Let me give an example.

Let’s say I’m a writer who would love to sell a million copies of my books. But, would I really be ready if Oprah called today and said she was reviewing my book for her book club? (Yes, I know her show is over! Just work with me!) In other words, is my house in order? Is the quality of my product up to (and over) par? Is the infrastructure in place? Is the manufacturing capacity there? If not, what can I do to prepare the way? What’s missing? What have I overlooked? What loose ends do I need to tie up in order to be really ready for “The Big Time!”?

These are not just ideas to think about in a general sense. They are things to do something about in a specific sense!! If you answer “no” or don’t know the answer to any of the questions, then you need to do some research, find the answer, and if necessary, rectify the situation. To help answer these questions, and take the appropriate actions to get you really ready, here is the first of planned series entitled “Are You Really Ready for the The Big Time?”

The Big Time means millions of visits to your website. Can your site handle the load? Do you need to upgrade your hosting account? Are you on a shared server with limited bandwidth? Are you form scripts able to handle thousands of people signing up to your mailing list at the same time? Needless to say, if you want to ensure that your website is as private and secure as it could possibly be, you need to invest in a reliable server and hosting solution that works for your needs. You can find more information about hosting options here: https://www.pcmag.com/picks/the-best-web-hosting-services

The Big Time means thousands of simultaneous orders for your product or service. Do you have the manufacturing capacity, distribution/delivery channels, time, energy, employees, etc. to be able to handle multiple, large orders from all over the world?

The Big Time means demands on your time and presence. If you’re still working a job as an employee and haven’t yet transitioned to being a full-time passionpreneur, do you have the flexibility to fulfill those demands on your time and presence?

Yes, hitting the big time is as much about doing the right things and taking the right steps to get to the big time, as it is doing the right things and taking the right steps to allow the big time to get to you. You don’t even have to spend any money, necessarily. Taking the right step might simply be a phone call to a vendor or manufacturer to have things in place for if and when you get that call from Oprah. You might be surprised how simply knowing your ready for The Big Time, can have an effect on what actually happens to bring you closer to actually hitting it!

For more conversations like this, check out “7 Conversations to Freedom,” the free ebook download at passionprofit.com

I’d love your comments. What other ways can you suggest to fellow passionpreneurs to get themselves ready for the big time?

There’s more to freedom than….

Walt on Saipan

When I talk about freedom, I’m not talking about money. There are many entrepreneurs and many employees who earn much more income than I do who feel trapped in aspects of their lives they wish to change.

When I talk about my personal definition of freedom, yes, I’m talking about the freedom from working a nine-to-five job, and the freedom to live in a location that suits my tastes, but what I’m primarily talking about is freedom from fear. What traps many people in their lives is the fear that comes from their belief system. There’s a wise saying that goes: “the only way to control someone is to lie to them.”  In other words, you can’t be controlled by the truth.  A person’s belief in falsehoods, therefore, is what traps an individual. Therefore, the more you know the truth about certain, specific things, the freer you become.

Let me explain by giving you an example. First, however, let me say that the reason you’ll always hear references to health and diet in my books and discussions about turning passion into profit, or living true to your self, is because those references are really about taking control of your body–your physical manifestation here on this planet–by choosing a different belief system that empowers and frees you rather than one that controls you by lying to you and causing you to live in fear. And as a trillion dollar industry, health care is obviously a very important aspect of life and an area about which people often feel the most powerless and fearful.

So, to explain how this works, let me ask you a question. How much money would you need to earn each month, and how much would you need to have stashed away in a savings “nest egg” account in order to feel “free?” Have an answer? Good. Now, here’s the next question: How much money would you need if you didn’t have to worry about paying medical bills? It would be less than originally stated, wouldn’t it? Like many people, your beliefs about, and thus your fear of falling ill determines what you believe is required for you to be free.

Let’s suppose that instead of what you currently believe about your body, and about health and sickness, that you absolutely knew and were convinced of a different simple truth, say, for example that cancer is preventable and curable, and that keeping the body alkaline (instead of acidic) prevents cancer cells from developing in the body. Imagine that you were a person whose family members all got cancer, and you worried continuously about getting it yourself. Can you imagine how much freer you would feel (and then, by extension, how much freer you would act) once you held a different belief about cancer? That’s what I’m talking about. Think about it. Considering how expensive medical care can be, especially in the U.S., no practical amount of money would free you from the debilitating effects (financial as well as physical) of buying into a belief system that sells you the falsehood that your health is a random effect of luck and chance, and/or that the only way to cure your afflictions is with chemicals, radiation or by cutting off the afflicted appendage. So, you see, that’s how one belief can have a tremendous effect on how free we think we are, or how easy we think it is to achieve that freedom in financial terms.

Again, that’s just one example. However, people are trapped by their beliefs about many things including beliefs about their roles, their nationality, their gender, about people from other nations, religion, spirituality, life and so on. Make no mistake about this: It’s not a lack of money that keeps people trapped. And make no mistake about this: it’s not the acquisition of money that makes people free.

I always tell people that I made the decision to walk away from corporate employment on a Sunday, and then actually quit my job the following Tuesday. My financial position had not changed by a single penny in those two days. In fact, I had no savings, I was in debt, and was behind in my rent. What changed was my belief system about what I believed was possible for me, and what action I believed was required in order for me to be happy.

So, my point is this: You’d be surprised just what it takes to be truly “free.” You can’t achieve freedom unless you change the beliefs that are keeping you trapped. You might be surprised just how little money is actually required to live free and travel once you adopt a new set of beliefs (and prove them to yourself) about you, about the world, and about the universe you live in. For there’s more to freedom than money.

Just a little something from the Jamaican in China (currently on Saipan) to help you understand what you’ll read in Living True To Your Self as well as The Ageless Adept, two of my books that address respectively (1) finding a better belief system as a whole, and (2) finding a belief system about health in particular.