Pick up a Title

Collective memory collected by Mr. Yin De Yi

2010-06-04T18:47:00.000-04:00

Myf's Tiananmen translation project
from Mr. Yin De Yi's blog (now blocked by the Great Fire Wall of China)

Collective Memories of June 4th, 1989

Yin: Greetings dear moderators of the Xinlang Blog space. I bet you are getting ready for tonight too. I have planned for the worst. Let's start from now. It is 20:31, June 3rd, 2010. I will start to do what I want to do! Friend, if you care, please refresh this blog tonight! I don't want to be a fucking turtle (turtles duck their head into their shell) I hope many friends repost and save it. What I am publishing right now is worth everyone to keep. Tonight, Let's fight together!

1. Xinlang Forum User

That year, I was a junior in college. I came back to Tianjin from Beijing on June 3rd. When I heard of what happend in the morning of June 4th, tear poured down like the rain.

During this very day every year (only for this day?), looking back to the things passed, all young faces, familiar or only a glance, melancoly, angery, it made me depressed to the extrema. This is the darkest day in human history; it is the most heartbreaking day of any citizen with a heart. No matter how many years passes, no matter if it receives a so-called recognition from the government, they will never stop the blood from the wouns! Those bloody-sucking devils, executioners who murder citizens, that evil system that produced all these crimes, I will always curse you!

2. Shockwave, lawyer, born in 77'

I was very young when it happend, hence I cannot confirm anything that I heard. Even highly educated people argue about certain aspects of the key questions. Everyone has his/her own way to commemorate. Why would you force then to express their opinion? Don't you know, in China, a word can destroy someone's entire life? For example, somebody who worked very hard to study law for three years, passed the bar test only after spending a huge amount of money. He almost gets to be a lawyer. However, because of a word or a sentence he said, everything may burst like a bubble. Normal people can hardly suffer from giving up a lot while they do not have enough to survive. I said, everyone has their own way to express their opinion. It is not good for you to ask people to express. One can do some necesary things for their heart only if one's safety is ensured. If you ask too much, i am afraid that life is too light to endure this!

3. Bear of Hokkaido, Unemployed, 35, a couple of part time job, make some money and chat on QQ (chinese online chat service)

With Chinese people's apathy and slave-like quality, they dare not raise their voice even if their essential rights are being compromised. Do you think it is meaningful (to ask these questions)? I dare not to have hope in them. Let them be. There are too few Yangjias and Dengyujiaos (both killed police when their rights were compromised), yet so many dumb people. It's really hard. When 90% of the chinese are inferior, why cna't we say that we are all inferior? With the current chinese culture, we cannot walk out of this slave viscious cycle, we cannot walk out of this inferiority. a grain in the ocean is simply ommitable. Even if you are a bunch of salt dropping in to the sea of the Chinese, you cannot taste the saltiness. This nation has no hope except of termination and change origin. What difference can it make with 10 Yin De Yis, what about 100? There's hope if we have 700milion Yi De Yis. For yourself, the government doesn't really care.

4. Walking dead, Unemployed, Unknown age

One of my uncles was a Tank soldier. He left the military after June 4th, and now he is treated really nicely. According to my mom, all the Tanks that went to Tiananmen was from Weifang, that is why Weifang Tank soldiers are taken care of well by the government. I have seen all the documentary from foreign websites. At the beginning the students knew what they were doing, but they didn't have things to do later in the process, and start to form cluques. It became chaotic.

Things changed after Hu Yaobang went to visit the students for the last time (it was actually Zhao ZiYang -- translator). Knowing he is dead, the student has lost idea and leadership. The military started to come in, people on the square started to disperse. Rubber bullets in the impression did not come, but real bullets plus Tanks. Tiananmen incidents is similar to the Gwangju movement in Korea. We can still search for Gwangju online, and through it we can see the cruelty of politics. There was a supernatual phenomenon during the event. Some students splashed ink on Mao's portait, not long after it started to thunder, lightning contantly sparked in front of Mao. I was really confused by this. I do not want to expres my opinion of the Tiananmen evnet. If I have to I understand the decision of the leaders back when, becuse all the country were fought by them and they don't want someone to stop the future of their country. The only thing I don't think is fair is the absolute censorship of this event by the government. It happend means it happend. You can't always preaching that we need to say the truth, as leaders you need to fulfill your promises.

Uncle, march on with your bullet proof vest in the name of justice!

5. Leikeba enterprising 23 years old

China is so dark, everything is surrounding the man who rules. We cann satisfy our need for democracy. Media are also controlled by the government. We need a newspaper that is not inferfered by the government. We need clean newspapers.

6. Cool.ma Designer 25 years old

Where is the end of the vengeance cycle? I watched a documentary of June 4th (used same sounding characters in disguise - translator). I felt that what Chailing ( a student leader) did was a little bit too much. However I have not experienced it. I really can't say anything.

7. Natural Centrist

Are you wanting to be killed? I didn't see it before, but now I see it. This is what they are afraid of.

8. Love in Milano

9.

There's nothing to talk about regarding June 4th, merely a procedure in history. Politics is cruel. There's no stable government without bloody repression.

10. Wanting to throw my shoes

Want to know what happend that night? I can tell you. But unfortunately, my level is merely talk about it. It's not that I can't write about it, I dare not to write.

11... Freelancer born in 83

I was probably playing play doughs at home that year. In high school the teacher mentioned about this thing. (he, she) only mentioned a lot of people died, but did not continue. I got to know some things through the internet these two years, but not enough. Died in hometown but did not know why! I only want to know the truth now.

12. Li..master student

I was a kid!

13. Dark Night:

Sorry, I hold opposite opinion from you in regards of this event.

14. Feiyao

Back when I was in junion high, I did not know why those big borthers and sisters in college fast and sit-in. Now I start to know, slowly, who they were angry and did not tolerate. But thing back then is still a mystery.

15. ........

I don't understand the meaning of what you wrote. I don't get it.

16. Xinlang Forum User

That year I was in the military...I experienced it myself...and later...I woke up...and later...I fought...from then on...fight to the end...for life

17. Love Gate

Don't forget 63+1 (in disguise of June 4th)

That generation is stepping into their middle age or even getting old. Many who died has no name left. Many who were tortured were forgotten. The government is not qualified to "recognize" 63+1. In support of justice, against evil!

18. Xinlang Forum user

That year I was on the Sqare. Left 3 days before the shooting. Came back to my school.

19 Feifei is a good guy, Wangjun, office clerk, 28 years old, from Chongqing

I was in elementary school. In the news it was fasting and riot. We did not understand. I only got to understand it slowing after I grew up through different media. I felf for the first time the Chinese people stood up...but only fell soon after. We did not stand up in 1949, but everyone stood up in 1989. It left us a lot of thing to think about. This movement has its positive side. I was pumped by student's pure patriotism, I was angered by the brutal repression. Sometimes I think that if the movement did not happen, perhaps the Chinese democratization will come more easily. From some aspect, this movement ended in tragedy, a tragedy of the entire nation. Today, we commemorate this movement thorugh our own action, just to express that we do not fear the absolute power. We are more rational than the students back then.

20 Blue flower Phoenix 37 years old freelancer

That night, on that Square, Little boys and girls' feelings and thought were dropped under the call of the era. No one can look back. The curtain of darkness closed itself. All these did not end in the morning sunshine of the second day.

20 years passed, we did not forget, did not forget our dreams. If it can trade heaven, I would go to hell.

21. Lao Shang

Ten years after ten years. Things are surprisingly going thorugh ten years after ten years. The French said Chinese are pigs, I more and more start to agree with it!

22. Anima

Are you talking about Tibet in 1989? I do'nt understand! What happend? I was really young back then.

23 Jyqch Unemployed

Time flys by, 20 years has passed. 20 yearsago, I was doing internship after graduation. The so called "student movement" caused bad jobs given to the graduate that eyar. I could have worked in a governmental agency, but instead I was sent to the bottom of the system, and eventually I lost my governmental job in 2003. Haha, that is the Communist Party's job distribution policy. Look at the people who work in the governmental agencies, who is not fed by us tax payers? When we need them to get something done, they always refuses or being arrogant. Is that we are born to be kings and royalties? human feces.

24. Lost Butterfly Performance art student 20 years old

I was born that year. That was the tragedy of our nation. Poor students. I wasn't born at that time so I can't really say much. Rest In Peace for those who died.

25 Sima Guilai Photographer 35

20 years ago I was in 9th grade. Though i wasn't in beijing, but this affected my detiny. This event made me decided to not ot partake the high school entrance exam, instead I went to a factory professional school. 20 years after, totalitarianism still exists, GDB (thoughtmost of people doesn't know what it is) became the Happiness Index. The Party-Nation became the Glorious Era. But in terms of that "event", young people doesn't know a thing and they don't care enough to know. Old people pretend to not know, as if nothing has happend, even for those who actually participated. There's only the ghost who lost their life that year still wander around the Square. Poor people still exist in large scale. Not only they did not enjoy the fruit of the technological advance, they help contribute to the developement's capital. The environment was largely destroyed. I don't know where's the way out for China. I just want to say that aif a nation does not have the spirit to fight back the tyanny, this nation has no hope. Did i type too much. Our nation lacks the June 4th spirit, Long Live the June 4th spirit!

26 Huafeihua teacher 38 years old

In memory of the martyrs who sacrificed their lives for the Chinese democracy! People who live today should keep on fighting!

27 flowing water

My college friend's dad was a sergent. He said that his grandpa said back then they crushed students' body with armored vehicles. Truth or False, I did not see it myself, but I do not have a reason not to believe it.

28. Xinlang Forum User

That year my son was born, mu man went to a business trip in Beijing. He saw it, cruel for the eyes. Now that son has grown up, I told her what happed the year he was born, oh my!

29. peaceful heart

I did not know anything back then with the only new source from China Central TV station. Later I got to know many informantion from the internet and I knew that CCTV lied.

30. dadatiemur

http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNjc4Nzc0Njg=.html if we keep on to be apathetic, Ceau escu's yesterday is their tomorrow. If you do not go online for the next 10 days I'd consider you become a martyr. At that time I will tell people around the world that they need to watch this video.

31. XinTaiLuan 29 years old Shanghai

Hero of May 30th!

32. flowing water

20 years passed. I remember they said it was a riot. I was questioning it back then, students didn't have to power to riot. Back then the students still had passion. They wanted a clear society. But now the studnets are apathetic. Where is the society going? What kind of freedom does the people want? How does people face the real history? The saddest is that sometime we cannot tell black from white.

33. Mathilde student 24 years old

20 years ago i was in kindergarten, not until in 2007 after graduated from college I started to hear about this thing, but I was not sure because there are too few people talking about it. Now I live in a country with a motto (Freedom, Equality, Love), but I felt I am really far away from the truth. Even so, many things are clearer and clearer: Our nation has lost a lot of moral trasures and it continues...If the history reenacts now, I cannot think about how many people will actually stand up for it.

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There are 72 entries of people comment from Mr. Yin's blog. The library is closing and I have more programming to do. Till then. For now I am posting the first 33 entries so that you can get a sense of what the status of Chinese people is when they think about the Tiananmen Square Incidents 0f 1989, or collectively know as June 4th, after a stereotypical Collective Amnesia for 21 years.

In Memory of 1989 and In honor of the Spirit of Tiananmen

Myf

Tehran is the New Beijing

2009-06-14T04:11:00.002-04:00

Let's be hopeful. Though demonstration is not the best way to solve a problem. Nevertheless, it is the only way people can use when there's nothing else they can do and they don't want to continue the lie.

Here's Mr. Mousavi's letter to Iranian people, in English

In the Name of God

Honorable people of Iran

The reported results of the 10th Iranians residential Election are appalling. The people who witnessed the mixture of votes in long lineups know who they have voted for and observe the wizardry of I.R.I.B (State run TV and Radio) and election officials. Now more than ever before they want to know how and by which officials this game plan has been designed. I object fully to the current procedures and obvious and abundant deviations from law on the day of election and alert people to not surrender to this dangerous plot. Dishonesty and corruption of officials as we have seen will only result in weakening the pillars of the Islamic Republic of Iran and empowers lies and dictatorships.

I am obliged, due to my religious and national duties, to expose this dangerous plot and to explain its devastating effects on the future of Iran. I am concerned that the continuation of the current situation will transform all key members of this regime into fabulists in confrontation with the nation and seriously jeopardize them in this world and the next.

I advise all officials to halt this agenda at once before it is too late, return to the rule of law and protect the nation’s vote and know that deviation from law renders them illegitimate. They are aware better than anyone else that this country has been through a grand Islamic revolution and the least message of this revolution is that our nation is alert and will oppose anyone who aims to seize the power against the law.

I use this chance to honor the emotions of the nation of Iran and remind them that Iran, this sacred being, belongs to them and not to the fraudulent. It is you who should stay alert. The traitors to the nation’s vote have no fear if this house of Persians burns in flames. We will continue with our green wave of rationality that is inspired by our religious learnings and our love for prophet Mohammad and will confront the rampage of lies that has appeared and marked the image of our nation. However we will not allow our movement to become blind one.

I thank every citizen who took part in spreading this green message by becoming a campaigner and all official and self organized campaigns, I insist that their presence is essential until we achieve results deserving of our country.

[ verse from in Quran: Why not trust in God, who has shown us our ways. We are patient in face of what disturbs us. Our resilience is in god. ]

Mir Hossein Mousavi

--------------------------------

Once again, let's be hopeful, have faith in Humanity.

Hoping for GREEN in Iran

2009-06-11T02:51:00.004-04:00

Iranian election comes really close on June 12th. The reformist Mr. Mousavi gets a chance to challenge the current president, as well as party hardliner, Mr. AhmediNejad. Being a student in the Unted States I know far too little, compared to our Mullah Mohammad Ali Abtahi, also known as "the blogging mullah", who wrote a new entry in his website

Quote:

June.08.2009

It is regretful if lie would be elected

I wish if some one could collect these days' short messages. After determining debates especially after those Mr. Ahmadi Nejad participated in them, all of short messages were related to obvious lying by some one who wants to be Iran's president for next 4 years. His lies about statistics and persons are too many to mention in webnevesht. Approaching to the election controversies grow so that any voice is not possible to hear. But in this election voice of lie are so loud that every body heard it. Again the only voice which had been heard among controversies was the voice of debates, especially attractive and serene debate between Mr. Mosavi and Mr. Karobi which mentioned most of statistics and statements of president are deceit. When people believe some one is lying, his re-election will be end of ethical values. Although in practice most of the values had been destroyed but such event can be institutionalized in country. Formal lying causes ruling downfall in all over the world. If in our honorable country lying causes to win the election, what will be the judgment of future generations about us. People have decided to make a change but how oppress to Iran and Iranian nation who try to replace decision of people by ways they know it very well.

----------------------------------------

It seems that there is a Green Revolution coming to the soorsteps of the Islamic Republic of Iran. In respond to my previous entry, it is yet another REVITALIZATION MOVEMENT, only that this one is at a much matured stage than the one happened in China in 1989. Personally, I would like to see some change in Iran, some more humanly approach to the art of governance instead of hatreds over hatreds snowballing between different cultures.

Please take some time to understand each other, people on the earth.

There's also an interesting promotional youtube video I think it might potentially be the new face of Iran.

Comparative Analysis of the 1989 Student Movement in China

2009-06-03T22:47:00.000-04:00

Comparative Analysis of the 1989 Student Movement in China

Many judgments and imaginations can be extrapolated from a single event, in this case, the student movement in China during the spring and summer of 1989. For example, severe human rights violation, or government's determination to political stability. However, these extrapolations, though bearing some degrees of truth, are of limited analysis. In order to understand a single "event", one should look further into the background, relate this event to other events, to reveal its complex nature. Anthropology serves as an useful tool in understanding the nature of the event due to its self-critical and comparative nature. [foot note one]

In order to understand a broader picture of what happened in 1989 during the student movement, I will compare it with the case of Afghan Taliban, the case of slavery in Mauritania, the case of Al-jazeera and the case of Northern Ireland during reconciliation. The origin of the movement, the nature of the governmental control, the use of media and the collective memory afterward will be discussed. Over the course of the semester we obtained some essential tools for the analysis, such as Wallace's revitalization movement, Geertz's Ideological cultural system, the idea of "Myth" which is propelled by the media. I will use them as conceptual frameworks.

Brief Background

After the cultural revolution (1966-1976), the People's Republic of China went through a series of ideological and economical reform in the 1980s while left the political system intact. As more and more people demand a change in the political system, the university students in Beijing took the responsibility of action. They demonstrated for democracy in Tiananmen Square, the symbolic center of the people's republic, and was well supported by the citizens, public media and even some senior reform-minded governmental officials. However, the situation aggregated as the students and government antagonizing each other. The movement eventually ended a tragic end with the government crushing the movement down through military force followed by massive retribution. Following the movement, despite being heavily criticized for using the military by the international community, the People's Republic took an 180 degree turn on its intention on political system reform. To date, after 20 years, political sensitive words such as "89`", "student movement" "democratic movement" and "June fourth"(the date of the actual military action) are still taboo in China and as a consequence, the younger generation who grew up after 89` generally has very little, if any, knowledge about the movement.

Becoming a movement -- compared with the Taliban

Indeed, the image of the Tankman and the brutal imageries of military "crush down" will remain most vividly in people's mind and consequently they are the most mentioned, and sometimes the only thing mentioned. Here I would like to seek for the origin and the steps leading towards the single event in order to understand it in a continuous chronological spectrum. In the quest of influences, we can trace as far back as the Celestial Empire that lasted over a millennium, in which the emperor holds the absolute power over his people, in which democracy is obsolete. Secondly, at the turn of the 20th century, after interacting with western civilizations, young Chinese intellectuals and students begins to realize the need of democracy for a nation's survival. It spurred many social movements, most notably the May 4th movement of 1919, which was surprisingly similar to the one 70 years after in 1989: Students marched to Tiananmen square, condemning the government and asking for democracy. The legacy of the May 4th is significant as it indicates the beginning of modernization of China in both Nationalist and Communist narratives. "Mr. Democracy" and "Mr. Science" was made slogan, Marxism and the idea of proletarian revolution was first introduced in this movement. Later, the communist ideology would be used as a cultural system in an revitalization movement which resulted in the Communist regime in 1949. The third influential event leading towards 1989 was the "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution" happened between 1966 and 1976. The party and nation's leader Mao Zedong immersed the nation in the dream of an ideological society. The definition of democracy lies in between the factional fights over who is more "revolutionary" and treating Mao's words as the absolute truth. Students movements was largely encouraged to attack party officials but would never question Mao's leadership and righteousness. Deng Xiaoping, the Chinese leader in 1989, was physically attacked many times by the students in the revolution. After the death of Mao, in the 1980s, people began to wake up from their ideological dream and realized the importance of modernization. Deng's reform was considered extremely progressive in the account of economy but left the political system largely intact. The reformists in the Communist party, lead by then Prime Minister Zhao Ziyang, tried to push forward democratic election, party-state separation and press freedom among other political-system reforms in a gradual, trickle-up fashion. Despite the effort, by the end of the 1980's, many intellectuals found themselves earning less and less compared to business men, and the freedom of the speech did not improve either. There had been student demonstrations for campus democracy. In Wallace's Revitalization Movement framework, this stage is the "cultural distortion", in which individuals have found a new mental image of the social system: the ideology of national democracy, instead of communism with a tweak of progressive economy. The sudden death of the reformist Hu Yaobang on April 16th shocked many who later paid the tribune in the form of a collective demonstration. The Communist Party, however, denounced this tribunal as "unrest" and "riot". From here on, The Tiananmen Square student movement for democratic society went into its peak over the next two months.

Under comparison, the formation of Taliban in Afghanistan was also an complex issue triggered by many historical steps leading towards it. Afghanistan was first established as a buffer zone with a distinct Pakhtun tribal society, where revenge was held as primary social principles (Haroon). Later, in order to construct Afghanistan as a "frontier", British Rajs wanted to reinforce on the "tribal" identity, the idea that communities within the tribal areas were socially and culturally "distinct"(Haroon). In this way British Rajs may govern at ease over the checks and balances of the tribal groups. Though the British intention was to make Afghanistan a buffer zone and a frontier, inevitably Afghanistan was greatly influenced by the British, as well as by the Russians and Americans. Afghanistan later went through the Soviet-supported communist regime, and then ended by the American-funded Mujaheddin "freedom fighters". At this chaotic historical moment in which people of Afghanistan experienced ideological crisis, the Taliban's emergence as a religious ideology to reunite Afghans is by no means coincidental.

First of all, there are similarities between the tribalization of Afghanistan and the factionization of China, in the sense that they are both reinforced by certain power. The British Raj made sure that the Pakhtun tribes are distinct from each other in the construction of the frontier, while Communist Party leader Mao Zedong made sure to have factions among his party officials in order for better manipulation. In this sense, the type of "democracy" promoted during the Cultural Revolution was no different from tribal mindset of Afghanistan. Secondly, similarities can be drawn from Pakhtun tribe's "revenge as primary social principle" and the Chinese version of "revolution is regarded as the highest". If a social system exert behaviors like this, it can only generate more and more social tension as time goes by. In an revenge or revolutionary society, the defeated faction would always think about ways to re-revenge or re-revolutionize the winner of the preceding step. A snowball effect will exponentially push the social-system towards higher social tension, followed by yet another revitalization movement. Thirdly, it seems that both the Taliban movement and the Chinese democratic movement adopted the similar method as used by the previous movement to overthrow the previous regime. The Taliban used American money to fight against its secular ideology and the Chinese students used the Communist revolutionary ideology to fight against the communist. In the Chinese case, most of the students participated or observed during the cultural revolution, hence inherent an "revolutionary mindset". Many critics argue that the movement failed because that the students used the same revolutionary mindset as the Communist in order to "revolutionize" the Communist regime, instead of a gradual trickle-up democratization.

parallel: Many member's of communist were student movement activists in the 30s. and now they are against student. (can put it in gov control)
parallel: revolution as a motto of the communist, and as well the motto of the students
parallel:

Governmental control--compared with slavery in Mauritania

China has a long history of centralized government. Since the unification of China in 221 B.C., the Celestial Empire, Nationalists, Communists, even till today, The power structure of the society is centralized while the people are used to the centralization of power. The students movement of 1989 was in many way an unprecedented challenge to the centralized power structure. After the reformist party official Hu Yaobang's death, students collective demonstrated on the street to pay a tribune. This demonstration was soon defined as a "riot" that "must be struggled against" in the famous April 26th Editorial published by the Party's official newspaper The People's Daily. Up to this point, thought people's social tolerance is considerably high, it reaches the point when they cannot accept the government's high-pressure policy. In response, 50 thousand enraged students went on streets the very next day to protest against the April 26th Editorial. Since the protests in the following few days were well organized and the massive amount of participation, it drew the centralized Communist Party government to the negotiation table, for the first time in history, as part of the appeasement procedure. Meanwhile, the political horizon was complicated by the struggle within the Communist Party itself between the reformists and the traditionalists. On this account, the centralization of power was rather an oligarchy than autocracy. The reformists wished to conduct a gradual and trickle-up political reform and the party hardliners still held true to values inherent from the Mao era. Party hardliners deeply believed in the conspiracy theory that an foreign power was backing the student in order to revert the Communist regime. On top of this Oligarchy, the essential centralized power was held in the hand of Deng Xiaoping, who was influenced by either sides from time to time. Under the fluctuating power shifts, the student movement went through party negotiation, appeasement, more severe editorial. The reformist Prime Minister was forced down on May 15th by the inner political struggle. After this, party hardliners began to adopt more harsh treatment on students. In the evening of April 3rd, military was sent to the city and the bloody scene we all are familiar with took place.

In Kevin Bales' book Disposable People, there was mentioning of severe governmental control in Mauritania which helped slavery continue to exist in the region. After slavery was abolished in 1980s, slaves were never informed their freedom by the slave owner or the state, compared to the Chinese case, in which freedom of speech only remains on paper. Census number is treated as a Mauritanian state secrete so no outsider can obtain a comprehensive statistics. Bales notes, “while legal ownership of slaves was abolished, no change in the working relationship was legislated; masters don’t have to pay their slaves or provide any sort of social security. This arrangement allows the legal fiction of slavery’s abolition to continue” (Bales, 88) The government maintained this fiction by preventing foreigners from seeing it. Similar treatment also prevented China to be know to foreigners. Propaganda was used as a tool to keep slavery a social norm. In order to prevent the former slave class the Afro-Mauritanian from entering politics, they are told they too are Arabs and the government is on their side. After the military "crush down" and the student were forced to leave the Tiananmen Square, China Central TV station described it as, ironic as viewed by the bystanders, "The People's square finally returned into people's hand." To some extend, slavery itself is also an example of highly controlled society. Slave owners not only justify slavery by the Qur'an, they also would tell the slaves, according to Islam, "Obedience to their masters is the only way they will go to heaven." (Bales, 106)

Why would some social-system adopt a form of highly controlled society, Instead of a alternative, for example real democracy. This perhaps is one of the questions asked by the students during and after the movement. In Wallace's Revitalization Movement theory, individual stress is the causation of such an movement. A democratic society allows every individual to voice his/her own opinion and they have the right to maintain such opinions. Comparatively, in a highly-controlled state, individualism is not allowed, and the government will make sure everyone has the same opinions through propaganda. Further more, when the society has high stress level, people has the choice to either tolerate or create a new cultural system, both society examined here convinced people to choose to tolerate instead of creating something new, through special ideologies. Islam was used as such an ideology in Mauritanian slavery in which slaves can only be obedient in order to go to heaven. In the Chinese case, a trace of Confucian logic can be found. The very word Confucius said, "A governor is to govern, a servant is to serve, a father is to father, a son is to behave as a son", defined everyone's responsibility. In an Confucian society there shall be no mixing in the power structure. People's responsibility is to behave like people and be governed by the government. It is this logic created the Celestial Empire and eventually passed down to the Chinese society in 1989. This can explain, to some extent, why Chinese people was tolerant on high pressure and the government is justified to use military.

Power of Media compared with Al-jazeera

In Wallace's Revitalization Movement framework, "increase of individual stress" indicates that the social system in question is no longer at steady state. What comes next, is the stage of "cultural distortion", which has to be achieved collectively by the members of the society. The effort to connect each of the individuals, to gather them under the same scope is done by the media. After cultural distortion, the collective body has to decide whether or not to enter the stage of a revitalization movement, in which media again played an important role. The governmental press would dismiss people's will to overturn the existing social system while the press of the emerging collective force encourage people to take the change.

However, In the case of China in 1989, press was heavily regulated by the government and consequently there was practically no independent media that would potentially speak for the people in the movement. In April, following the death of the reformist Hu Yaobang, a shanghai-base news paper World Economy Journal published a lengthy article that referenced the undemocratic practices in the party elections, ignoring Shanghai Party Commission's "suggested editing". Jiang Zemin, then Shanghai Party Chief, immediately banned the newspaper. During the student movement, there had been student organized newspapers, radio stations and public bulletin boards. The effect of these independent press, however, cannot be compared with the state-run media. Interestingly enough, the state-run, Party and the government's official newspaper itself, the People's Daily, became the battle field within itself. From January to April 2009, prior to the student movement, many article calls for political reform and press freedom appeared on the People's Daily, in accordance to the reformist government's idea of gradual political reform. After Mr. Hu Yaobang's death, it seems that the Party hardliners took over the newspaper which resulted in the notorious "April 26th Editorial" that defined student movement as riot. On May 17th and 18th, the tone of the Daily made another 180 degrees turn, in supportive of the students citizens of Beijing, demanding governmental officials to meet with their people. Soon after, the Daily went back to hardliners as articles condemning the student riot and justifying the necessity of military involvement appeared. According to personal account of the Vice-Editor-in-Chief of the Daily in 1989, Mr. Lu Chaoqi, most of the editors of People's Daily sided with the students and the reformists. All the article in favor of using military came directly from a few member of the Party hardliners. The crush down of the movement left many editors in disbelief, who could only subtlely demonstrate their anger in between lines. The government controlled media went on to define students as a small bunch of mobsters who vandalized the city, and the military crushed them down with no casualty. They also warned people who discuss the movement not in accordance with the Party. One can argue this propaganda as being extremely successful. For the generation who grew up after 89', there was very little knowledge, if any, of the movement and the brutality of 89'.

On the other end of the world, in a later time, there comes the pan-Arabia TV Channel, Al-jazeera, who united the new Arab public. According to Marc Lynch in his book Voice of the New Arab Public, the first pan-Arab voice was a Egyptian radio show from 1950s to 1960s "aimed at emotionally inspiring the masses to political action under the control of the State".(Lynch) This is similar to the People's Daily prior to the student movement, which called for political reform and press freedom as mentioned above. After this effort, the new Arab public went on its dismal years in the 1970's and 80's in which state had fully control of all media outlets. The 1990's became a period of struggle over media freedom, many attempts of discussion over sensitive topics were cracked down. With the help of the emergence of Satellite TV and a better democratic environment, Al-jazeera was created in the late 1990's and soon became popular since it attracted audience by its open discussion on political topics in the Arab world. Lynch argued that Al-jazeera has permanently changed the Arabic public discourse by offering an alternative to state-sponsored programming. Compared to the People's Daily and the Chinese movement demanding press freedom, the Arabic version of the same story seemed to be much more successful.

We have to appreciate the mighty power of the media through this study. The Chinese democratic movement tried but failed to take over the media, consequently the next generation in China has no memory on the event that shocked the world. On the other side, through a series of struggles the establishment of Al-jazeera united the new Arab public where sensitive/controversial topics can be discussed freely. There are many factors that contributed to the different result. First of all, China is a centralized entity and has only one voice. The Arab world is composed by many countries, though collectively they have a shared identity, the political structure is not centralized. Secondly, media is becoming more and more powerful through the advance of technology. Al-jazeera became reality with a great deal of help from the pervasiveness of Satellite TV. In the Chinese case in 1989, state controlled newspaper and cable TV is still the only way people acquire information. After the military surrendered Tiananmen Square, due to lack of outside information, the student still believe that the military would only use rubber bullet, thought the massacre had already happened. This phenomenon will never happen in the modern world, as we equipped cell phones and various devices that connected us via internet. In the following subsections, I will also discuss the use of media in current world.

"Reconciliation", collective memory, etc.

After the student movement for democracy was crashed down on June 4th, 1989, the massacre did not end in the Tiananmen Square. The Party self-justified its use of military and started mass retribution process throughout the nation against the "anti-revolutionaries". The reformist faction in the Zhao Ziyang government was removed from political power. Mr. Zhao himself was put under house arrest until his death 16 years after. Many who had "good behavior" in the crash down were promoted, among which Mr. Jiang Zemin, soon became the next generation Chinese leader after Deng Xiaoping. Many who involved were arrested and many sentenced to death. Student leaders' most-wanted posters were broadcast throughout the nation. The lucky ones successfully escaped to other countries, the unlucky ones spent years in prison or in hide-outs in harsh conditions. Revealing information regarding the movement to foreign press was militantly discouraged. One who briefly talked to CNN about the massacre was broadcasted then found and sentenced 10 years in prison. It was hard to believe, if not in a society with extremely centralized government, that the same government promoted political reform, press freedom and had dialog with students merely a month ago. In the violent military-citizen confrontation, the killed soldiers were martylized with massive memorial ceremony across the nation, Beijing citizen who threw bricks onto tanks were sentenced to death. There was, however, claimed by the government, no citizen casualty. Though most people knew it was a blatant lie, they did not dare to speak out due to fear of governmental retribution. After a year, Deng Xiaoping turned the nation's attention once again on a strictly economical reform as he opened up special economical regions in the South. China once again went back to its very Confucian tradition with no interaction between citizens and its government. In terms of education, the focus went back to loyalty to the Party, the nation and socialism, as it was during the Cultural Revolution. Even till today, there was no account of the 1989 student movement in history books published in the People's Republic. Consequently, the massive post-1989 propaganda and retribution produced a generation of young people in China has extremely little, if any, memory about the movement or the massacre. Especially in the recent years, with a booming economy, Chinese government became much more agreeable among the post-Tiananmen generation along with the rise of nationalism. In recent year, due to the imbalanced economic development, many social problem start to reveal themselves. Most of the anger, however, was successfully directed to anger against foreign countries' biased portrayal of China. Generally, the post-1989 generation in China was more interested in foreign press' attack on the Olympic, than the social problem within China.

Starting in the 1960s, all the way till 1998, there had been a series of ethno-political conflict in Northern Ireland, collectively referred to as "The Troubles", in which the mainly Catholic Nationalists wanted to secede from the Great Britain while the mainly Protestant Unionists wanted to stay. During the aftermath of the conflict, different from the Chinese case, there has not been massive political retribution against the Nationalists. Instead, a reconciliation procedure took place. However, the procedure of reconciliation and forgiveness wasn't as smooth. According to a study done by Keith C. Barton and Alan McCully, high school students who have been affected by the conflict are more willing to recognize the conflict as current event, instead of history. (Barton and McCully) The recognition of the conflict remains in the realm of "collective memory". History, to the Northern Ireland students in the study, is "something in the distanced past". The authors went on to suggest that "education needs to use history to address the confusion that resulted from contemporary reality' while in the same time pointing out that this educational power to build a sense of solidarity can "easily be abused". Taking this suggestion to the Chinese case. The education simply wiped out any information about the spontaneous democratic action in Beijing and throughout the nation, in order to achieve solidarity. In this account, the concern by Barton and McCully was necessary. Moreover, through Chinese government's massive retribution action, the Chinese people who had been through the movement, already wounded by the preceding experience of Cultural Revolution, can only remain in silence. Immediately after the movement, there have been cases of "indirect protest" by the editors of state-own newspaper and others in order to commemorate the movement. As time goes by and the increase pressure from the retribution, no one dared to mention it publicly, even privately. The collective memory of 1989 now mainly come from 3 sources. First, student leaders formed coalition oversea, mainly in America. Second, the other two Chinese speaking political entity, namely Hongkong and Taiwan, condemned the massacre and memory was encouraged. Third, victims in China formed their own support group secretly. However, the effort was constantly harassed and repressed. Consequently, in the People's Republic of China, the 1989 democratic movement did not become a part of history; moreover, the related collective memory was largely repressed.

conclusion and a look forward

The student movement for democracy, spontaneously happened and had its epic during the spring and summer of 1989, centered in Beijing, was a very brave attempt to question and action against the central authority that has been established for over 2000 years in China, simply by people's power. As mentioned in the earlier analysis, The protesters maybe have adopted the incorrect "revolutionary strategy" to "revolutionize" the Communist regime at an immature stage, in addition to a very established Confucian centralized power that had total control of military and media, eventually lead to the failure of the movement, only to be followed by a mass retribution process which resulted in the lack of collective memory in the young generation in the People's Republic.

At this very moment, exactly 20 years from the demonstration and the massacre, the People's Republic enjoys itself on the recent economical boom, the recent host of the Olympic, and the young generation's unprecedented nationalistic pride. Despite the harmonious outlook, the tension between individuals, between the rich and the poor, between the local government and the people are increasingly accelerating. According to Wallace, this would be the "increase of individual tension" stage, which may lead towards cultural distortion and a revitalization movement if given sufficient condition. The post-Tiananmen generation of Chinese youth starts to play an important role in Chinese society. They had very limited, if any, information about the student movement and the reform in the 80's, because the event was not recognized by the government, and their parents was afraid of retribution and other psychological trauma. Nevertheless the young generation experienced a better democratic environment through the new technologies and personalized media that empower the individuals and through the general democratic trend of the world. They have witnessed the inequality during the economical development and have a better understanding of the rights they have as citizens than their parents' generation. Through mass media, however, the government successfully redirected the youth's anger towards foreign government and press. The general consensus among the youth is that the western world was jealous of China's economical boom as they purposely distort the Chinese international image by attack on China's domestic problem such as human right, on the right to host Olympics, among others. The misdirected new generation generated new source of blind nationalistic pride.

However, history will not stop itself and the past historical events will eventually be brought up again for the new generation to examine. As the internet technology progresses, information became much more open and the media became harder and harder to control by nation machines. Individuals will be more and more informed. In this new era, a wise government would adopt to this change, re-initiate the gradual political reform as attempted by Mr. Zhao Ziyang's government 20 years ago. The Chinese youth might be misinformed at the moment; however, the truth would unveil itself through the youth's future interaction with better informed peers around the world. In this case, the youth would raise more social questions due to a potentially decrease of nationalistic fervor caused by the slowing down of the economy. The centralized government with Confucian mentality maybe stable for the past 2000 years. However, I would argue that it will no longer stay stable in the modern world in which nations constantly interact with each other and individuals are empowered by personalized media. Special interest should be paid to the development of media technology. Internet liberated the Chinese access to the rest of the world in the same way as cable TV liberated the Arab World. Though Chinese government tried its best to restrict the access to "sensitive sites" through its notorious Great FireWall of China, people still find their way to break through the barrier. Many individual reporters use tools such as blog and twitter, in addition to the secure technology, to inform the nation of all the unjustified practice where people cannot hear from mass media. Half way across the world, in Moldova, an anti-government protest was organized simply through twitter recently. Giving all these examples and analysis, we would hope to see the awakening of the young generation of China in the near future for a more democratic society.

Foot Notes

[foot note one]
Looking back into the origin of disciplines such as political science, history and economy, they were created to tackle a specific division of a "civilized society". Anthropology, in another hand, was created to deal with everything happens in an ""uncivilized society" because they did not feel that those society deserved to be analyzed fully. In modern world, surprisingly, anthropology gained advantage since it is able to examine a social system through multiple angles to understand its complex nature. A beautiful example would be Miner's "Body Ritual among the Nacirema".

The Clash of Civilizations

2009-05-18T01:48:00.000-04:00

It's the name of the Anthropology class I took this semester; and, a week after the final paper was due, I am still struggling on this final paper. Maybe it was because that the topic was so open and I always want to crunch in more information and more theories. The good thing about Anthopology, compared to other humanity disciplines such as history, economics or political science, is that it really does well on the interdisciplinary nature of events, and has a better self-criticism than those subjects. Anthropology was designed to be self-critical of the subject it studies, because in colonial person when the discipline was founded, it aimed to deal with "uncivilizaed societies", while history, economics and political sicnece to deal with the winner of the civilization wars, and inherently has speak for the social system it examines. It gets interesting when people start to apply anthropology on the "civilized societies" and found out that they are no better than the "salvages". Most notably Miner's "Body Ritual among the Nacirema"

Streaming April 29th 2008

2009-04-29T18:05:00.002-04:00

6 months since the last update to my blog. Has anything changed or worth mentioning during this period of time? There certainly is. I have tried to post many times before: Logged on blogger, linked to this editing page, and was then inevitably distracted by something else. Since November 2008, I finished last semester, spent times in *the city* before coming back to Saint Louis on a road trip with good friends from binghamton. Then the usual routine: taking classes (most of them are interesting though I complained), hanging out at the co-op to enjoy some full-blown college fun, being lazy in the morning and insomnia at night. Many little things, but do they all work towards a common goal?

One thing I thoguht worth mentioning was related to public speaking. On December 4th, 2008, I went to an event called "idea bounce" to do and elevator pitch for my idea in no longer than 2 minutes. My idea was called *wash u world talks*, a video-conferencing platform/ event series that link our students with people in other particular parts of the world, so that we can communicate without the voluntary/ involuntary biases from the mass media. I have always been confident on my public speaking. The earliest proof was that back in high school in Beijing me and my good friend Dingfan, both trivia junkies, went to participated in a nationally-broadcasted quiz show similar to jeopardy. We were on a team combating with three other teams, facing about a hundred people in the studio and much more in front of the TV. Dingfan got nervous and would give an answer of a 7-letter-word after they told us it was 3 letters. To the contrary I was calm, did my best, and managed to calm him down before he screw up big time. We got second place after all, not bad eh? After all these year, I still from time to time blaming him for his nervousness at that time. And eventually, this nervousness mysteriously fall on to my shoulder during this december 4th Idea Bounce. I stood in from of a hundred people, spot light on my face, trying to remember the speech I wrote 2 hours prior to the event but could not think of anything. Images in front of my eyes starts to glistering and burning then melted. I tried to move my body rhythmically to shake off my bad luck but it was too late. In 2 minutes I managed to say 2 sentences and then was told to leave.

Biggest embarrassment ever in my life! (??) It's as if I was caught unexpectedly stading naked in front of everyone, had to make a few nervous smiles and waving goodbye. After the show, I went to an empty classroom to practice my speech in disbelief. Of course I didn't get it through! It was too long for 2 minutes, and I didn't have enough time to familiarize it, let along memorizing it. Upon returning home, I immediately past my speech draft on to my door so it has been the first thing I see in the morning for the past 6 months. Until I got a chance again on April 2nd, 2009, delivered a perfect speech in front of another crowd of people. This time, I was very assuring, because I knew exactly what I was doing.

veux pas dejuner, veux pas travailler

2008-11-18T13:32:00.003-05:00

It's a lazy day. Sun is directly shining on my face as I am sitting in the library. I just want to relax, sans physics homework, sans thinking about the emotional turmoil that i have been through lately. I just want to relax and write to myself, not forciful. I have come across too many things i have to forcifully do. Laying my work in front of me, with a great unwillingness to combat with, I do them eventually under the highest pressure possible. Maybe it comes from my bike messenger days, in which every second is the deadline and I have to pace myself through, over and over and over again. I thought I have learned time management, but instead I have learned to work only under the highest pressure. It is true for my academical life in which i mostly procrastinate; it is also true for my love life in which I am building up my tension every single day until the predicted moment in the future where I burst and it won't be an desirable situation. Much is said about the pressure, I decide to take a natural way, a pro-active natural approach to things, accompanied with a list of things that lays in front of me:

- writing skill
- reading
- debating aka get points across
- paying attension / short term memory
- research opportunity
- internship opportunity
- physics and all the mess about math
- but above all, love, love, love.......in a sense including all kinds of love

wish me luck,as I seek a beam of light in the dark room

Many faces of Ubuntu

2008-10-28T13:41:00.007-04:00

My friend Natan first introduced me to the world of Linux. He said it's free, open source, light weight, highly customizable and it is totally good for people who value the concept of Do It Yourself. I happened to be one of the person who enjoys all of the above but was debating within myself because i heard linux was hard to use. He introduced me Unbuntu, which is very easy to use as a newbie. So I started, and loved it.

They made it even easier these days. Back then in the old days (well, a year ago) I have to compile some of the drivers to get it to work. Now, with a small software called WUBI, you can actually install your Ubuntu through a windows installer.

Millions of users around the world now uses Ubuntu, and due to its ability of customization, there are many derivative editions of Ubuntu. Ubuntu Studio, for one, dedicated in the sound and video aspect of this operating system. Mythbuntu is a combination of Unbuntu and MythTV, a program allows you to watch TV programs through your computer, and it's open source. They seems to be very practical.

AND there is the more interesting aspect of Ubuntu. It comes when you mix open source OS and religion. Ubuntu Christian Edition is dedicated to Christians who uses Ubuntu. It comes with a variety of softwares like BibleMemorizer, VirtualRosary and extensive parental control preventing your little kid from being touched by the "dark side of life". Not to mention there's Christ on a throne as the Desktop Background.

Ubuntu Muslim Edition serves for Muslim Ubuntu users. Very conveniently a program called "Minbar" will tell you the times for the five prayers of the day and how long you can surf online before your Subh at 4 am in the morning (I'm sure people do that). There's the Qur'an version of the Memorizer as well. Same as Christian Edition, Ubunto ME emphasizes on the content control from being enticed into the dark side of life.

Function similarly but being called differently. It's like GNOME and KDE.

You'll wonder if Christians and Muslims have found this way to keep their religious practice while operating the computer, who will come next? Introducing Jubuntu Ubuntu for Jewish. "Provide Jewish people (and anyone else) with a light-hearted, welcoming version of Ubuntu with a focus on Jewish culture."

well, let alone the Ubuntu Satanic Edition........

Last, but never the least. After all this painstaking integration of institutional religion and open source movement. I finally see the truth came into the spectrum of Ubuntu editions: The Ubuntu FSM Edition. Somebody out there felt the unjustified and misrepresentation of the FSM and decided to voice out for our very own ubuntu edition. Ramen

back from my sarcasm, I have found it interesting that open source and highly personalization may generalize the exclusiveness that required by different religions, paradoxically. Same thing happends as the introduction of Internet, people can select what they want to listen and can very well ignore what other people say. This makes me wonder if specialization in media is overall a good thing for us.

---side note-----
perhaps there are more ubuntus?

In remembrance of my bike

2008-09-28T17:19:00.006-04:00

You thought that life was normal until the moment when something you are really really used to went on missing, then you start to think that your previous life was perfect. Yes I am obsessed with my bike, and YES, I lost it mysteriously today. It was a laughable tragedy. I biked to a block party and back with it, my beloved blue specialized allez, and presumably I moved it back to my apartment. It was then turned AWOL this morning when i tried to ride it. It was simple, and without any explanation.

A brief history of my bike here so I can still remember it after many years. It was my 18th birthday gift from my dad, who indeed surprised me because I always wanted something like a really good road bike. I collected a bunch of brochures from the nearby bike stores and studied them everyday. Dad noticed it and wanted to give me a surprise by bringing in a bike that looked like one of them on the pictures.

Then I started to ride it daily on the not-as-dangerous-as-Manhattan streets of Queens. There was a lake near by my apartment, circulating around the lake after school became a part of life at some point. In the summer of my Junior year, I would rode about 30 minutes south to the Howard Beach area to study SAT words with the easy going cafe people. Our neighborhood in Forest Hills was a predominantly working class immigrant neighborhood that consists of Russians, Indians, Latino Americans and sporadically Asians (more and more Asians started to move into that neighborhood throughout these years). On the way I have to pass Forest Hills Gardens, or as the High School kids used to call it: the Harry Potter land. It was this enclave of rich people among the working class neighborhood with red brick roads and Tudor style mansions. It was pleasant to bike through its tree-covering Avenues. My destination Howard Beach is a small community near the ocean in which life is much slower and calmer and more conservative. It was on this bike I enjoyed passing through the diverse city landscape and that was when i realized how important it is to understand how they function similarly and differently.

As College came dad managed to move it to my college in Binghamton via his van along with all my belongings and myself. There I started to get to know more interesting ideas and i would keep on bike whenever the weather allowed me to. Binghamton is a small town in the mountains in upstate new york. We welcomed our first snow in october and faired the last one well in april. It was also, as rumor said, the second cloudiest city in America (which, after much research, turned out not to be true, but definitely in the first 20). A good weather day became very precious. I would immediately thought about riding whenever there's a sun above me. The extremely hilly road around binghamton made biking really challenging and the scenery and the difficulty made it really rewarding at the same time.

As all young men pumped by blood and passion I wanted to do something meaningful and mark my youth. In the summer of my binghamton years I took a job as a bike messenger in new york city. It was considered as one of the most dangerous job in the city, as so i felt. I would wear a 5 pound chain around my waist and a messenger bag on my back, zipping through the dangerous yet narrow streets of new york city everyday for 10 hours, carrying from an evenlope to a tens of thousands dollar jewelry to a roll of paper sized as a tree trunk. What I do was simple, get my message from my dispatcher through a NexTel phone, bike to the pick up location, pick up, bike to the drop off location, drop off. It went on routinely around the city for two months until I remember all the street numbers. From time to time you have compete with other traffic, especially cabbies and avoid your own injury. For the most part, you are competing with yourself, and putting yourself always on the deadline. It was, overall, a HARD LABOUR IN STYLE. And YES, I did all of these craziness with my blue specialized allez.

Later I decided to come to Wash U. While the school housing options being outrageously unaffordable I had to commute daily. I shipped my bike to the school and used it to commute in and out of school every day. It became a routine.

My bike also served as a mean of relief. I remember riding it around the city from Queens to downtown Manhattan to Uptown manhattan in the rain after I got rejected by some schools I expected to get in. I remember the confused bike ride after being rejected from the girl i fell for for the first time.

and Voila, that is (don't really want to use was) the story of my blue specialzed allez.

Or..not. As I look back at what I just wrote, I had a sneaky feeling that it wasn't the story of my bike, but rather the story of my life in the past few year, while my bike is always present and a medium. There were all of the things about ME rather than MY BIKE. Should I be sentimental to my bike after all? You know, after all, I am still here. Grown, changed, but still here.

I went with Grace to buy a digital camera for herself on friday. She made the decision on which one to buy in less that 10 minutes. It actually striked me a little. I always was carefully even scrutinizingly selecting things I want to buy. The price, functions, other people's comments...aren't they all matters? She, in another hand, seemed to choose her camera over a favorite color. Later one i found out that to buy the same camera online would be 50 dollars cheaper, but she didn't care much. It made me wonder though, if all our belongings all really matter that much. After all, it is who we are, decides what we want to be, not our belongings defining ourselves. There are perhaps many possibilities on how to live one's life but we seemed to keep on locking ourselves in the way which we carefully thought would be the optimal choice and eventually got used to it. Maybe it is a good choice to take a step back and look at what kind of life could it be if choosing something else, something that we are not used to but definitely worth trying. It might open up a new horizon.

In remembrance of my bike, hope you can come back. But if you are not, be well, I will remember you. and I 'm gonna get another bike:)

Ubuntu Hardy is Coming!

2008-04-08T23:48:00.001-04:00

What happend to my Fish?

2008-04-01T02:52:00.004-04:00

First gift I received on this year's April Fool's day is this:

No Fresh Water! My Fish Died!

Wanda the Fish is a small funny software that appears on the Linux-Gnome desktop. It tells some "fortune" as everytime you click it on the taskbar. Not the common make-you-feel-happy fortune you would expect, it often says pretty gloomy things such as

"I have discovered that all human evil comes from this - man's being unable to sit still in a room."(Blaise Pascal)

hmm I love this one better:
Q: How many lawyers does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Whereas the party of the first part, also known as "Lawyer", and the
party of the second part, also known as "Light Bulb", do hereby and forthwith
agree to a transaction wherein the party of the second part shall be removed
from the current position as a result of failure to perform previously agreed
upon duties, i.e., the lighting, elucidation, and otherwise illumination of
the area ranging from the front (north) door, through the entryway, terminating
at an area just inside the primary living area, demarcated by the beginning of
the carpet, any spillover illumination being at the option of the party of the
second part and not required by the aforementioned agreement between the
parties.
The aforementioned removal transaction shall include, but not be
limited to, the following. The party of the first part shall, with or without
elevation at his option, by means of a chair, stepstool, ladder or any other
means of elevation, grasp the party of the second part and rotate the party
of the second part in a counter-clockwise direction, this point being tendered
non-negotiable. Upon reaching a point where the party of the second part
becomes fully detached from the receptacle, the party of the first part shall
have the option of disposing of the party of the second part in a manner
consistent with all relevant and applicable local, state and federal statutes.
Once separation and disposal have been achieved, the party of the first part
shall have the option of beginning installation. Aforesaid installation shall
occur in a manner consistent with the reverse of the procedures described in
step one of this self-same document, being careful to note that the rotation
should occur in a clockwise direction, this point also being non-negotiable.
The above described steps may be performed, at the option of the party of the
first part, by any or all agents authorized by him, the objective being to
produce the most possible revenue for the Partnership.

My fish will be back alive tomorrow, he's snobbish and got his temper, and meanwhile, Happy Fool's Day!

种族问题

2008-02-19T02:31:00.002-05:00

没办法，小时候成长环境挺能决定人的立场的。姥姥在民族大学工作，我在民族大学院儿里住了17年。“民族团结”作为口号会经长出现在每个地方。幼儿园里一睹大墙上就画着“各民族小朋友手拉手”“亚非拉小朋友手拉手”。其实关键的，却并不是这种空喊口号，而是在跟各种民族一起生长的精力中感悟到，都是哥们儿吗，而且各民族各种各样的好吃的汇在一起，各种艺术，舞蹈，我觉得我的生活可比只在市井里长大的小孩儿要幸福多了。第一是因为文化的多元性，第二是因为共同的成长经历以及文化的分享。之后高中的时候到了纽约，就有事另一个层次的文化大熔炉了。然而纽约也有他的问题，引用我的一个老师的比喻，就是世界上各个种族都把自己的子孙送到了这个城市，但是人们并没有构成所谓的“种族大熔炉”(melting pot)，而是更多的类似于一个“马赛克”(mosaic)：远远了望去花花绿绿多姿多彩的，近了一看每一小片石头却都是一个颜色的。我在纽约皇后区上了两年高中，同学从世界每个角落里来的，波多黎各，阿根廷，坦桑尼亚，印度，俄罗斯，罗马尼亚等等等等。就得原来都是只能再看地球仪或是看正大综艺里面臆想的现在活生生的站到我面前。当时刚来的时候觉得这简直是太棒了！学校就是个小联合国么。慢慢的，我也就发现某老师说的那个比喻的含义：人们（大部分是新移民）来到美国，在为了在这个新世界里立脚苦苦地挣扎，也根本没有时间考虑其他民族，其他文化的问题。大部分的人还是居住在笨民族聚集的地方，九连学校里的小孩子也会或多或少地受到家里的影响而出现种种“自我种族隔离”现象。我当时也是豪情万丈（现在也未尝不是），说，我也来成立个社团，跨文化交流，作世界公民！成立是成立了，但刚开始英文不灵光，朋友没那么多，本地文化不太熟，实际上到毕业也就十几个加入的。现在来讲，革命尚未成功，同志仍须努力。

下面来讲第二条，也是我促使我写这篇评论的原因，关于种族歧视的。中国人在外国的都对歧视听敏感的，也经常会有些没有大脑得愚蠢的人觉得自己肤色白就要高于其他“野蛮人”一等，我们中国人在这方面对之痛恨不已，经常兼有中国报纸类似的报道，也成为人们评论外国的一个挺住要的议题。手了一百多年外国列强的凌辱，我们不希望这种十九世纪的观点在发生了。其实比国人惨的大有人在，美国黑人就是很典型的一例。二百年前被当了奴隶来卖到新大陆，被剥光了自己的文化，自己的语言，一遍一遍地被统治地位的欧洲人告知自己是愚蠢的，是无能的，是只能作奴才的。林肯解放了黑人，废止了奴隶制度，但并没有结束对非裔的压迫。继而又有南方的吉姆克罗（Jim Crow）法律实行“分离且平等”。不难想象某处会有一块和我们现人受辱类似的“黑人与狗不得入内”。实际上，遍布美国南方个州。一直到了上个世纪六十年代马丁路德金博士和他的种族隔离之战的战友们，用他们的生命还来美国隔离制度的结束。这个，还没到五十年呢，种族隔离的味道还没有在空气中完全的消散。在美国，有良知的人一遍一遍地告诉这个国家不要在犯以前的错误。现在这种几百年延续下来的陋习一经看不到了。黑人，南美裔，华裔的地位渐渐上升，在政治、经济上显露头角。特别是今年，一位黑人总统候选人巴拉克欧巴马将极有希望当选下一节的美国总统。他是新一代美国人的一个听典型的例子，也来过纽约上学，因为租金问题来会倒腾住处，在哥伦比亚有一个巴基斯坦的室友，和不同肤色的纽约人经历了这个城市所带来的一切。在政策上我比叫倾向于他的主张，停止无味的战争，缩减大的医疗控制集团的影响等等，给美国带来一丝希望。相比较希拉里的主张有很多都是延续布什政府的政策，以便给她的家族控制的商业创造条件。我也挺想了解我的国人们怎么想的，便溜达了一圈中文论坛，却惊讶地发现不仅大部分人支持希拉里，在谈到欧巴马的时候很多国人用了很难听种族主义词汇，“黑鬼”，“黑人当总统就是美国的贬值”云云。我不由得发现这些同胞们把自己放在一个很搞笑的位置上：用当时自己受欺负时被别人辱骂的完全一样的逻辑来辱骂其他种族！

这其实不是唯一的例子，很多时候我都觉得，在美国的中国人歧视起别人比谁都厉害。我刚来美国的时候听到收音机里很多拉美音乐，觉得挺过瘾，倒被我爸把的一位同事所不屑：“你怎么也听amigo的这种破玩意！”Amigo本是西班牙语朋友的意思，在这里却被他用作南美民工的代名词。那也就是说，我听了“南美民工”听的破歌，水平太差。还有就是某位中国同学他爸在得知他的大学室友是黑人后，提醒儿子要看好自己的东西。这也不是新鲜事，因为中文报纸一路地在登，某中餐外卖郎被黑人区的黑人杀害云云，作家长得“能放心么”。还有很多的同胞有半出来希特勒当年的那一套，说黑人的基因有问题，这就是为什么他们那么笨，又凶狠，完全是杀人犯的料。我想想还有谁，哦，对了，印度人。我们同胞也不喜欢印度人，说人家英语不好，还满身臭烘烘的。这让我很失望，怎么我们自己比谁都种族歧视？！如果您觉得您并不属于这些人，还有一个例子我觉得是大部分国人都逃不掉的，就是您愿意和一位漂亮的黑人（或印度）姑娘／小伙子结婚么？

萨义德博士在1978年提出了东方主义，说是西方国家在殖民主义时期向全世界灌输的一个概念，就是东方的（或是被统治的）都是神秘的，异域的，不正常的，低于欧洲的。这个理念却会在某中场合被被殖民者所吸收，认为自己的文化是低级的，而来巩固西方文明的支配地位。这个是一个自我实现,自我巩固（self-fulfilling prophecy)的机能。下一步呢，就是被殖民者完全成了殖民者当年的影子，以殖民者的思考方式来“东方化”自己看不起的文化。我认为在种族歧视问题上我的同胞所出现的问题和这个理念极相像，用殖民者叫自己的字眼来叫别的人，进而达到殖民者的喜悦。很多黑人因为被媒体所描述的形象，还有积了200年的社会不公，到现在还没有跳出这个怪圈。我在这里拿我的同胞开刀，并不是说中国人视为一歧视別人的人。同样道理，白人种族主义者的混还没有散；同样道理，经历了400年英国殖民洗礼的印度人的某些现如今比当年的英国人还要英国人。我们的种族歧视者大都以经济基础而歧视。没错，非裔穷，印裔穷，南美”民工“穷，我们就看不起被。美国白人，欧洲人，还有国人一直爱恨交织的日本人，不会因此而受到歧视。这个是不是显露了我们的小气？不管怎么说，还有很多人还是觉得黑人就是智商低。我可以请您来比较一下被美国中产家庭收养的黑人小孩和在所谓的“黑人区”贫民窟里长大的黑人小孩的学习成绩。结果是显著的，成长的环境决定人的学习发展。这好比是以前无知的欧洲人巴唐氏综合症叫做蒙古痴呆症(Mongolian Idiocy)觉得蒙古人种相比“高贵”的欧洲人来讲是愚蠢的。但是现如今，我们蒙古人种的智商／学习测验往往要高于其他族群一大节！这个当然不是说我们比其他人聪明，是和对教育的重视程度有关的。我的一些天才黑人同学的家长都是相当重视教育的。并不是黑人有智力问题，而是您脑子转不过弯。

好了，我费了这么多口舌来介绍种族歧视，解释他们的由来，他们的无知。我很理解歧视者的思维方式，但是，在当今这个世界西方已经渐渐的从殖民主一个思维定势力觉醒了，我们却要踏上他们穿过的老鞋，为此，我很不屑。

Barack Obama wins Iowa Caucus

2008-01-04T23:59:00.001-05:00

Two Thousand and Eight

2008-01-03T03:06:00.000-05:00

New year
I'm hoping it's going to be a "climbing" experience
like a mountain
I'm at the foot
last night's storm dropped me here
I'm ready to climb
It's a Sunny year

A View Of The World in 17th Century China, Introduced by 坤舆图说

2007-12-08T02:13:00.000-05:00

Due to a mysterous instance I borrowed a book from the Inter Library Loan. It was an introduction of the world geographics, written by a famous belgian Jesuit missionary in China in the 17th century, in ancient Chinese. The missionnare's name is Ferdinande Verbiest, or in Chinese, Nan Huai Re （南怀仁）. He served as a high official in the Emperor's Court, assisted Emperor Kangxi in astrology and many other scientific inventions. As the historical documents suggested, one of his possible invention might be automobile! Although most likely his automobile would be treated as a big toy for the Emperor, rather than setting it up for some serious developement of the world.

Now let's talk about this book of his. "Kun Yu Tu Shuo" (坤舆图说). Though it gave me a hard time in reading because it is written in ancient Chinese, and no punctuation at all, I'm still extremely amazed by the world he introduced in this book. Think about it, it was written 400 years ago! And it gets especially interesting when you compare the contemperary world to the world known to the 17th ceuntury. The book consists of two parts. Part I is the introduction to the geographcal phenomenon,including the Earth, its relation to the moon, center of the earth, earthquake, area of the confinents, ocean movement, famous rivers around the world, weathers, etc. Part II is the interesting one, a in-depth description of Each continents and many specific countries. All names were translated into Chinese by pronounciation. The continents are Asia, Europa, Levia, North/South Americas, and the last one that I couldn't translate it in to known english word. It should be something like Movaranica/Mageranica. Another note is by context Levia is now Africa.

Verbiest/Nan Huai Ren made us believe that Asia is best continent in the world. There's specific chapters on India, Persia (Bai er xi ya in chinese, took me a long time to figure this one out), Tartan (Asian part of Russia), Zealand (Sri Lanka), Sumantra, Java, Luzon (the Phillipines),and Japan. In his Europa there are Espania, Franca, Italia, Germania, Flandia (Flanders), Polonia (?) (Poland), Hungaria, Dania (Denmark?), something meant to be sweden (swechia?), Norwegia, Grechia, and Moscovia. In his decription Europa is a rich and eucated continent where everybody
believes in "the orthodoxical religion", i.e. Catholism. The Third biggest continent is Levia, or Africa in today's vocabulary. Contries mentioned are "Grido"? ->egypt, Moroco, Africa, Numidia, and many more names I couldn't relate with modern day world. The interesting found is Africa, which obviosly in 17century is a specific country/region in Levia. He mentioned Africa is west of "Grido", or Egypt. It would be the nowadays Libya or Tunisia, I guess? Americas is interesting, which he described as a land of wild animals and uncultivated residents. But South America is much more cultivated than North America. The countries names that I can understand are Peru, Chile, Mexico, "Flower Land", New France, California. Flower Land I'm sure it's Florida. After these countires there's this "fifth continent of the world", uder the name od Movaranica. From what I could understand, Columbus at first found the two Americas, then the king of Espania thought about if the earth is round, there must be a way to travel west to reach the east. While the land blocked exipedition at Ameirca, ther must be a west coast. Therefore he picked the ships, sailers and provided food, soliders, and asked a "powerful" official named "Movaran" to accomplish such a mission of finiding a pathway to the east. The "Movaran", intrepid, determinant ...blahblahblah...eventually found a channel, due south of which there is the land with thousand miles endless plains, vallelies. Because there's phopherous fire in the valley so it was named Fire Land. Now it start to make sense. Fire Land is Tierra del Fuego, south of the Straight of Magellan, belongs to Chile and Argentina. Now we see this mysterious Movaran is in fact Magellan, and he named this "continent" of his Magellanica.

Then the book went on to talk about the Sea, the Sea Animals, the Sea Ships. After that is the appendix with some drawings of Strange Animal, Seven Wonders of the World, and the Collosium of Rome. What's differnt from today is..uhm. in the Strange animal drawing there's Mermaids! mand mand woman! and their tail bone can stop bleeding, especially the female one.

Quite interesting huh. I can't understand the whole book. But it definitely is carefully worded, althoguht some of the content look stupid under the modern scrutiny eyes. It gives us a picture of the world in 17th century people's mind. This was the very text introduced to china back then. A great text on Ancient world communcation

Diversity paper due

2007-12-04T19:45:00.000-05:00

Writer's blog again. This time it's up to a psychological level. idon't know when I would get rid of this phobia. Whenever you have a huge paper due and your brain is as blank as the paper (or screen) in front of you; and you are not allowed to say this, you are not allowed to say that, what can you say ey? This time is my paper on diversity due, fairly soon. I seemed to have tons to write about so my mind is not as blank. I don't know how to write about it in this MLA form, citations, using "academical language". hesus.

Couchsurfing and Hope

2007-11-10T22:20:00.000-05:00

I was suppose to write my paper right now which is due on monday. But I have something that I have to say. Like a need of expression.

I'm a member of the Couchsurfing Project, a social network which allows travelers to crash on local people's couch for a few nights when they come into town. You just have to list your information online and whether or not you want to host other travelers asides from you being a traveler. I believe it is a revolution, provided travelers a cheaper way to travel, and in the same time travelers can get to know the local much better than staying in the hotel. At the beginning I thought wow it sounds a bit like utopia! The safety issue, which a lot people (including me) might deeply concerned, is partially solved by this rating and commenting system. Every time when I got a couchsurfing request i would check the surfer's page to see how many comments other people gave them and what kinds of comments they are. Traveler and host will most likely leave comments to each other after their couchsurfing experience, using several sentence to describe the first impression to this person. So far, I only leave "Extremely Positive" comments, because everyone I met through couchsurfing so far are extremely cool people!

I found out about couchsurfing very randomly through a friend and online, then amazed by the concept, I signed up without hoping to use. Back then I was in Binghamton, NY, an out of location town in southern tier New York state without many traffic. One day I received an email from someone named Josh from Kingston, Ontario, said he would crash on my dorm couch for a night en route to D.C. I was both curious and a little bit afraid, for I have no idea how this new person is gonna turn out. Unfortunately I had to leave college before his scheduled crash date so I couldn't meet him, but leaving my dorm building door open for them to sneak in. Josh told me afterwards it went well; they had sound sleep and no school guard detected their beings. So this was my first couchsurfing experience. not really a full experience, just a buffer.

Then last year i was going to Chicago for Model U.N. The school decided not to finance us at all (no complians for public school). I had to take greyhound to Chicago and couchsurf to save my budget. The host was Anarb Banerjee, a physics Ph.D student in UChicago and his roommate. Other people in my team, knowing that i was gonna couchsurf, yelled at me and advised me about the possibility of the host to be a bad guy. I was a bit afraid too honestly. Until the moment I was welcomed and Arnab and I started our nerdy talks about physics. It turned out to be great! I was supposed to go drink with them but I had my model UN party to go.

Then I start to travel around, couchsurfed in Canada, met very very interesting people who dares to live and appreciate life. Since i came to Saint Louis, I start to host people myself. I got a big apartment with comfy couch. I've hosted Chris and Alexis from vegas and Daniel and Lasse from Denmark. All the time, I get to have great conversation with hosts/surfers. My roommate showed me an New York Times article about couchsurfing experiences and how it forms friendships and even romance! Romance sounds too fancy but friendship is definite. Travelers always bring different angles in a conversation. Moreover, travelers being traveler they have the desire to explore the world! This is what i'm long for!

So today I got a couchsurfing message that 3 girls would come to stay. Well I was totally excited after being working on my papers for the whole day. It's great to meet new people and be inspired by new ideas. Especiall this would be the first time I host girls. I called them the second time to give them my direction. It is connectted,

girl A:"hey what up?"
me:"what's up, are you guys approaching the town?"
girl A:" Yea! but oh, I was just about to tell you we are gonna stay at somewhere else tonight."
me:"oh.....(silence)...oh....uhm, have a good stay"

I know I have paper to do but I still want to meet some new people and I was expecting them...until they call it off. I then had to inform my roommate and he's even sadder than me because he was eager to meet 3 girls... For me I just really like to talk to new people (not that i don't want to meet 3 girls). So I guess you can illustrate the saddest thing as, first you are given a hope bubble, big one, then your bubble was poked, later it bursts. You stand staring at the point where the bubble supposed to be and just stare at it...

So this has been an introduction of couchsurfing from Pickupatitle blog. thanks audience! if I have any...

FreeWriting on Foucault

2007-11-05T21:56:00.000-05:00

Michel Foucault, one of the most famous sociology of the second half of 20th century, wrote in french. He published very influential books such as Discipline and Punish, and The History of Sexuality. People have complained about him being a difficult reader. Partly it was because of the language difference, which caused the difference in sentence structure. Other than that, it was largely because of his own writing skills being very, very abstract. Then the question comes: Is it necessary?

One theory is that when we don't understand something straightforward, we give credit for it. That's why there's all these academic writers who write in the fashion they don't even understand. give me some credit for it, I'm not bullshitting. When I just start to pick up english, I would subconsciously say something I don't even understand myself, because I subconsciously programmed to think english as "something I don't understand". So if I say something I don't understand, I'm speaking in English! Of course I understand it totally it this doesn't work. It's only in a subconscious level.

In another theory, Foucault uses these complex style of writing to reveal a social structure full of complexity. If I digest down the sentences in a programming way, they start to become clearer. You can see there are fractals: cluases under a clause which is under some other clause.

So which theory wins out? Does the writing style has to do with the purpose of the very article? What if he writes in the same style for all the papers?

Barack Obama is a transfer, too

2007-10-31T01:15:00.000-04:00

In Today's New York Times there's an article telling a story in which Barack Obama is a transfer too! He arrived New York City in August 1981, hailing from Occidental College in California, to attend Columbia College.He would later became that guy passed out in an alley on 109th street in his first night and bounced from apartment to apartment like other transfer students, including me, do. He would spend days and nights in the library and super focused on his study of political science and international studies. He had had a pakistani roommate on 94th. And at last he graduated with distinction and dude is running for the president now! I feel a lot of similarity and parallel between his stories and mine: The city living, the transfer experience, the allnighters. But he is this very determining guy. I would somehow magically sleep through the whole day and felt bad about missing the day. Maybe time is hard to manage; maybe I can manage my energy. How much energy I should spend on doing this and that. Recently i felt there's an energy drain to make me dysfunctional. I need to find out a solution.

R.I.P. Craig Murphey

2007-10-22T01:37:00.000-04:00

Craig Murphey died in a traffic accident on October 18th in Brooklyn while riding his fixie bike. I don't know him at all, but I do feel this tight connection with other bikers in the city after my heoric/bold job as a bike messenger. Gothamist actually showed his blog and his memorial site and even his MySpace site. After reading this, I believe everyone will feel attached to him, becasue you just been through par of his life, thank to the technology which provided us these very very personal sites. He seems to be a very open mided guy who found a lifestyle which he loved. I mean, if I happened to get to know him, I don't mind to have a beer with him somewhere in new york and we both can complain how bad the traffic is. By browsing thorugh his friend's comments, I found they have this naturalistic attitude towards his death too. Everything seems to be part of life. As if yes clearly we missed him, but we do remember him driniking with us. Not quite emotional but opwerful than being emotional.

It reminds me rent, which, too, happened in new york. Remember the poeple who are there no more, and feel our responsibility and right to live a great life.

Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon is Coming Out Today

2007-10-18T18:39:00.001-04:00

Old Alberta's Coat of Arms

2007-10-10T23:58:00.000-04:00

Few months ago when I was in Vancouver, British Columbia I went wander around its nicen little downtown with my cousin. We passed by a pretty old building with columns in front, and, driven by curiocity, went in to look around. All of a sudden we were shocked by the highly ornamented stained glass dome. Looking stright in front, it was an ordinary watch maker's supply store, named Page & Wilson. People there saw us coming in, approached us very freindly and started to tell us the history of this building. It was the old Vancouver branch of Bank of Canada, build after the greate Vancouver fire in 1905-1907. It used to be the only building around the region. On the second level panel there are stained glass panels of each canadian territories' Coat of Arms in addition to the british one (with a tag line: deu et mon droit). Back in 1905 not every current provinces of Canada were established. Alberta was one of the newly founded territorries founded in 1905. The worker in Page & Wilson pointed at me the Alberta Coat of Arms, explained the weirdness of it. It wasn't the current Alberta Coat of Arms where can see blue sky and cloud and mountains. Instead, there was a strange animal looks like a big rat. Nobody he asked know what it was.

It was an interesting visit especially for an almost touristic traveler to get to know the first-hand local information. I went to google the strange coat of arms on the panel. There weren't many information until I found this page on the Alberta Assembly where in a paragraph it stated:

"It is interesting to note than an editorial in the July 14, 1906, issue of the Lethbridge News appears to contradict Conrad Swan. It states, "The old Territorial shield contains an animal which may be either a polar bear or a white haired gopher, crawling on a checkerboard with four sheaves of wheat - not very original - on a white ground underneath." Since this editorial is quite humorous in nature, it is difficult to determine whether the information noted regarding the territorial arms is authentic or not. No other information has been found to substantiate it."

Ah-ha! It was exactly what it is on the stained glass panel. Did I made a touristic..nono...historic discovery? I was excited but did not do anything about it until two days ago (it was already 3 months later) I finnnnnaaaalllyyy decided to email it to the Alberta Legistlation regarding this found. Today I received a letter from the legislation library Valerie Footz that I was the first one who sent this pience of information to them; and they will conduct research about it. Sweet! Here's her original reply:

Hello,

Your email was forwarded to the Alberta Legislature Library. We were unaware that there was a reproduction of this Alberta Coat of Arms in existence. Yours is the first piece of further information we have received on this subject. We will now be able to conduct further research based on your information.

Thank you again for taking the time to let us know about this interesting find! We are very grateful to you!

Sincerely,

Valerie Footz

Manager, Library Operations

Alberta Legislature Library

I felt great for this found. I felt like I was Columbus who just quote unquote found the American continent. Obviously this thing has existed for years and many before me knows and thoghut about this question. I just sent an email to the legislation and it made me Columbus of the old coat of arms of alberta. The moral of this story is, is Columbus better off?

btw here are some pictures I took and a picture worth more than a thousand words, that's for sure.

this is the stained glass dome

A frontal view of the watch maker supply company

Second Floor Panel, due et mon droit is the central one, Alberta is the one to the left of the central one

This is the Old Alberta Coat of Arms, gopher on a chess board

I;m in a Jazz Concert now!

2007-09-27T21:39:00.000-04:00

Yes Im writing this blog in a Jazz concert now; a nicen little jazz band is playing. glistering lights shine upon them. Four palm trees are on the side of the little stage. It is the Holmes lounge; a place for students here at washington university to" eat and read". Everything looks fabulous.

This is my first semester here, and Yes I transfered. In a super hot august day I ,dragged two of my almost overweighted luggages, came here after a slow yet quick decision to be here. In the Airport some frat guy helped me out by giving me a free fare ticket. That's how i got here, aimlessly, knowing nobody. Later that night my "future apartmentmate" helped me out and I stayed with his family in an uppermiddleclass (best adjective i can find here) hotel. Then I began my orientation and whatnot. So far so good. First time felt of the hospitality of the midwest.

I live in an apartment 2 blocks away from campus. Have my own room. Two giant living room and a full kitchen. My apartmentmate and I sometimes use this fabulous home setting to feed ourselves some delicaccies which includs ramen, chef boyardee and instant pizza. Oh, chips too. Open the door in the kitchen you'll find yourself in the firecase/balcony. I'm really glad that we have this area. Good for grill, chat with friends, or just simply watching the moon and soak yourself into this tranquility.

Every morning I walk pass through a cafe shop, a giant parking lot to get to campus in about 5-10 minutes. Not a nice walk, especially the parking lot part, which is the worst. Then I get to the school. A very classical campus. Reddish brick stones, Arches, and sometimes gargoyles who are burned black. Maybe it was due to the gas light they use before. Interior of the building are, to the contrary, very modern. Being used to the concreat cement building in binghamton, a classical version of campus is maybe the biggest retreat for me. I remember when I dragged my luggages the first day climbing up the stairs to the quad, seeing the sunset with swallows flying between two towers, it made me feel goooood.

Other than the physical appearance, we all know what's more important is the rest of it, the invisible part such as educational quality, student environment et cetera. For now as a newbie to school, and living an out of the way location (my building is antisocial! geez), I start slow on making friends still. But I hope everything is going to be well.

miscellenous: I got my new laptop and tried 3 weeks to configure everything, thanks to my friend Natan and a CS graduate student i met online. I kept participating in couchsurfing, hosted two groups of amazing people. Chris and Alexis from Vegas came in for a weekend concert in Saint Louis. Three of us snuck on a freshman trip to the gateway arch and made perfect freshman faces. Daniel and Lasse from Denmark passed by from San Fran to Guatemala during their trip in the Americas. hmm. movies. La Haine and La Dolce Vita. Strongly recommend. Now I want to go back to the concert, ciao.

July 31th in Vancouver

2007-08-01T06:02:00.000-04:00

recently i've undergone some changes in philosophy which i could not clarify of what it is. I guess it's a transitional persod of hopes. Some of what has been hoped for were realized, some after a long wait didn't seem to go anywhere and i have been used to the non-changing. What left to today's me myself and I is the way to set up the future.

From July 11 till now I have been traveling on a road trip with my cousin. We drove (actually my cousin alone) from vancouver to Denver through the rocky mountains in Canada and america. During the trip i talked to various local people and got a slight sense of what it is became of the history and how people lives in the west. Many things needed to be said before i the memory loss due to unable to incorporate some of them into long term meory by nature's laws. I will write about several notes in regarding of couple of cities i visitedi n the next few days.

stream of deliciousness

2007-03-21T20:59:00.000-04:00

The week past was awful, I stayed up 4 nights for various work-->school work, application, lab report. Many thanks to jesus allah buddha and flying spaghetti monster I finally can have a break since this week isn't as hectic. But I found myself in a position of overly taking this freedom: not doing any work and skipping classes. My whole body is lazy and it seems i've used up my energy. Then I start to focus on the more fundamental questions such as what's the purpose of going to classes and doing all the works by my own free will. Or do I really have a free will. I guess not because I tend to not believe in the absolutism; therefore there's no absolute free will. but in the same theory I do have relative free will ey? Everyone, me you him her, we sometimes are so busy about our daily lives but then again, do we actually know what we are doing? or just doing it for the sake of it? or just follow this social "norm"?

Ok, here's the deal. The society set up a norm. No, should I say the people ourselves we set up some set of values we believe are beneficail in maintaining and develpoing our society. We as the elements in the society follow the norm, in a way locked ourselves accordingly. So the society will function well. Is it the most productive of all? certainly not. but it's the laziest way for people to function.

laziness does play an important factor in our lives. just because we want to be a little bit lazier we created this and that innovation and better society. It's economically pareto efficient. Do we need to stay smart? we don't want to think. Thinknig consumes soo much energy. Homo sapiens became smart because when they were at their monkey-like stage they start to trade between individuals. and to trade better you need a better brain. homo sapiens sacrificed their ability to synthesizing necessary amino acid, reducing their guts, to make space for their ever-expanding brain.

Now let's go back to the norm. Since we have norm, we then have the comparason, then it leading to a judgement of good or bad. for example we have a standard english writting regulation. Anyone who's not obeying this regulations is considered bad and anyone who's doing it well is considered good. But what if you are a chinese writer you don't follow the damn rule of english? well, you are not gonna be judged by the same god-of-english-writing. you go for your own god. THat's is fine. Until a couple of hundreds years ago we get to know each other around the globe. Initially british empire sending their missonaries, religiously and culturally, to judge people under a british god-of-regulation. They went in the amazon rainforest telling people who wear their local dresses stop doing their "barbaric behaviors". stop wearing the palm tree leaves and get a suit on you! some of the missionaries died a miserable life because they thoguh they knew everything. Start to drink his afternoon tea from the local water, without knowing there's crocodiles inside. but anywho after generations of brain wash people start to wear suit all over the world.

Now it's a new era. we do still have this old british empire altitude of judging everyone by the british god-of-regulation. but we do realize the multilateral multiangle multidimentional world's emerging. this is call "le mondialization". We are like a bunch of troglodytes who just domisticated fire. we are testing how are we going to use it. OF COURSE the priest there is yelling at us the fire is evil, don't eat the flesh that is being burnt. but we love the taste, yummm.

hey, you, don't judge my writing. it's just for entertaining and inspiration.

how do you deal with Aleksey Vayners?

2007-02-27T12:04:00.000-05:00

Professor said in class today, what's important for success is not how much you devote to understanding the world, but the willingness to do whatever is necessary to be succeed. and whatever is necessary means Whatever Is Necessary. Recently I am going through some application processes when all of a sudden it reminds of of mr. aleksey vayner the great. I was a little bit jumpy and frightened after looking back to my silly naive application essays. I wrote the truth but the truth is not as attractive as lying (or lying legally). Who is going to investigate the autheticity of each applicants anyway. The case of Aleksey Vayner has leaked out by some rare mistake. Then how many more Alekseys are there undiscovered, and how many of them are competing with me in the same application process? terrifying.

In psychology there are two types of motivations: external, meaning you'd rather get an easy A than get to understand the course material; internal, the other way around. I'm pretty much an internal type. But isn't that the internal motivation is the ultimate external motivation?

A little bit confused but still insisting of doing it my way.

Cultural Study for making glorious nations of America.

2007-01-30T15:19:00.000-05:00

went back to beijing this winter and spent a great 3-weeks there. Now under the grey sky of binghamton, staring at the people's eyes that seldomly reveals any emotion, I feel pretty upset. The roses are red, the trees are green, the snow white, the mountains are glorious, the lakes are tranquil, the traffic went through, the classes going on and off, the war is going on, the presidential campaign is on, the world is colorful; yet the people are bored. American are used to, if i may, to generate a word to use without authority: Americaans are used to "institutionalize" everything. Yes there is war, but the war is for the politicials and the soldiers, we don't care. Yes there is protest. see how wonderful and free our country is? Yet the protests are for the protesters, we don't care. Yes the roses are red and trees are green. Now leave'em to the gardeners or gardenmaniacs, and to the poets and to Louis Armstrong, We Don't Care. It seems, from a bird-view picture, that this country has everything; however How many of us ccutaly get to access these many things? Isn 't that most of us live one's monochromatic life? We do have millons of channels on TV. But History channel is for the history freaks; OLN is for outdoor freaks; Discovery is for geeks; Thirteen is for "poshies"; leaving only cheap comedy and NFL games with 4 times more commercials that is to be accessed by most of us.

So I will argue. A diverse society with everything in access is good. But if people don't have to interest to access them, it is a failure to some extent.

ever talked in your sleep?

2006-12-11T12:54:00.000-05:00

As an observer, I was lucky to experience those people's conciousness imaprament in their sleep.

Roommate 1, Tim
After an allnighter tim finally got to go to bed. I came back to my dorm at around 11 am, it was quiet. All of sudden Tim shouted out:"Dude that's disturbing, the dragon pukes! you know..."

Roommate 2, Brian
Brain told me to wake him up at 8 in the morning so I did:"Brian, wake up, it's eight" Brian:"yea, why?" "You told me to wake you up!" "Okay, so what i'm gonna do now?" "I don't know, go back to sleep?" so he finnally accepted my advise and wen to sleep. In the afternoon he just woke up, asked me why I didn't wake him up....it turns out he didn't remember anything in the morning although his eyes were wide open.

Suitemate 1, Charles
Charles just took his Genetics final in the afternoon then he went back to take a nap. At 7 in the evening brian and I planned to go off campus to eat, so I took the mission to wake charles up. I:" Charles wake up, do you want to go to eat?" Charles:"yea.....uhm yea.....hold on man, lemme turn on my genes....."

"A" student of English

2006-12-08T11:21:00.000-05:00

Qfwfq, Enchanted! ॐ
MSN
11:09
im coming back to visit my old lady this winter

(F) POOH
MSN
11:09
old lady??

Qfwfq, Enchanted! ॐ
MSN
11:09
yea

(F) POOH
MSN
11:09
who is that
11:10
ur gf?
11:10
hehe

Qfwfq, Enchanted! ॐ
MSN
11:10
learn english man,
11:10
before you could get an A

(F) POOH
MSN
11:10
i am getting an A

Qfwfq, Enchanted! ॐ
MSN
11:10
but you don't know who old lady is

(F) POOH
MSN
11:10
haha

Qfwfq, Enchanted! ॐ
MSN
11:10
that's irony
11:10
that's the irony

(F) POOH
MSN
11:10
i have no idea
11:10
TELL
11:10
ME

Qfwfq, Enchanted! ॐ
MSN
11:10
what english are you taking
11:11
how come i found it's so damn hard to get A

(F) POOH
MSN
11:11
(W) tell me
11:11
because..... i am soooo smart
11:11

Qfwfq, Enchanted! ॐ
MSN
11:11
old lady is mother, where old man is father

(F) POOH
MSN
11:11
i know
11:11
omg... u r calling ur mom old lady

Gift for a 8 year old

2006-12-06T12:54:00.000-05:00

The school has a program of giving gifts to the little kids who could not get presents during the holiday season that i participated. my RA gave me a blue bag and I need to fill it up by TODAY. Being a procrastinator I decided to go shopping last night with my co-procratinator roommate. So after hours of contemplating I decided to buy this children encyclopaedia. My roommate thought it was a bad idea the kid would eventually tear it apart, and gave me discouragements throughout the night. I thought if the kid could appreciate it and realize how beautiful and exciting our world is, he can get much more than just toy cars. When I was little my mom brought me encyclopaedia and world atlas, that's how I became who i am now. I really appreciate it. I hope kids are being spoiled in another way, other than giving them psp n shit.

a day in life

2006-12-04T12:44:00.002-05:00

Woke up, got out of bed
dragged a comb across my head
Found my way downstairs and drank a cup
and looking up, I noticed I was late
Found my coat and grabbed my hat
Made the bus in seconds flat
Found my way upstairs and had a smoke
Somebody spoke and I went into a dream

Proof

2006-12-01T23:01:00.000-05:00

Given operation a*b
known: x*(y*x)=y
show: (x*y)*x=y

Proof:
x*(y*x)=y (1)
=> y*(x*y)=x (2)
=> (x*y)*x=(x*y)*(y*(x*y))=y
*proved*

Saturday Putnam

2006-11-30T23:16:00.000-05:00

the 67th William Lowell Putnam competition will be held this saturday. My mission is to get at least one question done (out of 12, and in a 6 hr interval), to get a grade in my math class. I really doubt if i could ever possibly finish this mission. The historical median is always 0 among the thousands of top undergrad mathematicians in north america. Richard Feynman did it, and got top 5. Crazy guy.
It reminds me how those little boys and girls in china spending days just to do tricky questions. Olympiad Schools etc. They would probably score higher than anyone but once again what's the point? Opening our mind works better than probing the limit of our logic.
good luck to everyone who's doing it this year, let's kick some asses.

Les Chinois à Paris

2006-11-30T15:26:00.000-05:00

Watch Out

Paste on your address bar

2006-11-12T16:17:00.000-05:00

javascript:R=0; x1=.1; y1=.05; x2=.25; y2=.24; x3=1.6; y3=.24; x4=300; y4=200; x5=300; y5=200; DI=document.images; DIL=DI.length; function A(){for(i=0; i-DIL; i++){DIS=DI[ i ].style; DIS.position='absolute'; DIS.left=Math.sin(R*x1+i*x2+x3)*x4+x5; DIS.top=Math.cos(R*y1+i*y2+y3)*y4+y5}R++}setInterval('A()',5); void(0);

addiction

2006-11-07T11:43:00.000-05:00

trying to cut off coffee, I'm feeling drowsy now. Passing throguht the coffee stand I had the urge to go get a cup, then proceed to find a reason to buy one....

well life goes on. Life is going to be better.

lahrm etres fahmako

2006-10-19T22:35:00.000-04:00

έχω την ανάγκη μιας μικρής φίλης για με.

solution

2006-10-18T00:38:00.000-04:00

a = 4.91
b = 9.7
h = 5
Solve[(.5*a + .5*(a^2/b))*j^2 - (a^2/b)*Sqrt[2*9.8*h]*j + .5(a^2/b)*2*9.8*5 -
a*9.8*5 == 0, j]

{{j -> -3.24562}, {j -> 9.89949}}

j^2/(2*9.8)

0.537451

Recent vocabulary

2006-10-17T23:38:00.000-04:00

Jevons' Rule; Maxwell Stress Tensor; Complexity; Omega (a number); Brewster's angle; Marginal World; Caffine; Interahamwe; Paul Rusesabagina; Pleusir; e^i(kz-omega*t); Solow; Exoticism; Number Theory; Mondialisation; Saint Denis; Penn World Table; Symposium; Tilda; Gravitational Wave; SQUID; Micro credit; Mitchel Foucault; Protolife; Casper; Global Recycling; Pollution and Sustainability; Real World; Complex Analysis; Basil Function; WFUNA; Eureka!

Recent Updates, adventures, and the hunger for adventure

2006-10-08T18:39:00.000-04:00

I am sitting in the linux room using a debian. I am doing this is by no means of showing off my computer skill (hey I'm using linux, hardcore man!). The thing is, I don't. My computer knowledge is not that bad yet not that good either. Coming here I just wanted to find a spot to study. Nothing fancy. I just have a basic requirement: a room, nice, clean, with computer, can see through the window after I got tired from studying, preferably with a nice environment, which with antique looking desktops. I found non. The only place open is a noisy room all the guys gals are flirting with each other in korean chinese hindi english. I just need a suty sopt, A Study Spot of One's Own! So this debian room is quiet, at least met one of my requirements, despite the other factors: white shining desktop, and in the basement, and of course the debian system is hard to control.

Nothing fancy, really, recently. Being kind of existential. I know where my goal is but it is at the horizon; before reaching there I don't know which way leads me to. Should I criticize the environment or should I not. Clearly the environment is important, self-motivation is yet another factor, and two of them are interconnected.

Last weekend I went to my roommate's house in Syracuse, New York. Suburban, big house, 3 cars, mom, dad, cat and dog. Visited his grandparents who are decedents of the pilgrims of Mayflower 300 years ago. Heard tons of american history. quite a nice and relaxing visit.

I started to understand how the environmental factor affect people's behavior. We are all nice people, but were brought up in different ways, hence accquired differernt mindsets. Now we (we as in we, you might be one of us) are trying to understand other people's mindsets; however, the thing is we are still having our own inability to comprehend. Maybe is it that we comprehend each other's thoughts in ours own way, i.e. exoticism; or we are trying to comprehend in their way but during this process didn't get their way; or we actually did get to their thought in their way but mean while lost our way. Ways are means of thought, as bus, bike etc. are means of transportation. Each of them has their own goods and bads and we ought to be able to use different ways in different situations and understand others in certain different situations.

Need to learn more english and practice more, to get myself understandable.

scary truth

2006-09-14T18:34:00.000-04:00

la saison des pluies

2006-09-14T11:33:00.000-04:00

rain; it rains, it's like a raining season. I kind of miss the summer right now although my favorite season would be the winter--since in the winter we learn how to be strong and bring up the passion inside of us; beside don't you feel great when you standing in the wild wind during winter, or the snow, right, the snow could change the world in on night; but it's raining still, with grey sky covered by dense cloud. I miss the summer because it was always exciting; while it turned autumn, or we call it the FALL, we will feel a little bit of disturbance and, yea, falling.

coming back to school is another feeling. as if the school and the city home are two seperated world, and both of them couldn't comprehend each other. Being an unobelient particle in boht of the systems, still, I feel a little bit weird coming back to school while I was already used to the city.

I will upload those pictures taken in the summer.

summer time, and the livin's easy

2006-09-05T11:34:00.000-04:00

but, summer has gone. Now the autumn. I thoguht of keeping a diary of my krazy life in the summer but everytime I thoguht of writing something I was always too tired to get my self in front of the computer; instead I went to bed. Hey but now, you know what, I am up. Still hungry.

a boston

2006-07-17T00:54:00.000-04:00

chillin, starring at charles river through the window from my friend's dorm. will write later.

some advises

2006-07-14T02:33:00.000-04:00

people

be smart, not "small" ones which you only think one step ahead; but greater smart which benefits the entity.

'tis a time of disorder and struggle, we should be more aware of what we are doing. there's a sense of historic misson upon each of us.

be well

Oh! Is the World INSANE?

2006-07-14T02:19:00.000-04:00

Turned on TV at 2am and saw the bnreaking news of war.....

What's Wrong With Us?

Our understanding of the natural world is very advanced, leaving our ignorance to the human world...

People are killing each other? isn't that retardation to the extreme?

Whoever your supremebeing is, YHWH, Allah, God or Flying Sphagetti Monster...Can 't we be intellegnet by not fighting over them? if there were them, they will condemn people who attact each other in the name of them. they think it is stupid.

aíght, I think it is dangerous and stupid. It's like a kid playing a gun.

bad luck still, can't wait to get out of this shadow. And, Presenting my first TICKET

2006-07-11T23:45:00.000-04:00

I was ticketed...riding a bike....

acrossing west 32 and 7th avenue, a police on bike stopped me saying I crossed the red light! Anger management again....dude!.....mister officer....have you see that flock of bikes just passed by, they are crossing on red light too! what you call it, jay biking? ok, come on, it's new york city, no one ever...in the city...ever dare to say they has never done it. ...
Therefore I got my first ticket, on which written the reason:" failed to yield to pedestrains", and $40...

enough, enough now

Another angry man

2006-07-09T23:49:00.000-04:00

Zidane I feel for you~!

Anger, a lot of anger!

2006-07-09T01:29:00.000-04:00

damn it I want to curse it out! What a freaking world to me now! I know there's Murphy's law things always go towards the worst side because of the selective memory. But too much Sht have been happend on me, losing this losing that, tried hard to remember if there's good luck but too few to remember. for the past week I've been taking pictures of my bike messenger experience but it has all became digital bubble after one misclick. I know there's always tomorrow and I can alwayus fight back. I did but destiny pushed me back, hey destiny, come on, what have I done wrong to deserve the punishment! the most frank moment is but when you were destroyed a lot and then there's yewt another! you cn only smile at your destiny at the moment without any temper. Okay, pictures I can still take. It is not the pictures along to get me mad. Far from it. but everything...okay, not absolutely everything...but a lot of things turned their back to me when I knock on the door. I' is as if I was condemned by something else and they've already knew it. No, I'd rather think it as a test I have to take before achieve something big. There's a chinese proverb from 3000years ago saying the exact samething, that if heaven grant one something big, one would have to suffer from bitterness to his heart and soul, pains to his muscle and bone, hunger to his body and skin, empty his whole body, and lastly, what he does will lead to unwanted consequences. Therefore build his heart and temper, improving his ability.

I wish it's a test, and no, I won't give up myself, never. Mark my word. See what I become.

silence, enough silence

2006-07-07T23:10:00.000-04:00

whoa, 't has been a long time mate, that I haven't write any crap on my own blog. There's a ctually many thing to write about since I have been taking this job---a bike messenger in new york city, on and off for two weeks now. man how can I say? I've been through mad a lot of things. 'tis a crazy world!I will write a bit tomorrow. too tired to continue today. I have been talking talkng talking in vain, for now, hell, I experienced them, myself, my body and soul. let's not get away from the topic. bleh...I'll write tomorrow for the almost non-exist audience of my blog. brb

北京人在纽约

2006-06-19T03:10:00.000-04:00

十多年前的一部电视剧《北京人在纽约》想必很多人，包括我在内，都记忆犹新。当时这个电视剧，还有正大综艺等节目，给我带来了外面世界的向往。如今我却成了地地道道了，literally, 北京人在纽约。自己想想也好笑。

北京是我地地道道的故乡，那里出生，那里成长。虽然没有小说里议回忆故乡尽是黄房子，狗，田地和村庄还有安详的老人，取而代之的是高楼大厦，工地的砖头垒起来的堡垒，煤堆上小小的探险，迅速发展的城市；我对它也是不可忘怀。前些天在google earth上找到北京的家，高兴的顺着每天上学的道走一边，这儿取车，顺着小道走，上桥，逆行，再走到河边……

三年前到纽约，更快的节奏，更丰富多彩的社会，也更嘈杂。在纽约却没见到什么北京人，现在回想起只有刚上学的时候认识的一个人，不过也没走很多的联系，还有刚上大学时碰到的和我住得不远的，仅此而已！真是，找个可以叙旧的也没有。一个城市由他自己的特点，但是对于每个经历他的人来说，个人的感觉是不一样的，适合人们接触的小圈子有关的。要么有人说纽约市天堂，有人说是地狱。有人赞美北京的大气，有人鄙视北京的傲气。

北京给我的感觉是什么呢？大气，博学，自豪，贫（能侃）。北京渴求着外面的世界，渴求知识。以前出去旅游，到哪儿都能看见北京人。在收音机里听拉丁音乐，去CD店买各国的CD，去英语角，星巴克，去世纪坛看玛雅展览。这也可能和我的小圈子有关，住在学院区。我想刚来北京的打工仔一定和我感觉的不一样。

纽约的精神是听不一样的。第一纽约的多元性，这个恐怕世界上哪个城市都没法与他相比。当我刚一到纽约，发现收音机的纯正的拉丁音乐兴奋不已，却遭我爸同事的横眉，说：“这amigo的音乐你还听！"amigo是朋友的意思，打他在这里只不过当作了搬运工的代名词，他可是好意告诉我不要听搬运工的音乐。由此我进入的纽约的文化隔离。我很敬重的一位老师说，纽约是很多彩，但是不是熔炉，而是马赛克，一片片的小采石嵌在一起，确互相不通。

当我在“冰汉亩屯”大学的小山沟里，却又怀念起纽约的嘈杂，就像在沙漠里怀念起在闹市中的场景。

还有很多话，太多话了，都争先恐后的要说出来，却又怕乱了次序又都堵在嗓子眼里。我要在整理整理，分几步把我想说得说出来。在北京的朋友可能看不到我写的，讨厌的互联网风锁。写下来先自己看着高兴吧！

Ode to bryant park

2006-06-03T23:34:00.000-04:00

Rainy day. Last night it rained pretty heavily. I walked down the street, soaked completely, singing "raindrops keep falling on my head", enjoying a moment of being myself. Today for some reason I went to 42nd street library, feeling great, then I went to bryant part to enjoy the serenity after rain.

A couple of parks I liked. The park close to my house in bejing, called the garden of purple bamboos, once a royal garden, accompanied me throughout my childhood. So many memories there. The back garden, pavilion, lake and the rain when I was still in kindergarten. Fragrant Moutain is a place where takes 1 hour of bike riding, we had our elementary school friends reunion twice there. Very famous in the city. In New York I live by flushing meadow crona park for three years now. It is the place where they held 3 times world affair; next to shea stadium; two lakes, once of them is wild; the unisphere... Then the rest of them are this Bryant park and central park. In Binghamton there's a nature preserve right above the school on top of the mountain. I like it when after raining the smoke surrounded the mountain, whit geese flying by; and eagles, cozily viewing the world underneath it, all reflected by the still pond.

yet I'm in the city now. the jungle.

Atlas in the palm

2006-06-03T02:43:00.000-04:00

小时候写的，也不是特别小吧，原来在中国的时候，留念一下：

我也一直期翼如此,现在有时间了,不过是午夜,帕惊动沉睡的东八区,我也只能留一句了

想想吧,北京在沉睡,同时还有朝鲜.日本.东南亚和澳大利亚,古代多么激烈的战场,兴许有只秋虫在鸣叫,他不知这里究竟发生过什么.就像人类也一样,当我在电脑前座者的时候,我也很少会去想地下三十尺内几千年前究竟经历过什么样故事...
或是说,我脚踩的那个物体不是别的,不是地板,不是水泥,而是一个戴满了沉甸甸历史感的地球!
.......
思考
.........
伦敦城也一下午四点,王公贵族们在品味着下午茶,英国式的绑腿,苏格兰式的短裙,相互交错这.
巴黎,艺术之都,咖啡馆里传来阵阵思绪,凝视着下午的阳光,思考着各式的平常无法静下思考的
罗马与巴黎同在五点,石子铺的高低的道路,欢快的意大利人在上面奔驰
爱琴海已到了六点了,刚打完鱼的渔民慢慢的把小船开回来,他们在想什么呢?晚餐的美味?孩子的欢笑?
...
...
太平洋
...
...
.
新大陆逐渐醒了,八点的洛杉矶,一样忙碌,鞋尖与地面的拖沓的声音,模式的眼神里又有殷切的企盼,沟通的渴望
纽约已十一点,圣保罗更是下午一点了,活力的人,沙滩边.闲适的做自己想做活不得不作的事

...

熵
上面的介绍有少许文学色彩了,而我们脚下究竟踩的是个什么呢?有贪得无厌,羞耻,无休止的战争,种族歧视,贫困饥饿,冷漠
冷漠@@1!!
他使任何人对任何事都没有了激情,麻木!
人们之间勾心斗角,浑然不知还有个这么辽大的世界依托着他,在他眼里只有几个碎片罢!

...
尽管如此,人们还要绷着微笑的做下去,不管有多么不妥,就像他妈妈给它的爱那么执著
执著着维系一个躯壳,,.

它的灵魂已容不下那个壳了!

当宇宙在无序化的时候,我么在创造秩序

The Crime of doublethink

2006-05-29T04:26:00.000-04:00

For those whoever read 1984, they know that doublethink is the word describing "thinking too much that beyond your limite". I'm having a doublethink attack which leads to this insomniac night. Nessum Dorema, Nessum Dorema. Starring at the walls, the ceiling, the poster of van gogh and the world atlas and the strawberry field mosaic, and my tent and all, I really want to get out there and explore the world. I feel a little bit incacerated, by family, by society, by my own failures. They need stability, they granted certain people the priviledge to doublethink by issueing a series of certification. Then the rest of them are merged in a sea of mediorcrity. I want that right. Isn't it cool to think? especially it's a privilege? I need my world, my self, my moral, my view, my sentiment, my emotion, my love, my ego, and my adventurous heart.

Get out there and explore and change the world.

waka waka luna sole

2006-05-26T01:27:00.000-04:00

passionate and tired, I am.

coming back to Queens, I sensed many things that has been forgotten since I came to college. There was some "old" feeling filled my mind. Same red brick building. Same locked door. Same upleasant and rotten air which makes you dorwsy. The sky is blue after all. People are far from close to each other. They are sophisticated, or they think they are. They think they know what other people's tricks are, while ommitted the fact that we don't have to play tricks. We can do something great, yes we can. We are trapped in our system that is set up by us, an analogy to we locked ourself with the lock that we made, yet we treasure the lock as our genuine production. O Thou! Yo Man! smile, please.

le français!

2006-05-10T11:09:00.000-04:00

Le français est intéressant d'abord. mais je n'ai pas beaucoup de vocablaire maintenant, plus le INPUT est très bizzare. Je dois finir ma présentaton pour aujourd'hui mais je n'faisais pas bon; je dois présent demain. Le langue est dificile; ahhhhhhhhhhhh

Sound

2006-05-02T12:37:00.000-04:00

My friend Shampoo and I once made a movie(Yeah we are moviemakers!)of about 4 minutes in length and very annoyingly abstract. Mais it was some experience and we had probably 2 hours of footage in order to make this movie.

Sole mio

2006-04-28T18:39:00.000-04:00

Six thirty pm, sunshines pierced through my window on time. I moved my chair in to the sunshine's bath. It'll stay for a while, the only period of time during the day.

Notre Musique

2006-04-10T22:00:00.000-04:00

What is life and death? what is passion. I don't know, maybe we can interpret them with poems. What is our music? Do we understand it. Do we need to analyse the texts in our everyday life to find out the hidden messages, or say, symbolisms? If so, we are in the competition of being the greatest cypher.

Life is complicated, the interpretations make it more complicated. Appreciate the complexity or denying the entropy. I think most of people will not look at these two little paragraphs because it's too making-believe profound. Is there hidden messages or is there just flow of thought. je ne sais pas.

Insomniac

2006-04-04T03:16:00.000-04:00

Obviously it's 3:15 in the morning; and obviously I know clearly, from the deep down of my heart, that I have amy classes starting at 8:30 and if I don't go to sleep right away I'll be feeling like a zombie for the entire day tomorrow. I don't know, I don't feel like napping. Napping is the worst I can expect, due to the fact that I couldn't easily get myself up from those naps, so in general naps will eventually become extended sleep.

I don't know who my loyal audience is, but I assume several friends of mine will read it...I hope. I don't really want to keep this blog as a diary full of dullness (all I can think of for a diary is: today I woke up, then, ate, the did something...omg I don't like this that, I like that this, now sleep) at leat, if it has to be in the diary form, I want my diaries carrying some message, either inspiring or whatnot. well my diary for today:

In the past week I was a little bit stressed from exams and club and transfering application. The exam went well, I'll get my score 5 hours later. (omg I have to sleep!) The club went well, I gave a certain speech in a certain occation and drawn 18 new members. Personally I think the speech was terrible but I got some good feedbacks. Well, can't complain that much ey? I went to two other meetings: rainbow pride(LGBT) and MSA(Muslim). Yes I belong to neither of these groups but it was quite interesting to hear their points of view. I got two "cultural shock" when rainbow pride talked so openly about sex and MSA tried hard to repress even thinking of lust. The main point here is, I want ppl to think: "I don't care if you live a life like mine or not, but I find your life interesting. Let's be friends, it's cool!" Movies. yep I wached brokeback mountain. I think it was a great one, very moving, I almost couldn't hold my sentiment. The southern accent is what I couldn't make out of. En plue it's a little bit slow. Second one, Casanova. About a playboy fell in love in medieval Venice.It's a "normal" movie you don't think too hard before, during and after the movie, unless most of the movie I watched. I think the venecian life is just like that, happy joyous and fabulous.

ok, once again my soul is screaming to my spirit: Dude, go get some sleep! aight, I'm off. will write later. hope fully not 10 minutes later.

La Lutte

2006-04-02T23:07:00.000-04:00

There was a bottle of poland spring by my side..to be precise on my right hand side. My small desk light was by my left hand side. My head was rested on my elbow. Straing at the screen, what did I see? I saw the editing frame, which was empty..and which is not empty anymore.

There was a prisoner in the spanish island of Ibiza. He was inprisoned in a dark chambre, without light or sound. He screamed to himself everyday at the very beginning of his incarseration. Feeling helpless, he gradually stopped screaming or knocking on the wall or any "unnecessary" act which turned out just a wasting of energy. It was cozy in the cell despite the isolation, since he was once an important figure. People wouldn't do harm on him. He can get a decent meal every once in a while, the menu repeated itself everytime.As time goes by, day by day night by night, it became just an elapse of time, no day no night. Thinking? no, he wouldn't do so since there was no point. All are kept invariant. "I'm getting old" one day he told himself. Was he said it or just thought of it? He forgot, he never knew. Then, the dullness continued.

He saw the light, then he closed the eyes. The dullness continued.

The light? The dullness continued.

The light?! Where, where are my eyes?
My vison, My world!
My life.

The dullness continued.

Because he had been slept for so long, so long that he forgot how long, he even forgot if he was sleeping.

Wake up! his inner soul told him.

No response.

"ting" ...a sound

He recognized it. Wake up, Wake me up!I need to Wake up! I've been sleeping for so long, so long that I forgot for how long, so long that I forgot even if I was asleep. But I know I am sleeping now. I know it. I need to wak up! No dullness anymore, it' time to come back!

My eye lids opened. I see a beam of light pass through the wall in front of me. it was just a small beam. Wait, what is it? the sound. no, the explosion! is it the explosion? Yes it is, as what I've been through in the battlefield! Can I move? All my feelings were concentrated on the tip of my finger. My finger, I'm searching for my finger, they sohuld be there all the way down from my arms. Nothing... do I have my fingers? or should I ask do I still have feeling?

I do have feeling, I think therefore I am. Thinknig is the only prove of my existence so far. But I am exist. I am someone. I feel my finger. I wonder about the days I can sing and dance. Can I speak? Say.. say something. There is a weird feeling in my throat, as I'm trying to make a sound. Curiocity. I want to know what's happening out there. My world is only a beam of light. I want more!

I raised my arms. yes, I raised them. I let them touch my face. I have beard, my beard is long. I feel them. I crawl towards the dot where the light comes from. It became bigger and bigger, after all filled my left eye. Blue...Is it sky? Gray, are they dusts?

I AM HERE!!!!!!!! I finally YELLED.

....

That was the last moment I rememberd. Now I'm in the hospital. Still too weak to make more motions. It's all white. I like it in contract to my black days. I need to recover here. I need to reaccpeting the world around me. I need to go back to my fighting my work my mission my destiny. Because I am awake, now. I can feel the corner of my lips raising. once again.

I'm feeling thirsty. Where is my Poland Spring?

Overheard Binghamton

2006-03-22T21:04:00.000-05:00

Girl with curly hair: Are you guys going to be auctioned or...

Girls with short skirts: Yea yea!

--Overheard near by Mandela room, union. "Date Auction" hosted by a sorority.

Poem

2006-03-21T19:00:00.000-05:00

Enjoy it. not my composition of course.

Very quietly I take my leave
　　As quietly as I came here;
　　Quietly I wave good-bye
　　To the rosy clouds in the western sky.

　　The golden willows by the riverside
　　Are young brides in the setting sun;
　　Their reflections on the shimmering waves
　　Always linger in the depth of my heart.

　　The floating heart growing in the sludge
　　Sways leisurely under the water;
　　In the gentle waves of Cambridge
　　I would be a water plant!

　　That pool under the shade of elm trees
　　Holds not water but the rainbow from the sky;
　　Shattered to pieces among the duck weeds
　　Is the sediment of a rainbow-like dream?

　　To seek a dream?
　　Just to pole a boat upstream
　　To where the green grass is more verdant;
　　Or to have the boat fully loaded with starlight
　　And sing aloud in the splendor of starlight.

　　But I cannot sing aloud
　　Quietness is my farewell music;
　　Even summer insects keep silence for me
　　Silent is Cambridge tonight!

　　Very quietly I take my leave
　　As quietly as I came here;
　　Gently I flick my sleeves
　　Not even a wisp of cloud will I bring away

2006-03-19T23:15:00.000-05:00

Kinoko, 72nd Street.

2006-03-19T22:51:00.000-05:00

Kinoko, 72nd Street Westside.

2006-03-19T22:48:00.000-05:00

She-Chimara, MOSEX

2006-03-19T22:47:00.001-05:00

Japanese erotic art exhibition, MOSEX

2006-03-19T22:47:00.000-05:00

Museum of Sex

2006-03-19T22:46:00.000-05:00

Flatiron

2006-03-19T22:43:00.001-05:00

in front of Chess Forum

2006-03-19T22:43:00.000-05:00

Chess Forum, the Village

2006-03-19T22:41:00.001-05:00

MaJiang, Chinese gambling game

2006-03-19T22:41:00.000-05:00

at Starbucks

2006-03-19T22:39:00.001-05:00

Afrikan medicine Advertisement. Do not judge it using wetern perspective.

2006-03-19T22:39:00.000-05:00

tamgeed with big monkey in evolution

2006-03-19T22:38:00.000-05:00

Evolution store Spring Street

2006-03-19T22:37:00.000-05:00

Emre in SoHo

Well, Spring break is over, now the winter...

2006-03-19T22:08:00.000-05:00

On the way back to binghamton today, I fell asleep in my friend's car; and when I woke up I found winter was back: white snow covered the mountains, again. There are plenty of picture to be uploaded. The one week spring in gotham.

If winter comes, can spring be far behind?

2006-03-13T03:20:00.000-05:00

Last friday I woke up at 8, preparing my french midterm. On my way out I felt the first sensation of spring in binghamton, although there was snow which covered the ground. My friend drove me back to gotham in the afternoon. We arrived in the evening.

Voila le printemps!

Saturday went out with my friend tamgeed and emre, walking by the heart of newyork--the village, all the way to pier 17.

so pictures

....
....
....
alright, well I think it has already took 3 minutes to upload my first picture. I can't agree more on the speed of this verizon dsl. I'll post the rest of the picture next time. ciao. tomorrow hard working day, cheap labouring.

Bobby Seale and Noam Chomsky and bing COWs

2006-03-08T10:51:00.000-05:00

Quite a lot to write actually but i don't know where to start. To begin with, two weeks ago Bobby Seale, the co-founder of the black panther party, came to give a speech on saturday. The black panthers are the ones in the 60's who fought for civil right by carrying guns around to show their power. Mr. Seale put in this way: he said they found by law of california civilians are allowed to carry arms so they called for a bunch of people just to follow the police when they were on duty. This event soon horrified the United States and later the whole world. There has been records of japanese and indian black panther parties. People recognised the black civil movement by the power they are allowed to carry. Well, the story of how they started this organization is quite amazing as well. They began by two guys, Bobby Seale and Huey Newton who back then were students of university. Mr. Seale even gave some detail of how he became the president: "we flipped a coin and I won". So starting with such a small group then grew to internatinal recognition in a significantly short time. It is amazing and there's a lot of things to learn from them.

Ok then on the saturday evening just past, we had Noam Chomsky as the speaker. He is a well-known linguistist and an anti-war activist. mi amigos and I came to the theatre as early as 5:30 to wait for his 7:00 speech, and there's a friend of mine came all the way from Buffalo to see it, they had been waiting since like 4. Anyway due to my familiarity to the surrounding area we got the best spot to wait and later on the best seats. well, then people were kind of disappointed when he spoke. Well, we can't attribute all the failure to Chomsky he is afterall 77 years old. He carried this monotone and hypnosized half of the audience into sleep. His speech, in another hand, if you can keep awake and concentrate on which, is rather good and inspirational. About the current world situation and all the faultiness in the american foreign policy. Before his speech there was a period of time when people were waiting. I really had this urge to go up to the podium and deliver a speech about the club I am going to start, then eventually horror conquered my passion I didn't go.... and this thing happend to a friend of mine he wanted to go to speak as well.

Speaking about the club. We are to start a club called Citizens of The World (abbrevation: COW , moooo), promoting cultural understanding and the global identity in addition to the local culture each of us belongs to. Explaining this idea to the Student Association, when they questioned about us carrying similar agenda with the intercultural awareness committee, I said picture the difference of International and Global. There are a lot of International organization such a UN to solve the problems between nations, but we now want to creat a global culture which fits people who has this idea and we as a group is to inspire others who doesn't agree with us. There are a couple of successful programmes in bing that have some great social impact, for example the muslim student association and jewish hillel visited another's synagoge and mosque. Very very interesting. We are going to start programs like this as well, by cosponsoring with other cultural groups and our outreach programs to local schools. Let's see how big the impact is going to be.

What other things...hmm, oh movies. Saraband by Ingmar Berman, it's great, makes you think the isolation of individuals. Especially, I think, In scandinavian countries, everyone is kind of existential because of the environment, rthat they are too far away from others. We desire intimacy, everybody. and yea last weekend the dullest movie I ever see, called Goodbye Dragon Inn by a taiwan director. The whole movie can be described in two words: theater closing. A couple of long-shots of a crippled woman dragging herself upstair downstair and a scene of an empty theatre in its stillness for 5 minutes...and I checked on rottentomatoes they got good review! I don't think I am that much of a cinemagoer to enjoy this dullness, after all...

I'm going back to New York on Friday night, chill for one week, hopefully don't get bored.

My Favorite Short Story again

2006-02-24T17:21:00.000-05:00

受戒

汪增祺

明海出家已经四年了。

他是十三岁来的。

这个地方的地名有点怪，叫庵赵庄。赵，是因为庄上大都姓赵。叫做庄，可是人家住得很分散，这里两三家，那里两三家。一出门，远远可以看到，走起来得走一会，因为没有大路，都是弯弯曲曲的田埂。庵，是因为有一个庵。庵叫苦提庵，可是大家叫讹了，叫成荸荠庵。连庵里的和尚也这样叫。“宝刹何处？”——“荸荠庵。”庵本来是住尼姑的。“和尚庙”、“尼姑庵”嘛。可是荸荠庵住的是和尚。也许因为荸荠庵不大，大者为庙，小者为庵。

明海在家叫小明子。他是从小就确定要出家的。他的家乡不叫“出家”，叫“当和尚”。他的家乡出和尚。就像有的地方出劁猪的，有的地方出织席子的，有的地方出箍桶的，有的地方出弹棉花的，有的地方出画匠，有的地方出婊子，他的家乡出和尚。人家弟兄多，就派一个出去当和尚。当和尚也要通过关系，也有帮。这地方的和尚有的走得很远。有到杭州灵隐寺的、上海静安寺的、镇江金山寺的、扬州天宁寺的。一般的就在本县的寺庙。明海家田少，老大、老二、老三，就足够种的了。他是老四。他七岁那年，他当和尚的舅舅回家，他爹、他娘就和舅舅商议，决定叫他当和尚。他当时在旁边，觉得这实在是在情在理，没有理由反对。当和尚有很多好处。一是可以吃现成饭。哪个庙里都是管饭的。二是可以攒钱。只要学会了放瑜伽焰口，拜梁皇忏，可以按例分到辛苦钱。积攒起来，将来还俗娶亲也可以；不想还俗，买几亩田也可以。当和尚也不容易，一要面如朗月，二要声如钟磬，三要聪明记性好。他舅舅给他相了相面，叫他前走几步，后走几步，又叫他喊了一声赶牛打场的号子：“格当*N——”，说是“明子准能当个好和尚，我包了！”要当和尚，得下点本，——念几年书。哪有不认字的和尚呢！于是明子就开蒙入学，读了《三字经》、《百家姓》、《四言杂字》、《幼学琼林》、《上论、下论》、《上孟、下孟》，每天还写一张仿。村里都夸他字写得好，很黑。

舅舅按照约定的日期又回了家，带了一件他自己穿的和尚领的短衫，叫明子娘改小一点，给明子穿上。明子穿了这件和尚短衫，下身还是在家穿的紫花裤子，赤脚穿了一双新布鞋，跟他爹、他娘磕了一个头，就随舅舅走了。

他上学时起了个学名，叫明海。舅舅说，不用改了。于是“明海”就从学名变成了法名。

过了一个湖。好大一个湖！穿过一个县城。县城真热闹：官盐店，税务局，肉铺里挂着成边的猪，一个驴子在磨芝麻，满街都是小磨香油的香味，布店，卖茉莉粉、梳头油的什么斋，卖绒花的，卖丝线的，打把式卖膏药的，吹糖人的，耍蛇的，……他什么都想看看。舅舅一劲地推他：“快走！快走！”

到了一个河边，有一只船在等着他们。船上有一个五十来岁的瘦长瘦长的大伯，船头蹲着一个跟明子差不多大的女孩子，在剥一个莲蓬吃。明子和舅舅坐到舱里，船就开了。明子听见有人跟他说话，是那个女孩子。

“是你要到荸荠庵当和尚吗？”

明子点点头。

“当和尚要烧戒疤呕！你不怕？”

明子不知道怎么回答，就含含糊糊地摇了摇头。

“你叫什么？”

“明海。”

“在家的时候？”

“叫明子。”

“明子！我叫小英子！我们是邻居。我家挨着荸荠庵。——给你！”

小英子把吃剩的半个莲蓬扔给明海，小明子就剥开莲蓬壳，一颗一颗吃起来。

大伯一桨一桨地划着，只听见船桨拨水的声音：“哗——许！哗——许！”

……

荸荠庵的地势很好，在一片高地上。这一带就数这片地势高，当初建庵的人很会选地方。门前是一条河。门外是一片很大的打谷场。三面都是高大的柳树。山门里是一个穿堂。迎门供着弥勒佛。不知是哪一位名士撰写了一副对联：大肚能容容天下难容之事开颜一笑笑世间可笑之人弥勒佛背后，是韦驮。过穿堂，是一个不小的天井，种着两棵白果树。天井两边各有三间厢房。走过天井，便是大殿，供着三世佛。佛像连龛才四尺来高。大殿东边是方丈，西边是库房。大殿东侧，有一个小小的六角门，白门绿字，刻着一副对联：一花一世界

三藐三菩提

进门有一个狭长的天井，几块假山石，几盆花，有三间小房。

小和尚的日子清闲得很。一早起来，开山门，扫地。庵里的地铺的都是箩底方砖，好扫得很，给弥勒佛、韦驮烧一炷香，正殿的三世佛面前也烧一炷香、磕三个头、念三声“南无阿弥陀佛”，敲三声磬。这庵里的和尚不兴做什么早课、晚课，明子这三声磬就全都代替了。然后，挑水，喂猪。然后，等当家和尚，即明子的舅舅起来，教他念经。

教念经也跟教书一样，师父面前一本经，徒弟面前一本经，师父唱一句，徒弟跟着唱一句。是唱哎。舅舅一边唱，一边还用手在桌上拍板。一板一眼，拍得很响，就跟教唱戏一样。是跟教唱戏一样，完全一样哎。连用的名词都一样。舅舅说，念经：一要板眼准，二要合工尺。说：当一个好和尚，得有条好嗓子。说：民国二十年闹大水，运河倒了堤，最后在清水潭合龙，因为大水淹死的人很多，放了一台大焰口，十三大师——十三个正座和尚，各大庙的方丈都来了，下面的和尚上百。谁当这个首座？推来推去，还是石桥——善因寺的方
丈！他往上一坐，就跟地藏王菩萨一样，这就不用说了；那一声“开香赞”，围看的上千人立时鸦雀无声。说：嗓子要练，夏练三伏，冬练三九，要练丹田气！说：要吃得苦中苦，方为人上人！说：和尚里也有状元、榜眼、探花！要用心，不要贪玩！舅舅这一番大法要说得明海和尚实在是五体投地，于是就一板一眼地跟着舅舅唱起来：

“炉香乍爇——”

“炉香乍爇——”

“法界蒙薰——”

“法界蒙薰——”

“诸佛现金身……”

“诸佛现金身……”

……

等明海学完了早经，——他晚上临睡前还要学一段，叫做晚经，——荸荠庵的师父们就都陆续起床了。

这庵里人口简单，一共六个人。连明海在内，五个和尚。有一个老和尚，六十几了，是舅舅的师叔，法名普照，但是知道的人很少，因为很少人叫他法名，都称之为老和尚或老师父，明海叫他师爷爷。这是个很枯寂的人，一天关在房里，就是那“一花一世界”里。也看不见他念佛，只是那么一声不响地坐着。他是吃斋的，过年时除外。

下面就是师兄弟三个，仁字排行：仁山、仁海、仁渡。庵里庵外，有的称他们为大师父、二师父；有的称之为山师父、海师父。只有仁渡，没有叫他“渡师父”的，因为听起来不像话，大都直呼之为仁渡。他也只配如此，因为他还年轻，才二十多岁。仁山，即明子的舅舅，是当家的。不叫“方丈”，也不叫“住持”，却叫“当家的”，是很有道理的，因为他确确实实干的是当家的职务。他屋里摆的是一张帐桌，桌子上放的是帐簿和算盘。帐簿共有三本。一本是经帐，一本是租帐，一本是债帐。和尚要做法事，做法事要收钱，——要
不，当和尚干什么？常做的法事是放焰口。正规的焰口是十个人。一个正座，一个敲鼓的，两边一边四个。人少了，八个，一边三个，也凑合了。荸荠庵只有四个和尚，要放整焰口就得和别的庙里合伙。这样的时候也有过，通常只是放半台焰口。一个正座，一个敲鼓，另外一边一个。一来找别的庙里合伙费事；二来这一带放得起整焰口的人家也不多。有的时候，谁家死了人，就只请两个，甚至一个和尚咕噜咕噜念一通经，敲打几声法器就算完事。很多人家的经钱不是当时就给，往往要等秋后才还。这就得记帐。另外，和尚放焰口的辛苦钱不
是一样的。就像唱戏一样，有份子。正座第一份。因为他要领唱，而且还要独唱。当中有一大段“叹骷髅”，别的和尚都放下法器休息，只有首座一个人有板有眼地曼声吟唱。第二份是敲鼓的。你以为这容易呀？哼，单是一开头的“发擂”，手上没功夫就敲不出迟疾顿挫！其余的，就一样了。这也得记上：某月某日、谁家焰口半台，谁正座，谁敲鼓……省得到年底结帐时赌咒骂娘。……这庵里有几十亩庙产，租给人种，到时候要收租。庵里还放债。租、债一向倒很少亏欠，因为租佃借钱的人怕菩萨不高兴。这三本帐就够山忙的了。另外
香烛、灯火、油盐“福食”，这也得随时记记帐呀。除了帐簿之外，山师父的方丈的墙上还挂着一块水牌，上漆四个红字：“勤笔免思”。

仁山所说当一个好和尚的三个条件，他自己其实一条也不具备。他的相貌只要用两个字就说清楚了：黄，胖。声音也不像钟磬，倒像母猪。聪明么？难说，打牌老输。他在庵里从不穿袈裟，连海青直裰也免了。经常是披着件短僧衣，袒露着一个黄色的肚子。下面是光脚趿拉着一对僧鞋，——新鞋他也是趿拉着。他一天就是这样不衫不履地这里走走，那里走走，发出母猪一样的声音：“呣——呣——”。

二师父仁海。他是有老婆的。他老婆每年夏秋之间来住几个月，因为庵里凉快。庵里有六个人，其中之一，就是这位和尚的家眷。仁山、仁渡叫她嫂子，明海叫她师娘。这两口子都很爱干净，整天的洗涮。傍晚的时候，坐在天井里乘凉。白天，闷在屋里不出来。

三师父是个很聪明精干的人。有时一笔帐大师兄扒了半天算盘也算不清，他眼珠子转两转，早算得一清二楚。他打牌赢的时候多，二三十张牌落地，上下家手里有些什么牌，他就差不多都知道了。他打牌时，总有人爱在他后面看歪头胡。谁家约他打牌，就说“想送两个钱给你。”他不但经忏俱通（小庙的和尚能够拜忏的不多），而且身怀绝技，会“飞铙”。七月间有些地方做盂兰会，在旷地上放大焰口，几十个和尚，穿绣花袈裟，飞铙。飞铙就是把十多斤重的大铙钹飞起来。到了一定的时候，全部法器皆停，只几十副大铙紧张急促地敲起来。忽然起手，大铙向半空中飞去，一面飞，一面旋转。然后，又落下来，接住。接住不是平平常常地接住，有各种架势，“犀牛望月”、“苏秦背剑”……这哪是念经，这是耍杂技。也许是地藏王菩萨爱看这个，但真正因此快乐起来的是人，尤其是妇女和孩子。这是年轻漂亮的和尚出风头的机会。一场大焰口过后，也像一个好戏班子过后一样，会有一个两个大姑娘、小媳妇失踪，——跟和尚跑了。他还会放“花焰口”。有的人家，亲戚中多风流子弟，在不是很哀伤的佛事——如做冥寿时，就会提出放花焰口。所谓“花焰口”就是在正焰口之后，叫和尚唱小调，拉丝弦，吹管笛，敲鼓板，而且可以点唱。仁渡一个人可以唱一夜
不重头。仁渡前几年一直在外面，近二年才常住在庵里。据说他有相好的，而且不止一个。他平常可是很规矩，看到姑娘媳妇总是老老实实的，连一句玩笑话都不说，一句小调山歌都不唱。有一回，在打谷场上乘凉的时候，一伙人把他围起来，非叫他唱两个不可。他却情不过，说：“好，唱一个。不唱家乡的。家乡的你们都熟，唱个安徽的。”

姐和小郎打大麦，一转子讲得听不得。

听不得就听不得，

打完了大麦打小麦。

唱完了，大家还嫌不够，他就又唱了一个：姐儿生得漂漂的，两个奶子翘翘的。

有心上去摸一把，

心里有点跳跳的。

……

这个庵里无所谓清规，连这两个字也没人提起。

仁山吃水烟，连出门做法事也带着他的水烟袋。

他们经常打牌。这是个打牌的好地方。把大殿上吃饭的方桌往门口一搭，斜放着，就是牌桌。桌子一放好，仁山就从他的方丈里把筹码拿出来，哗啦一声倒在桌上。斗纸牌的时候多，搓麻将的时候少。牌客除了师兄弟三人，常来的是一个收鸭毛的，一个打兔子兼偷鸡的，都是正经人。收鸭毛的担一副竹筐，串乡串镇，拉长了沙哑的声音喊叫：“鸭毛卖钱——！”

偷鸡的有一件家什——铜蜻蜓。看准了一只老母鸡，把铜蜻蜓一丢，鸡婆子上去就是一口。这一啄，铜蜻蜓的硬簧绷开，鸡嘴撑住了，叫不出来了。正在这鸡十分纳闷的时候，上去一把薅住。

明子曾经跟这位正经人要过铜蜻蜓看看。他拿到小英子家门前试了一试，果然！小英的娘知道了，骂明子：“要死了！儿子！你怎么到我家来玩铜蜻蜓了！”小英子跑过来：

“给我！给我！”

她也试了试，真灵，一个黑母鸡一下子就把嘴撑住，傻了眼了！

下雨阴天，这二位就光临荸荠庵，消磨一天。

有时没有外客，就把老师叔也拉出来，打牌的结局，大都是当家和尚气得鼓鼓的：“×妈妈的！又输了！下回不来了！”

他们吃肉不瞒人。年下也杀猪。杀猪就在大殿上。一切都和在家人一样，开水、木桶、尖刀。捆猪的时候，猪也是没命地叫。跟在家人不同的，是多一道仪式，要给即将升天的猪念一道“往生咒”，并且总是老师叔念，神情很庄重：“……一切胎生、卵生、息生，来从虚空来，还归虚空去往生再世，皆当欢喜。南无阿弥陀佛！”

三师父仁渡一刀子下去，鲜红的猪血就带着很多沫子喷出来。

……

明子老往小英子家里跑。

小英子的家像一个小岛，三面都是河，西面有一条小路通到荸荠庵。独门独户，岛上只有这一家。岛上有六棵大桑树，夏天都结大桑椹，三棵结白的，三棵结紫的；一个菜园子，瓜豆蔬菜，四时不缺。院墙下半截是砖砌的，上半截是泥夯的。大门是桐油油过的，贴着一副万年红的春联：向阳门第春常在

积善人家庆有余

门里是一个很宽的院子。院子里一边是牛屋、碓棚；一边是猪圈、鸡窠，还有个关鸭子的栅栏。露天地放着一具石磨。正北面是住房，也是砖基土筑，上面盖的一半是瓦，一半是草。房子翻修了才三年，木料还露着白茬。正中是堂屋，家神菩萨的画像上贴的金还没有发黑。两边是卧房。~*扇窗上各嵌了一块一尺见方的玻璃，明亮亮的，——这在乡下是不多见的。房檐下一边种着一棵石榴树，一边种着一棵栀子花，都齐房檐高了。夏天开了花，一红一白，好看得很。栀子花香得冲鼻子。顺风的时候，在荸荠庵都闻得见。

这家人口不多，他家当然是姓赵。一共四口人：赵大伯、赵大妈，两个女儿，大英子、小英子。老两口没得儿子。因为这些年人不得病，牛不生灾，也没有大旱大水闹蝗虫，日子过得很兴旺。他们家自己有田，本来够吃的了，又租种了庵上的十亩田。自己的田里，一亩种了荸荠，——这一半是小英子的主意，她爱吃荸荠，一亩种了茨菇。家里喂了一大群鸡鸭，单是鸡蛋鸭毛就够一年的油盐了。赵大伯是个能干人。他是一个“全把式”，不但田里场上样样精通，还会罩鱼、洗磨、凿砻、修水车、修船、砌墙、烧砖、箍桶、劈篾、绞麻绳。他不咳嗽，不腰疼，结结实实，像一棵榆树。人很和气，一天不声不响。赵大伯是一棵摇钱树，赵大娘就是个聚宝盆。大娘精神得出奇。五十岁了，两个眼睛还是清亮亮的。不论什么时候，头都是梳得滑溜溜的，身上衣服都是格挣挣的。像老头子一样，她一天不闲着。煮猪食，喂猪，腌咸菜，——她腌的咸萝卜干非常好吃，舂粉子，磨小豆腐，编蓑衣，织芦篚。她还会剪花样子。这里嫁闺女，陪嫁妆，磁坛子、锡罐子，都要用梅红纸剪出吉祥花样，贴在上面，讨个吉利，也才好看：“丹凤朝阳”呀、“白头到老”呀、“子孙万代”呀、“福寿绵长”呀。二三十里的人家都来请她：“大娘，好日子是十六，你哪天去呀？”——“十五，我一大清早就来！”“一定呀！”——“一定！一定！”

两个女儿，长得跟她娘像一个模子里托出来的。眼睛长得尤其像，白眼珠鸭蛋青，黑眼珠棋子黑，定神时如清水，闪动时像星星。浑身上下，头是头，脚是脚。头发滑溜溜的，衣服格挣挣的。——这里的风俗，十五六岁的姑娘就都梳上头了。这两上丫头，这一头的好头发！通红的发根，雪白的簪子！娘女三个去赶集，一集的人都朝她们望。

姐妹俩长得很像，性格不同。大姑娘很文静，话很少，像父亲。小英子比她娘还会说，一天咭咭呱呱地不停。大姐说：“你一天到晚咭咭呱呱——”

“像个喜鹊！”

“你自己说的！——吵得人心乱！”

“心乱？”

“心乱！”

“你心乱怪我呀！”

二姑娘话里有话。大英子已经有了人家。小人她偷偷地看过，人很敦厚，也不难看，家道也殷实，她满意。已经下过小定，日子还没有定下来。她这二年，很少出房门，整天赶她的嫁妆。大裁大剪，她都会。挑花绣花，不如娘。她可又嫌娘出的样子太老了。她到城里看过新娘子，说人家现在绣的都是活花活草。这可把娘难住了。最后是喜鹊忽然一拍屁股：“我给你保举一个人！”

这人是谁？是明子。明子念“上孟下孟”的时候，不知怎么得了半套《芥子园》，他喜欢得很。到了荸荠庵，他还常翻出来看，有时还把旧帐簿子翻过来，照着描。小英子说：“他会画！画得跟活的一样！”

小英子把明海请到家里来，给他磨墨铺纸，小和尚画了几张，大英子喜欢得了不得：“就是这样！就是这样！这就可以乱孱！”——所谓“乱孱”是绣花的一种针法：绣了第一层，第二层的针脚插进第一层的针缝，这样颜色就可由深到淡，不露痕迹，不像娘那一代绣的花是平针，深浅之间，界限分明，一道一道的。小英子就像个书童，又像个参谋：“画一朵石榴花！”

“画一朵栀子花！”

她把花掐来，明海就照着画。

到后来，凤仙花、石竹子、水蓼、淡竹叶，天竺果子、腊梅花，他都能画。

大娘看着也喜欢，搂住明海的和尚头：“你真聪明！你给我当一个干儿子吧！”

小英子捺住他的肩膀，说：“快叫！快叫！”

小明子跪在地下磕了一个头，从此就叫小英子的娘做干娘。

大英子绣的三双鞋，三十里方圆都传遍了。很多姑娘都走路坐船来看。看完了，就说：“啧啧啧，真好看！这哪是绣的，这是一朵鲜花！”她们就拿了纸来央大娘求了小和尚来画。有求画帐檐的，有求画门帘飘带的，有求画鞋头花的。每回明子来画花，小英子就给他做点好吃的，煮两个鸡蛋，蒸一碗芋头，煎几个藕团子。

因为照顾姐姐赶嫁妆，田里的零碎生活小英子就全包了。她的帮手，是明子。

这地方的忙活是栽秧、车高田水，薅头遍草、再就是割稻子、打场子。这几荐重活，自己一家是忙不过来的。这地方兴换工。排好了日期，几家顾一家，轮流转。不收工钱，但是吃好的。一天吃六顿，两头见肉，顿顿有酒。干活时，敲着锣鼓，唱着歌，热闹得很。其余的时候，各顾各，不显得紧张。

薅三遍草的时候，秧已经很高了，低下头看不见人。一听见非常脆亮的嗓子在一片浓绿里唱：栀子哎开花哎六瓣头哎……姐家哎门前哎一道桥哎……明海就知道小英子在哪里，三步两步就赶到，赶到就低头薅起草来，傍晚牵牛“打汪”，是明子的事。——水牛怕蚊子。这里的习惯，牛卸了轭，饮了水，就牵到一口和好泥水的“汪”里，由它自己打滚扑腾，弄得全身都是泥浆，这样蚊子就咬不通了。低田上水，只要一挂十四轧的水车，两个人车半天就够了。明子和小英子就伏在车杠上，不紧不慢地踩着车轴上的拐子，轻轻地唱着明海向三师父学来的各处山歌。打场的时候，明子能替赵大伯一会，让他回家吃饭。——赵家自己没有场，每年都在荸荠庵外面的场上打谷子。他一扬鞭子，喊起了打场号子：

“格当*N——”

这打场号子有音无字，可是九转十三弯，比什么山歌号子都好听。赵大娘在家，听见明子的号子，就侧起耳朵：“这孩子这条嗓子！”

连大英子也停下针线：“真好听！”

小英子非常骄傲地说：“一十三省数第一！”

晚上，他们一起看场。——荸荠庵收来的租稻也晒在场上。他们并肩坐在一个石磙子上，听青蛙打鼓，听寒蛇唱歌，——这个地方以为蝼蛄叫是蚯蚓叫，而且叫蚯蚓叫“寒蛇”，听纺纱婆子不停地纺纱，“*~——”，看萤火虫飞来飞去，看天上的流星。

“呀！我忘了在裤带上打一个结！”小英子说。

这里的人相信，在流星掉下来的时候在裤带上打一个结，心里想什么好事，就能如愿。

……

“”荸荠，这是小英最爱干的生活。秋天过去了，地净场光，荸荠的叶子枯了，——荸荠的笔直的小葱一样的圆叶子里是一格一格的，用手一捋，哔哔地响，小英子最爱捋着玩，——荸荠藏在烂泥里。赤了脚，在凉浸浸滑滑溜的泥里踩着，——哎，一个硬疙瘩！伸手下去，一个红紫红紫的荸荠。她自己爱干这生活，还拉了明子一起去。她老是故意用自己的光脚去踩明子的脚。

她挎着一篮子荸荠回去了，在柔软的田埂上留了一串脚印。明海看着她的脚印，傻了。五个小小的趾头，脚掌平平的，脚跟细细的，脚弓部分缺了一块。明海身上有一种从来没有过的感觉，他觉得心里痒痒的。这一串美丽的脚印把小和尚的心搞乱了。

……

明子常搭赵家的船进城，给庵里买香烛，买油盐。闲时是赵大伯划船；忙时是小英子去，划船的是明子。

从庵赵庄到县城，当中要经过一片很大的芦花荡子。芦苇长得密密的，当中一条水路，四边不见人。划到这里，明子总是无端端地觉得心里很紧张，他就使劲地划桨。

小英子喊起来：

“明子！明子！你怎么啦？你发疯啦？为什么划得这么快？”……

明海到善因寺去受戒。

“你真的要去烧戒疤呀？”

“真的。”

“好好的头皮上烧十二个洞，那不疼死啦？”

“咬咬牙。舅舅说这是当和尚的一大关，总要过的。”“不受戒不行吗？”

“不受戒的是野和尚。”

“受了戒有啥好处？”

“受了戒就可以到处云游，逢寺挂褡。”

“什么叫‘挂褡’？”

“就是在庙里住。有斋就吃。”

“不把钱？”

“不把钱。有法事，还得先尽外来的师父。”

“怪不得都说‘远来的和尚会念经’。就凭头上这几个戒疤？”

“还要有一份戒牒。”

“闹半天，受戒就是领一张和尚的合格文凭呀！”“就是！”

“我划船送你去。”

“好。”

小英子早早就把船划到荸荠庵门前。不知是什么道理，她兴奋得很。她充满了好奇心，想去看看善因寺这座大庙，看看受戒是个啥样子。

善因寺是全县第一大庙，在东门外，面临一条水很深的护城河，三面都是大树，寺在树林子里，远处只能隐隐约约看到一点金碧辉煌的屋顶，不知道有多大。树上到处挂着“谨防恶犬”的牌子。这寺里的狗出名的厉害。平常不大有人进去。放戒期间，任人游看，恶狗都锁起来了。

好大一座庙！庙门的门坎比小英子的肐膝都高。迎门矗着两块大牌，一边一块，一块写着斗大两个大字：“放戒”，一块是：“禁止喧哗”。这庙里果然是气象庄严，到了这里谁也不敢大声咳嗽。明海自去报名办事，小英子就到处看看。好家伙，这哼哈二将、四大天王，有三丈多高，都是簇新的，才装修了不久。天井有二亩地大，铺着青石，种着苍松翠柏。“大雄宝殿”，这才真是个“大殿”！一进去，凉嗖嗖的。到处都是金光耀眼。释迦牟尼佛坐在一个莲花座上，单是莲座，就比小英子还高。抬起头来也看不全他的脸，只看到一
个微微闭着的嘴唇和胖敦敦的下巴。两边的两根大红蜡烛，一搂多粗。佛像前的大供桌上供着鲜花、绒花、绢花，还有珊瑚树，玉如意、整根的大象牙。香炉里烧着檀香。小英子出了庙，闻着自己的衣服都是香的。挂了好些幡。这些幡不知是什么缎子的，那么厚重，绣的花真细。这么大一口磬，里头能装五担水！这么大一个木鱼，有一头牛大，漆得通红的。她又去转了转罗汉堂，爬到千佛楼上看了看。真有一千个小佛！她还跟着一些人去看了看藏经楼。藏经楼没有什么看头，都是经书！妈吔！逛了这么一圈，腿都酸了。小英子想起还要给家里打油，替姐姐配丝线，给娘买鞋面布，给自己买两个坠围裙飘带的银蝴蝶，给爹买旱烟，就出庙了。

等把事情办齐，晌午了。她又到庙里看了看，和尚正在吃粥。好大一个“膳堂”，坐得下八百个和尚。吃粥也有这样多讲究：正面法座上摆着两个锡胆瓶，里面插着红绒花，后面盘膝坐着一个穿了大红满金绣袈裟的和尚，手里拿了戒尺。这戒尺是要打人的。哪个和尚吃粥吃出了声音，他下来就是一戒尺。不过他并不真的打人，只是做个样子。真稀奇，那么多的和尚吃粥，竟然不出一点声音！他看见明子也坐在里面，想跟他打个招呼又不好打。想了想，管他禁止不禁止喧哗，就大声喊了一句：“我走啦！”她看见明子目不斜视地微微点了点头，就不管很多人都朝自己看，大摇大摆地走了。

第四天一大清早小英子就去看明子。她知道明子受戒是第三天半夜，——烧戒疤是不许人看的。她知道要请老剃头师傅剃头，要剃得横摸顺摸都摸不出头发茬子，要不然一烧，就会“走”了戒，烧成了一片。她知道是用枣泥子先点在头皮上，然后用香头子点着。她知道烧了戒疤就喝一碗蘑菇汤，让它“发”，还不能躺下，要不停地走动，叫做“散戒”。这些都是明子告诉她的。明子是听舅舅说的。

她一看，和尚真在那里“散戒”，在城墙根底下的荒地里。

一个一个，穿了新海青，光光的头皮上都有十二个黑点子。——这黑疤掉了，才会露出白白的、圆圆的“戒疤”。和尚都笑嘻嘻的，好像很高兴。她一眼就看见了明子。隔着一条护城河，就喊他：

“明子！”

“小英子！”

“你受了戒啦？”

“受了。”

“疼吗？”

“疼。”

“现在还疼吗？”

“现在疼过去了。”

“你哪天回去？”

“后天。”

“上午？下午？”

“下午。”

“我来接你！”

“好！”

……

小英子把明海接上船。

小英子这天穿了一件细白夏布上衣，下边是黑洋纱的裤子，赤脚穿了一双龙须草的细草鞋，头上一边插着一朵栀子花，一边插着一朵石榴花。她看见明子穿了新海青，里面露出短褂子的白领子，就说：“把你那外面的一件脱了，你不热呀！”

他们一人一把桨。小英子在中舱，明子扳艄，在船尾。

她一路问了明子很多话，好像一年没有看见了。

她问，烧戒疤的时候，有人哭吗？喊吗？

明子说，没有人哭，只是不住地念拂。有个山东和尚骂人：“俺日你奶奶！俺不烧了！”

她问善因寺的方丈石桥是相貌和声音都很出众吗？“是的。”

“说他的方丈比小姐的绣房还讲究？”

“讲究。什么东西都是绣花的。”

“他屋里很香？”

“很香。他烧的是伽楠香，贵得很。”

“听说他会做诗，会画画，会写字？”

“会。庙里走廊两头的砖额上，都刻着他写的大字。”“他是有个小老婆吗？”

“有一个。”

“才十九岁？”

“听说。”

“好看吗？”

“都说好看。”

“你没看见？”

“我怎么会看见？我关在庙里。”

明子告诉她，善因寺一个老和尚告诉他，寺里有意选他当沙弥尾，不过还没有定，要等主事的和尚商议。

“什么叫‘沙弥尾’？”

“放一堂戒，要选出一个沙弥头，一个沙弥尾。沙弥头要老成，要会念很多经。沙弥尾要年轻，聪明，相貌好。”“当了沙弥尾跟别的和尚有什么不同？”

“沙弥头，沙弥尾，将来都能当方丈。现在的方丈退居了，就当。石桥原来就是沙弥尾。”

“你当沙弥尾吗？”

“还不一定哪。”

“你当方丈，管善因寺？管这么大一个庙？！”

“还早呐！”

划了一气，小英子说：“你不要当方丈！”

“好，不当。”

“你也不要当沙弥尾！”

“好，不当。”

又划了一气，看见那一片芦花荡子了。

小英子忽然把桨放下，走到船尾，趴在明子的耳朵旁边，小声地说：

“我给你当老婆，你要不要？”

明子眼睛鼓得大大的。

“你说话呀！”

明子说：“嗯。”

“什么叫‘嗯’呀！要不要，要不要？”

明子大声地说：“要！”

“你喊什么！”

明子小小声说：“要——！”

“快点划！”

英子跳到中舱，两只桨飞快地划起来，划进了芦花荡。芦花才吐新穗。紫灰色的芦穗，发着银光，软软的，滑溜溜的，像一串丝线。有的地方结了蒲棒，通红的，像一枝一枝小蜡烛。青浮萍，紫浮萍。长脚蚊子，水蜘蛛。野菱角开着四瓣的小白花。惊起一只青桩（一种水鸟），擦着芦穗，扑鲁鲁鲁飞远了。

……

一九八○年八月十二日，写四十三年前的一个梦

l'hiver + films

2006-02-20T12:12:00.000-05:00

So another week came and gone, we had snow, the lowest temperature dropped to -10fahrenheit or -23C. Pretty damn cold ehy? mais oui I like the power of winter, calms you don, gives your inspiration. It's not as flamboyant as summer and not as superficial as spring. It has fire and passion deep inside.

Ok, no more bs about l'inverno. winter in bing is pretty boring where you have to stay at home most of the time. I went to watch altogether 4 movies to kill time during the weekend. First one, Tropical Malady, a thai movie. It was the creepiest movie I've ever watch. It is beautiful in some sense. the first half described a love between two young guys, and it happend so natural and it made me question if homosexuality is widly acceptable in thailand or is it just came from the director's mind as a utopian fantasy. The second half is the tiger hunting in the forest, creepy eerie and horrifying. Ok the second movie is aeon flux. bad story but gorgeous actress:). third one the grudge, american version of the japanese horror movie "ju-on", yes it is very scary when you turn off the light and turn up the surrounding stereo system. The forth movie is the worst in the world. it is the worst in the world. it is the worst movie in the world. it is the combination of worst thriller, worst porn(rated), and worst disconnected and unreasonable sotry. In addition to the worst movie itself along, it is dubbed in english....by some company in india! so every korean ppl in the movie speaks with an indian accent english. whewwww...name of whitch is herapurple devil goddess. if someone as you what is the worst movie in the world you can say o, without watching it.

but anyway, a new week begins today, I'm expecting the ratification of my club and so on, good luck tout le monde.

圣瓦伦汀节随笔

2006-02-14T00:37:00.000-05:00

this is an old festival that derived from long ago. a st.valentine's day is too much of an appearance, let's rather talk about love here, since this day is just an excuse for doing something to celebrate love. Love here I mean lover's love, which I had never ever possessed. I fell in love terribly hopelessly last year, and I don't think it's inappropriate to talk about it now. Used to avoid it, now I need to face it. The love, which was marked my first atempt in my life, has failed at the beginning. I feel sad about it once in a while and it is becaue of this I realized the power of love and how unpredictable it could be. It reavealed every flaw of me in front of my eyes, some of which I used to deny all the time. Aye...

One thing after is that I discovered my lack of confidence. I am an idealist, I promote the dream I dreamed yet sometimes it is taken in action more on the "against the current world" position rather than "live in the new lifestyle" position. the previous sentence sounds awkward but let me explain. As being an asian guy I always critisize the american stereotype of weak, shy, etc. And I didn't believe it. But why is it so infectious that it sometimes took my confidence away. Before today, I never thought of I can get to know some girl without racial barrier and never thoguht if there's anygirl who would fall for me. Now, I stand on my own self. I am who I am, I am a human being.

Too much of tangent away from the love topic, let's go back to love. I thought I would write this entry in chinese but voila there's this english version. about this particular girl, hmm, I feel sad for not be able to share a love with her but now, I would like to wish her to have love filled with her life. can't forget her, for my life.

Men live through the hardship and become stronger. 在这日子里找回自信，我向圣瓦伦汀老头也致敬咯。谁知道他知不知道自己的名字会被用来命名情人节？

memories

2006-02-13T02:22:00.000-05:00

I found this mini disk brought from beijing when I was collecting my old stuff. I saw pictures of my grandpa's funeral in it. pshh, what to say? well, it is very touching when watching it, things like my grandpa's suffering and the death and the muslim ceremony with imam and everyone wearing a little white cap. I never had so much of a connection with him actually, I used to live with my grandma all the time and they were divorced as early as during the cultural revolution. We lived in the same apartment building, but I never realize that grandpa and grandma are supposed to be a couple when I was young. He had an interesting history my grandma talked very little about, and we seemed to share many characteristics together. For example: ver easy to get irritated and stubborness. I remember some vignettes when my dad and I went to his home to play majiang ( the chinese gambling game). I was sitting on my dad's lap, grabbing the majiang cube forhim, then he won and my grandpa got angry for some reason whichI could not recall, and he flipped the desk over in front of everybody. hehe, I'm like the same temper. Grandpa was caring and very healthy. I remembered he ate a who fried chicken along with some shots of liquor by himself alone. I remember when I arm-wrestled with him I never won, even at the time Iwas like 14 and he was 70 ish. well, that's my grandpa. He was a photographer. A good photographer.

Then on the minidisc it comes to the pictures taken when I came back home last sommer, in beijing airport. I saw me my mom, two twin cousins, my friend, and my uncle, heis the one who made this disc and took all the pictures in it. Then I saw another of my relative's comming back, they lives in greensboro, NC. They are all nice. I visited their house once. hmm, two years ago, maybe?

Quotation of the day--Naked Ape--Desmond Morris

2006-02-13T01:07:00.000-05:00

THERE are one hundred and ninety-three living species of monkeys and apes. One hundred and ninety-two of them are covered with hair. The exception is a naked ape self-named Homo sapiens. This unusual and highly successful species spends a great deal of time examining his higher motives and an equal amount of time studiously ignoring his fundamental ones. He is proud that he has the biggest brain of all the primates, but attempts to conceal the fact that he also has the biggest penis, preferring to accord this honour falsely to the mighty gorilla. He is an intensely vocal, acutely exploratory, over-crowded ape, and it is high time we examined his basic behaviour.

Otto the cat says:

2006-02-12T01:57:00.000-05:00

"Walter Benjamin wrote: the only way of knowing a person is to love them without hope. I don't know what he means, but the sentiment fills me with a lovely combination of romantic abandon and dread. "

for more detail please visit the related entry at gothamist

un memoir de beijing

2006-02-11T23:55:00.000-05:00

Pick up a Title

2006-02-11T23:18:00.000-05:00

Alright. it seems like a week has past since last entry. I was kinda lazy to put up words onto this blog. There hasn't been some significant inspiration that came through my life during the past week. New updates: my college club has finally get started today althoghu we got only 4 people (others have many excuses, overslept, mom came over, so on...), but I'm glad that it is finally started.

Speaking about inspiration yesterday's Torino Olympic opening ceremony is definitely an inspiration. For once again I experienced the world as a whole celebrates something. Yoko Ono was there reading a poem about peace. As I remember, in john lennon's imagine, there are three stazas, the last one, which is what I believe in, is :"imagine all the people, sharing all the world", it requires much more than merely peace. I watched the nbc show of the opening. The reporters were just awful, ridiculously said something like"mongolian should be feel honored becasue george dubya became the first american president who visited mogolia, for 4 hours." I would feel offended if I were one of those poor mongolians. No tv in my dorm, so I went to watch the show in my friend's dorm. He got a girl there cuddling with him while I watch it along. Those two seemed to be bored by the opening ceremony and making fun of every country (i.e. Turkey! haha, yo! turkey's flag is rolled up). hehe let them be. I do care about what I care.

no one actually comment on my blog? well, you better do.

saturday's activities

2006-02-05T03:30:00.000-05:00

woke up at 12:30 to catch the 1pm tree climbing trip. I was exhausted at the beginning with no food in my stomach, and worn out when we climb up to the half of the mountain where the three chestnut oak trees we are going to climb are. Well bad grammar but I didn't lost you ey? Due to the typical weather of binghamton (sky color is either gray or dark gray), we expected the rain. I volunteered for the prusik knot style climbing---more pirmitive, since other guys are using modern deviced and all I got were 2 short think ropes on which dangling my life. It was altight at the beginning. While it got to the midway the rain became heavy and my prusik rope got wet and they were extremely tough to move upward, and my harness kept loosing. When I realized that I wasn't making progress I had to call the emergency help to get me down. they dropped another rope from the canopy and hooked me onto it with a decender. Well as you see I am still alive so it's all worked fine. The only lost in this trip was that I shivered all my body heat off in the cold rain.

In the evening I went to a pretty original chinese party for all graduate student and profesors who came from china. Free food. Notihng more I can agree on. I found chinese people are shy, is it their problem or I have since changed? the chinese-after-party! hehe, nothing much but badminton which is one of my most favorite sport.

Then latenite binghamton. There was a good band playing--(I'm copying down their name from the cd I bought afterward) jen kearney and the lost onion. the lady plays th vocal is very ...powerful in sound. Their rhythm is catchy and exciting too. I'll keep an eye on them see if there's be famous one day.

ok that's it. ciao. I'll get some sleep and unwind my thoguhts. go closer to myself.

Recent Updates

2006-02-02T23:51:00.000-05:00

A month has passed in the year of 2006. I went back to school at Jan 23 and since started my 2nd sememster college life. Nothing much has been changed on campus. Well, we got a new coffee machine in the cafeteria if that is in the counter. And by the way I changed my room, just across the hall. I got a new roommate who is quieter and who doesn't play worlds of warcraft 16 hours straight. It's pretty delightful to have a change.

Chinese new year was just plain, since i don't know any people here who can celebrate it with me. I recalled the fun I had in china: firecrackers, firecrackers and firecrackers. And even in gotham last year I had some friends in my house to make dumpling with me, althoguh non of them were chinese but we had fun. The segregated little town of binghamton is just way too shy to move any step further in cultural melting.

Hope things will work out well.

Answer 3

2006-01-25T01:16:00.000-05:00

Q1. what point do you like about the opposite sex?
ex) wear a suit of clothes →　It's so cool !
A1: elegancy, aesthetics. I like girls who have something special, very well cultured, with dreams, a little bit of disobedience, and elegant. She should understand my personality meanwhile I understand hers. And of course for all males--she has to be beautiful, charming.

Q2. what point do you look the oppoist sex at the first time?
ex) eyes , clothes
A2: eyes, behavior. I don't know, perhaps just a feeling.

Q3. what are you proud of yourself recently?
A3: It's 2006! Yawee! I'm getting myself back on track.

Q4. what do you like about the parts of body (the opossit sex)?
please anser 5 parts.
A4:
1. the hair flow between collar and the back of the neck
2: eyes
3: face profile
4: hands
5: legs

Q5. what fashion do you like about the opposit sex?
ex) shirt
A5: Artsy.

Q6. please write your 5 friends to answer these questions
hehe, I don't think I can do this. I'm just here to finish Ying's request from september. It's like a must-do. satisfied?

Answering game, part II

2006-01-14T04:44:00.000-05:00

Thanks for ucchii's translation, they are

Q1. what point do you like about the opposite sex?
ex) wear a suit of clothes →　It's so cool !

Q2. what point do you look the oppoist sex at the first time?
ex) eyes , clothes

Q3. what are you proud of yourself recently?

Q4. what do you like about the parts of body (the opossit sex)?
please anser 5 parts.

Q5. what fashion do you like about the opposit sex?
ex) shirt

Q6. please write your 5 friends to answer these questions

well, it sounds funny, I don't think I can get 5 friends to answer these questions but I'll try to answer those myself with a appropriate honesty.

Answering game, late response

2006-01-13T17:52:00.000-05:00

9/14/2005

ふぇちばとん

ふぇ、ふぇちばとん？！

がyueちゃんから回ってきた

はいっ！さっそく本題に入ります！

Q1.あなたは何フェチ？

う～ん、今まで考えた事なかったけど、

私って「学ランふぇち」なのかもっ！

って言っても昔、女学生だった頃（高校まで）学ランが、だーい好きだった！

学ラン着てる彼氏とデートするのが夢だったのだが、実現した事がないです、はいっ！

今でも何気にその夢諦めてはいないけど、誰とデートするんだ？！

誰か優しい男性の方、私と制服デートしましょっ！にやりっ♪

って変態っぽいよねぇ～

Q2.異性を見るとき、まず何処を見る？

迷うことなく「目」＆「雰囲気」！

＆運転が上手かどうかｗ

Q3.最近プッシュできる部位

えー！

何もないよー！！！

強いて言うなら、ニオイ？！

最近ちょっと香水というものをつけてみたりしてるので

（全て頂き物です。私に香水をくれた方、今までほとんど使ってなくてごめんなさい）

Q4.異性の好きな部位５つ

・胸板

・目

・唇

・髪の毛

・腕

。。。。。。

かなり変態っぽいね、、、

Q5.フェチを感じる衣装

「スーツ」＆「学ラン」

二大勢力！

ワイシャツ着て、運転してて、さりげなく後ろ振り向きながら運転してるのが好きっ！

一番好きな男のしぐさっ

Q6.バトンを渡す５人

さゆり　　　　　　かわゆいさゆりのふぇちぶりを知りたいからっ♪（←変態っぽい）

うちぼん　　　　　豊かな表現力を期待してるから♪

QP君　　　　　　何か凝ってるふぇちがありそうだから～♪（例えば、めがね？ｗ）

ねずみちゃん　　何ふぇちなのかという好奇心から♪

MYF　　　　　　ふぇちバトンをグローバル化させたいからっ♪

So my friend Ying asked me to answer some questions on my blog. It was, as you see, in september. I found this thing today again to see if I can answer them. Well yea the first step is to understand them. It is japanese; and the only japanese I know is sushi and natto. Then I looked it up on babelfish but still, it didnt give me the right translation. so I'm here waiting for Ying or anyonewho understand japense to tell what are the answers I'm supposed to answer.

3 medical brothers and Push the Rock

2006-01-11T04:17:00.000-05:00

I happend to recall one story which I heard long time ago, it said Once upon a time there were three brothers, all of them were doctors. The big brother had the greatest medical curing ability, he could found out someone would potentially get the illness before they get; then he would either talk to the potential patient or do some other normal things with the patient to prevent him/her from getting the illness. The second brother was not as good as the big brother, he could only diagnose the ailment when the patient begin to show some of the earliest symptoms ; then he cure them. The youngest brother have the least medical ability among the three, he could only cure patients when the ailment developed into very very severe condition. What was interesting about this witty story was, It turns out, the youngest brother was highly praised as a wonderful doctor, who could save patients from the brink of death; the second brother could barely maintain his clinic; while the big brother, who had the greatest medical ability, lived in poverty.

Most of us look for the very direct causation to certain things. Most of the things are not happend in one shot. The law enforcement always accuse the last responser for the entire responsibility. A metaphor would be as if you are standing right under a cliff and upon the cliff there is a huge rock, and everybody push a little bit of the rock; then, oops, I pushs the last push and it falls and kills you. It wasn't only my fault! the big brother would tell the first one who pushs the rock to stop, or rather just tell you down the cliff to leave that place; the second brother would found the rock might fall and kill you when he saw the rock was moving out of the cliff, then he stops it; the youngest brother saw me, and use all the law enforcement he could ever use, either leating me or throwing me tear gas, to stop me from pushing the last push. then end of the story. What do you think?

Delicated Dinner

2006-01-09T20:42:00.000-05:00

Today's dinner:

Table for one, cooked myself.

Appetizer: tasting while cooking

Main Course: Three fried eggs, cooked with deligency, served on a large clean-washed china dish(clean-washed is considered to be the highest standard in my serving).

Side dish: a breath of air.

Soup: self-named pokarekare ana, name of which is originated from a new zealand maoli song. Ingredients: Celery, Dihydrogen oxidide, green onion, Sodium chloride, and basil leaves. Cooked with mild fire and a good temper for 10 minutes. Served on a lgass bowl. The gentle movement of celery in the soup can be seen.

Beverage: Top quality Green Tea from the Orient, Nestea(R) from 7-11. Served in Clean-washed cups.

Disert: Yogour from Kosher Kitchen, down at Jewel's Avenue.

Table For One sets itself in the city of new york, with mild lightning and good tempered music, and cooked and ate with an appreciation for the life.

2006

2006-01-06T05:54:00.000-05:00

'06 is gonna be a great year, I'm telling you

Bunnies

2006-01-06T02:41:00.000-05:00

The God of bunnies, if there is one, must has a short furry tail. For some bunnies God is white, some God is gray.

2006

2006-01-03T02:49:00.000-05:00

New York City is an exicting place. Many things has kept me busy lately and I couldn't find a minute to jot a line down on my blog. Well, the crappy 2005 is over! After that symbolic night, I'm sure 2006 is a great year for me.

Your Dignity Sir

2005-12-23T01:38:00.000-05:00

Dignity, and a proper way of life which shows who you are, is what we have forgotten in the pop world of 21st centuary. And here I'm not really asking everyone to be gentlmen and ladies. But I would suggest here that we shall look for them inside of us.
My grandma once told me she thought of training me to a little gentleman when I was young; I never fell in this category. Partly it was because of chinese culture in which I grew up; it doesn't have an image of a gentlemen as western stories tell, but certainly gentleness is defined in another form. We all have read those stories, in which a gentleman, such as zoro or Robin Hood or one of the maskteers, fought for his dignity and took his responsibility. And of course, nevertheless we've seen those posh gentlemanish figures who proceed a fake gentleness, a fake sophisticated hypocrite. Many of us therefore think of a gentlman some cream-faced guy who cares too much about details of daily life. In my opinion a real gentleman carries a spirit of seriously pursuing his dream, carring a great responsibilitiy of what he is doing, and loving the world that he is living in. That would lead to a proper manner, which can't be faked.
Recently I've found, actually so recent that after readingh a novel and watching a zoro movie tonight, that myself went away from my gentleman standard during the past half year. Maybe I was too acquainted by the TV shows and this Americanish laid-back attitude (i.e. yo duude wssup? nah, chillin). I begin to think of what I've lost in my life that could result in a change of my view of the world. And thought about this dignity notion.
There are many hardships in ones life especially ones who have dreams. Dreams, or your ideal, would be your destiny, and your curse, in the pursue of which. I'm sure that there will be loads of obstacles that lay in front of me on my road of pursuing my dreams. In these two and half years in America I was used to them and somehow stupefied by them. They irritated me, even as little as losing a point or two could irritate me. Should tell myself that take the resposibility and no complians, if I've chosen the road I'm going through.
Your dignity sir, Pick it up!

Passion

2005-12-22T03:48:00.000-05:00

I've been searching for my passion. Not that I;ve lost it or never had it. I have it, but it's just hiding too deep inside of me which made me could not make a use of it in my actions. The environment, daily routines do stupefy our feelings. Today I just woke up in the middle of the night thinking what have I done in binghamton. there was none that I feel satisfied. But this time in the middle of the night is the time I can be with my truely self: stripped down all my masks which I wear to deal with the daily routines, some of which are rotten.

Getting to know and reevaluate youself is not easy. I do trasure this moment. I thought of China, and the reason I came to america, and what my ideals are, and how to pursue my ideals step by step.. Meanwhile I was talk with several close friends who supported me all the way through. After those rejections of college entrance and a sort-of-fantasy love at the end of last semster I lost all my confidence which I buildt up from scratch these two years in america, and lost the direction of life. Now I realized accpeting what happend inthe past and have a smile to it, thinking those are the experiences one has to go through to become stronger is the right attitude and it will work. Good luck to myself. I need to show more of my true self in daily life now.