journal6

Naipaul’s book the Enigma of Arrival has such a hypnotizing effect that I was lulled to sleep several times in the week when I wrestled with it. Therefore, I made up my mind to reread it when I suffer from insomnia sometime. It is true that his English is elegant and smooth but his content has been diluted in too many pages while there is a lack of an interesting plot. It occurs to me that Charles Dickens wrote for a lucrative purpose and that is why he devoted a lot of space in his novels to some sentimentalisms and verbosities. Charles Dickens was capable of prolixity but he didn’t overact to such an extent as to offend the readers. On the contrary, Naipaul preferred to indulge in his writing to relieve his anxiety of the identity crisis while ignoring the fact that most of the readers read for fun not to share his piled-up emotions. The only justification I can give for his indifference to his readers is that he had earned much money and fame and now it was time that he mixed much of himself with a large volume of details to torture the readers’ nerves. Anyway, I do not sympathize with him about his disillusion of the British Dream. He, self-assuming, laughed at the world and ultimately the world laughed at him.

I notice that he is an Indian subject to the British colonial education and as a result, he cherished the British ideals and shared the values predominant in the British colonial system. I just feel it strange how his mind was poisoned to such a degree that he identified with the British whites. Didn’t he realize that he was different from the British whites and just played a marginalized role in the colonial system? After reading Isaacs’ Scratches on Our Minds: American Views of China and India, I learn that one of the reasons why the Indians are despised is that the Indians, though denounced as an inferior breed, are inclined to take it

journal5

This semester the term I have heard most often is colonialism. In P.R.’ course, we talk about it. When I meet Roger, he will talk about his boredom of reading the books of post-colonialism. Even in my course exploring the Chinese identities, the professor talked about China’s competing with Great Britain and Japan in colonizing Hong Kong and Taiwan while I was sitting there dumbfounded still in the firm conviction that Hong Kong and Taiwan are inalienable parts of China and China’s sovereignty over these two areas is self-evident and universally-known truth. I have hated the term for long since I knew it, not because I hate the evils of the colonialism, but because much exposure to this term has given me a traumatic experience. Just think of a Chinese student, who has to listen to the teachers denounce the evils of western colonialism and read the anti-colonial rhetoric in the politics books all the way from the primary school to the college, and you will have to sympathize with him much: He feels hurt as his country was hurt; he feels revengeful after his indignation is incited; and he feels that the unfairness is the forever theme and what he needs to do is to elevate his country to the highest position in the world hierarchy because he is taught to believe that only the lion has the biggest share. Rather than know the cruelty of the world where many nations strive for supremacy by whatever means, I prefer to live in an illusion of mankind’s brotherhood and philanthropy. Then I begin to think about why people talk about colonialism. It is easy to understand that in china the discussion of colonialism is an important channel to vent the national anger about wrong done by the western powers before, a good chance of blaming the some of China’s trouble on the colonial perpetrators, and also a good way to boost nationalism to mobilize the Chinese people to strive for the rise of China. In the former colonial countries such UK and France, the government allows the topic of colonialism to decorate their democracy as long as the discussion will not interfere with the mainstream discourse and will not target at the overthrowing of the established system. In USA, the legitimacy of colonialism discussion has a specific significance. Not only does the American government show its merits of speech freedom, but also by the discussion it can weaken its imperialist image and glorify its image of a freedom fighter. It is known that the USA has succeeded in transforming itself from a colony to a superpower and now expands itself in the name of promoting democracy in the worldwide area. It occurs to me that the discussion of colonialism has no moral purport because it fails to provoke the sense of guilt of the brutal colonialists, who, on the contrary, figure out many justifications for their colonization and continue to bully the former colonies in new means, leaving the deprived third-world people moping and terrorism fomenting.

It dawns on me that colonialism is the phantom in the opera that haunt the people in their soul as I experienced two incidents today: In today’s class, Peilin told me that his engineering friend complained that if China had colonized the world, there would be no Taiwan strait crisis and he would not have to learn how to speak English. Shortly after the class was over, I received a call from one of my Chinese friends, who told me he was ready to return to China after aborting his study in USA. I felt surprised at his decision because he was eager to do his study here before and he has been here just for a year, far away from his PhD. “My boss is so pushy,” he said, “I can not put up with him any longer. The American ghost treats me like a slave, or rather, less than a slave. I must return to China… I hope one day China will colonize the USA and I will let the American students, who go to work for me, know what a boss is.” I can not help sighing. Colonialism, colonialism…

journal4

Reading the European representation of the indigenous people in the new world, I can not help wondering whether these early colonists gave a biased description of the local natives deliberately or unwittingly. It seems to me that people are inclined to be unconsciously egoistic in tackling the relationship with the others and their glorification or denigration of the others largely relies on their self-interest. The early colonists rushed to the new world with a strong economic motivation: to slake their craving for resources. But as outsiders they had no authority or tenable justification to appropriate the resources of the new world. The pursuit of self-interest was so predominant that in order to replace the local people as the new owners the Europeans had to figure out various justifications for their dispossession of the natives, which is regarded as banditry in their own civilized world. Thus, the reconciliation of their economic need with their conscience necessitated their biased representation of the local natives. Condemning the indigenous people as non-human or the humblest in the hierarchy of mankind, the colonists did not treat the indigenous people as their equals, claimed that it was their holy mission to take over the land and enslave and exploit the local people, and might feel comfortable when decimating and despoiling the local people. I feel how vulnerable the social morals and laws are when people are controlled and driven by the desire for materials. The Germans massacred the Jews and the Japanese exterminated the Nanjing people in china. They all justified their crimes as the ways to make a better world and create an ideal society. But as a matter of fact they both attempted to justify their pursuit of self interest. It seems that we can do nothing to stop these outrages as the economic propulsion behind their behavior is too tremendous. I feel pessimistic about the progress of human civilization because it seems to me that the great conflicts of civilizations are inevitable as the time goes by and these conflicts may bring us war, death and depravity. It is rumored that there will be a great conflict between China and the USA in the near future. What I am thinking now is not whether it will happen but when it will happen.

journal3

L’explication de texte, it seems, a useful, meticulous approach to dig out the subtle meaning and possible implication of the text. But for my part, whether it is applicable and to what extent it can facilitate our understanding the text hinge on many factors. Take the reader for example; an experienced reader has more adroitness in interpreting a text than a green hand while a reader who has a perfect proficiency of the language and the literary tradition in the text has more advantages than the one who is unfamiliar with the language he deals with. This method can even lead to futility when it comes to an intricate text which is translated into English from a quite different language, say, Chinese. I used to read an English version of the Scripture of Change (Yi Jing) translated by a British sinologist. Not only have the subtlety and elegance been lost, but also some passages have distorted the original meaning. I can see no point if an English-speaking reader, without any knowledge of Chinese, make an attempt to interpret this garbled text. The only consequence is that he or she, lost in the labyrinth of the opaque English sentences, finally gets an explication, which caters to his or her own fantasy but seems ridiculous to the Chinese scholars. Therefore, L’explication de text involves too many efforts and the development of the skill must be time-consuming. Anyway, I really admire those who can interpret a text in details and weave their interpretation into a much larger text, which provides materials for others’ interpretation. The greatest thinker, Confucius, would never expect that the explication of his texts has proliferated into such a voluminous system that the posterity pays less attention to his original texts.

Currently I am reading a book, the Chinese in America, written by a Chinese Taiwanese Iris Chang. In this book she attempted to reconstruct a heterodoxy history of the Chinese experience in USA by blending the narratives of various generations of immigrants. There are many aspects in this book, which impress me a lot. As a sober historian, Iris Chang holds it in conviction that the Chinese people, wherever they come from, are regarded as a whole by any alien culture and spurns the untenable assertion that the Taiwanese are not Chinese from the historical perspective. It is hard for a Chinese with a Taiwan origin to have this insight when many Taiwanese in USA have been immersed in narrow-minded pride of their islander identity and a deep-rooted prejudice against the mainland of China. Iris Chang also exposes to us a shocking fact that the Chinese in USA have been excluded and persecuted as the yellow peril though they contributed disproportionately much to the America’s social, political and economic development as a marginal ethnic group. At last she concluded convincingly that wherever there is a crisis in American society the Chinese always serve as the scapegoat the Anglo-Saxon Americans vent their anger on. The book stimulates my further thinking of why the Chinese in USA are hard to be assimilated into the American mainstream society. There may be 2 possible reasons: 1. The Chinese people have a 5000-year streamline evolution of civilization, which has survived and developed despite many external invasions. Imaginably so strong is the Chinese identity consciousness and the national pride of Chinese traditions and glory that the Chinese in USA continue to enhance their community sense and solidarity in an alien environment especially when the alien culture is in sharp contrast with the Chinese one. For example, The Chinese culture does emphasize the yellow skin and black eyes as an inalienable Chinese characteristic. Psychologically, it is really hard to make a Chinese American steeped in Chinese cultures to identify George Washington as the founding father of this nation since he bore no physical resemblance to a Chinese. 2. The white mainstream society stubbornly perceives the Chinese in USA as outsiders bearing the exotic cultures. Various Chinese stereotypes have been created and constantly reinforced to make Chinese appear uncanny and alien. The Chinese Americans are regarded as “the other” and dispensable in American society

最近懒惰如猪

最近太懒，没有时间写东西，老实说，我不知道还应不应该干好这份没有
前途的职业，学这个东西简直是让我脱离实际，知道多了一点都不好

帅哥

california hotel--my favorite song

On a dark desert highway
Cool wind in my hair
One smell of colitas
Rising up through the air
Up ahead in the distance
I saw a shimmering light
My head grew heavy, and my sight grew dim
I had to stop for the night
There she stood in the doorway
I heard the mission bell
And I was thinking to myself
This could be Heaven or this could be hell
Then she lit up a candle
And she showed me the way
There were voices down the corridor
I thought I heard them say

Welcome to the Hotel California
Such a lovely place
Such a lovely place (background)
Such a lovely face
Plenty of room at the Hotel California
Any time of year
Any time of year (background)
You can find it here

Her mind is definitely twisted
Shes's got the Mercedis-Benz
She's got a lot of pretty, pretty boys
That she calls friends
How they dance in the courtyard
Sweet summer sweat
Some dance to remember
Some dance to forget
So I called up the Captain
Please bring me my wine
He said
We haven't had that spirit here since 1969
And still those voices are calling from far away
Wake you up in the middle of the night
Just to hear them say

Welcome to the Hotel California
Such a lovely Place
Such a lovely Place (background)
Such a lovely face
They're livin' it up at the Hotel California
What a nice surprise
What a nice surprise (background)
Bring your alibies

Mirrors on the ceiling
They bring champagne on ice
And she said
We are all just prisoners here
Of our own device
And in the master's chambers
They gather for the feast
They stab it with there steely knives
But they just can't kill the beast
Last thing I remember
I was running for the door
I had to find the passage back to the place I was before
Relax said the nightman
We are programed to recieve
You can check out any time you like
But you can never leave

matrix

we are controlled and enslaved by the symbolic order we happen to live in
our perception and sensation are programmed by an unidentfied predominant power

I am wondering where the symbols come from. Are they created by generations of human beings or from a certain mysterious part in the cosmos?
we think in symbols? Did our oldest ancestor think in symbols?

wavering between two extremes

I always oscillate between the two extremes of passion and blase, the disparity of which enervates me and plagues my mind.

How can I contrive to be proactive and optimistic and sanguine?
Why is happiness always a meteor while pain is always a star?
to seize the time is a hedonist point of view for us to get through thevicissitudes of daily life
in a carefree mood.
With nothing to be concerned about will be the best way to get happiness.
i can not help asking the question: Is the happpiness and unhappiness an man-made categorization of how we feel? It seems that the binary opposition is unnecessary if our mind is clear of the desire . How can we extirpate desire, without which we have no propulsion to live and think?

戏剧性的事情

最近我在看关于什么是中国人的书，看得我我要问自己，什么是中国人了？好像在中国大家几乎不讨论中国人的定义。来到美国后，才关心自己的身份问题。说老实 话，我们上课讨论了半天，最后只让我更加糊涂，结论是，chinese is a signifier which is continuously shifting in relation with some other signifiers. 我倒觉得中国人这个概念是在我们潜意识中，无法用言语表达，几千年的文化积累让我们对chineseness有了一种直觉，transcendental intuition。超验的直觉。

最近在看老外写的外语日本文化的菊与刀，还有本关于香港的书
感觉美国研究中国的书好老阿

真担心我的论文最后怎么写啊