Quick Update

Instead of reading An Anthology of Chinese Literature, I will read, " Sources of Chinese Tradition" by De Bary, Bloom, and Alder The text focuses more on prose and argument than literary aesthetics. Plus I got it for a dollar at the clearance section of an awesome bookstore.



http://www.amazon.com/Sources-Chinese-Tradition-Vol-1/dp/0231109393

My copy was formerly owned by Bonnie Bae. Whoever you are, I have all your comments!

The Death of a Language

Within one or two generations, my native dialect of TeoChew Chinese will disappear from the face of the earth.

We'll still have DVD recordings and academic linguistics articles that will preserve the existence of the language, but I'm sure no one after the time mentioned will be taught this language from one's parents.

I only know one person on earth today who can speak this dialect before modern China's education system homogenized the whole country to Mandarin, and the Chinese diaspora from WWII forced TeoChew people to move to difference foreign cultural environments.

But even by extinction standards, something weird is going to happen.  Anyone who knows Chinese characters will know exactly what visual text it saying, and can reconstruct pronunciation with proper sources, but connotation will be lost.  It's like someone 100 years from now watching The Simpsons.

So what's the responsibility of my generation?

Do nothing.

It may sound a bit defeatist, language can't just serve the purpose of entertainment, first and foremost it has be practical. Emperor Qin Shihuang and Sugata Mitra  know that effective communication of power requires the same group to use the same terms of communication.  Let's face it, everyone who wants to profit from business at some point must know English.

Is something get lost from not knowing a language?  Sadly, subtle points of thought and wit will be erased.  But in exchange, I get to use a language that is the keystone to my ancestral language.  The corpus of knowledge gathered from the humanities is majority English.  If children 100 years from now wanted to reconstruct TeoChew, or any other dying language, they just need dictionaries, academic journals, and audio-visual material to raise language from the dead.  Researched and written academic material is the DNA of language.

But who's going to take the time and effort to learn an archaic language?  A reliable narrative of China only existed in the English language barely 50 years ago.  Yet people are now beginning to see how this narrative provides a complex view of China.

So long as a person is curious about a story, language will not die.

Random:

If you're curious about TeoChew Opera, these children are adorable.

"Educational"

"I don't want to do that, it's too educational."

The English languages uses the word "educational" as an adjective, describing something that has a quality related to education.  But how did it have a derogatory connotation?

"Learning" is more innate.  An individual arrives at a realization.  "Education" appropriates knowledge from  institution or external entity.  The former is active, while the latter is passive.

I've recently been reading this excellent blog about homeschooling by Penelope Trunk.  Here are a few brief points about her views on educating kids:

1.  Kids can more efficiently teach themselves how to learn if you give them room to be self-motivated.

2. Kids in public schools are taught to passively regurgitate information for a standardized test, not solve complex problems in society.

3.  The structure of the public school system is too rigid to allow for kids to learn for themselves.

4.  The subjects taught in public school education are mostly useless to the real world.

5.  The social environment in public schools is about competing with young immature children, while the working world requires collaboration with adults.

I had to unlearn habits that were enforced from public education.  Education was something you did at school, completely separate from our personal lives.  Public education discourages you from allowing your self-motivation to fully explore the complexity of learning.  You can only learn in a given amount of time and test from an arbitrary outline.

Maybe that's why people don't spend time reading.  It's not that we lack the ability, but somehow we think learning takes place in a finite amount of time.  After graduating, the time to educate ourselves is "gone."  All we only look forward to work, retirement, then death.

I'm still wondering after leaving college whether I truly "educated" myself.  Outside the context of grades and a career, can we still "educate" ourselves?

Sometimes I wonder why I'm still studying Chinese after leaving college.  Then I remember this quote from Mencius.

學問之道無他, 求其放心而已矣

The way to learning requires nothing else, just search for what you let go of in your heart.

                                                     ---孟子  Mencius

Clear Bright - Qingming

(Here's the full scroll.)

Qingming (清明) literally means "clear bright." For those of you unfamiliar, today is Qingming, a special holiday where many Chinese visit their ancestral graves.  The living will visit the graves of their ancestors, give the gravestone a good clean, and offer food to deceased relatives.  And for the pyro deep within us, burn paper money.  It's a day of veneration, reflection, and catharsis.

Ritual gives us a set of instructions on how to act without breaking social convention. It simultaneously exposes our insecurity about a given subject.  I remember when my grandmother was will alive, I was always incredibly careful not to break little taboos.  The words number "4", "the world," and "yes" have the same homophone to death.  It also didn't help that "death" my dialect used "death" and an emphatic marker.  So if it the weather was hot, you might say, "YUAH SEE," or "hot as death."

My friends on the other hand have hilarious views of death.  One of my friends wants his bodies to be stuffed by a taxidermist so he can be placed on a rocking chair on his porch.  We all assigned each other a death letter, and would all agreed we would somehow die by that letter.  Mine was "p."  During one of my trips to New York, a pipe exploded in the middle of the street.  I was exactly on that street the day before it exploded because I recognized the picture on the New York Times.

I don't like the mainstream views of death. The Judeo-Christians construct the concept of "heaven," some distant place where the deceased are neatly tucked away in distant paradise.  They get an eternal version of Florida while God is the real estate broker.  Death becomes something distant from the living.  Oh, and there's hell if you didn't maintain your moral credit rating.

The west celebrates death with Easter, the death of Jesus, and Halloween, who knows what that is.  Halloween is the weirdest day on the calendar.  How did culture decide that children should dress up as demons and beg for candy from random strangers?  Maybe death wants sugar.

Chinese ritual denies death.  Ritual offerings are arranged such that the dead enjoy the feast set up by living descendants.  Burning paper money is to maintain a good standard of living in purgatory.  One of my cousins mentioned that if everyone sent money to their spiritual relatives, wouldn't there be massive spiritual monetary inflation?  I should burn a federal reserve along with the spiritual money.

We fear death because it forces us to examine it's antithesis, life.  Both Halloween and Qingming proffer living good deeds in in change for a good spiritual life.  Bad people go to hell, or have no descendants to provide credit for purgatory.  Let's face it, we will all have to die at some point in time.  For those who practice Qingming and are literally keeping in touch with death, I hope this ritual helps the living find clarity.

 

Record of The Yueyang Tower 岳陽樓記

作者，　范仲淹

By　Fan　Zhongyan

Translated by Yoyo

1046 AD, Northern Song Dynasty

慶曆四年春，

In the spring of 1044

滕子京謫守巴陵郡。

Tong Zijing of Ba Ling was banished as governor.

越明年，政通人和，

Passing into the next year, governance was successful and people were peaceful.

百廢具興，乃重修岳陽樓，

100 things that were cast aside are now reintroduced, thereupon the Yueyang Tower was retrofitted.

增其舊制，刻唐賢今人詩賦於其上，

And more added to the establishment.  Carvings of the poetry of Tang worthies are at the top of this place.

屬予作文以記之。

It is entrusted with essays in order to commemorate it.

予觀夫巴陵勝狀，

Ba Ling has a fine and exquisite appearance in my opinion.

在洞庭一湖。銜遠山，吞長江，浩浩湯湯(音：商) ，橫無際涯，

At Dong Tang Lake, distant mountains swallow the Yangze, magnificent and mighty, it is vast with no boundary.

朝暉夕陰，氣象萬千。

Dawn is radiant and dusk is gloomy, atmosphere and scenery has 10000, 1000 aspects.

此則岳陽樓之大觀也，前人之述備矣。

This place is Yueyang Tower's great spectacle, people of the past narrate how they were possessed.

然則北通巫峽，南極瀟湘；

This place also connects north to Wu Xia.  To the extreme south there is the Xiao and Xiang River.

遷客騷人，多會於此。覽物之情，得無異乎？

Banished travelers and poets all meet there to perceive the scenery.  How would they feel differently?

若夫霪雨霏霏，連月不開﹔

As for the incessant rain falling fast, for continuous months they do not open,

陰風怒號，濁浪排空﹔

Dark wind wails incessantly, muddy waves soar,

日星隱曜，山嶽潛形；

The sun and stars are hidden, Shan Qiu a hidden form;

商旅不行，檣傾楫摧﹔

Business and travel cannot traverse,

薄暮冥冥，虎嘯猿啼﹔

The mast topples and the oar breaks, the tiger growls and the gibbon cries.

登斯樓也，則有去國懷鄉，

When one climbs the tower, they are away from the capital and long for home country.

憂讒畏譏，滿目蕭然，感極而悲者矣！

There is anxiety for slander and fear of mockery at court.  One's eyes are full of desolation.  One's emotions are full of sadness.

至若春和景明，波瀾不驚﹔

As for spring's peaceful and bright scenery, waves are undisturbed

上下天光，一碧萬頃﹔

up and down the sky glows,  all jade green for 10000 mu.

沙鷗翔集，錦鱗游泳﹔

Sand gulls flock together, beautiful fish swim;

岸芷汀蘭，鬱鬱青青；

Angelica by the river, rich and luxuriant;

而或長煙一空，皓月千里﹔

Pervasive mist fills the sky, bright moon thousands of li away;

浮光躍金，靜影沉璧；漁歌互答，此樂何極！

Floating golden light dances, deep beneath the water the jade disk, brother fisherman call each other, this is the fullest extent of joy!

登斯樓也，則有心曠神怡，

When one climbs the tower, the heart opens and the spirit rejoices,

寵辱皆忘，把酒臨風，其喜洋洋者矣！

The emperor's favor forgotten, grasping wine and facing the wind, there is vast joy among us!

嗟夫！予嘗求古仁人之心，

Ahh!  I always search for benevolent heart of the ancients,

或異二者之為，何哉？

How would there be a difference in people's emotions?

不以物喜，不以己悲；

They're not happy for this, or sad for this;

居廟堂之高，則憂其民﹔

The neighboring shrine's height, there is anxiety for the people;

處江湖之遠，則憂其君；

Situated rivers and lakes are distant, there is anxiety over the land;

是進亦憂，退亦憂，然則何時而樂耶？

There is anxiety at court, leaving the court, how is there time to be happy?

其必曰：「先天下之憂而憂，後天下之樂而樂」

This must be said: "Before all under heaven, I will be anxious if there is anxiety.  After all under heaven is happy, then I will be happy."

歟！噫！微斯人，吾誰與歸。

Aye, if not this person, who will I turn to?

時六年九月十五日。

The time is 6 years, 9 months, and 15 days.

(Source)

It still exists after 1800 years!!!!

I failed Eileen Cheng

Eileen Cheng will rise from her grave and slap me for not finishing the translation of "Love in a Fallen City."  Instead, I will read "Sex, Lust."  No, it's not porno!  It's another work by Eileen Cheng.

I shall instead announce a new project!  I will re-read "An Anthology of Chinese Literature" in chronological order and review one out of every ten pieces or so.  I will occasionally jump to another dynasty if I feel like it.