Words of the Day: Su Shi is a Dorky Word Nerd.

Before I start, the character “鳩,” which is some type of sea bird, has the character for "9" to the left.

The quirky anecdote:

One day Wang Anshi and Su Shi were having a chat, and Wang An Shi asks, "Odd, why does "鳩" (seabird) have the characters "九" (nine) and "鳥" (bird)?"

Su Shi replies, " The Book of Odes quotes: '鳲鳩 (Shijiu) birds on the mulberry, there are 7 children.'  If we count seven children with momma and papa bird, we get nine right?"

憑ping2

lean on, rely on

研究國字的構造和起源，不用比較法，卻憑幻想的活用。

Analyzing the country's word construction and origin did not use comparison, but relied on active imagination.

歸謬法gui1miu4fa3

**Side note: This is the first time I've seen anything pronounced MEE-YOH in Chinese

Reductio ad absurdum (Latin: "reduction to absurdity"; pl.: reductiones ad absurdum), also known as argumentum ad absurdum (Latin: argument to absurdity), is a common form of argument which seeks to demonstrate that a statement is true by showing that a false, untenable, or absurd result follows from its denial,^[1] or in turn to demonstrate that a statement is false by showing that a false, untenable, or absurd result follows from its acceptance. 

蘇軾喜歡用歸謬法。

Su Shi loved using reductio ad aburdum.

Words of the Day

When irrational people like Wang Anshi have political power, they tend to sap power from intelligent people.

拋pao1
cast aside, throw away

【三經新義】其差無比，他死後就被人拋到腦後，沒有一篇留下來。

There was nothing else comparable to "The New Righteousness of the Three Classics."  People cast it aside to the back of their minds, without a single copy remaining.

侮辱wu2ru3
to humiliate, to dishonor

他只花兩年完成【三經新義】， 尤其是對學術的一大侮辱。
He [Wang Anshi] spent only two years to write "The New Righteousness of the Three Classics," but it especially denigrated learning.

滑稽hua2ji1
funny, farcical

半吊子ban4diao4zi(light)
flakey, air head
It literally translates to "half a string of cash"


不過我要提一下，王安石的【字說】非常滑稽，和所有的半吊子的語學差不多。
But I would like to point out, Wang Anshi's "Words and Speech" is quite farcical, it has the language intelligence of any air-head.

Words of the Day

遭zao1
To encounter (used typically in negative contexts)

雷霆lei2ting2
Thunderclap, thunderbolt

妄wang4
chaotic, random

他像希特勒，遭到反對就大發雷霆；現代精神病學家可以把他例為妄想狂。

He [Wang Anshi] was like Xi Tele, when there is opposition he would strike like thunder.  Modern psychologists would classify him has a lunatic.

評註ping2zhu4
Commentator

他把自己當作經書唯一的評註家。

He [Wang Anshi] would place himself as the only official commentator or classic text.

濫lan4
gushing liquid; excessive

這樣不僅是濫用權威，也是污衊學術。

This not only was an over excessive use of power, it also contaminated the art of learning.

Thoughts:  Wang Anshi gives us an interesting insight on how extremist views can affect thought and politics.

My Chinese Teacher's Last Piece of Advice and My New Quest

I remember my worst week in college.  Within the span of a week, I had to deflate a cyst on my back, meet a long time friend who came to town, decide whether to go to Germany to do research, had roommate issues, head out of town to visit my mom, and write a five page paper on the Chinese scientific community... in Chinese.

After finishing my essay and burning out my last brain cell, I then had to prepare a presentation to the class about my essay.  I can write Chinese fairly comfortably, I can pronounce the words like a literate person, but if I had to answer questions at the caliber of what was expected of my class, I get scared shitless.

I have no idea how I pulled through my Chinese language class.  The teacher asked  questions like: 

 

"Do you agree with Mencius that human goodness is innate?"

"To what extent do you feel cultural stereotypes are valid?"

"What's your view on the death penalty?"

I would sit in my class sweating, clenching my bowels, hoping my name doesn't get called. I was sitting there like a mute person.  I could hear and understand what everyone was saying, but I was so intimidated by my classmates that I would simply freeze.

I managed to survive, and on the final day of class after everyone gave their presentations, my teacher gave us one last piece before our language class forever:

"Right now you are at the peak of your Chinese language skills, after this day and henceforth, most of you will gradually lose this ability unless you move to Asia.  I have only one piece of advice:  Read.  Read as much as you can as frequently as you can."

I've been reading on and off on my own, but it's hard to to stay focused when I'm reading alone.  I also know that some of you out there are trying to learn Chinese, so I hope I won't be lazy and share my experience with you guys.  Right now I would say I read at a middle school level in a Chinese school system, so around 2000-2500 characters are under my belt.  I would need a couple thousand more to read at an academic level.  

I'm going to start a little project.  This may fizzle out in a day, or could hold the key to my success. I'm going to learn 5 characters a day, everyday for the next two years.  If I can maintain this pace, I could learn another 3500 characters.

The first five characters will be up tomorrow.  I hope this works.

Qingming and The Point of My Blog

The West views death as an act of completion, like a book that's been read and stored into the dusty archives of time.

I personally hate Halloween because is caricatures death as subhuman ghouls and spirits that are ravenous for human flesh or high fructose corn syrup.  It assumes that death is in need of something, what we call "undead."  The act of death becomes incomplete, an act of avoidance of what death is.  Dead.  Immobile. Non action.

The rituals behind Qingming tells us something different.  Families would gather food, offerings, and tomb cleaning equipment to a beloved's grave site.  After the gravestone is clean and the offerings in order, every living family member burns incense and kneels in front of the grave to recite a prayer.  Once the incense is placed in the incense pot, the surroundings and your living relatives remind the individual of one's place at the present moment.

(source ;  Northern Song Dynasty)

I remember one of the more recent times I lit incense was when I visited my great grandfather's grave.  When visiting my father's old village in Cambodia, my family bought a few apples from market and slowly drove through a dirt road.  Except for the occasional satellite dish and cell phone tower, only small houses on stilts and lush rice paddies surrounded us.

The grave site sat on another farmer's field.  We slowly meandered from his house and strolled down a narrow, winding footpath around various small pools.  We entered a small eucalyptus grove.  At the center was a tall Cambodia stupa, with winged apsaras lifting the spirit into the sky.  A midst the tropical oasis, the small sanctuary was a cool refuge from the world.  With death staring straight at me, I felt mindful of the past, present, and future.  My worries felt insignificant to the infinity of time.

In many ways my blog site has been about death.  My blog is about art, the antithesis of death.  I don't see living as the opposite to death because people can function physiologically without being conscious of the world they live in.  Art preserves the expression of another human being, so communication of another person lives so long as the artwork remains intact.  Or as Stephen Fry puts it, "history whinnies and quivers and vibrates in all of us."  My blog is about how Chinese literature expresses art and how it still reverberates through the modern consciousness.