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.

Xihu Omelette Recipe in English! 西湖煎蛋

(Near modern day Hangzhou)


0:14 Welcome to Everyday Eats (The title of the cooking series is called “tian tian yin shi”)

0:17 Master Chef Li Tiegang will teach you to make beautiful food

0:19 But before we started today, Master Chef Tiegang was laughing, saying that our audience should go to Zhejiang.

Yup. Xihu (The Western Lake)

Really to Xihu?

Yup.

0:29  Why?  Because today’s dish is called, “Xi Hu Omlette”

0:45 Narrator: Will the dish today be really hard to make?  No, it’s really easy!

0:59 Ingredients:

Main ingredient:  Chicken eggs

Supporting ingredients:  Chinese Chives, ground pork, and tiny shrimp

Seasonings:  Rice vinegar, soy sause, white sugar, etc.

1:11 The first step is to deal with the ground pork and the tiny shrimp.

1:18  I don’t get it.  What does the Xihu Omlette and pork have to do with each other?

1:26  This is to add some texture.  There’s also egg white and calcium.

1:30  All right, I’ll add some oil.

1:33  Don’t add oil, add water.

1:34  Huh?  Add water?

1:36  Yup

1:38  First we deal with the ground pork.  When using water to stir fry pork…

1:43  You add warm water?

1:44 Yes.

1:45  Why add water?

1:50  This way the outside is crispy, and the inside tender.  And there’s less oil.

1:58  Starting out meat has lots of fat.  Adding more oil is too much.

2:03  When there’s still some water, add the tiny shrimp.

2:08  Wait, wait!!!  I don’t understand!  You didn’t add oil and you’re adding it to the liquid?

2:17  Okay so there’s lots of calcium inside the shrimp skin, and there isn’t much flesh.  Typically you eat it and it doesn’t feel like there’s meat.  When we add it to the water, the flesh expands, so it tastes like there’s flesh.

2:29  Lots of friends don’t like to eat tiny shrimp, because it smells fishy.

2:35  Hey notice when I added the shrimp, the fishy stench escaped.

2:47  Notice the shrimp aroma is slowly coming out.

2:54  So the first shortcut to making this is to use water, not oil to cook the meat and shrimp.

3:03  Now the ground pork is crisp.

3:14-3:34  (Narrator sums up the conversation thus far.)

3:33  After cooking the pork and shrimp, we now beat the four eggs.

3:45  Add a pinch of salt to the eggs to add some flavor.  And then add some red rice vinegar.  This will help the absorption into the shrimp.

4:05 The vinegar also has a salty taste, so don’t add too much.

4:10  Now we cut the Chinese chives into two.

4:15 What, you’re cutting only once, leaving it this long?

4:18  Yup

4:28  Turn on the fire.  Add some oil, and then add some water.  Now we use this to cook the chives.

4:53  This is to keep it from leaking water, and it keeps the chive’s aroma.

5:08  If you just scald this in oil, the chives will break apart.

5:14  Oh, I smell the chives!

5:16  Now we add the shrimp and pork into the eggs.

5:24  Now the chives are cooked

5:24-6:00 (Narrator repeats)

6:05  We add less oil than we normally do when we fry an egg.  How hot should the oil be?

6:11 60% of the way there.  (Keep 1/3 of the egg aside)

6:18  (Repeating what’s inside the egg mixture)

6:36  Now we add the chives

6:50  Now we cover the chives with the rest of the egg batter to seal the aroma of the chives into the egg.  TURN DOWN THE HEAT TO LOW.  This is so that heat can cook into everything evenly.  Once you see the top solidify, bring the heat back up.

7:15  While we wait for the next two minutes for the whole thing to cook, let’s tell the audience how to fry the perfect egg.

7:26  - 9:08  (The next montage compares cooking eggs by itself, with rice wine, and adding)

9:09  When the egg is not translucent anymore, add vinegar

9:11 You can also add milk.  To tell you the truth I like to tell everyone may dad’s specialty.  When he steams eggs he adds a little milk.  It tastes delicate with the aroma of milk.  Try it at home

9:24  First stir the egg like this in the wok

9:25 Why?

9:28  So that you can tell the omelette is cooked.  And when you flip it, the color should look like this.

9:45  When you flip it over, add water.

9:56  Add it to the side

10:10 This is to keep the puffy texture.

10:31  Now we will make the Xihu vinegar sauce

10:41  Once the water is dry, look it poofs up!

10:58 Let’s set it aside

11:06  Now let’s cut and present this

11:20  (first boil water.  They didn’t mention this part)  Add some salt, less than two grams.  Add around 5 grams of sugar.  Add some soy sauce for color.

11:53  Next, bloom tapioca starch in water.  This must come before the vinegar.  Do this by eye

12:20  Next add the vingar (this is Chinese red vingar, NOT WHITE).  Around 20 grams

12:27  Now the sauce glistens  TURN OFF THE FIRE.

12:54  We’re done!

13:10  (Review)

Palate Shock

(photo by Terrapin Trails)

In-and-Out tasted bland after coming back from Cambodia.

Yes, most countries are developing faster than Cambodia.  No infrastructure.  Garbage everywhere.

Yes, there was political instability with the biggest protest in 30 years.

Yes,  I feared social anarchy, plotting my escape to the US embassy or Vietnam.

But after biting into that burger, I couldn't help but feel sorry for the United States.

The United States has one of the most sophisticated infrastructure for growing, transporting, and even scientifically analyzing what we eat.  Yet most American food lacks the capacity to provide nourishment and satisfaction after eating.

Rich and poor Americans alike are constantly hungry, thinking that nourishment comes from quantity, not quality.

Exactly a day after coming back to the US, I walked into Target with my friends.  I was shocked at how sterile the food was.  A whole aisle dedicated to food in bar-form, some only 100 calories!  Boxes are covered with photo-shopped pictures with numbers and chemicals only an organic chemist would understand.  All provide the illusion of fulfillment.

Food in Cambodia is about survival and instinct.  Although some food borrows techniques from modern agricultural science, most of it is still unchanged and organic.

When you drive half an hour away from the city, tanned faces of farmers are sweating, bending, and plucking.  All hope their crop produces something.  The green rice paddy is checkered with patches of dry dirt and weeds.  These are the failures unable to feed, a little closer to death.

The harvest then gets packed briskly and tightly onto anything that runs on gasoline, only to be hoisted across pock-marked roads.

Delivery, seller, buyer all  converge to market, a canopy-covered sweaty arena of organized chaos.  Everyone's movement figuratively and literally tries to survive the mass chaos.

A pedestrian is almost run over by a motorcycle weighed down by onions.

The seller haggles high.  The buyer low.

Mothers and daughters looking, rubbing, smelling, using their feminine instinct to satisfy their family's guts.

Everyone follows the instinct fighting for the last penny.

When the prizes are bought, the food was harvested or killed within the same 24 hours.

The buyer is usually the cook as well.  A good cook will be like a mother tending her baby as she cleans and nurtures the food with all the love and affection she can give.  Sometimes sweating for another 3 hours in the kitchen heat.  When all is said and done, the food is ready to provide nourishment.  When you eat, you feel the power of food down to your very bones.

Food in Cambodia completely satisfies the instinct for hunger.