几个老外对中国的看法(ZZ)

DriverEntryUID: 143979

http://www.advogato.org/article/1035.html

Happy Valentine's DayPosted 14 Feb 2010 at 11:52 UTC (updated 14 Feb 2010 at 14:01 UTC) by badvogato My thoughts put burden on my mind. From reporting of the prosecutionof Rutger's Chinese Ph.D for 'trespassing' at Newark airport thatproduced a HUGE security breach scare, to my disliking of James Lewisargument that Internet can not remain entirely as a self-organizing entity'
What would you die for? Love, Honor and your country?And where do you start? rejecting/saving hjclub as part of your effort insecuring your love for advogato?
I like the argument that terrorists are not warriors nor are they loversbut they are oppressed being fighting their own demons. When they losttheir battle, they lost their mind and their claim to be part of ourhumanity. Their battle is our 'Bible' to learn how to love and how to live.
The poet and the monkey

We are so much alike.
Two poisonous snakes
betraying each others’ treasure

No-one can transcend the prison of lies
No-one knows who is a corpse
When the sun explodes
Sleeves are empty
Everywhere is a foreign land
Death gives no refuge.
How to design/restore a civilization so that poets and monkeys will leadour ways to overcome our fears? I created this group on Linkedn called s'Nunia 神经'. It started its discussion from Mao Zedong's poem. (Ten Poems and Lyrics by Mao Tse-tung, translator Wang Hui-Ming is a veryinteresting book that included Mao's own calligraphy on each poem), thencollected my own thoughts on religion and language.  
none says “世界上本没有宗教，迷信（某一特定迷信）的人多了，（那种）迷信就成了宗教。” nunia says 神灵与宗教是两码子事。世界是由神灵主宰的，信神的人多了，世界就有主了。世界是人为的，迷信的人多了，世道就有福了。有福之人信神乎？或有，亦为千年难得！无福之人信神乎？或有，亦为万人难容。故人与神难共患与众。此为天机也！

Nunia 神经, Nunia is borrowed from a Mrs nuniabiz on LiveJournal. Wejoined badvogato.org together at the same time under crackmonkey'sreign. I liked her 'nuniabiz' 'noneof your business' proclaim. 神经 as a phrase in Chinese, literally means'nerve/ crazy' etc... first character also means gods. and secondcharacter means god's saying. Isn't that phrase revealing what ourtrouble is?

If Western civilization wanted a free China, we must NOT start frompolitics but start from intimate relationship between public educationand prejudices and religious convictions within afamily/group/community. In China, strife confrontingTaiwan/Tibet/Shanghai/Beijing/Japan has always been there through outChinese history. Communism has swept the globe at the turn of lastcentury, Chinese are no longer following its doctrine as much asJapanese or Americans.  Chinese civil examination institution was atotal and thorough democratic process. Its cultural history was so muchricher than any other modern nation's parliaments/courts and elections.Right now, the ruling elite in China are Tsinghua Univ. graduates. Theybelieve in scientific advancement and Western technology more than Fourbooks and Five Classics. Their official moral teaching still maintainmaterialistic Marxism in regards of religion and arts.   I was readingofficial English translation of Chairman Mao's speech 'On literature andart'. That literature and art MUST serve the needs of mass and thepeople. If literature and art MUST serve the needs of the people ontheir immediate woes, can it foretell the desire of another generationand many more to come? If power, money and knoweledge MUST serve theneeds of thepeople, should it be in the hands of everyone equally for all nationsand all religions?  What is the use of God and religion if people do notneed it to name their common origin, their diverse fate and theirdiverse/common destiny ?
A Cultural History of Civil Examinations , posted 14 Feb 2010 at 12:38 UTC by badvogato » (Master)

"A Cultural History of Civil Examinations in Late Emperial China' byBenjamin A. Elman, University of California Press.The book is dedicated to Sarah 蔡素娥, with love and affection.
p522.
FORMAT OF PROVINCIAL AND METROPOLITAN CIVIL EXAMINATIONS 1384-1756
Session One
1. Four Books 四书     three quotations
2. Five Classics 五经  Four quotations each

Session Two
1. Discourse 论
2. Documents 诏表[ Imperial mandates, admonitions, memorials]
3. Judicial terms 判语 [ reasons for conferring decisions ]


Session Three
1. Five policy questions. 经史时务策 5 essays

In this multidimensional analysis, Benjamin A. Elman uses more than athousand newly available examination records to explore the social,political, and cultural dimensions of the civil examination system, oneof the most important institutions in Chinese history. For seven hundredyears, all positions wthin the synastic government were filled throughthe difficult examiniations, and each year tens of thousands of men fromall levels of society attempted them.
Covering the system from its inception to its demise, Elman revises ourprevious understanding of how the system actually worked, including itspolitical and cultural machinary, its long-term historical legacy, andthe unforseen consequences when it was unceremoniously scrapped bymodernist reformers. He argues that the Ming-Ching civil examinationsfrom 1370 to 1904 represented a substantial break with Tang-Sun dynastyliterary examininations from 650 to 1250. Late imperial examinationsalso made 'Tao Learning' or neo-Confucian learning, the dynasticothodoxy in offical life and in literati culture. The intersectionsbetween elite social life, populate culture, religion, and the manticarts are examined to reveal the full scope of the examination process,which drew the participation of millions of men and affected all levelsof society in late imperial China.

"Darkness and Light", posted 15 Feb 2010 at 19:32 UTC by badvogato » (Master)

Thomas, that is a very well put sonnet. I once was surprised to find out that Thomas means 'twin'. Perchance, I came across Steven Spender's 'DARKNESS AND LIGHT today.
Darkness and Light

To break out of the chaos of my darkness
Into a lucid day, is all my will.
My words like eyes in night, stare to reach
A centre for their light: and my acts thrown
To distant places by impatient violence
Yet lock together to mould a path
Out of my darkness, into a lucid day.


Yet, equally, to avoid that lucid day
And to preserve my darkness, is all my will.
My words like eyes that flinch from light, refuses
And shut upon obscurity: my acts
Cast to their opposites by impatient violence
Break up the sequent path; they fly
On a circumference to avoid the centre.


To break out of my darkness towards the centre
Illumines my own weakness, when I fail;
The iron arc of the avoiding journey
Curves back upon my weakness at the end;
Whether the faint light spark against my face
Or in the dark my sight hide from my sight,
Centre and circumference are both my weakness.


O Strange identity of my will and weakness!
Terrible wave white with the seething word!
Terrible flight through the revolving darkness!
Dreaded light that hunts my profile!
Dreaded night covering me in fears!
My will behind my weakness silhouettes
My territories of fear, with a great sun.


I grow towards the acceptance of that sun
Which hews the day from night. The light
Runs from the dark, the dark from light
Towards a black and white total emptiness.
The world, my life, binds the dark and light
Together, reconciles and separates
In lucid day the chaos of my darkness.


From 'The Still Centre', 1935

True or False, posted 15 Feb 2010 at 22:22 UTC by badvogato » (Master)

An excerpt from 'Ten Poems and Lyrics by Mao Tse-tung, translator WangHui-Ming''Art comes from convention and not invention'

'My sympathy lies with the Chinese convention that there must bepainting in poetry and poetry in painting. In other words, I would liketo see a poem written with a painter's eyes and a painting painted witha poet's mind. In Chairman Mao's calligraphy, we can see that he is a man of firmdetermination, unpredictable mood, quick in decision and fast in action- soft yet strong, pliable yet penetrating, sophisticated yet earthy,and delicate yet robust. In short, he is indeed a "simplicated" and"complied" man. The upward tilt of the right corner of his chracterssuggests a contempt for conventions. It is reminiscent of thecalligraphy by the eccentric poet, essayist, painter, and seal artistCheng Hsien (1683-1765), who called himself fengzi ("the mad man"). Bothmen show an unyielding independence in their work, a quality treasuredby all and achieved by few in the history of art....Most Chinese poetry is written in simple characters, and one does notneed a large vocabulary to appreciate it. After all, there are onlysomewhat more than a thousand characters in the great Tao Te Ching, andmost of them are common characters. A student in elementary Chinese canread Chinese poetry without difficulty if the poetry is presented to himas a word-picture. In fact, he will enjoy it more and learn faster if hebegins his reading in poetry and writing with a brush instead oflearning Chinese as a tool to learn other things Chinese later, ascommonly practiced today in universities. The very attitude of learninga language as a tool dulls the sense of wonder and diminishes thepleasure of learning....I realize that it is less sinful to write bad poems than to translategood ones badly. If Mao's poetry comes through my translation, creditmust go to him as a good poet. IF readers find flaws, no one but I am toblame.
-- "Ten Poems and Lyrics by Mao Tse-Tung' Wang Hui-Ming, translator.
In this unusual book, Wang Hui-MIng has translated a cycle of ten poemsby Mao which concern historic incidents in the Chinese Revolution,especially the Long March into Northwestern China during the 1930s. Thework is distinguished by the inclusion of reproductions of Mao'soriginal calligraphy.
Mr. Wang, an "artist who loves poetry" contributes a woodcutillustration to this volume. He is the author of 'The Land on the Tip ofa Hair: poems in wood, the boat untied and other poems, a folio ofwoodengravings, and The Birds and the Animals, a folio of woodcuts basedon the poems of Po Chu-I. He also is the illustrator of Jumping Out ofBed by Robert Bly. Wang Hui-Ming teaches in the Dept. of Art at theUniv. of Massachusetts.

I inclined to agree with Wang Hui-Ming's view that 'Art comes fromconvention, not invention'. Then Nikolai Gogol's nose started making face at me. I was distressed. Where liesthe truth apart from false?

generUID: 119764

司机给个中文版本
英文看得恶心了。。。

DriverEntryUID: 143979

....... 用GOOGLE翻译试试 :D

generUID: 119764

....... 用GOOGLE翻译试试 :D
DriverEntry 发表于 2010-5-6 08:25

股沟翻译什么的最讨厌了。。。

cctvvvUID: 2757363

司机挖个短点的坑吧，我这三种语言在大脑里转不过来啊。。。

DriverEntryUID: 143979

简单的说，1楼的老外对中国还不错。我比较喜欢这段：

If Western civilization wanted a free China, we must NOT start from politics but start from intimate relationship between public education and prejudices and religious convictions within a family/group/community. In China, strife confronting Taiwan/Tibet/Shanghai/Beijing/Japan has always been there through out Chinese history. Communism has swept the globe at the turn of last century, Chinese are no longer following its doctrine as much as Japanese or Americans.  Chinese civil examination institution was atotal and thorough democratic process.

落落尘姻UID: 2714037

股沟翻译什么的最讨厌了。。。
gener 发表于 2010-5-6 06:26

那么 那么乳鸽翻译呢？好点吧

hischildUID: 2143480

司机给个中文版本
英文看得恶心了。。。
gener 发表于 2010-5-6 05:42

re 啊re~~

juggernautyUID: 2143098

天天论文是英文的，斯基大叔给个消遣的文章还是 英文，不让人活了 555

DriverEntryUID: 143979

。。。。。

失败。我其实也没看全。。。