here's something clever from How Should We Then Live?. the book traces the flow of western thought since the romans to see how we arrived at our present day (well, 1975 present-day) ways of thinking. one of the themes is the course that humanistic thinking has taken, from the renaissance (man's ability to use his reasoning to discover ultimate meaning), through the enlightenment (breakdown of absolutes, society's ability to be perfected), to modern science and modernism (the universe as a closed system, relativism, absurdity, what is is right). the author quotes his son, who describes it like this:

Humanism has changed the Twenty-third Psalm:

They began - I am my shepherd
Then - Sheep are my shepherd
Then - Everything is my shepherd
Finally - Nothing is my shepherd.

earlier in the book he says: At the end of his life Leonardo da Vinci had foreseen that beginning humanistically with mathematics one has only particulars and will never come to universals or meaning, but will end only with mechanics. It took humanistic thought two hundred and fifty years to arrive at the place which Leonardo had foreseen, but by the eighteenth century it had arrived. Everything is the machine, including people.

***

i've been listening to a lot of pink floyd lately. i think if i'd listened to a bunch of david gilmour guitar solos instead of billy corgan guitar solos when i was learning to play, i'd be a much better guitarist than i am right now. not that billy's not awesome, he's just too much of an instinctive player; david gilmour's not nearly as fancy or all over the place, but his style is so expressive and lyrical and relatable.

...

[warning: i just re-read this entry and it's pretty dour and unpleasant. must be the weather - early last week it was sunny and i was wearing shorts and sunglasses, and then two days later it SNOWED. stupid communist weather.]

this china-taiwan-america-north korea business is setting me on edge. what was the point of passing an anti-secession law? if china attacks taiwan, do they really think other countries will be ok with it just because china made it legal? at least the european arms embargo isn't gonna be lifted for awhile. i feel helpless reading about this stuff, like how i feel when some of my friends here tell me about their unhappy marriages and how they wished they'd never gotten married and how their kids are the only bright spots in their family lives, but a million times more so.

with my friends, i can't force them to love their spouses and i can't tell them to leave them either. nothing can be done, except to pray for them and to pray that my faith can be increased so that i can actually believe that something can change in their hearts, when their brightest source of hope right now is the possibility of divorce after their kids have grown up. for the past few months when i've told them that they must learn to love and that God can make things grow out of nothing, my words have sounded empty even to me. i know that God is not dependent on the strength of my faith in order to change people, but i need to learn hope and faith for my own sake, for my own peace.

my friend is getting married in may to a guy she met last december. i've hung out with them together a few times; my impression of him is probably a little below 'he seems allright'. regardless, i keep telling her that six months of knowing somebody would be too short even if he was the chinese brad pitt and to look at all the unhappy relationships around that resulted from a too-brief courtship, but she's feeling a lot of pressure from both her parents and the guy's parents. all i can do is hope they overcome the odds.

this year, the school's been trying to upgrade themselves from a county level school to a provincial level school (which comes with more government funds), so they've been putting up new buildings and stuff, to put on a good show for the inspectors from changsha who're coming soon. a friend of mine was asked to head up a local chapter of the communist youth league and she told me it was a big fake; apparently students are supposed to take a lot of special classes and go through special education in order to be able to join the league, but the school leaders told her to just swear in all the students first and then tell them what they'll need to know in order to impress the inspectors.

for the other stuff, a teacher told me that the school forced a 'mandatory donation' of at least 5000 RMB from each teacher in order to fund the new buildings, with promises to return the money in three years at 'a better interest rate than the bank'. if a teacher felt that they couldn't afford to give that much money or just didn't want to, it was taken directly from their salary.

ok, that's enough.

...

i can't sleep. yesterday i woke up at 2 pm cause i went to bed at 6 am cause i woke up at 3 am cause i went to bed at 10 pm, and so on.

***

here's a little game i'm copying off a random xanga (which copied it off another random xanga):

Pick a band and then answer the following questions using only that band's song titles.

Band: smashing pumpkins

1. Are you male or female? i am one
runners up: spaceboy, country girl (james iha was part of the pumpkins too!)

2. Describe yourself: geek usa
runners up: stumbleine, we only come out at night, where boys fear to tread

3. How do people feel about you? muzzle
runner up: obscured

4. How do you feel about yourself? jellybelly
runner up: frail and bedazzled

5. Describe your girlfriend/boyfriend situation: tales of a scorched earth
runner up: um, that one says it pretty well

6. Where would you rather be? my blue heaven
runners up: luna, galapagos, in the arms of sleep, destination unknown

7. Describe what you want to be: perfect
runners up: transformer, marquis in spades, girl named sandoz

8. Describe how you live: by starlight
runners up: spaced, once upon a time

9. Describe how you love: thru the eyes of ruby
runners up: crush, drown, with every light, here is no why

10. Share a few words of wisdom: stand inside your love
runners up: the end is the beginning is the end, blue skies bring tears

from the china daily, referring to Zhang Qizhi, a well-known ideological and cultural historian:

He advocates education in China's fine cultural tradition, as its solid foundations allow a finer, more objective appreciation of Western achievements.

a lot of times when i tell people that i'm going back to america to study china this fall, they ask me why i don't just study at a chinese university. depending on how well i know the person and their temperament, sometimes this leads to a rational and balanced discussion, and sometimes i just smile and shrug. i've been trying to learn to tone down my natural inclination towards picking fights.

there're these two american christian bands coming here to perform in two weeks, and they asked me to translate their song lyrics for them. they're singing about half-rock (mostly u2) and half-praise songs. i asked karen to help me translate, and we spent all day working on them, which i really appreciated, since translating by myself would've taken years and might not have turned out readable. anyways, when we got to the praise songs, she refused to continue. she also didn't want me to translate the lyrics by myself, afraid that i'd get in trouble with the government for spreading christian messages on school grounds.

we had a lively discussion about this for over an hour, with karen using a variety of tactics ranging from comparing me to bin laden to saying i didn't care about any of my friends because they'd all be heartbroken when i got thrown in jail. what a fireball.

anyways, the bands are coming here to take a look at the plot of land that's been chosen by the local government for this american organization to build a church on (as well as a future school, hospital, and orphanage). i don't know too many of the details, but apparently all the money is coming from the american side; all that's required of the government is their approval. i don't think they'd risk losing millions of dollars in funds over an issue of christian song lyrics.

signs that i've been in china too long:

1. i really enjoy the taste of oreos dunked in water

2. i’m no longer worried about holding my breath for so long in a public bathroom that i pass out and fall face forward into the latrine

2a. when i saw a latrine overflowing with, uh, fragrance and beauty, i merely shrugged it off and added my contribution. (seriously, these things are large holes dug in the ground. how many tens of gallons of s--- smelling foulness would it take to fill one up? i think even andy dufresne wouldn’t be able to bring himself to crawl through one of them.)

3. saying the sentence ‘please pass the meat…no, not the dog meat’ is second nature to me now

4. i don’t have enough fingers to count up how many days occur between showers…sometimes not enough toes either

5. when in public, instead of setting fire to my ears, i now merely ignore the music of kenny g

6. i’ve developed baojing vision (which makes berkeley vision seem like 20/20)

6a. at one point i found myself attracted to a girl with frizzy orange hair who was wearing striped pants and a bright pink puffy jacket with pepper-colored fake fur lining

7. i watched the highlights for almost every single candidate on the nba.com all-star voting web site, including primoz brezec and zydrunas ilgauskas (i drew the line at any of the golden state warriors)

8. when dancing, i don’t automatically feel like one of the top 3 least cool guys on the floor

9. i had to wake up at 3 am to listen to the cal-usc game online, and then only had time for a one hour nap before teaching my morning classes

9a. it wasn’t until halftime that i realized i hadn’t put on my glasses and that i’d been staring at the computer screen from three inches away for an hour and a half (ok that has nothing to do with being in china)

10. i spent part of christmas eve huddled over a pile of coal in the dark, with an iv needle stuck in my hand, and was more worried about if i’d downloaded enough Christmas music than the potentially fatal sanitary conditions of the local hospital

11. when xujun’s dad brought out a bottle of strong brandy for Chinese new year’s, i was so happy to see someone drinking a liquor other than baijiu that i gulped down a cup (and immediately passed out)

12. halfway through a lunch meeting with the headmaster, i realized that i hadn’t shaved in a week and that i was still wearing my pajamas

...

about three weeks ago, my buddy xiaoyong started worrying that he’d be single and lonely for valentine’s day, and vowed to devote the next few weeks to its prevention. of course i was glad to see he had his priorities straight. anyways, fast forward to 12:01 am on february 15th, to my living room, where i sat watching Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind with xiaoyong snoring on the couch next to me, after a full day spent in each other’s company. yeah…each prayer accepted, each wish resigned.

i walked around town with xujuan, xujun’s sister, for a bit tonight. i was feeling a bit melancholy, not cause of valentine’s day, but for a variety of reasons, and i couldn’t begin to express them in Chinese, so she told me that when she was young, she always felt a lot better after pouring all her secrets into her doll. so i ranted and rambled in English to her for a good fifteen minutes, with her not understanding a word, and it made me realize how long it’s been since i’ve had any kind of significant or meaningful spoken English interaction. i talked on and on into her deaf ears, and was able to put some subconscious feelings and thoughts that had been bothering me into words for the first time.

i think it’s a rare person who is able to prevent spiritual or mental stagnation when placed in any kind of isolation, and an even rarer person who’s able to create and flourish with only his own self to bounce off of. it must feel so refreshing to be able to be that self-sufficient.

...

tonight i was watching sense and sensibility when i chipped a tooth biting my nails. it made me realize that i haven't used a nail clipper in over 10 years, ever since i got my braces off. um...yeah. luckily it was a really small piece that broke off. sometimes it seems like my teeth and nails keep trying to detach themselves.

i liked sense and sensibility a lot, at least a lot more than when we were forced to watch it in high school, when i was a bit traumatized by seeing alan rickman play such an old and worn-down character. healthy amounts of awkwardness and tragicness (sweeter than tragedy) scattered throughout.

i've been starting to subconsciously count down the time i have left here, which is odd since i still have another 4 months or so. maybe cause january seemed to go by so fast. i'm gonna miss this country, with all its quirks. for example, a few weeks ago there was a nytimes article about a small riot (i forget where) caused by a government official picking on a local porter. my favorite part was that after the incident became publicized, the government instructed the official to tell the media that he was a fruit vendor instead of a government official. pure (comedic) genius!

porter: ...and then he threatened to pay 15,000 kuai to hire a hitman to have me and my entire family killed.
media: is he really that well-connected and well-off?
official: i, um, sold a lot of apples last year.

go eagles! stick it to the patriots, it's time that new england sports fans remembered how to suffer.

i haven't updated regularly in awhile, so i'm not sure where to start. a few quotes are as good as anything, i suppose.

karen, a local english teacher: when your sister smiles, it's like an angel, but when you smile, it's really something strange

jessie, one of my jr 3 (~15 year old) students, after i showed her some pictures on my laptop: your ex-girlfriends were all ugly because you're ugly

i'm now beginning the second month of my official Study Chinese season. so far, it's gone along remarkably similar to the last semester that i spent in berkeley after graduating. that is, i wake up late, realize that China still doesn't believe in central heating systems, and lay in bed re-hashing fond memories of the tub of chocolate that i ate for christmas last december.

i even found an equivalent for the meal of popcorn that i used to eat at least once a day in california: sunflower seeds. and not the tiny 25 cents/pound birdfeed, i'm talking about the 60 cents/pound edible gold that only foreigners and corrupt government officials can afford.

xiaoyong, a friend of mine, is coming to pick me up to bring me to xujun's house for dinner, so that's it for now. i've been making some new friends and spending a lot of time with local friends here ever since the other foreigners left a month ago, which has been nice, though i've taken to regularly talking to myself in english, i guess so i don't forget how.

i'm back in pennsylvania, got back a week ago. it's been a long time since i posted here, blogger's gotten all fancy now, gotta keep up with xanga i suppose. keyboard shortcuts for italics? fantastic!

i've been feeling kind of recalcitrant since getting back from china. i'm not sure why...i guess i forgot how convenient and orderly everything is here. it looks more like the town from edward scissorhands than i remembered. i guess it's a kind of culture shock, though i prefer to think i'm just a grumpy curmudgeon.

i went to go see the movie before sunset a few days ago and it's been on my mind ever since. i thought it was incredible, it captures imperfect humanity and how even though we get locked into our choices our desires don't change, they just appear darker, because our possibilities are always being reduced. ok it's not really that cynical. i think everyone should go see it, but rent before sunrise first.

this fancy new blogger template is throwing me off...time to go to dairy queen.

courtesy of a reminder from james dellinger:

April is the cruelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.

this little verse is as eloquent as ever, but this year it has a different feel to it, posting it from the Chinese countryside, instead of the cynical self-aware universe of berkeley. i guess spring cruelty here is of a more simple and encompassing nature as opposed to the psychological malaise and bittersweet suffering of college students whose aspirations exceed their reality. here's another eliot passage that speaks for itself:

The dove descending breaks the air
With flame of incandescent terror
Of which the tongues declare
The one discharge from sin and error.
The only hope, or else despair
Lies in the choice of pyre or pyre -
To be redeemed from fire by fire.

this semester has gone by pretty fast. i've become really fond of about a third of my students, which is a couple hundred kids. i wish i could stick around and watch them grow up, though i'm scared for what courses their lives will take. somebody told me that most students who graduate from jishou teacher's college, which i think is a pretty big accomplishment, end up getting manual labor jobs in factories and the like, because their families don't have the right connections or enough bribe money. the stagnancy of life here sometimes seems impossibly overwhelming...this country needs to be redeemed from fire by Fire.

last week i was teaching my 5th grade classes the months of the year, and when i asked what the second month was, a boy raised his hand and actually said 'febtober!' the day was his, the brigand.