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| Where should we begin? Asia is all new and novel to me. I may have been to a few places in Europe, but I have hardly set my foot on Asian soil. Asia as an inproportationately large continent has been a facisnation to many who live their life across the Siberia, but it is only when one see the true colour of the continent, one can see how many people has been imagining Asia from an Orientalist perspective. Being a person from Hong Kong, I guess there are double side of this orientalism. The first of the sides is inherited from the colonial master, i.e. the constant fascination of the cultural differences in other Asiatic society- other's religion, the indigenous people, their culture all and so on. It is the European style-orientalism. Through the orientalist lense, one doesn't differentiate Chinese from India. Every exotic element within the Asian culture can be singled out and be reinstalled in a Asiatic variety show in Western End. The second orientialism originaeted from the Chinese gene. It can also said to be the reverse of orientialism. Instead of being fascinated by other's culture, this presumption ignore and dismiss the existance of other's culture. Somehow, as reflected in our history lesson, we get the impression that most of the Asian culture (except Indian's) originated from China. Or that there isn't any civilised nation outside the boader of China. The fact is that there has been many highly organised, ideologically sophisticated culture that has been within and around the ancient Chinese empire. It is just that not very many people in Hong Kong (and in China also) choose to talk about them. I am so amazed that I have never studied any other Asian Empire whenI was in high school. It is rather odd of the education department to think that China's history ought to being singled out from the Asian context when Hong Kong champion the title 'ASIA's world city' Naturally, I wonder how well is Hong Kong, as city - a collective of minds - know about Asia's history, culture and languages. Albeit all the shopping trips to Thailand, all the Filipino maids in our home, all the Japnese gadget we don't use and all kinds of Aisan cursine we don't have, do we know about our surrounding (and even the diversity within this 'single China')? But does all of these matters? I think it does. Evern if we assume that every action in our life should be econimic driven, I suppose one should still know how other culture thinks before they can cooporate in a harmonious way. Well, perhaps not, perhaps every country in the world want to occupy the position of 'the origin of civilisation'. In this way, perhaps, nations choose to live in their own myth rather than be awaken by mutual understanding and communication. That said, I would still want to know if people around us pay so much respect to other Asian's culture as they reverant the European's? After all, aren't there so many people out that who is a colonised double orientalist? | | |
| Finally. After 3 years of moaning & wanting, I finally visited Shanghai! Shanghai is a fascinating city- there aren't really many cities in the world that can rival the liveliness of this place. It has a bit history at its back, but it is developing fast. Streets are crowded, traffic is busy, roads is conquering the city as quickly an attacking snake uncoil and high-rises are mushrooming from nowhere at anytime- everywhere you look, there are signs of prosperity. Shanghai is full of energy. It is the atmosphere of the city I like most, but the food is great too. I had the best guide in the world, who brought me to the most fashionable as well as the most traditional dining places. Mei Lung Zhang really has the best Chinese food I've ever tasted. And it was inexpensive either. In the 'new world', Nelly & I found this German restaurant, Pauleline (or something of the like), which we have dine in the first night of our first trip together in Munch. Pauleline have proper German food, i.e. sausage and beer, and the pompous Bavarian-style noise filling the resturant - the kind of causal eating you can don't normally outside Southern German cuisine. Marveling all the newly built greats is one thing, but it's demoralizing to see the new China is demolishing the old. During this trip, I have visited several ancient Chinese sites- some of them built in the Tong/Song dynasty, others in Quing- few of them are very well preserved. From the look of it, many of these site are 'rebuilt' of the actual historical sites. From time to time, the heritage protection department/the property developer -for I can't distinguish between two- would add new 'period' feature that does not fit in to the site at all. The 'nine corner bridge' in the Shanghai Old Street area is a prime example. This bridge is a simple concrete structure without any disguise, apart from the fact that it has 'nine corners' there isn't much 'period feature' to talk about. If you're picky enough, you'll find plenty of examples in most 'historical sites'- old status with a new, gilded one, old wall painted in thick black paint, bronze slabs telling 'historical story' in biblical fashion nailed to antique bricks, and naturally shapely stones coated with sprayable-cement. It is hard to get use to all of these. Perhaps, China, with such a vast reserve of historical heritages, can do with a few less? On the plus side, it's fair to say that though these sites are less historical, they are very lively. I am certainly affected by the vitality of the open-market, when I walked through the small streets in Zou Zhong. The town does comes to life with all these renovated shop fronts and 'traditional stores'. In this respect, I enjoy Zou Zhong much better than Venice. Much more could have been said, but I'm really tire now. Anyway, I'm back to HK now. Give me a ring, I can still talk endlessly about my trip! ! | | |
| Time fleded like a flock of mob. Everything is quieter here. The sky is greyer, the cars are nosiser, the bread are soggier, yet there are much less action in this city. All energy in this place is soaked up by the concrete blocks and the hot seamless radian of the sun. I still see the German green field several times a week, but being at the other side of the telescreen, I do miss the Rhineland summer very much.
It's never too late to confess a mistake. I | | |
| Thank you for all the friends who gave me shelter in the time of need. I do appreciate that and I'll repay all the cereal & coffee debt with hospitality when you next visit me. See soon.
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Koblenz does not at all stunt me as a very exciting city, even though as my friend said, 'I can live with it'. The city iteself is not very modern, and German shops certainly close on Sunday and on the 'May festival' (which really is May Day). Along the street filled with post-war concrete buildings, there is no old town to rest your eyes. Several reconstructed churches dotted this medium size city, but apart from them the city has hardly any special feature to speak of.
However, there is a hugh fortess at the edge of the city. That is my plan for tomorrow- if the weather allows, I should cross the Rhine and walk up the hill as a day out.
There are so many castles dangling along the river Rhine from Cologne to Koblenz as well. Most of the castles are at top of the mountain, but there are few that are buried deep inside the valley. Burg Eltz, a castle to the south (I think) of Koblenz, is one of the buried kind. It was designed to control one of the branches of Rhine (the river Eltz). Around the castle, the steep sloped forest gave the natural protection for the hundred odd residents. The castle itself has a sturdy mideveal design which supported the newly added wooden top for more than a hundred years. Together with the landscape, the castle look very speical.
And I still think the landscape of rual German is rather special too- the woodland hide all sort of people within it. Even now, people in these rural villiages would chop a tree at the eve of May Festival, decorate, and then erect it at the town centre. Some enthausist even drive around to inspect other villages' tree. And as night falls, many wonderful trees in various towns would be myteriously toppled by envious spirit. In the end, not many May Festival turns out to be festive for everyone every year - if you're thinking of retiring to the country, rethink - village politics can be just as violence.
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Teacher's experience in school is certainly no less stressful than the student. In a drinking occasion, a group of to-be teachers was rumbling all sorts of complains about their work. I can now understand that students are not the natural enemy of the teacher, but orthodoxy, parents and government initiatives are. And when I saw my friend giving comments to these homework excercise, and how much effort she was paying into it, a dribble of regret disturbed my mind. But surely, some high school teachers in my school was quite vile? It's not self justification, but even now I still cannot understand some of the behaviours of the teachers. With an excess dose of self importance, the head regain its clarity of a freshly flushed bowl, while the tiny droplet of regret flow out of the body toward the far end of the world where the shit teachers stick and settle, stinking as vivdly as they have always been
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| Apr 12th 2006 | BEIJING
From The Economist print edition Character limitationsLONG gone are the days when Chinese parents often chose such names
as Hongbing (Red Soldier), Aihua (Love China) or even Kangmei (Anti
America) for their children. They are still limited by the custom of
using no more than two Chinese characters for given names. But growing
numbers now prefer to choose highly obscure ones to avoid the common
phenomenon, given a paucity of surnames, of bestowing a name already
used by countless others. The police, however, have plans to stop this.
The problem is that commonly used software for inputting Chinese
characters, including that used by police departments responsible for
issuing identity cards (which every Chinese must carry), cannot handle
very rare characters. In China, the usual way of writing a character on
a computer is to enter its pronunciation using Roman letters, then
choose from a list of possible options (most characters have many
homonyms). A rare character might not show up on the list. The tens of millions of Chinese with rare characters in their names
have long suffered the consequences, experiencing problems with
everything from buying airline tickets to opening bank accounts. A
Chinese graduate student says none of her examination certificates has
ever recorded her full name, Chen Minqian. The rare “min” character, a
poetical term for “autumn”, has been represented by zeros or asterisks.
Many computers once had problems generating the name of Zhu Rongji,
China's former prime minister, thanks to his “rong” character, which is
an unusual variant of a character meaning “smelt”. For the police all this has become a particular problem with the
introduction in 2004 of new identity cards with embedded microchips.
Rather than getting better software, a senior police official has
announced that the answer is to ban problematic characters.
Reaction has not been entirely positive. One Chinese newspaper
complained that the new regulation would “simply be for the convenience
of the police” rather than for the good of the public. A government
adviser was quoted in another as saying that the “right of citizens to
use characters freely” should be respected. The “old hundred surnames”,
as ordinary citizens are often described in Chinese, would agree. | | |
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