05 MAR 2015 by ideonexus
Scientist on Trial for Teaching Physics
After waiting patiently for the noise to subside, one of the male Red Guards turned to the victim. “Ye Zhetai, you are an expert in mechanics. You should see how strong the great unified force you’re resisting is. To remain so stubborn will lead only to your death! Today, we will continue the agenda from the last time. There’s no need to waste words. Answer the following question without your typical deceit: Between the years of 1962 and 1965, did you not decide on your own to add relat... 1 
notes
notesDuring China's Cultural Revolution.
23 JUL 2014 by ideonexus
Chinese Books Lack an Index
Yet even if some technological fix were to be devised to solve the problem of character entry, the non-alphabetic nature of the writing system still results in other serious and long-standing “invisible” problems. For example, the inclusion of a standard index to books, manuals and reference materials is made orders of magnitude more difficult by the Chinese writing system. The result is that to this day, the vast majority of non-fiction books published in China do not have an index, or a...23 JUL 2014 by ideonexus
提笔忘字
The most astounding example I encountered back in my early days studying Chinese was during a lunch with three graduate students in the Peking University Chinese department. I had a bad cold that day, and wanted to write a note to a friend to cancel a meeting. I found that I couldn’t write the character ti 嚔 in the word for “sneeze”, da penti 打喷嚔, and so I asked my three friends for help. To my amazement, none of the three could successfully retrieve the character ti 嚔. Three ..."Forget the word Pen"
21 JUN 2014 by ideonexus
Chinese Civilization is the Beauty of the Other
But Chinese civilization has the overpowering beauty of the wholly other, and only the wholly other can inspire the deepest love and the profoundest desire to learn.Folksonomies: civilization sinology
Folksonomies: civilization sinology
1 notes
notes11 OCT 2013 by ideonexus
The Power of the Chinese Ideogram
As everyone knows, the Chinese do not have letters, as we do, but symbols for whole words. This has, of course, many inconveniences: it means that, in learning to write, there are an immense number of different signs to be learnt, not only 26 as with us; that there is no such thing as alphabetical order, so that dictionaries, files, catalogues, etc., are difficult to arrange and linotype is impossible; that foreign words, such as proper names and scientific terms, cannot be written down by so...
1 Phonetic alphabets change over time as the sounds of the language drift, by decoupling the sounds of the language from the alphabet, the Chinese have produced a written language that can survive thousands of years.
11 OCT 2013 by ideonexus
Confucianism's Lack of "Magic" Made it Endure
Confucius (B.C. 551-479) must be reckoned, as regards his social influence, with the founders of religions. His effect on institutions and on men's thoughts has been of the same kind of magnitude as that of Buddha, Christ, or Mahomet, but curiously different in its nature. Unlike Buddha and Christ, he is a completely historical character, about whose life a great deal is known, and with whom legend and myth have been less busy than with most men of his kind. What most distinguishes him from o...It was a code of morals by human beings for human beings, with no supernatural elements to make them unrealistic. As a result, it made life in China more pleasant for thousands of years.
11 OCT 2013 by ideonexus
How China and the West May Compliment One Another
The distinctive merit of our civilization, I should say, is the scientific method; the distinctive merit of the Chinese is a just conception of the ends of life. It is these two that one must hope to see gradually uniting.
Lao-Tze describes the operation of Tao as "production without possession, action without self-assertion, development without domination." I think one could derive from these words a conception of the ends of life as reflective Chinese see them, and it must be admitted that...The West has science, which is the essence of rationality, while China has the ethics, an outlook on life that cherishes knowledge and happiness over material gains.
11 OCT 2013 by ideonexus
Confucianism Produced a Civil China
I must confess that I am unable to appreciate the merits of Confucius. His writings are largely occupied with trivial points of etiquette, and his main concern is to teach people how to behave correctly on various occasions. When one compares him, however, with the traditional religious teachers of some other ages and races, one must admit that he has great merits, even if they are mainly negative. His system, as developed by his followers, is one of pure ethics, without religious dogma; it h...The Europeans think the Chinese weak because of their quiet dignity, but Bertrand Russel sees it as a strength with which they conquer.
05 SEP 2013 by ideonexus
The Great Learning (大學)
What the Great Learning teaches is: to illustrate illustrious virtue; to renovate the people; and to rest in the highest excellence.
大學之道在明明德，在親民，在止於至善
The point where to rest being known, the object of pursuit is then determined; and, that being determined, a calm unperturbedness may be attained to.
知止而后有定；定而后能靜
To that calmness there will succeed a tranquil repose. In that repose there may be careful deliberation, and that del... 1 notes
notesPresented in another way, with original and translation next to one another.
25 AUG 2013 by ideonexus
Chinese Character for Star
生 - to be born
日 - Sun
星 = 日 生
水星 - Mercury (Water Star)
金星 - Venus (Gold Star)
火星 - Mars (Fire Star)
木星 - Jupiter (Wood Star)
土星 - Saturn (Earth Star)
海王星 - Neptune (Sea King Star)
天王星 - Uranus (King Star)
冥王星 - Pluto (Deep King Star)
厄里斯 - Eris (Adversity ?????)1 
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notesChinese character for star is "sun to be born" indicating a more sophisticated understanding of astronomy than the West.
