Travel Notes from the Xichang Conference

The once-a-year conference on phenomenological philosophy of technology was held again, this time in Xichang, from August 8 to 13. It ran for five days all told, and, under the auspices of China National Geographic magazine, it was a good deal of fun—and even better eating~

This time we stayed at a hotel right by Qionghai, absolutely the best setting of any conference I’ve attended. The buffet breakfast and buffet lunch were indeed at a five-star level. Unfortunately, the schedule for both the conference and the sightseeing was very tight, and I never managed to carve out a daytime stretch to wander by the lake. On the way home, I kept feeling I hadn’t stayed there long enough.

By report, this was the conference with the largest number of attendees yet; when we went out sightseeing, we had two buses. In actual fact, though, the number of scholars who participated didn’t seem all that large. There were quite a few people who brought family members along—students such as Jing Qi and Liu Renxiang both brought their families—and there were also不少 who came just to listen without presenting a paper.

This time, the conference volume included 34 papers in all; 26 people actually gave reports, while the remaining papers were printed but not scheduled for presentation. This was an innovation of this year’s conference, allowing the program to be more concise and compact. The practical effect was also quite good: all the presentations were given a full 40 minutes, with 20 minutes for the main talk, 10 minutes for commentary, and 10 minutes for open discussion. The experience as a participant was very good.

Another innovation in organization was the creation of a WeChat group, but there was also one thing in it that made me rather dissatisfied: various notices were no longer sent by email, but were simply posted on WeChat and that was that. I brought this up with Teacher Wu, but he didn’t much care. He said the final round of notices would be sent by email, but in the end they weren’t sent either.

It seems that now notices from some other schools also like to be issued through QQ groups and WeChat groups. As for the postdoctoral matters at Beijing Normal University, I also received notifications only through a QQ group. WeChat has an “@ all” function, and QQ group notices are even easier to miss.

No matter how others do it, as philosophy of technology scholars, we should have a more cautious view of the application of new technologies. I have always emphasized the importance of the history of science and the history of philosophy, but the reason history matters ultimately is to reflect upon our own situation. Doing philosophy must not forget that personal lived experience is what we first and finally confront. We need to analyze the changes that accompanied the transition from manuscript to printed book; but if, for that reason, we burrow into old paper relics and instead turn a blind eye to the technological changes right in front of us, that would be to pursue the secondary and neglect the primary. I also mentioned this issue in my commentary at this conference. I have always believed that philosophers of technology should neither blindly embrace new technology nor blindly resist it, but should maintain a certain distance when applying new technology, keeping a certain vigilance and reflection: what exactly does the abandonment of one technology or the use of another technology mean? If Teacher Wu really had done some weighing and thinking when he gave up email notices, and truly believed that WeChat groups were more suitable for mass notifications, then even if I had a different view, there would be no need for me to say much. But I suspect that may not be the case; perhaps Teacher Wu simply got used to using WeChat and overlooked email, and that is why I singled out this issue right at the beginning of this travelogue.

The reason I say this is that Teacher Wu himself actually has some appreciation for the advantages of email. He is the sort of person who often forgets things; when we make an appointment with him, he often says: “Send me an email later.” Because if something is only agreed verbally, he may well forget it soon afterward, but if you send an email, he is basically guaranteed to respond in time.

In this respect, WeChat is probably closer to oral speech than to email, and this is without even considering the possibility of missing a notice. Even if one sees the notice, it is like Teacher Wu’s case: even if he has already agreed verbally, he is more likely to forget it when he turns around and goes back to it. If a WeChat group is lively, then after a short while the posts will be buried by the flood of new messages; unless you deliberately go back and dig them up, you often won’t see them a second time. If three or five days have passed, going back to look becomes extremely difficult. In email, by contrast, the search function makes it easy to pull up messages from years ago.

Search is Gmail’s greatest strength, but even if one doesn’t use Gmail or other email services, in general the retention and retrieval of information are quite convenient. WeChat, by contrast, is like short-term memory: only information retained for a day or two is reliable. For example, what I had for dinner last night—I remember it very clearly right now, but after a few months it will have completely vanished, and deliberately trying to retrieve it is often unlikely to succeed. WeChat’s retention is much stronger than face-to-face conversation, but its basic design leans toward immediacy rather than long-term preservation of information. If you do not take special measures, then after changing phones, your WeChat information may even be wiped clean.

Apart from differences in the retention and reappearance of information, the timing of viewing information also differs. Both WeChat and email can be used on phones and computers, but WeChat’s main scenario is still the phone, and that means checking it in fragmented moments anywhere, anytime: I can be in a meeting and still scrolling through WeChat; I can be waiting for a plane and still posting photos; I can even browse WeChat while eating or lying down. But these fragmented moments clearly are mostly not suitable for handling careful official business. Email can of course also send instant notifications on a phone, but its asynchronicity and delay are more obvious, so I don’t feel the same urgency to check and respond anytime and anywhere. We often wait until we are sitting upright in front of a computer before dealing with email in one concentrated session. In other words, when we open an email, we can often deal with it immediately and finish it at once; whereas when we see a notification in WeChat, we may be in a meeting, waiting for a car, or busy in some gap between tasks, and thus it is easier to turn around and forget.

In addition, I can easily delay dealing with some important emails by marking them “unread” or starring them, and so on. For WeChat messages, one way to focus on and delay them is precisely to turn them into an email sent to myself.

Uploading files in WeChat is also troublesome in many ways. Teacher Wu once felt frustrated by transferring files between phone and computer, and at the time it was I who provided him with a simple solution: install the desktop version of WeChat. But even so, WeChat remains relatively weak in saving and synchronizing files. By contrast, a file sent by email naturally can remain simultaneously on the computer, the phone, and the mailbox server—triple storage, indefinitely, and easy to forward. If a file on WeChat is not carefully saved, after a week it can no longer be downloaded.

All of the above is only an analysis of technical features; it hardly counts as philosophy of technology. Philosophy must go further and ask: what does this mean—say, the rise of some new technology? How is it possible? But distinguishing technical characteristics is the basis for further analysis. Teacher Wu has always emphasized that those of us doing phenomenological philosophy of technology must not get stuck in “repairing pianos,” but must instead play phenomenology as a piano. Yet learning to play also requires a step-by-step process; right at the start, one certainly cannot play a symphony. One always begins by practicing short melodic phrases, first getting the fingering down, and then gradually moving from the simple to the complex. In my view, analyzing the mundane technologies we personally encounter in everyday life is the “fingering practice” of phenomenological philosophy of technology. Many people analyze Heidegger’s water jug from a printed book with great eloquence, but never even notice the mineral water bottle right at hand. That is to neglect the root for the branch.

The analysis of specific technologies may be a column I want to start on the blog next, but at present my postdoctoral work has not yet concluded, my job is undecided, and all those plans for revamping the blog are still only in my head. I simply don’t have the heart to carry them out yet, so I won’t ramble on about that now. Back to the main point: let’s talk about this conference.

 

Teacher Wu had already written the conference summary, and the conference program has already been laid out in great detail there, so I will focus mainly on my personal comments.

Of course, I should also give a brief account of the travel arrangements. This time the sightseeing安排 was very good: for the first two days, we played in the morning and held conference sessions in the afternoon; on the third day we had a full day of meetings; on the fourth day we climbed a mountain all day. At first it seemed that after playing in the morning I would be rather exhausted in the afternoon, but in fact it felt quite good. After exercising in the morning, I was even more energized afterward—though I still dozed off often in the conference hall, that had little to do with the morning activities.

Registration was on August 8. Because the flight was delayed, and because—what a pain in the ass—it didn’t provide an in-flight lunch, we were somewhat in a sorry state that day. But after moving into the hotel, things felt much better. By the way, this time I lugged over a whole backpack full of my newly published book, Outdated Wisdom—about 25 copies—to give to teachers and friends. Because I gave them away too quickly in the first two days, before I knew it they were all gone, and in the end I failed to give copies to many teachers.

First day (August 9): in the morning we went sightseeing in the old city of Xichang. The city wall had been newly rebuilt on top of the ruins, and we walked around it once, but honestly it wasn’t very interesting. Among the various activities over the few days, this half-day was the least interesting of all. It would have been better to rent bicycles ourselves and ride around by Qionghai.

The conference officially opened in the afternoon. Shan Zhiqiang, editor-in-chief of China National Geographic, gave the opening remarks. Teacher Shan mentioned that, influenced by phenomenology, he had come to recognize the non-present-at-hand character of landscapes (that is my term), meaning that China’s geographical image is not a ready-made fixed thing, but something they can participate in constructing. At the closing ceremony, Teacher Shan also gave a richer talk, which I will comment on at the end.

This was followed by Research Fellow Li Xiubin of the Institute of Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences, speaking on “Geographical Questions Open to Philosophy.” Teacher Li did not provide a paper text, only an abstract, so it is difficult for me to recount it in detail. In fact, he mentioned many interesting concepts, such as the various phenomena displayed in the relation between human beings and “the land,” including regional discrimination, nationalism, and “place-switching syndrome.” As for “place-switching syndrome,” it can indeed be connected with the theory of media environments that I read in Meyrowitz. Teacher Li raised many questions concerning “place” that invite further philosophical inquiry, but in the end he seems unable to resolve the issue he raised at the beginning, namely the identity crisis of “geography.” Within geography as a discipline, those parts that gradually established a disciplinary paradigm have each in turn split off and become independent; what remains of “geography” at the end seems only to be an empty shell. So what, then, is the core object that makes geography geography? Teacher Li believes it is “the relation between human beings and the land,” and then, from a philosophical angle, he proposed many dimensions for thinking about this relation. The problem, however, is that philosophy itself is also in the condition of having all the parts that should separate out already separated out, leaving only an empty shell. Philosophy as a discipline also lacks a clear disciplinary paradigm and research object. But in my view, an empty shell has the advantages of an empty shell: by leaving room, it can precisely nurture various fields of questions and disciplinary paradigms. As Socrates said, philosophy is a “midwife”; it can bring forth one discipline after another, and that is a good thing as well. As long as the word “land” still retains dimensions of meaning not yet captured by other specific disciplines, “geography” will always have room to survive.

 

The theme of the second session after the opening ceremony was “Home and Travel.”

First was Teacher Zhang Xianglong, speaking on “Technology, Technique, and Home—The Meaning and Limits of Heidegger’s Critique of the Essence of Modern Technology”

Teacher Zhang’s paper was very long. In substance, it offered a sorting-out and interpretation of Heidegger’s critique of modern technology from a Confucian standpoint. Regarding Heidegger’s critique of modern technology, Teacher Zhang pointed out that Heidegger was not simply pessimistic and resigned, but indicated a path to salvation—returning to the source of craft and Dao/technique. However, Teacher Zhang believed that Heidegger’s critique and salvation still had shortcomings. On the one hand, Heidegger revealed the characteristics of modernity such as presence-at-hand-ization, objectification, and proceduralization, but neglected the dimension of individualism. On the other hand, he advocated “poetic dwelling,” revealing modern people’s state of “homelessness,” but his understanding of “home” was too abstract and ideal, and did not value real family life. Confucian emphasis on home can precisely complement Heidegger, and by promoting the power of the real “home,” one may be able to break through the control of modern technology.

Wu Guosheng then offered commentary. Teacher Wu pointed out that Teacher Zhang’s distinctive contribution lies in creatively connecting Heidegger with Confucianism, turning Heidegger into a Confucian and Confucianism into phenomenology. One criticism Teacher Wu raised was that the “home” Heidegger talks about and the “home” Confucianism talks about are probably not the same thing at all, and may even be contradictory; sometimes, leaving the home in the Confucian sense is instead to return home in the Heideggerian sense. Of course, Teacher Zhang had not failed to notice this; otherwise he would not have pointed out the inadequacy of the understanding of “home” as one of Heidegger’s shortcomings. Teacher Wu’s meaning may have been that, since the two sides are talking in completely different senses and merely happen to use the same word “home,” comparing them side by side may be inappropriate. Teacher Zhang, however, believes that although Heidegger’s discussion of home has gaps, the “home” he discusses is after all still the “home” Confucianism discusses. The state of “homelessness” that Heidegger reveals in modern people is not accidental, but does indeed have an internal connection with the loss of traditional family life. In addition, Teacher Wu mentioned that Teacher Zhang’s notion of modern people’s individualism is related to the rise of the medieval nominalist tradition, and Teacher Zhang expressed agreement.

Teacher Li Zhangyin also mentioned the contradiction between family life and authentic life. In Being and Time, the authentic life that is depicted is at times precisely something that can only be achieved by leaving home. Teacher Li then cited the example of China in the 1960s and 70s: for young people at that time, being confined within the family seemed inauthentic; breaking out of home was for the sake of pursuing freedom and authenticity. So does the Amish community and the idealized Confucian cultural preserve that Teacher Zhang advocates amount more to a constraint on freedom? Teacher Zhang responded that the Amish indeed can also run out, but they do, after all, still place certain constraints on themselves. On the other hand, modern technology imposes a certain stronger constraint on people, depriving them of more crucial freedom. In order to win back crucial freedom in the face of modern technology, some additional constraints attached through the family are also necessary and worthwhile.

I rather agree with Teacher Zhang’s line of thinking for rescuing modernity from the standpoint of home. Although both are trying to revive Confucian culture, Teacher Zhang’s “way of opening” Confucianism is different from that of most people today. Others tend to favor the chapters in Confucianism that speak of the ruler’s way, opening it from the angle of political philosophy and trying to use Confucianism to resist Western democracy and freedom. Teacher Zhang, by contrast, emphasizes the micro-level of self-cultivation and regulating the family; when he speaks of Confucianism, he does not have the grand air of those “national tutors” who govern the country and bring peace to all under Heaven, but in my view this is actually the more proper order.

Westerners talk about love starting from God, talking about “universal love.” Before God, everyone is equal; in the end many contracts and laws are formulated, everyone becomes a rational economic man, everyone becomes a rational calculator, and finally “love” becomes an abstract name only. Confucianism, by contrast, talks about love starting from the family, speaking of affection for one’s kin and filial piety and fraternal respect. This kind of feeling is rooted in human nature; it is real; it is what every person can most easily feel in a normal environment of growth, and it can be formed without theoretical preaching and indoctrination. Theoretical education is nothing more than starting from affection for one’s kin and filial piety and fraternal respect, solidifying it into ritual, and extending it to neighbors and the myriad people. But this starting point has by no means been easily dissolved even in the modern world. In the process of solidifying and extending kinship love, there may be some out-of-date or misguided parts, such as ritual norms that demean women, or patriarchal political institutions. These aspects, of course, can be corrected; in particular, we should open our hearts and learn from the West. But none of this means that affection for one’s kin and filial piety and fraternal respect themselves are outdated.

 

Next came Jin Shixiang, a student from the Wenmen lineage who has already graduated and is now working at University of Science and Technology Beijing, speaking on “The Polis and the Cosmos in Early Greece.” Jin Shixiang’s report was somewhat of a failure this time, mainly because his preparation did not seem very serious. The text he provided was probably a chapter from a history-of-science textbook he is currently writing, and at the end of the text there were even “post-class questions,” yet what he discussed first in his presentation was a phenomenological reflection on positivist historiography, and he talked about some of his reflections on phenomenology-guided narratives of the history of science. This chapter on early Greece was actually presented as an example of a new historiographical strategy. It did indeed contain不少 new perspectives, such as his formulation of “technique—memory—repetition,” which coincided with my own thinking, and his reinterpretation from the perspective of the history of technology (writing) of “leisure, reason, and wonder” was also quite creative. Finally, he also looked ahead to some of the writing strategies for the later parts of the textbook, such as the idea that modern science is “inverted Platonism,” the two threads of construction and control, and so on. The article cited one passage from my newly published *Outdated Wisdom*, but in fact it was a secondary citation of a Homeric maxim whose source I myself had neglected to cite, which was a little awkward. In truth, his line of thought was indeed influenced by me—more precisely, by the mutual influence within the whole Wenmen circle—and although my corresponding new ideas had some foreshadowing, they basically had not yet been applied in the just-published book. Seeing Jin Shixiang, it seemed he was going to get there first.

But the problem is also that Jin Shixiang had not yet become adept at applying these new ideas; he was still in the process of feeling his way forward. So this presentation displayed a situation of unclear positioning on three levels. The first level is that of historiography or philosophy of history: not only does one need to expound a phenomenological historiography, but this phenomenology is itself a phenomenology transformed by philosophy of technology, a phenomenology shaped by Bernard Stiegler and by our Beijing University Wenmen circle. The second level is the application of a new historiographical strategy, proposing new views on some specific issues in early Greece, especially interpretations of natural philosophy and of Socrates’ so-called second sailing. The third level is as part of an introductory undergraduate course, telling university students without a philosophical background about the course of science. These three levels obviously differ enormously in theoretical depth, and Jin Shixiang does not yet seem to have reached the point where he can effortlessly handle them in a thoroughly accessible way. To move back and forth among these three levels in just a 20-minute talk—that is something only those of us who are already familiar with one another would be able to keep up with easily, I suppose.

Professor Sheng Xiaoming gave the commentary. Since Professor Sheng read only the text, he did not comment on the historiographical ideas that Jin Shixiang had presented on site; instead, he focused on his own understanding of early Greek culture. In his view, its crux lies in “communitarianism.” Science was only a later offshoot; the core of Greek culture, and the principal legacy Greek culture left to Western culture as a whole, is in fact this communitarianism. Jin Shixiang agreed. Indeed, science was also born in the Greek “agora,” and on this point one should indeed begin with political philosophy. Of course, what Jin Shixiang did not say here is that, for this interpretation of communitarianism, one can still apply our own historiographical method of phenomenological philosophy of technology.

 

Finally, Professor Cui Qingming from the School of Tourism at Sun Yat-sen University spoke on “The Phenomenological Significance of the Tourism Experience.” It was evident that Professor Cui’s understanding of phenomenology was by no means superficial; rather, he had conducted in-depth study of original phenomenological texts by Husserl, Merleau-Ponty, and others. Professor Cui discussed theories related to tourism studies and pointed out that “wonder” is an important feature of the tourism experience, and that this “wonder” experience has important phenomenological significance—namely, how to transcend the “natural attitude” and stimulate the occasion for “phenomenological reduction.” I am rather in agreement with this elaboration of the phenomenological significance of wonder. However, I tend to discover this kind of wonder more in technological experience: in familiar technological environments that are used daily without being consciously noticed, people labor and manage within the natural attitude; when encountering new technologies, learning new technologies, just beginning to get the hang of them but not yet proficient, one adopts a playful attitude marked by novelty and astonishment, and before falling into practical calculations, one “plays with” rather than “operates” technology. That is when one breaks away from the natural attitude and enters the phenomenological attitude. The wonder encountered in travel that Professor Cui spoke of is nothing more than one instance of “breaking away from a familiar technological environment.”

Professor Deng Bo’s commentary pointed out that this topic reveals the penetrating power of phenomenology. Phenomenology can help us understand the tourism experience in depth, and tourism studies can in turn deepen our understanding of phenomenology. Work in this area is worth exploring further.

Professor Zhang Xianglong raised many questions, for example that wonder is also experienced in other fields, especially in modern science, and he asked what the difference is between this kind of wonder and the wonder brought about by tourism (Professor Cui said that he had only first revealed the importance of wonder, and had not yet undertaken a deep distinction). Professor Zhang also mentioned “free and easy wandering” (xiaoyao you) as the highest realm of tourism.

Professor Wu Guosheng pointed out that a distinction should be made between classical travel and tourism under the modern tourism industry. Tourism under the modern tourism industry is often not wondrous at all; rather, it is monotonous repetition. The questions raised by Professors Zhang and Wu both suggest that Professor Cui’s work could be pushed further into finer detail, especially in the further differentiation of the experience of “wonder.” Modern tourism industry indeed also provides, or even “produces,” “wonder” in a certain sense, but this mass-produced “wonder” is obviously not quite the same as the ideal of tourism. In fact, the so-called “phenomenological attitude” was never singular to begin with. It is not as if the natural attitude is merely superficial ignorance, and then one suddenly switches into a phenomenological attitude and becomes profound and unfathomable. Phenomenological reflection is also rich and multifarious; it is not a matter of “I was amazed, then phenomenology happened, and that was that.” Rather, there may be different layers of wonder, and different levels and dimensions of reflection; all of these can continue to be distinguished in greater depth.

 

The 3rd session was themed “Place and Ecology.”

First was He Tao, a student from the Peking University circle, who spoke on “A Defense and Re-Critique of Norberg-Schulz’s Concept of ‘Genius Loci’.” Norberg-Schulz is a representative figure in architectural phenomenology. He Tao’s paper centers on his book Genius Loci, introducing the concept of “genius loci” and some of the controversies it sparked in Western academia. After sorting through and responding to the relevant criticisms, He Tao put forward some of his own views. He believes that Norberg-Schulz’s theory of genius loci does indeed have weaknesses and problems of reification, but that it can be reinterpreted by combining it with the concept of “Befindlichkeit” (attunement, mood) in Heidegger’s Being and Time, thereby expanding and extending Norberg-Schulz’s contribution.

Professor Deng Bo commented that he was very dissatisfied with He Tao’s work. His commentary at the venue was still rather polite, but outside the venue he voiced harsher criticism. Professor Deng even privately approached me, hoping that I, as an elder brother in the academic sense, would offer He Tao some criticism and prevent him from becoming too “inflated.”

He Tao’s work certainly has its weaknesses. The point Professor Deng emphasized was that He Tao had not read or grasped Norberg-Schulz’s writings in a comprehensive way, especially works such as Meaning in Western Architecture, which in Professor Deng’s view are more important. More generally, Norberg-Schulz’s thought is quite phenomenological and does not neglect the dimensions of history and culture; Genius Loci is not the core of his thought.

This is indeed He Tao’s weak point. His reading of Norberg-Schulz is not comprehensive, and he has not read the books Professor Deng mentioned, so of course he had no basis to rebut him in Professor Deng’s presence. In fact, I had earlier suggested to He Tao that he simply not do research on Norberg-Schulz at all, but instead use the concept of “genius loci” to study Heidegger, or else put forward a set of his own ideas on architectural phenomenology directly; in short, treat Norberg-Schulz as a resource to be cited, rather than as the object of research.

However, this weakness is more strategic than principled. That is to say, I cannot agree with Professor Deng’s criticism of He Tao. In fact, Professor Deng’s resistance to He Tao reflects a conflict between different styles in Chinese and Western academia. Chinese scholars, when studying a particular thinker, often read that thinker’s works with desperate thoroughness, discussing them with citations at their fingertips as if they knew them by heart; but they do not keep up with secondary literature. Thus Professor Deng can quite confidently say that he has “not read” those critical writings on Schulz, and then simply refuse to agree. He Tao’s starting point, by contrast, is frontier secondary literature: he sorts through the criticisms and doubts raised by other researchers, and then puts forward his own judgment. Of course, reading only secondary literature without reading primary sources is completely absurd, but how much primary literature one must read before being qualified to participate in the discussion is another question. In my view, every academic monograph, once published, has a certain completeness and autonomy of its own. A doctoral dissertation obviously cannot be satisfied with just one or two isolated works, but a specialized paper on a specific topic need only read the major works relevant to that topic thoroughly.

In the Chinese tradition, “responding to the matter” and “responding to the person” have always been entangled; it is difficult to carry out debate on the principle of “dealing with the issue, not the person.” This may not necessarily be a bad thing, but as far as academic research is concerned, the separation of issue and person is still extremely important. Without an environment in which one can discuss the issue on its own terms, academic criticism is bound to become exceedingly cautious; younger scholars criticizing their predecessors becomes even more difficult; academic disputes therefore often become overly general and fail to delve into details. Such an environment is in fact also unfavorable to the dissemination of a philosopher’s own thought. Professor Deng was even more resistant to hearing criticism of Norberg-Schulz than criticism of himself; perhaps he felt that he was defending Norberg-Schulz. But if young scholars always have to tremble in fear when speaking, and if they dare not speak unless they have read every book, then the result will be a kind of insular wheel-spinning. For instance, only those who have read Heidegger from beginning to end would have the right to speak about Heidegger, and anyone else who says anything would be pushed aside and mocked; in that case, Heidegger’s influence would never be able to spread outward. But when those who are not Heidegger partisans are able to discuss Heidegger without necessarily having to labor through his complete works, then his influence can extend beyond a small circle. Moreover, critics are an important support in the dissemination and development of a philosopher’s doctrine. If the critics are not up to the task, then a counter-critique can follow; precisely because criticism, defense, re-criticism, and re-defense keep alternating, the doctrines of great thinkers can remain ever fresh through time and continue to flourish. He Tao’s article is precisely a defense and a re-critique after one round of criticism by Western scholars.

From beginning to end, He Tao’s article is not aimed at Norberg-Schulz as a person, but at his theory of “genius loci.” All the relevant criticisms it cites are likewise centered on genius loci, and Professor Deng did not directly refute these criticisms either; he merely emphasized that Norberg-Schulz had other books that were better written and other theories that were better articulated. But what Professor Deng failed to distinguish is that all the criticisms were directed at the theory of genius loci, not at Norberg-Schulz’s theory as a whole. Even if Norberg-Schulz himself had abandoned the theory of “genius loci,” the academic community could still take this concept as an object of research. For example, even though Wittgenstein himself had already turned in his later period, many scholars may still not accept late Wittgenstein and continue to focus on elaborating the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Even if both Norberg-Schulz himself and Professor Deng agree that works such as Meaning in Western Architecture are better, and agree that Genius Loci cannot represent the core of Norberg-Schulz’s thought, He Tao still has the right to make this book the core of his own research. In other words, whether or not “genius loci” can serve as the core of Norberg-Schulz’s thought, it can certainly serve as the central theme of He Tao’s research paper.

Professor Deng kept emphasizing that the other books are better and more worth reading, which implicitly means that he cannot deny that Genius Loci is indeed not written so well; thus, the criticisms directed at Genius Loci have in effect already been acknowledged by Professor Deng. He Tao, by contrast, hoped to open up new dimensions beyond those criticisms in order to defend “genius loci,” namely through the creative introduction of the theory of “Befindlichkeit.” Since one is trying to “reactivate” the doctrine of “genius loci,” one naturally needs to sort out its original defects. But sorting out the defects is not meant to attack Norberg-Schulz; it is meant to reactivate and carry forward the concept of “genius loci.”

Of course, whether the concept of “genius loci” is worth carrying forward is something on which I remain reserved. After all, the term itself is not ideal, neither in its coinage nor in its translation, and Norberg-Schulz’s elaboration also does indeed have many problems. If He Tao wants to do architectural phenomenology, he would do better to open up a new path. There are also indigenous Chinese concepts such as “fengshui” and “qi” that offer more room for elaboration (Professor Zhang Xianglong also mentioned the concept of “qi”); there is no necessity to carry forward the concept of “genius loci.” He Tao wants to show respect for predecessors such as Norberg-Schulz in academia, but in fact the predecessors’ devotees clearly do not appreciate it, and instead he has created many more complications. This is the kind of thing that takes a lot of effort and still fails to please anyone.

Professor Li Zhangyin raised a question from the Heidegger side, arguing that He Tao’s elaboration is too broad and that he should pay attention to Heidegger’s related discussions of “understanding,” “the spatiality of Dasein,” and so on, which might allow one to discuss the issue in a more specific way. This is indeed a weak point in He Tao’s paper, because it entangles itself too much in discussion of Norberg-Schulz’s doctrine, while its citations of and elaboration on Heidegger are not substantial. In essence, it is really just throwing out an “idea,” but not developing it in detail. That said, with regard to this “idea” itself, I think He Tao still has something worthwhile to offer. Those of us who do philosophy of technology have always been very concerned with Heidegger’s concepts of “understanding,” “spatiality,” and, in his later work, “the fourfold,” and we are no strangers to elaborating these concepts in philosophical technology terms. However, the connection between the concept of “Befindlichkeit” and philosophy of technology has not yet been sufficiently explored. He Tao has found an entry point from architectural philosophy. Although at present what he says is very broad, perhaps that is precisely because this concept has not yet been fully developed.

 

Next was Professor Wang Haiqin from Henan Normal University, who spoke on “Theoretical Difficulties and Responses in Deep Ecology’s Borrowing of Heidegger’s Thought.” Professor Wang’s report sounded somewhat like the evening news broadcast: clear diction, steady pace, neither hurried nor slow, but a bit hypnotic… I was not paying very close attention…

Student Jing Qi, who had just graduated from the Peking University circle and entered Northwest University, gave the commentary. Jing Qi’s own graduation thesis was also on deep ecology; originally he too intended to develop an ecological phenomenological interpretation, but after repeated exchanges with Professor Wu and us in the seminar, he finally decided to approach the topic from the standpoint of virtue ethics. Still, he had done quite a lot of research on Zimmerman’s ecological phenomenology.

Jing Qi pointed out that the substance of Professor Wang’s paper is a review-essay form, mainly introducing Zimmerman’s relevant doctrines, and that its title and the way it frames “the raising of the question” are misleading. Jing Qi then pointed out that Professor Wang’s application of the concept of “ecofascism” is not accurate enough; the criticism of deep ecology as ecofascism is actually unrelated to Heidegger. In addition, regarding the correspondence between nature and being/beings, Zimmerman is rather hasty, and Professor Wang’s use of related concepts is likewise not fine-grained enough, such as naturalism, ontology, and so on.

 

Finally, the last session was temporarily replaced by a report from Professor Li Jitang of Soochow University, on “A Comparative Study of the Problem of Consciousness and the Problem of Quantum Measurement from a Phenomenological Perspective.” Professor Wu Guolin gave the commentary. I went on being sleepy and did not listen carefully. Later, Professor Tian’s remarks were rather interesting. He pointed out that the reason we feel confused by quantum phenomena is that the everyday understanding formed by Newtonian mechanics is too stubborn—for example, the “Laoshan Taoist” would not find “tunneling effects” incomprehensible. And since we live in a world shaped by Newtonian mechanics, it is only natural that understanding quantum mechanics gives rise to conflict. Though what Professor Tian said was amusing, this is in fact also the orthodox interpretation of quantum mechanics. I have said before that the orthodox interpretation of quantum mechanics (the Copenhagen interpretation) is essentially “non-interpretation,” meaning that the problem lies in the inherent limitations of the everyday language formed by people in the macroscopic lifeworld, such that this language is insufficient to accurately describe quantum phenomena. So trying to explain quantum phenomena using language suited to the Newtonian world is doomed to fail. Of course, as Professor Wu pointed out, phenomenology may well have something to contribute to the understanding of quantum mechanics. Phenomenology has a distinctive elaboration of the problems of “language” and “interpretation.” Although language has its inherent limitations, phenomenology, by means of “formal indication,” transcends reified usage, and may help us grasp quantum phenomena more profoundly. In addition, I have always emphasized that the key breakthrough of quantum mechanics (including relativity) is to break the “God’s-eye view,” that is, to oppose reification. Once one realizes that there is no object X that is already there as a ready-made given, once one distinguishes between present-at-hand beings and the being of beings, then the paradoxicality of quantum mechanics can indeed be resolved.

That concludes the first day of the conference.

 

The second day still began with an early outing to do tourism, visiting the Museum of Slave Society, and afterward strolling around Lushan Mountain. The so-called Museum of Slave Society should in fact be called the Yi Cultural Museum; the so-called slave society is nothing but a crude imposition of Marxism. What was pleasantly surprising, however, was that the young woman guide who took us around the museum was a local Yi person, and someone who had developed a certain identification with her own culture and religion. Her explanations did not fully follow the routine set by “experts and scholars”; according to her own understanding and knowledge, she talked a lot about history and religion, which felt very good. The Yi people’s distinctive script, religion, and the caste system that is still functioning today were all deeply impressive.

In the afternoon we returned for the conference. The theme of the 4th session was “The Phenomenology of Time.”

First was a talk by Lecturer Li Xi from the School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture at Peking University, titled “Stone Also Has Its Time.” Li Xi was a graduate student in aesthetics in the Peking University philosophy department, and in the end was even able to stay on as faculty directly, which is quite enviable. Li Xi cited all kinds of classical texts to explain why Chinese literati of antiquity were especially fond of “stone”; the key lies in the way stone reveals temporality, including the appreciation of traces on stone, which is a preference for a certain non-objective revelation of time.

Professor Wu Tong gave the commentary, praising the paper as “beautiful prose” and also raising some detailed contradictions and questions.

Professor Zhang Xianglong affirmed that it is worth exploring the discussion of aesthetics from a phenomenological perspective. This paper grasped the de-objectification of aesthetic experience; the beauty of stone lies in its evocation of the rebound of existential time. Professor Zhang and Professor Li Zhangyin both mentioned some of Heidegger’s intellectual resources and thought they deserved further excavation.

Professor Zhang Qiucheng criticized the paper for quoting too much poetry while lacking some first-person perspective in terms of experience and reflection. Professor Shan Zhiqiang felt that the paper seemed too elevated, as though it could talk about anything, yet when it came to specifically discussing how to appreciate a certain kind of stone, it did not seem to help. In this respect, I am afraid Professor Shan’s demands were somewhat too high. Philosophy is ultimately in pursuit of universality. Even though phenomenology often penetrates into fine detail, the truths it ultimately articulates must still transcend particular situations. As for providing guidance in concrete cases, that is the task of the corresponding practitioners. Perhaps such a practitioner has been influenced by phenomenology and is thus more sensitive in experience, but on the whole philosophical argument and practical activity are after all two different levels of things, and some disconnect is unavoidable. Philosophy naturally cannot monopolize the final right of interpretation over aesthetics or any practical activity. Professor Shan’s point that scientific analysis may also promote aesthetic appreciation is correct. Conversely, deliberately trying to carry out a phenomenological reduction in aesthetic activity may in fact hinder aesthetic appreciation.

Compared with some other academically conventional philosophy papers, Li Xi’s article was already fairly concrete, starting from the specific case of appreciation activities to discuss aesthetic issues. But precisely for that reason, expectations for the paper were also higher. Professor Shan’s demands were certainly harsh, but the questions raised by Professor Zhang Qiucheng were relatively accurate.

 

Then came Professor Yu Yang from Shenzhen University, who spoke on “A Phenomenological Analysis of Unit Time.”

At the outset, Professor Yu proposed that the source of comprehensibility for the concept of “unit time” is not timekeeping devices; on the contrary, “the comprehensibility of unit time… is precisely the basis for the comprehensibility of timekeeping devices.” In what follows, he attempted to find the primordial understanding of the “equal length” of time through an analysis of the flow of inner time-consciousness.

From the standpoint of Professor Yu’s argumentative aim, what he is really trying to do is overturn our “phenomenological philosophy of technology” insight and negate the direction indicated by Technics and Time.

Unfortunately, Professor Wu, who gave the commentary, does not seem to have paid sufficient attention to the paper’s target. He pointed out that the uniformity of time in modern life has its roots in Newtonian mechanics. This conclusion is in fact also at odds with Professor Yu’s argument, but it still does not directly respond to the key challenge.

This presentation was the only time I raised my hand to speak at this conference. Although, in Teacher Yu’s view, what I said was merely a side issue, and he was even too lazy to respond to me at all, I personally think that what I had actually grasped was precisely the point of conflict between our phenomenological school of philosophy of technology and the orthodox school.

In fact, I do not deny Teacher Yu’s conclusion, namely, that the intelligibility of a unit of time is the basis for the intelligibility of a timekeeping instrument; but the disagreement lies in the fact that I also do not deny the first half of the sentence, namely, that timekeeping instruments are likewise a source of the intelligibility of a unit of time. Timekeeping instruments and the consciousness of units of time are mutually constitutive; inner time and externalized time are two sides of the same coin. The consciousness of a unit of time seems to be a precondition for the making of timekeeping instruments, but such consciousness is not something fixed and innate from the outset; it also gradually develops through learning and training in a certain technological environment. The ancients also understood the cycle of day after day, year after year, but they may not necessarily have had a clear consciousness of time flowing second by second. From animals to primitive humans, from the ancients to modern people, there is more or less an awareness of the equal length of time, but this temporal consciousness is not something eternally unchanged; rather, like technological change itself, it is constantly changing. So to ask which comes first, temporal consciousness or timekeeping instruments, is bound to become the question of which came first, the chicken or the egg.

Teacher Yu’s mistakes are mainly three. The first is to regard the invention and manufacture of technology as some kind of already-objectified design activity, as if the creator of a certain technology must obviously have understood that technology. Of course, makers and users always first have some degree of understanding of a technology, but this understanding is by no means identical with the understanding gained by people who grew up in a technological environment formed through the dissemination of that technology, and who acquired their grasp of the technology by means of using it. The manufacture and application of technology certainly require a corresponding “pre-understanding,” but these understandings are also gradually formed in an earlier technological environment, and may further be tempered and transformed in a new technological environment.

The second is the question I raised at the conference: Teacher Yu overlooked an important technological transformation that occurred between ancient timekeeping instruments and modern timekeeping instruments, namely “standardized production,” that is, the emergence of the reproducibility of instruments. In the article, Teacher Yu speaks of how, exactly, do we grasp the “equal length” between two spans of time? Teacher Yu thinks that, of course, we can measure the regularity of a pendulum by the regularity of the pulse, but the regularity of the pulse itself requires yet another regularity to grasp; thus we fall into an infinite regress, and no timekeeping instrument can serve as the starting point for everything, so we are forced to seek the transcendental conditions for temporal regularity outside the instrument.

But I pointed out that when we want to grasp the “equal length of time” of a modern timekeeping instrument, such as a pendulum, we do not necessarily need to introduce the pulse or another timekeeping instrument; rather, we can use the pendulum to measure the pendulum. If we can mass-produce “identical” pendulums, we can place them together and measure one another. For example, after pendulum A has swung one full cycle, we let pendulum B begin to swing; if we see that A’s second cycle is identical with B’s first cycle, then we can be sure that A’s second cycle is identical with A’s first cycle.

What does this example show? First, it breaks Teacher Yu’s so-called infinite regress; we no longer need to introduce another kind of timekeeping instrument, but instead grasp isochrony through a certain timekeeping instrument itself. Second, the issue of temporal equal length is displaced and becomes a problem of spatial coincidence and technological reproducibility. The spatial issue is a problem of what is called “outer sense,” that is to say, the temporal consciousness grasped in inner sense is linked to spatial “equal length.” In fact, this is precisely what concerns Stiegler’s supplement to Husserl, namely, that “inner time-consciousness” still has its “external conditions,” namely “tertiary retention,” that is, “time” fixed and externalized in technological objects.

This “re-internalization” of externalized time, in other words, the process of disciplinary learning within the corresponding technological environment, is the source of the consciousness of temporal equal length. As technological environments change, this temporal consciousness may develop in different ways. What the standardization of modern timekeeping instruments promotes is precisely the Cartesian temporal consciousness of modern people—that is, a mode of grasping time as flowing evenly along an independent, objective time axis.

The third point was raised at the conference by Teacher Tao Jianwen, namely, that in analyzing inner time-consciousness, Teacher Yu may have been misled by “schematism.” Teacher Yu, within a framework resembling a Cartesian coordinate system, depicts retention and protention as a central ray, with neat diagonal lines on both sides. But this “ray” in Husserl is only a convenient way of explaining the structure of the halo; it is not suitable for explaining the uniformity of time. Teacher Tao thought that Husserl’s schema might be more appropriately drawn as a parabola.

Teacher Yu thinks that the compressibility of re-presentation (recollection) is related to the length of the interval. For example, if I recall something from yesterday, I cannot possibly spend a whole day doing so; but if I recall something that just happened, it will not be so compressed, but relatively equal in duration. Yet this statement seems to echo Stiegler’s criticism of Husserl—consciously or unconsciously limiting itself to the re-presentation of the “single tone.” In fact, when we recall something that has just happened, the so-called compressive effect is also very obvious: no one would spend another meal’s worth of time recalling the meal they have just finished, and no one would spend the duration of an entire match recalling the match they have just watched. We may indeed use the time of one penalty kick to recall the penalty kick we have just taken, but even if such recollection is carried out the next day, it is still more or less the same. Whether recollection is more compressed or more isochronous does not depend on how much time has elapsed before recalling, but on the object of recollection. For example, recalling a single tone, a syllable, or a slogan is basically isochronous; but recalling an entire movement of music, a film, a painting, or a meal, and so on, is completely different.

At the report, Teacher Yu provided a little game (posted in a WeChat group), asking participants to hold down a button and estimate one second, to see who could time it more accurately. I found that our grasp of one second was all fairly accurate, but how is such grasp possible? I immediately reflected on how exactly I estimate time, and found that I was doing no more than silently saying “tick-tock” in my heart; and where does this memory of “tick-tock” come from? It comes, without more, from experience with the second hand of a clock. That is to say, first we have technology to produce instruments capable of repeatedly making a ticking sound, and then, in dealing with such instruments, we learn how to “grasp time.” If I had never experienced a clock, could I still estimate time accurately? Of course, perhaps I would silently say “thump-thump,” “hoo-ha,” “ding-dong,” and so on; or through technological artifacts, or through the body and natural objects, we always retain in the manner of these “external” things’ retention, and re-present in the manner of re-presentation. Human consciousness, human memory, are not things imprinted on a curtain in some fixed way; the way in which humans are conscious, the way in which humans remember, are all possible only through “learning.”

 

There are many related issues involved. Of course I do not want to展开 a comprehensive discussion here; I only want to point out the key questions. If philosophy of technology is to become “first philosophy” rather than merely a department of philosophy, then it must confront traditional philosophy head-on on transcendental issues.

 

Finally, Teacher Zhang Changsheng from the Academy of Social Sciences spoke on “Temporal Concepts and the Causal Problem in Consciousness-Only Thought,” with Teacher Li Zhangyin offering commentary. I know nothing at all about the Consciousness-Only school, so I won’t say much.

 

Session 5 theme: “Phenomenology of Life and Death.”

First, Teacher Li Zhangyin from Shandong University spoke on “Karma and Retribution: Science, Superstition, and the Truth of Survival.” Senior brother Liu Shengli offered commentary.

Then Ma Delin from Xidian University spoke on “A Comparative Study of Husserl’s Idea of the Lifeworld and Daoist Philosophy of Life,” with Teacher Zhang Changsheng offering commentary.

Liu Shengli, a senior brother from the Sichuan Academy of Social Sciences, spoke on “A Phenomenological Interpretation of the Body View in the Huangdi Neijing,” with Teacher Ma Delin commenting.

Finally, Teacher Tian Song from Beijing Normal University spoke on “Death Is a Capacity,” with Teacher Zhao Weiguo offering commentary.

Under the successive bombardment of Buddhism and Huang-Lao thought, my mental state throughout this entire session was not very good. I listened to these papers in a foggy daze, and it was only by the time of Teacher Tian’s report at the end that I was roused. So I skipped over the earlier presentations altogether and will only talk a little about my impressions of Teacher Tian’s report. Teacher Tian’s reports have always been plain and accessible, full of stories and analogies, and easy to listen to, but this time the topic was not easy at all. Teacher Tian’s core claim is that in the world of modern medicine and industrial civilization, people have already lost the capacity for death. This capacity is, first of all, the capacity to perceive and control one’s own death. Many animals can anticipate their own death and make arrangements; some traditional elderly people also possess this capacity, but modern people have lost it, and even think such a thing is the stuff of fantasy. The reason modern people have lost the capacity for death is, in essence, that modern technology gives people a false illusion, as if death can be defeated, as if every death is “medical treatment ineffective due to illness”; in other words, if “medical treatment is effective,” then one will not die. People are forced to let the dying suffer in hospital beds and struggle against death, no longer having “a peaceful death at the end of one’s life”; everyone dies “a bad death,” and death always means failure. In this way, people increasingly lose the ability to face death.

In his commentary, Teacher Zhao Weiguo mentioned that death ought to be natural rather than disease, but the struggle between nature and technology is not the monopoly of modern people. Teacher Zhao believed that extending life is reasonable, and ancient medicine also strove to extend life; the so-called difference between modern and ancient is really only a difference of degree. Teacher Li Zhangyin also mentioned that the Huangdi Neijing is likewise engaged in confronting death.

I think Teacher Tian was not saying that one should not resist death. The tragedy of modernity lies precisely in the fact that, just like the typical Greek “tragedy,” all choices are reasonable, no one has done anything wrong, and yet in the end everyone still cannot have a happy ending.

Although Teacher Tian vowed not to intubate, not to use a ventilator, and not to use cardiac defibrillation, if—please forgive me for putting it in an inauspicious way—tomorrow Teacher Tian were to have a car accident and suddenly stop breathing, and were revived by cardiac defibrillation, I imagine he would not be too averse to it either. Teacher Tian is now in the prime of life and in good health; the probability of successful resuscitation is extremely high, and after being brought back he could at least live for several more decades. However, when an eighty- or ninety-year-old stops breathing, the probability of successful resuscitation is extremely low; even if they are revived, perhaps they will only live a dozen or so more days. The problem is that between this extremely high and this extremely low, between several decades and a dozen days, there is no absolute dividing line to tell us when resuscitation should be attempted and when it should be given up. As a result, the only reasonable thing to do is to resuscitate by every possible means. Some people are always brought back, but there are also some people who “have no choice but to die badly.”

The difference between modern and ancient lies precisely in the smoothness and completeness of modern technology. In the medical view, there is no difference between a twenty-year-old patient and an eighty-year-old patient; there is no difference between an incurable disease and a terminal illness; there is only a difference in the degree of bodily health and a difference in the severity of illness. Is not this flattening of differences through quantified numbers precisely a feature of modernity?

 

The whole day of August 11 was devoted to meetings. Session 6 theme: “One: Phenomenology and Philosophy of Science.”

Teacher Sheng Xiaoming from Zhejiang University spoke on “Social Controversy and Governance Dilemmas in Science,” with Teacher Wu Tong commenting. I was not awake and didn’t pay attention.

Teacher Tao Jianwen from South China University of Technology spoke on “On Inexact but Rigorous Science.” Deleuze transformed Husserl’s “inexact forms” into “inexact but rigorous science,” and Teacher Tao attempted to introduce this concept. Although I was still quite muddled, I did listen to and look at some of it, but I didn’t really understand it. My impression is that Deleuze or Teacher Tao’s intention was to define a dimension of science between exact geometry and descriptive empirical science, for example, inexact but rigorous geometry. The concept of exactness comes from Husserl; when offering commentary, Teacher Yu Yang harshly condemned Deleuze for having “raped” Husserl. Since I have read very little of either Deleuze or Husserl, I dare not say anything. However, I never found the argument I had been expecting about what “rigorous” actually means. From the examples of biology and materials science that Teacher Tao gave, rigor seems to refer to some kind of operational effectiveness; but from cases such as Riemannian geometry, topology, fractal geometry, and folded architecture, I seemed once again unable to find the crux. New branches of geometry such as fractal geometry are of course very different from traditional Euclidean geometry (which is essentially Cartesian geometry), but is this difference greater than the difference between number theory and arithmetic? Is number theory an exact science?

Then Tsinghua University master’s student Zhang Yufangfei spoke on “A Philosophy of Scientific Practice of Embodiment,” with Teacher Qiu Hui commenting. This article was coauthored by Zhang Yufangfei and Teacher Wu Tong. Its ambition is very grand; in fact, it seeks to combine the two academic approaches represented domestically by Teacher Wu Tong, namely “the philosophy of scientific practice,” and by Teacher Liu Xiaoli, namely “the philosophy of (embodied) cognitive science.” In the terms of the article, the former is the fish head and the latter the fish tail; by grasping the embodied issue that runs through the whole body, one grasps both ends. Although I am not familiar enough with any of these fields, judging from this article alone, the effect is probably limited. The key lies in the fact that this article lacks gunpowder. Two major schools, two academic approaches, two groups of scholars—if they can truly live in harmony, complement one another, and then walk off together, then both sides probably do not amount to much. For different academic schools, mutual debate is the very best state for promoting scholarship. If, in the end, someone absorbs the strengths of each school and opens up a new path, that too can only become possible after intense grinding and adjustment; moreover, this new path in turn must clash with both of the original major traditions.

Teacher Wu Tong, Teacher Liu Xiaoli, or if we add Teacher Wu Guosheng and others, have each already opened up different academic schools within Chinese academia. But the teachers get along very well; although teachers and students each maintain their own features, they do not exclude one another. This academic atmosphere has great promise. Yet although there is a great deal of common language, many points of divergence have not yet been made explicit. Overall, it is still too harmonious, and no sparks fly. Ordinary scholars in Chinese academia are often courteous and harmonious during academic exchange, but privately they exclude one another; the best situation is to be harmonious and united in private, and in fierce conflict during academic exchange.

Revealing conflict is always better than trying to please all sides. Take the term “embodied” itself: among scholars of different schools, there are too many usages. Translating it as “embodied” or “incarnated” also represents different angles of understanding. How could such a concept, already full of disagreements, be suitable as the “fishbone” connecting all parties? Rather than using the concept of embodiment to integrate, it would be better to use the concept of embodiment to sort out the points of divergence among different schools.

 

Session 7 theme: “Phenomenology and Philosophy of Science, Two.”

First, graduate student Liu Renxiang from Peking University’s Wu school spoke on “From the Eternal Presence of the Real to the Smooth Recall of Technology — An Ontological Inference in the Philosophy of Technology.” Liu Renxiang is one of my junior fellow students who has more of a philosopher’s temperament: he dares to coin terms, dares to discuss philosophy in his own language. That is the most basic philosopherly temperament; beyond that come sharpness and insight in thought, as well as penetrating power in expression, and so on. Liu Renxiang describes the ontological presupposition defaulted to by modern philosophy as “the eternal presence of the real,” and takes “the smooth recall of technology” as its substitute, explaining how the manifestation of the real and its identity are possible.

The ideas he expresses are in fact still some of the things expressed from Heidegger to Stiegler, but Liu Renxiang digests and re-articulates them in his own way, and this re-expression is crucial.

Of course, the theme is too grand, and it is not yet possible to say that Liu Renxiang has fully mastered the relevant concepts. From his master’s thesis to this report, the manner of expression has undergone slight changes: for example, the concept of “representationism” has been removed (as Su Li pointed out), and “preparatory conditions” is used to further explain the meaning of “recall.”

I do not want to repeat Liu Renxiang’s views too much, because if I were to put them into my own words they would in fact largely overlap with what I have consistently expressed. I myself am also constantly weighing my wording; for instance, where Liu Renxiang emphasizes “recall,” I would rather speak of “recollection.” Where Liu Renxiang talks about “the eternal presence of the real,” I prefer to speak of ready-made presentness and the “God’s-eye view.”

In her commentary, Su Li pointed out that the phenomenological epoché is not just a slogan, but something that must be implemented from the very beginning; ontologically, what is more primary is the “absence” of the real rather than ready-made existence. In the end, Su Li hoped for more in-depth case studies to explain how technology can achieve smooth recall.

Teacher Li Zhangyin questioned whether “technology” had been discussed too broadly, and where, then, was “nature” (physis) to be placed? Teacher Wu interjected that since philosophy of technology is to be made into “first philosophy,” there is no need to fear breadth. Liu Renxiang’s response was that technological recall is only a “preparatory condition,” but that there are still other levels after that.

In fact, in the modern mind, the word “nature” has been infinitely generalized. In the eyes of the all-powerful natural sciences, every phenomenon is a natural phenomenon; everything is natural. This generalization of “nature” is precisely the product of the belief in what Liu Renxiang has called the “eternal presence of the real”: “nature” becomes an object that is always already there, objectively present and ready to hand. And philosophy of technology as first philosophy does not dissolve the concept of “nature”; on the contrary, it rescues it anew. “Nature” should return to its original meaning, that is, be understood in the sense of “spontaneous emergence.” During the “smooth recall” of technology, what one encounters head-on as “not smooth” is precisely “nature”; “nature” lurks outside the control of technology and “presents itself without authorization.” People find it difficult to make bedding out of stone, or sculptures out of cotton, and all this is because of “nature.” Technology and nature are each other’s boundary.

Teacher Zhang Qiucheng believes that technology plays not so great a role in understanding the real; even if one is highly skilled with tools, and the tool retreats into invisibility, one still may not be able to operate successfully. This is also because he did not notice that Liu Renxiang only said technology is a “preparatory condition,” but did not say it is a necessary and sufficient condition. As mentioned earlier, when there is a “failure,” one is often precisely encountering “nature.” In addition, what Teacher Zhang Qiucheng calls “success” may be judged on the basis of producing a ready-made determinate result, but Liu Renxiang is speaking precisely of “absence” as prior to “the ready-made”; “the absence of results” is in a certain sense precisely more primary. The successful operation and repeated operation of technology maintain the persistence and identity of the real, thus giving rise to the illusion of the “eternal presence of the real.” But the not-yet-successful operation of technology, or in other words, suspending its result and looking at the operation of technology itself, this phenomenon of leaving room for results, of “keeping a place open,” is something more primary than success or failure.

Teacher Zhang Xianglong asked how one can know that technology recalls in the same way? How is this “same” to be known, and what happens when the recalls of different technologies come into conflict?

Liu Renxiang pointed out that his line of thought is grounded in Stiegler, and that perception needs to be learned. In fact, how this “same” is possible is involved in Stiegler’s discussion of technology as “tertiary memory.” How is recollection possible—that is, how do I know that what I now think of, or see, or hear, is the very thing that once appeared earlier in my memory? Stiegler points out that for something to be remembered, it must also be forgettable; through technology, that is, memory left outside ourselves, we construct our own memory.

Different technologies can of course recall in conflicting ways. Because modern technology has formed what is called a “Gestell,” it has been linked into a unity, interlocked in a chain, airtight and seamless, and the differences among the ways different technologies recall have been forcibly leveled. For example, the table disclosed by the activity of eating and the table disclosed by physics are completely different, but the way physics discloses things becomes the absolute authority; the “Gestell” forcibly flattens out the difference, and this is what makes us feel that there is always some objective, ready-made “X” (the table) that has “always been present.” Conflict among the recalls of different technologies is in fact only proper. That different technologies can without conflict disclose the same object, as if this object had “already existed” before being disclosed in any technological environment, is precisely what Liu Renxiang calls the “eternal presence of the real.”

 

Next was Su Li, a student who had just graduated from Tsinghua and gone to Xi’an University of Electronic Science and Technology, speaking on “How can reflection be experience?” Although I did not listen closely, my general impression was that this article by Su Li was written very well. The key is that it runs through a rather distinctive personal line of thought, and the reasoning is smooth. One basic issue in this article is in fact “how is reflection possible.” Su Li mentioned the problem of the “infinite regress” of reflection: human consciousness can point toward things, but for a person to become conscious of his own consciousness, to know his own thinking, one must do so through the activity of reflection; yet reflection itself is still a kind of consciousness, a kind of thinking, so knowing reflection would then require a second-order reflection, and so on ad infinitum. It seems that we can know nothing at all. To break this circle, Descartes tried to answer with the self-evidence of “I think,” but phenomenology has another trick up its sleeve: the disclosure of “pre-reflective self-awareness.”

That is to say, we are not originally required to reflect on consciousness in order to perceive; when perceptual activity is in operation, what is made aware is not only the “object,” but also the “self.” Consciousness or perception itself is already “reflective,” or “self-reflexive”; within a single intentional act, while human consciousness is directed toward an object, there is also an original “duality,” or perhaps one should say “circularity”: when some object appears, it also always brings along the projection of the self. The “self” is not the product of reflection; rather, together with the “object,” it is already differentiated in original experience. Conscious reflective activity merely further sharpens the distinction between self and object, and this higher-order reflective consciousness is still dual: it simultaneously discloses a new-order object and a new-order self, that is, it re-presents the reflected-upon activity of consciousness as an object while making itself appear as the thinker.

Su Li cited Merleau-Ponty’s doctrine of bodily intentionality, especially examples such as the left hand touching the right hand, to show the reflexivity inherent in experience at its origin. Back when I was interpreting the Schneider case, I also mentioned the concept of the thickness of the medium (or here, perhaps more directly, the thickness of intentionality). Between human consciousness and external objects there always seems to be a curtain, so that people seem unable to know the world “directly.” This obstruction or distance is precisely what traditional epistemological philosophy has tried by every means to overcome; yet it is this very “space of reverberation” opened up by distance that makes reflective consciousness possible.

When people touch, toy with, and use stone tools, the human body never fully retreats into invisibility; when we operate stone tools with ease and confidence, the stone tools themselves never fully retreat into invisibility either. Every time human beings deal with the world, they are simultaneously dealing with themselves. One’s own abilities, limits, desires, and intentions are all projected onto the objects of consciousness, and as we continually become familiar with and know these objects, we are also continually becoming familiar with and knowing ourselves.

The above account is entirely in my own words; I do not guarantee its accuracy, and in fact Su Li’s discussion concerned more than what I have summarized above.

I do not remember Teacher Zhao Weiguo’s comments very clearly. When Teacher Wu Guosheng commented, he mentioned a paper he had wanted to write but had not managed to complete, in which he wanted to discuss the origin of technology, that is, the split between immanence and transcendence. Teacher Wu said, “Every polishing of a stone tool is at the same time a massage of the cerebral cortex,” which precisely echoes what Su Li said about the duality originally contained in experience. Of course, my recent line of thought has also independently converged with Teacher Wu’s.

 

Finally, a student named Suoyin, previously at Dalian University of Technology, spoke on “On the Sense of Space in Virtual Reality Technology,” with commentary by Teacher Duan Weiwen. Frankly speaking, this paper by Suoyin was not well written. It gave a lot of introductions to the characteristics of virtual reality technology, but it was somewhat disconnected from philosophical reflection, and looked as if it were borrowing the names of some philosophers to promote virtual reality technology. Teacher Duan’s comments, by contrast, burst with quite a bit of inspiration, but because Teacher Duan has always had a freewheeling, sky-high style of speaking, I still could not quite grasp the main points.

 

The afternoon began with Session 8, “Basic Problems in the Phenomenology of Technology.”

Teacher Li Sanhu from the Guangzhou Municipal Party School gave a talk titled “Seeing Technical Artifacts Between Materiality and Intentionality,” with commentary by Teacher Bao Guoguang. Teacher Li Sanhu tried to elaborate the concept of “technical interstitiality”; his approach was mainly along the lines of analytic philosophy. As soon as he opened with Chalmers’s “hard problem,” I was already frightened, and afterward I did not listen carefully either, so I cannot really comment.

 

Teacher Zhang Qiucheng from Northeastern University gave a talk titled “Deconstructing Technical Intentionality.” Teacher Zhang Qiucheng tried to deconstruct the concept of “technical intentionality” developed by the “postphenomenologists” Ihde and Verbeek, arguing that the concept of technical intentionality does not hold up, and that its meaningful part can be replaced by “technical function.”

I broadly agree with Teacher Zhang’s criticism of Ihde and Verbeek. The term “technical intentionality” really has indeed been “spoiled” by them; apart from declaring their relation to the phenomenological tradition, it seems to be little different from ordinary STS research. By comparison, Feenberg’s “technical code” is also somewhat deeper. But I cannot agree with Teacher Zhang’s “replacement.” However superficial the term “technical intentionality” has been made, it still contains certain dimensions that cannot be covered by “function.”

Teacher Bao Guoguang commented that, starting from Heidegger’s relation of indication, the concept of technical intentionality can still be used and cannot be covered by technical function, for example, the mutual indication between a teapot and a teacup; this kind of relationality is difficult to encompass with the concept of technical function. Of course Teacher Zhang Qiucheng will certainly object to there being any intentionality between teapot and teacup, but at least the word “function” is not sufficient. Teacher Li Zhangyin praised, “Old Bao is venting my anger for me,” and also emphasized that the concept of “function” is too objectifying and objectivizing, and that one could consider concepts such as the referentiality of technology.

I recently wrote about technical intentionality, and I of course think it is a defensible concept. The key still lies in returning to the understanding of “intentionality” itself: what does intentionality refer to? Is it merely a kind of directedness? Does it merely mean that A points to B? Is the whole dispute nothing more than whether this A can be something other than “human”? Clearly not. To simply understand intentionality as a relation of pointing may indeed be the mistake of Ihde and Verbeek, but we should not follow the mistake all the way to the end and simply discard the phenomenological doctrine of intentionality altogether.

Intentionality is not “A→B” in any sense whatsoever. On the contrary, the doctrine of intentionality precisely reveals that here both A and B are not ready-made; both subject and object are constituted in intentional activity. Intentional activity itself has its structure, and this intentional structure is prior to the structure of A or the structure of B—this is the basic insight of the doctrine of intentionality. But now we insist on pre-setting the A side, demanding first to ensure that A is human rather than thing, and only then allowing “intentionality”: this is a regression back to essentialism.

Between the lines of Teacher Zhang Qiucheng’s remarks, including in discussions with other teachers, one often finds the tacit assumption of so-called “human intentionality,” as if the divergence lies in whether intentionality belongs only to “the human” or can also belong to the “nonhuman.” Yet from the beginning intentionality never said it belonged to “human beings”; it belongs to the characteristics of “conscious activity.” But must so-called “conscious activity” necessarily occur within the “human”? Then where is this pre-established “human”? Where is the boundary between its inside and outside? The skin, or the skull? Is it possible that so-called “conscious activity” is something that happens inside the mysterious pineal gland? The predicament of traditional epistemological philosophy lies precisely here: “consciousness” is considered to be entirely an affair within some sort of insulator, while the external world and this internal world are separated by an unbridgeable gulf, and one does not know how to break through the wall. Phenomenology points out that this “wall” never originally existed; the merit of the doctrine of “intentionality” lies precisely in smashing this imagined wall.

Where does the activity of eating take place? Where does the activity of writing take place? “Eating” is neither in the mouth nor in the food; it happens between human beings and food. The activity of consciousness is no exception; consciousness is originally between human beings and things. The structures of various “betweens” allow the human to appear as the subject of action, and also allow things to appear as things of a certain category.

That is to say, “intentionality” was originally neither “the intentionality of things” nor “the intentionality of humans.” And if this original sense of “intentionality” can be split into “human intentionality,” then it has also simultaneously split out “technical intentionality.” In the absence of things, conscious activity can also linger in the “human” and be re-presented through imagination and memory; so in the absence of humans, can conscious activity linger in “things”? This is nothing other than “tertiary memory,” that is, technology. Of course, whether this lingering form of intentionality can still be called intentionality is debatable. But if discussing “human intentionality” is indeed legitimate, then discussing “technical intentionality” is also perfectly natural.

 

Next was a report by Liu Zheng, a doctoral student from the Wumen program at Peking University, titled “Are Technical Objects Moral Agents? — Verbeek’s Thought of ‘Technological Moralization’ and Its Internal Predicament.” Liu Zheng has something in common with Teacher Zhang Qiucheng: this paper is also a criticism of Verbeek, but its focus is on whether technical objects can serve as moral agents. Liu Zheng deserves credit for his courage. It is said that at a conference at Shanghai University he directly confronted Verbeek with criticism (and Verbeek reportedly listened while snickering). When Teacher Zhou Liyun commented, she thought that Liu Zheng had taken Verbeek out of context and criticized him within his own framework, without understanding Verbeek’s theoretical intention. Liu Zheng was not convinced. He thought that Verbeek was nothing more than trying to repackage Latour using Ihde’s terminology, and that his philosophical level was probably just the level of common sense within STS. Once Liu Zheng had put it that way, I really did not dare say anything. If that is so, then I would rather Liu Zheng shed Verbeek’s shadow as soon as possible and carefully develop the ideas that have been left in the “afterword” of several of his papers.

 

The theme of the final Session 9 was “Reflecting on New Technologies.”

First was Hu Yilin (me), a graduate of Peking University’s Wumen program and now a postdoctoral researcher at Beijing Normal University, speaking on “A Phenomenological Miscellany on Artificial Intelligence.” The article had long since been posted on the blog, so I will not introduce it in detail. At the time I had originally told Teacher Wu not to arrange for me to be the main speaker, but he did not respond, and quietly arranged for me to give a report and for Master Xianglong to comment on it. Only when I finally saw the schedule on the last day did I realize I had been assigned this task… But since I really was asked to speak, I was still willing to do so. After all, although this article is somewhat scattered, it does contain many of my recent thoughts. Its main flaw is that it is not written up as a proper paper.

The main points I discussed included: the problem of artificial intelligence is not necessarily the problem of an artificial mind; artificial objects can have intelligence; artificial objects do not begin to have intelligence only the moment they pass the Turing test, but already possess intelligence from the very beginning, with the stone tool. Technology is something that can be learned, and human beings and technology mutually constitute one another, and so on. Such related statements were already mentioned many times even in earlier parts of this travelogue, so I will not dwell on them here.

Because the requirements for the talk came somewhat abruptly, my preparation beforehand was a little rushed. In speaking, I omitted the final part of the article about the fate of the history of technology, though Teacher Wu thought that part was quite interesting.

Teacher Zhang Xianglong commented, pointing out that my formulation that “human beings and technology need each other like yin and yang” is quite interesting. The metaphor of “yin and yang” is indeed good: one solitary yin does not give birth, one solitary yang does not grow; within yin there is yang, and within yang there is yin. This indeed aptly describes the relation between human beings and technology.

Teacher Zhang raised at least four questions. The first asked about the different meanings of the concept of “learning,” but I do not clearly remember the specifics. The second question was whether there is learning without recourse to external things, such as yoga. My response was that what I call “technology” is something that can be learned, and this thing is not limited to tangible artifacts; it also includes technology and skill in the broad sense. Yoga is of course also a kind of bodily technique that needs to be learned. What I emphasize is externalization and internalization, and the externalization of knowledge does not necessarily have to settle in tools; transmission and acquisition of knowledge through interpersonal relations is also one form. The third question was that reductionists might say that the computer’s “deep learning” imitates the human neural network, and that its success precisely proves the validity of physicalism, so whether my use of these examples to discuss phenomenology is contradictory. In my view, phenomenology is in fact not contradictory to the natural sciences. To objectify and render objective the organs of human consciousness, to dissect them and study them, and to obtain some quantitative, precise conclusions—phenomenology itself is not at odds with scientific conclusions. But phenomenology believes that this physicalist reduction is not wrong, only not yet sufficient. No matter how finely one disassembles a piano, no matter how precisely one describes its structure, that can never replace playing a piece on the piano as a way of understanding what a piano means as a piano for people. A piano repairer can help improve the timbre, but can never replace the performer and listener of a piano piece. Finally, Teacher Zhang also asked my view of human destiny, whether it can be optimistic. On this matter my attitude is quite complex. Generally speaking, I do not quite agree with the dichotomy of optimistic or pessimistic; but if I must put it in those terms, then perhaps it is relatively “pessimistic,” though this “sorrow” is the sorrow of “tragedy.” The sorrow of tragedy is not always the sorrow of “misery”; it is more likely the sorrow of “heroic grandeur.” Under an inescapable destiny, there remains something moving, something both lamentable and inspiring. In the comment I left earlier, I said that technological development is destined to accelerate the extinction of humanity, but so what? An explorer who sacrifices himself in the prime of life is more glorious than a lazy fellow who lives to be a hundred. If humanity is to perish in fifty years at the hands of a higher-intelligence entity it has created, that would still be better than humanity creating nothing at all and then perishing in five billion years when the sun is destroyed.

Other teachers also spoke at length. Teacher Li Zhangyin thought my statements were “anti-phenomenological,” and before I could respond, Teacher Wu already started sparring with him (here he mentioned the phrase that polishing stone tools is at the same time a massage of the brain). In light of my earlier discussion of “technical intentionality,” the phenomenological background of this report should be fairly clear. Of course, by avoiding talk of intentionality and speaking only of intelligence, I did indeed have some intention of downplaying the phenomenological element in it.

 

Then came Professor Zhou Liyun of Shanghai University, speaking on “The Boundaries of Digital Technology and Digital Art, and Their Challenges.” Professor Duan Weiwen gave comments. As usual, for a period after I finished my own paper, my spirit still hadn’t come back to me, and I didn’t really absorb this presentation…

 

Finally, it was graduate student Li Pei from the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, speaking on “The Embodied Problem of Online Education,” and I was responsible for the commentary. To be frank, this paper was also rather poorly written; important terms such as “embodiment” and “authenticity” were used in a vague and muddled way, and there was much confusion in the argument as well. But since she was a girl, I softened my tone a bit and only pointed out one major problem. That is: the so-called “traditional education,” which is taken for granted as the point of comparison with “online education,” had not been clarified at all, but was simply assumed to be ideal.

I seem to remember that somewhere in Kevin Kelly’s books there is a quote something like this: technology is anything you encounter after the age of thirty. When people are young, they build habits in the environment of growth and learning; these things seem “natural,” as if they were a matter of course. After one has matured, encountering something new, one regards it as “clever tricks and petty contrivances,” something suspicious, unnatural, and superfluous. Li Pei’s understanding of “traditional education” seems to confirm this point. She seems to have forgotten the painful struggle under a barrage of chalkboard writing, and forgotten the technological transition from blackboard to PowerPoint, instead lumping traditional education together as some kind of non-technological “authentic” life.

First of all, is traditional classroom education really a kind of technology-free education? At the very beginning, the article says that because technological autonomists believe that people will be controlled by technology, “developing online education will cause people to lose their authentic lives.” But if online education is not developed, are people therefore not controlled by technology? Is classroom education the guarantor of people’s authentic lives? Are doing math problems and cramming for the college entrance exam the authentic life of human beings? Of course, we can discuss whether online education is more authentic or less authentic than traditional education, more controlled by technology or less controlled by it, but can you simply and as a matter of course understand traditional education as authentic non-technological education?

Classroom education also makes heavy use of technology, such as the most basic blackboard, chalk, and printed books, especially the multimedia teaching that became popular at the end of the last century. So what exactly are the supposed opponents opposing here: the technology of online education, or all educational technology? Between the lines, the article takes traditional education to be the most ideal education, for example: “The goal of online education is to provide a learning environment as similar as possible to the effect of traditional teaching.” — But who set this goal? The promoters of online education would obviously not support such a claim. Every ambitious educator is striving to provide teaching effects better than traditional ones. But in your telling, it seems traditional teaching already has the best possible effect and cannot be improved any further, so the goal of new modes of education is nothing but to imitate the traditional.

Then what is the goal of traditional education? Is the goal of multimedia education to “provide an environment as similar as possible to blackboard teaching”? Is the goal of classroom education based on printed books to “provide an environment as similar as possible to oral teaching”? If the goal of every new teaching environment is nothing more than imitating the old one, then wasn’t the educational environment of primitive tribes the most ideal?

The final conclusion, which supports the development of VR technology, also follows this simple logic: anyway, if the ultimate goal is just to simulate the real environment, then can one say that VR technology, by simulating us being in a lush forest full of birdsong and flowers, receiving instruction and personal example from a tribal chief, would amount to the most ideal education? But in fact, from the education of primitive tribes to the classroom of the print age, the transformation of educational environments has not been toward ever greater “reality” or ever richer sensory input; on the contrary, in many cases, educational environments are meant to restrict your senses and restrict your body. For example, when you are in class, your butt can’t move around casually; you certainly can’t run about, you can’t whisper to each other, and you can’t keep looking left and right. The traditional mode of education aims to exclude most of your body and senses from the classroom, whereas the VR technology you imagine would instead bring back these expelled faculties. Even if one takes traditional education as the ideal, this is still a case of getting the direction wrong. You think the key to traditional education is the body’s presence, but in fact it is precisely not.

The article says: “Traditional education is learning knowledge through the person themself, which can be expressed as ‘human—knowledge,’ that is, ‘embodied education’” — but what does it mean to learn knowledge through the person themself? Don’t we need textbooks to learn? Don’t we need blackboards and teachers? Isn’t “education” precisely about allowing people to learn things through some links outside themselves? If I, by myself, need no outside help and can learn through my own body alone, then why would I need education? Isn’t the essence of education precisely that people must learn through things outside themselves?

The article takes for granted that traditional education is “embodied education”; what does that mean? Is the teacher embodied, or the student embodied? Is the blackboard embodied, or the textbook embodied? For example, in the scene where students are staring blankly at mathematical formulas filling the blackboard that the teacher has written, what exactly is embodied in what? In what sense is traditional classroom education “embodied education”? Just because a physical body is present within the physical space of the classroom, does that automatically make it embodied education?

This kind of problem is not unique to Li Pei; many great scholars have similar problems. Often consciously or unconsciously, they take a certain way of life or surrounding environment as natural or reasonable (理所当然), and then declare it to be ideal. But there is a lack of finer-grained reflection on practical activity.

Of course, Li Pei’s research still has great prospects. From what I understand, she will also actually go experience those emerging online courses. Her obstacle is that she is too easily intimidated by philosophical jargon like “embodiment” and “authenticity”; before her philosophical skill has adequately mastered these words, she uses them to construct a rigid framework: authentic or inauthentic, embodied or non-embodied. When she tries to use these grand terms, so far removed from immediate understanding, to depict her own experience, even if she has done quite a bit of practical experience, it still amounts to nothing. My suggestion is: before one has fully mastered some difficult term, one should use such words only as inspiration, and when explaining, try as much as possible to express oneself in one’s own language, even if it is more cumbersome.

 

At last we finally entered the closing ceremony. Editor-in-chief Shan Zhiqiang gave a richly illustrated speech, and his introduction to the construction of landscape, non-objectifying photography, and so on, was all very interesting. Compared with most academic talks that put people to sleep, Teacher Shan’s speech was among the most brilliant of this conference.

Teacher Zhang Xialong also gave a concluding speech. He affirmed that the conference had been continuously improving—not only had the newcomers improved, but the old hands had improved as well. Teacher Zhang emphasized that technology is an inescapable force of this era, and any philosophical discourse that intentionally or unintentionally avoids talking about technology—especially discussions in political philosophy aimed at contemporary society, and the like—inevitably become empty. Finally, Teacher Bao Guoguang gave the summary, and Teacher Ma Delin, as the organizer of the next conference, also made remarks.

 

Finally, on August 12 we spent the whole day sightseeing at Mount Luoji. After taking the cable car up, the altitude was above 3,500 meters, and my altitude sickness became somewhat obvious, so I went back down the mountain relatively early. Still, I walked around the lake at the summit twice, and it felt quite lovely. Because I started back alone relatively early, there was actually a stretch when not a single human voice could be heard within my field of vision. I strolled by the lakeside all by myself, and the feeling was rather unique.

The bonfire party that evening was a bit of a letdown. On the way back downhill there was a traffic jam, and we didn’t get to the place where we were to eat until after nine. But the dishes served were all pieces of meat so tough they were impossible to chew. After a whole day of running around, both body and mind were exhausted. So we went back to the hotel early to rest. Of course, on the whole, the food these few days was excellent, leaving one with more than enough to savor.

 

 

Translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The original text is authoritative.

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