分类：Culture & Public Commentary

The Political Mission of College Students?

Culture & Public Commentary2010.06.03
The Political Mission of College Students?
A few days ago I discussed this question with someone: is a college student’s mission to study diligently, or should one play some kind of political role? Of course, a university is not merely a vocational technical school; it is not meant to cultivate “talent” but to cultivate “persons,” and as a fully developed person, one naturally includes one’s social and political role as well as one’s historical mission. There is no question about that. However, when students bring up college students’ political role, what comes to mind are only all kinds of thunderous “student movements”; in other words, if one says that students should bear a political mission, it…
culture scholarship freedom politics
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2010年6月3日
On the New Three Kingdoms and Artworks in the Age of Mass Media

Culture & Public Commentary2010.05.23
On the New Three Kingdoms and Artworks in the Age of Mass Media
I only glanced at a few episodes of the New Three Kingdoms television drama, and I haven’t read many related reviews either. At present I also do not want to offer any comment on the drama itself; works of that sort are not worth criticizing. I am merely using New Three Kingdoms to recall certain general phenomena of audiovisual works in this era. When watching New Three Kingdoms, and when in earlier years watching various remade historical costume dramas, I often could not help thinking: why can’t you just make it properly? Why must the screenwriters insist on adding so many melodramatic, soap-opera-style gimmicks? Why can’t they show more respect…
culture commentary art the masses
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2010年5月23日
On CCTV’s Blocking of English Abbreviations

Chinese Civilization & the Way of Chinese2010.04.08
On CCTV’s Blocking of English Abbreviations
After all, the General Administration of Radio, Film, and Television has always been an institution that only knows how to issue bans. That said, it is not the case that I would automatically oppose, or even ridicule, every ban issued by the General Administration of Radio, Film, and Television. As for this particular ban, overall I am affirmative and supportive. If replacing foreign-language abbreviations with their full Chinese names does not involve much difficulty, then why not do it? If the difficulty is very great, and switching over and adapting is hard, then all the more reason there is for correction. One argument is that most people actually do not…
culture commentary tradition Chinese
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2010年4月8日
Who Has “Politicized” Google?

Culture & Public Commentary2010.03.25
Who Has “Politicized” Google?
Google ultimately still withdrew from the Chinese market. Whether this is good or bad, right or wrong, I do not want to comment at length; nor do I want to enshrine Google as a heroic fighter, much less regard it as a symbol of freedom and democracy. But in any case, Google’s withdrawal is bound to become a landmark event. At the very least, we can expect that some years from now, when we discuss issues such as politics, economics, morality, media, diplomacy, human rights, and so on in the Internet age, this case will always be cited. Here I only want to mention one interesting little problem that I…
China commentary politics experts
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2010年3月25日
Winter Vacation Essays, No. 4: Green Dam—The Taboo of Eating Beef or the Taboo of Eating Pork

Culture & Public Commentary2010.02.08
Winter Vacation Essays, No. 4: Green Dam—The Taboo of Eating Beef or the Taboo of Eating Pork
I just bought a new laptop, ASUS’s new UL30V. A 13-inch widescreen, much lighter and more portable than my old laptop. ASUS’s biggest selling point is its super-durable battery: in power-saving mode, it is said to last 12 hours. It has both discrete and integrated graphics; when saving power, you can switch off the discrete card, and it still plays games just fine. All in all, I’m pretty satisfied. I bought it at a nearby computer market. The first shop quoted 6,000; after bargaining, I got it down to 5,750. The second shop opened at 5,250, and after haggling for ages I finally closed the deal at 5,000—yet it still…
culture technology children information
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2010年2月8日
Winter Vacation Miscellany I: What Is Modernity?

Culture & Public Commentary2010.02.01
Winter Vacation Miscellany I: What Is Modernity?
The blog has been neglected for quite a long time. I’ve been at home over winter break without much in the way of momentum, and before I knew it I was about to welcome the New Year in a state of neglect—that won’t do at all. No matter what, I should at least make an effort to update it a bit. Let me first write down some scattered bits and pieces I’d accumulated earlier but never got around to writing. Winter Break Essay No. 1: What Is Modernity? Back when the science-and-metaphysics discussion group was meeting, there was a classmate who rather arrogantly criticized everyone for talking at length about…
philosophy culture history modernity
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2010年2月1日
Has the Development of the Internet Done More Harm Than Good to Literature?

Culture & Public Commentary2009.10.16
Has the Development of the Internet Done More Harm Than Good to Literature?
Recently my blog updates have nearly ground to a halt; next time I should make a point of reflecting on that. This time I’ll just casually write down the associations sparked by this title, and try to recover my feel for writing~ This title is one of the debate topics in the freshman cup debate contest that our department’s undergraduates will be taking part in this time, and I, in my role as “adviser,” was also honored to be consulted, so I suppose I should at least give some kind of answer. Seeing this topic, I first thought of a few articles I wrote before. One of them was a…
culture internet pluralism printing
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2009年10月16日
Miscellaneous Thoughts on Marching in Step

Culture & Public Commentary2009.08.11
Miscellaneous Thoughts on Marching in Step
Let me begin with a story. Here’s how it went: this morning I went to campus to watch the formation training, and stood outside the fence around the gymnasium watching. Beside me was a middle-aged man who seemed to be visiting Peking University; he picked up his camera and took two photos, and immediately a thug-looking fellow came running from far away, yelling for him to delete the pictures. The man obediently complied and left. Seeing this, I then took out my own camera to shoot as well, and sure enough that fellow immediately charged over again, shouting for me to take out my camera and delete the photos. Of…
China freedom commentary education
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2009年8月11日
[Archive] Einstein on Parades

Culture & Public Commentary2009.08.08
[Archive] Einstein on Parades
Excerpted from [U.S.]Walter•Isaacson: Einstein: His Life and Universe, translated by Zhang Butian In Munich, although the penetration of Bavarian spirit into everyday life had not yet gone quite so deep, that Prussian-style glorification of the army was already running rampant. Many children liked to play at being soldiers. When the army passed by to the sound of flutes and drums, children would pour into the street, join the procession, and march along step by step. Einstein was not like that. The first time he saw such a spectacle, he burst into tears. “I certainly didn’t want to grow up to become such a pitiful fellow,” he told his parents. As…
commentary emotion children Einstein
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2009年8月8日
Ji Xianlin: “Miscellaneous Memories from the Cowshed”

Culture & Public Commentary2009.07.17
Ji Xianlin: “Miscellaneous Memories from the Cowshed”
Ji Xianlin: Memoirs from the Cowshed (manuscript edition), Zhongguo Yanshi Publishing House, 2006, 9787801288799 The ritual of mourning for Old Ji can be considered complete. By comparison, the book I would still recommend is *The Archive of Shuxingbei*, though *Memoirs from the Cowshed* has its own distinct flavor. If *The Archive of Shuxingbei* is a downright tragedy, then *Memoirs from the Cowshed* is more like a farce—dark humor, of course. How was the Cultural Revolution possible? This was the last question posed by Old Ji. The Cultural Revolution was a miracle; it gathered together every favorable condition of time, place, and people, and only then did it blossom in a…
book reading China notes intellectuals
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2009年7月17日