分类：Culture & Public Commentary

[Archive] Ji Xianlin: Preface to Miscellaneous Recollections from the Cow Shed

Culture & Public Commentary2009.07.16
[Archive] Ji Xianlin: Preface to Miscellaneous Recollections from the Cow Shed
http://vip.book.sina.com.cn/book/chapter_38306_22059.html Ji Xianlin: Preface to Miscellaneous Recollections from the Cowshed Miscellaneous Recollections from the Cowshed was written in 1992. Why, after six years, was it only now, in 1998, brought out for publication? This rather violates the usual conventions of book writing. Readers are bound to suspect that there must be some explanation. Their suspicion is justified: there is indeed an explanation, and it is not mysterious at all. It arises merely from a bit of personal selfishness—my own petty “judging a gentleman’s belly by a small man’s heart.” I had already been trampled on by the “revolutionary” youngsters—though in fact they were not necessarily all young—by a thousand feet,…
book reading China notes history
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2009年7月16日
Ji Xianlin: “Ji Xianlin on Translation”

Culture & Public Commentary2009.07.16
Ji Xianlin: “Ji Xianlin on Translation”
Ji Xianlin: “Ji Xianlin Talks about Translation,” edited by the Ji Xianlin Research Institute, Contemporary China Publishing House2007, 9787801705952 When Mr. Ji Xianlin passed away, Peking University set up a memorial hall for public mourning, but I did not go. Of course I very much identify with such commemorative rites; feelings of admiration, humility, reverence, remembrance, and so on are all contained in the ritual of condolence. Still, I myself did not go to pay my respects, because for me there are more fitting rites with which to remember this elder. The reason to come and pay tribute to Mr. Ji Xianlin is not because I feel any grief….
book reading notes Peking University translation
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2009年7月16日
Solar Eclipse and Ritual

Chinese Civilization & the Way of Chinese2009.07.01
Solar Eclipse and Ritual
When the ruler’s conduct is irregular, and the dukes and ministers are unvirtuous, when the Yi and the Di are strong and invade, and all affairs are thrown into confusion, then the sun is eclipsed.——《Spring and Autumn Wei: Gan Jing Fu》 When the ruler indulges himself and does not follow the ancients, when he acts against Heaven and brutalizes things, calamity arises and then the sun is eclipsed.——《Spring and Autumn Wei: Yundou Shu》 When the ruler’s joy and anger are irregular, when he lightly kills the innocent, executes the guiltless, disrespects Heaven and Earth, and disregards ghosts and spirits, then the sun is eclipsed.——《Liyun Wei: Dou Weiyi》 When the…
culture China ritual astronomy
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2009年7月1日
A Supplement to “Poetry Is the Most Originary Rationality”:

Culture & Public Commentary2009.06.12
A Supplement to “Poetry Is the Most Originary Rationality”:
Previously, in the essay “Philosophy and Poetry,” I mentioned this line. I’ve forgotten the exact source of this formulation; it was probably from Heidegger, or perhaps from my own understanding of Heidegger. Of course, no matter what Heidegger said, since I brought up this line, I always have my own set of thoughts about it. Under Unic’s questioning I gave some explanations; since it came to more than a thousand characters, I’m整理ing it here on the blog: Of course, this is a vague way of putting it. The key is to look at what “源始” means. If reason is the use of concepts, then what kind of use is the…
philosophy culture Heidegger language
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2009年6月12日
The Responsibility of the Communicator

Culture & Public Commentary2009.05.22
The Responsibility of the Communicator
Today, while riding my bike in the rain on the 21st, as usual my thoughts drifted about, and I connected up a few threads I had recently run into, and so I wrote this essay. As for my attitude toward plagiarism and literary theft, I already made it clear in my undergraduate post “Why Suixuan Is Not Afraid of Plagiarism and Theft.” Now that I compare my own writing to excrement, that too signals my attitude that I am not afraid of plagiarism. And yet, of course, I have always held a deep contempt for paper plagiarism. In a certain sense, plagiarism or theft in academic papers is, in my…
culture freedom media value
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2009年5月22日
[German] Josef Pieper: “Leisure: The Basis of Culture” — ★

Culture & Public Commentary2009.03.22
[German] Josef Pieper: “Leisure: The Basis of Culture” — ★
[German]Josef Pieper: “Leisure—the Basis of Culture.” Liu Senyao trans., Xinxing Press2005. I often have the feeling of being mischievously—though benevolently—teased by fate: people, classes, books, and so on keep crossing my path at one奇妙 moment or another. As far as books are concerned, it is often just when a set of ideas has taken shape in my mind that a book appears before me that seems as if I myself had written it. Friends who heard me talk about my philosophical views at Xindao yesterday afternoon will probably feel quite亲切 when they see some of the quotations below, as if they were simply repeating what I said yesterday. But this…
philosophy book reading notes human nature
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2009年3月22日
Yu Zemin: “Seeing Europe in Cafés,” Shandong Pictorial Publishing House, 2007

Culture & Public Commentary2009.02.21
Yu Zemin: “Seeing Europe in Cafés,” Shandong Pictorial Publishing House, 2007
Page 34 In the small cafés of English towns, there is still a custom in which one customer “pays for” another. If one traces it to its source, one finds that the English picked up the habit from the Turks. In Turkey, when you walk into a café and have just ordered your coffee, you may suddenly hear someone in the room shout, “It’s on me!” The proprietor will then put your bill on the account of the customer who called out. Perhaps he is your friend, perhaps he wants to get acquainted with you… At that point, you not only have to walk over and thank her, but also greet…
book reading notes Newton Einstein
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2009年2月21日
zz Liu Suli: European Cafés—The Cradle of the Birth of Modern Society

Culture & Public Commentary2009.02.21
zz Liu Suli: European Cafés—The Cradle of the Birth of Modern Society
The Cradle of Modern Society http://dzb.sznews.com/szwb/content/2007-11/05/content_1628691.htm ■ Liu Suli (book reviewer, founder of Wangshang Bookstore, Beijing) *Looking at Europe from the Café*, by Yu Zemin, published by Shandong Pictorial Publishing House in October 2007. If you take the book in your hand and regard it only as a guide map to cafés, then you have made a 50 percent mistake; if you take it as an ordinary book for leisure and diversion, then you have made a further 25 percent mistake. To each his own. What I read in the book was this: the European café—the cradle of the birth of modern society. I do not need to repeat all…
book reading culture notes history
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2009年2月21日
Markman Ellis, The Coffee-House: A Cultural History, trans. Meng Li, Guangxi Normal University Press, December 2007

Culture & Public Commentary2009.02.14
Markman Ellis, The Coffee-House: A Cultural History, trans. Meng Li, Guangxi Normal University Press, December 2007
Preface, page2 The story of the café needs to be traced back through history, and the17th and18th centuries play the leading roles. Since the first café appeared in London, over the course of this hundred years, the café has become an omnipresent feature of urban life, a necessary venue for social intercourse, gossip, discussion, and debate. It was the café that taught men a new way of building a hybrid kind of friendship, into which they poured business ventures, severe criticism, scientific discussion, political clubs, and all sorts of other contents. As the chapters of this book’s main text will explain, the early cafés were by no means limited…
book reading culture science notes
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2009年2月14日
[Collection] A Small Subset of Japanese Loanwords in Modern Chinese

Culture & Public Commentary2008.11.08
[Collection] A Small Subset of Japanese Loanwords in Modern Chinese
I guess I’m just remembering to add some background material for Professor Chen’s lecture~（http://hps.phil.pku.edu.cn/bbs/read.php?tid=523 ） Liu Zheng (Tuyan) et al. (1984) compiled 890 loanwords of Japanese origin; I am citing this from Yang Xipeng, *Research on Chinese Loanwords* (汉语外来词研究), Shanghai People’s Publishing House, 2007, pp. 149–154. I have merely selected some of the words that are more related to scholarship or reasoning, for everyone’s enjoyment: — if it weren’t for these concepts introduced from Japan as Western learning moved eastward, could we still reason things out? implication, hegemony, saturation, insurance, guarantee, pessimism, tragedy, background, essence, proportion, necessity, organizational structure, dialectics, specimen, slogan, vote, phenomenon, doctor, museum, visit, inspect, refer to,…
book reading culture notes Chinese
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2008年11月8日