标签：China

How Am I a Marxist?

Life & Notes2007.01.04
How Am I a Marxist?
I’ve recently been wanting to sort out this question again and make my position clear once more — I still call myself a Marxist, and that has never changed since I joined the Party. I have always idealized myself as a maverick, an unruly thinker; as long as I have not resigned from the Party, I will continue to insist on this. Expediency and status can never be reasons for me to remain inside the Party. The only reason I am a Party member is that I genuinely claim to be a Marxist. So, how am I a Marxist? Of course, one major reason is that I am a Party…
philosophy China faith autobiography
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2007年1月4日
When the Fisherman Meets the Shepherd

Life & Notes2006.11.08
When the Fisherman Meets the Shepherd
Occasionally I write some words that make no sense at all. Literati and recluses of old have always had a special fondness for “retiring to the mountains and forests.” Though I hardly count as a man of letters, in recent years I too have developed an increasingly strong hankering for seclusion and withdrawal from the world. Of course, I am still young, and have not even yet stepped into this “world”; how could I talk about escaping it? It is only idle fancy. I will always have to go wild in this world for a while, and only after I have played to my heart’s content will I go in…
philosophy everyday life China faith
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2006年11月8日
Preserving Common Ground, Seeking Difference—A Pluralist View of Dialogue

Philosophy & Thought2006.11.07
Preserving Common Ground, Seeking Difference—A Pluralist View of Dialogue
Keeping the Common While Seeking the Different “Seek common ground while reserving differences” is a good phrase. When the various parties differ in position and judgment, one can first set aside hostility, consider those claims on which everyone agrees, cooperate first, and then gradually negotiate the differences. This attitude is very important in many practical activities that require cooperation, and especially necessary for urgent issues such as ecological protection. However, “seeking common ground while reserving differences” is not enough to capture the attitude toward exchange held by pluralism. It is a very good attitude for cooperation, but not quite the best attitude for dialogue. The pluralist view of dialogical coexistence…
philosophy culture China discussion
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2006年11月7日
A Frog Metaphor for Ancient Chinese Science

History of Science & Scholarship2006.11.02
A Frog Metaphor for Ancient Chinese Science
On whether ancient China had science, what kind of science it had, and how it relates to Western science. Viewpoint one: little frog and big frog — ancient China had the same science as the West, but it was simply undernourished and underdeveloped, not as sturdy and robust as Western science. That is all. Viewpoint two: tadpole and frog — this admits that ancient China did not form a mature science, but it did have the “sprouting” of science; even without outside intervention, it would sooner or later grow into a frog. Although a tadpole and a frog look extremely different, in essence they are the same. Viewpoint three: frog…
philosophy China science history of science
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2006年11月2日
A Complete Guide to Buying Books in Shanghai, Beijing, and Online

Life & Notes2006.08.29
A Complete Guide to Buying Books in Shanghai, Beijing, and Online
Shanghai: Having grown used to living at Peking University, when I came back to Shanghai I felt that finding books was really not very convenient. Still, Shanghai is after all a big city, so there are quite a few bookstores. From my home it’s a very short walk to First Yaohan, and in the basement of First Yaohan there is the so-called “Oriental Book City,” advertised as the largest in Pudong. There are quite a lot of books, but the layout is too chaotic; as a general bookstore, it doesn’t have many academic books. On Fuzhou Road: Shanghai Book City is the most famous, but it is also a general…
everyday life China book review script
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2006年8月29日
A Casual Recollection of My Growing-Up Years: Donggezhi Middle School

Life & Notes2006.07.26
A Casual Recollection of My Growing-Up Years: Donggezhi Middle School
——————————————（continued from previous）—————————— Dong Gezhi Middle School had its predecessor in Puming Normal School. We were the second cohort of students admitted by Dong Gezhi. When we were in school, there were still a few cohorts of the original Puming Normal School students, and several of the teachers had even done their practicum at our place. Principal Fu of Dong Gezhi had been the vice principal of the original Gezhi Middle School; after leaving Gezhi he wanted to strike out on his own and build something of his own, and thus Dong Gezhi Middle School came into being. At that time we happened to catch the first round of abolishing…
China education autobiography mathematics
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2006年7月26日
Education, Reform, and Egalitarianism

Culture & Public Commentary2006.04.13
Education, Reform, and Egalitarianism
A while ago, the presidents of Renmin University and other universities raised the issue that the government’s policies toward Peking University and Tsinghua University are too heavily tilted in their favor. The government’s preference for Peking University and Tsinghua is indeed very obvious, showing up not only in financial support but mainly in the enormous tilt of admissions policy. This tilt in admissions is especially evident in Shanghai’s college entrance examination system: in Shanghai, Peking University and Tsinghua are the so-called “zero-choice” option, separate from the other preferences, with applications first processed for the zero-choice option and only afterward allocated among the others. In other words, you might as well…
culture China education mathematics
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2006年4月13日
Further Thoughts on Guo Degang

Culture & Public Commentary2006.03.26
Further Thoughts on Guo Degang
I do like listening to crosstalk, but I don’t know much about the performing arts, and I’ve not thought about them very deeply either. So in the first place, there was no need for me to choose this topic and write an essay about it. Still, lately I’ve begun to feel that, however much of a philosopher one may be, one ought at least to cultivate a sufficient concern for problems—on any topic worth discussing, if you put in a certain amount of effort, you can immediately spin out a few opinions. Since I’ve always hoped that friends would comment on the topics I discuss on my blog, even when…
culture China commentary humor
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2006年3月26日
The Thinker Fixated on Expectation

History of Science & Scholarship2006.03.24
The Thinker Fixated on Expectation
I do not reject a theory because its conclusion is absurd. What must be despised is its attitude and manner of expression. Some time ago I read a younger schoolmate’s article on Confucius; now I am reading a younger schoolmate’s so-called “paper” on “desire studies.” Some articles are unbearable, but I want everyone to know that at present I explicitly hold a pluralist position. The reason I reject some things is not because their views are “extreme.” It does not matter if the views are extreme; others can refute them, and different views can be set side by side in contest. However, some people are also extreme in attitude, imagining…
philosophy China scholarship discussion
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2006年3月24日
The Superstition of Economics

Culture & Public Commentary2006.03.18
The Superstition of Economics
Economics is also part of science, and economic superstition is a part of “scientific superstition”; however, economic superstition has its own distinctive features. In China, not only is scientific superstition very serious, economic superstition is also especially prominent. There are two reasons for superstition: first, ignorance of the object; second, the object displays some kind of powerful force. This is true of science, and even more so of economics. Since reform and opening up, China’s economic takeoff has displayed what seems to be the tremendous power brought by economics, while the public’s ignorance of economics is no less than its ignorance of science. Like scientific superstition, the effects of economic…
culture China economy superstition
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2006年3月18日