Suixuan

标签：Chinese

  • Following the Grain and Finding Order: “Li means to work jade.”

    Philosophy & Thought

    Following the Grain and Finding Order: “Li means to work jade.”

    “Wen” and “li” have undergone thousands of years of evolution in China, and then, further reshaped by modern Western languages and influenced by modern science, they long ago became unrecognizable. Hence the talk of choosing between the humanities and the sciences, of emphasizing li over wen, of the integration of wen and li, and so on. But what exactly is wen, and what exactly is li? These notions have long since become ambiguous and obscure, seeming to be something and yet not quite. In people’s minds, “li” probably means mathematics and physics, or more generally those activities that resemble “calculation”; while “wen” seems to mean handling brush and ink, or…

    philosophyChinatraditionHeidegger
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  • Writing Is a Kind of Outpouring

    History of Science & Scholarship

    Writing Is a Kind of Outpouring

    I often hear people say “write, leak.” This is not merely a coincidence of shape; in fact, “write” and “leak” were originally the same character. Jinshan Ciba says: “写，置物也。——《说文》。俗字亦作泻。” Perhaps the evolution of “写” into the meaning of writing merely stems from its original sense of “to place,” but Chinese characters are, after all, endlessly subtle. Whether or not this is a coincidence, these two characters have in any case been deeply bound together. People say good prose is “flowed out,” and I know that my own articles really are flowed out. In this way, I suppose they at least satisfy the necessary but not sufficient condition for becoming good…

    scholarshipChineselanguagewriting
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  • Seven Subjects of Moral Education (How to Do Moral Education?)

    Culture & Public Commentary

    Seven Subjects of Moral Education (How to Do Moral Education?)

    Moral education is not the task of the university. By the time they enter college, most students are already adults, and their individual character has long since taken basic shape. A university ought to build a stage on which all kinds of different personalities can coexist, guiding each character to shine in its own distinctive way; it should not then try to remake students’ personalities. Primary and secondary education are different. Primary and secondary schools, together with parents, bear the mission of cultivating and shaping children’s character. The “not yet complete” in “minors” refers precisely to the fact that their personality and character have not yet taken shape, and their…

    philosophyculturefreedomeducation
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  • An Overview of Theories of Human Origins (Animal Biology Assignment)

    History of Science & Scholarship

    An Overview of Theories of Human Origins (Animal Biology Assignment)

    The second assignment for *Animal Biology* took me a full two days and more, the greater part of which was spent fruitlessly searching Chinese Academic Journals for reference papers. In the end I once again discovered that nine out of ten papers written by Chinese people are garbage; books are still useful. And among books, only those written by foreigners are useful. Although the bibliography includes two Chinese books, one a textbook and the other one I bought specially, both clearly plagiarize whole passages from Richard Leakey’s *The Origin of Humankind*. But does saying that a book is “compiled” rather than “authored” mean one can omit notes? Even if “compiled”…

    philosophybook readingnotesChinese
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  • The Train Was 7 and a Half Hours Late…

    The Train Was 7 and a Half Hours Late…
    Life & Notes

    The Train Was 7 and a Half Hours Late…

    The Z21 express. It was scheduled to depart punctually at 7:30 and was supposed to arrive in Shanghai at 7:00 on the dot, but in the end it didn’t get there until almost 4 p.m. I suppose that counts as a free viewing of the snowy scenery… I really had never seen such a blizzard before; the snow piled up above the knees, and it was very fine and loose. I really felt like getting off the train and taking a walk. Latest comments              Suíyuán 2008-01-29 19:55:29 Anonymous 124.17.18.213 [Reply] Hehe, Xiaogu has gone home for the New Year! Here I’d also like to…

    everyday lifeChinesetravel
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  • [Repost] Is full English-language instruction in the philosophy department worth promoting?

    Teaching & Courses

    [Repost] Is full English-language instruction in the philosophy department worth promoting?

    http://www.gotopku.cn/forum/viewthread.php?tid=52639&pid=587739 There is nothing here that is worth advocating! I remember Teacher Li Silong made a good point: after all, we are studying Western philosophy in China. The purpose is not merely to study Western philosophy itself, but also to understand philosophy in the Chinese context and to spread and develop it. This is neither about learning a useful skill nor about learning a game completely unrelated to our own culture. If Western philosophy is to be introduced into China, how to translate and teach it in Chinese is itself one of the missions of those who work in Western philosophy. Although a particular philosophy researcher may be free to…

    philosophyculturecourseChinese
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  • Return to Weiming Lake!

    Life & Notes

    Return to Weiming Lake!

    I remember that during this period two years ago, every day I would carry three or five books on my back and sit by the shore of Weiming Lake or the lake in Langrun Garden for an entire afternoon. When I grew tired of reading, I would gaze at the water for a while, staying until evening or even sunset, and only after I had finished several books would I leave—both carefree and at ease, and astonishingly efficient. For more than a year, although I would occasionally still wander around Weiming Lake, whenever I walked by the lake there was always a heavy shadow pressing on my heart. Several times…

    everyday lifePeking UniversityChinesescript
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  • The Lamb Stew Dwelling

    The Lamb Stew Dwelling
    Life & Notes

    The Lamb Stew Dwelling

    Mutton Soup Dwelling Xing Ding 发表于 2007-01-18 20:14:07 Mutton Soup Dwelling At last I’m connected to the internet; broadband in Beijing isn’t as good as Shanghai’s, and it’s so slow and yet so expensive…… But getting online means I’ve completed the entire grand relocation project! (Of course, the hauling of books is still under way……) I was bound to rent a place for a while sooner or later anyway, especially during that stretch between finishing my undergraduate degree and starting graduate school; my more than two thousand books had to have somewhere to go. And judging by my book-buying trend, the dorm’s capacity is about to be full to bursting,…

    everyday lifeculturePeking UniversityChinese
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  • Grandfather

    Grandfather

    Grandfather
    Life & Notes

    Grandfather

    Grandfather Hu Tianding posted on 2006-09-12 02:15:25 Mourning Grandfather 1 My grandfather had the best temper imaginable. He was always thinking of others, always worrying about others. He was often fretting over this and that for other people, while never causing trouble for anyone himself. Even when Grandpa was gravely ill, whenever he was lucid he would always ask his family to go back home and not stay with him at the hospital: the air in the hospital was bad, his children should not delay their work, their own health was not good either… One day, my uncle-in-law kept watch over him through the night, and Grandpa called him over…

    everyday lifehuman natureChinese
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  • On “Gu Chi”

    On “Gu Chi”
    Life & Notes

    On “Gu Chi”

    “Gu Chu” is my primary pen name, that is to say, the one I prefer first, like best, and use most often. Of course, if there is a primary pen name, then there is naturally a secondary one as well: the default “Xingding” under which I post articles here. Its original purpose was simply to keep search engines from finding my Suixuan so easily, because the word “Gu Chu” is probably unique in the whole world—search it and everything you get is me—so I used the word “Xingding,” which when searched turns up all sorts of random odds and ends, instead. But now that I think about it, it hardly…

    philosophyautobiographyChineselanguage
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