标签：commentary

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
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
On the Fan Paopao Incident

Culture & Public Commentary2008.06.07
On the Fan Paopao Incident
This was something I wrote two weeks ago when Ceiling initiated a group email discussion. Today I saw Fan’s new interview, so it counts as a hot topic too. I’ll just post my text to the blog; discussion is welcome — my position is roughly this: if you want to defend Fan, then I can criticize you; if you want to denounce Fan, then I’ll criticize you too. As for Zhou Xiaozheng’s attitude in the interview, I rather agree with it, though I didn’t read it carefully. Some of Fan Meizhong’s remarks are in fact quite reasonable — at the very least, they are worth thinking about — and one…
philosophy China commentary Kant
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2008年6月7日
Talking Again About Guo Degang

Culture & Public Commentary2008.01.12
Talking Again About Guo Degang
It was nearly two years ago that I wrote an essay called “Also on Guo Degang.” At the time, I was responding to an article by ZW; astonishingly, he actually looked down on Guo Degang. I had only listened to a few short audio clips then, so I mainly said a few words from the angle of “tradition,” arguing that Guo Degang had certainly contributed to the development of crosstalk. But recently, on the advice of an older fellow student, I learned that Guo Degang’s crosstalk really has to be watched on video; only then did I go back and find a lot of videos to watch again. Ah, OMG,…
culture commentary tradition art
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2008年1月12日
On the Peng Yu Case

Culture & Public Commentary2007.09.11
On the Peng Yu Case
About the Peng Yu case has recently become quite popular online; you can find it anywhere if you search casually, so I won’t quote much here: “On September 5, the Gulou District Court in Nanjing delivered its ruling in the Peng Yu case, deciding that Peng Yu should compensate the plaintiff for 40% of her losses, amounting to 45,876 yuan. The judgment said, ‘From common sense, it is more likely that Peng Yu collided with the old woman. If Peng Yu had not knocked down the old woman, he would have had no need at all to send her to the hospital.’ Once the verdict was announced, public opinion across…
China commentary sociology public sphere
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2007年9月11日
On the “Ungrateful Poor College Student” Incident

Culture & Public Commentary2007.09.03
On the “Ungrateful Poor College Student” Incident
A little while ago I saw a piece of news online saying that five poor college students in Xiangfan had their funding canceled because they were “ungrateful.” Today I happened to see a follow-up report on TV, and I can’t help writing a few words. At first, when I heard the two words “ungrateful,” I thought: just how badly had they behaved, and how much embarrassment had they caused the benefactors, that those female entrepreneurs would angrily give up their sponsorship? But after watching for a long time, I found it was only that after receiving the money they never took the initiative to write letters or make phone calls…
China commentary sociology
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2007年9月3日
Everything Is Unprepared, Yet the East Wind Blows Quite Fiercely—Disappointed Once Again in Education Reform

Culture & Public Commentary2006.08.30
Everything Is Unprepared, Yet the East Wind Blows Quite Fiercely—Disappointed Once Again in Education Reform
Hayek: In this world, there is always a difference between treating people equally and trying to make them equal. The former is a prerequisite of a free society, while the latter, as Tocqueville described it, means “a new form of servitude.” This passage is truly well put. Freedom, democracy, equality—these concepts sound stirring, and of course they are all good words. Yet how exactly are they to be understood, and how are they to be pursued? That is a big question. The United States, waving the banner of freedom and democracy, carries out its “new form of servitude” across the globe, and in China, too, the concept of equality is…
freedom commentary education equality
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2006年8月30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