The Last Days of Old Beijing

Speaking of books, a friend sent me this. To read the whole review, click on the title of this post. This one is certainly on my wish list.

An American in China

By KATE SEKULES

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THE LAST DAYS OF OLD BEIJING

Life in the Vanishing Backstreets of a City Transformed.

By Michael Meyer.

Illustrated. 355 pp. Walker & Company. $25.99.

This summer, widespread Beijing fatigue is an inevitability. But it’s high-flying Olympic Beijing that may become overfamiliar, a city that’s appeared before our very eyes as in a scene from “The Matrix.” This is not Michael Meyer’s town. The Beijing he has called home is being systematically eradicated, and this book is his testament.

On Aug. 8, 2005, three years to the day before the Olympics’ start date — and exactly 68 years after the Japanese marched in to occupy the city — Meyer moved into a traditional courtyard home on Red Bayberry and Bamboo Slanted Street in the hutong, the “vanishing backstreets” of his subtitle. His neighborhood, Dazhalan, is six centuries old and was once known as the entertainment district, full of artisans, acrobats, antiques and brothels. Meyer assumes the role of the lone Westerner among Dazhalan’s 57,000-odd residents, which provides entertainment of a distinctly early-21st-century sort: the authentic cultural immersion experience.

A travel writer who hails from Minneapolis, Meyer is no dilettante. His motives certainly don’t seem touristic or cynical. He didn’t move to Beijing to write a book about it (or if he did, he isn’t saying). “Beijing was simply love at first sight,” he writes. The hutong beckons after a former resident gives Meyer a tearful tour of his half-demolished house. (“It wasn’t just a building,” the man says. “It was me. It was my family.”) Meyer also acts on a perceived challenge from Le Corbusier, champion of urban renewal: to inhabit the picturesque slums whose razing both historians and tourists sentimentally deplore. And whose razing — from 7,000 hutong in 1949 to 1,300 in 2005, with 1.25 million residents evicted between 1990 and 2007 — he proceeds to record.

After cutting through a mile of red tape, Meyer becomes a volunteer teacher at Coal Lane Elementary and acquires, for $100 a month, two unheated rooms lighted by bare bulbs, with straw-and-mud walls, on a five-room courtyard shared with six others. The latrine is a few minutes’ walk away, as is the Big Power Bathhouse. Since using a refrigerator blows the entire courtyard’s fuses, Meyer keeps his unplugged, storing underwear in it instead. In a singular feat of extreme travel, he lives like this for two years.

Journey to the Far East

The powers that be have decided in their wisdom that it is for the common good that I leave the country for the time being and visit my company headquarters in Japan. I’ll be leaving in a couple of weeks for a one week duration. I’ll be there just long enough for adjust to sleeping in a timezone 180 degrees out of phase with my normal body rhythms.

I’ve never been there before, in spite of having a long interest in the history and culture of Japan. Being a business trip, I really don’t expect to see much of the country aside from airports, train stations, hotels, office buildings, and restaurants.

Since my mother passed away and my kids are grown, I am less anxious about travel. I don’t have to worry about them any more. From that regard, I am quite looking forward to it. Here is a chance to test my fledging Japanese language skills. Here is a chance to see what it’s like over there.

One thing I am NOT looking forward to is the flight. I don’t mind flying. Not at all. I can’t stand travelling by air though. I don’t like airports, checking in, security, waiting at the gate, finding my luggage; you name it. It seems like the whole processs has been explicityly designed solely to antagonize the traveler. Then there is the length of the flight to consider. It’ll be about 13 hours each way.

So, I’ll probably see a couple of movies. I’ll do some crossword puzzles. I’ll probably work on some Japanese language related stuff, hopefully take a few naps, and get some reading done.

I’ll have a lot of time to do some reading. I’m only going to have so much space to lug around books, so something thick and densely printed. I don’t think I’m going to want to think too hard, so something entertaining rather than something to be studied.

Any suggestions?

Daoist Downloads

If you click on the title of this post, you'll be directed to a website entitled Hermetica. The author of this website, Bradford Hatcher, has translated an enormous amount of Daoist material (among other things) available for download. Free. Donations are welcome though.

There is a massive translation of the I Ching, the Dao De Jing, Zhaung Zi; and a large number of very high quality links.

Please pay a visit and take a look around. You can also find the link over at the right.

I Ching Resource

I find the study of the I Ching to be bewildering. Never the less, it's a book that I want to someday study in depth. I've found a resource here that might just help me get started. You can also click on the title of this post to be directed to the I Ching with Clarity web site. Please pay a visit.

An excerpt from the website:

People have turned to the I Ching for some 3,000 years to help them uncover the meaning of their experience, to bring their actions into harmony with their underlying purpose, and above all to build a foundation of confident awareness for their choices.

Down the millennia, as the I Ching tradition has grown richer and deeper, the things we consult about may have changed a little. But the moment of consultation is much the same. These are the times when you're turning in circles, hemmed in and frustrated by all the things you can't see or don't understand. You can think it over (and over, and over); you can 'journal' it; you can gather opinions. But how can you have confidence in choosing a way to go, if you can't quite be sure of seeing where you are?

Only understand where you are now, and you rediscover your power to make changes. This is the heart of I Ching divination. Once you can really see into the present moment, all its possibilities open out before you - and you are free to create your future.

Cane Fighting and Sherlock Holmes

Over at Martial Views there is a recent article about using cane for self defense. This of course led me to think about Sherlock Holmes.

The fictional detective was not only known to be a pretty decent boxer, but also practiced a martial art known as Bartitsu, which actually existed. Bartitsu was a combination of Jujutsu, Boxing, and Stick Fighting.

If you click on the title of this post, you'll be directed to the Bartistsu Society website. There is also a Wikipedia article here.

Bartitsu was practiced in the late 1800's, and early 1900's before sort of petering out. The founder of Bartitsu, Edward William Barton-Wright, left behind quite a bit of written material, and the art has been recreated. You can find out more about this at the Bartitsu Society website.

Finally, here is a video clip of jujutsu being performed in Europe in the early 1900's:

Studying, Not Just Reading, the Classics

There is an article on the blog, The Collaborative View, entitled Learning Leadership from the Amateurs, when quotes an article entitled The New Mandarins. The topic has to do with not simply reading a classic book (in this case it was The Art of War), but truly studying it. It's a very good read on what it is to really study something.

Below is an excerpt. If you click on the title of this post, you'll be directed to the whole thing. Please pay a visit.

December 16, 2007
Phenomenon
The Newest Mandarins
By ANNPING CHIN

Lei Bo is a philosophy graduate student in China whose faith is in history, and by habit he considers the world using the thousands of classical passages that live in his head. Three years ago he was studying in an empty room in the School of Management at his university in Beijing when students began to amble in for their class on Sun Tzu's "Art of War," a work from either the fifth or the fourth century B.C. Lei Bo decided to stay. He had taken two courses on "The Art of War" in the philosophy and the literature departments, and was curious to see how students in business and management might approach the same subject. The discussion that day was on the five attributes of a military commander. Sun Tzu said in the first chapter of the book, "An able commander is wise (zhi), trustworthy (xin), humane (ren), courageous (yong) and believes in strict discipline (yan)."

The students thought that a chief executive today should possess the same strengths in order to lead. But how did the five attributes apply to business? Here they were stuck, unable to move beyond what the words suggest in everyday speech. Even their teacher could not find anything new to add. At this point, Lei Bo raised his hand and began to take each word back to its home, to the sixth century B.C., when Sun Tzu lived, and to the two subsequent centuries when the work Sun Tzu inspired was actually written down.

On the word yong (courage), Lei Bo cited chapter seven of The Analects, where Confucius told a disciple that if he "were to lead the Three Armies of his state," he "would not take anyone who would try to wrestle a tiger with his bare hands and walk across a river [because there is not a boat]. If I take anyone, it would have to be someone who is wary when faced with a task and who is good at planning and capable of successful execution." No one ever put Confucius in charge of an army, said Lei Bo, and Confucius never thought that he would be asked, but being a professional, he could expect a career either in the military or in government. And his insight about courage in battle and in all matters of life and death pertains to a man's interior: his judgment and awareness, his skills and integrity. This was how Lei Bo explored the word "courage": he located it in its early life before it was set apart from ideas like wisdom, humaneness and trust. He tried to describe the whole sense of the word. The business students and their teacher were hooked. They wanted Lei Bo back every week for as long as they were reading "The Art of War."

Scores of men and women in China's business world today are studying their country's classical texts, not just "The Art of War," but also early works from the Confucian and the Daoist canon. On weekends, they gather at major universities, paying tens of thousands of yuan each, to learn from prominent professors of philosophy and literature, to read and think in ways they could not when they were students and the classics were the objects of Maoist harangue . Those inside and outside China say that these businessmen and -women, like most Chinese right now, have caught the "fever of national learning."

Shogun

One of my favorite books is the novel by James Clavelle. It is set in the 1600's in pre-Tokugawa Japan. Much of the story revolves around the historical incident of an Englishman and his shipmates being washed ashore.

There was a lot going on in Japan at that time and the addition of the foreigners (at least in the novel) only stirred the pot. If you click on the title of this post, you'll be directed to the page on http://www.answers.com on the novel Shogun.

If you go here: you'll find a scholarly (and long) paper on Shogun.

http://www.columbia.edu/~hds2/learning/

Finally, here is a link to the book on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Shogun-James-Clavell/dp/0340839945/ref=pd_bbs_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1197928328&sr=1-1

Common Sense

Ben Stein, economist, actor, lawyer, raconteur, bon vivant, and man about town, is a font of clear thinking and common sense. If you click on the title of this post, you’ll be directed to his web site.

"The indispensable first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: Decide what you want."

Right now, I’m reading one of his books: How Successful People Win: Using Bunkhouse Logic To Get What You Want In Life. (ISBN 1-56170-975-1)

Here’s the Amazon page: http://www.amazon.com/How-Successful-People-Win-Bunkhouse/dp/1561709751/ref=sr_11_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1196104757&sr=11-1

The best descriptions of the book comes from that page.

From Publishers Weekly
While the cowboy life is basking in the Brokeback spotlight, Stein (How to Ruin Your Life) believes the mindset of these romantic figures-the cowboys' "bunkhouse logic"-is the ultimate guide to fulfillment in life. But don't let the stature of this breezy book fool you: Stein dispels wishful thinking and exhorts readers to figure out what they want and then to ask for it. Unlike most entries in the self-help field, Stein's writing is dark, funny and devoid of sunny aphorisms: readers should accept that life is a series of potentially debilitating blows, forego "illusions that anything will work out in a just or decent or proper way," realize that "constant ass-kissing is so demeaning to the ass-kisser and the ass-kissed that it cheapens life" and always "dream your biggest dreams." Stein's bunkhouse thinking revolves around realizing the stark facts of life and then acting accordingly, so associating with lucky, successful people is good, but choosing perfection over persistence is bad. Readers may be disheartened to read Stein's flip affirmation of their fears about how the world works, but this guide to playing the game will help those feeling hogtied.

Book Description

How Successful People Win is a serious self-help book using as its central metaphor the life of the cowboy and his behavior as he leaves his bunkhouse. Based upon a lifetime of observation of the successful and how they got that way, Ben Stein suggests that you imitate the determination, inner mobility, activity, flexibility—and the refusal to indulge in self-pity—of the cowboy in order to get what you want out of life.

The idea is that if you never indulge in making excuses, refuse to let other people’s hangups get in your way, and move deliberately toward clearly thought-out goals, you will get where you want to go. Just as the cowboy refuses to allow himself to get sidetracked by trivia, so can you refuse to allow life’s inevitable challenges and distractions mar your own success and happiness. The choice is yours.

------------- Me again.

Clear thinking; seeing life as it is, rather than how we wished it would be has always resonated with me. I think it also resonates well with what Zen and Daoism, while very different things, has to teach.
We create our lives. We live our choices.

The next time you’re at the bookstore, take a look.
You may find that the time it took was a few minutes well spent.

I Ching

In addition to the Dao De Jing, and Zhaung Zi, another pillar of Daoism is the I Ching. If you click on the title of this post, you’ll be directed to the Wikipedia article on the I Ching. I’ve extracted some sections of that article and present them below.

As an introduction to the I Ching, I’d recommend The Philosophy of the I Ching by Carol Anthony, for some background information.

http://www.amazon.com/Philosophy-Ching-Carol-K-Anthony/dp/0960383220/ref=pd_bbs_sr_4/103-1104095-2784624?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1192814495&sr=8-4

I’d also recommend The Portable Dragon by R.G.H Siu. The late Dr. Siu was a Chinese gentleman who was immensely educated in Western Literature and Science. I believe he was a Chemistry Professor at MIT. In this book, he uses quotes and excerpts from Western literature to help get across the meanings of the hexagrams to our Western minds.

http://www.amazon.com/Portable-Dragon-Western-Guide-Ching/dp/0262690306/ref=sr_1_1/103-1104095-2784624?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1192815480&sr=1-1

The I Ching (often spelled as I Jing, Yi Ching, Yi King, or Yi Jing; also called "Book of Changes" or "Classic of Changes") is the oldest of the Chinese classic texts. A symbol system designed to identify order in what seem like chance events, it describes an ancient system of cosmology and philosophy that is at the heart of Chinese cultural beliefs. The philosophy centres on the ideas of the dynamic balance of opposites, the evolution of events as a process, and acceptance of the inevitability of change (see Philosophy, below). In Western cultures, the I Ching is regarded by some as simply a system of divination; many believe it expresses the wisdom and philosophy of ancient China.

The book consists of a series of symbols, rules for manipulating these symbols, poems, and commentary.

History

Traditional view

Traditionally it was believed that the principles of the I Ching originated with the mythical Fu Xi (伏羲 Fú Xī). In this respect he is seen as an early culture hero, one of the earliest legendary rulers of China (traditional dates 2800 BCE-2737 BCE), reputed to have had the 8 trigrams (八卦 bā gùa) revealed to him supernaturally. By the time of the legendary Yu (禹 Yǔ) 2194 BC–2149 BC, the trigrams had supposedly been developed into 64 hexagrams (六十四卦 lìu shí­ sì gùa), which were recorded in the scripture Lian Shan (《連山》 Lián Shān; also called Lian Shan Yi). Lian Shan, meaning "continuous mountains" in Chinese, begins with the hexagram Bound (艮 gèn), which depicts a mountain (::|) mounting on another and is believed to be the origin of the scripture's name.

After the traditionally recorded Xia Dynasty was overthrown by the Shang Dynasty, the hexagrams are said to have been re-deduced to form Gui Cang (《歸藏》 Gūi Cáng; also called Gui Cang Yi), and the hexagram Field (坤 kūn) became the first hexagram. Gui Cang may be literally translated into "return and be contained," which refers to earth as the first hexagram itself indicates. At the time of Shang's last king, Zhou Wang, King Wen of Zhou is said to have deduced the hexagram and discovered that the hexagrams beginning with Force (乾 qián) revealed the rise of Zhou. He then gave each hexagram a description regarding its own nature, thus Gua Ci (卦辭 guà cí, "Explanation of Hexagrams").

When King Wu of Zhou, son of King Wen, toppled the Shang Dynasty, his brother Zhou Gong Dan is said to have created Yao Ci (爻辭 yáo cí, "Explanation of Horizontal Lines") to clarify the significance of each horizontal line in each hexagram. It was not until then that the whole context of I Ching was understood. Its philosophy heavily influenced the literature and government administration of the Zhou Dynasty (1122 BCE - 256 BCE).

Later, during the time of Spring and Autumn (722 BCE - 481 BCE), Confucius is traditionally said to have written the Shi Yi (十翼 shí yì, "Ten Wings"), a group of commentaries on the I Ching. By the time of Han Wu Di (漢武帝 Hàn Wǔ Dì) of the Western Han Dynasty (circa 200 BCE), Shi Yi was often called Yi Zhuan (易傳 yì zhùan, "Commentary on the I Ching"), and together with the I Ching they composed Zhou Yi (周易 zhōu yì, "Changes of Zhou"). All later texts about Zhou Yi were explanations only, due to the classic's deep meaning.

Western ("Modernist") view

In the past 50 years a "Modernist" history of the I Ching has been emerging, based on context criticism and research into Shang and Zhou dynasty oracle bones, as well as Zhou bronze inscriptions and other sources (see below). These reconstructions are dealt with in a growing number of books, such as The Mandate of Heaven: Hidden History in the I Ching, by S. J. Marshall, and Richard Rutt's Zhouyi: The Book of Changes, (see References, below).

Scholarly works dealing with the new view of the Book of Changes include doctoral dissertations by Richard Kunst and Edward Shaughnessy. These and other scholars have been helped immensely by the discovery, in the 1970s, by Chinese archaeologists, of intact Han dynasty era tombs in Mawangdui near Changsha, Hunan province. One of the tombs contained more or less complete 2nd century BCE texts of the I Ching, the Dao De Jing and other works, which are mostly similar yet in some ways diverge significantly from the "received," or traditional, texts preserved by the chances of history.

The tomb texts include additional commentaries on the I Ching, previously unknown, and apparently written as if they were meant to be attributed to Confucius. All of the Mawangdui texts are many centuries older than the earliest known attestations of the texts in question. When talking about the evolution of the Book of Changes, therefore, the Modernists contend that it is important to distinguish between the traditional history assigned to texts such as the I Ching (felt to be anachronistic by the Modernists), assignations in commentaries which have themselves been canonized over the centuries along with their subjects, and the more recent scholarly history aided by modern linguistic textual criticism and archaeology.

Many hold that these perspectives are not necessarily mutually exclusive, but, for instance, many Modernist scholars doubt the actual existence of Fuxi, think Confucius had nothing to do with the Book of Changes, and contend that the hexagrams came before the trigrams. Modern scholarship comparing poetic usage and formulaic phrasing in this book with that in ancient bronze inscriptions has shown that the text cannot be attributed to King Wen or Zhou Gong, and that it likely was not compiled until the late Western Zhou, perhaps ca. the late 9th century BCE.

Rather than being the work of one or several legendary or historical figures, the core divinatory text is now thought to be an accretion of Western Zhou divinatory concepts. As for the Shi Yi commentaries traditionally attributed to Confucius, scholars from the time of the 11th century A.D. scholar Ouyang Xiu onward have doubted this, based on textual analysis, and modern scholars date most of them to the late Warring States period, with some sections perhaps being as late as the Western Han period.

However it must be noted that the value of modern interpertations is still questionable to many people. Since Western civilization did not create the I Ching it can be said that it's interpertations of the book are next to irrelevant to those who believe only a work's original culture can truelly understand it's meaning. On the other hand an alternative view does give variety and life to a work and may be equally as relevant. The relevancy of this view as with the traditional one is up to the person reading it.

Structure

The text of the I Ching is a set of predictions represented by a set of 64 abstract line arrangements called hexagrams (卦 guà). Each hexagram is a figure composed of six stacked horizontal lines (爻 yáo), where each line is either Yang (an unbroken, or solid line), or Yin (broken, an open line with a gap in the center). With six such lines stacked from bottom to top there are 2⁶ or 64 possible combinations, and thus 64 hexagrams represented.

The hexagram diagram is conceptually subdivided into two three-line arrangements called trigrams (卦 guà). There are 2³, hence 8, possible trigrams. The traditional view was that the hexagrams were a later development and resulted from combining the two trigrams. However, in the earliest relevant archaeological evidence, groups of numerical symbols on many Western Zhou bronzes and a very few Shang oracle bones, such groups already usually appear in sets of six. A few have been found in sets of three numbers, but these are somewhat later. Note also that these numerical sets greatly predate the groups of broken and unbroken lines, leading modern scholars to doubt the mythical early attributions of the hexagram system (see, e.g., Shaugnessy 1993).

Each hexagram represents a description of a state or process. When a hexagram is cast using one of the traditional processes of divination with I Ching, each of the yin or yang lines will be indicated as either moving (that is, changing), or fixed (that is, unchanging). Moving (also sometimes called "old", or "unstable") lines will change to their opposites, that is "young" lines of the other type -- old yang becoming young yin, and old yin becoming young yang.

The oldest method for casting the hexagrams, using yarrow stalks, is a biased random number generator, so the possible answers are not equiprobable. While the probability of getting either yin or yang is equal, the probability of getting old yang is three times greater than old yin. The yarrow stalk method was gradually replaced during the Han Dynasty by the three coins method. Using this method, the imbalance in generating old yin and old yang was eliminated. However, there is no theoretical basis for indicating what should be the optimal probability basis of the old lines versus the young lines. Of course, the whole idea behind this system of divination is that the oracle will select the appropriate answer anyway, regardless of the probabilities.

There have been several arrangements of the trigrams and hexagrams over the ages. The bā gùa is a circular arrangement of the trigrams, traditionally printed on a mirror, or disk. According to legend, Fu Hsi found the bā gùa on the scales of a tortoise's back. They function rather like a magic square, with the four axes summing to the same value (e.g., using 0 and 1 to represent yin and yang, 000 + 111 = 111, 101 + 010 = 111, etc.).

The King Wen sequence is the traditional (i.e. "classical") sequence of the hexagrams used in most contemporary editions of the book. The King Wen sequence was explained for the first time in STEDT Monograph #5, where it is shown to contain within it a demonstration of advanced mathematical knowledge.

Philosophy

Gradations of binary expression based on yin and yang -- old yang, old yin, young yang or young yin (see the divination paragraph below) -- are what the hexagrams are built from. Yin and yang, while common expressions associated with many schools known from classical Chinese culture, are especially associated with the Taoists.

Another view holds that the I Ching is primarily a Confucianist ethical or philosophical document. This view is based upon the following:

• The Wings or Appendices are attributed to Confucius.
• The study of the I Ching was required as part of the Civil Service Exams in the period that these exams only studied Confucianist texts.
• It is one of the Five Confucian Classics.
• It does not appear in any surviving editions of the Dao Zang.
• The major commentaries were written by Confucianists, or Neo-Confucianists.
• Taoist scripture avoids, even mocks, all attempts at categorizing the world's myriad phenomena and forming a static philosophy.
• Taoists venerate the non-useful. The I Ching could be used for good or evil purposes.

Both views may be seen to show that the I Ching was at the heart of Chinese thought, serving as a common ground for the Confucian and Taoist schools. Partly forgotten due to the rise of Chinese Buddhism during the Tang dynasty, the I Ching returned to the attention of scholars during the Song dynasty. This was concomitant with the reassessment of Confucianism by Confucians in the light of Taoist and Buddhist metaphysics, and is known in the West as Neo-Confucianism. The book, unquestionably an ancient Chinese scripture, helped Song Confucian thinkers to synthesize Buddhist and Taoist cosmologies with Confucian and Mencian ethics. The end product was a new cosmogony that could be linked to the so-called "lost Tao" of Confucius and Mencius.

The Historian

I just finished reading "The Historian" by Elizabeth Kostova.

All in all, it was a very good book, and I'm glad I took the time to read the 600+ pages. The plot is a modern day extension of "Dracula." It is very well written, and provides a lot of insight into the legends of vampirism, as well as the history of SE Europe in the late middle ages, when the Ottoman Turks invaded.

Having said that, I thought the author's sprinkling "young girl coming of age" bits throughout the story was gratuitous and didn't advance the story at all.

I was disappointed with the last 100 pages or so. It was as though the author ran out of ideas in providing an explanation for the behavior of one of the major characters. The ending was not satisfactory. It was like she just got tired of writing and wanted to end it.

The elipogue was the one bright spot at the end of the book.

As I said above, I'm glad I read it, but I probably won't read it again.

If you click on the title of this post, you'll be directed to the Amazon page for The Historian.

The Classic of Tea

If you click on the title of this post, you'll be directed to the Wikipedia article on The Classic of Tea. Enjoy.

Huang Pu Zheng's poem about Lu Yu

Saw Lu Yu off to Pick Tea
Thousand mountains greeted my departing friend
When spring tea blossoming again
With indepth knowledge in picking tea
Through morning mist or crimson evening clouds
His solitary journey is my envy
Rendezvous in a temple of a remote mountain
We enjoyed picnic by a clear pebble fountain
In this silent night
Lit up a candle light
I knocked a marble bell for chime
While deep in thought for old time.

Who needs fiction: Reality meets the books.

There has been a lot of bizarre news laterly, where real life coincides with popular works of fiction:

Take this story, where a man goes on a murdering spree using a rattlesnake as a weapon:

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/crime/ny-lidevo0914,0,782961.story

and the Sherlock Holmes story, the Case of the Speckled Band:

http://www.amazon.com/Case-Files-Sherlock-Holmes-Speckled/dp/1899562257/ref=sr_1_1/103-1104095-2784624?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1190133486&sr=1-1

Then there is this story out of Peru:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/space/article/0,,2171920,00.html

and The Andromeda Strain:

http://www.amazon.com/Andromeda-Strain-Michael-Crichton/dp/0060541814/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-1104095-2784624?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1190133614&sr=1-1

Then finally, this report of a student being Tazered at a John Kerry event:

http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Top_News/2007/09/18/police_taser_student_at_kerry_speech/4703/

and 1984:

http://www.amazon.com/1984-Signet-Classics-George-Orwell/dp/0451524934/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2/103-1104095-2784624?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1190133728&sr=1-2

Heading into Autumn

Labor Day has come and gone, marking the unofficial end of summer. Autumn is my favorite time of year. As we pass into the fall and the nights begin to become a little cooler, as we’re sitting around the fire pit on the patio listening to the crickets; maybe it’s time to take stock of where I’ve been and make a few plans about where I want to go.

One thing that marks the change of the seasons is how much reading I get done. During the spring and summer, as the days get longer and there’s just more to do outside, I get less reading done. I used to struggle with this, until I realized that it was a part of the change in seasons.

Under the heading of “Reading” I count my Japanese language study as well as my recreational reading. With a special effort in June and July I read all of the Harry Potter books anticipating the release of the last one in the series. I thoroughly enjoyed the books, however reading them threw a monkey wrench into my Japanese study, and after reading a foot high stack of books, I was frankly sick of the written page for a while.

I’m back on course now. The latest issues of the Smithsonian and National Geographic have come and gone.

http://www2.smithsonianmag.si.edu/

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/index.html

I’ve started digging back into my Japanese study.

Looking ahead, I expect to do some traveling for work in October. That means long airplane rides, as well as layovers. It means I’ll get some reading done.

I’ve always enjoyed reading Dracula by Bram Stoker in the days leading up to Halloween,

http://www.amazon.com/Dracula-Signet-Classics-Bram-Stoker/dp/0451523377/ref=pd_bbs_2/103-1104095-2784624?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1188933126&sr=1-2

as well as taking in as many of my favorite vampire movies as I can catch: Dracula with Bela Lugosi; Bram Stoker’s Dracula, with Anthony Hopkins, Gary Oldman, and Winona Ryder; Dead and Loving It, with Leslie Nielsen; and of course that instant dopey classic Van Helsing.

http://www.answers.com/topic/dracula-1931-film?cat=entertainment

http://www.answers.com/topic/bram-stoker-s-dracula

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dracula:_Dead_and_Loving_It

http://www.answers.com/topic/van-helsing-film

At a sale table, I picked up The Historian, by Elizabeth Kostova. This is a fairly new novel inspired by, and thoroughly wrapped around Bram Stoker’s Dracula.

http://www.amazon.com/Historian-Elizabeth-Kostova/dp/B000EGF0OG/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-1104095-2784624?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1188934109&sr=1-1

I’m also thinking of trying to fit in a vampire novel that I haven’t read in over 20 years, but might be ripe for a revisit. This would be Interview with the Vampire by Ann Rice. This was the novel that made her famous. I tried to read a couple of her later books (I remember reading the Vampire Lestat), but they never appealed to me as much as did this first novel, and I never went back. I caught the movie version on cable a couple of times and I’d been thinking of reading it again. Maybe this year I’ll do it.

http://www.amazon.com/Interview-With-The-Vampire/dp/B000EZ3300/ref=sr_1_6/103-1104095-2784624?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1188934282&sr=1-6

That should take care of October. For November, if I’m not sick of reading for a while, I’m thinking of revisiting one of my favorite works: The Baroque Cycle by Neal Stephenson. Historical fiction set in the Baroque period. Newton, Libenitz, Blackbeard, the Siege of Vienna, the Barbary Pirates, Alchemy, the Royal Society, Turkish Harems, the Financial Instruments of the Dutch Republic, the Sun King, Tourettes Syndrome, Gold … there’s something in there for everyone who enjoys a rollicking story that spans the globe (several times as I recall) and generations. Who can’t help but root for Jack Shaftoe, or fall in love with Eliza?

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_b/103-1104095-2784624?initialSearch=1&url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=The+baroque+cycle&Go.x=0&Go.y=0&Go=Go

With my youngest daughter driving herself around, I find that I have more time on my hands. Wanting to put this extra time to good use, I’ve started a few new things. I’ve gone back to regular martial arts training with the Wu style of Taijiquan (Tai chi chuan). I go there once a week, pick up new material as it’s offered, try to absorb refinements as they’re presented and practice regularly.

http://www.wustyle-annarbor.com/

Something about martial arts, especially so called “internal” martial arts, tends to attract people who are … off the beaten path (for better or worse). I find that this group is the more “normal” yet diverse set of people with whom I’ve ever trained.

I’ve trained various martial arts, on and off, since I was about 16. There have been numerous and sometimes quite lengthy interruptions in my practice, but it’s always something that I’ve wanted to come back to. Well, I’m ready to give it another go.

This school is directly connected to the “gatekeeper” of this style of taiji. This is the webpage for his school:

http://www.wustyle.com/

Besides Taiji, I’ve always liked to exercise. Last fall, I got into the habit of walking the dog with my wife every evening. While it was nice to go for a walk with her, I really needed something more vigorous. She still takes the dog, we spend time together making a fire on our patio, and I’ve taken to walking pretty vigorously on a treadmill, carrying a couple of dumbbells with me. My feet and joints can only take so much wear and tear, and I’ve pretty quickly found what is my limit.

I’ve also ordered a knock off of the Bow Flex (called a Band Flex, about 1/3 of the Bow Flex cost). I’m expecting to have that assembled in my basement by the end of the week. At my age, my plan is to lift weights that are challenging, but I’m not going to put myself under any undue strain. My daughter can make use of it as well for her volleyball training.

“At my age.” Ha! Next month, I’ll turn 50. Several of my friends have already turned 50. I usually look at birthdays as just another day. None of them has really had an impact on my thinking (OMG, I’m 30!). I can’t help but think that at 50, I ought to be looking back as well as looking forward.

For my first 50 years, I’d say that I’ve had a good run. When my mother was in Hospice care, the Hospice counselor who was looking after my well being asked me if I would have changed anything in how I had looked after her for all those years. The answer is the same as I look back on my first 50 years. No. Nothing of any significance. Maybe I’d be tempted to fiddle with a little something around the edges, but I can’t think of a single thing I would want to change in my life.

Where I am right now – my oldest is in her last year at the University. She’s had a very good internship this summer working for the Detroit Tigers Baseball Team. She worked in promotions as an intern. She’d work in the office during the day, and all of the home games in the evening. It’s a great addition to her resume. She’s got quite a few stories to tell.

My two favorite are these: one of her jobs was to take the celebrity who would be throwing out the first pitch out onto the field. Sometimes, the celebrity would cancel at the last minute due to whatever reason. One time this happened with just minutes to go, and her boss told her to get somebody. She picked out a 10 year old boy, who will remember that day for the rest of his life.

Another promotion was to pick “the fan of the game.” She’d go find a family of four sitting in not so great seats, and move them to very good seats behind home plate. One family she moved was especially thankful. It turned out that one of the kids had cancer and was to begin chemo the following Monday. This was the last family big outing before his chemo began. I think God guided her hand in picking that family.

My youngest is a junior in high school. The volleyball team is the defending state champion, so this season should be a lot of fun. She’s also been selected to be a Peer Conflict Moderator, which is a pretty good leadership position, which I think will pay off for her as she applies to colleges.

My wife and I have had our ups and downs over the years, but no more so than anyone else I think. Looking back the best times we had was when we first started out, and we had nothing but each other. With the kids perched on the launching pad, I can see us coming full circle and in a way I’m looking forward to it.

The job has it’s issues, but so does every job. What I’m doing right now is what I enjoy the most. Having spent many years as a contract employee, I tend to see a very sharp axe hiding behind every dark cloud as well as every silver lining, so at least I’m always prepared. We’re kicking up a lot of dust. We’re having a good run.

Looking forward, well that’s a little tricky.

The 64^th verse of the Dao De Jing says:

64a. Care at the Beginning

What lies still is easy to grasp;
What lies far off is easy to anticipate;
What is brittle is easy to shatter;
What is small is easy to disperse.

Yet a tree broader than a man can embrace is born of a tiny shoot;
A dam greater than a river can overflow starts with a clod of earth;
A journey of a thousand miles begins at the spot under one's feet.

Therefore deal with things before they happen;
Create order before there is confusion.

The Daoist, in my mind, is above all pragmatic. He looks at the world as it is, where he wants to go, and plots his course accordingly.

One of my favorite books, which has really influenced my thinking, is Fooled by Randomness by Nassim Taleb.

http://www.amazon.com/Fooled-Randomness-Hidden-Chance-Markets/dp/0812975219/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-1104095-2784624?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1188936078&sr=1-1

Taleb is a mathematician, philosopher, and hedgefund manager. Among the high points of his thesis is something shared in the timeless advice from the I Ching, the classical Chinese oracle: lay low, accumulate small gains, know when to stop when a big gain comes along, and do everything you can to avoid the “big blowup.”

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_b/103-1104095-2784624?initialSearch=1&url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=I+ching&Go.x=0&Go.y=0&Go=Go

The “Big Blowup” is when a stock trader’s multi million dollar fortune evaporates in one day of bad trading, for example. If you know anyone who is one paycheck away from living in a box, they are begging for the big blow up to happen. I know someone in that situation. His future is not something he likes to think about.

At 50, it’s not a bad idea to look at one’s retirement plans. Are you saving enough money? Are you hedging against the big blowup? Do you even have a plan? When you’re younger, you can recover if something doesn’t turn out well. When you’re older it’s much harder.

My wife works at a credit union, and they’ve added a new service. They now have a financial planner on the staff. As an introduction, all the staff members were given a free consultation with him. So we gathered all of our financial figures, which was an exercise far beyond what you normally do for your taxes, and sat down with him. That exercise in itself was mind opening.

We handed over a stack of papers, and began talking about what were our concerns and goals. Having to articulate one’s goals forces you to really think about them. He made notes. A couple of weeks later, he had an inch thick binder for us, with recommendations about all sorts of things. This binder has been the source of a LOT of discussion between the two of us. It’s forcing us to take a look at some aspects of aging and retirement that perhaps we’ve each given thought to, but we’ve never really hashed out. It’s good to be on the same page.

We’re putting away enough for retirement, but you can always put away more. For the most part, we’re doing well with the funds in my 401k, but for the others, there are such things as funds of funds you can invest in. This is something to be considered. If your employer offers any matching funds for a 401k, and you’re not taking advantage of it to at least that extent, you’re missing out on free money.

So much for that. It’s some other intangibles that need some consideration. Do you have life insurance? What are the goals for the coverage you have? Have you really ever thought about it? Life insurance is the relatively easy one. The next two become a bit harder to think about.

We all kind of intellectually grasp that we’re going to die. What we never really think about is that we might get disabled, or really sick, for a long period of time before we die. A major illness or disability can wipe out your assets, and become the big blow up in no time. Do you have disability insurance? How much do you get, and for how long? Given where you are right now, if you were to live on your disability insurance, where would that leave you? You really have to think this one out.

The other is Long Term Care insurance. I know from first hand experience that if you have to go into a nursing home, or assisted living, or have help come in, it can be an arm and a leg. For Medicaid to cover your care, you have to run your assets down to under $2000. Then if you can get a Medicaid bed in a nursing home, you sign over your monthly income over to the nursing home, while the state picks up the rest. It’s heart wrenching to see people who have worked all of their lives having only allowed to them what fits in a closet and nightstand. This is something you might want to avoid.

So part of the protection against the big blowup is to carry LTC insurance, and the other is to strategize how to put your assets into a column that isn’t used in reckoning that $2000 if it comes to that, if you want to pass anything on to your loved ones. I’m beginning to do research on the later, and the policy I’m considering for the former comes to a little over $100 a month for each of us. Just for piece of mind, it may well be worth the price.

What are you going to do with yourself when you’re retired? I remember the father of a friend of mine. He didn’t have anything to do when he was retired. He had a stroke a year after he retired, and died a year after that. Some friends of ours said they were working on a list of at least ten things they either wanted to do while sliding into retirement, or begin once they were there. I came up with a list in about three seconds flat:

1) be fluent enough in Japanese to work as a translator/consultant (ongoing language study at any rate)
2) live on a lake (located between wherever my kids settle, to draw them back to me)
3) build a proper garden in which to relax (a garden is never finished)
4) practice a martial art on a regular basis
5) read
6) walk a lot
7) weight training
8) renew my interest in classical music
9) History/Discovery/Animal Planet/National Geographic channels
10) golf?
11) games - chess, go, etc.
12) movies

This list is likely to evolve.

That about sums things up. I’ve had a pretty good life so far for these first 50 years, and I’m looking forward to seeing the next 50 turns out. You can’t guarantee outcomes, you can only do the work.

Butterflies

Is it just me, or is there an unusual number of butterflies this summer? Not just the common white ones, but the big colored ones as well.

Along with the Dao De Jing, the book, Zhuang Zi (aka Chuang Tsu), named for it's author, is considered one of the foundational works of philosophical Daoism. One of the most famous stories from this book is Zhuang Zi's dream about a butterfly.

If you click on the title of this post, you'll be directed to the website where I foudn this particular translation of the story, and where you'll find many other resouces for the study of Daoism.

It was a cool evening in ancient China. Chuang Tzu's friend went looking for him at the local inn. He found Chuang Tzu sitting at a table, sipping his drink in a contemplative mood.

"There you are!" Chuang Tzu's friend greeted him. "I thought by now you would be telling everybody another one of your stories. Why so quiet?"

"There is a question on my mind," said Chuang Tzu, "a question about existence."

"I see. Would you like me to leave you alone to your thoughts?"

"No, let me share it with you. Perhaps you can provide me with your perspective."

"My perspective is of little value, but I would be glad to listen." He pulled up a chair.

"I was out for a stroll late in the afternoon," said Chuang Tzu. "I went to one of my favorite spots under a tree. I sat there, thinking about the meaning of life. It was so warm and pleasant that I soon relaxed, dozed off, and drifted into a dream. In my dream, I found myself flying up above the field. I looked behind me and saw that I had wings. They were large and beautiful, and they fluttered rapidly. I had turned into a butterfly! It was such a feeling of freedom and joy, to be so carefree and fly around so lightly in any way I wished. Everything in this dream felt absolutely real in every way. Before long, I forgot that I was ever Chuang Tzu. I was simply the butterfly and nothing else."

"I've had dreams of flying myself, but never as a butterly," Chuang Tzu's friend said. "This dream sounds like a wonderful experience."

"It was, but like all things, it had to end sooner or later. Gradually, I woke up and realized that I was Chuang Tzu after all. This is what puzzles me."

"What is so puzzling about it? You had a nice dream, that's all there is to it."

"What if I am dreaming right now? This conversation I am having with you seems real in every way, but so did my dream. I thought I was Chuang Tzu who had a dream of being a butterfly. What if I am a butterfly who, at this very moment, is dreaming of being Chuang Tzu?"

"Well, I can tell you that you are actually Chuang Tzu, not a butterfly."

Chuang Tzu smiled: "You may simply be part of my dream, no more or less real than anything else. Thus, there is nothing you can do to help me identify the distinction between Chuang Tzu and the butterfly. This, my friend, is the essential question about the transformation of existence."

Notable Dao De Jing Translation

Maybe it's the baby duck syndrome, but the first translation of the Dao De Jing that I was exposed to when I was a teenager, has always been my favorite. It's the translation by Gia Fu Feng, illustrated by photographs by Jane English. It can be found here:

http://www.amazon.com/Tao-Ching-25th-Anniversary-Lao-Tsu/dp/0679776192/ref=sr_1_1/103-1104095-2784624?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1186777149&sr=8-1

While looking something else up, I stumbled across a reference to the book, and decided to look up Gia Fu Feng and Jane English. They were a married couple. She provided the photographs, and he provided the translations.

There's a pretty lengthy article about Gia Fu Feng. He was quite an interesting guy, who was right in the thick of it, brining the East to the West in the 60's and 70's. You can find it by clicking on the title of this post. The calligraphy at the top of this article was done by him.

300

Frank Miller is at it again. 2007 will see the release of 300, a new movie squarely based on Miller's historical fantasy graphic novel of the same name. If you click on the title of this post, you'll be directed to the official website of the movie.

If you click here http://www.amazon.com/300-Frank-Miller/dp/1569714029/sr=1-1/qid=1167847049/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-5124776-5315020?ie=UTF8&s=books you'll be directed to the Amazon page on the graphic novel.

The film was designed to fit exactly, the images shown in the graphic novel.

The story is based on the Battle of Thermopylae, where 300 Spartans held off an army of 1,000,000 Persians; allowing the rest of the Greeks enough time to get organized and eventually defeat the Persians at the naval battle of Salamis.

In the novel, it's the 300 Spartans, and that's that. In fact, these 300 Peers (highly trained warriors) were backed up by some auxilliaries and allies. Still, there were only a couple thousand of them. Also, historians discount the million Persians, but there was still likely a couple of hundred thousand of them. This in no way diminishes the achievement of the Spartans at Thermopylae.

The Spartans held a narrow gap in the mountains. They were betrayed by another Greek, who showed the Persians a path that would allow them to get circle the Spartans and attack them from behind. When the Spartans learned what was coming, they sent their allies home. Only 700 volunteers stayed behind with them to make the last stand. None of them survived.

The Answers.com page on the Battle of Thermopylae is here: http://www.answers.com/topic/battle-of-thermopylae

300 is not to be confused with The Gates of Fire, a historical novel by Steven Pressfield (best known for The Legend of Bagger Vance). The Amazon page for The Gates of Fire is here:

http://www.amazon.com/Gates-Fire-Novel-Battle-Thermopylae/dp/055338368X/sr=1-1/qid=1167915390/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-5124776-5315020?ie=UTF8&s=books

Pressfield's book is historically accurate and gives a fascinating look into the mindset and lifestyle of the Spartans.

In his book, one of the Spartan auxilliaries is found severly injured and unconcious by the Persians after the battle. The Persian king orders that his story be recorded, and so begins the narration.

I was at the bookstore the other day, hoping to get a look at the graphic novel, but I couldn't find it. It's a movie that I certainly want to see.

Diving into Fall

Butterfly or leaf?
Early twilight fools my eyes
Moving into fall.
- Pinetree

Fall is my favorite time of year. I look forward to having a campfire in the backyard, while enjoying the cooler evenings. I enjoy the change of colors, with which Michigan is particularly blessed.

I'm rereading the Baroque Cycle, a trilogy by Neal Stephenson, which is historical fiction about a fascinating time in history.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=br_ss_hs/102-4051305-2994513?platform=gurupa&url=index%3Dstripbooks%3Arelevance-above&keywords=baroque+cycle

Reading about the baroque period in the fall, brings to mind the story of the Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow. The movie, Sleepy Hollow, with Winona Ryder and Johnny Depp is usually on cable around this time of year, at least as we approach Halloween.

Halloween wouldn't be complete without one of the greatest horror movies of all time, Dracula, starring Bela Lugosi. The scene where Dracula and Van Helsing simply face off against each other, without a word being said, has got to be one of the best moments in movie history.

Did you know that while they were shooting this movie, they were also shooting, at the same time, a Spanish version? When the English speaking crew left the studio at the end of the day, the Spanish crew arrived. They had the benefit of the rushes of the day's shoot to improve their own product, and some critics believe the Spanish version is actually the superior one. I would like to see it one day.

The movie of course, isn't enough. I have to reread Dracula, by Bram Stoker before Halloween.

http://www.amazon.com/Dracula-Penguin-Classics-Bram-Stoker/dp/014143984X/sr=1-3/qid=1158979120/ref=pd_bbs_3/102-4051305-2994513?ie=UTF8&s=books

Another newer classic is Bram Stoker's Dracula, starring Winona Ryder (again), Gary Oldfield, and Anthony Hopkins. I like it almost as much as the original.

Halloween. We take the portable firepit out to the driveway, put some music on the radio in the garage, stock a cooler with beer, and pass out the candy. A couple of neighbors have adopted this practice. When the kids stop coming, we gather around whoever's fire is still going the strongest, and have our own little get together.

My Japanese Language study has progressed. This is the character for autumn: 秋. It is a compound of two characters. The one on the left is a plant (specifically a rice plant), while the one on the right is 'fire'. Interesting, huh?

I've finished the online course I was taking. While I was grinding through the course, I was paying attention mostly to grammar and sentence patterns. I didn't pay so much attention to vocabulary or conjugating verbs or adjectives. I reasoned that I could always look things up, and what I looked up a lot, I'd remember.

Right now, I'm doing a thorough review, at a leisurely pace; paying a lot more attention to the vocabulary, verbs and adjectives.

I also have learned 240 kanji. I'm doing a very thorough review of them. Once I review the ones I know, I'll start grinding through the other 2000+ a literate person would know.

I have a couple of "learn Japanese" books. I intend to study these soon. It'll be the same information I've already received through the course, but it'll be presented a little differently. I think if I go over the same information, but in a slightly different way, I'm likely to understand and retain it better.

What I'm going to do soon, is to start