Random thoughts

I was using Yahoo messenger to chat with a person in Beijing. The subject was John DeFrancis’ death, and since the occasion had led me to read his biography, I was mentioning to my chat partner that “in the 50s he could not find a position in a university because he was thought to be […]

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John DeFrancis, sinologist and professor emeritus at the University of Hawaii, passed away on january 2nd, 2009. A memorial website has a short inspiring biography of his life. His only book I’ve read is “Chinese language: fact and fantasy“, but I am about to get the ABC dictionary in the Pleco electronic dictionary version. Well, […]

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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/04/opinion/04lewiseinhorn.html

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What do Simon Winchester’s “The man who loved China” and Malcolm Gladwell’s “Outliers” have in common? Francesca Bray. She wrote the one volume of Joseph Needham’s “Science and civilisation in China” about agriculture (apparently alone) and as such she received mention in “The man who loved China”. So it makes sense that Malcolm Gladwell refers […]

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http://www.portfolio.com/news-markets/national-news/portfolio/2008/11/11/The-End-of-Wall-Streets-Boom Hmmm… maybe there’s still too much money looking for a home, to say it’s the end of Wall Street.

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After these few years since China has entered my atlas, I’m surprised I could still be so clueless about something as big as Joseph Needham. Li Yuese (李约瑟), as (some) people in China know him, spent much of his academic career making sense of chinese scientific history. His biography is an inspiring tale… so inspiring, […]

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http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/30/opinion/30herbert.html

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http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/29/opinion/29krugman.html

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I don’ t know how and why, a few days ago Xu Bing’s “Book from the ski” (徐冰-天书) emerged again in my consciousness. I had forgotten its name (I thought it was called “Book from heaven”), but what’s not forgotten is the powerful impression it left on me. A slowly built impression, started when I […]

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Learning a language is a life-long experience. For as much as one uses it, some words escape his vocabulary, hidden in never-explored topics and conversations. As a person who’s never had any interest in horseback riding, or spaghetti western movies, or horses in general, I had never met the word “stirrup”. What’s most interesting about […]

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