You're Punning On Empty, Laowai How do you guys feel about puns? I've always thought they are a much maligned and underappreciated art form in the English-speaking world. Many consider the pun low brow and beneath the consideration of any self-respecting intellectual. Are puns held in the same contempt by the Chinese? If so this is truly unfortunate because one would be hard pressed indeed to find another language more perfectly suited to the pun. Chinese is a language with relatively few distinctive morphemes (a linguistic unit that has meaning and cannot be divided into smaller meaningful parts), and in order to make up for this paucity words in the language are forced to share sounds and tones---in other words, a punner's paradise. And when we consider the opportunities to pun across tonal and dialectical boundaries the possibilities become endless. Supposedly Mao Zedong was a master of this art form and with his encyclopedic knowledge of Chinese history and literature this doesn't surprise me at all. I enjoy (attempting) the pun in Chinese and I'd like to share a couple of my most recent. I admit they are no great shakes, but they did get a few laughs; for the benefit of non-Chinese speakers an explanation follows each pun.

My mother-in-law's name is Zhang Biqiong �ű���. She is an elementary school teacher in Chengdu---she teaches language arts ����. The funny thing is she's a language arts teacher who can't speak Mandarin, but that's another story. She is also a wonderful, down-to-earth woman with a great sense of humor. Like me she adores food and everytime we get together we're still plowing away with our chopsticks long after we send the others packing. But unlike me she loves mahjong �齫, maybe even more than food. How much does she love mahjong? She recently went to Qingcheng Shan ���ɽ, a beautiful Daoist/Buddhist mountain resort west of Chengdu. But did she go out and enjoy the wonderful scenery? No, she holed up in her hotel room and played mahjong with her friends all weekend. After I heard that I told my wife that her mother zui hao shao da majiang, bu rande hua women zheige Zhang biqiong! ����ٴ��齫,��Ȼ�Ļ���������ű���! My wife related this to her mother next phone call home who thought it was hilarious and has since told all her friends. [explanation: the pun here is on her name "Biqiong", which is a kind of beautiful jade. I said she should play less mahjong or else she was 'certain to wind up poor', also pronounced "biqiong"] In the car on the way home from the monastic retreat the other day my wife told me that on the previous Sunday when I had left to go check in she had gone to the main shrine to join the chanting service. Her job has been highly stressful of late and she said chanting the sutras made her feel a lot better: �о�,�ҵ������������ song jing, wode xinli shufu duole. I answered ��֪�������о�����������������Ϲ�������� bu zhidao shi ni song jing xinli shufu haishi ni song laogong xinli shufu? [explanation: I answered her by saying I didn't know if it was chanting (song) the sutras that made her feel better or if it was dropping (song) her husband off at the monastery for a whole week that was responsible for her lighter mood!]

So how about it guys? I'd be interested in hearing other successful puns made by foreign learners of Chinese. Any native Chinese are also welcome to contribute of course, but for you guys it's like shooting fish in a barrel!
- posted by Prince Roy @ 7/31/2003 02:50:00 PM| |

 

I'd like to give a special Realm welcome here to one of my best pals from my VOA days who finally managed to stumble onto this blog. The story begins way back in the day, March I think, when I was dumb enough to tell him I had started a blog. Ever afterwards he ceaselessly badgered me to tell him the URL. I wouldn't do it, except to tell him it wasn't hard to find if he knew where to look. This was soon after I had discovered the China blog scene courtesy of John, and I think I mentioned John's site to him in one of our AIM conversations. Well, no flies on him and now here in July he's found me. So a big rousing shout-out to me all-time fave Thursday nite Round-up buddy, that lover of cosmopolitans we all came to call the Pink Drink Man, or PDM for short. The image on the left is a little something to welcome him to the neighborhood.
- posted by Prince Roy @ 7/29/2003 03:35:00 PM| |

 
Lightened, If Not Enlightened

Would you accept 'free literature' from this man if he approached you at the airport? Hello everyone! I'm back safe and sound from my Chan (Zen) Buddhist monastic retreat. It was quite an experience. I don't think I'd ever do it again, at least probably not in this particular Order of the Linji branch of Chan, but I'm glad I went through it. This is going to be a really long entry, and even then it only relates a tiny portion of what the retreat was all about. But if you have any specific questions that I don't get to, please don't hesitate to comment or email. Settling In Check-in was July 20 at 10:00am in the temple's reception area. They provided us a translation device if needed. These were actually pretty cool. It was a tiny Walkman-like radio receiver with an earphone; certain monastics and laity provided simultaneous translation, the quality of which varied, but overall was quite decent. I opted not to get one, because I wanted to force myself to adapt completely, even though my knowledge of Chinese Buddhist terminology is very weak. They also issued us two sets of novice monastic garb. Then came the fun part. They split us by gender right away. I don't know what happened to the gals, but they herded the guys into a room with four chairs. Behind each chair stood a monk with a pair of fully charged electric shears and a huge shit-eating grin. Army flashbacks? You bet, but hey, in the Army not only did they scalp us, we had to pay for the indignity. At least here it was free. And just like in the Army, some guys thought they'd get over by obtaining short haircuts at home before the retreat. Wrong answer. Everyone went in the chair. After this the guys checked into their dorm rooms, which were in a house at the bottom of a hill right outside the temple's main gates. The temple owns several homes adjacent to the temple; these serve to house male monastics and guests, while the nuns live in a compound within the temple itself. I think the women participants stayed there as well, but I'm not sure---although we attended all retreat functions/meals/services/classes together, the sexes kept in separate, well-defined areas at all times. Before I forget, roughly 140 people attended; of these around 34 were males. There were three Western females and nine Western males. Everyone else was Chinese, and by this I mean native Chinese/Cantonese speakers. People came from all over the US and Canada. I think even some were from Central America. They formed the guys into four groups (or squads) of approximately eight persons. And guess who was one of the squad leaders? Yep, your humble blogger. The Chinese term, btw, is banshou 班首. I headed East Group Two Dong erban 东二班. The males had two Leading Masters, called yinli fashi 引理法师, who are monks at the temple. Their names were Venerables Hui Mu 慧木法师 and Hui Zai 慧在法师. The women had around 11-12 groups, each with their own female monastic as Leading Master. At all times we had to line up, or pai ban 排班in formation and the squad leader had to report to the Leading Master if all were present. My squad consisted of eight guys. It was pretty much the laowai squad. Six native English speakers and two Chinese speakers, but both of those immigrated to the US during high school. The Retreat enforced rather strict monastic discipline this year, much more so than in past years, according to repeat participants. In fact, one of the guys (a farang) in my squad bailed before lunch on Monday July 21. We had to maintain a ban on talking at all times---jinyu 禁语. We could only speak when given permission by a venerable. We observed it for the most part. While at the dorm or in formation the venerables often had me act as translator, especially at morning formation, since there was no simultaneous interpretation provided at these times. Like I said, my grasp of Buddhist terms flat-out sucks, so I came to dread his morning address---usually a harsh admonition. But between Venerable Hui Mu's English (which is fairly decent, considering) and my poor but improving Buddhist Chinese it worked out o.k. He would perform a room inspection each morning and all our rooms had to be in a specified uniformity---blankets folded a certain way, toiletry items arranged a certain way, clothes stacked a certain way, desktops completely clear, etc. Chan is all about mindfulness, and we obtain this initially by strict discipline; eventually we come to a point where we observe it naturally. Daily Life The Retreat was highly regimented with every minute strictly accounted for. The Leading Master woke us up at 5:40am every morning in the traditional manner by beating on a wooden board. We had to be outside in formation at 6:05am sharp. This meant that all of us had to do our business in that time with the six bathrooms available to us. No waking up early either---this is inconsiderate because others are sleeping. Some found out the hard way and were punished by having to copy a sutra. We walked in formation to the temple's main shrine and engaged in morning chanting from 6:20-6:50am. Breakfast was at 7:00am. We ate all meals in strict silence, sitting into the chair from the left and standing out of it from the right. While eating we had to hold our rice bowl a particular way. Upon concluding our meals we had to stack the small plate, rice and soup bowls in the specified manner and in the proper sequence. If he saw someone do it wrong the Leading Master would make all of us repeat the action over and over until he was satisfied we had exhibited sufficient mindfulness. No food could be wasted, but portions were very Spartan so this wasn't a problem. After morning stretching exercises we either had temple worship activities or classes. Lunch was at 11:30am. This was followed by 'walking meditation'---paoxiang 跑香, again all segregated by gender. Venerable Hui Zai would lead us men on a different route every day through the temple grounds. I came to anticipate this activity above all others---walking meditation is a wonderful way to clear the mind. Then followed 40 minutes of rest, until 1:20pm. This was the only time we had what could even remotely pass as 'free time'. The guys sat in the auditorium where we either worked on memorizing sutras or we wrote our daily journal entries. A word on memorizing sutras: the Chinese language accommodates this, English doesn't. Sutras are in Classical Chinese consisting of lines containing four, five or seven characters and some even rhyme. This all facilitates memorization---the ancients intentionally structured the classical language in this way to ease memorization by scholars preparing for civil examinations. Chinese retained this characteristic when they translated the sutras into Chinese over 1500 years ago. The English translations are prose narrative---much more difficult if not impossible, especially considering that Western educational practice has not emphasized the skill of rote memorization for several generations. The temple has also prepared its liturgies in romanized Chinese and this was an enormous help to me learning much canonical Chinese during the retreat. They are even in Hanyu pinyin, so I think the temple is farsighted in that respect. After the break came afternoon classes until 3:30pm. We then had to engage in 'working meditation'---called chu po 出坡 ( a fancy term for doing chores and other labor), until shower time which was from 5:10-5:50pm. Supper was from 6:00-6:50pm, after which we either had classes or chanting until 9:40pm. Then we returned to our dorm where we got ready for lights out at 10:20pm. Highlights It was rough at first, believe me. They took that picture I've posted here on the afternoon of the third day. Why the absence of ecclesiastical ecstasy? I was in the midst of severe caffeine withdrawal. I had an absolutely crushing headache for the first three days. I was in utter misery. In fact, if I didn't personally know so many of the monastics I well might've quit like that other guy in my squad. But I had too much on the line---the monastics placed great faith in me by making me a group leader and if I left how could I ever face them again? Plus, the whole idea behind a retreat like this is to confront your ego and attachments head-on. Caffeine and food are two of my biggest. In fact, I did not eat breakfast throughout the retreat but instead sat there while the others ate. I also did not eat from after lunch on Friday until our final lunch on Saturday. Actually, several Buddhist orders permit no more than one meal per day at noontime, but this particular order is not so strict. I lost close to ten pounds---that's the idea behind the joke in this entry's title! We did a lot of walking up and down steps and hills, as well as kneeling, bowing and standing literally thousands of times, so we burned a lot of calories. I'm happy to report I defeated both desires. My headaches eventually disappeared, as did my cravings for food and caffeine. Some were not so fortunate, as I saw people sneak pouches of instant coffee into their water cups during breaks. The meditation was very difficult at first. The pain was intense because we had to maintain as close to a full lotus position as possible. On the first day of this activity I even had to sit on the bench during one session. But by the end of the retreat I could sit as long as 50 minutes, and while the discomfort never completely disappeared, I was able to get past it for the most part. The meditation instructor was Venerable Yong Dong 永东, and she is a true master. She slowly took us through a series of visualization exercises where we transformed our entire bodies into snowflakes, then water, and finally steam. The discomfort prevented me from accomplishing this, but the fact that I could eventually sit through it was a victory in itself. She carried a thick wooden stick engraved with two Chinese characters that I did not know---I'll update when I find out. In traditional times the master used this board to go around whacking errant students who fell asleep or needed posture adjustment. She just brought it out because tradition requires it; no one got rapped as far as I know. I suggested to the venerables that in future retreats they translate this to the Westerners as the good ole 'board of education'! I'm not big on chanting, but evening chants were pretty amazing. The main worship hall is a huge, cavernous room with excellent acoustics. On the night we chanted the Amitabha Sutra the two nuns with the best voices acted as lead. These were Venerables Jueping 觉苹法师 and Juehuang 觉皇法师. We first chanted the entire sutra sitting in the lotus position. After 30 or so minutes we got up and with the venerables at the front, began to slowly paoxiang throughout the room while chanting the Amitabha's name with increasing speed (amituofo) These two nuns have truly divine voices and they used many complimentary harmonies. They used microphones and the sound of all our voices reverberating throughout the room was indescribably ethereal and transporting. It was definitely one of the most moving experiences of the whole week. Although I must admit, at the end we were chanting so fast I think mine was coming out as Oh, my tofu!!! Walking back to the dorm after the evening activities was special as well. As I've noted before, the temple sits atop a high hill overlooking the San Gabriel Valley. Each night we would silently walk back to our dorms by rank and file. The sight of this silent procession of novice monks slowly meandering down the hill, along with the dark shape of the temple outlined by the lights on the valley floor below us was simply breathtaking. In an earlier entry I posted some photos of the temple. In sum, it was a worthwhile experience. It was difficult for all involved, but I particularly admire and respect the Westerners (I'm not including myself among them) who participated. Not only did they completely submerse themselves in an environment that was highly stressful enough to begin with, but the Chinese present grew up with this kind of Buddhist tradition and practice. As for myself, I lived several years in Asia and I had a basic understanding of what was going on. These Westerners, on the other hand, were completely new to this and they did it immersed in a foreign culture, social structure and, of course, language. I was damned impressed, because frankly I don't think I could do it. Though I already deeply respected the venerables, I came away in more awe of them than ever before. I hold them in the highest esteem for their commitment to their beliefs and way of life. They seem to emanate an inner serenity and calm; a strength and confidence that suggests they are truly beings belonging to a higher spiritual level. I especially sense this about Venerable Yong Dong, the meditation instructor. And while I didn't gain any great insights during the week---there wasn't enough time for personal reflection or contemplation for that, there was one period during our Friday afternoon break where I found an isolated corner of the temple overlooking a spectacular panorama of the Valley. While engaging in a moment of solitary walking meditation I confronted a personal demon more honestly than at any previous time in my life. I've not vanquished it by any means and don't know if I ever can, but perhaps this is a step in the right direction. So anyway, I'm back and glad to be online again; I'm sure I have a huge amount of catching up to do. One of the guys in my squad is a photographer and he took several pictures on the last day after they returned our personal items to us. He's going to email them to everyone and when he does I'll share the good ones. Oh, we also received Dharma names, like all monastics. Mine's Benping 本平, but it's still Prince Roy, Sir, to all of you!
- posted by Prince Roy @ 7/29/2003 06:15:00 AM| |

 
Diary of a Mendicant I've had an interest in Chinese philosophy pretty much as long as I can remember. I like to tell people it's because I was Chinese in a previous life, but in more sober moments I'll admit the most likely culprit is probably those old re-runs of the Kung Fu TV series I saw when I was a kid. I actually think that was a great show for its time [great website too, btw, if you can somehow block out the cheesy chopstick font]. The show first aired in 1972, and yeah I know some people give it a hard time, but it was the first American series that portrayed Far Eastern philosophy (or what it took to be Far Eastern philosophy) in a sympathetic light. After all, it was only seven years before in 1965 that America was watching "So Sorry, My Island Now"; you know, that Gilligan's Island episode where the Japanese sailor still fighting WWII lands his sub on the island. He possessed all the accoutrements of the stereotypical Asian, namely the coke bottle glasses, squinty eyes, buck teeth and the "Ah so, so solly" manner of speaking. And to top it all off, a white actor played the role. Nick at Nite aired that episode tonight as a matter of fact, and I could only cringe. So anyway, ever since I first saw Kwai Chang Caine I've always wondered what it would be like to be a Chinese Chan Buddhist monk. Well now I'll get my chance. The Hsi Lai Temple offers what they call a short-term monastic retreat every summer and this year it is from July 20-26. Yours truly will be there. We have to take full monastic vows and honor the five precepts, or maybe it's ten. We stay in the temple at all times during the seven days, and the guys even have to shave their heads. Women participants don't for some reason, which I think is completely bogus considering the nuns do. The program maintains a very strict schedule; in fact they like to call it the Buddhist Boot Camp. Whatever. They get up at 6:00am to meditate; at 6:00am in my last boot camp we would just be getting back from a six-mile run. The short of it is that I won't be posting for a while. We do have to keep a journal as part of our assignments, and if mine turns out any good I'll publish it here upon my return. I think it'll be fun and it'll give me the time for reflection on some matters I have going on. What won't be fun is the forecast for next week---supposedly in the 90s-100s. This temple's form of Buddhism really isn't my style; I may write more about that in a future post. But I have grown fond of several of the monastics there and this experience will provide me plenty of new perspectives on why they chose this kind of life. Oh and one more thing: if you don't hear from me by July 30 you have my blessing to call in the kidnappers...errr...'deprogrammers', unmarked white vans and all!
- posted by Prince Roy @ 7/19/2003 04:11:00 PM| |

 
Adam over at Brainy Smurf has an interesting post about learning Chinese. He's got a link to an article there by some guy named Moser who launches into an involved tirade about how unnecessarily difficult it is for Westerners to learn Chinese. Moser's being semi-facetious, I know, but you come away with the feeling he's actually blaming the language for his own difficulty in learning it! I don't know anything about Moser, but my guess is that he's in the generation of Western academics who did not have the option of living in China due to Cold War politics. These are the guys I call the 'China Hands'. As a result the language skills of that generation generally leave a lot to be desired. For the life of me I don't know why more of them didn't go to Taiwan. Even after the Mainland opened up, Chinese instruction in Taiwan was vastly superior until quite recently, and I'm not saying that just because Taiwan is the place I learned Mandarin (if you want to debate this point, feel free to fire away in the comments). I've had many professors of that age group, and while they are positively brilliant in their chosen fields, they couldn't talk themselves out of a wet paper sack in Chinese. A professor I had in grad school is a prime example. He's a specialist in classical Chinese poetry. This man has forgotten more Chinese characters than most Chinese college grads will ever learn. I'm utterly serious. But my second-year students in my Chinese classes had better speaking/listening skills than he did. Not all China Hands are like that, of course. Some used their heads, did what they had to do, and went to Taiwan. I guess probably everyone has a role model they seek to emulate when they learn Chinese; for me it is Howard Goldblatt. He's the man who sparked my interest in Chinese literature. In my Army days I would often sneak away (figuratively!) to the post library and it was there I first ran across his translations of Xiao Hong ���. He's the reason I went to CU-Boulder for grad school. His command of Chinese literature is beyond reproach, as he is probably the most eminent translator of modern Chinese literature, but his ability in spoken Chinese just blows me away. I did not think it was possible for a Westerner for whom Chinese is a second language to learn it so well, with all its nuances. He's done it. I am incredibly fortunate to have studied under him; he is still an inspiration to me and has my undying respect. The only comparable persons I've run across are Perry Link of Princeton University and Wendy Larson at the University of Oregon. What makes them all the more amazing is that they are of Moser's generation. But instead of writing a 12-page article whinging about how impossible Chinese is to learn, they went and kicked its ass. Give me this kind of person any day of the week. One small regret I have is that I did not focus more on the written language when I began studying Chinese. For me it was all about speaking and listening. I devoted about 80% of my efforts to those skills. As a result I can't pull out impressive parlor tricks at mixers, like reciting obscure Tang poems verbatim. And my lack of knowledge regarding chengyu (idioms) ���� is positively embarrassing. I'm trying to correct that deficiency now, and last summer while interning at a law firm in Beijing I bought several chengyu resources. A pretty good one I picked up is �������Ӣ��ʵ� from �������ճ���� (Hanyu chengyu yingyi cidian; published by Beifang Wenyi Publishers). It's almost pocket-sized and thorough. I'd like to hear from other Chinese learners/Chinese readers if they think it is beneficial to be adept with chengyu. Are they really that common? Maybe it's one of those things that once you know them you tend to hear people using them. Thoughts? And if anyone's interested, Professor Goldblatt wrote for the Washington Post a very good article on translation which you may read here. [I know the comments functionality has been buggy lately. Enetation is ironing out the many kinks from hardware updates. I highly value all input so please don't let this stop you: if you can't get through, email a comment and I'll paste it in when things get back to normal]
- posted by Prince Roy @ 7/18/2003 02:15:00 AM| |

 
Preface: the following topic may strike some people as over-blogged, especially in the last couple of months; I was thinking about deleting the post for precisely that reason, but I've decided to leave it up because frankly I was quite irritated. Hopefully this woman and people like her are a dying breed... It's happened again. That library bitch just had to go and cross me. I'm pretty sure I've written about her before, either in my blog or in somebody's comments section. Today I went to the library to print out a paper for my summer class assignment. I'm not taking the class for credit---I'm merely a Continuing Ed student at Hsi Lai University, but I still do all the assignments because I'll get more out of the course that way, and who knows, maybe I'll need the prof to put in a good word for me one of these days. So I went to a computer work station and tried to print the paper. An error message came up because the library's printer was turned off. I found the librarian (from Taiwan) and very politely asked her to turn on the printer as I needed to turn in a paper that afternoon. All in Chinese. She replied in halting English that she'd do it right away and it would take a few minutes for the paper to print out. I went back after five minutes to get the paper and asked her how much I owed her, again in Chinese. She said (in English of course) $.04 cents a page. I then did something I have never before done when in this situation in China, Taiwan or anywhere else. I confronted her about her lack of manners, albeit in a polite and non-threatening tone of voice. Me in Chinese: "I've been speaking to you in Chinese this whole time so may I ask why you insist on replying in English?" I wish you could've been there to see the look on her face. For a moment she was at a complete loss for words. She finally hemmed and hawed something about how they are supposed to speak English while at work. Yeah right. The state of California must have passed an English-only law since my subscription to the LA Times ended last week. What makes me the angriest about the whole thing is that she told me a bold-faced lie. Right before I went to her I saw her assist another student who is a venerable ( a polite form of address for a monastic) from Taiwan. She used Chinese. And after my afternoon class I saw her speak with my Taiwanese classmate who does work-study in the library. You guessed it, she spoke to him in Chinese. In all fairness to the Taiwanese staff at Hsi Lai University, she is the only one who does this. I think what I may do next is phone in to renew some books. I'll do the whole thing in Chinese and she'll probably have no idea it's a laowai. Then I'll go up to her the next day and ask why she didn't speak in English to me on the phone since that supposedly is the rule of the workplace. Am I overreacting? Maybe. I'm man enough to fess up when I'm wrong and I'd like to hear your opinions. Bottom line: this woman violated the Golden Rule of the polyglot community. Etiquette and common courtesy dicate that in a professional setting the language used is that of the person/client who initiates the conversation.
- posted by Prince Roy @ 7/16/2003 03:45:00 PM| |

 
Always seem to be running late? Then visit the National Institute of Standards and Technology and click on The Official United States Time link on the upper-right hand part of the page. Go there even if you're not in the US; you can obtain the accurate UTC time by clicking on the UTC link (you'll find it beneath the map of the United States). NIST operates as the national time keeper and its atomic clock is accurate to within 0.1 nanoseconds per day, which means that it'll be over 20 million years before it gains or loses a second. You can also download client software that will synchronize your computer time to that of NIST. WARNING: Since NIST is part of the US Federal Government, when you download the software the Feds plant a device that records your every move and sound, even when you turn the computer off. In fact, it's already too late because I made the mistake of downloading it so even if you don't, your simple naive and trusting act of visiting my page and reading this ensures installation and activation of the surveillance device on your system. Sorry!
- posted by Prince Roy @ 7/15/2003 05:45:00 AM| |

 
Those Inscrutable Chinese Part II My wife, who is a native Chinese from Sichuan, was reading a book in English the other day where the American author mentioned that 'old Chinese curse' May you live in interesting times. She immediately came to me and asked me the Chinese equivalent because she hadn't the foggiest idea what it meant. I could sympathize---this is yet another one of those alleged Chinese idioms that's bugged me for a long time. Its origin is taken for granted in Western literature and many writers liberally quote it. Yet I've studied Chinese for years and I've never run across it in any Chinese text. I've asked Chinese whom I consider extremely well-read (these are PhD students in classical Chinese literature) and they have never heard of this saying. So, taking the advice of Brendan in his July 9 comment, I'm inclined to call 'bullshit' on this one. The sooner Americans stop obtaining their knowledge of Chinese culture from fortune cookies, the better off we'll all be.
- posted by Prince Roy @ 7/12/2003 03:01:00 PM| |

 
My friend James, a PhD student in Comparative Religion, brought an item to our Buddhist Sutras in English: Mahayana Texts class the other day. It was a beautiful scroll of the Guanyin Bodhisattva (Kannon in Japanese) and surrounding her image were scores of signatures and chops all done in beautiful calligraphy. James lived in Japan for five years and before he became a devotee of Kobo Baishi he went on a pilgrimage to the 100 temples dedicated to Kannon. The signatures and chops that James obtained on the scroll were those of the abbots at each of the 100 temples. In the Fall of 2001 he made another pilgrimage to the 88 temples of Shikoku. For this pilgrimage, supposedly Japan's oldest and longest, he kept an extensive online journal of his experience which contains both his extremely informative writings while on the road and hundreds of photographs. If you're at all interested in Japanese temple culture you will surely find his site fascinating, as he is incredibly knowledgeable about Buddhism. Visit it here and once you're there click on the Aki Meguri banner.
- posted by Prince Roy @ 7/11/2003 03:15:00 PM| |

 
I keep running into a certain supposed 'fact' floating around the Occidental canon: Western writers seem to love bringing up the point that in Chinese the words for 'crisis' and 'opportunity' are one and the same. You can find the latest appearance of this over in the movie review of "Legally Blonde 2" at The Onion . I've seen this assertion in more serious works too. But in my Chinese class, at least, the words we learned are totally different. 'Crisis' is weiji �� and 'opportunity' is jihui ���. Sure, they share a component ji, but so do 'database' and 'baseball'. I thought maybe they were the same in classical Chinese but I looked in my trusty Mathews' Chinese-English Dictionary and no go. So what's going on? Is there a word I'm overlooking or can we just file this under "Those Inscrutable Chinese" in Urban Legends? Maybe Da Shan will clear this up for us.
- posted by Prince Roy @ 7/10/2003 02:15:00 PM| |

 
So That Explains It... *disclaimer: This is not a political blog---think of the Realm as more of a despotic kingdom where thankfully politics no longer matter; but this accounting for the recent Iraq uranium 'forgery' foisted upon the poor unsuspecting US government by those wily Niger folks is just too funny. Dear Mister Gaorge Bush: Please keep this in the strictest confidense. You do not know me, but my name is Umbuto Johnson, and I am the grandson of Ashtari P. Johnson, in charge of the nuclear programme of the African country of Niger. For severale years, my grandfather had been secretly selling radoactiv materiels to the little known country of Iraqe. He was given the sum of twenty million dollars by Saddem Hussan, of Iraqe, for this materiels. When my grandfather was discovered, two years ago, he was shot by the government. The money from those sales however remained hidden to all. Before he was caoght, my grandfather shared with me his secret, and gave me instructions on how to move the moneys out of the country. In order to do this, I need the help of a trustworthy American friend and this is why I am seeking to write to you today. In order to recieve the moneys I must pay a fee bribe of twenty thousand American dollars. I do not have this moneys. If you can send to me these moneys, I will split my grandfathers moneys with you. Please tell nobody of this message, for I fear I will be in grave danger if it is known. I am relying on you, George Bush, to keep my secret. Respond to me and I will tell you how to send the moneys to me. Your frend, Umbuto Johnson Thanks to Eschaton and some guy named Hunter.
- posted by Prince Roy @ 7/10/2003 11:45:00 AM| |

 
Thanks to Mind Harmony and Soul for the link to the video of the song "Jump 2003" by Huang Licheng ��b�� and Machi. Right click and save here. But download it at your own risk. They're a fairly talentless and extremely derivative hip hop act. There's a little kid in there who I guess is supposed to be Taiwan's answer to Lil' Bow Wow. You'll either love it and have a good laugh, or if you're like me you'll rue the fact that someone didn't put a bounty on the heads of "New Kids On the Block" or "Menudo" or whoever it was that sent modern music on its inexorable slide into boy band turpitude. UPDATE: It's all coming back now. I knew I recognized the singer in the video from somewhere. It turns out the guy used to be in a silly act called LA Boyz. Those jokers first came to Taiwan in the early 1990s when I lived in Taipei. They sang in really bad Chinese and their dance moves were even worse. They tried to market themselves as legit LA bad boys with attitude but they were just wankers from the San Gabriel Valley ripping off the brothers. Perfect for Taiwan, though, where people just ate it up. And the little twerp in the video---I saw him two years ago on the Mandarin channel here. There was some kind of talent show around Chinese New Year and I think he got third. Now he's joined forces with the dweeb from the LA Boyz, who I think is actually his cousin or something. God help us all.
- posted by Prince Roy @ 7/08/2003 12:06:00 PM| |

 

Two gripes today. First, I was shopping in Ralph's (a grocery chain in SoCal) just minding my own business when I spotted an attractive young lady in a revealing midriff/tank top and those low-rise hip hugging pants. The problem? She was at least 6 months pregnant. This photo is the closest example I could find to what I saw. I sure hope this isn't indicative of the latest trend. Don't get me wrong, I can appreciate the miracle of life and all that. I just don't understand what would compel an expectant mother to walk around with her bared bloated belly hanging out. Or how anyone could consider it 'stylish'. Next, I just want to say I really hate Stuart Scott's new eyeglasses. He's the crappy sports anchor on ESPN who coined one of the most obnoxious catch phrases in journalism: "Boo-yah". I never cared for him to begin with, but his pathetic attempt to come off as the hip brainy type is utterly transparent. I can't find a picture of him yet with his new look but you're better off that I haven't. A lot of people are wearing those kinds of frames now. Many of my classmates at law school did anyway. They are almost a throwback to the granny glasses of the 1950s and 1960s, but even smaller and without the corner fins. People who wear them look very affected and pseudo-intellectual. But I guess they're not as bad as those HUGE frames so common in China. Jiang Zemin wears that style as does every other two-bit wannabe politico in the PRC. China manufactures practically all the frames for the international market so you'd think Jiang's grandkids would've told him by now how goofy he looks.
- posted by Prince Roy @ 7/08/2003 09:05:00 AM| |

 

Happy Fourth Everybody!!! On our evening constitutional in the University Village grounds tonight we heard loud booming exploding sounds coming from all around and we noticed a number of people heading towards the new five-story parking structure completed last January. We followed and went up to the roof where we joined around 70 other residents. We had splendid views of Los Angeles in all directions and got to see firework displays from all four corners of the city. I found it quite humorous and true to form that 95% of the people up there with us were Chinese. I think anyone who has lived in China will probably know what I mean. And those laotaipo ��̫�� who live here really crack me up. I have no doubt they had scouted out the best viewing spots long before---some of them even brought up folding chairs. We will have our ����� BBQ tomorrow. It'll be my wife's Chinese friends plus this Chinese guy from Beijing who I met at the university where I taught in Jiangxi way back in the day. He was a student there (not mine). I haven't seen the bloke in ten years. He's been in the States for several years now and is in town on business. He called me out of the blue a month ago. It seems our paths crossed quite often in the past few years and we were in living in some of the same places though we never knew it. The guy's quite a character but it should be fun.
- posted by Prince Roy @ 7/05/2003 02:45:00 PM| |

 
Just When I Thought It Was Safe To Check My E-Mail... I read this news item. The fine people of Nigeria are set to get back to work in the national industry come Friday. No, not oil---the article gets that part wrong; the business of Nigeria is the email scam. I'm glad they worked it all out. I'd been wondering why I hadn't gotten any of these in a while. Now the pitiable missives from deposed African notables offering to share their fortunes with me if I'll only let them use my bank account as a resting place for their millions should soon begin flooding my box again. Apparently even a certain GW Bush is getting in on the act! Well, the respite was nice while it lasted... Douglas Cruickshank wrote a good story for Salon about these folks that you can read here. Here's another good one from Wired.Com where one of the scammers comes clean. Just in case you think no one could possibly be stupid enough to get taken in read some of the stories here. This guy's put up a decent site where he's decided to play along. Check out his links for more.
- posted by Prince Roy @ 7/04/2003 12:16:00 PM| |

 


Anybody else miss Calvin and Hobbes as much as I do? It's hard to believe they've been gone more than seven years now. I had an unfortunate incident the other day when I accidently opened the LA Times to the 'comics' section. Cartooning is in sad shape. Can anyone out there recommend even one decent strip? I used to actually look forward to Sundays when the full-color Calvin and Hobbes would come out. And let's not forget The Far Side. Those were always my two favorites, anyway. A few years ago some fan sites contained virtually every Calvin and Hobbes. No more. I guess Bill Watterson put a stop to it. But if you have any disposable income you can subscribe to the official Calvin and Hobbes site here. I think if you do you can access every strip printed. If you're poor like me there's a couple of good fan sites that have a fair number of their antics and other goodies...try here and here. Let me know if you find any better ones.
- posted by Prince Roy @ 7/04/2003 01:10:00 AM| |

 
You White Boys All Look Alike I'd thought I'd add my two cents to the current "Why's everyone picking on the white guys?" (my paraphrase) thread over at Adam's place. A couple of weeks ago I picked up my student ID card for my extension class at Hsi Lai University and I met Yin Gen ӡ ��, a nun from Shanghai who works in the Student Affairs Office. She's also a student at the school. She gave me my ID and we chatted for about 10 minutes in Chinese. Last week when I was in the library studying she comes over and tells me (in English) my student ID is ready. I told her I had already picked it up the previous week. I had to get to class so that was basically the end of the conversation. So today I drop in at the Student Affairs Office to say 'hi'. She starts digging through the files trying to find my ID card. She apologizes for the delay and tells me how she thought she had gone up to me the previous week in the library to tell me the ID was ready, but that was a different person because he said he already had his ID and "he even pulled it out and showed it to me" (that was ME). Without letting the cat out of the bag I managed to let her know I got the card quite a while ago. Crazy. Whatever hookah they're giving these nuns to smoke I hope mine is included in the cost of the course. OK, so if this was a huge impersonal state university I could write this off as a case of mistaken identity. But Hsi Lai is a very small private school in summer session. There's maybe 50 students enrolled, max. And of those there can't be more than three white guys. And I know for a fact I'm the only one who speaks Mandarin. Rest assured, we look absolutely nothing alike. One of them is a guy who had his own Internet start-up during the boom years. He saw the writing on the wall and got out while the getting was good. He's an older guy who's on easy street. The other is James, my pal who looks like the Maitreya Buddha (Maitreya is the bodhisattva waiting in the wings who will be the next buddha on earth). There's no mistaking us. Anyway it was quite amusing. Sometimes I get the feeling that in the China Game even if you win you lose. At the end of the day we're all just faceless laowai ����.
- posted by Prince Roy @ 7/02/2003 04:30:00 AM| |

 
Law Professor Update: Not too long ago I blogged about my favorite professors at the UCLA School of Law, which you can read here. It is now June 30, and Professor Khaled Abou El Fadl still has not turned in course grades, which for 3Ls were due on May 30. This may not seem like such a big deal, but what it boils down to is that any 3L who took a course from him in the Spring semester technically has not graduated. More importantly, states require certification of graduation in order to take the summer bar exam. The deadline differs depending on the state and those examinees whose states require the certification this week are in a world of hurt. I've heard through the grapevine that UCLA has taken the unprecedented step of providing the certification for those students, a legally questionable maneuver in the unlikely but not impossible event that Professor El Fadl fails a student. I still think Professor El Fadl is a fine professor but I am disheartened at his apparent disregard for the welfare of his students. I hope he reflects on the unnecessary suffering he has inflicted on them, many of whom are already dealing with enough stress preparing for next month's bar exam and have enough on their minds without worrying about if they've graduated from law school or whether they may be disqualified from taking the bar because he couldn't be bothered to turn in our grades on time.
- posted by Prince Roy @ 7/01/2003 03:55:00 AM| |

 


This is one of my favorite spots in the temple, the Garden of the 18 Arhats (arhat=�޺�). The figures in this garden represent the most important of the Buddha's early disciples. This is arguably the only nod to the Theravadan tradition in the temple, which as I mentioned before follows the Mahayana school, as do practically all Chinese buddhist sects. By the signpost hangs a small bell; people throw coins at it for good luck. It peals a pure and lovely tone when struck.
- posted by Prince Roy @ 7/01/2003 12:29:00 AM| |

 


This view looks down towards the Bodhisattva shrine from the main hall. The rectangular stone blocks with grass growing in between represent a rice paddy and symbolize the cultivation and harvest of one's inner virtue---the Buddha Nature within us all.
- posted by Prince Roy @ 7/01/2003 12:16:00 AM| |

 


Here's the main temple gate. The Hsi Lai Temple compound is in the shape of a leaf from the Bodi tree (beneath which Siddhartha Gautama became enlightened) and sits atop a hill. On sunny days following a rain the views into the San Gabriel Valley can be breathtaking; otherwise, as this picture shows, smog reigns supreme.
- posted by Prince Roy @ 7/01/2003 12:05:00 AM| |