Other People’s Thoughts
Other People’s Thoughts is a section in the Journal of the China Heritage site. It is inspired by a compilation of quotations put together by Simon Leys (Pierre Ryckmans), one of our Ancestors, during his reading life.
Pierre remarked that the resulting modest volume of quotations was ‘idiosyncratically compiled for the amusement of idle readers’ (see Simon Leys, Other People’s Thoughts, 2007). Our aim is similar: to amuse our readers (idle or otherwise); as is our modus operandi: to build up an idiosyncratic compilation, one that reflects the interests of The Wairarapa Academy for New Sinology and its coterie.
In collecting this material, and by adding to it over time, we accord also with a Chinese literary practice in which quotations — sometimes called yǔlù 語錄, literally ‘recorded sayings’ — have a particular history, and a powerful resonance.
The most famous collection of recorded sayings is The Analects 論語, compiled by disciples of Confucius. Then there is the timeless 5000-words of Laozi’s The Tao and the Power 道德經, as well as the Chan/Zen 禪宗 tradition of what in English are known by the Japanese term kōan 公案, dating from the Tang dynasty. Modern imitations range from the political bon mots of Mao Zedong to excerpts from the prolix prose of Xi Jinping’s tireless speech writers, and published snippets from arm-chair philosophers and motivational speakers.
Other People’s Thoughts also finds inspiration in the ‘poetry talks’ 詩話, ‘casual jottings’ 筆記 and ‘marginalia’ 眉批 of China’s literary tradition.
— Geremie R. Barmé,
Editor, China Heritage
28 September 2024
Confucius’ Birthday
Pierre Ryckmans’ Birthday
***
Other People’s Thoughts I-XLVIII:
- Other People’s Thoughts, China Heritage
Other People’s Thoughts, XLIX
Nor public flame, nor private, dares to shine;
Nor human spark is left, nor glimpse divine!
Lo! thy dread empire, Chaos! is restored;
Light dies before thy uncreating word:
Thy hand, great Anarch! lets the curtain fall;
And universal darkness buries all.
— Alexander Pope, The Dunciad
人生最高境界
佛為心，道為骨，儒為表，大度看世界；技在手，能在身，思在腦，從容過生活。三千年讀史，不外功名利祿；九萬里悟道，終歸詩酒田園。
— 南懷瑾
A Political Stance
I am no politician, and still less can I be said to be a party-man: but I have a hatred for tyranny, and a contempt for its tools… I have no mind to have my person made a property of, nor my understanding made a dupe of. I deny that liberty and slavery are convertible terms, that right and wrong, truth and falsehood, plenty and famine, the comforts or wretchedness of a people, are matters of perfect indifference.
— William Hazlitt, Preface, Political Essays, 1819
法家封口，儒家封心
時隔五年，與一華裔忘年交約了一起喝杯茶，難以免俗的又要順著他的節奏一起大談道德文章，觥籌間聊及儒家，其獨尊儒術，大加贊美，曰我族人若無儒術加持，早已滅族。
我則秉持不同態度，我認為我族人無法文明、無法容於政治文明，皆因儒術：
- 儒家沒有胸懷容納批判，因此和真理無緣；
- 儒家沒有邏輯，因此和哲學無緣；
- 儒家沒有實證，因此與科學無緣；
- 儒家沒有膽量超越權勢，所以和正義無緣。
但儒家又不甘寂寞，熱衷入世，最終只能把自己打扮成道德偽君子，在權勢膝下做個偽娘奴僕。兩三千年以來，除了吃就是跪。
儒家標榜的最高境界是「窮則獨善其身，達則兼濟天下」，其實就歷史而言，絕大多數儒家信徒在現實中的生存方式是「窮則搖尾乞憐，達則為非作歹」，不作惡，則無法維護其既得利益。
彧，2024-03-24
變味兒
我們的教育絕不能培養社會主義破壞者和掘墓人，絕不能培養出一些「長著中國臉，不是中國心，沒有中國情，缺少中國味」的人！
— 習近平，2018年
我經歷過清末、北洋時期、民國、毛澤東時代、鄧小平時代。五個歷史時期從文化上看，最好的是民國時期。國家有民氣，民眾有文化，學界有國際一流學術成果，社會有言論自由，教師能教出好人才。現在說大師，都是那時候出來的。你可以一個一個查，都是。這是事實，清楚得很，不用辯論。
— 周有光，2016（110歲）
0-7
我在東京，旁邊場地就是國足踢日本隊，有朋友說：按你的說法，你是已故著名球評人，正好有兩張貴賓席球票，一起去吧。
我拒絕了。
我說：會慘敗，因為這些蠢貨從不知羞恥，更羞恥的是，它們還壞！更更羞恥的是，它們一致認為這是對的。
我很慶幸，當初遠離它是對的，那些臟錢不掙也罷。錢再多，也不能掙。多少所謂圈內人，做了多少不堪入目的臟事，凡誰做點正常人該做的事，它們會群起攻之。
我是學文學的，少一個風生水起的球評人多一個流亡作家來描寫這末世景象，挺好。
中國足球輸日本0:7，太正常了，你以為中國混裝食用油VS日本食用油輸多少，你以為中國醫療輸日本多少，你以為中國教育輸日本多少，你以為中國殯葬業輸日本多少，你以為中國食品安全輸日本多少，你以為中國官場清廉輸日本多少，你以為中國社保養老司法民生輸日本多少….
我對未來很絕望。
希望當然有，但，以包括我在內的爹里爹氣的老男人，有時候還要羨慕孟加拉大學生，把別人的勇悍當自己的橡皮娃娃，嗯嗯，我承認我在勇敢的族群面前很自卑。
我們期盼奇跡。
— 李承鵬，2024年9月6日
Et tu, Boomer
Old/young is crazy. The kind of violent discourse that goes between old and young people is one of the most delusional things in contemporary discourse. You are literally fighting the person you’re about to become. You’re covering in contempt. When you say, “OK, boomer” or whatever it is, do you not imagine that there will be a phrase for you very soon? It’s such a strange war to begin because you’re about to enter it as the victim of it so soon, like sooner than you can even begin to imagine.
— Zadie Smith on Populists, Frauds and Flip Phones, 17 September 2024
好話說盡，壞事做絕
造一堆狗屁不通的理論要人民深刻理解；
編一段荒誕離奇的歷史要人民深信不疑；
吹一個虛無縹緲的主義要人民努力實現；
把全人類樹為敵人要人民去解放！
— 李慶
An Audience with the Pope
I wasn’t bothered by the Pope’s use of “faggotry” because I’m not queer; I’m gay. The difference is that queer people are offended by just about everything. Gay people just wonder what they’ll wear to the Vatican at the crack of dawn, and what the proper etiquette is. …
The invitation made it sound like there’d be a dialogue, as if the Pope had questions or needed to ask us a favor, something along the lines of “Do you think you could maybe give the pedophilia stuff a rest?”
Everyone’s got a Catholic-clergy joke up their sleeve, perhaps one they heard at a party. Mine is: A cop stops a car two priests are riding in. “I’m looking for a couple of child molesters,” he tells them.
The priests look at each other. “We’ll do it!” they say.
Substitute rabbis or Baptist ministers for priests, and you’ll get nothing. I mean, the Catholic Church earned those laughs, and every time its senior clerics look away, or quietly send an offending clergyman to the back bench, it’s making this scandal larger than its ministry, at least to an outsider such as myself.
“Can you help me turn this around?” I imagined the Pope asking. “How can we get back to the sex-starved-nun jokes we all so enjoyed in the past?”
— David Sedaris, The Hem of his Garment
四招
為了能讓驢死心塌地地拉磨人發明了四招：蒙眼睛、堵耳朵、捂嘴巴、抽鞭子⋯
— 網上偶見
What’s right with socio-cultural anthropology, what’s wrong with its laboured lingo
Grazia Deng: This book is primarily based on my ethnographic fieldwork in Bologna from May 2014 to July 2015 and short annual visits afterwards. My multiple identifications—including gender, race, ethnicity, social class, and age, among others—intersected with one another to shape my fieldwork experience. My Chinese appearance announced my ‘difference’ from both the biology and the culture of Italians, even though I spoke fluent Italian. Like many other Chinese immigrants in the country, I personally experienced various forms of institutional discrimination and everyday racism, including when applying for residence permits, racist ticket inspection on buses and trains, and verbal abuse and harassment based on my Chinese appearance. As a woman, I encountered the ‘male gaze’ and ‘patriarchal gaze’ that came not only from native Italian men, but also from Chinese men as well as other male immigrants from varied national backgrounds.
That said, my identity as a young Chinese woman fluent in Italian benefited my fieldwork. I was an ideal barista in the eyes of many Chinese coffee bar owners as well as their customers. I thus was able to serve as an informal apprentice barista, which was, however, accompanied by gendered harassment—typical for any woman serving in that role in Italy. I was also able to find two Italian families who were willing to host me successively. The homestay experience allowed me to obtain firsthand experience of native Italians’ family life as well as their social and cultural activities. The hospitality that I received nevertheless sometimes stemmed from an Orientalist fascination with my difference.
None of the putatively disempowering factors in my life—racial and ethnic identity, gender, and age—proved a barrier to my ethnographic knowledge production. Both structural inequality and empowering ethnographic moments, deliberately designed or not, have shaped my embodied experiences in the ‘field’ and constitute key components of how I go about producing ethnographic knowledge.
— Chinese Espresso: A Conversation with Grazia Ting Deng, Global China Pulse
Taiwan is actually the most stable issue between Beijing and Washington, as long as the one-China policy exists, distinguished expert says
Q.: How would you compare the academic communities in China and the US that study each other? I think in general, American scholars’ views on China are correct, just like Chinese scholars’ views on the US are basically correct as well.
A.: [US scholars think] China is challenging American dominance, the US-led existing international order and key political security rules.
Chinese [academics] believe that the US is trying to maintain its dominance and won’t allow China to adjust the international system according to its own legitimate rights and core interests – and won’t even allow China’s military aircraft and ships to cross the Taiwan Strait median line.
Although the mutual views may contain biases, in general, I think their views of each other are correct.
— Shi Yinhong, in an interview with Xinlu Liang, More talk ‘not always best’ for US-China relations, it’s results that count, expert says, South China Morning Post, 9 September 2024
延遲退休政策
唉，一個人不想退休，拉上所有人。
— 匿名網友
網友盤點的十句暗語
一、讓你顧全大局，你肯定是局外人；
二、讓你不惜代價，你就是那個代價；
三、一件事鼓勵你做，那是讓你去做炮灰；
四、一件事禁止你做，那是人家想獨吞好處；
五、說是為你好，其實都是為他自己；
六、要你眼光放長遠，這次好處肯定沒你；
七、說下次考慮你，下輩子你也沒戲；
八、說對事不對人，他就是對人，而且還是對你；
九、說大家對你有意見，就是他對你有意見；
十、說有意見儘管提，他是想看誰對他有意見。
— 章立凡轉貼，X
Waiting for the Barbarians
What are we waiting for, assembled in the forum?
The barbarians are due here today.
Why isn’t anything going on in the senate?
Why are the senators sitting there without legislating?Because the barbarians are coming today.
What’s the point of senators making laws now?
Once the barbarians are here, they’ll do the legislating.
Why did our emperor get up so early,
and why is he sitting enthroned at the city’s main gate,
in state, wearing the crown?Because the barbarians are coming today
and the emperor’s waiting to receive their leader.
He’s even got a scroll to give him,
loaded with titles, with imposing names.Why have our two consuls and praetors come out today
wearing their embroidered, their scarlet togas?
Why have they put on bracelets with so many amethysts,
rings sparkling with magnificent emeralds?
Why are they carrying elegant canes
beautifully worked in silver and gold?Because the barbarians are coming today
and things like that dazzle the barbarians.Why don’t our distinguished orators turn up as usual
to make their speeches, say what they have to say?Because the barbarians are coming today
and they’re bored by rhetoric and public speaking.Why this sudden bewilderment, this confusion?
(How serious people’s faces have become.)
Why are the streets and squares emptying so rapidly,
everyone going home lost in thought?Because night has fallen and the barbarians haven’t come.
And some of our men just in from the border say
there are no barbarians any longer.Now what’s going to happen to us without barbarians?
Those people were a kind of solution.— C.P. Cavafy, translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard
甲申380年后
1644年，換了50個宰相14個兵部尚書的崇禎皇帝眼見朝野無錢，內憂外患，最終走上煤山，真誠地說了一句混賬話：「皆諸臣誤朕」，至死執迷不誤；差不多同一時間，克倫威爾在馬斯頓荒原之戰中用龍騎兵戰勝國王軍隊，奠定資產階級陣營勝利，英國注定迎來光榮革命，走上工業革命道路。歷史就這麼分野了，大明和大英當世兩大帝國，在同樣面臨傳統農業和新興資本主義的分爭、同樣面臨新舊勢力對抗，同一時間卻走向兩條相反的路；而我國主流史學家至今還痛心疾首爭論到底是東林黨還是閹黨對咱皇上不忠心，導致誤了大事，這些不跪著就不會做學問的人兒啊，不進敬事房也是可惜……所以你問，這是什麼時代，這其實是後明時代。那棵樹也不是現在才長歪的，是自萬曆、洪武甚至大秦時代就注定長歪的。
— 李承鵬，你看那滿天飛來的沙雞，就是這個時代，文學城，2024年9月27日
讀《論語》
有讀了全然無事者；有讀了後其中得一兩句喜者；有讀了後知好之者；有讀了後直有不知手之舞之足之蹈之者。
— 程頤
愛國賊
你敢燒掉你手中的美國綠卡，我就相信你是愛國的 你敢把孩子送到朝鮮去留學，我就相信你熱愛社會主義 你敢公佈所有官員財產，我就相信你真反腐 你敢把選票發給全國人民，我就相信你為人民服務。
—陳丹青
Harari’s Matrix
Harari’s ascetic frame, owlish face and exotic accent all helped to ensure that the word “guru” was never far from anyone’s lips — not to mention that he meditates. But his long pauses, once guru-like, now seem stilted and obnoxious; his historical anecdotes, once illuminating, now seem to meander; his rhetorical questions, once invitations for serious thought, now lie somewhere between a fudge and a dodge. Profundity soured into ponderousness.
— Samuel Rubinstein, Nexus by Yuval Noah Harari review — banality upon banality, The Times, 14 September 2024
A Political Mugging
I did not enjoy the political mugging the Israel lobby administered to me. On the Israel-Palestine issue, I have long been in the position of someone denying the car keys to a drunk, trying to avoid the enablement of self-destructive Israeli behaviour. Such behaviour is now a blatant global scandal that has made Israel a pariah state. America’s continued enablement of this behaviour has done enormous damage to my own country’s prestige… .
I began, like most Americans, as an admirer of what I had been led to believe Israel was. It took subsequent direct experience of its racism, belligerence and inhumanity to its captive Arab population to alter my favourable opinion of Zionism. I believed in “the right of Israel to exist” until I realised that this meant no one else had the right to exist between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean. Israel’s strategy of ethnic cleansing has now extended to genocide in Gaza. I would object to that even if my own country were not funding it and excusing it, which it is. It is inexcusable.
— Chas Freeman on Mao, the next Kissinger and why now is not like the Cold War, South China Morning Post, 10 September 2024
Poetry
Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash.
― Leonard Cohen
Missed Time
My notebook has remained blank for months
thanks to the light you shower
around me. I have no use
for my pen, which lies
languorously without grief.
Nothing is better than to live
a storyless life that needs
no writing for meaning—
when I am gone, let others say
they lost a happy man,
though no one can tell how happy I was.
— Ha Jin
The Debate
It was 3 on 1, but they were mentally challenged people, against one person of extraordinary genius. It wasn’t even close.
— @realDonaldTrump
A Debate for the Ages
It was a disaster. It was a catastrophe. It was elder abuse. It was a debate so bad for Donald Trump that armies of linguists and semioticians will labor for months to devise terms capable of describing the cataclysmic act of political self-destruction and career immolation we witnessed last night in Pennsylvania. It was a slaughter. An industrial-scale ass-whupping. It was a humiliation that needed only Trump in a gimp suit and a ball gag to make it complete.
— Rick Wilson, 11 September 2024
Verbal Toupée
You know, I do the weave. You know what the weave is? I’ll talk about like nine different things, and they all come back brilliantly together, and it’s like, friends of mine that are, like, English professors, they say, ‘It’s the most brilliant thing I’ve ever seen.’
— Donald Trump, 1 September 2024
An anti Semite’s idea of a Jew
The only thing I’ve ever liked about Donald Trump, the only saving grace, is that he’s not Jewish… . Because he’s an anti-Semite’s idea of a Jew.
— Fran Lebowitz, Vanity Fair, October 2016
Thumbs up
I can only imagine how some day many people will want to give a “thumbs up” while being photographed at Trump’s grave.
— reader’s comment, The New York Times, 1 September 2024
The Business
If you don’t want to get re-elected, you’re in the wrong business.
— Senator Lindsey Olin Graham (R-SC)
Lindsey Graham
2015: “You know how to make America great again? Tell Donald Trump to go to hell”; “he is a race-baiting, xenophobic religious bigot.”
2016: “If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed … and we will deserve it.”
2024 [To Trump]: “I love you.”
— Hypocrisy, Spinelessness, and the Triumph of Donald Trump, The Atlantic
The Black Nazi
“Slavery is not bad. Some people need to be slaves. I wish they would bring it (slavery) back. I would certainly buy a few.”
— Mark Robinson, Republican Lieutenant Governor of North Carolina
“You have to cherish him. He’s like a fine wine.”
— teetotaler Donald Trump on Mark Robinson
MTG vs Laura Loomer
It’s like watching chlamydia fight gonorrhoea.
— an anonymous comment on Threads
無聲勝有聲
And this … former president, ex-president, invited them [the Taliban] to Camp David …
— Kamala Harris, presidential debate, 10 September 2024
Nigel Farage
Have you ever had violent race riots named after you, or indeed been accused by the head of the Met of emboldening the racist thugs responsible? Has your vile and ignorant rhetoric ever helped instigate attempts to burn people alive in their beds? Have you ever cited a self-described misogynist facing rape and people trafficking charges in Romania as a trustworthy news source for events in the UK, or described yourself as part of a similar phenomenon to him? Have you ever helped a convicted woman-beater get elected to the UK parliament? And have any newly elected MPs spent more time in America getting binned off Donald Trump than they have in their own constituency? And what would you call someone who answers ‘yes’ to all those questions?
— James O’Brien, 19 September 2024
日籍兒童於深圳遇刺
孩子都死了，再不發聲我們都是共謀。
— 陳碧 趙宏，我們能為死去的孩子做點什麼？
Dressing in Black
Black is modest and arrogant at the same time. Black is lazy and easy, but mysterious. But above all, black says this: I don’t bother you, don’t bother me.
— Yohji Yamamoto The New York Times
中秋
我受夠了人間的不公平，厭倦了虛偽的情。我打翻了生活的酸醋瓶，心裡是難念的經。身在異鄉我孤零零，心事給誰聽。我擦乾了眼淚摔碎了心，最後還是信了命。
— “我受夠了人間的不公平”，北京凌晨地鐵歌聲引共鳴
Writing
My only useful piece of creating writing advice is to break the rule “write what you know.” If Kafka had written about what he knew, he’d have written about insurance.
— Salman Rushdie
The trouble with fiction… is that it makes too much sense. Reality never makes sense.
– Aldous Huxley
Travelling Heavy
The baggage of one’s homeland is too heavy; it should be like a pair of shoes, allowing us to tread lightly on our journey.
— Ha Jin
C is for Contrafibularity
***
— Anonymous