Latest Posts
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Don’t Blame Confucius…
A video from GlobalPost on match-making in Shanghai (embedded below). It seems that every Friday and Saturday people come to a corner of People's Park to look for marriage partners for their sons and daughters. The reporter says it's like… Continue reading
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Confucius at TED
A student of mine (thanks Gary!) pointed me toward a talk from a recent TED conference (TED, for those who are unfamiliar with it, is a group that brings together thinkers on a variety of topics to expand upon, as… Continue reading
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Alan Greenspan does the Confucian Thing
He gives up the dogma of the self-correcting "free market" and embraces the idea of "temporary" nationalization of banks to get out from under the financial crisis. Confucius would agree: The Master said: "The noble-minded are all-encompassing, not stuck in… Continue reading
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Is Dao the Sum of All De?
My posts of late are tending in a rather more philosophical, as opposed to topical, direction. That is an occupational hazard of teaching Chinese philosophy, I guess. But I have a rather big Chinese philosophical question to pose: is Dao… Continue reading
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Randomness
In class today, talking about the YIjing, I found myself suggesting that using the text as a divination manual, as it was designed to be used, confronts us with randomness and chance. We throw the coins to generate a hexagram… Continue reading
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Teaching the Yi Jing (I Ching)
We're getting serious in my ancient Chinese thought class this week, turning to the texts themselves. I may be a bit unconventional because the first text I have the class read is the Yi Jing (I Ching). Manyul mentioned (on… Continue reading
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Better than Valentine’s Day
This recording happened almost exactly thirty years ago(!). I've always loved this tune: Continue reading
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How Others See Us
A sad story of a young Chinese woman killed by a drunk driver in New York raises some unsettling questions about American culture. Here is an excerpt from a translated blog post over at Roland's (original Chinese blog post here):… Continue reading
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Minxin Pei
This is a bit off my usual path of ancient Chinese thought, but last week a moderated a lecture given by Minxin Pei on the broad topic of "China Today." He focused mainly on recent economic issues and made some… Continue reading
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Heavenly Balance
Roland translates a Chinese blog post, "Is the CCTV fire an act of God?" (I would quibble here, preferring a translation: "Is the CCTV fire an act of Heaven" – original Chinese here). The post speaks to the horrible fire… Continue reading
The Useless Tree 