Please Help Choose Who Should Write the Preface and Afterword for This ID's Poetry Collection — and Poet Gallery (IV)
2008/6/14 7:27:47
Everyone, one should know tolerance and compassion in life. There are people who regularly spend enormous amounts of time visiting this ID's blog, providing this ID with massive click counts — to the point that even this ID, a non-celebrity whose blog doesn't even focus on stocks, has nearly 30 million clicks. So no matter what these people say or do, this ID can only be grateful. As for them spending their lives doing what they love to do here and saying what they love to say, this ID feels ordinary people needn't bother arguing with them. Of course, if bickering with them makes you happy, that's fine too — the added benefit is that the click count here surges again.
I'm posting so early today because a car is coming soon to go look at a house — the whole day will be spent on this house business. Starting tomorrow, I probably won't be able to write posts normally for several days because of chemotherapy — the extensive preparations and the dozen-plus hours of IV infusion during hydrotherapy don't leave time for writing posts. If there's a gap, I'll probably only be able to pop in and report that I'm safe.
As for next week's market, it has already been stated very clearly multiple times: a short-term opportunity to form the No. 2 hub from the decline above 3,700 points. Those with the ability to seize it can play a quick trade; those without should keep sitting on their little stools.
Also, the remarkable person this ID mentioned yesterday — his actual profession isn't a doctor but rather a professor-level scientific researcher. It was through work connections that he became acquainted with the dean of Tsinghua. He apparently still supervises doctoral students, though not in the medical field. This man isn't very old, just over 50, but he has been studying this esoteric art for 45 years, starting from just a few years old. Five of his maternal uncles and three of his brothers successively studied under his maternal grandfather, yet he alone mastered it — what this implies, you can figure out for yourselves. In any case, he has little confidence in passing this knowledge on. He says it takes him two or three years to write a 20,000-to-30,000-word thesis, while his students churn one out in three days. He is utterly disillusioned with this generation's scholarly attitude — what this implies, you can also figure out for yourselves.
Stop always feeling the world owes you something. Look at the attitude of our generation and the generation currently in middle school behind us — we ourselves feel ashamed. Science tolerates not the slightest falsehood; if you're relying on lip service, you might as well go perform as chickens, ducks, geese, and rabbits on stage.
As for the Huángdì Nèijīng, it was compiled by Tang dynasty people based on so-called ancient texts they had collected at the time. It incorporates much later Daoist material, and there are major problems in its theoretical construction. Of course, for general medical purposes, it's more than adequate — after all, Tang dynasty people had high standards, and even if their compilation wasn't purely excellent, there was still good material in it.
this ID has also been organizing a poetry collection recently, to be published once this illness is overcome. Candidates to write the preface and afterword have already been identified — primarily three: first, the former General Secretary; second, the former Minister of Defense; third, someone at the vice-president level of the current Central Party School.
this ID's current thinking is to find two people to write the preface and afterword separately — one being a person of high virtue and prestige with major political or economic influence, and the other being an elder worthy of respect in the academic fields of classical literature and classical poetry.
Some friends joked that we could immediately approach Yú Qiūyǔ or Yì Zhōngtiān. this ID's answer is: approaching them would be worse than approaching nobody — they'd be an absolute embarrassment to this ID. So regarding the elder worthy of respect in the academic fields of classical literature and classical poetry, please offer your recommendations.
As for the first candidate, it's a difficult choice right now. Having the former General Secretary write it would certainly please the left, but the old gentleman projected a very plain, farmer-like image while in office. Now writing a preface and afterword for classical poetry, one fears others might assume it was ghostwritten and wonder if there'd be a backlash or mutual interference — so please offer your opinions from a reader's perspective. In fact, the old gentleman's calligraphy is a prized treasure within his inner circle — the cultivation of his generation, any one of them, is beyond the reach of ordinary people today.
As for the former Minister of Defense, there are similar concerns, plus a military background — from a reader's perspective, it's unclear whether that would be acceptable. As for the gentleman from the Central Party School, is the political coloring too strong? From this ID's perspective, this ID simply feels this gentleman would be up to the task — after all, he's from Peking University's old Chinese Department, which in any case makes him ten million times more impressive than that Kong fellow.
In short, please offer more opinions from a reader's perspective. A thousand thanks.
Finally, let us continue with the Poet Gallery:
Wēn Tíngyún
Chán Zhōng Shuō Chán
Eight-fold arms crossed, writing rhapsodies — famous young and high
A wayward life, laboring more with age
Unanchored poetic heart returning to the vast
Passionate cí lyrics turning to refined elegance
A chest full of hot blood boiling in wine
Ten measures of quick wit, fleeing beneath the groves
Intoxicated Among the Flowers — who knows the true taste?
Wild geese fly past the waning moon, sky and sea resound
Zǐměi (Du Fu)
Chán Zhōng Shuō Chán
The young phoenix first cries — no worldly tune
A proud dragon emerges from the sea, aspiring to save the nation
Testing his stand atop the summit — a thousand poems
Gradually pursuing the midstream — a jar full of wine
Jolted along bone-strewn roads past vermilion gates
Drifting through beacon fires, blood becomes rivers
Alone leaning on a perilous tower in late autumn dusk
The vast wilderness stretches on — where is the window?
Replies
缠中说禅 2008/6/14 18:55:43
Student Stone Monkey's earlier reply, my reply added after my illness, responding to my current post
I've never found him expressing objections or criticisms — is that objective?
I cannot agree with your attitude toward scholarship!
-----------------Wishing you progress — Chán
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Stone won't self-criticize — I despise you, such high learning yet such low standards!
缠中说禅 2008/6/14 18:20:59
Student Stone Monkey's earlier reply, my reply added after my illness, responding to my current post
I've never found him expressing objections or criticisms — is that objective?
I cannot agree with your attitude toward scholarship!
-----------------Wishing you progress — Chán