36 79% 38% 0mph windrose NNE dewpoint 30 bar steady Ordinary Time New Moon
“The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance – it is the illusion of knowledge.” – Daniel J. Boorstin
This quote from Boorstin explains the global warming debate.
Daily Archives: November 9, 2007
Korean soap operas and the Silk Road
Back from a night at the U of M’s Institute for Advanced Studies. The occasion was a lecture on Chang’an, the capital of the Tang empire and site of the present day city of Xi’an. The lecture, as well as a pipa concert on Sunday at 3 PM at Kaufman, celebrates the 25th anniversary of a relationship between Minnesota and Shaanxi province as sister states.
A supper preceded the event, paid for by somebody, and had a variety of Chinese dishes, whether indigenous to Shaanxi or not, I do not know. Over supper I met a Korean woman, a Catholic, who is a professor of history at the Catholic University of Seoul. She’s here on a one year research fellowship to study Asian history. Why Minnesota? We have a good Asian history contigent here at the U. Her name was Seon-Hye. Next to me was a graduate student in history, a Chinese woman, who has as her dissertation project women’s writing in China from the 18thC on. Seems women wrote poems to celebrate their locality. Beside her was Yoshimi, a Japanese graduate student. We got to talking about Korean soap operas. Yoshimi said they were very popular in Japan, so much so that Japanese young women take tours to Korea to see sites where their favorite soap operas happen. The Chinese woman, whose name I didn’t learn, agreed, saying the Korean dramas were very popular in China, too.
Huang, a young Mandarin man, is a student of the Qin dynasty.
The lecture that followed supper was on Chang’an and its cosmopolitan nature, demonstrated through art and a mini-history of the silk road. The lecturer was Kathy Ryor, a professor from Carleton College.
Also picked up a pair of new sunglasses today. Snazzy and gray/blue in tint. Gives the world a slight wintry cast.
A poem for the first day of snow
Ten thousand flowers in spring, the moon in autumn
Ten thousand flowers in spring, the moon in autumn,
a cool breeze in summer, snow in winter.
If your mind isn’t clouded by unnecessary things,
this is the best season of your life.
Wu Men (1183-1260)
Changing the Scenery
33 82% 38% 0mph windroseE dewpoint28 bar steady Ordinary Time New Moon
First snow. After a scatter of flakes, a beady snow dropped onto our deck, bouncing before it came to a rest. Didn’t last long, but it was enough. This first snow has a magical quality, a true signal that the theatre of the seasons has changed scenes and scenery. Clouds give the day an intimate quality, the sky closer to the earth. The brown of dead lives and withered perennials has small shadows of white.
This is the time the evergreens begin to stand out. The pachysandra on the third tier under the Colorado Spruce is a nest of shiny green leaves; the cedar trees in our woods stand tall, their flat needles green against the leafless oaks, big-tooth aspens, ash and black locust.
In my northern heart this time, called by the Celts Samain, through to Imbolc, the time when lambs came into the belly in old Ireland, around February 1st, defines me and those who live here. This is our time as summer is the time of Southern California and Arizona, Texas and New Mexico. Part of it is because of what we endure, for them the heat and aridity, for us, the cold and the snow, but it is more, much more, than that. It is the difference between cranking up the snowblower and pushing the button on a power boat, between walking through knee deep snow, exhilirated, and walking through 107 heat refreshed by the mists from those outdoor cooling devices. To my northern heart exhiliration trumps wilting in the heat; but I know that’s my bias, a bias not shared by the hundreds, thousands of Minnesotans who become snowbirds each winter, migrating to warmer climes.