79 bar steep drop 29.95 0mph S dew-point 54 sunrise 6:06 sunset 8:30 Lughnasa
First Quarter of the Corn Moon moonrise 1326 moonset 2226
Each day of the Olympics I will post a poem from a famous Chinese poet. Du Fu, Li Bai and Wang Wei are the three most admired T’ang dynasty poets. It is so easy to forget that this last century is only a tiny portion in the sweep of Chinese civilization. In all the sturm und drang about the rise of China the fact that China has risen and fallen many times over the last 5,000 plus years often remains buried. That’s right, 5,000 years of a continuous culture, sometimes dominant, sometimes ruled by foreigners, many of whom embraced Chinese civilization.
It is arrogant of us to judge China by our standards, standards that have stood nowhere near the test of time. In China the collective always comes before the individual, at least that has been true historically. This is not to say that there have not been individualists in Chinese history. Taoism tends to produce them, as does the famous literati system of rule by intellectuals. Many painters and poets also walked their own distinctive paths.
Well, anyhow, China doesn’t need my defense. I just want to add a bit from the depth of Chinese culture as we go through Olympics which often seem more about air pollution and human rights than sport.
Yes, I know. This seems like a conservative position, but in reality it is a position informed more by anthropology and history, a position not too different from walk a mile in the other person’s moccasin.
I spent an hour or so this morning admiring the work of the Irishmen who dug ditches. Put the shovel in the earth, push it down, lift it up, heave. Repeat. Not back breaking, but a workout. I had a good nap. The fire pit has begun to appear. It will be deep enough for a fire when the Woollies come, though whether the area around it will be is another matter.
