• Tag Archives China

  • Latin and Asia

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Imbolc                                   Waxing Wild Moon

    Kate and I reviewed our work on chapter 5 in Wheelock this morning.  Then 2,000 words on the novel after the nap.  Workout.  Sierra Club legcom conference call.

    I’ve been reading my fourth Qiu Xiaolong mystery, The Red Mandarin Dress.  These are Chief Inspector Chen novels, set in today’s Shanghai.  They are interesting mysteries, but even more, they are a window into the struggle between the Maoist era and the contemporary one, a period when revolution ruled the land transformed into one in which to get rich is glorious.  These are not easy transitions and they have happened in the blink of an eye in the long history of China.

    Asian art and asian culture, especially Chinese history, philosophy and literature have, for a long time, had my attention.  In my volunteer work at the MIA I have been allowed to indulge my interest in Chinese, Japanese and South Asian art.  This has led to more and more time with asian history, especially Chinese and Chinese poetry.  A casual tinkerer in these vast domains, I have only skimmed the top of a way of life radically different from our own, Western culture, yet, even with its differentness, still more like us than not, the human experience inflected, not the human experience transformed.

    As I’ve watched the Winter Olympics, it doesn’t take a scholar to notice that its largely a northern hemisphere event.  Yes, there are the odd Australians, New Zealanders, but for the the most part it’s North America, Europe and the Asian countries.  Just another way in which we are more like than unlike.


    📂This entry was posted in Art and Culture Asia Sport World History 📎and tagged

  • Ordinary Time

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Winter                              Full Cold Moon

    In just two days those of us who follow the Celtic calendar will celebrate the coming of Imbolc.  I’ll write more about it on Monday, but I wanted to note here the difference in timber and resonance between post-Epiphany January and the holiseason just ended.  We move now into the ordinary days, days when the sense of expectation and sacred presence relies more on our private rituals, our own holydays.

    In my own case, for example, Valentine’s Day lends this time period a certain magic as its pre-birthday spirit invades the present.  Also, for me and my fellow Woolly Mammoths, this next week marks our annual retreat, so we get ready for it, this time again at Blue Cloud Monastery in South Dakota.  It is, too, for those with any presence in the Chinese world, just a couple of weeks before the beginning of the spring festival, or, as we know it here, Chinese New Years.  This year it begins on my birthday.

    Imbolc, too, has sacred resonance and its six week period marks the beginning of the growing season here as seeds for certain long growing season vegetables like leeks must get started.


    📂This entry was posted in Asia Faith and Spirituality Garden Great Wheel permaculture 📎and tagged

  • The Year We Make Contact

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Winter                                     Full Moon of Long Nights

    Hmmm.  You know you’re getting old when the sequels to movies, one’s you saw when they came out, are now getting passed by the actual dates.

    The year we make contact.  Indeed.

    What will the next 10 years be like?  On an equally geezerly note the end of this new decade, Lord willin’ and the creek don’t rise, will find me 72 years old.  I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve known people that were 72 but I wouldn’t let my daughter marry one.  Of course, I don’t have a daughter, so that makes that easy.

    My sense, my hope is, that in this coming decade, the teen years of this century, we will come to grips with climate change and in a way that will have a lasting, positive impact.  We won’t have completed the Great Work, the movement to a benign human presence on the earth, but we will have made substantial strides.

    Terrorism will decline as a front-burner issue, though it will remain with us, if for no other reason than the continuing disparity between rich and poor countries, disparities exacerbated over the next ten years by the continued growth of India and China.

    The Millennium generation will push us further toward a race neutral or race positive world.  It may be that we will develop the strength to see difference as a possibility for enrichment.  Or, maybe not.  I hope the tension begins to move in such a way that the fulcrum tips toward embracing pluralism.

    At the end of this decade the grandkids will be ten years older:  Ruthie 13 and Gabe 11.  Yikes.

    By the end of this decade I hope Kate and I have got this gardening thing well integrated into our lives.

    I hope for, I want a move toward, as one foundation puts, “a more just, verdant and peaceful world.”


    📂This entry was posted in Aging Great Work Health Politics 📎and tagged

  • A Yellow Moon

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Lughnasa                        Waxing Green Corn Moon

    A yellowed moon hung in the sky tonight, almost full.  It made the drive back in from Minneapolis a delight as it sailed in and out of view.

    In tonight for the Land Use and Transportation Committee meeting.  What a dynamic group!  They are still fighting the Stillwater Bridge issue after all these years.  They also have transit oriented development on their agenda as well as a new issue called Complete Streets.  In essence Complete Streets wants street planning to have all users in mind (pedestrians, bicyclists, cars and the handicapped in particular)

    A crisp meeting that ran on time.

    Thunder has begun to roll in so I’m going to have shut down soon.  After the Sierra Club meeting, I drove over to the Black Forest where the Woolly’s first monday meeting had just begun to wind down.  I saw Mark and Frank and Stefan before they left.  Warren and Scott stayed and we talked about Moon, Scott’s 95 year old Cantonese mother-in-law who lives with them.  She’s having a show of her calligraphy and painting at the Marsh.  It goes up on August 16th.  There will also be a book of her work available at the show.  Amazing.

    China tour tomorrow for 7-8th graders.  I added a tour this Friday of Chilean students connected with St. Johns who want a tour of American art.


    📂This entry was posted in Great Work Politics Weather +Climate Woolly Mammoths 📎and tagged

  • Other Drivers

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Lughnasa                           Waxing Green Corn Moon

    Up early.  Woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep, so I fed the dogs, got the paper and made breakfast.

    I spent an hour deciding where to put some extra cash among several spots at Vanguard (I chose a T.I.P.S. mutual fund.), then put  together a China tour:  the Sacred Arts of China.  I’m subbing and wanted to do something I’d already researched.

    Kate and I had our business meeting.  More money and calendar stuff.  We decided I should get long term care insurance, so I sent off for the application.  I also bought an orchard rack to store dried fruits and vegetables in the dry storage area Jon built over his vacation here.

    A while back I mentioned passing the deaf driver signing wildly and turning, hands off the wheel, to read the communication from his passenger.  A couple of days ago I was on my way into St. Paul; a car in front of me swerved over and back across the center line.  I had an opportunity to pass and took it.  It was a woman wearing a burka, a narrow angle of vision in the fading twilight.

    Today I had a small, bitter cherry from a bush in our new orchard.  On another bush across the way, must be different, I picked two (100% of the crop) that were fleshy and sweet.  Someday I have to learn the names of all of these plants.

    Got my notice of accepted application from the friendly folks at your social security administration.  This month on the third Wednesday I’ll get my first social security direct deposited.  Hmmm…


    📂This entry was posted in Aging Garden permaculture 📎and tagged

  • TGIF

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Spring                 New Moon (Flower)

    A long day at the museum.  I had a tour at 10 and another at 2, leaving me three hours in between.  In addition, for some reason I did not get a good nights sleep last night, so I was not fresh.  Glad to be home.  The two tours went ok.  I failed to engage the college students in meaningful dialogue even though I prepared well and had inquiry questions ready.

    The first group, an art appreciation class from Rochester Community College, when asked what they were studying, could only reply, “Something after some war.”  When asked later on if they had heard of Vesuvius or Pompeii, not a one, blanks.  Ditto the minotaur.  The background knowledge of so many in America is at appalling levels.

    How can we have a successful national debate on any subject if the basics have gone missing?

    The second group from Minneapolis Technical College had more on the ball.  They were a world religions class, but unfortunately taught by a woman I’ve encountered before whose minimal knowledge of world religions would be laughable if not sad.  She keeps talking about Chinese religions when China has philosophical systems that only later morph into religion like institutions.  Sigh.  I’m tired still and a little dark at this point.

    The bees come tomorrow.  More on that after they arrive.


    📂This entry was posted in Art and Culture 📎and tagged

  • A Long Learning Curve

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Spring             Waning Seed Moon

    This morning Chinese language students from the St. Paul Central class of 2009 came to the museum.  They were bright kids, interested.  Mostly in their third year of study, they have learned little about China’s history and culture.  My tour introduced them to the bronze tradition, the history of the five major calligraphic styles and ended with an examination of literati culture in the Ming dynasty.

    Working with bright, engaged kids makes touring a pleasure as it was this morning.   Many of the kids were Chinese and some spoke Chinese well.

    This was the beginning of a much longer learning curve for me on calligraphy.  I want to appreciate Chinese painting from within the Chinese aesthetic framework as well as  learn some Chinese characters along the way.

    As a docent, I appreciate the flexibility it offers to devise self-directed areas of study, then try them out on a live audience.  Go back and revise.  Learn more.  Try again.  Those of us with omnivorous intellectual appetites are well-suited.

    Sleepy.  Time for a nap.


    📂This entry was posted in Art and Culture Asia 📎and tagged

  • Can’t Get No Satisfaction

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Imbolc        Waxing Moon of Winds

    Even now the winds continue as winter and spring continue their tug of war.  Seasons do not just give up here, seasonal ground has to be earned.

    Two China tours today.  I left dissatisfied with my work on them.  My work was not as crisp or as engaging.  I may need to go back to themes and questions, which I have largely abandoned.   These were  senior high kids and there was a certain amount of boy/girl silliness with the girls in front and the boys in back, moving away.  Still, at my best I keep the kids engaged and today I didn’t.  Room for improvement.

    My first asmat tour is next Friday and I have work to get ready for it.

    Otherwise, tired.  Headed upstairs for a nap.


    📂This entry was posted in Art and Culture Asia Weather +Climate 📎and tagged

  • Chou Nu Er, Xin QiJi

    Posted on by Charles 2 Comments

    A final post for the China poetry series

    Chou Nu Er

    In days when I was young and didn’t know the taste of sorrow
    I like to climb the storied tower,
    I like to climb the storied tower;
    To write the latest odes I forced myself to tell of sorrow.

    Now that I understand the taste of sorrow altogether
    I would like to tell, but stop,
    I would like to tell, but stop;
    Instead I say, ‘What a cool day! Such lovely autumn weather!’


    📂This entry was posted in Asia 📎and tagged

  • An Existential Chill

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    66  bar steady 30.06  1mph NE dew-point 48  sunrise 6:09 sunset 8:27  Lughnasa

    First Quarter of the Corn Moon    moonrise 1533  moonset 2334

    We will never be an advanced civilization as long as rain showers can delay the launching of a space rocket.  George Carlin, RIP

    The drum tower in Beijing.  Anyone who’s gone on the one week quickie tour of Beijing and environs has at least had a chance to climb it.  As early as the Han dynasty (206bce to 220ace), these towers used drums and bells to mark dawn and dusk. Kate and I climbed the drum tower when we visited Beijing in 1999. (I think it was 1999.)  I recall it as a dusty place with open areas used for storage, like an old barn.  Three stories high it had a commanding view of a market and one of the old style Beijing neighborhoods.  We were there at the end of December and the drum tower was cold in the way only bare, featureless spaces can be cold.  A sort of existential chill.  Maybe Kate didn’t go up, I do not remember now.

    The death of Todd Bachmann, CEO of the premier garden center corporation in the Twin Cities, shocked me.  Many of our plants started their life at Bachmann’s.  Long ago in another life I was in a year long class with a Bachmann who had chosen the Lutheran ministry.  Then, too, there is the somehow stronger link with the site itself.

    So often when events happen abroad, they happen in a place that is at best abstract:  Darfur, say, or Baghdad, Ossetia, even Jerusalem.  Once you have been there, walked those streets, seen the heaped up spices and vegetables in the market near the drum tower, then what happened is no longer abstract or far-away because the context is available to your own sensorium.  My feet recall the climb in the cold December weather.  My eyes recall the sights of the market and the small shops.

    A strange sense of lassitude has come over me today.  On Sunday I do not work out, so there is a feeling of expansiveness, but also relaxation, a similarity to the sabbath.  The weather is perfect, moderate, sunny, low dew-point.  A great day to work outside, but digging out the firepit seems to have used up that motor for right now.  Even so, I’ll probably pick up the spade and spading fork and begin removing day lilies to new locations.

    This is a task that has a window, a window created by the ideal time to transplant iris, August.  In this way my time must conform to the garden.  It is a happy bondage, though, and one to which I willingly submit.


    📂This entry was posted in Asia Garden Great Wheel Weather +Climate 📎and tagged