79\u00a0 bar steep drop 29.95\u00a0 0mph S dew-point 54\u00a0 sunrise 6:06 sunset 8:30\u00a0 Lughnasa<\/p>\n
First Quarter of the Corn Moon \u00a0 moonrise 1326 moonset 2226<\/p>\n
Each day of the Olympics I will post a poem from a famous Chinese poet.\u00a0 Du Fu, Li Bai and Wang Wei are the three most admired T’ang dynasty poets.\u00a0 It is so easy to forget that this last century is only a tiny portion in the sweep of Chinese civilization.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 That’s right, 5,000 years of a continuous culture, sometimes dominant, sometimes ruled by foreigners, many of whom embraced Chinese civilization.<\/p>\n
It is arrogant of us to judge China by our standards, standards that have stood nowhere near the test of time.\u00a0 In China the collective always comes before the individual, at least that has\u00a0 been true historically.\u00a0 This is not to say that there have not been individualists in Chinese history.\u00a0 Taoism tends to produce them, as does the famous literati system of rule by intellectuals.\u00a0 Many painters and poets also walked their own distinctive paths.<\/p>\n
Well, anyhow, China doesn’t need my defense.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
Yes, I know.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
I spent an hour or so this morning admiring the work of the Irishmen who dug ditches.\u00a0 Put the shovel in the earth, push it down, lift it up, heave.\u00a0 Repeat.\u00a0 Not back breaking, but a workout.\u00a0 I had a good nap.\u00a0 The fire pit has begun to appear.\u00a0 It will be deep enough for a fire when the Woollies come, though whether the area around it will be is another matter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
79\u00a0 bar steep drop 29.95\u00a0 0mph S dew-point 54\u00a0 sunrise 6:06 sunset 8:30\u00a0 Lughnasa First Quarter of the Corn Moon \u00a0 moonrise 1326 moonset 2226 Each day of the Olympics I will post a poem from a famous Chinese poet.\u00a0 Du Fu, Li Bai and Wang Wei are the three most admired T’ang dynasty poets.\u00a0 … Continue reading Du Fu, Li Bai and Wang Wei<\/span>