搔癢：重讀征服王朝

近讀兩篇有關征服王朝的文章（見下），作者都是資深學人，一是蕭啟慶，一是葉高樹。蕭啟慶是我十分敬仰的蒙元史學人和中研院院士。猶記本科生時初讀其一篇蒙元史的文章（應是討論蒙元帝國在中國歷史上的意義和重要性），其立論高贍，史識深遽，令人歎為觀止；用字精鍊，文筆流暢，讀來趣味盎然。由是對蕭氏留下深刻的印象，雖非習蒙元史，但每逢偶遇蕭氏的文章和論著，都難忍翻一翻的搔癢，又總能讀到新意來。久違蕭氏的文章，好一段日子沒有細讀之。此篇雖非石破天驚，但對於不太熟悉南宋金元史研究的我而言，仍然覺得獲益良多，最少知道了當前學界的爭議論點和研究成果。

蕭啟慶：〈近世前期南北發展的歧異與統合：以南宋金元時期的經濟社會文化為中心〉，載氏著：《元代的族群文化與科舉》（台北： 聯經, 2008），頁1-22。（台灣師範大學歷史系主辦「近世中國的社會與文化國際學術研討會」主題演講，2005年12月16日。先收入《臺灣師大歷史學報》，第36期（2006年12月），頁1-30）

葉高樹：〈“參漢酌金”：清朝統治中國成功原因的再思考〉，《臺灣師大歷史學報》，第36期（2006年12月），頁153-192。

Western origin of the early Chinese civilisation?!

From the mid-nineteenth century, during the heyday of British imperialism, a group of orientalists argued the alleged western origin of the early Chinese civilisation, such as Babylon and Assyria. Among them, Terrien de Lacouperie (1845-1894), Professor of Indo-Chinese Philology at University College, London, was a prominent and prolific figure who spent more than a decade of hard work in developing this notorious claim. Below is quoted from his Early History of the Chinese Civilisation (1880)

"The discovery of a foreign origin in the rudiments of their civilisation, oddly enough, confirms the opinion asserted so many times that want of originality and of imagination is one of the characteristics of the Yellow race. We mean in no way to reproach them with their want of imagination. This, in our own opinion, contributes but little towards real happiness. By their conservative spirit, their respect for old customs, their parental love, their life cast in that of their forefathers, the Chinese have resolved the long-sought-for problem of a life without cares, without want of comfort, which would be relative happiness to the majoiity of the human race. But the best of things have an end, and, even in China, a change must come." (p. 34)

Quick bites

1. Cultural bias / diversity on foods of different traditions

From Dan Waters:

"How can you expect the Chinese who cannot, usually, stand the smell of cheese, be able to understand the complex English. But you can argue too, how can the British, who cannot enjoy a succulent chicken's foot for breakfast, understand the Chinese?" (from Eve Lam's "The Royal Asiatic Society (Hong Kong Branch): The Faces, The Stories and the Memories", Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 42, 2002, p. 142)

This humorous remark reminds me of my favourite (but not quite sometimes) Discovery travel channel's Anthony Bourdain No Reservations and Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern. I think the way we Hongkongers / Chinese see bizarre Latin-American / African (less known anyhow) foods is just nothing different from how Europeans see Chinese foods.

2. HK historical photos lost

Tim Ko had done some researches at the Housing Authority office. He accidentally found 20,000 negatives dating to 1962 in a back room of the office. As a semi-professional and well-known HK photographer who has been snapping HK history in the past few decades, he then proposed to catalogue the entire collection to the HA but, not surprisingly, ended with disappointment because of short-sighted bureaucratic practices. A staff of the Government Information Service even told him that a lot of photos had been discarded in the past decade, "because the less they possess, the less they will need to do". (also from from Eve Lam's "The Royal Asiatic Society (Hong Kong Branch): The Faces, The Stories and the Memories", Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 42, 2002, p.151-2.)

周聚康西書社 Chow Tzu Kong

1915年，浙江鎮海人周聚康以本金100元於四川路111號成立周聚康西書社，售賣英文、法文、德文及意大利文等西書（如Modern Library、小說、哲學、科學、字典等）、報紙、雜誌（如電影雜誌）、文具、辦公室和學校用品，甚至是玩具，一應俱全。

據《張元濟日記》1919年8月22日所載：＂叔良告一九一九新版韋白司脫大字典、周聚康只售十一元＂（頁634）

F. Max Muller

This great orientalits received numerous honours and the title page of his Rig-Veda-Sanhita (1874) presents his honours in an absolutely awesome way. (You may need to adjust your font size view setting to better enjoy this post)

Knight of the Order Pour le Merite, Foreign Member of the French Institute, of the Royal Sardinian Academy, of

the Royal Bavarian Academy, of the Royal Hungarian Academy, of the Royal Irish Academy, of the Royal

Society of Upsala,  of the American Philosophical Society;  Honorary Member of the German Oriental

Society, of the Royal Asiatic Society, of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, of the Royal Batavian Society

of Arts and Sciences, of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, of the Royal Society of

Literature of England, of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, of the Royal Academy of

Sciences at Amsterdam, of the Literary Society of Leyden, of the Anthropological

Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, of the Ethnographic Society of Paris, of

the American Oriental Society, of the Archaeological Society of Moscow,

of the American Philological Society; Corresponding Member of

the  Royal  Academy  of  Berlin,  of  the  Royal  Society  of

Gottingen, of the Royal Academy of Lisbon; Honorary

Doctor of Laws in the Universities of Cambridge

and Edinburgh; Professor of Comparative

Philology, and Fellow of All

Souls College, Oxford,

&c. &c.

note: taken from Norman J. Girardot's The Victorian Translation of China: James Legge's Oriental Pilgrimage (2002), p. 149. (how many institutions and countries listed?)

As a sequel of the post on May 10, 'What a girl should learn', which displays a list of virtues in a right triangle shape, this inverted pyramid also appeals to specutacular visual impact on readers in the late Victorian Britain. It was indeed a period of creative visual innovation and design in print, e.g. newspapers, books, and posters.   

Let's UrBAn

The theme of this week is urban. Been busy with preparing classes in the past few weeks. Now I am coming back to my hobby, reading scholarly articles, which is great fun to me. Here is a list of the articles I have in hand, some of which remind me of going back to Edward H. Parker (when he was in Liverpool and Manchester, the two great industrial cities of Victorian England) and Kelly & Walsh (W. Brewer as well), and the solitary days in Manchester.

America:
1. Huping Ling, '"Hop Alley": Myth and Reality of the St. Louis Chinatown, 1860s-1930s,' Journal of Urban History, Jan 2002; vol. 28: pp. 184 - 219.
2. Timothy Fong, 'Epidemics racial anxiety and community formation: Chinese Americans in San Francisco,' Urban History, Volume 30, Issue 03, Dec 2003, pp 401-406.
3. Shirley J. Yee, 'Dependency and Opportunity: Socioeconomic Relations between Chinese and Non-Chinese in New York City, 1870-1943,' Journal of Urban History, Jan 2007; vol. 33, pp. 254 - 276.

Britain:
1. Colin G. Pooley and Jean Turnbull, 'Commuting transport and urban form: Manchester and Glasgow in the mid-twentieth century,' Urban History, Volume 27, Issue 03, Dec 2000, pp 360-383.
2. Martin Hewitt, 'Confronting the modern city: the Manchester Free Public Library 1850–80,' Urban History, Volume 27, Issue 01, May 2000, pp 62-88.
3. Hannah Barker, '"Smoke cities": northern industrial towns in late Georgian England,' Urban History, Volume 31, Issue 02, Aug 2004, pp 175-190.
4. Harold L. Platt, 'From Hygeia To the Garden City: Bodies, Houses, and the Rediscovery of the Slum in Manchester, 1875—1910,' Journal of Urban History, Jul 2007; vol. 33: pp. 756 - 772.

China
1. Qinghua Guo, 'Changchun: unfinished capital planning of Manzhouguo 1932–42,' Urban History, Volume 31, Issue 01, May 2004, pp 100-117.
2. Marjorie Dryburgh, 'National city human city: the reimagining and revitalization of Beiping 1928–37,' Urban History, Volume 32, Issue 03, Dec 2005, pp 500-524.
3. Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom, 'A Big Ben with Chinese characteristics: the Customs House as urban icon in Old and New Shanghai,' Urban History, Volume 33, Issue 01, May 2006, pp 65-84.
4. Zwia Lipkin, 'Modern Dilemmas: Dealing with Nanjing’s Beggars, 1927-1937,' Journal of Urban History, Jul 2005; vol. 31: pp. 583 - 609.
5. Kwan Man Bun, 'Order in Chaos: Tianjin’s Hunhunr and Urban Identity in Modern China, Journal of Urban History, Nov 2000; vol. 27: pp. 75 - 91.
6. Seth Harter, 'Hong Kong’s Dirty Little Secret: Clearing the Walled City of Kowloon,' Journal of Urban History, Nov 2000; vol. 27: pp. 92 - 113.
7. Richard Belsky, 'The Urban Ecology of Late Imperial Beijing Reconsidered: The Transformation of Social Space in China’s Late Imperial Capital City,' Journal of Urban History, Nov 2000; vol. 27: pp. 54 - 74.
8. Randall A. Dodgen, 'Salvaging Kaifeng: Natural Calamity and Urban Community in Late Imperial China,' Journal of Urban History, Sep 1995; vol. 21: pp. 716 - 740.

Others:
1. Wonsik Jeong, 'The Urban Development Politics of Seoul as a Colonial City,' Journal of Urban History, Jan 2001; vol. 27: pp. 158 - 177.
2. Katja Zelljadt, 'Presenting and Consuming the Past: Old Berlin at the Industrial Exhibition of 1896,' Journal of Urban History, Mar 2005; vol. 31: pp. 306 - 333.

Africanism and the myth of the Other

I did have a serious thought to read Toni Morrison's fictions, The Bluest Eye or Beloved in the U.K. but somehow discouraged by a friend. I frequently visited the nearest Blackwell which is located between Grovensor Palce (my dorm) and Man. Uni main campus. Because of its reader-friendly location, it was almost impossible to resist the tempation to take a break or visit in W. H. Smith. Morrison's fictions usually caught my eyes whenever I looked around in the fiction section because, by alphabetical order and chance, her books were shelved slightly below the eye level which made it too easy to be noticed.

Last week, I came across her writing, not from fiction but an academic paper on Legal Orientalism, on Africanism as follows:

"Africanism is the vehicle by which the American self knows itself as not enslaved, but free; not repulsive, but desirable; not helpless, but licensed and powerful; not history-less, but historical; not damned, but innocent; not a blind accident of evolution, but the progressive fulfillment of destiny." (Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination (1992), p. 52)

Note: Currently also reading Zhang Longxi's "The Myth of the Other" (1988).

Sinology again

I have been working on the history of Sinology recently. I found an article by Maurice Freedman (published 40 years ago!) particularly interesting. 'What Social Science Can Do for Chinese Studies', The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 23, No. 4, (Aug., 1964), pp. 523-529.
Here quote:
"It is not that the Sinologues are so numerous or brilliant themselves; but they have the advantage of being masters in their own house (and therefore know how to shut the door on unwanted guests) and the privilege of keeping their subject as dull as they think necessary to maintain academic standards and an empire." (p. 523)

So what are you going to do with that?

Look, before applying to graduate school, it is bloody important to ask yourself this question: "So what the hell am I going to do with that?" This damn question will come to you from your family, friends, gf/bf, and your proposed supervisor(s) all the way through before, during and after your graduate school years. It is far too easy to think of hundreds of 'model' answer. No. 1 on the list: "I don't know." No. 2: "Will see." No. 3: "Kill time." No. 4: "I wanna be a professor." Don't be silly!

No matter what your answer(s) is/are, read this easy and interesting book: "So what are you going to do with that?": finding careers outside academia by Susan Basalla and Maggie Debelius (Chicago: University of Chicago press, 2007, rev. ed.).

How difficult the Chinese language is?

In his preface of A Grammar of the Chinese Language (in Chinese, 通用漢言之法. Serampore: Printed at the Mission Press, 1815), written in Macao in 1811, Robert Morrison (1782-1834), the first Christian Protestant missionary in China, asserted:

"To know something of the Chinese language is a very easy thing; — to know as much of it as will answer main useful and important purposes is not extremely difficult; — but to be master of the Chinese language, a point to which the writer has yet to look forward, he considers extremely difficult. However the difficulty is not insuperable. It is "a diffliculty wlhich" (in the words of Sir William Jones [the great British Orientalist], when speaking of the Persian language) "like all others in the world, will be insensibly surmounted by the habit of industry and perseverance, without which no great design was ever accomplished." (p. iii-iv)

教養

黃崑巖：《黃崑巖談教養》（台北：聯經，2004）。

黃崑巖引用英國名詩人Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830-1894)的一首詩來引喻教養的涵義：

Who Has Seen The Wind?

Who has seen the wind?
Neither I nor you;
But when the leaves hang trembling
The wind is passing through.

Who has seen the wind?
Neither you nor I;
But when the trees bow down their heads
The wind is passing by.

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儘管教養的涵義令人難以捉摸，黃崑巖下了一個定義：

教養是一種內在自我的教育，對自己在宇宙與社會裡的定位有清楚的掌握與認知，對周遭生物的生存權利有敏感度，對別人的感受有所尊重，具強烈的正義感，知道如何節制自己，擁有具有目標的人生，是有擇善原則的社會人。（頁9）

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在討論教育與教養的關係時，他引用澳州人Vincent Zigas的Laughing Death來說明教育的意義：

Many of us assume that the primary aim of education is the collection of a number of facts whereby the mind can be furnished. But a house must be a home, and lived in as well as furnished. It is possible to store the mind with a million facts and still be entirely uneducated; the fact must be used as a basis for thought and criticism. The purpose, therefore, of education is to produce the all-around person, one who can ut his or her specailty in the proper place. (頁41-2)

把脈香港之中產懷舊

呂大樂（《誰說家長一定是好人》（香港：進一步多媒體，2002），一系列似是中產懷舊，多於評論香港的文章）說在香港生存的理由只有一個，「就是因為香港有病」。「香港的病在於它的不完美，在於它沒有一間認真似樣的書店，沒有一份認真似樣的報刊，沒有接近似樣的電視台，它不是倫敦、東京或者紐約，再沒有可以引起球迷注意的足球，它不是一個認真尊重民主、公民權的城市，它的種種『不是』，都帶著一種病態美，令無數香港人活得過癮。」（頁39）

關於家長，他說「香港的中產階級根本就不相信他們的下一代．．．可以在香港社會制度裏快樂地成長和生活。」「我所認識的教育界朋友當中，百分之九十五對本地的教育制度投不信任票（當然，這也可以理解為對自己投不信任票），不敢送子女去自己工作的同類學校，或自己培養出來的學生所任教的學校讀書。」（頁12）「在我所認識自命講究生活品味、熱衷文化活動的朋友當中，有一半不相信在香港可以怎樣改善文化環境、提高生活質素、讓下一代可以選擇更多不同類型的生活方式。」（頁13）

屋邨走廊是許多低下階層的回憶，是小朋友學會合群和成長的地方。呂大樂尤其鍾愛它的象徵意義。以下的一段文字，可以作為教育下一代的借鏡。「我從沒有想過要為孩子提供一個虛擬屋邨走郎的成長環境。過去的東西屬於過去的一代人。但作為一個概念，屋邨的長郎提醒我要給孩子自闖天下，在屋邨長大的孩子，都是在父母視線範圍以外成長的」（頁90）

Why footnote?

"How green are you? Look at your sloppy footnotes." Professor Kelly irriated.
"Why footnote?" Student Walsh grumbled.

I used to distribute rules and examples of footnote format to students, major and non-major, at the beginning of every course. A curious question indeed for laymen (like freshmen), and practitioners too. Laymen see it as an unncessary evil, practitioner see it as a necessary evil. The following excerpts are from Anthony Grafton, The Footnote: A Curious History. Harvard: Harvard University Press, 1997, which I have partly read recently.

"In the modern world - as manuals for writers of dissertations explain - historians perform two complementary tasks. They must examine all the sources relevant to the soulution of a problem and construct a new narrative or argument from them. The footnote proves that both tasks have been carried out. It identifies both the primary evidence that guarantees the story's novelty in substance and the secondary works that do not undermine its novelty in form and thesis. By doing so, moreover, it identifies the work of history in question as the creation of a professional." (p. 4-5)

"students move from craft to industrial styles of footnote production, peppering each chapter with a hundred or more references to show that they have put in hours of hard work in arhcive and library." (p. 5)

"the production of footnotes sometimes resembles less the skilled work of a professional carrying out a precise function to a higher and than the offhand production and disposal of waste products." (p. 6)

"All over the modern histtorical world, articles begin with an industrialized civilization's equivalent to the ancient invocation of the Muse: a long note in which the author thanks teachers, friends, and colleagues. Prefatory notes evoke a Republic of Letters - or at least an academic support group - in which the writer claims memebership." (p. 7)

"Long lists of earlier books and articles and strings of coded reference to unpublished documents supposedly prove the solidity of the author's research by rendering an account of the sources used." (p. 7)

"Few readers will have the tenacity to check the story for its accuracy, and most will assume that the elegant pickpocket, not the disheveled victim, has told the truth." (p. 14)

"The footnote demands attention for other reasons as well: not only as a general part of the practice of science and scholarship, but also as an object of keen nostalgia and a subject of sharp debate." (p. 14)

"A hundred years ago, most historians would have made a simple distinction: the text persuades, the notes prove." (p. 15)

"In fact, of course, no one can ever exhaust the range of sources relevant to an important problem - much less quote all of them in a note. In practice, moreover, every annotator rearranges materials to prove a point, interprets them in an individual way, and omits those that do not meet a necessarily personal standard of relevance." (p. 16)

Sandars Lectures

The Sandars Readership in Bibliography was instituted in 1895 by Mr Samuel Sandars of Trinity College, and continues today in the annual series of Sandars Lectures

1. Sandars Lectures 2007
Sarah Tyacke
Leverhulme Emeritus Fellow, Royal HollowayDistinguished Senior Research Fellow at the School of Advanced Study, University of London
Topic: Conversations with maps: world views in early modern Europe
Website: http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/sandars/Sandars_Lectures_2007.html
Very interesting!

2. Sandars Lectures 2008
Peter Kornicki
Professor of East Asian Studies, University of Cambridge
Topic: Having difficulty with Chinese? - the rise of the vernacular book in Japan, Korea and Vietnam
Website: http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/sandars/Sandars_Lectures_2008.html
Ready to read.


From Tyacke's lecture
"In line...with the long-drawn out end of the European world Empires during the twentieth ceutnry, the various European maritime powers invested time and money, especially noticeable in the case of Portugal and Spain (and to some extent similarly privileged in the Netherlands, France, England and Italy), in the celebration of the graphic record of their lost empires or of their 'goldern ages' and, in so doing, gave us views of the world in the early modern period from their very nationalistic perspectives. This normally meant that contributions from other countries, or the possibility of other non-nationalistic modes of history, were discounted, ignored or even just absorbed into the writer's own country's history in some way; this could be done by regarding, for example, the cartography of one country as merely a source of whatever then became the dominant cartographic power, often the dominant military and economic power as well."

"What we might call 'firstism' an obsession with the first or earliest map, derived from the general cultural view in western cultures at least that to be first is to be praised and of itself confers benefits, often material in one way or another."

"mapping intrinsically lends itself to cultural promotion and diplomacy on a global scale, being graphic and thus, apparently, immediately comprehensible, rather than being obscured by the use of a specific langauge as in other texts.

Recent bites

1. 沈國威：〈羅存德及其漢語研究〉，總頁數：8。
2. 沈國威：〈1819年的兩本西方地理學書－－《西遊地球聞見略傳》與《地理便童略傳》〉，《或問》，No. 8 (2004)，頁161-166。
3. 八耳俊文：〈入華プロテスタント宣教師と日本の書物．西洋の書物〉，《或問》，No. 9 (2005)，頁27-41。
4. 朱鳳：〈英華書院の翻訳人材育成とその成果－－年間報告書を資料として〉，2008年北京大学国際シンポジウム：西学東漸と東亜近代新語新概念，頁41-54。
5. 宮田和子：〈メドハーストの諸辞典とその影響〉，《或問》，No. 2 (2001)，頁13-22。 with useful bibliography
6. Lucille Chia, "Publications of the Ming Principalities: A Distinct Example of Private Printing," Ming Studies, 54 (2007), pp. 24-70.
7. Hilde de Weerdt, "Byways in the Imperial Chinese Information Order: The Dissemination and Commercial Publication of State Documents," Havard Journal of Asiatic Studies, Vol. 66: No. 1 (2006), pp. 145-188.
8. Man-Houng Lin, "Late Qing Perceptions of Native Opium," Havard Journal of Asiatic Studies, Vol. 64: No. 1 (2004), pp. 117-144.
9. Jinhua Chen, "Pancavarsika Assemblies in Liang Wudi's Buddhist Palace Chapel," Havard Journal of Asiatic Studies, Vol. 66: No. 1 (2006), pp. 43-103.
10. Rachel Dinitto, "Return of the zuihitsu: Print Culture, Modern Life, and Heterogeneous Narrative in Prewar Japan," Havard Journal of Asiatic Studies, Vol. 64: No. 2 (2004), pp. 251-290.
11. Patrick Hanan, "The Bible as Chinese Literature: Medhurst, Wang Tao, and the Delegates' Version," Havard Journal of Asiatic Studies, Vol. 63 No. 1 (2003), p. 197-239.
12. William T. Rowe, "Owen Lattimore, Asia, and Comparative History," The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 66, No. 3 (August) 2007, pp. 759-786.

What a girl should learn

An interesting column from a late nineteenth-century Hong Kong newspaper, the Hongkong Telegraph (June 14, 1889), caught my curious attention above all. It quoted the above title from the Spingfield Union, which suggested a list of virtues, in fact, not all exclusively for girls. After all, 'what a girl should learn?':

To sew.
To cook.
To mend.
To be gentle.
To value time.
To dress neatly.
To keep a secret.
To be self-reliant.
To avoid idleness.
To mind the baby.
To darn stockings.
To respect old age.
To made good bread.
To keep ahouse tidy.
To control her temper.
To be above gossiping.
To make a home happy.
To take care of the sick.
To humor a cross old man.
To marry a man for his worth.
To be a helpmate to a husband.
To take plenty of active exercise.
To see mouse without screaming.
To read some books beside novels.
To be light-hearted and fleet-footed.
To wear shoes that don't cramp the feet.
To be a womanly woman under all circumstances.

So, what a boy should learn? To sew? Like Giorgio? (I can't) To cook? Like Jamie? (I love to though) Shall make a list for my boy someday.

Sir F. D. Lugard, HKU and Dr. Sun Yat-sen

Sir F. D. Lugard, Hongkong University: Objects, History, Present Position, and Prospects (1910).

Three advantages of HKU suggested, one of which was to avoid denationalisation (the other two rather commonplace). Sir Lugard said that a student studying overseas "must inevitably become greatly changed, and imbibing the manners and customs of his adopted country, be become denationalised. He often learns to look down on and despise the social customs and political institutions of his native coutnry, and his patrioism is often misguided by revolutionary ideas." By establishing HKU, he further elaborated, he hoped that Chinese youths "will establish for themselves a reputation as patriotic and loyal citizens, whether of a British Colony or of China."

In Sir Lugard's point of view, Dr. Sun Yat-sen, who acknowledged "Hong Kong and the University of Hong Kong are the birth place of my knowledge" was a misfortune to British Hong Kong, HKU and China; thus, unfortunately and even worse, today HKU's self-calimed connection with Dr. Sun is like a joke.

近日所讀文章

章清：〈「策問」與科舉體制下對「西學」的援引－－以《中外策問大觀》為中心〉，《中央研究院近代史研究所集刊》，第58期，2007年10月。
劉龍心:〈從科舉到學堂－－策論與晚清的知識轉型（1901－1905）），《中央研究院近代史研究所集刊》，第58期，2007年10月，頁105-39。

The Best Students Will Learn English

Po King Choi, "'The best students will learn English': ultra-utilitarianism and linguistic imperialism in education in post-1997 Hong Kong," Journal of Education Policy, vol. 18, no. 6, Nov-Dec 2003, 673-94.

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Only the best schools were allowed to teach in English. (p. 674) In other words, the best students will learn English.

Language selection at any stage of schooling was blatantly segregationist and socially divisive. (p. 675)

It [language policy] helps maintain an elitist and socially divisive structure. (p. 676)

Brimer et al. (1985) states that: "There is no point in determining whether children in Hong Kong would learn more effectively through English or Chinese. We already know that they would learn more effectively through Chinese...Our problem arise because their learning of English will be more effectively achieved by using it as a medium of instruction. So long as this is a dominant aim of the education system then the question that remain relate to how it can be used with least distrubance of learning within the curriculum and for how many it can be used without serious and irrevocable disruption of learning." (A. Brimer et al. Effects of Medium of Instruction on the Achievement of Form 2 Students Hong Kong Secondary Schoools (Hong Kong: University of Hong Kong and Education Department, 1985), p. 4) (p. 680)

Effective learning in English...only meant the ability of retaining information in English for the purpose of English testing, and for a language-dependent subject, i.e. history. (p. 681)

In 1989, Roy Harris, Chair of English Language, University of Hong Kong, stated bluntly: 'Cheap English doesn't go with quality goods, services or operations of any kind." He commented on the standards of English in Hong Kong: 'If Hong Kong English were up for auction on the international market, there isn't a self-respecting country in the world that would even put in a bid for it.' (p. 686)

An important question that is never asked, however, is to what extent, and for how much longer, Hong Kong has to sacrifice the development of young minds so as to ensure the production of the best linguistic brokers, instead of better citizens. (p. 687)

A lone voice in the commercial wilderness indeed, yet what he [a principal of a Chinese middle school] said brings out the extent to which a humanist discourse of education as cultural transmission has been subordinated to a narrowly utilitarin view of education as training for employable skills. (p. 689)

Language selection policy was both framed and legitimated by the narrowly utilitarian and labour market-driven goal of education in Hong Kong, with a highly elitist character that remains hidden in official discourses, whereby the socially endowed are selected for learning through a foreign language. (p. 691)

Language or Nonlanguage subjects - What will students/parents choose?

Herbert W. Marsh, Kit-Tai Hau and Chit-Kwong Kong, 'Late Immersion and Language of Instruction in Hong Kong High Schools: Achievement Growth in Language and Nonlanguage Subjects,' Harvard Educational Review, vol. 70, no. 3, Fall 2000, 302-46.

"For two subjects, Chinese and particularly, English, the effects of English Instruction were moderately positive; for one, mathematics, there were small negative effects; and for three subjects, history, geography, and science, the effects were extremely negative...The most important findings, however, were the very strong negative efects of Instruction in English on history, geography, and science." (p. 335)

Two points here. Firstly, apparently for parents and students, achievements in nonlanguage subjects are never and ever as important and useful as that in English. Second, in other words, better achievements in these subjects DO NOT justify Chinese language of instruction at all. Given the predominant advantages of English, the so-called modern lingu franca, and Hong Kong's undeniable position as an international city, mother-tongue education policy would hardly find substainable support and success.

Lingua franca - what language(s) do you speak?

The above brackets should be particularly noted. Received a group mail from UKCASA on behalf of Philip Davies a couple of week ago, I only got time to read the recommended column last week, which was entitled "Mind my language? I only wish that I had, mes amis," by Tim Hames, from The Times on March 17, 2008. (see below for the link)

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/tim_hames/article3564472.ece

It is a great piece. Very interesting and eye-opening! Also the illuminating comments from Brits, Brits overseas (in France, Germany, US, China, Japan, Thailand etc), French (of course, Brits and French are destined twins), Welsh, Luxembourgish etc.; by occupation, frequent-flying businessmen, language teachers, skilled exam candidates (Grade A result but speak none) etc. Here I quote some interesting points from the column and comments.

--- --- ---

From the column:

"at a time of globalisation and interdependency - when the advantages of speaking foreign languages have never been greater..."

"since a language is a key to understanding other cultures, we (Brits) risk becoming more ignorant about them."

From the comments:

"Many English people don't see the cultural insularity resulting from their monolingualism...When you a lingusitic colonialist, as native English and Americans speakers are, you feel superior to other cultures."

"the study of languages not only gives the practical ability to converse in another tongue, but also allows one to think differently."

"Students, especially those of modest means, aren't fools. They know what it takes to get hired. But if language ability ever starts leading to jobs, there will be a lot more of it on display."

"The benefits for an English speaker learning any other modern language are tiny compared with the benefits for anyone else learning English."

"everyone speaks English these days, so why bother." "We are not less capable of communicating with our neighbors, because they are all studying the planetary language, English, as hard as they possibly can."

"It's quite unture that everyone else speaks English." "it is a myth that everyone speaks English." "It is a myth that the whole world speaks English."

"fluency only comes when you live with a language."

"For non-British, larning English is a necessity. They have to learn it because they can't do without it. For native English speakers another language is an academic exercise."

"A German businessman said, 'When I'm selling, I'm willing to speak English. When I'm buying, I expect to be sold to in my own language.'"

"One does not learn langauges in order to speak to foreigners, but to understand what they are saying to each other."

"Foreign langauges are part of a good education, & the lack of them makes us look ignorant, insular & arrogant."

"Had those Brits had a knowledge of the German culture and language, they would have known to be clear in their expression of 'yes' or 'no'."

"my knowledge of German...was a hindrance rather than a help, as the managers doing the recruiting saw me more as a threat than an opportunity, as my German was better than their English."

--- --- ---

Let's face it. Learn the modern lingua franca, English, as hard as you can.

Like one comment, I also discovered the astoundingly high level of spoken English in Sweden when I travelled there in 2006 summer. The Swedish I had a chance to talk to spoke near native English. Almost everything out there were bilingual, Swedish and English. I had no difficult to communicate with the locals at all. However, I was told by a friend in Sweden that when you were unable to utter a word in Swedish supermarkets they would laugh at you at the back. Again in 2006 summer, I travelled to Italy for the first time. When I was out of the coach near the Milan Central Station looking for direction desperately, I tried hard to ask an Italian young man in my very limited Italian with the help of a phrasebook and a map. He ignored me and walked away. I was in despair. Anyway, it was very rewarding and interesting to use my kindergarten Italian in supermarkets in Roma and Fienze, a B & B in Venezia, a grocery store in Napoli, an ice-cream shop in Pisa, and in Basilica Sancti Petri and Musei Vaticani in Status Civitatis Vaticanae. It was wonderful memories!

--- --- ---

Postscript:

Reported by Telegraph on April 9, Sebastian Coe, the chairman of the London Olympic Committee, has described the Chinese officials guarding the Olympic torch as "thugs". He said "They are horrible. They did not speak English ... I think they were thugs."
Yes, it might be true that Coe was allegedly pushed out of the way by those "thugs". Even worse, the "thugs" were unable to utter a word in English, the "only" tool to communicate with Brits, so they were labelled as "thugs". As long as you can speak English, at least, I think, you will not be one of them. God knows whether those "thugs" could speak French, the dying language, to French Police and Olympic Committee member. Or are they not going to South America soon? Please teach them Spanish.

Scots in Imperial China

Scots in Imperial China: biographies and bibliography

Governors/Adiminstrators/Cadets of Hong Kong:

1. Sir Charles Elliot (1801-1875), cousin of the Scottish diplomat Gilbert Elliott, 1st Earl of Minto (1751-1814) and grandson of Sir Gilbert Elliot, 3rd Baronet (1722-1777), 3rd Baronet of Minto

2. Malcolm Struan Tonnochy (1841-?)

3. Sir Wilsone Black (1837-1909)

4. Sir James Haldane Stewart Lockhart (1858-1937)

5. Sir Reginald Fleming Johnston (1874-1938)

6. Sir Murray MacLehose (1917-2000)

7. Lord Wilson of Tillyorn (1935-)

1. William Jardine (1784–1843), founder of Jardine Matheson

2. James Matheson (1796-1878), founder of Jardine Matheson

3. Robert Morrison (1782-1834)
4. William Milne (1785-1822)
5. John Robert Morrison (1814-1843)
6. James Legge (1815-1897)
7. Dr. John Dudgeon (1837-1901)
8. John Thomson (1837-1921)
9. Sir James Haldane Stewart-Lockhart (1858–1937)
10. Sir Reginald Fleming Johnston (1874–1938)
11. Sir Patrick Manson (1884-1922)

12. Thomas Ash Lane, founder of Lane Crawford

13. Ninian Crawford, founder of Lane Crawford

14. William Keswick (1834-1912)

15. James Johnstone Keswick (1845-1914)

16. Henry Keswick (1870-1928)

17. William Johnstone Keswick (1903-1990)

18. John Keswick (1906-1982)

19. Robert George Shewan (1859–1934)

20. Thomas Augustus Gibb, founder of Gibb, Livingston and Co. 仁記洋行

21. William Potter Livingston, founder of Gibb, Livingston and Co.

22. Douglas Lapraik (1818-1869)

23. Leonard Just

24. Thomas Sutherland (1834-1922), founder of HSBC

25. William Adamson, Borneo Co., Ltd. 搬鳥洋行

26. John Burd (1794-1855), John Burd and Co. 畢洋行

27. J. Innes (1787-1841), founder of Innes, Fletcher & Co.

28. Robert Fortune (1812-1880)

29. Robert Strachan, editor of Hongkong Register

Have a look on The Hongkong Directory: With List of Foreign Residents in China (1859) will understand why the Scots made Hong Kong.

to be continued...

Bibliography:
David Harris, Of Battle and Beauty: Felice Beato’s Photographs of China (Santa Barbara: Santa Barbara Museum of Art, 1999).
Edward M. Spiers, The Scottish Soldier and Empire, 1854-1902 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2006).
J. Y. Wong, Deadly Dreams: Opium and the Arrow War (1856-1860) in China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002).
Patrick Manson Biography (1884-1922) Wiki and http://www.faqs.org/health/bios/50/Patrick-Manson.html

For Dr. John Dudgeon and John Thomson , see
Nick Pearce, 'A Life in Peking: The Peabody Albums'
Nick Pearce, Photographs of Peking, China: 1861-1908 (New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 2005).


to be continued...

不要傻瓜．不要下流

近讀兩本書：一是養老孟司的《傻瓜的圍牆》（2003），一是三浦展的《下流社會》（2005）。我是先讀《下流》，後閱《傻瓜》。一夜，不能入睡，捧起《下流》，一發不可收拾，幾乎通宵“下流”。原來男女“下流”有別，男女大不同。讀來興味盎然，比想像中更引人入勝，尤其是引用受訪者的說話，有夠“下流”。建議要討論或再討論香港是否也正在步入“下流”社會的知識人和官員，認認真真通讀全書，不要斷章取義，撕裂閱讀，分割作者，誤導讀者，為害市民。《下流》分析平等機會和男女“下流”，更值得留意和處理，不要游談無根，盡是空談闊論。

《傻瓜》比《下流》短小精悍，名題同樣別出心裁，震撼人心。“除了我自己之外，所有人都是傻瓜”。這就是傻瓜。莫說是幕前幕後，人前人後，在日常生活、辦公室、教室、課室等都遇過不少。（時候不早，已入五更）

寂寞好讀書。夜瀾人靜的時間儘管不多，也要把順手拈來的文字記錄一下，好讓日後翻閱瀏覽（另一個原因是要儘早歸還《傻瓜的圍牆》）。

--- --- ---

《下流》：
1. 下流階層的定義其實是中流階層中的下層，而並不是真正的下流階層。相對地，書中所指的上流階層又不是真正的上流階層，而是中流階層中的上層。（頁3）
2. 下流階層在物質需求上算不上貧乏，卻缺少一種生活意欲。（頁3）
3. 幾點發現：越是下流階層越追求自己的個性，越是低階層的年輕人自我感覺越強（頁126-34） 4. NEET族：Not in Education, Employment or Training。（頁135）
5. “下流”男性自我封閉，“下流”女性自我展現。（頁146）
4. 關於女性的分化：“現在的時代倒不是男女差別、女性與男性之間的階層差別在擴大，而是女性與女性之間的差別〔指收入差距〕正在不斷擴大，再引伸開來，則是由於女性父母親所屬的階層所造成的差別正在不斷擴大。”（頁42）
6. 引用漫畫《東大特訓班》（《龍櫻》）的主角櫻木建二的話：
“所謂的社會規則，全部是由那些頭腦聰明的傢伙為了保護自己而制定的，而對自己不利的地方都被他們遮遮掩掩地糊弄過去了。也就是說，假如你們不肯動腦筋去學習，樣樣事情都嫌麻煩的話，一生都會被人騙。你們如果不想被騙，不想失去自己的利益，成為社會的失敗者，就得好好讀書。”（頁142）疑問：學生真的會信這一套嗎？
“你們以為沒有必要非得爭第一（Number One)，只要證明自己是唯一的（Only One）就行了嗎？別開玩笑了。所謂的Only One就是那個領域的Number One。”（頁143）不禁令我想起李天命犬儒的九一主義。

--- --- ---

《傻瓜》：
1. 對自己不想知道的事，他們會主動隔斷資訊。在這裏存在一堵牆，這就是「傻瓜的圍牆」。（頁11）
2. 本來甚麼都不知道，卻認為自己「己經知道了」，這是很可怕的。（頁12）
3. 在日本，太多人不明白「懂得一些東西」和「擁有許多知識」完全是兩回事。（頁14）
4. 真正科學的態度，不是單靠正面的論證來認定芋命題是絕對的事實，而要承認有出現曖昧反證的可能。（頁22）
5. 一邊喊著要提倡個性，一邊卻老是別人臉色行事，這不是現在日本人正在幹的事情嗎？（頁43）
6. 所謂「意識」，就是人徹底追求共通性的結果。從根本上說，人類的語言理論和文化傳統的作用就是確保這種共通性。（頁46）
7. 個性是與生俱來的，教育不應著重發揮個性，應該面對現實，教導年輕人去理解別人感受，達至互相溝通。（頁49）
8. 在意識的世界和心靈的世界裏，不管是感情還是理由，都必須以共通性作為前提，因為這也是大家能夠互相理解的。（頁68）
9. 人們將「人是不變的」這個錯誤觀點作為大前提，結果就在自己的周圍製造出一幅大「圍牆」。（頁69）
10. 現代人是在不加思索的情況下在自己的周圍築起了牆，而且很多人並沒有意識到這堵牆的存在。（頁174）

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你“下流”嗎？還是“傻瓜”，mes amis？

The British Pekingese Dog

Sarah Cheang, 'Women, Pets, and Imperialism: The British Pekingese Dog and Nostalgia for Old China,' Journal of British Studies, 45, 2, Apr 2006, pp. 359-87.

"Between 1914 and 1962, the Pekingese was the most popular breed of pedigree toy dog in Britain." (p. 361)

"Ladies’ Field was published between 1898 and 1928 and was then incorporated into Home Magazine. A George Newnes product (whose other contemporary publications included Country Life and World-Wide Magazine), Ladies’ Field cost sixpence a week, had an international circulation, and was available at W. H. Smith’s bookstalls or could be ordered from newsagents. Kate Jackson suggests that Ladies’ Field had a weekly circulation in the hundreds of thousands, whereas other ladies’ papers archived only seventeen to twenty-seven thousand. Kate Jackson, George Newnes and the New Journalism in Britain, 1880-1910: Culture and Profit (Aldershot, UK, 2001)." (footnote, p. 369)

"Governor of Wei-Hai-Wei and Mrs. Gaunt outside Queen’s House, Liu Kung Tan," Ladies’ Field, 30 June 1900; "An Englishwoman's Life in China," Ladies’ Field, 27 October 1900; J. Thomsom, "Broken China," Ladies’ Field, 3 November 1900; "The Military Hospital at Lui-Kung-Tao," Ladies’ Field, 5 January 1901; "Li Hung Chang’s Latest Portrait," Ladies’ Field, 30 March 1901; Douglas Hume, "China Cameos," Ladies’ Field, 4 May 1901; "Lady Lofengluh," Ladies’ Field, 7 June 1902; "Captain R. H. James and the Wei-Hai-Wai Contingent," Ladies’ Field, 30 August 1902; "Miss Chang," Ladies’ Field, 4 March 1905.

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Edward William Jacquet, The Kennel Club: A History and Record of its Work, with Numerous Portraits and Other Illustrations by Edward William Jacquet Secretary of the Kennel Club, Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Secretaries (London, 1905); 4th ed. (London, ca. 1914).

Mrs. Archibald Little, Round about my Peking Garden (second impression, London, 1905).

Liberty and Co., Liberty Yule-Tide Gifts, 1909 (London, 1909).

Lilliam C. Smythe (ed.), The Pekingese: A Monograph on the Pekingese Dog, Its History and Points, with Notes on Breeding, Feeding, Etc., Photographs of Famous Dogs, and Directory of Breeders (London, 1909).

Mrs. Neville Lytoon, Toy Dogs and Their Ancestors: Including the History and Management of Toy Spaniels, Pekinese, Japanese, and Pomeranians (London, 1911).

Queenie Verity-Steele, The Book on Pekingese, 5th ed. (1914; repr., Brighton, 1926).

Lillian C. Raymond-Mallock, Toy Dogs: The History, Points, and Standards of Pekingese, Toy Spaniels, Japanese, Pomeranians, Yorkshire and Toy Terriers, Schipperkes, Pugs, Griffon Bruxellois, Maltese, and Italian Greyhounds with Instructive Chapters on Breeding, Rearing, Feeding, Training, and Showing and Full Information as to Treatment of Most Ailments (Kenilworth, ca. 1915).

V. W. F. Collier, Dogs of China and Japan in Nature and Art (London, 1921).

Anne Coath Dixey, The Lion Dog of Peking: Being the Astonishing History of the Pekingese Dog (London, 1931).

Mrs. Aston Cross, The Pekingese Dog (Tonbridge, UK, 1932).

Edward C. Ash, The Pekingese as a Companion and Show Dog: Its Care, Management, and History, Famous Owner, Breeders, and Dogs (London, 1936).

Theodore Herman, “An Analysis of China’s Export Handicraft Industries to 1930” (PhD diss., University of Washington, 1954).

Elsa and Ellic Howe, Pekingese Scrapbook (London, 1954).

Sarah Cheang, “The Ownership and Collection of Chinese Material Culture by Women in Britain, ca. 1890-1935” (PhD diss., University of Sussex, 2003).

Sarah Cheang, “The Dogs of Fo: Gender, Identity, and Collecting,” in Collectors: Expressions of Self and Other, ed. Anthony Shelton (London, 2001), 55-72.

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Other reference:

Liberty and Co., Descriptive Details of the Collection of Ancient and Modern, Eastern and Western Art Embroideries, Exhibited by Messrs. Liberty, April, 1894 (London, 1894).

Liberty and Co., Liberty Yule-Tide Gifts (London, 1898).

Liberty and Co., Liberty Yule-Tide Gifts, 1909 (London, 1909).

William Whiteley Ltd., Whiteley’s General Catalogue (London, 1914).

Debenham and Freebody, Chinese Embroideries: A Unique Collection of Rare Mandarin or Court Robes, Sleeve, Etc., Worn by the Manchu Aristocracy during Empire Period, Lama Robes Worn by Tibetan Abbots in Ceremonial Observances, Etc., Etc., Collected in Western China (London, 1915).

Hugh Honour, Chinoisrie: The Vision of Cathay (London, 1961).

Harriet Ritvo, “Pride and Pedigree: The Evolution of the Victorian Dog Fancy,” Victorian Studies, 29, 2, 1986, pp. 227-53.

Harriet Ritvo, The Animal Estate: The English and Other Creatures in the Victorian Age (Cambridge, MA, 1987).

Dawn Jacobson, Chinoisrie (London, 1993).

Reina Lewis, Gendering Orientalism: Race, Feminity, and Representation (London, 1996).

Malcolm Baker and Brenda Richardson, A Grand Design: The Art of the Victoria and Albert Museum (London, 1997).

港大陸佑堂之黃陸佑

陸佑，本姓黃名佑，廣東鶴山縣沙坪人。生於1863(?)，死於1924，終年61歲。

不日待續

Education, Soul and Hub of Excellence: Harvard case from an Insider's Viewpoint

Harry R. Lewis. Excellence without a Soul: How a Great University Forgot Education. New York: Public Affairs Press, 2006.

I could still remember I picked up a book from my sister's desk several years ago. It was Allan Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind: How Higher Education Has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today's Students (1987). This classic on the failure of American higher education has drawn me to the present book, Lewis' Excellence without a Soul, which I would not have had the chance to read if not via an email from my institution. Lewis' book, in some way a forceful critic on the former Harvard President Lawrence Summers, who was alleged to have sold Harvard's soul to the devil (market force?), striking to me in the first place, in particular its preface. It states:

"The fundamental job of undergraduate education is to turn eighteen- and nineteen-year-olds into twenty-one- and twenty-two-year-olds, to help them grow up, to learn who they are, to search for a larger purpose for their lives, and to leave college as better human beings." (p. xii)

"to talk seriously to students about their development into people of good character who will know that they owe something to society for the privileged education they have received." (p. xii)

--- --- ---

In the following, I would quote passages/sentences of great interest and importance to me.

"in some ways Harvard is unique; it is the oldest university in America, and so it has set many standards, for good or ill, and even among icons it holds, in the public imaingation, a distinctive preeminence." (p. xiii)

"[students] are more likely to remember a brilliant instructor than what that instructor taught." (p. xiv)

"College, at its best, is where students start to understand themselves and to find ideals and objectives for their lives." (p. xiv)

"Classroom pedagogy is one aspect of teaching, but so are the purposes and structure of the curriculum and the perennial issues of advising and student-faculty contact" (p. 2)

"we teach the humanities to help students understand what it means to be human...students from families with little money may not share the assumptions that well-to-do families have about the purpose of education" (p. 3)

"Professors are hired as scholars and teachers, not as mentors of values and ideals to the young and confused." (p. 4)

"The relationship of the student to the college is increasingly that of a consumer to a vendor of expensive goods and services." (p. 4-5)

"Something is wrong with our educational system when so many graduating Harvard seniors see consulting and investment banking as their best options for productive lives." (p. 6)

"'The demands of productivity,' a humanities editor says, 'are leading to the production of much more nonsense.'" (p. 9)

"A certain level of distinction is normal at Harvard, and it is both enjoyed and ignored." (p. 12)

"In a competivitive environment, in which the university wants the best students from the entire world's population and the best faculty from all the world's Ph.D.'s, public image has become much more important than when universities relied on self-reproducing pools of students and professors." (p. 14)

"Universities were never truly ivory towers, and they should not be; they are privileged with independence and public support because they serve society. Thus public scrutiny is apporpriate and important. But one irony of the current climate at Harvard is that as the school has adjusted to relentless scrutiny from external media, the institution that historically provided 'public' scrutiny, the alumni-elected Board of Overseers, has become carefully managed and quite docile." (p. 15)

"A Princeton professor I know quipped that the fact that my most successful student was a dropout confirmed his theory that Harvard's value added is negative - the more Harvard education you have, the less far you go in life." (p. 22)

"[B]readth and freedom in academia are like lower taxes in politics - it is hard to be against them, even if they come at the cost of important sacrifices." (p. 25)

"[Ph.D. graduates] risk not being taken seriously as promising academics if they give voice to thoughts of going into business or law. Professors can help them get where they are supposed to be going, but will rarely help them figure out if they want to go there...professors will often prefer graduate students who, like themselves, are devoted single-mindedly to learning, who are focused on knowing as much as possible about a limited domain, and who are skilled at hiding any personal agonies." (p. 47)

"General education was not, the report said [General Education in a Free Society, published in 1945; known as the the 'Red Book'], education in knowledge in general, whatever that might mean. General education had a specific objective. It looked to the student's 'life as a responsible human beings and citizen' and to certain 'traits of mind and ways of looking at man and the world.' General education had a point of view.' (p. 53)...report by the Student Council...'it is in a period of confusion and catastrophe rather than in times of glittering prosperity or preoccupation with material problems that students must think deeply about permanent values, and about the future of civilization itself.'" (p. 55)

"In the absence of any pronuncement that anything is more important than anything else for Harvard students to know, Harvard is declaring loudly that one can be an educated person in the twenty-first century without knowing anything about genomes, chromosomes, or Shakespeare." (p. 62)

"It is odd irony to think that Harvard should be engaged in a competition with other universities to send away more students who have so eagerly sought to attend - especially since a number of college with robust study-abroad programs adopted them in part because of housing shortages, limtied academic opportunities, or locations in sleepy towns that do not hold the interest of their students for four consecutive years" (footnote, p. 67)

"I have found parents and students alike skeptical that those with the privilege of attending one of the world's finest universities should learn 'global competency' by substituting experiences abroad or courses at inferior universities for the opportunity to study, think, and debate with others at Harvad." (p. 71)

"[Students without ability to cooperate and communicate] had been conditioned to a particular way of pursuing excellence - making sure others did not profit from their excellence." (p. 75) original emphasis

"A good course is not merely a well-taught course, any more than a good book is simply a well-written book. Good courses have good concepts behind them. A student can come away from a course enlightened, even if the lecturer's delivery is imperfect." (p. 81)

"An 1878 survey of American college concluded, 'It is as original thinkers and authors that the majority of college professors attain a reputation; but the qualities that fit one for pursuing original investigations...may unfit him for...the teacher's task. It is, therefore, oftentimes true that a great scholar, of national reputation, is only an indifferent teacher.' Conversely, great teachinig can be viewed in academic circles as a kind of performance art, fine if you can do it but raising doubts about the teacher's seriousness as a scholar." (p. 83)

"[one young graduate said] I didn't learn much that I could not have learned on my own. The most important things I learned were from managing the Quincy House Grill." (p. 88)

"[a technology employer explained] admission to Harvard and other top colleges was already a strong indicator of quality, and getting good grades, or at least not getting too may bad grades...confirmed that the student was not only smart but had worked steadily for four years without disruptive personal difficulties." (p. 139-40)

"The principal reason students don't work hard is that the work they are asked to do is not very interesting and has not been made to seem very important." (p. 142)

"[the parents said] 'We never knew what to do with her. You admitted her - she is your problem now." (p. 157)

"Today's consumer culture, in which the college's job is to make its students happy rather than to educate them, threatens the old idea that the disciplinary system should make sutdents into better people." (p. 161)

"A Chinese student might be excused of plagiarism because it is endemic in his native culture." (p. 162)

"The careerism of undergraduates has been much lamented, especially by humanists. The humanities, because they are the least obviously useful of the subjects taught in college, are the biggest casualties of the market-model university. Students choosing courses for occupational reasons tend toward the social sciences and the sciences." (p. 203)

"Many students go into consulting and investment banking as a result - jobs that offer money, utilize students' social and analytical skills, and have come to be known as markers of success...But an economy in which all the smart people were consultatns or investment bankers would not last very long." (p. 205)

"The purpose of a concentration is not to teach anything in particular of substance but to teach certain 'habits of mind'; 'to educate students as independent, knowledgeable, rigorous, and creative thinkers.'" (p. 210)

"A liberal education in the sense Harvard now uses the term is simply an education not meant to make students employable. Undergraduate educated should not be too advanced or too specizlized, nor should it include courses that would be helpful in the world business. Harvard's image of the liberally educated graduate mirrors the aristocratic ideal of the amateur athlete. Becoming too skilled any any one thing, so skilled that a graduate could make a living doing it, is distasteful. Students are better off being broadly educated generalists - though not much breadth can be demanded because students would resist any requirement." (p. 253-4)

"Professors, like ideal graduates, should possess knowledge in many things as well as expertise in one. That ideal should inform judgements of faculty excellence. Professors should be able to teach what students need to learn. If faculty members can't teach what needs to be taught, they should be able to learn it so they can teach it." (p. 265-6)

--- --- ---

BTW, it should be worth listing its content here:
1. Choice and Direction
2. Meritocracy and Citizenship
3. Contact, Competition, Cooperation
4. The Eternal Enigma: Advising
5. Why Grades Go Up
6. Evaluation Is Educational
7. Independence, Responsibility, Rape
8. Students and Money
9. College Athletes and Money

--- --- ---

Pilar Mendoza' review, The Review of Higher Education 30.4 (2007) 486-487.In view of Lewis' persistent favor to the English tradition of liberal education, Mendoza commented: "Liberal education has been associated historically with high social status and with those who were "liberated" from the need to use knowledge to earn a living. However, this view asserts the superiority of liberal education over vocational education. " (p. 487)

六朝札記：《世說新語》一

《世說新語．德行第一》
第13條載華〔歆〕王〔朗〕優劣，余嘉錫案語曰：
自後漢之末，以至六朝，士人往往飾容止、盛言談，小廉曲謹，以邀聲譽。逮至聞望既高，四方宗仰，雖賣國求榮，猶翕然以名德推之。華歆、王朗、陳群之徒，其作俑者也。觀《吳志．孫策傳》注引《獻帝春秋》，朗對孫策詰問，自稱降虜，稽顙乞命。《蜀志．許靖傳》注引《魏略》，朗與靖書，自喜目睹聖主受終，如處唐虞之世。其頑鈍無恥，亦已甚矣。特作惡不如歆之甚耳，此其優劣，無足深論也。

讀Hong Kong Government Gazette 3

1. Visit of King of Hawaii

His Majesty the King of Hawaii arrived in Hongkong on Tuesday evening, the 12th instant, and was welcomed to the COlony by the Governor, in the name of Her Majesty Queen Victoria. His Majesty, the King Kalakaua, was accompanied by His Excellency W. N. Armstrong, Minister of State, and Colonel Judd, Chamberlain.

Hong Kong Government Gazette, 16th April, 1884, Government notification no. 131, p. 264.

2. 人力車左行右越

Whereas, owing to the increase in the number of Jinrickshas, it has become necessary that the regulation of traffic on the level of Queen's Road should be strictly enforced; the attention of Owners of private as well as public Chairs and Jinrickshas is called to Section 10 of Ordinance 6 of 1863, which provides that "Every Vehicles and Chair on meeting any other Vehicle or Chair shall if practicable pass the other by keeping on the left side of the Road, and when going in the same direction with and overtaking such Vehicle and Chair shall pass on the Right leaving the Vehicle or Chair shall pass on the Right leaving the Vehicle and Chair overtaken on the Left..."

Hong Kong Government Gazette, 23rd April, 1881, Government notification no. 136, p. 278.

Global Millennials

Time Style & Design, Spring 2008 Supplement. Excellent read! It surveys the luxurious quests of the Global Millennials, born between 1980 and 2000, in the U.S., China, the Middle East and Japan. China section caught my eyes. Below are the excerpts of two interviews with two cosmopolitian young ladies from the privileged class in China.

1. Bao Bao Wan, granddaughter of Wan Li 萬里, 26, was educated in the U.S and France and now lives part-time in Hong Kong."
2. Wendy Ye, granddaughter of Ye Jianying 葉劍英, 28, engaged to an American banker, is an evening-wear designer

Excerpts from 1:

"'Chinese girls are not as conservative as you think,' she says, laughing. Her life in Beijing is spent forging her career, shopping for luxury goods, partying at private clubs..." (p. 40)

"'China has taken on the American Dream: if you work toward what you want and if you are smart enough, you'll het it.'" (p. 42)

Excerpts from 2:

"Ye wears silk gowns by Studio Regal, the label she started four years ago after graduating from London's St. Martins fashion school." (p. 42)

"among fashionistas trying to convey their insider knowledge, below-the-radar names like Loro Pianna and Bottega Veneta are desirable. 'Louis Vuitton is for girls from second-tier cities now," she says..." (p. 42)

Religion and British Imperial History

Currently reading, very briefly, a review article on religion and British imperial history:

1. Tony Ballantyne, 'Religion, Difference, and the Limits of British Imperial History', Victorian Studies, Vol. 47, No. 3, Spring 2005, pp. 428-55.

The following six books under review:

1. Imperial Bibles, Domestic Bodies: Women, Sexuality, and Religion in the Victorian Market, by Mary Wilson Carpenter; pp. xxii + 206. Athens: Ohio UniversityPress, 2003, $39.95.
2. Missionary Women: Gender, Professionalism and the Victorian Idea of Christian Mission, by Rhonda Anne Semple; pp. xvii + 285. Woodbridge, UK, andRochester, NY: Boydell Press, 2003, £60.00, $110.00.
3. The Imperial Horizons of British Protestant Missions, 1880–1914, edited by Andrew Porter; pp. x + 264. Grand Rapids, MI, and Cambridge: William B. Eerdmans, 2003, $45.00, £32.99.
4. Missions, Nationalism and the End of Empire, edited by Brian Stanley; pp. x +313. Grand Rapids, MI, and Cambridge: William B. Eerdmans, 2003, $45.00,£32.99.
5. Religion versus Empire?: British Protestantism, Missionaries, and Overseas Expansion, 1700–1914, by Andrew Porter; pp. xviii + 373. Manchester: Manchester University Press; New York: Palgrave, 2004, £60.00, $74.95, £18.99 paper, $29.95 paper.
6. Imperial Fault Lines: Christianity and Colonial Power in India, 1818–1940, by Jeffrey Cox; pp. ix + 357. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002, $55.00.

Among these six assiduously researched books, Carpenter's Imperial Bibles, Domestic Bodies caught my immediate attention not because of the principle of 'first come, first serve', but its avant-garde title and cutting-edge subject, and, most importanly, the pivotal role of print culture in forging the English Bible, or so called 'Oriental book' in nineteenth-century Britain.

Language and Education in Colonial Hong Kong

Recent readings:

1. Anthony Sweeting, 'Education in Hong Kong: Histories, Mysteries and Myths', History of Education,Vol. 36, No. 1, January 2007, pp. 89–108.
2. Anthony Sweeting and Edward Vickers, 'Language and the History of Colonial Education: The case of Hong Kong', Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 41, Issue 1, 2007, pp. 1–40.
3. Po King Choi, '"The best students will learn English": ultra-utilitarianism and linguistic imperialism in education in post-1997 Hong Kong', Journal of Education Policy, November–December 2003, Vol. 18, No. 6, pp. 673–694.

Quote from 1:

"Judith Brown, in her Epilogue to Volume IV of The Oxford History of the British Empire (OHBE), states that of the legacies of the British Empire, the ‘most significant of all is the legacy of the school and the university’, and in particular the role of English as an international language. (p. 706)" (p. 1)

"Alastair Pennycook, who, in English and the Discourses of Colonialism and elsewhere, goes further than Said in arguing that the English language itself is inherently ‘imperialist’, and that ‘discourses of colonialism’ adhering to English represent the most fundamental and pernicious legacy of British colonialism." (p. 4)

"British cultural and linguistic ‘hegemony’in Hong Kong appears far more contested, fragile and ephemeral than he would maintain—and more a product of collaborative negotiation than of metropolitan imposition." (p. 5)

"the report of the Committee on Chinese Studies in 1953. This report laid down the parameters for the curriculum for Chinese language, literature and history in local schools, ensuring, according to Pennycook, that these would be biased towards pre-modern topics and literary works and imbued with conservative values. Thus he concludes that ‘the curriculum followed by students today . . . is closely linked to the curriculum formulated in the 1920s, a curriculum developed then to counter Chinese nationalism in the schools, redeveloped in the 1950s to counter communist influences and still held in place in the 1990s as part of British colonial rule’." (p. 8)

"It is perhaps worth remembering that the very first example of nationaleducational standardisation in Britain—the institution of civil service examinationsin the 1860s—was inspired by Chinese precedent. It is no trivial coincidence thatWhitehall civil servants have traditionally been referred to as ‘mandarins’." (p. 10)

"although half-yearly prizes were offered to pupils showing the greatestproficiency in the English language, these prizes were only $1 invalue, as compared with $1.50 for ‘greatest proficiency in ScriptureKnowledge’ and $1.50 for greatest proficiency ‘in the Four Books ofConfucianism’.35 If money talks, its message, at least in Hong Kongduring the 1850s, does not seem to have been based on linguisticimperialism." (p. 13)

"In thepost-war period, both colonial governments and the new international development agencies sought to promote what were felt to bemore efficient and effective policies, geared to providing vocational instruction that would be of practical use to students when they left school, and to encouraging the use of local vernaculars in place of ‘colonial’ languages. The problem with this was that where ademand for education existed, it was usually for precisely the sort of academic, English-medium schooling that Western agencies andcolonial administrators now deemed inappropriate." (p. 23)

"The dilemma as far as language in schools was concernedwas between the ‘use value’ of Cantonese, and the ‘exchange value’of English...for parents such arguments [educational effectiveness of Cantonese] were outweighed by the economic value of the command of English as a marketable skill both within Hong Kong and overseas." (p. 27)

"Hong Kong’s colonial history has created a system of schooling in which English-medium education has come to be regarded both as an avenue to better life chances and as a marker of social status for the local middle class. Thus the preservation of this system has come tobe perceived by influential elements not only within the local business community, but also within the local middle class more broadly, as a vested interest to be defended at all costs. The resilience of thediscourse concerning the superiority of English has more to do with the disproportionate influence of the wealthy English-educatedmiddleclasses within Hong Kong’s undemocratic establishment (both beforeand after 1997) than it does to do with any ‘linguistic imperialism...’ (p. 34)

Quote from 2:

"Quasi-classical Colonialism...it seems reasonable to claim that the closest Hong Kong came to what might be described as ‘ClassicalColonialism’ was in the first seven decades or so of British rule and, even more strikingly, during the brief Japanese occupation of the territory." (p. 91)

"Education in Hong Kong for much of the early twentieth century26 merits the designation of ‘applied colonialism’ in order to emphasize the importance of the main exogenous and endogenous factors influencing developments...Particularly in the years from about 1912 to 1941 and 1945 to about 1955." (p. 96)

"We hold our position in Hong Kong because the Chinese are satisfied to be ruled by us so long as we do not make our yoke heavy and are willing to listen to their views and meet their wishes in matters that affect them nearly. They do not like us, but are passively loyal. If we interfere with their customs to an extent which they believe to be unreasonable, this passive acquiescence will be turned into more or less active opposition." Sir Edward Stubbs, Governor of Hong Kong to Grindle (semi-official). CO129/478, 16 September 1922, 764–66. (p. 97)

"Applied De-colonization...Hong Kong gradually gained a type of applied de-colonization that included financial autonomy and considerable freedom in matters concerning such domestic issues as housing, health and education." (p. 100-1)

"Postcolonialism...the postcolonial period literally started at midnight on 1 July 1997,when China resumed sovereignty." (p. 103)

"Medical doctors, bankers, generalist career civil servants and businessmen, for example, seemed to carry more weight in recent and current policy-making than professional educationists." (p. 107)

English Scholarly Publication: Nightmare for Nonnative Speakers (NNSs)

Currently reading:

1. John Flowerdew, "Writing for scholarly publication in English: the case of Hong Kong," Journal of Second Language Writing, Vol. 8, No. 2 (1999), pp. 123–145.
2. John Flowerdew, "Discourse Community, Legitimate Peripheral Participation, and the Nonnative-English-Speaking Scholar," TESOL Quarterly, Vol. 34, No. 1 (Spring, 2000), pp. 127-150.
3. John Flowerdew, "Attitudes of Journal Editors to Nonnative Speaker Contributions," TESOL Quarterly, Vol. 35, No. 1 (Spring, 2001), pp. 121-150
4. Yongyan Lia and John Flowerdew, "Shaping Chinese novice scientists’ manuscripts for publication," Journal of Second Language Writing, Vol. 16, Issue 2 (June 2007), pp. 100-117.
5. Flowerdew, J., Li, D. C. S., & Miller, L., "Attitudes towards English and Cantonese among Hong Kong university lecturers," TESOL Quarterly, Vol. 32 (1998), 201-232.

Quotes from No. 1:

"In this era of globalization, to publish in a language other than English is to cut oneself off from the international community of scholars, on the one hand, and to prejudice one's chances of professional advancement, on the other." (p. 124)

"Just over two thirds of the Cantonese L1 academic (68%, N=585) felt that they were at a disadvantage when wiriting publication in English compared to NSs. Perhaps more surprising, however, is that nearly a third 32% felt they were at no disadvantage vis-a-vis NSs." (p. 137)

"Of those respondents who felt they were at a disadvantage in getting published in English compared with NSs, just over half (51%) indicated that they had technical problems with the language. Organization factors (14%), innovative thinking (11%)...However, nearly a third of respondents (29%) felt that there was prejudice by referres and editors, and that publishers placed NNSs at a disadvantage when writing for publication." (p. 137-8)

"Notwithstanding potential prejudice ont he part of referres, editors, and publishers, as perceived by nearly a third of the Cantonese L1 academics, confidence in getting a solo English paper published (as opposed to writing it) was also strong...In contrast to writing and publishing in English, confidence levels int he ability either wrtie a solo paper or get one published in Chinese were much lower." (p. 138)

"in spite of the fact that, as language experts and editors have noted, they may have serious problems with the more abstract features of academic writing. Notwithstanding this belief, only 11% of Hong Kong Cantonese academics indicated that a lack of innovative thinking had actually disadvantaged their ability to write in English. This finding suggests that for the majority of Cantonese scholars, the source of any writing disadvantage was or could be attributed to both the vagaries of the English language and to such external influences as prejudice and organizational factors, but that it was not perceived as being primarily due to any lack of intellectual creativity." (p. 141)

"because most Hong Kong academics have been educated through the medium of English and have not therefore developed skill in writing Chinese for academic purposes, they do not have the option of writing first in Chinese and then having their work translated." (p. 141)

Two big issues here, I think: 1) NNSs, the Hong Kong Cantonese L1 scholars in this case study, tended not to admit their weaknesses in areas other than language problem and prejudice, such as organization and innovation. 2) Many of these scholars were or perceive themselves as competent in English writing whereas, in fact, being solely trained in English academic writing, they simply had no option of writing in Chinese.

Quotes from No. 2:

"I [Anthony Y. H. Fung] don't like to write in Chinese but not because I hate Chinese but simply the Chinese journals are not recognized - the English article will count more than the Chinese one." (p. 134)

"Obviously, this manuscript has not been written by a native speaker. There are many problems with language usage that would need to be corrected were this to be published." (p. 135, note 2)

"First, he [Anthony Y. H. Fung] felt that the journal [Asian Survey] wanted the confictual aspect of Hong Kong-China relations to be emphasised...Second...the journal 'tended to attribute everything to China's interference' He felt obliged to accomodate this tendency. Third, he considered that the main concern of the journal was "freedom in Hong Kong under the rein(sic) of China." In response to this last issue, he added a lengthy section describing Hong Kong's gradual democratic development before the handover, in order to satisfy what he described as the journal's desire 'to make the point that Hong Kong's political development is interrupted by China's presence.' These changes were in line with the analytical orientation of the journal, as opposed to the more empirical emphasis that Oliver [pseudonym of Anthony Y. H. Fung] had originally put on the paper. They also suggest, however, that the journal, or at least the in-house editor, had a particular political ideology to convey." (p.132)

Three points here, I think: 1. Asian Survey's ideological claims against Fung's empirical findings; 2. Fung's concession to submit to non-empricial claims, or his failure to insist on his own stance against the interests of this "learned" journal; 3. Fung's best fit position, a Hong Kong scholar at a Hong Kong university, having experienced pre- and post-1997 changes, to be taken advantage by this "political" journal. To conclude, how does the published paper represent his own ideas? The answer should be crystal clear. It does create a good reference to political academics (the political interest of the journal) and academic politics (young scholar's aspiration and academic career).

Quotes from No. 3:

Problematic aspects of NNS contributions: 1. surface erros; 2. parochialism (I think it is very critical); 3. introductions and discussions as most problematic sections of the research article; 4. absence of authorial voice; 5. nativized varieties of English. (p. 127)

Positive attributes of NNS contributions: 1. show an awareness of aspects of language such as cross-cultural pragmatics; 2. display the objectivity of an outside perspective (who are outsiders? It's very clear here); 3. possess NS knowledge of other languages; 4. essential to the international nature of international journals; 5. can test theories of the dominant centre; 6. can investigate issues that might not occur to researchers in the centre or investigate these issues in different ways, using different data; 7. have access to research sites where NSs would be intrusive; 8. can alert the centre to research undertaken in other scholarly traditions. (p. 127)

"we have people who are ... in order to make headway in their academic careers, have to publish in English, that we should be sympathetic to them, and that we should give them a reasonable amount of help." (p. 129)

"NSs are much more tolerant of language problems out of NNSs than other NNSs are...a NNS teach will pick up mistakes and errors made by students far more actively than NS teachers will do." (p. 132)

"(The) problem of parochialism, or failure to show the relevance of the study to the international community, was felt to be probably the most serious impediment to NNS contributors. Contributions from peripheral contexts tended to be too localised" (p. 135)

"The research question is so locally focused that it does not spread out into more general interest areas...My guess is that it is harder for NNSs who have spent less time abroad, spent less time professionally abroad, for them to see how it might be applicable to other palces." (p. 135)

"What I seem to get from the NNSs is either an insufficient literature review, so they don't show that they really know the literature. And maybe it's because they have difficult getting access to the literature that we're familiar with here...we're only interested in the last 5 years or so." (p. 136) (emphasis added)

"The famous phrase on the stock market, 'The trend is your friend.' You want to write in the way that the journal encourages." (p. 142)

The biggest problem, I think, is parochialism, or nongeneralizability.

Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd Archives

Located in various libraries and archives in the UK: UCL (major holder), Reading, Durham, Hertfordshire Archives, and Cambridge.
http://www.aim25.ac.uk/cgi-bin/search2?coll_id=3783&inst_id=13