Wednesday 28 May 2008

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)

Sunday 25 May 2008

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.

--- --- ---

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)

--- --- ---

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)

Tuesday 20 May 2008

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)

Sunday 18 May 2008

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)

Tuesday 13 May 2008

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.

Monday 12 May 2008

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.

Sunday 11 May 2008

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.

Thursday 1 May 2008

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.