Friday 14 October 2011

馴化

在港大上學,中午時間的太古樓飯堂,難免會碰上一街之隔的英皇書院的學生。


偶然發現前校長梁植穎的《英皇師生愛國愛港情》(香港:明報出版社,2007)。愛國,愛英國,愛中國,愛香港。梁氏介紹超過二百位師生的成就及貢獻。八十載歷史,人材輩出。


關於宋學鵬,目錄上的短短數語,可甚玩味:「教導金文泰港督中文,提高中文老師待遇,馴化金督解決一九二一至一九二六年抵制英貨的中港大罷工。」馴化一字,可圈可點。愛國情操高尚,名副其實。


梁氏引了不許多珍貴材料,包括相片、報章、口述資料等。參考和可讀性甚高。


又,宋氏的藏書今庋藏於加拿大英屬哥倫比亞大學(The University of British Columbia)的亞洲圖書館(Asian Library)。

Saturday 8 October 2011

Singaporean national identities

National identities are politically forged, culturally constructed, and collectively shared. Young country like Singapore provides sound evidence to prove this claim.


Three cultural impulses, Terrence Chong tells us, are relevant to manufacture authenticity in Singapore. They are 1) the Malay literary movement Angkatan Sasterawan 50 prior to independence; 2) the state-sponsored Confucian ethics discourse during the 1980s; and 3) the romanticization of the working-class 'heartlander' through contemporary popular culture in confrontation with the politics of global capitalism and globalization, which Chong argues that offers the most popular symbols of Singaporean national identity.




Terence Chong, "Manufacturing Authenticity: The Cultural Production of National Identities in Singapore," Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 45, No. 4 (2011), pp. 877-897.

Sunday 25 September 2011

When I left

Quum subit illius tristissima noctis imago
qua mihi supremum [tempus] in urbe fuit
quum repeto noctem, qua tot mihi cara reliqui
labitur ex oculis nunc quoque gutta meis.
(When steals upon me the gloomy memory of that night
which marked my latest hours in the city -
when I recall that night on which I left so many things
dear to me, even now from my eyes the teardrops fall.)


Quoted from the Edinburgh-educated Malaysian Chinese scholar Ku Hung-ming's (1857-1928) quotation in "Days That Are No More" from Chapter3, Book 1, of Ovid's Tristia. Translation from Lo Hui-Min's “Ku Hung-ming: Schooling,” Papers on Far Eastern History, Vol. 37-38, 1988, p. 64.



Tuesday 13 September 2011

Recent readings XXVIII

Modern Asian Studies Vol. 45, Special Issue 2: China in World War II, 1937-1945: Experience, memory, and Legacy. Part I: Experiencing China's War with Japan: World War II, 1937–1945


Rana Mitter, "Classifying Citizens in Nationalist China during World War II, 1937–1941," Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 45, No. 2 (2011), pp. 243-275.


Matthew D. Johnson, "Propaganda and Sovereignty in Wartime China: Morale Operations and Psychological Warfare under the Office of War Information," Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 45, No. 2 (2011), pp. 303-344.


Andres Rodriguez, "Building the Nation, Serving the Frontier: Mobilizing and Reconstructing China's Borderlands during the War of Resistance (1937–1945)," Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 45, No. 2 (2011), pp. 345-376. Rodriguez argues that the notion of 'frontier service' and the 'cultural reconstruction' project propounded by the Chinese anthropologist, Li Anzhai, not only sought the modernize and unify China around a distinct multicultural identity, it was also an important mobilizing force amongst sectors of wartime youth which arguably introduced young Han Chinese to a region which they had hitherto only imagined in the pre-war period.


Felix Boecking's "Unmaking the Chinese Nationalist State: Administrative Reform among Fiscal Collapse, 1937-1945," Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 45, No. 2 (2011), pp. 277-301. Boecking contends that from 1937 until 1940, the Chinese Nationalist Party (Guomindang) fiscal policy managed to preserve a degree of relative stability even though, by early 1939, the Nationalists had already lost control over ports yielding 80 per cent of Customs revenue. The introduction of war-time fiscal instruments led to administrative changes, which in return created one of the preconditions for the disintegration of the Nationalist state, which facilitated the Chinese Communist Party victory in 1949.




Part II: Remembering China's War with Japan: The Wartime Generation in Post-war China and East Asia


Parks M. Coble, "Writing about Atrocity: Wartime Accounts and their Contemporary Uses," Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 45, No. 2 (2011), pp. 379-398. Coble finds that most wartime writing stressed the theme of 'heroic resistance' by the Chinese rather than China's victimization at the hands of Japanese. Exceptions to his approach included efforts to publicize Japan's action to Western audiences in the hope of gaining support for China's cause, and a related focus on the bombing of the civilian population by the Japanese.


James Reilly's "Remember History, Not Hatred: Collective Remembrance of China's War of Resistance to Japan," Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 45, No. 2 (2011), pp. 463-490. Reilly examines four historical periods: China's 'benevolent amnesia' on Japan's wartime atrocities before 1982; China's patriotic education campaign from the mid-1980s; the rise of history activism in China in the late 1990s; and the post-2005 reversal in official rhetoric on Japan and the wartime past. He argues that while the party-state retains an impressive capacity to shape the narratives of critical periods of modern Chinese history, Chinese leaders are likely to find themselves increasingly constrained by domestic forces and by external events beyond their control.


Neil J. Diamant, "Conspicuous Silence: Veterans and the Depoliticization of War Memory in China," Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 45, No. 2 (2011), pp. 431-461. Diamant argues that the relative silence of authentic military voices in the post-war period can be attributed to several peculiar features of modern Chinese history. The nature of warfare, the absence of a national army, veteran organizations and a consensus over the the legitimacy about the wars, has overshadowed the validity of veteran's claims for a higher political and cultural status. Intellectual elites in various cultural and propaganda offices dominate national war memory presenting a simplistic and artificial rendering of the wars, and marginalize veterans' position to portray war from their perspectives.


Arron William Moore, "The Problem of Changing Language Communities: Veterans and Memory Writing in China, Taiwan, and Japan," Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 45, No. 2 (2011), pp. 399-429. Moore analyses six categories of 'memory writing' that veterans used to engage with memory debates: post-war diaries, 'testimonial literature', articles and literary works, surveys and oral histories, memoirs, and paratext. He argues that veterans can only be 'heard' by members of their language community, or by a post-war society that is prepared to 'listen' to their message with little mediation.

Monday 12 September 2011

六朝 ‧ 香港

童嶺:〈「鈔」、「寫」有別論--六朝書籍文化史識小錄一種〉,《漢學研究》,第29卷第1期(2011年3月),頁257-280。照本不動而謄錄者謂之「寫」;部分摘錄且可作改動者謂之「鈔」。


楊孟軒:〈調景嶺:香港「小臺灣」的起源與變遷,1950-1970年代〉,《臺灣史研究》,第18卷第1期(2011年3月),頁133-183。採用流亡/離散(diaspora)群體概念切入,引用CO1030、HKRS檔案、臺灣救總出版品,以及第三勢力在香港出版的兩份主要雜誌《中國之聲》(1951-2)及《自由陣線》(1950-3)

Friday 9 September 2011

中體西用論的重生?

中體西用是一種以中學為體,西學為用的理論。中學是指孔子之道,是中國道統文化,生活規範。西方的物質文明,格致製造,有其實用價值。中西學術的主要區別就是道與器,形而上者以道勝,形而下者以器勝。(莊吉發:〈中體西用--以盛清時期中西藝術交流為中心〉,《史學彙刊》,第26期,2010年12月,頁128)


康熙道:「中國人不解西洋字義,故不便辨爾西洋人不解中國字義,如何妄論中國道理之是非?」......入境隨俗,互相尊重,符合人類文化自然演進的法則。文化人類學派解釋人類文化的起源也主張文化複源說,文化是多元的,深信人類文化依著自然法則演進,人同此心,心同此理,不必一定發源於一地,或創自一人,康熙皇帝的態度是客觀的。(頁137-8)


資料來源:莊吉發:〈中體西用--以盛清時期中西藝術交流為中心〉,《史學彙刊》,第26期,2010年12月,頁125-178。附郎世寧雍正年間藝術創作活動簡表(頁129-34)。又附乾隆年間平定西域得勝圖銅版畫繪製過程簡表,將稿樣交粵海關發送法蘭西製成銅版畫(1753-1776)(頁163-6)。

Monday 5 September 2011

Recent readings XXVII

I am back to Hong Kong for a while and just started to browse through the journals I missed in the summer. Some of them are quite interesting and a few related to my current research interests. They are:


伍伯常:〈隋唐之際的割據勢力--以貴冑出身的李淵和李密為中心〉,《東吳歷史學報》,第25期(2011年6月),頁1-56。建制內外的力量角力及地緣政治的克服與制約。
何萍:〈英國與武漢國民政府之漢案交涉──以英國領事報告為中心〉,《東吳歷史學報》,第25期(20116月),頁187-252。 useful for my research on KW
李朝津:〈清末民初廣東大學學制之發軔〉,《東吳歷史學報》,第25期(20116月),頁141-185。1924年成立的廣東大學的政治牽絆。
羅麗馨:〈豐臣秀吉侵略朝鮮〉,《國立政治大學歷史學報》,第35期(2011年5),頁33-74。由侵略史到侵略史觀。
侯旭東:〈東漢洛陽南郊刑徒墓的性質與法律依據--從《明鈔本天聖令 ‧ 獄官令》所附一則唐令說起〉,《中央研究院歷史語言研究所集刊》,第82卷,第1分,2011年3月,頁1-42


I read several critical reviews of some books I am interested in. It certainly does not do the justice without actually reading the books but it makes sense when I am forced to prioritise my reading lists.


David Lyon's Identifying Citizens: ID Cards as Surveillance (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2009). Using ID cards as the point of departure, the book resonates with Foucault's concepts of biopolitics and governmentality. The finer the granularity of identifying information collected by the state, the greater will be the potentiality for treating citizens differently according to their respective administrative identities. The process of identification entails social sorting.


Joel Mokyr's The Enlightened Economy: An Economic History of Britain, 1700-1850 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009). Why did Britain have an industrial revolution first? Why not other advanced European countries? Because in Britain ideas interacted vigorously with business interests in 'a positive feedback loop that created the greatest sea change in economic history since the advent of culture.' Technological innovation is the prime mover.


Patrick Wright's Passport of Peking: A Very British Mission to Mao's China (OUP, 2010). Wright makes extensive use of diaries, journals, reminiscences, and oral interview with key visitors to the Communist China as early as in 1954. The key visitors include the painter Stanley Spencer, artist-journalist Paul Hogarth, biologist Cedric Dover, sinologist Edwin Pulleyblank, philosopher A. J. Ayer, architect Sir Hugh Casson, MP Barbara Castle, former PM Clement Attlee, politician Anuerin Bevan etc.


George R. Trumbull's An Empire of Facts: Colonial Power, Cultural Knowledge, and Islam in Algeria, 1870-1914 (CUP, 2009). Trumbull examines the views of colonial ethnographers about Islam as monolithic, primitive, and politically dangerous. The Imprimerie Adolph Jourdan in Algiers specialized in publishing works of colonial ethnography, which became widely known in colonial Algeria and France, and those the administration approved were bought for the libraries that existed in most administrative districts of Algeria.


Michael Curtis's Orientalism and Islam : European thinkers on Oriental despotism in the Middle East and India (CUP, 2009). Montesquieu, Edmund Burke, Alexis de Tocqueville, James Mill and John Stuart Mill, Karl Marx, and Max Weber

Sunday 21 August 2011

東南亞女傭做錯了甚麼嗎?

每天早上,上班沿途穿過一個公園,往往見到一個二十來歲的年輕人,推著坐在輪椅上,似是他的祖父的老人在公園散步。有時,也會看見另一些推著輪椅的是印傭和菲傭,或是她們攙扶著老人散步。

---   ---   ---

八月炎夏的香港,正為著外傭爭取居港權的申請資格鬧得焦躁不安。

恰巧,兩年前的八月,我正在讀台灣社會學學者藍佩嘉的《跨國灰姑娘 : 當東南亞幫傭遇上台灣新富家庭》(台北:行人出版社,2008)。我猜想,有關於香港的研究嗎?香港的數量應該遠比台灣多。

他們不是一般的外傭,他們是東南亞女傭。她們是來自東南亞的年輕女性,主要是菲傭、印傭和泰傭,數目幾近三十萬。她們照顧香港三十萬個家庭。假設每個家庭有四口,她們照顧超過一百萬香港人!

她們對香港有甚麼貢獻?

她們照顧我們家庭的起居飲食,清理打掃,三餐煮食;她們照料我們小孩的日常生活,斟茶遞水,接送放學,教導英文;她們照料我們的父母和祖父母,上街散步,推輪椅散心,如厠洗澡。

於是,我們不會做家務,不懂煮食,只會有名人教搵食;我們不再有家教,只會有港孩和港父母;我們不再照顧父母和祖父母,只會在中秋冬至團圓;甚至,我們不再懂得照顧別人,體諒別人。我,就是Boss,就是Master。

她們是別人的女兒,卻不再照顧自己的父母和祖父母,而要照顧別人的;她們是別人的太太或女友,但要照顧別人的男人;她們是別人的媽媽,卻要離開自己的小孩於襁褓,去照料別人的。


她們活該。她們來自東南亞發展落後的國家。她們的國家出賣她們。她們的學歷在本國可獲得的回報比當香港女傭可恥。她們把希望放在香港,但沒有奢望在禮儀之邦邊陲的大都會落地生根。


她們使香港女性打破中國社會傳統賦予女性的價值標準,讓她們可以建立家庭和生育小孩之外,還可以兼顧工作,獨立自主。香港職場上有成就的女性,背後支持著她們的其實不是另一半,而是東南亞女傭,別人的女兒,別人的太太,別人的媽媽。

她們卻無形中加強了我們賦予女性的價值標準,一方面家傭只會是女傭,家務還是得由女性肩負;另一方面只有女傭取代女主人,才能夠釋放香港女主人,即是以四千多的支出換取數以倍計的收入。這算是高倡女性主義的香港的真象嗎?畢竟,這是建基於依賴東南亞女性勞動力來換取香港女性的獨立。

法院即將有判決。不如我們想想,假設就像香港政府恫嚇性的推測,數以十萬計的東南亞人來港,我們如何佔盡利益或商機?畢竟,靈活走位是香港人的優勢。法律界不愁沒有生意嗎?社福界不愁沒有新增的資源嗎?教育界可以不愁殺校嗎?公立醫院可以增加人手嗎?私立醫院會有商機嗎?飲食業有出路嗎?旅遊業會更蓬勃嗎?地產業可以再上一層嗎?可以肯定,關景鴻將會拓展移民顧問版圖到菲印泰。

還有,她們可以使我們的社會更多元化嗎?香港,將會真正成為亞洲國際都會。

Sunday 14 August 2011

The Edinburgh Festival

This evening I returned to what I wrote a couple of weeks ago as I had walked passed the frantic crowd in the Royal Mile in the afternoon.


The Edinburgh Festival kicked off yesterday (3 Aug). The streets, bars, supermarkets, even the usually deserted food bars are packed with tourists. Young and old, hippies and families. They enslave the city with laughs and noise as if they seek excitement only once a year. 
Competition between shows is keen. Part-time leafleters dotted around the box offices and the Royal Mile. What's more? Performers with funny and sometimes weird on stage make-up and costumes give out leaflets in the street to catch the eyes of festival-goers to give them a go.
I received one comedy booklet from one of the official leafleters. I flipped it through and one show caught my attention which I also saw from some advertising boards. It's about how we spend our time. If the average person spends (my thoughts follow):
seven years in the bathroom, I'd never give a snort of disgust when a smelly middle-aged guy walks passed;
four years doing housework, I'm completely convinced that domestic helper is the more sacred job in the world;
six months in traffic jams, I'd understand drink driving is as tempting as Sex on the Beach.
one week eating lasagna, I'd give up making lasagna because I'd spend even more time in making it.

Monday 25 July 2011

Hongkongness

Below are some notes of my thoughts in Edinburgh last summer from which I expanded a little bit:



Reflecting on my own identity, I realise that my Hongkongness came into sharp focus when I moved out of Hongkong.
This seems to be a common occurrence for Hongkongers. You don’t necessarily practice your Hongkongness at home over the breakfast table.
But when you move away you are forced to think about whom you are and where you fit.
I have been living in Edinburgh for almost three months, from June to August 2010. I arrived in the city centre with a sense of nostalgia.
It is not because I had came here five years ago. But because of the music of the city, bagpipe music precisely.
Scotland the Brave. It is the most well-known bagpipe music to me and to us, Hongkongers.
Like everyone in my generation and those who lived through the 80s (perhaps even early 90s), I grew up with this song, and many others which I can't quite recall now, played by the bagpipe band of the Royal Hong Kong Police Force. Or we got familiar with it whilst we watched Junior Police Call's (JPC) TV programme every weekend.
When I was very young, I never realized the Scottish heritage of British Hong Kong. One day, it struck me in my face when I first came to Edinburgh. When I returned, I felt home.

Saturday 23 July 2011

書展與她

兩屆書展,人在外地,有點可惜。
夏日書展,納悶中叫人興奮。大家不愁話題,不會寂寞。
話題到處,既是「書」,也是「人」。
從前,書展只會想起馬榮成,也只為他而六點起床去排隊。馬仔畫出彩虹到倚巒看日出。成敗從來不爭朝夕。
現在,大家或許只會想起周秀娜
離港赴英前匆看了一本很有趣的書。粉紅色封面以外,更加吸引我的,是一篇由她寫的序。
她承作者邵家臻的邀請,為他的〈o靚模之亂〉作序:


感謝「o靚模」這名詞令我今年過得十分精彩刺淚,我學了很多,感受更多;
我不是社會學家,也不是教育家,沒有能力去分析或教育這個社會;
作為娛樂圈新人,希望大家可以從我身上得到娛樂,香港人工作壓力不少,開心一下不是很好嗎?
大家都在談「o靚模風潮」會過去,我沒有太在意這事情,反而重視完成手頭上的工作之餘,還有今年的計劃付諸實行。(出自《o靚》(香港:kubrick,2010),頁74-75。


她距離成功還遠嗎?

Monday 4 July 2011

my teenage dream...

After finishing the painstaking Bristol conference paper in a stuffy Saturday and stepping out of the one-mile neighbourhood to make the first tour to the high street in ten days' time in a sunny and breezing Sunday afternoon, I returned home and settled to listen to some Canton-pop 90s musics of a legend whose bold and entertaining songs should deserve more applauds than the unjust criticism he had received over the years. My schoolmates and I had used to make fun. But now I feel overwhelmingly enjoyable and sweet as to recall my teenage memories doing silly and stupid things while pretending to look cool. Then I laughed out loud to myself. After all, it's my teenage years and I grew up with it. Bitter but splendid.

---   ---   ---

I finished the painstaking Bristol conference paper in a stuffy Saturday. In a sunny and breezing Sunday afternoon I stepped out of the one-mile neighbourhood to make the first tour to the high street in ten days' time.
I returned home and settled to listen to some Canton-pop 90s musics of a legend whose bold and entertaining attempts, I think, should deserve more applauds than the unfair criticism he had received over the years.
My schoolmates and I had used to make fun of him and his songs. But now I feel overwhelmingly enjoyable and sweet as to recall my teenage memories doing stupid things while pretending to look cool.
Then I laughed out loud to myself. After all, it's my teenage years and I grew up with it. Bitter and splendid. 

Friday 24 June 2011

...I'm no genius

I was a big fan of the NBA legendary player Michael Jordan when I was in middle school. I wished I were as gifted as him in basketball, least to say my height or body shape. After all, I am not, and never will be.

Some time ago last October when I was on the way to mainland China, to where my grandparents were born, on the coach I was reading David Shenk's The genius in all of us : why everything you've been told about genetics, talent, and IQ is wrong (New York : Doubleday, 2010).

Intelligence is a process, not a thing. Everyone is born with differences, and some with unique advantages for certain tasks. No one, however, is genetically designed into greatness. Talents are the result of a slow, invisible accretion of skills developed from the moment of conception. We have far more control over our genes - and far less control over our environment - than we think.
  1. Despite appearances to the contrary, racial and ethnic groups are not genetically discrete; and
  2. Gene don't directly cause traits; they only influence the system. (p. 86-7)
So, how to be a genius? Find your motivation, be your own toughest critic, beware the dark side, identify your limitations - and then ignore them, delay gratification and resist contentedness, have heroes,  and find a mentor.

Wednesday 15 June 2011

Free?

I often go out of the track and tend to be directed to read some out-of-the-field books at some point while surfing the internet or browsing scholarly works. Fortunately, most of them are interesting and stimulating. Recently I finished two of these.
The first book is Chris Anderson's Free : the future of a radical price (New York: Hyperion, 2009).
"Like it or not," Anderson says "we all live in the Google economy these days in at least some of our life." (p. 183) Free drives out professionals in favour of amateurs. Free tends to level the playing field between professionals and amateurs. (p. 234-5)
It forced me to reconsider the distinction between professionals and amateurs, and read Andrew Keen's The cult of the amateur : how today's internet is killing our culture and assaulting our economy (London: Nicholas Brealey, 2007).
In the Web 2.0 revolution, instead of a dictatorship of experts, he claims, we'll have a dictatorship of idiots.
For better or worse, everyone is simultaneously broadcasting themselves on YouTube and/or Facebook; but nobody is listening.
The Web 2.0 revolution is, as Keens argues, the great seduction. We are being deduced by the empty promise of the "democratized" media. The revolution peddles the promise of bringing more truth to more people - more depth of information, more global perspective, more unbiased opinion from dispassionate observers. But this is all a smokescreem.
It is, in fact, delivering superficial observations rather than deep analysis, shrill opinion rather than considered judgement. The real consequence of the great seduction is less culture, less reliable news, and a chaos of useless information.

Tuesday 14 June 2011

stock clearing

From last December (2010):


Since I have come back from Scotland I have been overwhelmed by an avalanche of new classes to teach and piles of untouched lonesome journal articles resting on desk and top of the bookshelves and awaiting me to read and extract after I returned.
It might not be exaggerated to say that with the help of my supportive colleagues and seniors I championed one and a half new courses. Journal articles printed before, some long before, I left are yet to be read. The first semester is coming to an end and boxes of students' paper have been cleaned (though another patch of examination papers are yet to come next week), it is high time to bring them back to life again, and vacant the desk and bookshelves for other latest works to come.
One of the journals that I browsed intensively was New Literary History, which I found very stimulating and illuminating. I skimmed some of them just today.
Sanjay Krishnan's "The place of India in Postcolonial Studies: Chatterjee, Chakrabarty, Spivak," New Literary History, Vol. 40, 2009, pp. 265-280. Partha Chatterjee, Dipesh Chakrabarty, and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. "Anticolonial though refers to forms of ideology critique that expose as false the colonizer's claim that colonial values are properly enlightened or universal. Postcolonial though is a reflection on the categories and reflexes through which anticolonial resistance takes place. Postcolonial thought asserts that anticolonial resistance tacitly reproduces the culture and values of imperialism." (p. 265) "anticolonial thought is the ideology critique of colonialism, whereas postcolonial thought signals a critique of the anticolonial conformism to the culture of imperialism. Postcolonial though therefore scrutinizes the dominant rules of representation set in motion by knowledge production in academia and beyond." (p. 266)
R. S. Khare's "Changing India-West Cultural Dialectics," New Literary History, Vol. 37, 2007, pp. 223-245. Louis Dumont, Wilhelm Halbfass, Octavio Paz, and Amartya Sen, whose The Argumentative Indian (London: Allen Lane, 2005) has been on my to-read list.

Sunday 1 May 2011

中史。教育。通識

新高中中史科有退選趨勢。太好了!想起陶傑說過:「〔香港〕中學不教中國歷史,也不教中國詩詞,也好。讓愚蠢成為主流,通街是文盲o靚模,面對這樣的『市場』,我們這些稍識幾個字的,正好冷眼旁觀,劃著火迆,炶一口煙,吐了出來,想想如何從中營利。」(〈熱鬧看風雲〉,《這個荒謬的快樂年代:陶傑散文精選》(香港:皇冠出版社,2010),頁191)此消彼長,其他科目的學生不幸了。本來僧少粥多,現在倒過來少,奪A不易了

聰明的人不會做兩種工作,一是當官,一是教書。前者不討好,有太多不識趣的無知份子不知「父母官」的用心良苦;後者更不討好,上有低學歷低能的前輩,下有更不甚的低學歷低能家長,要教的是低能的學生。區區薪水,如何忍得下氣!

不用靠納稅人出錢,也有足夠能力保送到英國的大有人在。英國的GCSE和GCE沒有這麼創新的liberal studies(美國只有SAT,香港應是錯誤的示範)。英國的英文科還是要讀悶出個鳥來的莎翁。大抵上,考試內容不過是照本宣科沒有什麼批判性(SAT雖有critical reading和writing也算不上那碼子的批判,不過發表下個人「愚見」)。

有那一科可以批判一下這個考試和教育制度的嗎?以前讀過通識教育科的同學都不怎麼出色甚至是低分低能)。為什麼?為什麼會期望通識教育可以教學生「飛天」?人人都「飛天」,誰人在地上行走?歸根究底批判能力和獨立思考真的是那麼重要嗎?沒有這兩種能力就不可升職加薪嗎?所有專業都需要這兩種能力嗎?教育局或眾人是否把這兩種能力看得太重。真的以為批判能力和獨立思考就是權力(不應譯作力量)嗎?難道還看不穿權力才是界定批判能力和獨立思考的根源嗎?

現在通識科顯示的問題,只是突顯一個由來已久的現象:共識從來就是評分準則的基礎。過去中文作文如是英文作文如是人文學科如是通識科也將會如是。大家都疏忽了問題的核心:社會上有許多有批判能力和獨立思考的人(不好說一定是精英),不都是給高官和大商家(更多是廣告)欺騙,或者說是奈何不了他們嗎?

先進國家如超級強國美國三億人口(是香港的四百多倍),說得上有批判能力和獨立思考者,應該等於香港總人口吧!不都一樣有伊拉克戰爭和阿富汗戰爭,一樣可以蒙騙國人說伊拉克有大殺傷力武器!可見,人的判斷不以批判能力和獨立思考作依歸,立場才有決定性力量。英美大國高明的地方在於不行通識科。香港這一步是自以為是的走錯了路。

Wednesday 27 April 2011

Hong Kong education

Some months ago, I was very into the education of Hong Kong and read a few scholarly articles published before 1997 in the 1980s and a few years after 1997.

Paul Morris's "The effect on the school curriculum of Hong Kong's return to Chinese sovereignty in 1997," Journal of Curriculum Studies, Vol. 20, No. 6, 1988, pp. 509-20. "the junior secondary syllabus for integrated science was based on the Scottish Integrated Science Scheme. The social studies curriculum...was influenced by a Canadian project." (p. 511-2) I knew I realized this!
"In the case of history, the proportion of the syllabus devoted to the study of Chinese increased marginally from 1972 to 1984. In 1972, of the twelve topics in section A, eight were concerned with the history of China prior to 1949. In 1976 the ratio was seven out of ten and in 1984 and 1987 it was also seven out of ten topics. The focus remained on the period before 1949. The 1988 syllabus has been drastically revised to focus on 14 topics in total, with no discrimination between geographic sections or time periods and with the extension of the time period to allow the study of topics up to 1970. The topics chosen focus on the political history of the establishment of statehood and political independence by the USA, the UK, France, the USSR and China. The new syllabus provides pupils with a more politicized historical framework than was previously the case, and one more relevant to Hong Kong's future." (p. 514)
"In the case of Economic and Public Affairs (EPA)...the only change evident in 1976 were the removal of the term 'colony' and the specific inclusion of a topic concerned with the links between Britain and China." (p. 515)
Discussing the control of school textbooks, the Education Department suggested that "EPA and history textbooks submitted in 1986 should avoid reference to Hong Kong as a British colony...a history text and school atlas should not show Tibet and Mongolia as separate countries prior to 1949." (p. 517)
Paul Morris and Ian Scott's "Educational reform and policy implementation in Hong Kong,"Journal of Education Policy, Vol. 18, No. 1, 2003, pp. 71-84. And:
F. Kan and E. Vicker's "One Hong Kong, two histories: 'history' and 'Chinese history' in the Hong Kong school curriculum," Comparative Education, Vol. 38, No. 1, 2002, pp. 13-89.

Monday 25 April 2011

Evangelicals and Wal-Mart

Another article about Evangelicals after reading one about them and Hollywood film Fireproof (2008), it is Rebekah Peeples Massengill's "Why Evangelicals Like Wal-Mart: Education, Region, and Religious Group Identity," Sociology of Religion, Vol. 72, No. 1, 2011, pp. 50-77.

Self-identified evangelicalism is consistently associated with approval of Wal-Mart, while college education is linked to disapproval of it. Interestingly, the same effect does not persist among evangelicals, for whom college education has no consistent, significant effect on the odds of judging the giant retailer unfavorably. Massengill argues that education may function differently for evangelicals than for the larger population, offsetting the liberalizing effects that are typically assumed to accompany attending college.

Friday 22 April 2011

階級是會遺傳的!

今日中午和中學同學聚舊上茶樓(那間酒店的中菜廳應該叫茶樓嗎?還不是一樣吵鬧)。舊同學間中,有半年不見的,也有越過十年不見的,更有不知道我已經結婚兩年多,還半摧帶問我何時結婚的。我想,我是太自閉,太潛了。

舊同學有一對「好」子女,為她高興,卻為她擔憂。原來,小朋友不懂禮貌,不會打招呼。母親三摧四請,放棄。幸好,沒有喚我叔叔,舒一口氣。我還是喜歡一句哥哥。舊同學引同事一句育兒口訣,使我為她放心:你急,他不急;千萬,不要急。或許,禮貌是急不來的。長大後,他就會懂。

回家後,看著案上的書,忐忑不安。書是三浦展的《階級是會遺傳的:不要讓你的孩子跌入「下流階級」》(《遺傳》)。年前讀過他《下流社會》(2005),養老孟司的《傻瓜的圍牆》(2003)和內田樹的《下流志向:為什麼孩子不上學、不工作》,令我對階級向下流很在意。讀到《遺傳》,更覺憂慮。這是一本令父母不安,教師心寒的書。

假如你已經、打算或即將為人父母,想想以下的問題。假如你身邊的人,親戚朋友,也已經、打算或即將為人父母,也設身處地想想。

一、先從父母親的經濟能力和背景設想(由我作為男人的角度出發):
你的收入高嗎?
父親的收入越高,孩子的成績越好。進一步來說,收入比學歷的影響大。
你認真嗎?有條有理嗎?有禮貌嗎?
父親越認真,越有條理,越有禮貌,孩子成績就越好。
你的太太的學歷高嗎?假如她是全職主婦,她婚前的收入高嗎?
高學歷和曾是高收入的母親,較在意孩子的成績。
她小時侯的成績好嗎?
母親小時侯的成績越好,孩子成績越好。
她的人生觀如何?
事實上,這對孩子的成績影響不大。
成績好的孩子,母親比較有條有理又有趣,通常是有計劃且動作俐落的人。

二、飲食習慣
成績越好的孩子,飲食越均衡,越有規律,母親也越注重營養均衡。反之,成績越差,越依賴便利店的食物。
成績越好的孩子,母親越喜歡做菜。反之,覺得吃東西很麻煩的母親,孩子成績較差。

三、聰明孩子的特徵
你喜歡閱讀嗎?
孩子成績與父親的書籍閱讀量成正比。
你的太太呢?
成績好的孩子,母親常閱讀育兒雜誌。
孩子的生活習慣比成績更重要。越好的生活態度,成績越好。學習鋼琴與成績好壞成正比。成績好孩子偏愛文學與藝術。

四、生活品質
你是否周末休息?
父親周休二日,孩子成績較好。父親有休息時間才能配合孩子學習。
孩子成績越好,親子越常一起去圖書館和博物館。成績越好的孩子,親子交談越多。孩子是否有個人的房間,與成績無關。家庭文化涵養影響孩子的成績。

五、母親的滿意度
孩子的成績是母親的成績。母親的滿意度與孩子的成績成正比。孩子比自己努力,母親的滿意度越高。對孩子越滿意,夫妻的生活滿意度越高。
「母親們似乎並不很期待教育政策的改革,反而比較注重英語、電腦等學習。[而且以孩子成績較差的母親為多]換句話說,母親們並不期待理論性的修改,而是比較重視能實際應用於社會的『實用性教育』。」(頁218)

讀著教育改革和社會結構部份。不禁令我想到,填鴨教育是公平的,學生的成績完全依賴學生的能力和毅力;多元學習是階級的,學生的成績取決於家庭文化涵養。三浦說,社會產業不斷向服務業傾斜,競爭越激烈,越多受薪階層需要周末或深夜工作,使家庭生活品質越來越低,間接妨礙孩子學習能力的發展,形成階級差異擴大和固定的趨勢。

最後,三浦說若將大學比喻為產業,大學也屬於夕陽產業。令我深思。

Tuesday 19 April 2011

Britain vs Europe

It's a great joy to read Richard J. Evans's Cosmopolitan islanders : British historians and the European continent (CUP, 2009), which grew from his Inaugural Lecture as Regius Professor of Modern History at Cambridge in 2009, his literary skill being one of the major factors. Looking at the bar charts he provides on historians working on domestic or foreign topics (from Medieval to Early Modern and Modern), and non-domestic historians working on European or extra-European topics, across the UK, the USA, France, Germany, and Italy, however restricted to his methodology, I found it very engaging and stimulating and it certainly deserves the explanation and observation given from Evans exquisite pen and, to be fair, defense from the Continental European countries in question.


Evans shows that 44% of British historians work on non-British history, while only 23% of French historians, 15% of German historians and 12% of Italian historians work outside the history of their own country. Evans argues that 'British historians are almost twice or even more than twice as cosmopolitan as historians of other major Western European countries' (p. 12)

One might add that, as a reviewer (Robert Gildea, History Workshop Journal, Issue 70, Autumn 2010, p. 239-45) said, in France a historian of Britain would be employed in a languages department rather than a history department. In his review on Evans's book, Robert Gildea lamented that in France leading academics control high-profile series for publishing houses and when one of his books was turned down for translation by a French publisher the only feedback he received was 'Pierre Nora dit non.' French historians are not only academics; they consider themselves to be the high priests of the Republic whose calling is to defend its principles. Their work often privileges a Jacobin-centralist, gender-neutral citizen approach which marginalizes approaches that may subvert that model.

the historiography and themes debated by scholars of Continental history were far more open and less focused on a narrow set of political questions than it seemed to be in the little British history I did...It was not only insular but seemed to argue about the same political topics with all the paths already charted. There seemed little room for branching out and making new paths. (the Cambridge medievalist, Rosamond McKitterick, p. 167)

In Britain, Leif Jerram, who teaches German History at Manchester, "'the world out there' has expectations of historians that go far, far beyond the formation of the nation. In France, Spain, China, Italy, 'the world out there' does not have these expectations." (p. 7)

Very few non-British historians have made any notable contribution to the study of British history in the medieval period, and few, apart from Americans, to its study in the early modern and modern eras. (p. 10) Andreas Gestrich, Director of German Historical Institutes in London, remarks that "the problem is that present German research on British history is not as strong as British research on Germany." (p. 11) Christopher Duggan, Professor of Italian History at Reading, thinks that "the tradition of studying non-British countries does seem one of the remarkable strengths of British historiography (very few Italian historians, to my knowledge, work on modern non-Italian history)". (p. 5-6)

The French have seldom seen any need to translate history books from English into their own language, since in their view, and with relatively few exceptions, they cover their own history perfectly well themselves. (p. 39) Openness of any kind to foreign contributions to their own history has long been much less common amongst French historians. (p. 36) Robert Gildea, Professor of Modern History at Oxford, comments that there are "a sort of closed-shop of French historian (who also control history series in the publishing houses), who do not want to know what non-French historians think, or think that only French historians understand French history." (p. 39) Robert Tombs, who teaches Modern French History at Cambridge, feels that French culture is not very open to outside influences, at least no compared to British. (p. 38) Peter Jones, who worked in France for many years, notes, "I am struck, even today, by how reluctant the French are to travel and uproot themselves even within their own country." (p. 206)

The frequency of translation of British historical works into European languages is all the more remarkable since it is undertaken on an entirely commercial basis. The German government had for a long time provided subsidies through the Inter Nationes organization for translating German books into other languages, the French government has done the same thing through the Office du Livre, and the Italian government provides a similar service too. (p. 22)

Saturday 16 April 2011

am I permitted?

the world is divided into people who wait for others to give them permission to do the things they want to do and people who grant themselves permission.

Lynn Seelig's What I wish I knew when I was 20 : a crash course on making your place in the world (New York: HarperOne, 2009), p. 57.

Wednesday 13 April 2011

what went wrong?

We all have experienced failure in one way or the other. There are times when we make mistakes, misunderstand someone, underestimate others, and overestimate ourselves. To err is human. Being wrong is easy. Admitting it is hard.


To use Kathryn Schulz's words, the author of Being wrong : adventures in the margin of error (New York: Ecco Press, 2010), "if you haven't experienced them, you haven't fully lived. As with love and loss, so too with error. Sure, it can hurt you, but the only way to protect yourself from that potential is by closing yourself off to new experiences and other people. And to do that is to throw your life out with the bathwater." (p. 200)


Schulz quotes the New York psychoanalyst Irna Gadd that our capacity to tolerate error depends on our capacity to tolerate emotion that require us to feel something: a wash of dismay, a moment of foolishness, guilt over our dismissive treatment of someone else who turned out to be right. True, we are too exhausted or too sad or too far out of our element to risk feeling worse. Rigidity serves to protect a certain inner fragility. (p. 199)

Tuesday 12 April 2011

City class

My class on City is coming to an end this week. It forces me hard to think about the following questions raised by the urban studies theorist Richard Florida (Who's your city? : how the creative economy is making where to live the most important decision of your life (Toronto: Vintage Canada, 2009)):
  1. How do you like the place you're living now? Is it somewhere you really want to be? Does it give your energy? When you walk out onto the street - or the country lane - in the morning, does it fill you with inspiration, or stress? Does it allow you to be the person you really want to be? Are you achieving your personal goals? Is it a place you would recommend to your relatives and friends?
  2. Have you thought about moving? If so, what are the top three places on your radar screen? What do you like about them? Specifically, what do you think they offer your? How would your life be different in these places?
  3. Have you ever sat down and compared where you're living now to those places? Honestly, have you given this a fraction of the thought and energy you've given to your job and career prospects, or if you're single, to your dating life? (p. 9)
He gives three key ideas about choosing the ideal cities:
  1. Despite all the hpye over globalization and the "flt world," place is actually more important to the global economy than ever before. (couldn't agree more)
  2. Places are growing more diverse and specialized - from their economic makeup and job market to the quality of life they provide and the kinds of people that live in them.
  3. We live in a highly mobile society, giving most of us more say over where we live. (p. 13)
Will you be living in Hong Kong in 2020? Will I? Perhaps. 


All the best to you all.

Monday 11 April 2011

讀陳之藩三

《劍河倒影》是陳之藩在劍橋大學「攻讀」(時任Fellow)博士學位的三年間(1969-71)寫下的散文,共有十三篇散文(另加序:如夢的兩年):
  1. 實用呢,還是好奇呢?
  2. 理智呢,還是感情呢?
  3. 明善呢,還是察理呢?
  4. 一夕與十年
  5. 王子的寂寞
  6. 自己的路
  7. 圖畫式的與邏輯式的
  8. 勇者聲音
  9. 古瓶
  10. 羅素與伏爾泰--兼答林語堂先生
  11. 風雨中談到深夜
  12. 噴煙制度考
  13. 不鑄不錯
中國人到劍橋,想不起徐志摩,就會想起李約瑟;前者的浪漫使人沉醉,後者的勇氣令人肅然。〈實用呢,還是好奇呢?〉討論李約瑟。假如說李約瑟中年出家,研究起中國科技史來,是出於好奇的話,「我們反過來問,我們能不能找到一個中國的李約瑟,以半生的時間,淹在南港的書庫裏去研究歐洲的科學史來解答這個問題:『歐洲近五百年的科學發展主要是為了「好奇」。這個假設是對呢?還是錯呢?』」(頁5)陳氏續談:「我掩卷凝思了半天,我想在中國目前還找不出這樣一個『笨』人來。也就是說,在這種笨人不能產生之前,我們所謂的科學,還是抄襲的、短見的、實用的,也就是說,真正的科學是不會產生的。」(頁6)中國近百年的歷史中,沒有多少笨人,也沒有多少人願意當個笨人,更是容不下笨人。
人生的目的是什麼?人生的光榮又是什麼?神甫說:「是見到受餓的人分給他一塊麵包;見到受凍的人,送給他一件衣服。把那個醉倒的人扶住,把那個跌例的人攙起,凡是自己覺得是善的就直捷了當的作出來。人生的光榮,是不踏死路旁快死的蟲,是不摧殘樹下受傷的鳥,是把自己口袋裏的錢分出一半來給一個需要那一半錢的同類!」(〈明善呢,還是察理呢?〉,寫於1969年10月14日,頁 18)
半陰不雨的英格蘭天氣是什麼個樣?陳氏寫道:「如果用畫筆畫呢,兩筆似乎就夠了。先用墨在筆沾點水,在上面一抹,那是天;然後再加點綠在下邊一抹,那是地;這幅灰、暗、冷、清的畫面差不多算完了。當然在這兩抹之間,偶爾有些笨樹,像八大山人之筆所畫的,乍看起來很笨的樹;偶爾有些老屋,像美國那位老祖母畫家所畫的類似童畫的那種老屋。這整幅天氣給人的印象,正似英國人的言談與神色:低沉又暗淡......」(〈自己的路〉,寫於1969年11月21日,頁36-37)
書生憂國,陳氏是典型。「我常常想:我們中國如果有個劍橋,如果出個凱因斯,也許生靈塗炭不至於到今天這步田地。因為沒有真正陶鑄人才的地方,所以沒有真正人才出現;因為沒有澄明清晰的見解,所以沒有剛毅果敢的決策與作為。」(頁56)「那麼,怎樣才能辦出一個劍橋來?校旁挖一條河?多買些茶壺茶碗?教授自掏腰包?學生辯到深夜?我有時感到困惑,有時又感到焦灼!」(〈勇者的聲音〉,寫於1969年12月29日,頁57)

Friday 8 April 2011

Rider, Elephant, and Path

how could you move an elephant? Each has an elephant living comfortably inside the mind. Chip and Dan Health tell us how to motivate the elephant, i.e. how to change. I found their recent book Switch: how to change things when change is hard (New York : Broadway Books, c2010) thoughtful and engaging. Here I quote:

For things to change, somebody somewhere has to start acting differently. Maybe it's you, maybe it's your team. Picture that person (or persons).

Each has an emotional Elephant side and a rational Rider side. You've got to reach both. And you've also got to clear the way for them to succeed. In short, you must do three things:

DIRECT the Rider
- follow the bright spots. Investigate what's working and clone it.
- script the critical moves. Don't think big picture, think in terms of specific behaviors.
- point to the destination. Change is easier when you know where you're going and why its worth it.

MOTIVATE the Elephant
- find the feeling. Knowing something isn't enough to cause change. Make people feel something.
- shrink the change. Break down the change until it no longer spooks the Elephant.
- grow your people. Cultivate a sense of identity and instill the growth mindset.

SHAPE the Path
- tweak the environment. When the situation changes, the behavior changes. So change the situation.
- build habit. When behavior is habitual, it's "free" - it doesn't tax the Rider. Look for ways to encourage habits.
- rally the herd. Behavior is contagious. Help it spread. (p. 259)
The Heath brothers identify twelve common obstacles that people encounter as they fight for change, and provide some advice about overcoming them.
  1. people don't see the need to change. advice: find the feeling, create empathy, tweak the environment.
  2. I'm having the "not invented here" problem: people resist my idea because they say "We've never done it like that before."advice: highlight identity, find a bright spot that is invented here and clone it.
  3. we should be doing something, but we're getting bogged down in analysis. advice: find the feeling, create a destination postcard, simplify the problem by scripting the critical moves.
  4. the environment has shifted, and we need to overcome our old patterns of behavior. advice: create a new habit, set an action trigger, script the critical moves
  5. people simply aren't motivated to change. advice: create a new identity, create a destination postcard, lower the bar, use social pressure, smooth the Path
  6. I'll change tomorrow. advice: shrink the change so you can start today, set an action trigger for tomorrow, make yourself accountable to someone.
  7. people keep saying, "It will never work." advice: find a bright spot, engineer a success, carve out a free space for some who do think it will work
  8. I know what I should be doing, but I'm not doing it. advice: create an Elephant problem, lower the bar, tweak the environment, get someone else involved to spread the influence
  9. you don't know my people. They absolutely hate change. advice: question: how many of your people are married or have a child?
  10. people were excite at first, but then we hit some rough patches and lost momentum. advice: focus on building habit, remind people how much they've already accomplished, teach the growth mindset.
  11. it's just too much. advice: shrink the change, develop the growth mindset
  12. everyone seems to agree that we need to change, but nothing's happening. advice: script the critical move, create the Path, find a bright spot (p. 261-4)
Finally, I am looking forward to visit the book's website: www.switchthebook.com/resources. Their earlier book includes Made to stick: why some ideas survive and other die (2007), which I read some time ago.

Tuesday 5 April 2011

animal turn

I just read a paper by the Geographer Philip Howell of Cambridge about race, space, and prostitution in colonial Hong Kong ("Race, Space and the Regulation of Prostitution in Colonial Hong Kong," Urban History, Vol. 31, No. 2, pp. 229-248) and then I browsed his website for further information.


Interesting stuff found. He is working on a fascinating project: Social Relations between Humans and Other Animals in Victorian Britain. As a contribution to the 'animal turn', this project looks at the social relation between humans and other animals (humans, we, are animals after all). He says "the 'animal turn' is of significance because by analysing these geographies of human-animal relations, the social relations between human beings themselves can be illuminated, particularly with relation to the nature of the modern social order." The focus of the project is the development of practices of pet keeping. "Pet keeping," Howell argues, "becomes a paradigmatic urban practice, inseparable from the rise of the urban bourgeoisie and emblematic of their values."


It reminds me of a comical urban map of Shanghai in the 1930s showing the whereabouts of famous movie stars and celebrities (perhaps by a tabloid magazine?), in which one of the female movie stars is shown to be keeping a dog in her household, which seems to embody the popular Cantonese saying: living in a western-style mansion and keeping a western dog. How the ideas of pet keeping in cosmopolitan Shanghai had evolved appear to be an interesting area to explore.

Monday 4 April 2011

middle class revisited

The Right's culture warriors did not openly attack the economic position of the middle class, but they did attach the university. In doing so, they created the conditions for repeated budget cuts to the core middle-class institution [i.e. university]. More fundamentally, they discredited the cultural conditions of mass-middle-class development, downsized the influence of its leading institution, the university, and reduced the social and political impacts of knowledge workers overall. (italic original. p. 11)


The middle class as an emerging anti-conservative bloc (p. 46):

Domain
Challenge
Middle-class bulwark
Emerging nonconservative middle class
Politics
Multiracial mass democracy
Expert rule; no power sharing
Majoritarian democracy; antielitism
Economy
Decline of profits, labor conditions
Market, growth, consumption, deregulation
Planned mixed economy; mass affluence; human needs
Culture
Qualitative, context-specific, cross-cultural knowledge
White supremacism; "cultural deficiency" of other groups
Cultural and social equality; self-development; liberation

Christopher Newfield's Unmaking the Public University: The Forty-Year Assault on the Middle Class (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2008).

Monday 7 March 2011

exams, winners, and losers

We should rethink the conventional assumption that an undergraduate university course should be full-time at age 18 or 19. Perhaps we could change social norms so that it is usually part-time, made more accessible to more people, and undertaken later? That would reduce the insane pressure that the demands of university entrance at 18 or 19 now put on student at school, a pressure so antipathetic to the ideal of education for autonomous well-being. It would free up those years from 14 or so for pupils to throw themselves into all kinds of worthwhile pursuits - to lose themselves in them. This would be a far cry from the exam-dominated regime they have to suffer at the moment. It would also do something to prevent the education system becoming a device for separating Life's Winners from Life's Losers. (p. 15-6)
From John White's, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy of Education, University of London, "What does it mean to be well-educated?" Think, Vol. 10 (Summer 2011), pp. 9-16.
Apparently, the ideal education system is one thing and the society another. The cruel fact of the society is that it celebrates winners and keep mercy out of the possible reach of losers and is by all means a winner-take-all playground. Pick winners sooner and kick losers not later.

point of view

After a number of years of teaching and communicating with university students, I found the following observation sound and true.
Most undergraduates arrive on campus with fairly well formed political beliefs. The students drawn to our views are always those who already share them. We put ideas out for consideration. They can take them or leave them. Then we each get on with our lives. (Cary Nelson's No university is an island: saving academic freedom (New York : New York University Press, 2010), p. 14)


Friday 4 March 2011

Hongkong and others

鄭宏泰、黃紹倫:〈香港歐亞混血買辦崛起之謎〉,《史林》,2010年第2期,頁1-14。
Shu-Yun Ma, "The Making and Remaking of a Chinese Hospital in Hong Kong," Modern Asian Studies Advance Access, 2011, 24pps. Tung Wah Hospital's role from the bubonic plague in 1894 to the SARS outbreak in 2003.
Flore Chevaillier, "Commercialization and Cultural Misreading in Dai Sijie's Balzac et la petite tailleuse chinoise," Forum for Modern Language Studies Advance Access, 2011, 15pps.

Wednesday 2 March 2011

Emotions

Nearly a year ago before setting off to Shanghai and then Edinburgh in May and June respectively, I made a list of papers, not too long I think, to read after the summer.

One of them is "Forum: History of Emotions," German History, Vol. 28, No. 1, 2010, pp. 67-80. The forum was formed by Frank Biess (University of California, San Diego), Alon Confino (University of Virginia), Ute Frevert (Max-Planck-Institut fur Bildungsforschung), Uffa Jensen (Universitat Gottingen), Lyndal Roper (Oxford University), and Daniela Saxer (Universitat Zurich/ETH Zurich).

from cultural turn to an "emotional turn" in cultural studies in light of massive increase in interest in emotions among historians, humanists, and natural scientists.


Tuesday 1 March 2011

國民黨在香港

抗戰以來,香港地位日形重要。僑港同胞數逾百萬。雄於資者富商巨賈、饒於力者技術專才、社會中堅、國中耆碩薈萃於此,盛極一時,潛蓄力量至為豐厚。
惟是分子複雜,意向紛歧,各自為營,漫無中軸。依違之間,端視吸引有如素絲隨薰成染。苟能及早運用黨國力量,收而納之於抗戰建國之一途,無形之中蔚成黨力,效果所至,未可限量。
敵方近亦有見及此,正積極運用其懷柔政策,妄冀與我爭取民眾,廣布諜網,肆意活動。意志薄弱者流,最易墮其殼中,殊屬可慮。夫城可棄,士可焦,民眾萬不可失。此誠千鈞一發之時也。
故香港一隅之在今日,就資源、力源之接濟,儼成重要之後方,而就政治上我敵間之尖銳暗鬥,又隱同緊張之前線。故黨力之及時運用於香港,在整個抗戰方略中實佔重要之成分。

羅翼群、區芳蒲:〈港澳黨務視察報告〉(1939年3月25日),《朱家驊檔案 ‧ 香港黨務》(檔案2號30-3),台北中研院近史所。引自金以林:〈戰時國民黨香港黨務檢討〉,《抗日戰爭研究》,2007年第4期,頁85。

弟[吳鐵城,港澳支部主任委員]奉總裁[朱家驊]密命來港主持黨務,指導一切,另由中央常會第一一九次會議決推派弟任駐港宣傳專員,辦理關於閩、粵兩省戰區宣傳事宜。此間辦事處已於東日成立,開始工作。印刷公司及報紙亦正在積極籌備,至遲月杪必可出版。港方黨務未能公開活動情形,兄所探知。在此情況之下,對內推動並無問題,而對外名義須預為假定,以求適應環境,庶可推行盡利。(〈吳鐵城致朱家驊快郵代電〉(1939年5月4日),專引自金文,頁89)
總支部對外名義決定為「西南圖書印刷有限公司董事會」(〈高廷梓[港澳總支部書記長。廣東新會人,北大哲學系畢業,哥倫比亞大學博士]致朱家驊函〉(1939年5月22日,專引自金文,頁90)

西南圖書印刷公司作為國民黨宣傳書刊的印刷所,印刷及出版多種書刊,如董顯光的《總裁傳記》(1938),葉靈鳳的《忘憂草:散文隨筆集》(1940),馮焯芬的《政治改造》(1941)。又,國民黨在港機關報《國民日報》(1939-),是於1939年7月成立,陶百川任社長,由攞花街二十五號余大年督印。另外,印行廣東文物展覽會的《廣東文物》(1941)的中國文化協進會,大概與國民黨也有點關聯吧?

又可參考李盈慧:〈淪陷前國民政府在香港的文教活動〉,載港澳與近代中國學術硏討會論文集編輯委員會編:《港澳與近代中國學術研討會論文集》(台北:國史館,2000),頁441-476。劉維開:〈淪陷期間中國國民黨在港九地區的活動〉,《港澳與近代中國學術研討會論文集》,頁477-499。

Tuesday 22 February 2011

the fate of the humanities

The humanities has been in crisis for more than a century. Corporate interests and values are eroding the ideals of the liberal arts and transforming the university into a thoroughly businesslike workplace. Humanists, as I myself am, are always there to defend our values and endeavour to awaken people souls and mind.

In his The last professors : the corporate university and the fate of the humanities (New York : Fordham University Press, 2008), Frank Donoghue rightly upholds that the terms of today's hostilities are the product of a long evolution, and that the batter will not end abruptly any time soon. In other words, I would say, it is necessary to forget unrealistic hope and be firm with our values.

At the heyday of American industrialization at the turn of the twentieth century, two prominent industrialists Andrew Carnegie and Richard Teller Crane represented the earliest and sharpest critics of liberal arts education. Carnegie considered traditionally educated students as "adapted for life on another planet" whereas Crane joined him by adding that no man who has "a taste for literature has the right to be happy because "the only men entitled to happiness in this world are those who are useful"; in other words, liberal arts students who pursue "impractical, special knowledge of literature, art, language or history" were not entitled to be so. (p. 4-6)

It's sometimes depressing to teach on the one hand (I hope you know what I mean) ; and, on the other hand, it could also be very fulfilling to teach a handful of serious faces who are eager to learn more about the topic/field you are most interested. Donoghue quotes, from some sources, a few magic moments in the classroom rewarding enough to offset the down side of teaching:

"I love the energy of the classroom and those special moments when I can do something good, when I see their eyes glowing and their faces shining, knowing that I am teaching them, I am doing something worthwhile."

"The rewards of teaching may be intermittent and transparent...It take only one serious inquiry, one student who genuinely wants to know why a certain painting looks the way it does...a single pair of shining eyes in your dim classroom that conceals out all the dulled ones...those brief flames in your teaching week are a kind of fuel. They are enough to sustain you from class to class. There are moments when...you feel that you're not speaking into the void the way you thought, that you are having en effect on how people think about life and reading." (p. 64)

The Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA's survey of incoming freshmen has asked its respondents to rank 20 goals that they hope to achieve by going to college. In 1971, the top three answers were "to help others who are in difficulty" (68.5%), "to become an authority in my field" (66%), and "to keep up to date on politics" (57.8%).

In 2001, the survey found that "being very well-off financially" (fifth in 1971) topped the list at 73%, "to help others who are in difficulty" had slipped to 61.5%, while "keep up to date with political affairs" had dropped to 28.1%. What does the change imply? Donoghue rightly argues that today's student, on the one hand, have been forced to approach college as apolitical egoists; and, on the other, they see college primarily as an investment in their personal financial future, the expense of which must ultimately be justified. (p. 91)

Friday 18 February 2011

讀陳之藩二

《在春風裡》後,我捧起《劍河倒影》和《時空之海》,都是牛津香港版(2003及2004)。
《時空之海》收集陳之藩從上世紀八、九十年代至現世紀初二十多年間,寫於波士頓、台南和香港的散文,所以叫做《時空之海》。
《時空之海》共有十六篇散文(含序):
  1. 一百與一百二十五--談愛因斯坦致羅斯福的一封信
  2. 進步與保守
  3. 時間的究竟--序《愛因斯坦的夢》
  4. 三部自傳--哈代、溫納與戴森
  5. 時空之海--布萊克的一幅畫
  6. 鉛筆與釘子
  7. 莫須有與想當然
  8. 數學與電子
  9. 作家與版稅--塞萬提斯吃什麼,
  10. 談忠藎--今日朝廷須汲黯
  11. 談典故--雪夜燈前.作者答問
  12. 河邊古屋
  13. 駕快車與開飛機
  14. 閒雲與亂想
  15. 山色與花光
  16. 香港觀感
〈進步與保守〉(1988年6月22日在中央大學畢業典禮上講)中說到:「如果中國文化是犯了滔天大罪的一個罪犯,也需要請一律師為之辯護,這是人類起碼的文明。萬一在辯論中發現了百分之九十九為非,這百分之一的是仍是有存在價值的。因為文明不是忽有一天從天上掉下來,也不是忽有一夕由地下挖出來的;而是多少年多少人的血汗浸漬出來的。誰也沒有權利把它一筆抹殺。(頁5-6)談到胡適之「常常提到,過激的主張也許可以由社會的惰性所中和」。「但胡適之先生沒有預料到的是中國社會的沒有重量。也就沒有惰性,是一群輕飄飄與一種一窩蜂的文化,讓魯迅這種颶風一吹,就大風起兮雲飛揚。」(頁8)
〈時空之海--布萊克的一幅畫〉(1995年寫於台南)談布萊克(William Blake)那首〈無邪的占兆〉的中譯:
一粒細沙裏有一個世界;
一朵野花裏有一個天堂。
還有
一砂一世界;
一花一天國。
(原文:To see a world in a grain of sand;
And a heaven in a wild flower; 接著是
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.)
〈鉛筆與釘子〉最令人動容,臨書而扼腕。前者是物理學家趙忠堯(楊振寧、李政道等的老師)由回國後在昆明的專業,做鉛筆;後者是工程材料學家陸志鴻在重慶時的專業,做釘子。生物工程學家馮元楨說:「國家眼看就要亡了,回國的學者們,不知道能貢獻什麼可以挽救危亡於萬一」「國家就要亡了,大家能做點什麼對國家才有貢獻,不僅是毫不遲疑的馬上捲起袖子去幹,而且是歡天喜地的鄭重其事的去做。趙忠堯的做鉛筆,陸志鴻的造釘子,只是成千上萬的這類故事之一二罷了。」「馮元楨非常平靜的說。我卻不能像馮教授那樣平靜,我只覺得眼睛越來越模糊。」(頁41)我也慢慢地失去視覺了......
〈莫須有與想當然〉。面對如何對待學生疑似抄襲,陳之藩的一位同事說:「如果你不出你學生是抄來的,你就不能說他是抄來的〔按:這是為人師表的水平不夠〕。你的學生並沒有義務去證明他不是抄來的,這是羅馬法的精神;文明與野蠻的分際,就在這麼細微的差別上。我覺得這是常識,你卻覺得這是個問題,好奇怪!」我也有過受屈的經驗,那個教授真不是一般的平庸。
〈談忠藎--今日朝廷須汲黯〉。商務印書館的張菊生編《中華民族的人格》,列出公孫杵臼、程嬰、伍尚、子路、豫讓、聶政、荊軻、田橫、貫高諸人,「有的是為盡職,有的是為知恥;有的是為報恩,有的是為報仇;歸根結果,都做到殺身成仁。」張氏寄胡適一冊求序。胡適回覆道:「事蹟不限於殺身報仇,而要注重有風骨、有肩膀,挑得起國家重擔子的人物,故選荊軻不如選張良,選張良不如選張釋之與汲黯。」陳氏列出胡氏所選代表「中華民族的人格」的人物:漢:張釋之、汲黯;後漢:光武皇帝、鄧禹、馬援;三國:諸葛亮、曹操;晉:杜預、陶侃;唐:太宗、魏徵、杜甫、陸贄;宋:范仲淹、王安石、岳飛、文天祥;明:劉基、方孝孺、王守仁、張居正;清:顧炎武、顏元、曾國藩。(頁54-56)
〈河邊古屋〉引維根斯坦說:「語言如同都市的房,有些新的,有些舊的,永遠是新與舊夾雜在一起。」(頁71)

Thursday 17 February 2011

Recent readings XXVI

Ross Bassett's "MIT-Trained Swadeshis: MIT and Indian Nationalism, 1880-1947," OSIRIS, Vol. 24, 2009, pp. 212-230. Indian MIT-trained engineers, often from elite families, formed a technological elite. What about Chinese American(British? European?)-trained engineers? Top and second tiers?

Grace Yen Shen's "Taking to the Field: Geological Fieldwork and National Identity in Republican China," OSIRIS, Vol. 24, 2009, pp. 231-252. Ding Wenjiang 丁文江 (1887-1936) and Zhang Hongzhao 章鴻釗 (1877-1951)

Mark R. Hayllar's "Who owns culture and heritage? Observations on Hong Kong's experience," International Journal of Public Policy, Vol. 5, No. 1, 2010, pp. 24-40. so-called public-private partnerships often involve just government-private interactions, with government failing in any meaningful way to represent 'the public'
Stephanie Po-yin Chung, "Chinese Tong as British Trust: Institutional Collisions and Legal Disputes in Urban Hong Kong, 1860s-1980s," Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 44, No. 6, 2010, pp. 1409-1432.

Fredrik Thomasson, "Justifying and Criticizing the Removals of Antiquities in Ottoman Lands: Tracking the Sigeion Inscription," International Journal of Cultural Property, Vol. 17, 2010, pp. 493-517.
Feng Yi, "Shop signs and visual culture in Republican Beijing," European Journal of East Asian Studies, Vol. 6, No. 1, Jul 2007, pp. 103-28.

Mohd Hazim Shah, "Historicising Rationality: The Transmission of Rationality and Science to the Malay States under British Rule," Asian Journal of Social Science, Volume 35, Number 2, 2007 , pp. 216-241

Stephen Baker, The Numerati (London : Jonathan Cape, 2008). how our behaviour are turning into behavioural data? how possible it is to model a pool of vast information across disciplines into a click or two?

Stephan Fairs, Forecast: the consequences of climate change, from the Amazon to the Arctic, from Darfur to Napa Valley (New York: Henry Holt and Co., 2008. Chinese translation: 《大遷移:暖化如何影響你我的未來》,傅季強譯,台北:天下雜誌,2009)。thought-provoking.
Mark Lynas, Six degrees: our future on a hotter planet (London : Fourth Estate, 2007. Chinese translation:《改變世界的6℃》,譚家瑜譯,台北:天下雜誌, 2010)。engaging and contentious.
Wayne Lotherington, How creative people connect: or are they just dotty? (Singapore: TimeEdge Publishing, 2007. Chinese translation: 《創意沒什麼大不了》,劉盈君譯,台北:天下雜誌,2008)。 quite inspiring.

Wednesday 16 February 2011

黃霑

抬頭望向書架的最頂層,放在《紅樓夢》(多年前從爺爺的書架上帶來)旁的書有張愛玲的《流言》、《第一爐香》和《傾城之戀》,沈從文的《邊城》,徐志摩的《巴黎的鱗爪》和《再別康橋》,聞一多的《死水》,郁達夫的《沉淪》,老舍的《駱駝祥子》,朱自清的《槳聲燈影》,還有黃霑的《不文集》,大抵上都是十多年來買下的。

當中,除了張愛玲外,我幾乎沒有再次和任何一個作者說過話,只有一個例外,是黃霑。最近從圖書館借來黃霑的另一本專欄書:《未夠不文集》,讀來十分過癮。摘錄下來,共諸同好,也讓自己多過點癮:
生平最討厭八婆。八婆平日不會甚麼,只會搬弄是非,但一旦有人有事,就忽然的變成專家,表演機會不可失;時為婚姻顧問,時為殯儀專家,卻是知識少,意見多,唯恐世界不亂。(〈該死八婆〉、〈想摑八婆〉,頁25-6)By definition, 八婆就是過街老鼠,人人得而誅之。
蝦毛自白。我們,游得再好,也不過是一滴污水裏的蝌蚪而已。在水氹裏稱雄,沒有用。汪洋大海做巨鯨,那才是真行。永遠不會因為是淺水中的蝦毛就以為自己是巨龍。(〈蝦毛自白〉,頁32)引以為戒。
罵人心得。罵人在乎對象、方法、時機,缺一不可。對象有級數之分,不夠的,徒費氣力;宜略低一級,高級的最好,不過可遇不可求。方法應該小題大做,題目做不起來的,不罵為佳。竅門在時機,場面熱鬧,喧聲震天,要忍一忍,等待時候才破口大罵,否則喊破喉嚨,嘥聲壞氣。(〈罵人心得〉,頁34)要學要學。
一味關住茅坑門自我欣賞,必是死症。(〈死症〉,頁39)引以為戒。
發財而不立品,真是罪無可恕。有錢人而不立品的,絕對不少,對這些人,我非常鄙視。(〈看不起自己〉,頁40)我城極多。
不看港聞多日,發覺好處甚多。耳根出奇的清靜,大有眾生攘攘,我獨優遊之概。有了片刻安寧,不必心煩氣躁,惶惶然不可終日。(〈且學鴕鳥〉,頁44)十分同意。
窮賊已經可怕,富賊比窮賊更可怕萬倍。......現在香港也有一群伺機而動的富賊。他們的面孔,仁厚忠誠;他們的內心,黑漆一團。他們懂得利用法律,來偷、來搶、來劫掠。他們懂得利用機會來欺騙,來出老千。這幫富賊,我們要慎加防範,因為他們正在我們周圍,我們稍一疏忽,就會被他們所乘。我們心須萬眾一心,保護我們自己的安全和財富的安全,嚴陣防範香港的富賊。(〈慎防富賊〉,頁108)三十年來,富賊仍然活躍。
香港社會,最近有種相當明顯的趨劫--有群中上層階級的人在「標尾會」。這群中上層階級,多數是專業人士,有律師、有醫生、有建築師,都是社會上比較幸運的人。這些人,一向生活活在一般水準之上,而在這不安的氣氛裏,他們的表現,在一般水平之下。平時權利享受到盡,急時義務卻絕無打算承擔,真叫人齒冷。......臨危卸責,已經要不得。臨危而趁火打劫,與人渣無異。......這些人想「標尾會」,只是為了想遠走高飛。......在走之前,用盡千方百計,掩著良心去搶掠錢財,來作自己川資,卻實在要不。而此類人,此時此地,為數不少,想起來,令人不寒而慄。(〈無異人渣〉,頁109)人渣處處有。
你的價值,其實只由你未做的事來釐定,完成了的事,一旦完成,實在就成過去。(〈只許前看〉,頁192)放眼將來。

Tuesday 15 February 2011

又再讀大前研一

你真的甘於成為「低IQ社會」中的一員嗎?
國外演講費(交通、住宿等另計)高達五萬美元(!)的大前研一如是問。看過《M型社會:中產階級消失的危機與商機《再起動:職場絶對生存手冊》等,這次讀《低IQ時代》(臺北:商周出版,2009;劉錦秀譯)。
全書分成十章,按次為:「低IQ社會」的出現,政府製造的不景氣根源就是「智慧衰退」,全體成為經濟白癡(即使零利率也把錢存銀行的國民),政局和「集體智慧」(在「○x」標識中漂流的國民),網路社會和大腦(網路的不良影響論),沒有欲望的年輕人和學力低下,提升「集體IQ」的教育改革,在「低IQ社會」中誰會得到好處?(官僚機構、外國投資客、投資基金),向勝利組學習(如美國、韓國、德國、歐盟、中國等),及21世紀的教養(地球公民責任)。
「低IQ社會」幾乎是大前對當下日本社會的斷語。大前問:
電視之所以會有那麼多「搞笑」、「猜謎」的節目,是不是因為觀眾的程度變低了?
就因為「大家都說好感動」這個理由,衝進電影院看話題電影,然後對人云亦云的鏡頭也覺得感動就心滿意足的人是不是很蠢?
不念書,只想靠腦力激盪鍛鍊大腦的人是不是很笨?
只閱讀內容簡單的書,是因為日本人的解讀能力倒退了嗎?
在「寬欲教育」和「少子化大學全入時代」的影響下,我們大學生真的變愚蠢了嗎?
大前認為:「坦白說,現在的日本人是白癡」(頁310);「日本人沒道理、沒原則、沒理念」(頁312)。大前眼中的日本是全世界「集體IQ」最低的國家,是「低IQ社會」,「從小孩到大人都不喜歡動腦」,「充斥『宛如呆瓜的現象』」。我立刻想到,還應該去日本旅行嗎?但是,九級地震後的日本人的秩序井然和守望相助,卻是有目共睹。IQ高,EQ更高。
「的確人人都不喜歡思考。但是『不思考』的人,並不表示就沒有看法。事實上,他們都是有『意見』的。」(頁46)情緒不是意見,卻又主導輿論。「當有一個主流意見浮上檯面的時候,大家非但不去斟酌其中的涵意,還一起醞釀詭譎的氣氛拱出反對的意見。。。最糟糕的是,大家都捨棄意見,而把應該歸類為國民感情的情緒反應當成了輿論,甚至連政治家的一舉一動都明顯是在迎合這些輿論。」(頁49)
日本的經營者厭惡向亞洲學習,沒有上得了國際檯面的經濟人,能夠在國際會議露臉的日本人屈指可數。(頁68-72)大前是鳳毛麟角。
大多數的國民都不用大腦,只知道和媒體一起瞎起哄,嚷著要政府「想辦法」之後,即不斷重複做出把一切都交給上面處理的選擇。(頁92)
現在的日本還有一股「無法了解就攻擊!」的風潮,甚至連媒體都為這種風潮喝采心動。(頁259)
一些成績不佳的新聞記者,就直接在網路BBS上尋找題材。只要一發現有人的發言和某企業的問題事件有關,就會去盯這家企業,然後誇大其辭加以報導。(頁93)香港不會比日本好。
從事大眾傳播媒體事業的人,他們自覺的速度都非常緩慢,因為他們既沒有時間進修,也沒有求知熱情。每天只是若無其事地在報紙上解說資訊。......其實他們的工作就只是在為垃圾加工。(頁213-4)報紙、電視都已經失去了媒體本來該具備的功能了。但是幾乎所有的媒體人直到現在,都還是抱著狂妄自大的態度,認為「我們就是有本事製造輿論」、「我們就是有能力煽動大眾」。(頁214)
大前強調「頭腦就是武器」。這比起說「知識就是力量」有說服力得多。「不要害怕和別人不一樣。一定要牢牢記住,只有捨棄無差別意識,才能夠不被淘汰繼續活下去。」
大前引述自己在一九九九年出版的《一人獨勝經濟學:放棄選擇的日本人》:「自己沒有判斷的基準,只做逢迎大眾的選擇。在《一人獨勝經濟學》的背面,我們看到獨勝者確認大家的需求之後,再將火力集中在一點之上的行為舉止。這是日本人非常危險的國民性。」(頁36)
大前指出「現代年輕人論」(即是所謂一代不如一代的論調)的根本:大部分還是針對沒有欲望、沒有精神的年輕人抒發自己不滿的情緒。......其根本卻是來自大人們內心的焦急。......但是製造出這種年輕人的,卻是包括我在內的我們這些大人。(頁240)
成長於1980年代後半的世代是有小小的快樂就滿足的「少年JUMP世代」。故事的格局非常小;而主角所獲得的勝利,也不是一種社會性的勝利,充其量只是在身邊的狹小世界中所獲得的一種快樂。......這種世界觀「非常內向」......《少年JUMP》製造了大量只想擁有小小快樂的人。(頁252-3)緊接著是「電玩世代」和「手機世代」。
現在年輕人和比自己年長的「前輩」之間的關係,其實已經進入下剋上,不分長幼的時代了。(頁255-6)
最後,大前反覆強調年輕人必需具備的謀生能力,指的是三種神器:英語能力、金融素養和IT知識,再加上領導力。學生在大學時代就必須把三種神器磨得閃閃發光。(頁302-4)
又,作家石渡嶺司引述在大學課堂上,一名學生問;「教授,報告上的答案,網路上找不到......」(《最高学府はバカだらけ : 全入時代の大学「崖っぷち」事情》(東京:光文社,2007。劉錦秀譯作《最高學府笨蛋一籮筐》))