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2009/9/10 无题是去年的今天还是稍晚几天？
不记得了。 但记得是一个人去的，带了束金黄的菊花。
花瓣聚集了阳光，明亮的暖色，有世间的温度和喧嚣。 差点找不到大门，凭着直觉，穿过尚未竣工的楼群， 终于找见。 惊异于两个世界的紧邻，和毫无芥蒂。
公墓大门在楼群的俯视下变得矮小， 但走进去，外面的世界便像关掉的投影一样缩回胶片，
一下子小到微不足道，以至消失不见。
忽然想起张爱玲那句：变得很低，低到尘埃里； ----完全的不着调。 下一句：在尘埃里开出花来； 反倒有点物质永恒，生命流转的意思。 只是那天的花是我带去的，凡间尘埃里开出来的花。 阳光很热，汉白玉是凉的。
石头仿佛会吸取热量， 菊花在白色的石头上失去了温度， 虽然还是暖色，亮的刺眼。 那团亮黄在凝视里变得模糊， 又渐渐清楚。 闭眼，黑暗里一片菊花形的光，像一团火焰。 我把想说的话说完，也没有几句，
每次都是。 其实都在心里，您也知道。 说的多了，又白白担心， 每次都是。 走出墓园，间或地眨着眼， 瞬间的黑暗，和瞬间黑暗里的火焰。 这样就好。我也只想这样。 2009/8/15 it just came to me...that parents should never spoil a child,
or keep him or her from the real world in the name of protection,
for it would backfire,
for if he or she grows up slower than average kids,
he/she would find life too tough to appreciate,
when he/she finally has to grow up.
2009/7/28 toilet literature on campushave been busy and busy...and busier...but not progressive with my reading. cannot think of anything to say, but just read something in the toilet which i found really interesting--something that's posted on the toilet door from inside, which goes roughly like this:
"When you use these toilets please consider others and make sure it is fully flushed--even if it means you need to do it several times until it is clear." (in print, big black bold letters, styled 'Times New Norman' on a piece of A4 paper)
then someone else answered below on the margin of the page in handwriting, with a blue ball pen:
"Do you suggest spending 10 to 15 minutes each time waiting to have enough water accumulated? One flush is enough. Anyway, it is a toilet--not an art gallary!"
well, it is purely citation from others but there is no way i could find out who the authors are and i'm not sure whether anyone will claim copyright of it--but as far as copyright is concerned, i'll have to make a disclaimer (in case of plagiarism) that it seems it is a piece, or rather two pieces of work by two female Phd students in the University of Aberdeen--God bless academics!
and, personally i guess sometimes two flushes might be needed, and the claime of "10 to 15 minutes " is definitely exaggerated--it takes 1 to 2 minutes, to be sure. 2009/7/13 eatable nasturtium 旱莲（nasturtium）可以吃——它的幼苗就是水田芥。有人知道吗？我是前天才知道。没有一丝异味，叶子是脆的，花是绵的。是当天的5人晚餐，在生菜里点缀了几朵花和叶子，淋上酱汁生吃。
是Katelin 和Francis他们带来的——八成是路上在公园里摘的。
当天是Francis的毕业和道别晚餐，他妈妈Julia特地从瑞士赶来参加他的毕业典礼。晚餐地点是我和Sally合住的公寓（Vicky回爱丁堡了）。
Francis和Katelin是一对，非常配。Katelin是我房间的前任住户：上上礼拜四她搬走，礼拜五我搬进来。
3把椅子的吧台不够大，5人铺了个毯子在地板上野餐。
边吃边瞎聊，政治向来是8错的话题，显然有些话题Julia是一边倒的，但是也并不是滴水不透——于是俺借机泼了几盆。
还有宗教。J是Catholic，我没直接说年轻人不信教的越来越多，只是说前德国室友偶尔去教堂是因为觉得去去也没坏处，但周日从来不去——要睡懒觉。J有点无奈的说F从来不去教堂，他妹妹也不去。F说：Mom, come on.
当然——还是旅游，爬山，看风景，咖啡，巧克力这类话题更轻松……J说不列颠没有欧洲大陆那么好的咖啡；F和K推荐Sainsbury自家牌子的巧克力不错——昨天买了，果然不错。
托Francis的福，终于知道怎么关我房间那扇难对付的窗户了。
F和J第二天就走，K下礼拜也去伦敦，那边有份工作等着她呢：小学老师。
K做的榛子麦仁蛋糕相当8错--灰常nutty。除了J吃的比较克制，其余4人都抱着肚子说撑。
结果是：他们仨走了之后，我和Sally愣是出去散了1个小时的步……回来时近半夜，天还是半黑而已；夏天的天黑不透，而且11点才黑，早上4点就亮了。 2009/6/28 A book, and a historical trace from itBook Recommendation: 'The Chinese in America: A Narrative History' by the late historian and writer, Iris Chang.
IT is the real history of Chinese immigrants of several generations in the United States, with all the almost second-to-none endavour of survival. Being a second-generation Chinese American, the auther even let express some confusion in her writing--some mixture of both approval and dissapproval to the American values and mainstream (namely white) society, some bewilderment that is clearly out of a deep-felt pain of being denied and accepted in different senses at the same time.
Accidentally, I found something interesting from this book. Guess many of us have seen the american movie 'the big fish', in which there's a Chinese drama actress--or two--twin sisters who share one trunk who became a celebrity after getting popular with their performance. This character might seem odd to Chinese audience--at least to me, for I even took it as another instance of demonization of Chinese people that has been quite common in American pop culture all the time till today. interestingly after reading the first half of the book(I'm still reading it), I found the possible trace: it might be a combination of the two--in fact three--persons: the twin brothers Chang and Eng Bunker who chared a trunk, and the first American Chinese actress Anna May Wong, rather than a totally made-up figure. See pictures--found some clue?
    * all pictures above are photographed from the book
It is worth noting that Anna May Wong had never been granted any 'good' or even normal movie characters all her life. All she got were evil or seductive ones that took on the 'Oriental' characteristics deeply rooted in mainstream American mindset. In the movie 'The Good Earth' of Pearl S. Buck's novel of the same name, she was denied to star as the Chinese heroin, O Lan--who was eventually performed by an Caucasian actress Luise Rainer, and won Rainer the Oscar prize of the year 1937.
Luise Rainer: Does she look like a Chinese somehow? the bitter look--kind of obedience that characteriezed Chinese women?
 * origin: wikipedia 2009/6/18 烤了吃简单的懒人烤箱饭若干。好处是不用洗多少餐具。。。当心烫手！
茄汁三文鱼：把事先抹好盐和黑胡椒的一大块三文鱼放进烤盘，倒入一听罐装番茄汤（甜兮兮不好喝）里，再扔一堆洋葱丝和小菜头Brussel sprouts（可以自由发挥，比如甜青豆）进去，190度烤50分钟，好吃——鱼肉很嫩，小菜头粉粉的，汤变得很浓稠——最后汤都没剩。
奶酪蛋羹：1-2个鸡蛋打散，加盐、牛奶、奶酪、番茄块，倒在soufflé杯或者烤碗里，190度30分钟，好吃。
菠菜派：2个鸡蛋打散，加菠菜叶、橄榄油、1汤匙面粉和一点点烤粉拌成糊，倒入玻璃烤盘（事先涂油），180度25分钟，结果变成介于蛋羹和蛋饼之间的一种东西。好吃。
烤蘑菇：胖蘑菇切片、加洋葱丝、盐水橄榄、橄榄油、盐、黑胡椒粉拌匀，180度20分钟左右，表等到冒烟。。
山寨pizza：2片厚面包，堆上事先微波过的甜椒、玉米、豌豆，洒一层奶酪丝和一点点盐，180度15分钟。
Vitamin A: 烤鱼排或鸡肉派、薯条时旁边放一个切开的番茄，番茄上放奶酪外加一点Basil。时间9按鱼排说明书。
待续。。
BTW: 记性不好如俺的，事先拿手机定个闹钟。
2009/6/15 一天1碗麦片，1/2个avocado（不熟），1个白煮蛋，n杯红茶，2杯绿茶，1/3个甜瓜，3个babybel cheese，4个Sultana tea cake rolls，1碗生菜甜椒汤，半个bagel——
仅仅看了‘Orientalism’ 的1/4
这叫……入不敷出？
在别人的博客看见一句话：“大千世界，美好与丑恶并存。你看到怎样的风景，取决于自己的内心。”
唉，好像老早就知道这个道理了，怎么又跟当头挨了一棒似的。记性真差……
火警响了，nnd，不是我那一个半bagel烤糊了吧。。。 2009/6/7 两本书（二）以上引用文字来自第二本书《南京大屠杀：忘却的历史》，今天刚刚读完。这是部历史学著作，对日本战前的一段历史有重点的描写，对日本人的文化、心态也略有分析。三个章节分别是三个角度。1南京：南京沦陷—屠杀—外国友人（着重写了拉贝等人——拉贝是德国纳粹党高层）的救助；2国际：信息的国际传播（信息极不完全并受到美、德由利益引发的消减、压制）—世界范围的反应—远东审判；3战后：日本重建—冷战下的日美关系（对日本战犯以及天皇的‘宽大处理’）—冷战下的中日关系—日本右派对此事件以及对战争本身的极端态度；包括长崎市长本岛均的被刺事件：因公开提出天皇对中日战争负有责任；被刺前本岛均已因此番言论被自民党革除党籍。第三章也对比了二战后德国和日本对战争反思的巨大差别，以及造成这些差别的国与国之间的利益关系，冷战背景和1949年中国政府的更替都是不可忽视的因素。（这本书在台湾出版了中译本，不知道在国内有没有——很可能没有。书里对共产党较少提及，但在最后一章提到日本人在中国北方受到“共产党游击队”的有效抵抗，使其较短时间内占领华北的野心大为受挫。）
日本人发动东亚战争也和20-30年代经济危机大有关系，日本经济深受影响。一战后欧美经济恢复，对日本商品的需求下降——对日贸易壁垒普遍增高，贸易歧视令日本的“脱亚入欧”方针大大受挫，注意力重新转向亚洲。还有一点就是野心酝酿已久，从明治时代之前受到美国人的惊吓，憋了一口气，明白了要翻身就得先富国强兵。20年代经济危机开始蔓延时，日本政府已经进入“军事化从娃娃抓起”的阶段，小学教育就是洗脑和体罚的开端，学生自杀则是优胜劣汰。整个教育体制都为计划中的侵略服务，也就是“军国主义”。
日本人南京大屠杀残暴程度至今无出其右，就像前面引用那段话里分析的，原因之一，很可能是种“压迫的转移”。因为除了军国主义教育，日本兵自从入伍，受到的待遇更加残暴，这种残暴产生的怨恨长期被压制、积累，一旦有了“合法的”发泄对象就转变成极端的暴行。
另一个原因来自教育，从小就接受宣传洗脑(Propaganda)，让日本人自以为比所有的种族都优秀，而且不把中国人看作人，因此杀中国人并不是杀人，完全没有罪恶感。（书里还提到，正因为中国人和日本人长相相似，反倒让日本人从某种变态的角度觉得自己那独一无二的优越性受到了挑战，于是更添杀机。）这和德国战前的宣传机器如出一辙。另一本描写纳粹屠杀犹太人的书Hitler's Willing Executioners（希特勒那些积极的刽子手）里提到德国人全民对犹太人的仇恨，也是来自Propaganda——德国人把人分三六九等，最上层的是Nordic（德国，丹麦等北欧人种，普遍具有浅色头发、皮肤、修长等特点），最下面的是非洲黑人。中间是其他白色和有色人种。而犹太人不在人类之列。如果划一道线，上面是人，下面是妖魔鬼怪，犹太人则在线的下方。不但如此，犹太人的存在“威胁到德国人的生存”。德国童谣里也表现出这类种族主义，同样也是“从娃娃抓起”，可谓根深蒂固。所以德国人对犹太人的屠杀也没有罪恶感。战前经济危机让德国人饱受折磨，而希特勒轻易地把普遍富有的犹太人变成了替罪羊——欧洲人对犹太人的歧视有历史渊源：犹太人自从来到欧洲便开始与钱打交道（尤其是放贷），进入资本社会后多经营银行、实业，难免富有，而放贷在欧洲传统价值观里是肮脏的，为人不齿。在人口较少流动的中世纪，价值观来自于封建等级制度，社会分工也相对简单和稳定。作为外来人口，犹太人无法融入传统等级，比如变成哪个君主的佃农，可供他们选择的职业大概只有“为人不齿”的。两个法西斯国家，洗脑方式惊人地如出一辙。
书中对屠杀等暴行的描写笔墨较多，但是细节不提也罢。
结尾时，作者把南京大屠杀时国际上的反应，与冷战结束时前南斯拉夫塞族对波黑穆斯林的屠杀、1994年卢旺达的Hutus对Tutsis的种族屠杀时国际社会的冷漠类比，反省人类的“事不关己”时的冷漠态度。“Apparently some quirk in human nature allows even the most unspeakable acts of evil to become banal within minutes, provided only that they occur far enough away to pose no personal threat.”虽然作者没有推论这种态度一定会危及自身，就像（忘记从哪儿看来的）“...当纳粹的屠刀举向波兰人时,我还是默不作声，因为我不是波兰人；当纳粹的屠刀举向犹太人的时候，我依然沉默，因为我不是犹太人...当血淋淋的屠刀举向我的时候，我环顾四周，也没人作声，因为再也没有了可以向我伸出援手的人”，但显而易见的是，对这种冷漠持有保留态度。还有一点，作者提到了蒋介石政府在上海沦陷后的撤退，和唐生智如何受命守城，又受命弃城而逃。她并没有对蒋介石在整个事件中的“作用”多费笔墨，而是历史角度的客观记叙。当然用多了“如果”，也并无意义。但读者会得出结论：蒋介石对此事件负有责任。
书中提及南京投降部队、人口与日寇人数的巨大反差（５万日军进城时南京尚有人口５０－６０万，失去指挥官、军心大散缴械投降的中国士兵约９万；无辜市民被屠者，远东国际法庭数字约２６万，多个学者通过不同途径得到结论皆为３０－４０万），束手待毙之普遍、反抗之少，也表达了对被动接受的悲哀——虽然日军用了诱骗的策略。
本书的写作原因来自于作者从小听父母提及的暴行，成年后在图书馆等多种渠道看到的史料，以及大多数日本人、美国人（应该也包括其他国人）对此事件的无知这一事实。日本人在二战中受到的原子弹袭击和最终的战败，导致了他们的被害者心态——加上虎头蛇尾的战后处理，让受害心理在日本国民大有市场，而阵亡或者被处死的战犯成了为国捐躯的英雄。可悲的是这种心态目前仍是日本主流。结尾前作者引用了Carlos Romulo的两句话 "Those who ignore history will become its victims." "The Japanese are a very determined people; they have brains. At the end of WWII, no one thought that Japan would become the foremost economic power in the world--but they are. If you give them the chance to become a military power--they will become a military power." 而在书的开端，作者提到“如果一个民族不正视自己的历史，则不会进步。”
不得不提的是，张纯如已经于几年前辞世。官方的说法是心理疾病造成的自杀。
封底作者像： 两本书（一）1.《菊与刀：日本文化形态》The Chrysanthemum and the Sword: Patterns of Japanese Culture by Ruth Benedict 2.《南京大屠杀：忘却的历史》The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II by Iris Chang （张纯如）。
第一本是两个月前读的（因为有一门课我的论文题目是日本）。作者Ruth Benedict是个人类学家(anthropologist)，这本书的目的是为美国决策层提供对日政策的参考。她从日本封建时代的社会发展入手，用日本文化的基底解构其价值体系，为日本人战时和战后的两种极端表现提供了合理的解释，比如战时宁死不降，却在天皇发表投降演说后却整齐划一而毫无怨言地投降，像书里写的：“令人几乎难以置信的是，与此同时，日本人对战胜国竟如此友好。几乎战争一结束，情况就十分明朗；日本人以非常善意的态度接受了战败及其一切后果。他们以鞠躬致意，微笑招手，甚至欢呼来迎接美国人。这些人的表情既不抑郁，也没有愤怒和敌意”。
根据Benedict的研究，日本价值体系中最大的是“情义”，来自古代武士(samurai)与主君(master)，武士之间的深厚关系(bond & commitment)。所谓的“情义”只在“自己人”之间存在，与陌生人毫无关系。它与“恩”有关又不完全等同，它完全发自内心，也是日本人自我道德衡量的标准。若取其狭义——只用于武士身上，则与近代出现的“武士道”一词大体重合。但是，‘“情义”不仅是忠诚，在特定条件下它也要求背叛。正如他们说“挨了打会成为叛徒”，受了侮辱也是一样。’这里可以看得出，他们做事缺乏一种对与错的判断，没有汉文化中那种“仁义道德”，“以天下为己任”的“大我”，而是颇为唯心地从“小我”以及“我与主君、与自己人”的角度去评判一切。
日本千年前便开始学习汉文化，而且从中国引入了“忠、孝、仁、义”的概念。但是，这些字符在日本的意思已不完全等于汉语原义。引文：
‘日本把道德细化到行为准则，就构成了刚性的东西。7世纪以来，日本从中国引进了一些伦理概念，“忠”、“孝”原是汉语。但是，中国人从来不把这些道德看成是无条件的。中国的忠诚和孝道之上还有更高的道德，那就是“仁”，英文相应的表达一般是“慈善”、“博爱”，但它含义更广，几乎包揽了一切最美好的人际关系状况。父母必须有“仁”；统治者不“仁”就会遭受叛乱和起义。人们是否对皇帝尽“忠”，其前提总是看这位皇帝是否行的是“仁”政。地方官员和其他领袖也都把“仁”放在第一位。它是整个中国伦理体系中，对人的品德和行为的最高判决标准。 中国伦理的这一制高点，日本从未接受。日本学者朝河贯一在论及两个国家的差异时写道：“在日本，这些观点与制度不容，即使在学术领域也不曾全盘接受过。”“仁”被排斥在日本式道德之外，对中国的领袖，至少在表面上“仁”是必须拥有的素质；在日本绝对是份外之事。’
也许可以这么说：日本虽然学习了中国文化，却自身有理解上的局限——结果是学了皮毛，丢了精髓。
‘日本历史故事中两个主题：一个是有错误者向正确者进行报复；另一个是凡受辱必报复，即使对方是自己的主君。这两个主题在日本文学作品中很常见，情节也多种多样。但是，如果考察一下当代日本人的身世、小说及实况，情况就很清楚，尽管他们在古代传统中非常崇尚报仇，在现实生活中则和西欧一样，复仇行为很少见，甚至比西欧还要少。这并不意味人们的名誉观念日趋淡薄，而是意味对失败和侮辱的反应已日益成为自卫性的而不是进攻性的。对耻辱仍然看得很重，但已更多地以自我麻痹来代替挑起争斗。’
但是这种耻辱经过多次“压制”和“自我麻痹”，一旦爆发，造成的破坏性几乎超出人类所能理解。第二本书里对南京大屠杀刽子手的行为分析：
Some Japanese scholars believe that the horrors of the Rape of Nanking and other outrages of the Sino-Japanese War were caused by a phenomenon called “the transfer of oppression”. According to Tanaka Yuki, author of Hidden Horrors: Japanese War Crimes in World War II, the modern Japanese army had great potential for brutality from the moment of its creation for two reasons: the arbitrary and cruel treatment that the military inflicted on its own officers and soldiers, and the hierarchical nature of Japanese society, in which status was dictated by proximity to the emperor. Before the invasion of Nanking, the Japanese military had subjected its own soldiers to endless humiliation. Japanese soldiers were forced to wash the under wear of officers or stand meekly while superiors slapped them until they streamed with blood. Using Orwellian language, the routine striking of Japanese soldiers, or bentatsu, was termed an “act of love” by the officers, and the violent discipline of the Japanese navy through tekken seisai, or “the iron fist”, was often called ai-no-muchi, or “whip of love”. 2009/6/4 Special Address by H.M. Queen Rania of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan at the World Economic Forum in Dalian 2007Rania, voice and frustration from the Muslim world, in a western-dominant global culture. 2009/5/30 《南京南京》转自阿兰扎尔--转自独立影评人崔卫平--的博客In library can't type Chinese. Please use google translation tool although the translation reads weird: http://translate.google.com/translate_t#
Haven't seen the movie. But there's something in the British media supporting this director, saying that he'd been badly insulted by the Chinese audience with many insults quoted. If you know nothing about the real history, and if you know nothing about the big contradiction in the movie, you'd probably think that Chinese audience--then Chinese people in corollary--are barbarian. At least that's my impression from the Guardian, one leading newspaper in the UK. Now that I've read the movie review, I've a clearer picture of how things in China are misinterpreted in the West--we save perceiving whether it is intentional or accidental here. It's true indeed that the Western media are mostly focused on the unfavorable aspects of China, from a biased if not malevolent perspective. It is impossible to make everyone behave as 'good' in all circumstances especially when there are this kind of preconditions. So these 'bad' aspects always exist and these media always find themselves happily revealing this side of China, thanks to which nationalism (from both sides) and racism (their side)are on the rise, given that most people get all their information from them. Is there anything we can do though--retaliation is not wise--albeit it's been the government's tactic, something universal within all states. MAYBE we'll just do our bit, and be less emotional. But that's hard.
在地铁上看的《南京》预告片，感觉非常好。谁料，这短短的几个镜头，已经基本是这部电影的全部精华，我先前猜想陆川会把这部电影导成宏大的灾难片，可实际观影感受正如崔卫平老师用的“荒腔走板”这个词。以下转自独立影评人崔老师的博客： 《南京南京》是一部离奇古怪的影片。其荒腔走板的程度，超出了我的工作范围和工作语言。也就是说，它更像是一部电影习作，而不是能够拿到观众面前的成熟影片。目前更多的讨论停留在这部影片的意识形态方面，还是需要回到影片本身，看看它自己是怎么提供的。 暂且称它为一部失忆的影片。这不是指它与当时历史的某种关系，而是指——在该片本身135分钟的长度之内，它再三忘掉了自己曾经说过什么，好像之前发生的是另外一些事情，显得前言不搭后语，逻辑混乱。 如果说，在一个时间长度之内完成的影片叙事，是一个能量不断积累与不断释放的过程，积累什么便释放什么，这两方面是互相配合的、前后承接的；那么，这部影片所积累起来的东西，与它所释放的东西，主要是南辕北辙的。它所表达的东西，它所提供的内容，本身是分裂的，无法自圆其说的。 影片开头那一大段，南京城沦陷，侵略军尽显凶恶、残暴，刘烨等人高喊“中国万岁、中国不会亡”被驱赶至滚滚长江（这其中问题先不说）。这里积累起来的是对于日本军队的仇恨愤慨，观众的情绪也被调动进入了高潮，头脑中的惨景挥之不去。这是影片本身想要告诉人们的。 紧接着进入观众眼帘的，却是另外一批毫不相干的镜头：一些年轻的日本兵在长江边上休闲娱乐，比赛跳高、互相搓背，想吃妈妈做的山药汤，还跳起了民间舞，再辅之以悠闲的日本小调，看上去像是一群前来旅游度假的大学生。当然不排除在战争期间的某些时刻，这些日本兵也可能会是有人性的，但是按照影片本身刚刚传达出来的内容和积累起来的能量，这样的衔接，可以说是自打耳光：刚才那样血腥残暴的屠杀，难道是这些年轻人完成的吗？他们看上去如此活泼、如此健康可爱，如此富有人情味。除了自打耳光外，也是自取其辱。如此具体的规定性情景，并不是纠缠日本人到底有没有人性这种抽象问题的恰当场所。 那个姓唐的汉奸为了自保，向日本人告密，引来了难民营的大灾难，更多的人们被杀，更多的妇女受辱。这么严重的后果，也许姓唐的开始没有想到，但是它们确确实实发生了，所造成的破坏之大，可以说他想后悔也无法弥补，想承担也承担不了，因而是难以抹杀、无法原谅的。尽管他的女儿也因此遭祸，他的罪过仍然不能因此而抵消。而影片却处理成他由此走上新生，焕然改头换面。仿佛那么一场突然的遭袭，结果却是为了成全一个汉奸其灵魂的得救，在这之前影片所释放的与后面所承接的能量，如此不对称、不般配。 该片中拉贝先生的形象，基本上是比较难堪的。难民营里惨事不断，日本军想来就来，又是强奸又是随意搜索开枪。拉贝甚至还参与动员让一百名妇女充当慰安妇，影片没有具体说明他如何给人们带来保护。但是，这样一个人，他走的时候，为什么人们还要拉着他不放、依依不舍？难道是为了让他有理由对着众人下跪，表示他自感有罪？不应该设想座椅上的观众，他们人人都知道拉贝这个历史上的人物，拉贝为何人是需要通过影片的镜头，一点点交代出来的。顺便地说，该影片对于拉贝的塑造，尤其是与塑造日本人相比，多少给人恩将仇报的感觉。 尤其是那场祭祀是为了什么呢？那么长的时间，那么优美的舞蹈？这与影片其它部分所传达的内容之间是什么关系？是内在的还是游离在外的？影片讲述了太多中国人的死亡和蒙羞，能量的积蓄、观众的悲愤是在这里；然而经过一系列中介和转换之后，得到正式祭祀的却是将皮靴踏在别人家园上的侵略军，他们成了影片中首先需要抚慰的对象，这是哪儿跟哪儿啊，到底是为了什么？ 影片结束时老赵与小豆子走在田野上，绽放出纯朴、憨厚、一点不带保留的微笑。但其实老赵的处境及自由，远不仅是角川的宽大为怀，更有姜老师在前面的牺牲。这位八尺大汉在卡车上一再向姜老师哀求：“救我，救我”，他当然知道这样做给姜老师带来的危险。人在危难之际拼命抓住最后一根稻草这也可以理解，不可以的是，姜老师为你掉入虎口最终送掉了性命，你却转身忘得一干二净。你就这么没有记忆力？！或者仅仅是为了记住日本人的好处，让你自由了，你就有理由彻底忘掉你的同胞此前为你做过和付出的？ 所有这些莫名其妙的东西，都与这部影片最为根本的那个离奇古怪的立场有关：这个叫做角川的士兵，他在现场的种种错愕与困惑的表情，令他看上去更像是好莱坞电影中的初出茅庐的美国大兵，或者一个拿着枪的旅游者，这样的处理与当时整个历史脉络是相悖的。 不是说不能表现一个日本士兵的悔罪或拯救，但是影片花了大量笔墨用来表现日军的残暴、残忍，正面提供了南京沦陷的种种惨景，而不是侧面或零星的；角川始终也没有离开他的部队，没有脱下军装，没有拒绝服从命令或消极怠工，没有足够的证据表明，他与眼前的这场屠杀可以脱掉干系。这么一个人，为什么要急于让他的灵魂反转得救呢？ 尤其是在南京、在南京大屠杀发生之后不久，换一个情景也许更加令人相信一些。说到底，一个日本侵略兵灵魂的得救，难道一定需要中国人亲自插手吗？这件事情是不是交给太阳旗之下的人们更加合适？除了对于侵略者如此细微的体贴，生活在我们这片大地上的人们，难道就没有更加要紧一些的事情可以做了吗？ 类似逻辑混乱的做法，在片中比比皆是。刘烨率先从地上站起来的举动，在具体情景中应该是听从日本人的口令“起立”，去江边赴死；但是影片却将其体态、表情处理为如同听到了歌里唱的“起来！”（“不愿做奴隶的人们”），让人看得十分困惑，不知所云。难民营里为妓女们剪掉头发，当她们反问“你为什么不剪？”如此一来，仇恨的矛头转而针对难民营的管理者，这又有什么理由呢？我还看到有网友提出这样的疑问，当高圆圆声情并茂动员别人当慰安妇，这件事情如果真的如此伟大如此崇高，那么她自己为什么不带头去做呢？这个问题问得好！ 如果今后中国电影中，继续出现拿女性的身体当作国家救赎、民族救赎或者其他救赎的工具（拯救男性），像在《色·戒》中也发生的，觉得那是一个再好不过的有效途径，我就决定以某种方式当一回访民，以此表达我对这类影片永远的抗议。不会是中国的男人们，都更加愿意躲在难民营里，以他们的姐妹们遭受蹂躏，来换取自己的安全和口粮吧？这之后再给她们加上一个崇高的美名，于是便心安理得，同时恢复了其道德外衣。 2009/5/22 Flows of thoughts写论文熬夜到清晨（都没动笔），在msn上碰到一个老朋友。
说了几句话。想送书给她，
但她仿佛并不十分乐意。
大概因为我自己话说的没头没尾，带来的冲撞效果：
清晨三点还在YouTube乱看，不想动笔写论文，
难道化愤懑（对己）为唐突（对人）了？
——极有可能。
或者是境况不同关注事物不同，多年前那种共通消失了。
这也是必然，我喜欢这个解释，
——必然？又见鸵鸟……
再或者是习惯了她的包容，
稍有不同，哪怕是接近我自己的一贯作风，9满脑袋跑黑线。
黑线||| ——黑发……说到这，不得不提de是：
我已经看见几根白线了，
——幻想自己头发都白了时会不会很有型涅？
嘿嘿。
跑题回来：
自己唐突惯了，又不喜欢别人唐突哪怕一点点。
典型的double standard 么；
——介可不好。
说到Double standard，想起George Carlin的脱口秀。
George Carlin是个天才，可惜已经故去了（2008）。 猜他是个Marxist，
他那些看似搞笑的话有很多卓识，
戏说国家、战争时，和学者David Harvey竟有共通之处。
他在脱口秀‘American Double Standard’里的一句话：
This Country (US) is founded on double standard. It was a group of slave owners who wanted to be free!
——实话啊。
在‘Save the Planet’里他这么说（大概）：
"Save the planet? This is the most arrogant thing I've ever heard.
The planet has been here for 4.5 billion years.
And we are here only for 100,000 years, or maybe 200,000.
The world is industrialized for about two hundred years at the most--that changed the environment.
Two hundred vs 4.5 billion!
The planet will be here and we'll be long gone.
Save the planet?! The Planet is fine!
The planet is a self-cleaning system.
It has been through so many catastrophis: earthquakes, tsunamis, ice ages, storms, vocano explosions, destructive star showers----plastic bags?!
..........
We are so self-important. All we want is a clean habitat, clean water to drink and clear air to breathe.
The Planet is fine with the plastics.
The plastics are part of the planet because they came from itself.
Maybe it wanted some plastics in the first place and didn't know how to make it--and that's why it made us humans.
This brings up the philosophical question:
--Why are we here?
--Plastics! ”
原来……
 人类真是……渺小啊渺小。
又成功浪费了半小时……
写我那渺小的论文去了 2009/5/18 'Radical transformation of the system (i.e. capitalist system) needed'--Interview: David Harvey on Current Crisis: Exploring the logic of capitalContent:
Joseph Choonara spoke to acclaimed Marxist theoretician David Harvey about capitalism's current crisis and his online reading group of Karl Marx's Capital which shows the revival of interest in this work. Some commentators view the current crisis as arising from problems in finance that then impinged on the wider economy; others see it as a result of issues that arose in production and then led to financial problems. How do you view it?
It's a false dichotomy that's being posed. There is a more dialectical relationship between what you might call the "real" and "financial" sides of the economy. There is no question that there has been an underlying problem of what I would call "over-accumulation" for a considerable time now. And in part the movement into investing in asset values rather than production is a consequence of that. But as the search for new forms of asset value developed you also saw financial innovation that created the possibility of investment in hedge funds and those sorts of things.
There was a long-term process in which the rich looked for reasonably high rates of return and began to invest in a whole series of Ponzi schemes - but without Bernard Madoff at the top. In the property market, stock market, art market and derivatives markets, the more people that invest, the more prices go up, which leads to even more people investing. All of those markets have a Ponzi character to them. So there is a financial aspect to the crisis but unless you ask why the most affluent were taking that path you miss out on the real problem.
You mention a crisis of over-accumulation. Can you explain that concept?
Capitalists always produce a surplus product. A healthy capitalism has to grow at 3 percent per year; the problem is to find where you can achieve that 3 percent growth. There are various blockages. For instance, if capital is confronting labour problems, then it is hard for it to find an outlet and over-accumulation occurs. If it faces problems in the market, the same issue arises. Over-accumulation is any situation in which the surplus that capitalists have available to them cannot find an outlet, whether through labour constraints, market constraints, resource constraints, technology constraints or whatever.
In this context you have talked about mechanisms such as a "spatial fix" in which surplus capital is shifted abroad rather than accumulated at home. Would you see the growth of the financial system as another type of "fix"?
If you move towards a spatial fix you need a sophisticated financial system to achieve it. To the degree that a spatial fix was being sought after the 1970s, capitalism required a set of international financial institutions that would facilitate the flow of funds to China, India, Mexico or wherever. So the new financial architecture that emerged from the 1970s onwards was, in part, to facilitate ease of capital movement around the world.
But then the financialisation that occurred became an end in itself. You start to find new markets emerging in the 1990s in currency derivatives, interest rate swaps, etc. They grew from almost nothing in 1990 to about three times the output of the global economy in 2006.
The explosion of credit that accompanied this also helped capitalists to hold down wages.
There were many aspects to the crisis of the late 1960s and early 1970s but one fundamental aspect was the power of labour, and breaking the power of labour became terribly important. This was partly done by migration policies, by outsourcing and offshoring, and also by the political attacks by Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and others. By 1985 the power of labour had effectively been broken.
Ever since the 1970s we've been in a situation of what I'd call wage repression in which real wages didn't really rise at all. But that led to problems in the market. If you restrict wages you have a problem with aggregate demand. One way that problem was solved was by giving working people credit cards and allowing them to go into debt. Household debt in the US has tripled in the last 20 years or so.
Again a key role was played by financial institutions. The best example I can think of is financial institutions lending money to builders and developers to construct housing, say around San Diego, then facing the problem of who is going to buy this stuff. The financial institutions then lend to working class people so they can buy the houses. After a while there aren't enough "respectable" working class people to lend to, so they start to lend to those with very low credit ratings, which led to the emergence of subprime over the past five or six years.
The financial institutions have been operating on both sides - the production and the consumption of housing. They brought the whole of the population into a serious state of indebtedness. Now at some point or other, if indebtedness rises to a level that is no longer consistent with income, the thing is going to break down. That's what we're seeing right now.
The bubbles in asset values also concealed some of the problems.
When asset values are rising everybody thinks they are better off. A person who bought a house in 2000 for maybe $300,000 saw its price rise to maybe $500,000 four years later. If they cashed out they were $200,000 richer. Everyone starts to be in that position, not just corporations. So, yes, it conceals what the nature of the problem is. If there is enough collective expectation that the housing market is going to go up forever, you get the kind of asset bubble that goes on and on - until now.
Personally I was expecting a crash in the housing market in 2003. It didn't happen. I kept thinking to myself, am I crazy? It didn't happen in 2004 and I thought, am I even crazier? By 2005 things were getting ridiculous. In the end even I started to believe we were in a different world and that I'd been wrong. Then in 2006 things started crumbling and I realised I'd been right.
When I last interviewed you for Socialist Review in February 2006 you said, "I'm nervous about the possibility of a major financial crisis breaking out in the US." Just how major do you think the current crisis is?
I was nervous about the US situation at the time I brought out A Brief History of Neoliberalism in 2006 and when I brought out The New Imperialism book in 2003. Back then I said that if the US was any other country it would be visited by the IMF. I think one of the things we have to realise is that if there had been a crisis in 2003, it would not have been as serious as the current one. The crisis will now have to take care of the past six years of profligacy.
Also if you compare it to the regional crises that happened before, such as the South East Asian crisis of 1997-98, there was always the US market to sell things to. But today where on earth is your market going to be?
We are in for a very difficult period. I can't see us coming out of this for a number of years. But when I say "us" I think there will be a difference in regional impacts. I guess that while East and South East Asia are in a lot of trouble right now, because of the collapse in export-driven industrialisation due to the contraction of the US market, they are likely to be able to stimulate their domestic markets and come out of this with less violence than, say, the US.
The US is going to have to bear the brunt of this crisis, and of course people there are not used to it. If you lived in Argentina you'd be saying, "Not again!"
You have argued that, while the global role of the US is likely to be diminished, rivals such as China cannot currently take its place.
I don't think China has any interest in supplanting the US as the global hegemonic power. It has a great interest in propping up the US. There is a complicated relationship between the US and China. The US relies very heavily on Chinese investment in the bonds issued by the US treasury. But the move by the US Federal Reserve to put a trillion dollars or so into this market in late March immediately saw the dollar falling.
I worry about what the Chinese will do in the face of a rapidly falling dollar. The US dollar has stayed remarkably stable; in fact it's gained against other currencies in the past six months or so. But that may be reversed. It's a delicate situation.
The Chinese are in a better situation than the US. Their banking system is not disrupted in the same way and they have more room for manoeuvre in terms of their surpluses. If they start to coordinate with Japan and South Korea, and if the Taiwanese throw in their lot with China economically, you're likely to see the emergence of an East Asian collaborative zone. I'd not be surprised to see an East Asian regional bank along the lines of what is being proposed in Latin America.
Regionalisation is one process that we may see, which would leave the US as one powerful region alongside many others and without the power it has exercised over the global economy.
But the problem now is that China is sitting on trillions in dollar-denominated assets.
Yes. They are between a rock and a hard place. If they let the dollar decline they lose money. If they continue to invest in it they may lose even more in the long run. There's considerable debate inside China. When they set up sovereign wealth funds, which invested in, say, the Blackstone Group, and lost money, there was a lot of internal criticism.
If there is a run on the US dollar, which is something I think everybody fears and nobody wants to talk about, then the consequences will be catastrophic. Regional configurations such as East Asia will have no option but to go it alone and the same will apply to Europe and Latin America. It will mean competition between regional blocs, the sort of thing that happened in the 1920s and 1930s with very unhealthy results.
Does the increasingly global nature of production make collapse into protectionism less likely than in the 1930s?
It makes it less likely at certain levels of production but in the face of a crisis you get very rapid reconfigurations. Consider how fast the de-industrialisation of Britain occurred in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The reconfiguration of production relations took place in the space of about ten years. Just because production systems and commodity chains are stretched over multiple spaces it doesn't mean they can't be cut up. You could have China cutting off outside suppliers and adopting an import-substitutionalist policy, which I suspect is going to emerge as a respectable way to deal with the current crisis.
So don't anticipate that just because everything is now more globally connected we can't disconnect it. However, having said that, there are vested interests involved. So there will be a political struggle over this.
On your website davidharvey.org you've been running an online reading group of Karl Marx's Capital. Are you surprised by the massive interest this has generated?
Yes, astonished! It seems to have come out just at the right moment. I get emails from people saying, "I always wanted to read this book and finally I have got through it," which is gratifying. I have tried to lay out something people can understand and work from, and then develop their own political ideas around.
It is important in approaching Capital to have some grasp of the overall dynamics of the system, and not just undertake a close reading of the first volume. How can this be achieved?
People really need to read a lot of Marx - volumes two and three, Theories of Surplus Value, the Grundrisse and so on. But I try to say, in the final lecture I think, that there are things that Marx misses. The nature of his project was the critique of classical political economy as much as it was an analysis of the dynamics of capitalism.
For instance, Marx did not want to deal with the question of interest. But at various points, even in volume one of Capital, the question of interest and credit becomes central - for instance in the discussion of the centralisation of capital and in the chapter on money. There is an issue here of the role of what I call the "state-finance nexus". In the Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels argue for the centralisation of the means of credit in the hands of the state. In the section on primitive accumulation in Capital, Marx talks about the rise of the bankocracy, the rise of state finance and the national debt as crucial moments.
If you really want a good analysis of capitalism, you have to put the question of the state and finance almost up front, whereas Marx puts it at the back - you have to get to volume three of Capital. It can be misleading to concentrate on production rather than, say, the mobilisation of money-capital. There are limits to how far you can take the volume one analysis if you want to understand how capital accumulates and how it circulates.
In your book Limits to Capital you sought to develop a more coherent picture from Marx's fragmentary writings on interest, credit, etc. You seem to imply that more work in this area is needed.
A lot of people have been working on finance capital over the past ten or 15 years and there's now an extensive literature on this. It is valuable work. But one of the problems I have is that it tends to isolate the financial system from the overall dynamics of capitalism - as in the dichotomy implied in your first question.
What routes are there out of the current crisis?
How we come out of the crisis depends fundamentally on the balance of class power. I don't yet see the emergence of a coherent class opposition to the way, for example, that the British or US governments are trying to get out of the crisis.
We are beginning to get a populist outrage, which could produce something equivalent to political movements that have emerged in Latin America. I'm hoping that a coherent movement will start to crystallise which will say, "We don't want to go out of this crisis only to enter an even deeper one in five years time," and which will demand a radical transformation of the system.
The powers that be are trying to come out of the crisis without changing the fundamental dynamics of class power, but there's a widespread sense that these have to change. It's amazing to see the popular discontent here with Barack Obama's economic team. For many of us, the people he selected were appalling. Fascinatingly, many people in the country would probably agree with us. 2009/5/16 地球没事儿 & 大同小异 : Beware of the tricks. --Why are we here?
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Our Similarities
And there are so many truths there.
Differences--that's all the media, the politicians are ever talking about, things that seperate us, things that make us different from one another--that's the way the ruling class operates in any society, they try to devide the rest of the people. They keep the lower and the middle class fighting with each other, so that the rich can run off with all the f~king money! You know--it's anything that makes us different......race and religion, ethnic and national backgrounds, jobs, income, education, social status...that keeps us fighting with each other--so they can keep going to the bank.
But there are these little things we have in common, little universal moments that we share, things that make us the same... ...indeed, we have so many more similarities than differences. 2009/4/22 发自祖国的问候2009/4/4 清明 七年半生死两茫茫，何须十年。从本能的躲到刻意的逃，一开始我就错了。可以不理别人的判断，但不该荒废了自己；害怕失去只是借口，对您也不公平。仍有点不知所以；但我会好好的，往温暖的地方去。不一定让您骄傲，但至少别为我担心。Life for rent--I deserve nothing more than I getI was surprised; it's totally true with me *_*|||
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