tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58725135159676805332024-03-14T10:46:06.049-07:00sofa in the skyratberthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18031292156567998136noreply@blogger.comBlogger659125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5872513515967680533.post-80781970430937877062015-07-09T22:37:00.000-07:002015-07-09T22:37:18.492-07:00empty utah (the suburban turn away)we are staying with my parents in utah this summer. every day i feel two sorts of emptiness, one i crave, the other i detest. the emptiness i hate is the controlled emptiness of house fronts and front yards. it is just display without welcoming, showing off without any compensatory flair or friendliness. blankness is the ideal, erasure of uniqueness and difference. if one has to venture out to ratberthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18031292156567998136noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5872513515967680533.post-34416067130110436082015-06-19T07:51:00.001-07:002015-06-19T07:51:19.264-07:00on charleston and the self-defense liewhen i bought the gun to guard against other drug dealers ripping me off my intention was to defend myself.
when i bought a gun to scare george zimmerman with a warning shot on the highway, i meant to defend myself. he had threatened me. i felt in danger. therefore my shooting at him was an act of standing my ground. my lawyer thinks i have a case.
when i bought a gun to not be pushed around and ratberthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18031292156567998136noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5872513515967680533.post-75527736181075264252015-06-16T06:45:00.000-07:002015-06-16T06:45:20.275-07:00water deliverytoday i held open the door a little listening for the water delivery man. he stopped several times on landings. when he got to the top i saw he was a woman, in calf-length jeans, sweating and hefting the two huge jugs down onto the doorstep. she had delivered to us once before. she was muscled but not as massive as the average man in such work. she did the same work with fewer muscles: she is ratberthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18031292156567998136noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5872513515967680533.post-76326215799113657132015-05-12T21:30:00.003-07:002015-05-12T21:30:37.708-07:00suburbia, segregation machine? suburbs are machines for segregation in two ways: one narrow sense, a racial and class sense which could potentially be overcome with enough political will, and one wider sense, built into the structure of the suburban form itself.
growing up in Madison, CT, i was well aware that the poor and colored were excluded from our grassy, shaded suburban world. a token few urbanites were selected from ratberthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18031292156567998136noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5872513515967680533.post-68693355660166298622015-05-10T09:01:00.001-07:002015-05-10T09:01:28.066-07:00dark morning bloomsit is something else the way a day born in tense darkness, when one lies awake not wanting to wake, can bloom into something bright and rich. 6 hours of sleep seems to be my destined limit, between me going to bed too late and the kids waking who knows when. i brought them downstairs reluctantly after 9. then a 6-year-old girl just back from England with her parents and little brother,ratberthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18031292156567998136noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5872513515967680533.post-80165855750688222132015-04-29T21:37:00.000-07:002015-04-29T22:01:22.794-07:00black lives matter. except when they are flawed. in any way. black lives matter, roars the voice of a movement.
large portions of white america respond: no they don't!
not if they were wearing the wrong article of clothing (trayvon martin's hooded sweatshirt), had a previous rap sheet (freddie gray), a warrant for child support payment delinquency (walter scott), had ever smoked pot, was walking in the street, had been suspended from school, was ratberthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18031292156567998136noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5872513515967680533.post-1959859190201609132015-04-14T23:16:00.001-07:002015-04-14T23:16:35.708-07:00electric wavelast week i got an email from the school (shandong u, my employer) announcing yet another official 'scholarly conference,' and inviting papers for submission. the topic: 'the legacy and innovation of qilu culture.' qilu is the province's nickname, taken from the names of two ancient kingdoms. rather than deleting the email right away, as i usually do when confronted with such officialistic ratberthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18031292156567998136noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5872513515967680533.post-31445829745212508282015-02-23T05:51:00.000-08:002015-02-23T05:51:50.016-08:00some murders are better than othersratberthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18031292156567998136noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5872513515967680533.post-43344508832568306722015-02-23T05:37:00.003-08:002015-02-23T05:37:49.490-08:00the sacred right . . . to parkingratberthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18031292156567998136noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5872513515967680533.post-10876734099394950792015-02-23T00:19:00.003-08:002015-02-23T00:19:47.892-08:00taking them outamerica is a composite structure, at the bottom a nation-state occupying a certain territory; above, an empire stretching across the world. the fact that the two are commonly lumped together tends to confuse these two entities in the minds of citizens. this confusion is very convenient to the pillars of empire -- arms makers, security subcontractors, the 'intelligence community' (sounds so benignratberthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18031292156567998136noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5872513515967680533.post-37563610953159593252015-02-22T05:45:00.002-08:002015-02-22T05:45:45.775-08:00when a language is submergedmy mother-in-law gave me an example of what happens when a language loses its own existence and becomes an adjunct of another, more powerful language. she says lots of young people use a non-taiwanese word for the word 'telephone pole.' it should be 'electric -- talk -- pillar.' (i can't remember how the words sound). but lots of people say 'electric-line-post.' in fact, they are simply using theratberthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18031292156567998136noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5872513515967680533.post-56233671500228838442015-02-22T05:39:00.001-08:002015-02-22T05:39:22.350-08:00day two of the new year 初二day two of the chinese new year is usually when married women can go back to visit their parents. if their parents are dead, they will often go to see their siblings. traffic was terrible that day as we drove to great-grandparent's house; it seemed everyone was on the road, double parked and buying last minute gifts, turning in the wrong place, stopped to buy a late breakfast, whatever. i had ratberthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18031292156567998136noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5872513515967680533.post-68879770444207728792015-02-11T22:29:00.001-08:002015-02-11T22:30:29.114-08:00final exam, shandong University
last semester i was forced, finally, to give an official final exam.all the students' names, numbers, and photos are provided to the two test monitors; during the test, school-level inspectors entered the room to check on the monitors. the photos are meant to prevent substitute test-takers.
a seating chart dictates where each student will sit.
the monitors cut open the official ratberthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18031292156567998136noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5872513515967680533.post-47164561472314582402015-02-11T21:51:00.002-08:002015-02-11T21:51:53.851-08:00leaving portit is funny, sort of, thinking back to my leaving taiwan last year to return to shandong in late february. i decided to try the ferry, which i had heard about from one of sara's friends. a four hour sailing to fujian province across the strait. i was so nervous on the way to taichung harbor. i had not travelled alone in quite a long time. the day seemed fine, a slight wind; on facebook i had ratberthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18031292156567998136noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5872513515967680533.post-10004522187548114672015-02-11T21:27:00.000-08:002015-02-22T23:53:19.146-08:00naming alien foodsthe so-called 'columbian exchange,' in which species from old and new worlds crossed to the other side after 1492, brought new crops to all parts of the world. in China and Taiwan, their names sometimes reflect this alien provenance.
green onion, which is native ('cong'), has a 'foreign' (yang) added to it to mean 'onion' -- 'yangcong' 洋葱 (foreign cong).
tomato has two names: one, 'fanqie,' ratberthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18031292156567998136noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5872513515967680533.post-74620096517088927822015-02-11T21:20:00.003-08:002015-02-11T21:20:21.557-08:00aboriginal tv newsnorth america and taiwan were settled at roughly the same time, beginning in the early 1600s -- one from northern europe, one from china. both streams of settlers encountered people already living there. colonial americans largely revolted against royalist attempts to constrain their movement, most notably in bacon's rebellion in virginia, setting a pattern for elite attempts to prevent friction ratberthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18031292156567998136noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5872513515967680533.post-63734419404759298422015-02-11T21:07:00.000-08:002015-02-11T21:07:02.337-08:00a fascist echo, in taiwanon tv yesterday i saw a group of officials taking their oath of office: they stood, heads bowed, facing a portrait of Sun Yat-sen, the 'father of the nation,' one arm held straight out, palms down, toward the visage of the long-dead man. wait: were their heads bowed? am i mixing up what i saw with other images? like the two black athletes, carlos johnson and who else, in their gesture of protest ratberthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18031292156567998136noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5872513515967680533.post-69406141040799582782015-02-10T02:52:00.002-08:002015-02-22T05:50:17.647-08:00vegetable truck at nightlast night as i carried pax toward home in a dark lane we heard music -- a jaunty popular tune, reedy and wavering out of speakers, the sort of tune older people here might associate with more optimistic times when taiwan was on the upswing. the music got closer. probably an advertising truck like the one broadcasting for an eyeglass store the night before ('you shi,' or 'superior sight,' punned ratberthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18031292156567998136noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5872513515967680533.post-26691383696543480142015-02-09T23:46:00.002-08:002015-02-09T23:46:17.110-08:00plane in the river (1)The first image we saw of the TransAsia flight was on the TV news in a noodle shop in Tongxiao. It was still, part of the fuselage sticking out of the shallow Jilong River in Taipei. Not a big deal, we thought; soon holes will be opened up and the people let out.
It takes a while for the media to create a sense of crisis. It was strange how long it took to pry open the plane, and doubts began ratberthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18031292156567998136noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5872513515967680533.post-3437953619179879022015-02-09T23:45:00.001-08:002015-02-09T23:45:28.647-08:00plane in the river (2)The realization that the plane had deliberately followed the river led to an emotional celebration of the pilots' heroism. They had saved Taipei from a much worse disaster. 'He. . . did his best,' said gravelly-voiced Taipei mayor Ke Wen Zhe, the pause indicating a welling emotion.
The third type of image is computer-generated video, which satisfies our fear fascination more fully. Now we can ratberthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18031292156567998136noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5872513515967680533.post-15432016923346249802015-02-09T23:44:00.003-08:002015-02-09T23:45:51.151-08:00plane in the river (3) Information has been added from the black boxes, and suddenly the pilots are no longer heroes: who turned off the second engine after the first one failed, and why? We no longer see the pilots' families; we only are told 'someone' turned off the engine. Somehow this human failure is more frightening than the purely mechanical failure we first imagined. The mundane sight of a small plane resting ratberthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18031292156567998136noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5872513515967680533.post-8154484898881410962015-02-08T06:16:00.000-08:002015-02-08T06:16:42.250-08:00Sunday morning, YuanliThe north wind was gusting something fierce this morning but I didn’t feel like millet porridge and eggs, so I bundled up the boys and headed out for some Taiwan-style American breakfast. There are probably as many versions of ‘American-style’ as there are countries in the world. And the Taiwanese version gives the original a run for its money. The wind was so strong for once Pax didn’t try ratberthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18031292156567998136noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5872513515967680533.post-61316534072759839302015-02-08T06:15:00.001-08:002015-02-08T06:15:02.516-08:00Yuanli (2)A kid sat at our table. Studying history in college, like I did. I laughed telling him how useless I thought anthropology was as an undergrad – and here I am now teaching it. A customer told me Pax’s shoe had fallen off, and helped me put it on.
On the way back we took the ‘secret way’ through the middle of the block, half of whose homes are abandoned and falling into ruin. Fuelled by caffeine ratberthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18031292156567998136noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5872513515967680533.post-82213182918776745142015-02-08T06:14:00.001-08:002015-02-08T06:14:29.899-08:00Yuanli (3)We left and walked back under the train tracks, and from there passed some fields and irrigation ditches. Toby always stops to examine the putrid water at one spot, trashy and black of mud. I saw two dead fish last week. I sat Paxy next to a smaller ditch and lined up pebbles for him to throw in, which he did, avidly. Then I brought him over to the bigger canal, where the water is deeper, and ratberthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18031292156567998136noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5872513515967680533.post-49183347709427384172015-02-08T06:13:00.002-08:002015-02-08T06:13:46.811-08:00Yuanli (4)I dragged Toby away – the wind was not letting up, even though the sun was out – and I let them play briefly on the old people’s exercise equipment installed next to the canal. There is a sign, ubiquitous in Taiwan: ‘such and such district wishes to thank legislator X and mayor Y for allocating the funds to construct this exercise area.’ There is grass planted, strewn with wind-dried dog poop. ratberthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18031292156567998136noreply@blogger.com0