Su Shi was a government official and one of the most respected poet of the Northern Song dynasty in China, twice exiled for his criticisms of imperial policy. In 1082, he pondered about mortality and change at the Red Cliff, the place where General Cao Cao was defeated by his enemies 800 years earlier, expressed… Continue reading An Ode on the Red Cliff
Category: Literature
Abridged Chinese Classics
John Atkinson created irreverent summations, in the fewest words possible, of some of the most famous works of literature. Here are my own for the Four Great Classic Novels of China: Romance of the Three Kingdoms: Empire splits into three parts. Then reunited. A Journey to the West: A monk, a monkey and a pig… Continue reading Abridged Chinese Classics
Skin in the Game
Nassim Nicholas Taleb uses two criteria to filter ideas and books. First, the Lindy Effect: the more the book has been around, the longer its future life expectancy. Second, the more skin in the game, the more convincing the idea is. In practice, I am attracted to books that look ancient, and look at how far… Continue reading Skin in the Game
On Art Forms and Literature
I like lasting beauty. Of all art forms, my liking is limited to literature. I loathe music, live performance, or flower arrangements. These things fade and vanish instantly. Even architecture and paintings decay. Of all literature, I love those written with blood. I suppose they don't want to be read, until by readers a century… Continue reading On Art Forms and Literature
A Guide to Reading Pu Songling
In vernacular Chinese, the Dream of the Red Chamber (紅樓夢) by Cao Xueqin (曹雪芹) is regarded as the supreme novel. In classical Chinese, Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio (聊齋誌異) by Pu Songling (蒲松齡) has the equivalent status. Mao Zedong claimed to have read the Red Chamber five times. I say you need to read Strange Tales two times. Read it in English the first… Continue reading A Guide to Reading Pu Songling
From Tolstoy, Kafka, to Taleb
Before Adam and Eve ate the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, we are always in a state of ignorance. The moment we decided to escape, we sank into the faint light of fake knowledge. The good news is that, from Leo Tolstoy, Franz Kafka, to Nassim Nicholas Taleb, we are slowly finding our way… Continue reading From Tolstoy, Kafka, to Taleb
My Notes from the Underground
Come, gentle night I run away from the Crystal Palace, and aspire to be a sick man, a spiteful man, an unattractive man. Greedily storing up impressions, one day I, too, will emerge from the underground, and master the path to chaos.
An Anthology on Juxtaposition
Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man. -- Zhuangzi (莊子) Did he appear, because I fell asleep thinking of him? If only I'd known I was dreaming I'd never have wakened. -- Ono no… Continue reading An Anthology on Juxtaposition
The Wall and the Tower
Kafka's Great Wall of China, with the system of piecemeal construction, is filled with gaps and does not offer protection from barbarism. Likewise, the builders of the Tower of Babel, who purport to found a universal language, end up inviting God's punishment, speaking different languages and becoming barbarians to each other. Rather than failures, I… Continue reading The Wall and the Tower
On Ignorance
Who has one voice and yet becomes three-footed and two-footed and four-footed? Sophocles' Oedipus, the most suffering figure of the Greek tragedy. Oedipus crawled on three as a baby (because his ankles were pinned together by his parents who abandoned him), limped as an adult, and walked on four legs as an old man (blinding… Continue reading On Ignorance
Andy Yee 