From @UGA.CC.UGA.EDU:owner-china-nt@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU Wed Jul 20 00:14:16 1994 Date: Wed, 20 Jul 1994 00:00:05 -0400 Reply-To: ccf-editor@ifcss.org Sender: China-Net From: ccf-editor@ifcss.org Subject: Chinese Community Forum (#9439) Comments: To: china-nt@uga.cc.uga.edu To: Multiple recipients of list CHINA-NT ==+==+==+== C h i n e s e C o m m u n i t y F o r u m ==+==+==+=== Wednesday, July 20, 1994 (Issue No. 9439) +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+= Chinese Community Forum (CCF) is an e-journal published on China-Net. CCF is dedicated to the discussion on the issues related to the Chinese community. The opinions expressed here do not necessarily represent the views of the Editorial Board of CCF. Contributions to the discussions and suggestions of new topics are very much appreciated. +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+= # of Table of Contents Author | Lines ===========***==========***==========**==========***==========***=========== --*--Democracy and Chinese Circumstances--*-- 1. Human Rights and Human Welfare.............................Herb Ho 126 2. Ritual, Democracy and Government..........................Kan Liao 170 --*--Living in the Foreign Land--*-- 3. I'm Going to Disneyland!.............................Newton X. Liu 116 4. The Conclusions of "No Small Talk": Failed Philosophization................................Xushan Fang 95 5. Away I Am Going .......................................Yungui Ding 88 ===========***==========***==========**==========***==========***=========== -- From The Editor -- Chinese Circumstances. Sounds familiar? Earlier this century, a group of Chinese Marxists fenced off the claim that Marxism was not suitable to the Circumstances of China. They used Marxism- Leninism as their guiding light. They led Chinese people in a hard fight against foreign invasions and domestic enemies. They expelled the "semi- feudalist, semi-colonialist" forces out of the mainland. They founded the Red China under the name of the People and the "People's Democratic Dictatorship". Ironically, decades later, the very same words come out again: Chinese Circumstances. This time, the argument is not whether Marxism is suitable to the Chinese Circumstances, but democracy. It sounds like that, after 45 years of "People's Democratic Dictatorship", the very word of democracy is in trouble. The two articles in this issue of CCF are guaranteed to be provocative: While Mr. Herb Ho compiles many achievements of the Chinese Government and argues that the concept of democracy would not fit Chinese Circumstances, Mr. Kan Liao's article directly questions the very concept and the practice of democracy. Mr. Kan Liao defines democracy as "rule by people". Intentionally or not, he leaves out the article as in "rule by THE people". Are they the same? We ask. Webster's defines democracy as: government by THE people, esp: rule of majority. So, what is your definition, our dear reader? Leaving the "serious, noble yet dry" discussion of politics aside, we want you to take a look of the "trivial, yet interesting" side of our daily life. On CCF #9436, Ms. Yingyin Xu told us the "inside" of women's desire, or passion towards clothes. As "the other half of the sky", Xushan Fang from Texas A&M University says: "The women's desire for varieties of styles of clothes is one of the expressions they seek unconsciously so as to discharge and channel the psychic energy in diverse manners." While Newton Liu in his article expresses a profound feeling of the alienation the modern world has imposed on humans from mother-nature, or the yellow earth in his private world, Yungui Ding, former Editor-in-Chief of CCF, brings to us a rather tranquil and picturesque scenery of the landscape in Iowa, where he spent years working, studying and living. We hope you enjoy these articles and take a cool break from the heat wave of serious politicals debate raging around us these days. ===========***==========***==========**==========***==========***=========== 1. Human Rights and Human Welfare.............................Herb Ho 126 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- There have been a lot of quite graphic descriptions about the human rights abuses conducted by the Chinese Government. Granted that the cases described are all true (I do not want to doubt anybody's integrity), how do they compare with the hundreds who have died, tens of thousand who have been injured, and the millions who have been made homeless in the recent flooding? What makes the lives of those dissidents more precious than those of the multitudes of innocent and helpless victims of the floods and drought? I posted at least twice on the soc.rights.human about the large-scale flooding in China, and apparently nobody there gave a damn about it, which to me says a lot about what the so-called human rights activists really care about. I am all for human rights, despite of the obviously problematic definition given by the West. But human rights, like democracy, should only be the means, not the end. The end should be human welfare or well-being, which must not be compromised, much less sacrificed for spurious righteousness. Human rights are worth fighting for only insofar they help the realization of our human nature. Since death does not help better realize anybody's human nature, nobody can pursue our human rights, or tell us to pursue them, at the possible expense of our lives or livelihood. I may be really dumb, but I just do not understand why people who are apparently obsessed with human rights could not show some genuine compassion for such human suffering as inflicted by the natural disasters. After all, the Chinese government, for all its flaws, was doing its best to help the victims. I do not want to be accused of being a supporter of the Chinese government, into whose jails I almost landed a few years back. But I cannot help wondering what would happen to all the homeless, the injured, and the families of the killed if the dissidents succeeded in overthrowing the government. Can I be certain at all that the anti-government activists today will be more compassionate than the government if they do gain the power? The Chinese government is sometimes ruthless, and I can prove that with my personal experience to anyone who thinks otherwise. But who can govern China better? Governing China cannot possibly be easy. Try to compare Canada, China, and the USA. All three countries have similar sizes of territory. While China has to support 1.2 billion people, the US has to support only 251 million and Canada only 27 million. About 10 per cent of the land in China is arable, compared with 20 per cent for the US. China and Canada have about the same size of economy, but China every year produces 16 million people, which means that every two years China must create enough jobs to employ at least 32 million people, more than all the people in Canada, which, despite its comparatively vast wealth, has a double digit unemployment rate. Beijing's population is about half of that of Canada, but its water supply is depleting, compared with the Great Lakes, which contains a third of the world's inland water. Crimes in the US cost 420 billion dollars a year, and you know what, that is just about the size of China's annual GNP. Try spending one penny as if you had two, or three, or ten, or 100, and you will know how difficult it is to govern China. With every penny China spends, China must accomplish more than what Canada and the US can do with a dollar. It would be no exaggeration to characterize China's situation as a perpetual state of emergency. And as everywhere, the state of emergency entails curtailing individual rights and freedoms. Consider the dire situation in China, we are only lucky that the country is now liberalizing rather than becoming more repressive. In many ways, individual rights and freedom are not nearly as broad in China as in North America. It is quite understandable that many people do not like it. I, for one, still have misgivings about going back to China, since I am still not absolutely sure whether some authorities there will not settle accounts with me. But you do not have to like it; you only have to understand it. Image what measures the US would take if its economy shrank to China's level on a per capita basis, about 100 billion dollars a year in GNP, only enough to put less than a quarter of American criminals into jail, even if nobody in the US eats or wears anything. Would the government take away your human rights? No kidding! The Chinese government may often be callous. But who under the same circumstances can be gentler or softer? I am a law student, and I really like all the legal niceties here, and I am sure that these legal niceties make a much better guarantee of fundamental justice. But all these niceties are expensive, creating here one of the best paid profession made up of some of the brightest people, whom we call lawyers. With so many other problems of much more substantial and pressing concerns, how can China afford to put its best and brightest into such a legal profession, without endangering the welfare or well-being of vast numbers of people? China of course foregoes more than legal niceties. Constitutional niceties, administrative niceties, and in general political niceties are all dumped in the scramble for survival. But then it is not for nothing that China has achieved an average life expectancy of over 70 years, comparable to that of the industrial countries, with one of the world's lowest per capita income. In the 1993 UN Human Development Report, China's per capita income was listed as the 141st and its human development index as the 101st, making China the country that outperformed its economic strength by the greatest margin. Actually, China's human development index could be higher, if not for a Western-style definition of human development in terms of free choice. As the 1993 report used only 1990 figures, today's picture in China could be better still. Neither blaming nor condemning helps anybody in any way at all. We must always try to understand the world in perspectives. My father used to beat me hard, very hard, almost on a daily basis. But it would be no use and no justice to send him to jail, for, as a totally illiterate peasant, he was already doing his very best in raising his five kids at a time when there was not even enough to eat. Given the hardship and frustration, he already outperformed what was possible for him. It would be grossly unfair if I go back to him today not with understanding but with hatred. Hatred is something very troubling to me when it comes to some of the democracy fighters and human rights activists. Some of these people seem to be full of hatred. They criticize, blame and condemn. If anyone disagrees, they will call you a hardliner, a communist, or a fascist, not knowing that what they are doing is not only communism but communism at its worst. If we really want to build up a better China and a better world, let us all, in the Chinese community and beyond, have more understanding, more compassion, and more humanity for others, and all others. [From: he@server.uwindsor.ca] ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2. Ritual, Democracy and Government..........................Kan Liao 170 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- We humans live to pursue the contents of our desires, only our desires can never be content thus we keep searching that elusive destiny and hoping some day we can get there. During this long journey, some of us get ahead while others fall behind. Quickly, we start to chase each other, instead. The ones ahead attempt to get rid of the ones behind and to maintain their lead with newly acquired leverage, while the ones behind desperately try to catch up or slow down the ones ahead with all the available means. Thus our life becomes pushing, shoving, fighting, and running. Every society has rules which are invented to regulate this running. The rule-makers always claim what the rules are fair for every member of the society. But in realty the rules always favor the ones ahead; rules are made for winners because in general the rule-makers often come from the winner's circle. Revolutions come and go; nations rise and fall; old rules are replaced by new ones; orders are set up and inverted ... but the human desire to get ahead and stay ahead never changes. From totem worship to modern day political election, only rulers change, rules are always the same. We citizens in modern state may enjoy a better material life than ancient totem worshippers; but, this may not be true spiritually. Throughout human history, one thing has been invoked more than anything by every ruler: MANDATE. Totem emblem was a mandate for tribal people. It can be ancestors, plants, animals, or rare natural phenomena, or whatever members of the tribe did not fully understand but fear could serve that role. Heaven was what Chinese emperors invoked. Modern earthling have learned more than ever about plants, animals, and even heavenly bodies. Yet there is one more thing which remains to be learned: that is PUBLIC, as public support becomes the latest mandate for rulers. In ancient times, rituals were invented; to invoke public support, democracy becomes the new ritual. Ritual is a system of symbolic acts according to a series of pre-established, pre-fixed rules and patterns which often have long traditions but often appear arbitrary to modern eyes. Rituals depend on the faith of the practitioner. Take for examples the rain-dance by native Americans and dragon-king pray by Chinese until not so long ago, it was not even relevant whether or not these rituals could bring rain; it was this blind belief that perpetuated the rituals. If you keep doing it long enough, I'll bet you that the rain is bound to fall from the heavens. This can be explained as natural order or our whole-heartedness which is really felt up there. Democracy, meanwhile, is something every member of modern society seems to have some say about it, and I have never met even a single person who has never heard democracy. Still no one, myself included, can give a definitive answer about what democracy is. PERHAPS THIS IS DEMOCRACY. The word itself simply means "rule by people" as oppose to autocracy or bureaucracy. But I thought that we have always been ruled by people, as opposed to animals? This is what confuses me: If by people we mean not only government officials but also you and me and everyone else, what does "rule by people" really mean? If I rule you, you won't like it; and if you try to rule me, sorry I can't take it, either. If we rule ourselves, well, that's ruling no one, and it is more like anarchy than democracy. It seems that we still need to be ruled by a government after all. Could we say that democracy means "rule by a democratic government". (Am I clarifying any concept here? Probably not, except replacing it with yet another confusing concept.) A government is an institution or a system set up to regulate and administrate the affairs of a nation. So, what is a democratic government then? I know one thing: members of the governing body have to be elected by the citizens and their behaviors are supposed to be regulated by a constitution coming out of consensus. In other words, the theory dictates that the people who work in government or those who set up the rules, have to obey the constitution. If so, a democratic government is actually a good thing to have. Now the problem is how to get one. In the United States, the self-claimed leading democracy, elected government officials, including the president, are voted in by majority votes and their conducts are supposed to be check-and-balanced within the governmental branches according to the constitution. Again the theory is sound but in reality this check-balance has produced every form and shape of democraticness, but not much a government. As aforementioned, the primary function of a government is to regulate and administrate national affairs. Its regulating power should stop at where its border is drawn. As far as international affairs are concerned, any negotiation must involve all nations concerned, one particular government can't do the regulating alone. But this is yet another theory. The U.S. government shows a greater interest in exercising its check-balance between its government branches and "regulating" international affairs than taking care of its national affairs. It behaves like a car engine which spends most of its energy on maintenance, produces very little usefulness, and yet makes a great deal of noise to annoy its neighbors. This car is fine and can still be used if there is an unlimited fuel supply and its neighbors are not strong enough to voice their complaint. In a land with super-rich resources like America, this kind of inefficient system seems to be OK. Will it work in those places "not so blessed" or "less blessed" by God? Would this system continue to work if the U.S. had a population 4 times larger than what it has now? Well, I don't know. But some people among us (CSS) seem to have adopted a ritualistic belief in the U.S system. "I do not care what it will bring, as long as I get my country a government like the U.S., it will automatically be democratic," they seem to say. "Everything will be fine and people will live happily thereafter." To those people, what I want to say is simple (not that they need my words): become U.S. citizens and your dream will come true. Let's look into the simplicity of the belief that the U.S. model will automatically be a democratic, if a popular contested vote is used to select representatives in the government, that is. Well, I am not really sure about this. Too many examples of popularly elected governments failed to fulfill their promises to the people. The current popular voting system has its practical, simple side, and is accepted by people AT PRESENT for its relative fairness. Personally, I do not see why this system has to be followed so absolutely, nor do I believe that a democratic government has to come out of multi-party's promise contest. It seems that today's campaign promises become the way in winning elections. Too often does a candidate make a bunch of ear-pleasing promises during the campaign but never to remember to keep them as an elected official. Say, I promise you a $1,500 worth of service for only $1000 which you happily contribute to my campaign. So little did you expect that I would only perform $500 worth of service. Is this what democracy is about: a candidate, take Bill Clinton for example, makes some promises in order to collect votes but later break most of them? If using false promises to get financial advantage is illegal, why does using empty promises to get political advantage become the essence of the "democratic election"? This leads to another question: Should we emulate such a system? Why does every country have to select their government in the way the "leading democracy" does? Anyone still remembers the official examination system in China? For thousands of years the exam system had provided armies of officials for Chinese emperors. It was a system definitely better than the European royal family system, although the exam system did not leave very good family trees of hemophilia. The Chinese system paved the way for commoners to climb the social ladder; most importantly, it was the system used by the then world's leading civilization. We don't know how many people of those generations had thought that their system was to last forever based on the fact that their nation was number one in the world. Sounds familiar? Finally, there is another fashionable phrase: political reform. Many people think we should really speed up that reform. I agree. But someone please tell me which is easier: to reform a government according to the prescription handed out by members of the U.S. Congress or to reform the health care system in America? I guess no other government can match the leading democracy's health care system. Bills after bills are presented by the Congress and the President. But nobody has any idea who is going to pay those bills? However, in your country, you should go full-steam ahead toward the unknown (or chaos as the people in your country know). The trouble is yours. Suppose President Bush lost the NATO to the Warsaw Pact, the U.S. became the commonwealth of independent states, Clinton were the President of Washington D.C. whose economy was experiencing an inflation over 1,000%, and the KGB were requested to open an office in D.C. to combat the local mafia. Soviet Union, leading the cheers on the other side, promised support to the Clinton's reform and tried to persuade every disenchanted American that the current difficulty was part of the necessary transition towards the communist system. Remember? Before Soviet Union was disintegrated, the national referendum was to stay in the Union! But the disintegration led by Yeltsin was none other than a democratic reform! Five years ago on Tian An Men Square, the majority of the students voted to leave the square but many still stayed to stage a democracy movement. Democracy is confusing, isn't it? It used to be that "the socialist grass was better than the capitalist crop." Now, it seems to be that every garbage with a democracy label becomes the brand name merchandise. If it is not acceptable to make people's life miserable under the name of communism, why does it suddenly become necessary to make people's life the same miserable under the name of democracy, which no one knows what it is anyhow? Shall we start a democracy-dance or a democracy-goddess worship? [From: Liaok@fcrfv1.ncifcrf.gov] ===========***==========***==========**==========***==========***=========== 3. I'm Going to Disneyland!.............................Newton X. Liu 116 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- No. I'm not, for, perhaps, I haven't won any superbowl yet. On a second thought, I don't even know when I'm going to see the world-famous fairyland, if ever. The fact is that this grandiose post-modern phenomenon does not seem to agree with me, or it's actually the other way around. (I heard you there, I'm a hard guy to please.) Together with Pee Wee Herman, the man-child of our post-modern era, and the city of Las Vegas, the mental and moral toilet at our disposal, Disneyland is part of my nightmare. In other words, I have an insurmountable reluctance to overcome before I hand in my application to join the Mickey Mouse League. I know that Disneyland is beautiful in its own right and appeals to the eyes of many beholders. People marvel at Walt Disney's head, for it seems that he does have some brain cells inside, not just some watermelon seeds like mine, and his world of imaginations is fantastic almost to the point of being fanatic. The problem is that my eyes only draw blank when I see Disneyland. One night I had this horrifying dream in which I was trapped in Disneyland. A powerful choking sensation seized me. I was too far from the world of dustiness which had brought me up, the yellow kind of dustiness if you know what I mean. At the first glance everything was surely spectacular but quickly the extreme cleanness made me feel painfully out of place, intimidated, cold and lost. I was a country cousin in disguise and Disneyland blew off my cover completely. In Disneyland I became a monkey with an ugly tail hard to cover up. The feeling of not-belonging-there was so acute as if a knife was cutting into my soul. There in Disneyland I truly understand how far I have been divorced from nature, the harsh side of her, maybe; only in Disneyland I realized that the yellow earth was so meager and yet so rich; in Disneyland I could feel so alone but not so lowly. It was as if all the suffering that the Yellow Earth Plateau has inflicted on me has just revealed its true meaning, its original intentions. There in Disneyland, I do not feel pitiful but pity those merry-go-around faces around me the erstwhile ghost of poverty and hardship. How will I say this to you: the beauty of Disneyland, to me, relies in its generous offering to remind us who we are and where we come from. Disneyland made me not ashamed but proud of myself, for this I am grateful. I used to be a fanatic fan of the natural reserves the federal government and its many states have protected from, you guessed, humans. The Grand Canyon is magnificent, the Yosomite National Park goddess-like, and the Yellow Stone National Park literarily Eden on earth. O my, and O my, I needed more than four eyes (counting my glasses) to suck in all the beauty. I thought I was running out of my shoes. But quickly dreams started to attack me at nights. Weird dreams I may add. Strange monologues occurred with frightening frequency and with no apparent warning or reason. It was then that I realized that I have lost my sanity in our terrifically modernized world. I started to curse the national parks because I see that mother nature is being prostituted there. There, her blouse is lifted up and we see roads paved on, joyful people drive on her and speed on her, and only occasionally stop to look at her before checking into luxury hotels built on or around her. They throw wild parties and drink and dine on her, then they leave her to the cold wind, bitter rain. I know it was only a bumper-sticker and I don't even know which Indian chief (could it be Chief Seattle or Chief Crazyhorse?) said that: The Earth does not belong to us; we belong to the Earth. But dreams are surreal, remember? travelling across the spatio-temporal distance between me and the sage-like chief (never mind some people said that he had never existed nor said anything) takes only a finger snap. Somehow I managed to get myself trapped yet again, but his time in wild mountains in the presence of that chief. Sierra Neveda or the Rocky Mountains, I couldn't tell; all I remember is that there was this fierce storm, rain pouring like water cascades and wind blowing the mountain peaks off. Tornado, flood, volcanic eruption, all came down at once, as if to punish somebody or something. Amidst the chaos and violence humans feel small but yet very large because we are glued together with mother nature. I looked around, the chief looked very calm and serene. He lived for moments like this. I was panting like a horse but nonetheless woke up happy like a clam. It was the true high of my life, feeling like a true native, an Indian who belong to this land and live and die with the land. O there are so many people! there are so many people. This is what's wrong with Disneyland: there the distance between people and the land they live on is so great that there is absolutely no chance for people to live and die with the land. Of course there is always earthquake in California. That's why they have Disney World in Orlando, Florida, and in Paris and in Tokyo. Earth is our mother and land should our god, our only god. But there are so many people! there are so many people! In New York, in Los Angeles, in Shanghai, in Mexico City, in Paris and in Tokyo ... Could it be Disneyland that our planet is in such a bad shape? Am I making a mountain out of a molehill? I hope I am. You will laugh at me if I tell you that my childhood dream was to meet a Taoist monk, a simple man dressed in drags wandering the mountains, eccentric but content, in perfect harmony with mother nature. My chances have become more and more remote by the minute. This is actually the real reason why I am afraid to go to Disneyland. I am afraid that I won't have a chance to come back, back to earth, that is. I know that not everyone is alienated or lost in this mosaic of our post-modern world as I am. It's me, it's really just me, the abstract me and the wild me, the me who whines a lot in order to keep my sanity. Maybe I should move back to caves. But where are my caves? And what if I wake up one afternoon finding out that they are building another Disneyland over my cave? The Yellow Earth woman is good She is down-to-earth; The Yellow earth man is skinny But he has good strength. Singing on hilltops is sad, very sad; Sleeping in caves is serene, real serene. Yellow Earth trails are long, up to the hills; Yellow earth water's deep, down into the grounds. Once there were many, many trees, Now there are only windstorms, and dustbowls. [From: nxliu@well.sf.ca.us] ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4. The Conclusions of "No Small Talk": Failed Philosophization................................Xushan Fang 95 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- It is really lots of fun to read the article "Passion for Clothes: Variations on the Same Theme" (referred to hereafter as "Passion" for short). It is well written and easy to read, and covers a variety of subjects of modern days from a woman's point of view. The reader was particularly amused at the notion of the mother-baby correlation that came to his eyes under the subheading of Gossip Column, which he thinks may have certain psychological ground. As "Passion" contains interesting insight into women's desire for clothes, the reader's expectation for equally, if not more, interesting conclusions ran up high. However, when he approached the end of the article after reading through line by line, he could not help being disappointed at the conclusions the author drew. It is like that you are promised and expect the best-cooked soup at a well-decorated restaurant but somehow you end up being given a cup of tasteless water instead. When you saw the "God" follow the mundane talk, you felt like stirring up unknowingly a fly out of the water, which was instilled with other unexpected ingredients only getting you at a loss all together. It seems to the reader that the author of "Passion" tried to philosophize her explorations for her fellow human beings' passion for clothes, in an attempt to bring readers' understanding, and presumably male readers' understanding in particular, of the topic into a deeper level. Unfortunately, however, she failed to get through. More unfortunately, she brought in the all-mighty God, who is all too happy in sending his mysteries to those who are not close to him, just to invalidate all the plausible explanations she made. What an incredible loss of the author's effort! Since "Passion"is an interesting, insightful piece he read on CCF after all "serious talks on noble but dry subjects", the reader, confused as he was, is tempted to write down here some of his thoughts about it to share with. In addition, he would like to make two points as follow. 1. The human being's need, or for that matter, some people's no need, for clothes is NOT one of God's eternal mysteries. Instead, it is a result of the combination of the developed mind and learned behavior. Few people really know for sure that the God in the Heaven has a concept of clothes. According to the Holy Bible, when he created Adam and then Eve, the two were not dressed at all. And they had not been for quite some time in the Eden. From this fact, one may infer that God does not care whether his creatures are put on clothing or not, and cares even less about how they should be dressed, if any. The fact that his son, Jesus Christ, was properly dressed when he was alive on the earth according to the Bible, can be well explained in terms of his understanding of his purposes on the earth. That is, he knew that he wanted to approach people, and he saw them dressed. So was he. If you believe in the Darwin's evolutionism, the answer will be more self- explanatory. 2. The women's passion for clothes is one of the products of their unconscious mind as well as their conscious one, which have evolved, developed and been conditioned over hundreds of thousands of years, including yesteryear and yesterday. The women's desire for varieties of styles of clothes is one of the expressions they seek unconsciously so as to discharge and channel the psychic energy in diverse manners. Such an expression is consciously acceptable to themselves and socially acceptable to others. The psychic energy that is being built up incessantly within all human beings, women and men, young and old, accompanied by the constant yearning for outlet can be subversive, or productive, or more commonly, somewhere in between. It will be very unfortunate for women, if it is true, that their craze for clothes thrills them to such an extreme extent that they feel "they can do without men". On the other hand, men's passion for logic and reasons fascinates them, the men! But not so much as for them to go undressed in their daily life, or to forget to reach out and help women understand what they sometimes are able to describe but unable to understand alone. And moreover, the men's passion for logic and reasons will be further strengthened by including women in their life. This in turn will better serve the needs of all the human beings, including creating more fashionable styles made of better texture for women to consume and to uphold their passion for clothes. [From: X0F6342@ACS.TAMU.EDU] ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5. Away I Am Going .......................................Yungui Ding 88 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- There is a golf court along the way from my apartment to my office on campus. In the warm season, when the grass and the trees are green, it is nice. In the autumn, when the leaves have become crimson while the grass is still green, it is just marvelous. I noticed this court the first time I moved into the area, and I always wanted to go into it to have a little walk. However, when I finally found the time and the mood to do so, it was already in the winter. That was actually in a holiday for the New Year. The Sun was happily shining and the sky is profoundly blue. Standing inside the glass window, I almost wanted to think it would be pleasantly warm outside although I knew it was not. Looking at the golf court, the grass was a little yellowish, the trees were bald, and there was still snow on the ground sparsely, shining here and there under the Sunlight. That made the court lively. I decided to have the little walk that I had thought of for a long time. My plan was to go through the court and arrive at the campus on the other side of it. I immediately found out that the court was really a nice place for such a walk even in the winter. Iowa is a place in the middle of nowhere, and well known for its flatness and lack of trees. Now inside this golf court, I found that the ground was hilly. I could obviously call several part of it hills. And trees were more abundant than I had thought so that I almost wanted call it forest, or at least a wood. More to my pleasance, there was a river (or a brook) running through the court, around the foot of the hills. Since it was in the winter, the river was frozen. But I guess even if it were not, the water would be almost still in this season. I got to a wooden shelter by a wooden bridge suspended by steel strings. I sat down for a while. It was so tranquil. I had the feeling of "Kong Shan Bu Jian Ren" (empty mountain without people), not even a bird. The Sun was quietly shining in the blue sky. The trees were hibernating. The river was sleeping. There was not even a breeze. For a while, I had a kind of un-real feeling like in a dream. I lost myself into the picturesque scenery. That was not completely spiritual at all. Just a short while after I crossed the river and walked into a small valley, I found myself lost. Going around the foot of several hills, I was in between several more hills, and without much guidance, I did not know which direction to go and which way would lead me to my original goal, the campus. After several rounds of effort to get myself better oriented, I got deeper into the woods. It seemed that I was going away from what I had planned. It was about mid-day, the Sun was little helpful to me to find the direction. While it had been quite a pleasant walk, I decided not to worry about how to getting out for now. Just let my feet guide themselves and myself be at leisure. Finally, I got on top of a hill. I discovered that I had indeed departed from the originally expected path. However, from there I now could see the campus buildings which were already close. I thought to myself, well, I came to explore the court, what could have been the expected path? I in fact had not been clear about that at all. Now, anyway, I could start from here and get to where I want to. That walk had been a while, and I had enjoyed pretty much of the court, I thought. So I decided to cut short and went to the campus directly. With one street away from the campus, I found myself fenced away from it. That brought me frustration. I had no way to jump over or climb over the iron fence. I began to walk along the fence in the hope that there would be a gate in the nearby so that I could get out of the court and arrive at the campus. Away, and away, I was going... That was several year ago. I have never got chance to walk in that golf court again since then. I have been busy with my study, my social works, and my family. The court is still beautiful, as ever. I have graduated with my Ph D degree, and I am going to work in a company in Chicago. Having been in or around the universities for many years, I am finally leaving the campus for the real-life, big society. Obviously this is really a kind of turning point. Among the many things that come to my mind are my folks back in the remote village in China, my friends, my teachers; my childhood, my college years, ... Looking back and ahead, I try to sort out the long zig-zag path I have been going along. I find myself not having a clear mind any more. Away, and away, I am going, I just feel. +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=++ + Executive Editor: Changqing Yang + + Associate Executive: Zhifeng Liu + + Executive Moderator: Weihe Guan + +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ + For subscription: mail "SUB CHINA-NT Your-First-Name Your-Last-Name" + + to LISTSERV@UGA (bitnet) or listserv@uga.cc.uga.edu (internet) + + For unsubscription: mail "UNSUB CHINA-NT" to the above e-address + + For back issues of CCF: + + anonymous ftp to: cnd.org[132.249.229.100]: pub/community/CCF + + gopher to cnd.org: 2. English Menu --> 14. Community --> 1. ccf + + For contribution and inquiry: mail to ccf-editor@ifcss.org + +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=++