Abduvali Abdurashidov  

Tengir-Too  

Tengir-Too 

Homayun Sakhi 

Tengir-Too 

VIA KABUL: Central Asia Without Borders

晚上咬牙去看了“中亚无界限：来自喀布尔”，牺牲了我的壁球训练。The inaugural tour “Via Kabul: Central Asia without Borders” presents masters of the region’s traditional music as well as performers who are revitalizing the art from through new approaches to performance style, repertory, and technique. The Music Touring and Festivals Programme （http://www.akdn.org/Music/）was created to celebrate Central Asian musical traditions in regions where they are little known, and integrate leading exponents of these traditions into the global network of music presenting institutions. The music of Central Asia visits New York City with a concert of virtuoso musicians who, while little known in the West, are re-invigorating the ancient traditions of Central Asia's mountains and princely courts with new performance styles, repertoire, and techniques.

学校的米勒剧院座无虚席，因为是免费音乐会，又因为是来自中亚的艺术家演出，爱凑热闹的纽约客哪有不掺和的道理？每个乐队出场之前，都会放映一部音乐短篇，介绍该国的音乐传统和艺术家。之后音乐家们就依次出场，二话不说就开始表演。全场演出没有一句对话，所有的交流都是通过音乐进行的。真是一次奇特的经历。

第一个出场的是来自于吉尔吉斯斯坦的Tengir-Too。介绍里说他们的名字来自于“天山”，因为天山恰好横贯中国和吉尔吉斯斯坦的边界。第一个节目选自他们的民族史诗“马纳斯”，据说这首500，000行的长诗乃是世界第一冗长的作品。一个中年的说书人边说边唱，讲述了纪念Koekoetoey王盛宴的故事。后面的几个节目中，最有趣的是他们使用的Jew's harp （口弦）。这好像是一种特殊的口琴，全靠震动发声，音色极其特殊。

之后是来自阿富汗的Homayun Sakhi 表演的Afghan rubab.Rubab 是印度的沙罗琴，阿富汗艺人用几百年的时间加以改造，成为了具有自己民族特色的乐器。看起来Rubab 是一个奇怪的组合，看起来非常复杂。The rubab (also spelled rubāb) is a plucked string instrument from Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan. It is considered Afghanistan's national instrument, and is particularly favored by the Pashtun ethnic group. It is used in ensembles as well as to play instrumental solos. 今晚的节目是两首很长的传统乐曲，Raga Madhuvanti 和Kataghani,我一直听到睡着。

最后表演的是来自塔吉克斯坦的 The Academy of Maqam, a young ensemble from Tajikistan, sets mystical, Sufi-inspired verse to the lyrical melodies of Shashmaqâm, creating a spiritual art music of great refinement and sublime beauty. 和吉尔吉斯斯坦的Tengir-Too相比，Academy of Maqam 显然来自伊斯兰文化的传统，带有深沉的底蕴。开头的短篇里就讲，音乐不过是用来接近真主的道路，是除去智识障碍的工具。在语言的尽头就是音乐开始的地方。几首合唱多是情歌，动人而缠绵，有时还配有舞蹈。我个人认为最好的节目是用Dutar 表演的独奏QUSHTAR，在乐手的鼓掌之间，那小小的弹拨乐器发出幽怨而动人的旋律。哀而不伤，有大慈悲的顿悟。

大前年在华盛顿参观了“丝绸之路音乐节”，之后鲜有机会接触中亚的音乐。这一晚的享受又够我消磨多时的了。也许越简单的东西越动人，所以在现代化的喧嚣之后，来在草原月夜的天籁之音，愈发显得弥足珍贵。

ROME

When I am tired, I am thinking about Rome, about my life as a child in suburban Beijing in early 80's, about the time which passes me over without sympathy. The TV series strikes me most, not by its grande war scence, but its attention to details about everyday life.

things to remember

My blog falls down from diary to weekly update. 1. I feel guilty about not following my schedule always! 2. Mom got her passport yesterday, great! I need to to renew my passport ASAP and mail her the package for visa application. We discuss the probability that she comes in June so she will get enough time to spend with my grandmom. My older uncle's passaway is a big shock for grandmom and she cries from time to time. My mom may invites her to Beijing and stay for a while. It means mom can not come as early as we discussed before. Anyway, things change all the time and we do our best to deal with life. 3. Lai Fang had a great B-day party and I was exhausted afterwards. We had dinner at Gu Xiang Wei and then moved to Fang's place for cake and joke. The night was relaxed and cheerful and a lots of stories about Fang's ex bf. For me, turing 29 is not a big deal and I like myself better than I was younger. 4. No time to upload the party picutres yet. Also the pictures we took on Sunday when we went to MOMA. 5. Have not met Wang Fan yet. 6. Need to finish my first chapter this week. 7. Need to get cell phone this weekend. 8. Talked with Xiaohong and they went to Flordia for the Spring break. 9. Need to get my passport renew this Friday.

圣派特里克节

纽约的传统有一半来自于爱尔兰，所以一年一度的圣派特里克节游行和之后醉意醺醺的余兴节目就成了这个城市的传统之一。到处是绿色，是新鲜的榨浆草的颜色，在帽子上、大衣上、饼干上、甚至脸上。说起游行的起源，不妨看看纽约客自己牛气轰轰的介绍： THE SAINT PATRICK'S DAY PARADE IN NEW YORK The first recorded Saint Patrick's Day Parade in New York City took place fourteen years before the signing of the Declaration of Independence. On March 17,1762 a small group of Irish New Yorkers marched to the inn of one John Marshall/'at Mount Pleasant, near the College" (near the present-day intersection of Barclay and Church streets in lower Manhattan] where the day would be celebrated. Little else is known about that early parade, and in years earlier still there may have been similar marches and gatherings that have escaped record, but whatever else those solemn revelers accomplished on that late winter's day close on two and a half centuries ago, they began, or can be credited with beginning, here in New York, an annual celebration which has continued without interruption ever since. 今天我独守空房，在计算机房里认真做我的论文。有时奢侈的抬头看看外面无可挑剔的响晴白日，心里恨恨地想，也许游行也好看不到哪儿去。更何况以前也看过。哎，开始心里还是一直惦记着。吃不到的葡萄总是最好的呀!

邀请信

今天琢磨着怎么给妈妈写邀请信。MIT BBS 上有不少的模版，可是用别人的总觉得怪怪的。 毕竟是自己的老妈，不是别人的。想想也真奇怪，当时到母亲身边时是不请自来的，离开她飘洋过海到这里“洋插队”也没太征求她的意见。现在自己独身惯了，反而要“邀请”她来参观自己的生活。长这么大虽然没让母亲太耽过心，但是也没让她享过什么福。自己在外面蹦跶、折腾，太好太坏也都没敢告诉过她。往往是等到事情过了，风平浪静了，才慢悠悠告诉她：又过一关了！现在总算明白了什么叫“报喜不报忧”，或者说“而今识得愁滋味，欲说换休”。可是把妈妈邀请到这里来，我经营的世界就要完整地展现在她揉不得沙子的眼睛低下了，想想都觉得后脊梁发凉。昨天洗澡的时候，发明了一个“脸盆定理”。单身的生活就是不存东西，今天吃的今天买，用不着的东西一律不存。所以我从来没有一个脸盆，因为总是在公共浴室里，没地儿放自己的东西。但是妈妈要来了，我是不是要买一个脸盆呢？对面宿舍传来探戈强烈的节奏，在午夜的时候放探戈自娱自乐，这也算是单身的特权吧。要是妈妈来了，我就不能天天不着家泡在图书馆里里。也许要天天擦地?至少衣服不能两个星期才洗一次了（虽然有足够的穿）。可能东西都得各就各位，不能哪儿舒服哪儿呆着了。另外不能叫她闲呆着没事儿，是不是得装个“麒麟电视台”？

No tme to blog

No time to blog, what a pity! Quickly list things I wish to write about: 1. Xu's blog is beautiful. She gets her style in both English and Chinese writting. It is kind of natural and delicate. 2. See Great Gatsby by Robert Redford and Mia Farrow yesterday and crazy about the old Redford. Can not believe he is 69 this year! The sentence on the DVD cover is "Gone is the romance that was so divine". Don't think I get it. Borrowed from library three books about the novel and one of them is compiled by Columbian scholars. One chapter titled: "History, herstory and other stories: From political Gatsby to Gay Gatsby in the 1970s". 3. The meeting with my advisor went well and mom started to apply passport and visa. I do my job too. wish to see her in summer, miss her already.

前俄罗斯印象

前俄罗斯印象 小韧发来了她的“俄罗斯印象”，似乎催促着我完成我的“功课”。早上起来本来是准备完成我的STATA 功课的，但是天在下雨，暖暖春天的雨水。连教堂的钟声在这个春假周末的早晨都停止了，我为何不能放纵一下自己呢？昨天刘长看了我墙上的题字笑道，“怎么人人都是‘业精于勤荒于嬉，行成于思毁于随’？”是啊，也许我们对自己有时太苛刻了一点。我们的业，我们的行，无非是在这个星球上的短暂过往。与其纠缠于是否能在此时此地抵制写作的诱惑，不如完成我对波多黎各的一点反思。去年的日本之行，我没能花时间写完，因为有点太具体了。而且我似乎没有驾驭长篇巨制的能力，也许小品更适合我。 现在回忆起来，小韧的俄罗斯情结我也曾经有过。初中的时候躲在图书馆阴暗的角落里曾经囫囵吞枣的吃下了多少俄罗斯文学的精品。但是那是阅读的多是文革前后翻译的作品。后来上了大学，开始读俄罗斯“白银时代”作家的作品，布尔加科夫的《大师与马格利特》，以及后来进入我们视野的帕斯捷尔纳克的《日瓦戈医生》、别雷的《彼得堡》，别尔嘉耶夫的《俄罗斯思想》和《思想自传》，和阿赫玛托娃的诗歌。 在懵懂中选修了“基督教文化”，这又打开了另一扇通向俄罗斯思想的大门，东正教的以苦难和“十字架”受难为核心的教义，和文学中的忧郁息息相关。再后来到了美国，开始迷上了契科夫的戏剧，他的《瓦尼亚舅舅》和《樱桃园》是如此深刻的震撼了我。也是在大学的时候， 师从一个痴迷俄罗斯歌剧的老师上“歌剧欣赏”，从普希金的《叶甫跟尼.欧涅金》到《伊格尔王》，再到柴科夫斯基的《Mazeppa》，以及晚近的肖斯塔科维奇的作品。一路听下来，被那个民族唯美而深沉的气质所打动，一种本体上的悲剧情结。也是从那时开始迷恋Andrei Tarkovsky的电影，从他最初的《小提琴与压路机》，到后来的《伊万的童年》，《Andrei Rublev》，《镜子》，这些电影传达了一种不可言传的抑郁的、充满了创伤感的渴望，像是皑皑白雪下面汹涌的河流。 我们对于俄罗斯的感觉就像是一个想象中的异乡，一个性灵中的家园。虽然我们的解读多多少少带有自己的误解，然而那些文字、音乐、和电影所提供的感动和启发，在多年以后的今天仍然令我不能自持。小韧的俄罗斯之行，更像是一次精神之旅，走向她的内心，而不是那些真实的城市。是回归她的精神家园，而不是寻找旅行的刺激。我不知道她是否找到了她所寻找的东西，她对于俄罗斯的nostalgia 也许在此行中找到了答案吧。 可以说，俄罗斯文学的阅读和体验是我对于外国文学了解的开始，对以一个异文化接触的开始。与此相对，我对于自己已经生活了五年的美国可谓一无所知。我不阅读，我不努力去了解，我任由自己处在这种无知的状态。我相信美国也自有它文化的精英和出类拔萃的文字，但是不知道为什么，总是觉得这里的一切都是平面的，没有历史感，没有深度。就像是我们行驶在波多黎各的高速公路上，没有什么准确的路标但是你知道不会走错路，因为实在是个不大的地方，连出错的可能性都很小。再加上我又拒绝去接触美国的宗教，这就把一切了解这个文化的可能性又加大了一倍。 小韧写道“这里的人年复一年，一生中年年与之相伴，沉浸其中几可熟视无睹。而我却永生与之无缘，那是我永远无法拥有的夏天。心突然撕裂一样痛。人总是对自己无法拥有的东西感到无尽的美好以及越是如此越无法释怀的痛苦，我长到这么大了也依然如此。这突然袭来的最真实的痛苦和心碎，却无疑是一个人旅行中最美的时刻”。我在日本旅行的时候也有这种感觉，但是在波多黎各，我所感到得更多是肉体放松的愉悦。那个岛提供了一切美国生活方式的便利，而且又拥有无以伦比的气候条件和地理环境。几个小时的车程之内，你就可以从热带雨林跳到海边，或者沙漠地带。一切都是现成的，不需要太多的努力就可以得到。难怪岛上有一种慵懒的气息，让人懒得思考比下午的游泳池和晚上的鸡尾酒更远的事情。这里的酷热也防止了人的思考。在俄罗斯那样极冷的环境里，你无以为伴，只有走向自己内心的深处，探究那个叫你非如此不可生存的原因。而在这里，炎热的气候或者让人昏昏欲睡、或者到处游走寻找发泄自己欲望的机会。袒露身体而不是袒露灵魂是这里的福音，到处都是行走的肉体，年老的、年轻的、未成年的，高矮胖瘦，白色黑色黄色和杂色儿的，男的女的不难不女的。享受你的身体和它所能带给你的愉快，这里的一切似乎都在传达着这样的信息。人们毫不吝惜的使用着色彩，把自己的房子涂抹成各种新奇的颜色，就像是欲望的展开。小韧说俄罗斯人“因为五官单看都没有某些民族那种象蜜三刀一样让人发腻的美，放在一起反而有种清秀的活力”。 所谓的加勒比海的度假就提供了这种让人发腻的美。到处是海滩，长腿美女，西班牙语的SALSA music，以及人为地被调动起来的欲望。我有点累了。也许下次，我还是找个有博物馆的城市去旅行吧，我的皮肤和我的大脑都不太经晒。 这个岛仿佛没有历史，没有未来，只有当下，它的独特早被重重叠叠的殖民历史所改变，我们看到的是美国殖民者对英国殖民者对西班牙殖民者所作设计的改变，至于这个岛本真的面貌，似乎人们已经失去了兴趣。这里的人是美国人，是波多黎各人，是无数之前殖民者的后代，是没有自己确定身份的人，是没有根的人。大概只有我这个没劲的人才会花时间到历史博物馆去寻找这个文化的根基，然后再自嘲一番，因为这实在不是了解历史的好地方。 然后，我感到极度的恐惧和悲哀。如果美国的强势文化可以把一个小岛改变成这样，变成一个nothing but a beach resort， 那么在可以预见的将来，我们的文化我们的城我们的家会不会也经历同样的命运呢？全球化，多少罪行假汝之名以行！如果有一天北京也变成了这样一个无名无姓，无历史无文化的漂流岛，我又要回归到哪里去呢？

Article about China's new documentary

Dancing with Myself,Drifting with My Camera:The Emotional Vagabondsof China's New Documentary

by Bérénice Reynaud

http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/03/28/chinas_new_documentary.html

The voices of silence I saw my first Chinese documentary, Wu Wenguang's Bumming in Beijing – The Last Dreamers (Liulang Beijing – Zuihou De Mengxiangzhe, 1990), at the Vancouver International Film Festival in 1991. A young man was taking a hand-held video camera though the streets, back alleys and run-down apartments of Beijing, probing into the daily lives of marginalised artists. Part Jeanne Dielman (for its long takes, mundane actions and empty domestic spaces), part awkward cinéma vérité-cum-talking heads, with a touch of interventionism à la Marcel Ophuls (as Wu sometimes appears in the image and can be heard conversing or arguing with his subjects), Bumming in Beijing, unfolding over 150 minutes, offered access to a China never seen before, and was a genuine breakthrough in formal terms. I have recounted elsewhere, in a text recently quoted in Senses of Cinema, the exhilaration I experienced at discovering this first documentary (1). I was particularly fascinated by the moments in which apparently “nothing happened” and nothing was said. As I was analysing it at the time as a throwback to the tropes of Chinese classical painting (in which “the void” plays an essential part) (2), I was happily challenged by Ernest Larsen's sensitive description of the piece: Wu is not afraid to show us “nothing” – someone cleaning a flat, for example, or making a painting... It is tempting to see this figure of style as distinctively “Chinese” – but the temptation is worth resisting. Furthermore, Wu's long takes and emphasis on duration serve as a kind of counterpoint to the suddenness with which Tiananmen was crushed... The prolonged moments of near silence in Bumming in Beijing produce the aesthetic effect of outlasting the remembered roar of government tanks (3). On the other hand, at crucial moments, Wu adopts a performative mode that goes beyond the tropes of traditional vérité and brings forward his body and his voice, as if to fill the void. Yet, unlike Marcel Ophuls, who inserts his disruptive questions and confrontational humour to track down his interviewee's lies and omissions, Wu stages himself within the picture he (re)creates. The void that structures Bumming in Beijing sends the viewer back to the few months between spring and autumn of 1989 during which no image was taken and death was taking its toll. It is a void that threatened to engulf him as well as his subjects, so the relationship he establishes with them, far from being confrontational, is of shared sympathy. Of the five people whose lives he observes – a female writer (Zhang Ci), a male (Zhang Dali) and a female (Zhang Xia Ping) painter, a photographer (Gao Bo) and an experimental theatre director (Mou Sen) – two define themselves as “vagabonds” (mangliu) (4) either emotionally (Zhang Xia Ping, who later has a nervous breakdown in front of the camera) or professionally (Gao Bo, who equates it to the state of being a freelance photographer (5)). Like them, Wu is an independent artist, unattached to any “work unit”, and working underground – a fate shared by a number of filmmakers of the “Sixth Generation” after 1990 (6).

Graduation, Blog, Popcorn, Mountain and Documentary

A good Friday night should starts with waiting for your buddies to come at the crossroad and sees the sunset of Spring night on this metropolitian city. The last brush of sunlight casts its shade on the face of the St. John's statue and the night falls before you notice it. The switching point of day and night has this transforming quality, which bringing a sense of silent film: we know silent film is never silent, with live-music and subtitle and passion; the moment just after sunset contains the remaining vibration of the endless movement of the day, but also a sense of silence and underground turbulence of the night. Stood there as I did, I enjoyed the 10 minutes of being alone in crowd, saw dogs fighting, babies crying, cars passing and I stood there as a rock in a stream. The talk of the everning was about Blog, the debate about it and what we get from it. Liu introduced couple of bloggers she viewed all the time and also some meaningless but hot debate among writers and literature critices nowedays. And then Hao told some unpleasant experience about his job search in Beida and Tsinghua and his final decision to go back Beida and Teach. I am happy it worked out eventually and hope he will have a good head start there. His graduation seems to be a sure thing on the table, but mine is so vague now. I know I should have nothing to complaint about, but the uncertainty about my future makes me really uncomfortable. But at least I learn one thing from our discussion that I should not hope to find my ideal job in one shot and maybe I should start with whatever I get and keep on searching. Liu wishes to launch her new career as documentary film/TV maker after graduation and she is learning by doing now. She helps some groups to make documentaries and learn all aspects of that business. And then we have a debate about talent. She believed only the talented person can make the big hit, with superb sensitivity to bring the dramatic event in ordinary life in to big screen. The creativity underlying the choice of topic is almost everything that counts. I'd rather believe it is the critical thinking, the philosophical reflection about human being, and artistic presentation which make great documentaries. Like the recent hit, the Darwin's Nightmare. Everyone knows the military conflict in Congo and people suffer from the civil war. However it was the director's observation of the link between globalization, the underlying western involvement, the unequal distribution of wealth, which contributes to the unique perspective of the film. To be creative is easy, but it is difficult to make a life by being creative always. So my suggestion to Liu is to be a producer rather than a director or screenwritter. :) After the long dinner, we walk about 50 blocks to see the Brokeback Mountain. We passed by a small popcorn shop on Broadway after we walked by the only off-Broadway theater on Broadway. The shop produces iteself and it originally from the small town of Popcorn in Indiana. The popcorn is very sweet but tasty, like the early spring night we enjoyed. At a moment or two, we talked about what our definition of "happy life" is. Hao said he want to have family and becomes a famous professor after 20 years of hard working. Liu makes jokes about his definition of Kant-like fame and her definition is to have some great ideas and makes several good documentary. She believes it is the creativity which makes her life happier. I don't know how to response to the question. My answer is something in between. I am stilling looking for what I am becoming, at my old age, it sounds like nonsence but it is not. People like Ennis and Jake are lucky, even though they suffer from not able to live their ideal lives, but at least they realize earlier who they are and what they want. They have no doubt about their sexual identity and their source of happiness is simple: to go to a remote place like the B-mountain and be themselves. In real life, every few of us has a place to retreat. Go figure youself, that is our fate. Plan to see a documentary film talk by Wu Wenguan at NYU next Friday. As the leading figure of the so called New Documentary Movement in China, he attractes both eyeballs and money from big sponsors like EU. The project called Village Video Project and try to capture the changing scence in Chinese rural areas from villager's own perspective. However, I feel a little bit cliche about the idea; eventually it is him to decide to whom the DV camera is given, and what to show in the western median and what not to show. The voice of people is collected by him and disseminated by him, and at the end of the day it is his art work not theirs.

lost and found

I forgot my memory stick in computer lab and suddendly I realized I have no backup of it. The idea terried me and I faced the danger of lost of my dissertation analysis. I run back to library and the nice guy sat in front of the computer said he did find it and returned it to front desk. Here again my dearest friend, my hours of working in the boring lab!!! I am in physically weak condition today. My talk with International Office makes me sick and no other good news come in. I am disappointed about myself, my work and my inercia to move on. In fact I worked out too much of my poor body this week and it complains a lot. My back hurts and I decided not to go my squash class tonight.

杜甫 夢李白之一

死別已吞聲， 生別常惻惻。 江南瘴癘地， 逐客無消息。 故人入我夢， 明我長相憶； 君今在羅網， 何以有羽翼？ 恐非平生魂， 路遠不可測。 魂來楓林青， 魂返關塞黑； 落月滿屋梁， 猶疑照顏色。 水深波浪闊， 無使蛟龍得。

孟郊 遊子吟

慈母手中線， 遊子身上衣； 臨行密密縫， 意恐遲遲歸。 誰言寸草心， 報得三春輝？

李頎 聽董大彈胡笳聲兼寄語弄房給事

蔡女昔造胡笳聲， 一彈一十有八拍。 胡人落淚沾邊草， 漢使斷腸對歸客。 古戍蒼蒼烽火寒， 大荒沈沈飛雪白。 先拂聲絃後角羽， 四郊秋葉驚摵摵。 董夫子，通神明， 深山竊聽來妖精。 言遲更速皆應手， 將往復旋如有情。 空山百鳥散還合， 萬里浮雲陰且晴。 嘶酸雛雁失群夜， 斷絕胡兒戀母聲。 川為靜其波， 鳥亦罷其鳴； 烏孫部落家鄉遠， 邏娑沙塵哀怨生。 幽音變調忽飄灑， 長風吹林雨墮瓦； 迸泉颯颯飛木末， 野鹿呦呦走堂下。 長安城連東掖垣， 鳳凰池對青瑣門， 高才脫略名與利， 日夕望君抱琴至。

Identity

I started to read Kundera's Identity last night after a long conversation with Mao. Mao mentioned one of her students at NYU suddenly lost her mental control and became unconcisous since the past Sunday. I met that girl once at Mao's new year party. She was graduated from Nankai University and married her foreign lanugage instructor and moved to U.S. in 1999. She is of my age and just started her doctoral study last Fall. She is kind of easy-going and happy nature girl and her happiness is contangious. We went along pretty well and had a lot of fun that night. Mao said her husband flew from Virginia when she was already hospitalized. She can not even recoginze him. No reason was released about her sudden madiness. Mao and I feel sorry for her, but we don't know what we can do at this stage. It is a very difficult situation. She is American and has her family, and her husband doesn't want other people to get into their privacy. If she will continuous be insane, I don't know what will happen to her,without her extended family around her. That was the story I was told before I began to read Identity, another story about lovers who lost their identity even with the closest ones. Lovers suddently forget about each other. In the begining of the book, Chanty had this dream in which her ex husband and his new wife appeared, as well as lots of other people who had not got involved in her life for a long time. She concluded that the dream was to de-value her present life by boosting her past, and she refused to take it because she liked her present way of living and her lover Jean-Mac. I stopped there and went to sleep. Then I had this weird dream myself, about my mid school classmates, especially this girl called Cheng Wen. I was not particular kin on her even in school days, but in my dream she got married and had kids. We talked and then she had to leave for home. I am very tired after that dream. What does it mean? Today is International Women's Day and I have to reflect who I am and what I am becoming. In the dream, I seemed to lost my identity and became nothing more than a joke to my friends who had "real-life". Is it true? Do families, kids, husbands, homes prove your success? Do I need all these to make my life "full of meaning"? I doubt. But the tougher question is "what is it then?" Kundera let his heorin to make jokes about the married men, and called them "daddized". So if I am not going to mommized myself, what shall I be? I always complain that I don't have a life here as doctoral student, but will I have a life later as a faculty or researcher or anything? I need to define myself through my work, my relationship, my family and my beliefs. But now, many of them are hanging in the air. So who am I? A caterpillar? But a caterpillar of what? Maybe it is the morning Yoga class which makes me too critical about myself. The truth is I am in the middle of the river, between puberty and adulthood, between student and profession, between China and America. My life so far is about cross the lines, but where is my boundary?

My brother

Here is my brother.

coincidence

Recently, I find the movie star Liu Ye looks very similar as my brother in his early 20s. Before that, I always think my bro has some remote African heritage which makes him appears differently.

Blog of mind

Blog is the thing you can fall in love with. By chance, I find blog of my college friend and her crowd in Beijing. They are typical white-cellar high-maintance girls in BJ and they live the kind of live which I could have live. I read their writings, there seems to be much desire and temptation which I can not possibly afford.

Some of them are very articulated and their writings have this quality to commuicate with the least possible touch of their real emotion. They live the metropolitian lives, but constantly feel like outsiders or observers. What is real in the floating world of theirs? What do they count on in the mid of lonelyness?

They live a parellal lives as professionals here. They consume same drinks, food and especially entertainments. They watch Desperate Housewives, Six Feet Under, and the BIG H-movies, and they have the luxury to travel to the most remote areas in China with modern transportation modes. They fight back and forth between Beijing and Hong Kong, and they consume at the most popular clubs and KTVs in town. After a while, the eye-catching characters of these descriptions faded and you face a group of naked souls without home. One of them left Beijing for Hong Kong and she commented, Beijing contains too much desires which she can not afford. Desire for too much of everything. Is it true?

People use blog to map their minds. So you see everything in blogs. It seems many of the bloggers I read started to write from late last year. Maybe I should read more of them to understand the regular people of my age in BJ.

About 徐静蕾

徐静蕾 is a smart girl and she is one of my favoriate Chinese actresses. In one interview, she responsed to the question, "what is your ideal type?" and gave the follwoing answer: 娇点：你希望的自己是什么样子的？ 徐静蕾：特有耐心的，心特别宽的，可以给别人很多好处的。 She said she wasted many years to understand what she is and what she wanted to be. At age of 31, she felt "我觉得感情是一门科学，每个人有自己的磁场，受生理和心理的双重影响作用，如果两个人合适就会幸福，不然总有人受伤。每个人一生之中都会有伤口的机会，但是不过是当时不合适。不能说是爱错了人，只是当时不适合，这个道理我到现在三十一岁才弄懂并且承认". I know these sound pretty middle-class orientated and only people who are not worried about living can talk that way. But why not? She is living a kind of luxury life which most of can not afford, and that is the reason why we need the super stars at the first place. The unique characteristics of her is that she knows who she is and she knows the ridiculous of being celebrity. Besides, she looks like my close friend Xiao Rener a lot. They actually look like twins. So I'd rather believe she has a lot of quality of Xiao Rener, like being idiosyncratic, refused to cooperate with the mundane world, and thinking critically about herself and the world. I have not talked with Xiao Rener for a while. The last time I met her in Beijing in Aug 2005, at Beijing Film Academy. We spent the afternoon together, ate, talked and brought some DVDs in small shops. Our worlds seemed to be apart and our lives were on different trajectories. She worked as an editor for a film journal in Beijing and with her M.A. in screen writting, she spent most of her time writting novels. She liked to write from our middle school years and she was more mature in thinking from started. However, I always feel the loneless of her talented mind, even she was in close relationship with her bf. Now she was alone by herself and stayed marginally with her family as well. We had long conversations about movies we loved and the impossibility to be a writer in a commocial society as ours. She onced studied Russian and wished to study in Russia, but the plan falled. Now writting was her only excuses from the real life, but she knew this peaceful life would end soon once her journal went into "market". She was the one who introduce Milan Kundera's works to me in high school, and we read many of the Russian authors in the "Silver Period" from 1890 to 1920 together. As a daughter of a Chinese literature professor, she always criticized the life of old-fashioned intellectuals as her parents or new-styled intelletuals who got doctoral degree in U.S. and become U.S. citizen as her brother. The difficulty for her is to find her own way of living, which should be different from both extremes. She struggled and writting was her attempt to find way out. She might know about all these since she was very smart. But it is hard to take action and I don't know where she will have the strength from. In late 20s we all trap in our own piece of mind and hell. I saw a postcard in gym today about human brain in a bottle. The coach of Yoga class this morning said, our brain is about 12 pounds. He suggested the invertical position in yoga is a way to separat us from the real world and retreat to our mind. In this sense, many positions have both physical and mental effects. I don't think I take what he said literally, but I appreciate his sympothy for the struggles of our ordinary lives. It is hard to put us together every morning and staying normal for most of the day and go to bed without regretting too much for what you have done or not done today. There is already too much complaints for one day, I need to go back to work.