Well, well, I haven't posted here in a while. I am currently enjoying a week and a half long break from school. Then it's back to the Chinese characters. Hmmm... what else? I will have surgery in August. Yay for uterine fibroids! So please feel free to send me lots of chocolate and good books to read to keep me happy then!
More later, maybe!
Saturday, 14 June 2008
Sunday, 23 March 2008
The Blind Owl
The Blind Owl is a Pahlavi era novel by Iranian author Hedayat. In its first few pages, you might be tricked into disappointment, thinking "oh here we go again, another man-hits-rock-bottom-because-of-failed-love-with-gorgeous-woman story." But you will soon realize that you are inside of the head of a man very similar to Beckett's Molloy... more like Molloy if he had been less OCD and more bipolar and forced to live around others. The book has this beautiful repetition of certain sentences that turn different places into the same places, different people into the same people, recurring, haunting this poor man through his life or many lives.
Don't read it before you go to bed, though. You will have frightening dreams!
Don't read it before you go to bed, though. You will have frightening dreams!
Monday, 3 March 2008
"What is the law? No spill blood!"
(School keeps me busy, but hello, and I SWEAR I will email certain folks in Norway, Australia, and King County as soon as spring break gets here!)
I live with an angel, a bodhisattva. In 17 days I will reach 25 years old, the age when Warrick warned me our dispositions are set in stone. I'm still scrambling to find the root of why I am so filled with the constant impulse to hate and criticize so many things, as if they were black and white when I know damned well that all is grey. I am a typical priveleged American, and I am also well informed enough to hate the word "intellectual", but lack just enough information to render myself "too big for my britches", hating all the freshman college girls for wearing Britney Spears sunglasses and spider leg thin heels on shoes, hating Americans for swallowing high fructose corn syrup like it was oxygen, hating myself for constantly criticizing the Korean bastardization of the English language and of Western things like bread. I draw blood on a bodhisattva while migrant workers are left to die in a shipping box a few states away, never to pay back the debts that got them here.
A white haired Persian cat sits chewing on things like vaseling dandelions, pork ribs, and the idea that suburban whites are really doing a favor to poor workers on some other planet by buying fair trade coffee.
I choke it down, it makes me shit instantly. The nutrient rich golden piss of people in America who think they're poor while owning things like TV's and sodapop.
(Are we for real?)
I live with an angel, a bodhisattva. In 17 days I will reach 25 years old, the age when Warrick warned me our dispositions are set in stone. I'm still scrambling to find the root of why I am so filled with the constant impulse to hate and criticize so many things, as if they were black and white when I know damned well that all is grey. I am a typical priveleged American, and I am also well informed enough to hate the word "intellectual", but lack just enough information to render myself "too big for my britches", hating all the freshman college girls for wearing Britney Spears sunglasses and spider leg thin heels on shoes, hating Americans for swallowing high fructose corn syrup like it was oxygen, hating myself for constantly criticizing the Korean bastardization of the English language and of Western things like bread. I draw blood on a bodhisattva while migrant workers are left to die in a shipping box a few states away, never to pay back the debts that got them here.
A white haired Persian cat sits chewing on things like vaseling dandelions, pork ribs, and the idea that suburban whites are really doing a favor to poor workers on some other planet by buying fair trade coffee.
I choke it down, it makes me shit instantly. The nutrient rich golden piss of people in America who think they're poor while owning things like TV's and sodapop.
(Are we for real?)
Saturday, 12 January 2008
Alan Qoa and the Secret History
Here is an article on something our professor talked about in our Central Asian history class the other day:
The Secret History of the Mongols - great epics, heroic tales of man and superman
The Secret History of the Mongols
THE Secret History of the Mongols (Mongyol-un ni'uca tobca'an) is the earliest surviving literary monument of the Mongolian people. Its author is unknown, and although it is widely thought to have been written in 1240, both its original title and the exact date of its composition are still matters for debate.
What is beyond doubt is the fact the The Secret History is a historical and literary document of major importance. Not only does it recount the genealogy of the early Mongol khans and the life and times of Genghis Khan, founder of a unified Mongol state, it also paints a vivid and accurate picture of the nomadic Mongol way of life and provides rich source material for an understanding of Mongol society in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
Soviet Academician Boris Vladimirtsov has described The Secret History as a "history-chronicle" retold in epic style and "impregnated with the aroma of the steppe". A British scholar, David Morgan, has pointed out that whatever hesitations historians may feel about the work as a strictly accurate record of historical events, there can be no doubt that it provides a unique and authoritative insight into the way of life, patterns of thought and beliefs of the thirteenth-century Mongols.
Genghis Khan, the warrior who united the Mongol tribes
The Secret History may be divided into three parts--a genealogy of the ancestors of Genghis Khan, stories about the life of Genghis Khan, and a short section on his son and successor Ogodei.
The first part records the legendary history of Mongolia as reconstructed from very ancient oral traditions--myths and legends, stories and accounts of historical events. It opens with the legend that the forefather of the Mongolian people was "a bluish wolf which was born having [his] destiny from Heaven above", whose "spouse was a fallow doe".(1) The image of the wolf appears in the mythology of many Eurasian peoples, closely connected with ancestor cults of the tribal chief or the founder of a clan.
The following well-documented genealogy of the Mongol khans exalts the glory of the "Golden Horde" and is the genealogical basis for studies of the early history of the Mongolian people.
The main theme is developed in the second part of the epic, in which legend and myth give way to more reliable historical data. Although the narrative continues in the epic style, it begins to assume the characteristics of a chronicle. An ancient Eastern system of chronology, based on a twelve-year animal cycle, is used to date events in the history of the numerous Mongolian tribes and their unification into a single state by Genghis Khan, the central figure of the story.
Genghis Khan is portrayed not only as a legendary hero and warrior, the embodiment of the "steppe aristocracy", but also as a great political figure and statesman who decided by his "iron will" to put an end to the discord among the Mongol tribes, where anarchy prevailed:
The Heaven with stars
Was turning round about.
The many peoples were at strife.
Not entering into their beds,
They were spoiling one another.
The earth with crust
Was turning backward and forward.
The whole nation was at strife.
Although the main hero of the story is Genghis Khan, one of the greatest conquerors in world history, the author does not seem to attach great significance to his military campaigns against other countries, as if he had deliberately ignored that aspect of Genghis' career. On the other hand, he constantly stresses to readers and listeners the benefits and privileges to be enjoyed within a centralized Mongolian state.
The third, much shorter, part of The Secret History summarizes the reign of Ogodei (1228-1241), the second great khan of Mongolia. It is thought to be a later addition to the main text.
The cult of Light
A work of great literary merit, The Secret History is a unique phenomenon in the history of nomadic peoples. It has been compared to monuments of world literature such as Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, Alexander Romance literature, the French Chanson de Roland, and the Russian Lay of Igor's Campaign.
The Mongolian people lived at a crossroads of world communications and it would be a mistake to assume that such an epic could have been created by them in isolation from other civilizations. The script in which it was written had its origins in Phoenician, Aramaic and Sogdian systems of writing. Close examination of the text reveals traces of religious and mythological concepts of ancient Oriental peoples, especially the influence of the Zoroastrian-Manichaean cult of Light. This cult is reflected in the Mongolian legend of the immaculate conception of Alan-qua, the foremother of Genghis Khan's clan, by the "Father-Light". Alan-qua recounts her experience in the epic:
Every night, a bright yellow man entered by the light of the hole at the top or [by that] of the door top of the tent and rubbed my belly. His light was wont to sink into my belly. When he went out, like a yellow dog he was wont to crawl out by the beams of the sun or moon.
To read the rest, visit here: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1310/is_1989_Sept/ai_8067509
The Secret History of the Mongols - great epics, heroic tales of man and superman
The Secret History of the Mongols
THE Secret History of the Mongols (Mongyol-un ni'uca tobca'an) is the earliest surviving literary monument of the Mongolian people. Its author is unknown, and although it is widely thought to have been written in 1240, both its original title and the exact date of its composition are still matters for debate.
What is beyond doubt is the fact the The Secret History is a historical and literary document of major importance. Not only does it recount the genealogy of the early Mongol khans and the life and times of Genghis Khan, founder of a unified Mongol state, it also paints a vivid and accurate picture of the nomadic Mongol way of life and provides rich source material for an understanding of Mongol society in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
Soviet Academician Boris Vladimirtsov has described The Secret History as a "history-chronicle" retold in epic style and "impregnated with the aroma of the steppe". A British scholar, David Morgan, has pointed out that whatever hesitations historians may feel about the work as a strictly accurate record of historical events, there can be no doubt that it provides a unique and authoritative insight into the way of life, patterns of thought and beliefs of the thirteenth-century Mongols.
Genghis Khan, the warrior who united the Mongol tribes
The Secret History may be divided into three parts--a genealogy of the ancestors of Genghis Khan, stories about the life of Genghis Khan, and a short section on his son and successor Ogodei.
The first part records the legendary history of Mongolia as reconstructed from very ancient oral traditions--myths and legends, stories and accounts of historical events. It opens with the legend that the forefather of the Mongolian people was "a bluish wolf which was born having [his] destiny from Heaven above", whose "spouse was a fallow doe".(1) The image of the wolf appears in the mythology of many Eurasian peoples, closely connected with ancestor cults of the tribal chief or the founder of a clan.
The following well-documented genealogy of the Mongol khans exalts the glory of the "Golden Horde" and is the genealogical basis for studies of the early history of the Mongolian people.
The main theme is developed in the second part of the epic, in which legend and myth give way to more reliable historical data. Although the narrative continues in the epic style, it begins to assume the characteristics of a chronicle. An ancient Eastern system of chronology, based on a twelve-year animal cycle, is used to date events in the history of the numerous Mongolian tribes and their unification into a single state by Genghis Khan, the central figure of the story.
Genghis Khan is portrayed not only as a legendary hero and warrior, the embodiment of the "steppe aristocracy", but also as a great political figure and statesman who decided by his "iron will" to put an end to the discord among the Mongol tribes, where anarchy prevailed:
The Heaven with stars
Was turning round about.
The many peoples were at strife.
Not entering into their beds,
They were spoiling one another.
The earth with crust
Was turning backward and forward.
The whole nation was at strife.
Although the main hero of the story is Genghis Khan, one of the greatest conquerors in world history, the author does not seem to attach great significance to his military campaigns against other countries, as if he had deliberately ignored that aspect of Genghis' career. On the other hand, he constantly stresses to readers and listeners the benefits and privileges to be enjoyed within a centralized Mongolian state.
The third, much shorter, part of The Secret History summarizes the reign of Ogodei (1228-1241), the second great khan of Mongolia. It is thought to be a later addition to the main text.
The cult of Light
A work of great literary merit, The Secret History is a unique phenomenon in the history of nomadic peoples. It has been compared to monuments of world literature such as Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, Alexander Romance literature, the French Chanson de Roland, and the Russian Lay of Igor's Campaign.
The Mongolian people lived at a crossroads of world communications and it would be a mistake to assume that such an epic could have been created by them in isolation from other civilizations. The script in which it was written had its origins in Phoenician, Aramaic and Sogdian systems of writing. Close examination of the text reveals traces of religious and mythological concepts of ancient Oriental peoples, especially the influence of the Zoroastrian-Manichaean cult of Light. This cult is reflected in the Mongolian legend of the immaculate conception of Alan-qua, the foremother of Genghis Khan's clan, by the "Father-Light". Alan-qua recounts her experience in the epic:
Every night, a bright yellow man entered by the light of the hole at the top or [by that] of the door top of the tent and rubbed my belly. His light was wont to sink into my belly. When he went out, like a yellow dog he was wont to crawl out by the beams of the sun or moon.
To read the rest, visit here: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1310/is_1989_Sept/ai_8067509
School
I'm not sure how often I'll get to post here, now that school has started, but I'll try my best. I'm taking three classes. Chinese, History of Central Asia and Iran, and Labor Studies. As part of the labor studies class, I will be volunteering two hours per week with the Firefighters' Union downtown!
I owe a lot of people emails, but as I've just come down with a cold, I'll be saving correspondence for later this weekend, I hope.
I owe a lot of people emails, but as I've just come down with a cold, I'll be saving correspondence for later this weekend, I hope.
Saturday, 5 January 2008
Locker Room School
Education can be everywhere we look. We are taking it in all the time. Many of these things we learn, we never share with other people. Take the things you learn in a women's locker room, for example. I go to a gym every day (with mixed feelings on so many different levels and planes). I think a place like a gym locker room is an important place for me as a young woman. At first, I felt a little uncomfortable seeing all these female strangers walking around nude in the locker room. Women from many different countries come to this locker room, and I realized that so many of them seem to feel infinitely more comfortable in their own bare skin than I do. Curiosity has since overtaken my discomfort. I now remember how much I learned about what would happen to my body as I grew up when I went into women's locker rooms at the public swimming pool with my mother when I was a little girl. I remember how I would stare, as children do, at shapes that I knew I would one day take on myself. Now I'm too culturally trained to stare, but I do learn so much from the corner of my eye. Most men probably have some fantasy idea of what a women's locker room is like, but that couldn't be further from the reality. In a women's locker room, you will see long tangles of red, blonde, and black hair in shower drains. You will see that young women with the most cookie cutter attractive bodies and faces actually have so many interesting and unique differences under their clothing. (The media would call these flaws, I call them refreshing realities.) You will also see the sacrifices of motherhood and grandmotherhood weighing on women's bodies. You will see the most interesting birthmarks. You will see bruises in the strangest places. If you are a woman, you will see everything that you have been and that you will be. You will see so many American women try to hide their own bodies behind towels, no matter what their age, shape or size. You might catch yourself doing the same, but then stop, realizing that someone might learn a little more about their own life from watching yours out of the corner of their eye.
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