In Kathmandu, Nepal, there lives a little girl whom people worship as a goddess. She is called the Kumari. The word kumari means an unmarried young girl, or virgin. There are several Kumaris in the old Newar towns of the Kathmandu Valley, but the best known is the Royal Kumari of Kathmandu, who lives inContinueContinue reading “The Story of the Kumari”
Category Archives: essays
契诃夫的1124个字
伊凡开始讲那个故事。彼得累了。他心中害怕。他深爱着耶稣。耶稣被捕以后，他一路跟着，远远地看着耶稣受辱挨打。接下来，是他三次不认主，是拂晓，随后是鸡鸣，是彼得突然明白自己做了什么。彼得走出去，止不住的呜呜哭泣。瓦西丽莎也哭了。就在这一刻，一件不可思议的事情发生了。一个已经死去近一千九百年的人，让一个站在俄罗斯一堆火旁不识字的乡下女人流下了眼泪。伊凡看见了。两个夜晚开始流入彼此。彼得的悲痛出现在瓦西丽莎的眼泪里。彼得曾经烤过火的那堆火，又在寡妇家的菜园里燃烧起来。那个寒冷的夜晚，就是这个寒冷的夜晚。那些恐惧、痛苦的人，就是这些恐惧、痛苦的人。
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What Chekhov Did in 1,124 Words
Soviet artistAristarkh Lentulov 1 Anton Chekhov’s “The Student” is 1,124 words long in the Russian original. The number is worth keeping in mind. It is not a piece of literary trivia. It tells us something about the magnitude of the accomplishment. In a little over a thousand words, Chekhov takes us through two nights separatedContinueContinue reading “What Chekhov Did in 1,124 Words”
The Story of Allegri’s Miserere
Miserere mei, Deus, Allegri, Tenebrae Miserere mei, Deus. “Have mercy on me, O God.” These are the opening words of Psalm 51 in the Latin Bible, and from the first word, Miserere—“have mercy”—the psalm came to be known simply as the Miserere. According to the biblical story, the words belong to King David after hisContinueContinue reading “The Story of Allegri’s Miserere”
The Story of Dies Irae
Tympanum at Autun Cathedral 1. The Poem Dies irae began as words. Sometime in the Middle Ages, probably in the thirteenth century, a Latin poem took shape around one of Christianity’s oldest and most terrifying ideas: that history will one day end, the dead will rise, and every human being will stand before God toContinueContinue reading “The Story of Dies Irae”
“I Am a European”
To Barbara (Betty) Gaun (1891–1967) “I Want to Die in Europe” In 1949, two years before his death, Ludwig Wittgenstein traveled to the United States to visit his friend and former student Norman Malcolm, who was then teaching at Cornell University. During the visit, Wittgenstein became seriously ill. The illness was later found to beContinueContinue reading ““I Am a European””
茶中的婊子和妻子
心里历来有个疑窦，觉得铁观音一类的茶，有股脂粉味，青楼味，娼妓味，脂粉娘娘味。今日要探个究竟…
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迟来总比不来好
当我第一次听到电影《阿嬤的情书》的剧情时，脑海里即刻浮现出的，是弗兰克·麦考特（Frank McCourt）的《安琪拉的灰烬》（Angela’s Ashes）。这本出版于1996年的回忆录，把爱尔兰贫困、移民与屈辱的情感现实，第一次真正带入了主流文化意识之中。也许，《阿嬤的情书》所标志的，正是中国社会终于开始以类似方式，面对南洋华人离散历史的时刻
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Better Late Than Never: Reading Amah’s Love Letters
The first thing that came to my mind when I heard the plot of the movie 《阿嬤的情书》 was Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt. Published in 1996, the memoir brought into mainstream cultural consciousness the emotional reality of Irish poverty, migration, and humiliation. Perhaps 《阿嬤的情书》 signals that Chinese society, too, is finally beginning a similar processContinueContinue reading “Better Late Than Never: Reading Amah’s Love Letters”
网民
The people in China who end up becoming creators of tech- and culture-related content — the kind consumed by China’s billion-strong wang min (网民) — are often those bottle-half-full Chinese youths who dropped out of U.S. universities. These are the modern 邯郸学步 types: they have not truly mastered the foreigners’ stuff, but have already managedContinueContinue reading “网民”
