Winter Diary - Kyushu (Sat)

7:13 in the morning, I began my first trip in the past whole three years, only myself. It's going to be a long trip, 6 hours Shinkansen from Tokyo to the South-west side of Japan: Kyushu.

My first stop was Kumamoto. Because of the snow storm on the way, the train delayed and I finally arrived it around 3p.m. The first impression of Kumamoto was, it has light rails, like Hong Kong. It's about 3-5 degree outside. I took a stroll to the old town. There are a lot of unique, vintage shops there selling Miso, tofu ice cream, and leaf mustard. I tried the tofu ice cream, it tastes rich, but my hands are extremely frozen. I passed through the aisle and got to the second floor. and there came a huge castle in front of me.

I was sauntering around the moat around the castle, there was yellow grass all over the place decorated with some sporadic withered trees. In 2016, a strong earthquake had wrecked the city that some part of the defensive wall is still collapsed. Til the end of the route, there is a shrine on the right-hand side, it's a temporary dead end road because of the maintenance. Ravens hovering above te
Tenshukaku.

The Remains of Days

An expedition, I should say, which I will undertake alone, in the comfort of MR Farraday’s Ford; an expedition which, as I foresee it, will take me through much of the finest countryside of England to the West Country, and keep me away from Darlington Hall for as much as five or six days.

On seeing my person, he took the opportunity to inform me that he had just that moment finalized plans to return to the United States for a period of five weeks between August and September. Having made this announcement, my employer put his volumes down on a table, seated himself on the chaise-longue, and stretched out his legs.

"how do you ever get to see around this beautiful country of yours?"

Of course, I could not have expressed this view to Mr Farraday without embarking upon what might have seemed a presumptuous speech. I thus contended my self by saying simply:

“It has been my privilege to see the best of England over the years, sir, within these very walls.”

Mr Farraday did not seem to understand this statement, for he merely went on: “I mean it, Steven”

The fact that my attitude to this same suggestion underwent a change over the following days - indeed, that the notion of a trip to the West Country took an ever-increasing hold on my thoughts - is no doubt substantially attributable to - and why should I hide it? - the arrival of Miss Kenton’s letter, her first in almost seven years if one discounts the Christmas cards. But let me make it immediately clear what I mean by this; what I mean to say is that Miss Kenton’s letter set off a certain chain of ideas to do with professional matters here at Darlington Hall, and I would underline that it was a preoccupation with these very same professional matters that led me to consider anew my employer’s kindly meant suggestion.

I calculated finally that my savings would be able to meet all the cost I might incur, and in addition, might stretch to the purchase of a new costume.

it is important that one be attired at such times in a manner worthy of one’s position.

During this time, I also spent many minutes examining the road atlas, and perusing also the relevant volumes of Mrs Jane Symons’s The Wonder of England.

I considered most carefully what carefully what might be the most opportune occasion to bring the matter up with him

he is rarely engrossed in his reading or writing as he tends to be in the evenings.

I brought in the tea yesterday afternoon, and being aware of his general propensity to talk with me in a bantering tone at such moments, it would certainly have been wiser not to have mentioned Miss Kenton at all.

159/3397

The Spirit of Cities: Why the Identity of a City Matters in a Global Age

I. Globalisation: the sense of cosmopolitanism

Due to migration, free flow of labour and capital, the internet and the new social media, and the exchange of customs, more and more people experience a sense of cosmopolitanism. The extreme manifestation of this trend is the "Davos Man," somebody who has transcended all national allegiances and views himself as a "citizen of the world"

The desire to experience a sense of uniqueness and particularity seems deeply rooted in human nature. With the decline of national attachments, the best place to look for a supplement (or a replacement) might be "down" to the city rather than "up" to the world.

When urbanization is combined with the seemingly inexorable force of capitalism, it has the effect of transforming a variety of cultures into a single culture of consumerism.

Cities, we think, allow for a combination of both cosmopolitanism and a sense of community rooted in particularity. Indeed, we see that city-zens often take pride in their cities and the values they represent and seek to nourish their distinctive civic cultures and ways of life.

* nationalist demagogues

We want to suggest that civicism, with its combination of local pride and openness to the world and the universal, provides the psychological underpinnings for people to be more moderate nationalists. Cities with an ethos can also accomplish desirable political goals that are harder to accomplish at the level of the state.

* There are also good economic reasons to promote the ethos of a city. Cities that develop a clear identity can help to revive moribund economies.

* Ethos is defined as the characteristic spirit, the prevalent tone of sentiment, of a people or community. 

II. Cities and architecture

Cities reflect as well as shape their inhabitants' values and outlooks in various ways. The design and architecture of their buildings reflect different social and cultural values. Cities built for walking and bicycling versus those built for cars encourage and promote different values about sustainability.

Stalinist and fascist architecture often has the effect of dwarfing the individual, making it easier for the state to make people believe that they should submit to the state and its "great leader".

Globalism has the effect of homogenizing culture, transforming a variety of cultures into a single culture of consumerism, the result of which is a feeling of sameness and lessening of pluralism and diversity in cultural ideas and alternatives.

New York.

New York became the capital of finance and culture as a result of its history of attracting different kinds of ambitious immigrants, who innovate and create by constant questioning of established ways of life. The dark side of ambition, however, is an extreme form of individualism that is almost unique among great cities. Paradoxically, however, there is a strong sense of "civicism" in New York that allows the city to survive the repeated challenges to decent community life.

Jerusalem.

Jerusalem is conceived by many: nearly 50 percent religious Jews, 25 percent secular Jews, and 25 percent Arabs. Many Jerusalemites say cynically that Jerusalem is the only city in the world where the right to vote is granted to the dead. A third of Jerusalem's population lives below the poverty line (the situation for Jerusalem's Arabs is worse; nearly two-thirds live below poverty line).

"Humans who have a heart have God within them."

"Athens represents reason, whereas Jerusalem represents biblical revelation."

altruisme

《沒有墓碑的草原：内蒙古的文革大屠殺實錄》- 楊海英

內蒙古人民共和國臨時政府 - [32]

1945 年 9 月 9 日，位於內蒙古中央錫林郭勒盟蘇尼特右旗的德王政府所在地召開了內蒙古人民代表大會，宣布成立「內蒙古人民共和國臨時政府」（簡稱「臨時政府」），以留日精英知識份子的「蒙古青年黨」和德王的「蒙疆政權」的幹部為中心，選出長老補英達賚（又譯「寶英達賴」）為臨時共和國政府主席，代表們討論並通過了《內蒙古獨立宣言》和《內蒙古人民共和國臨時憲法》; 宣布「中國無理掠奪資源，分割我內外蒙古，致使我全蒙古民族處於不能發展之狀態」。「臨時政府」主張「內外蒙合併」和「內蒙古獨立」，打出了「民族獨立」的旗號。

為了擴大影響，「臨時政府」派出代表團前往蒙古人民共和國，要求通過烏蘭巴托廣播電台向全世界宣布內蒙古已經獨立，還要求蘇聯、蒙古人民共和國承認其獨立，並在軍事、經濟上給予幫助。但是，蒙古人民共和國政府拒絕了臨時政府代表團的要求，同時指明，由於《雅爾達協定》的制約，內外蒙古已經不能合併;內蒙古事情屬於中國內政，蒙古人民共和國的獨立剛得到中國政府的承認，因此不能越界干涉; 有關內蒙古的問題，應由內蒙古各界人士做出決定。內蒙古的問題屬於中國的內政，應同中共取得聯繫，以解決內蒙古的民族問題。

內蒙古騎兵師

日治時代接受現代教育、被稱為「跨洋刀」的蒙古人將校為中心組建的蒙古人自己的軍隊。五個騎兵師中，很長一段時間內，實際上是四個師。各師最初均由「內人黨」統括，通稱為「東蒙古人民自治軍」。

1945年，毛澤東在中共「七大」的政治報告《論聯合政府》中提出：「少數民族要成立維護群眾利益的少數民族自己的軍隊」。「四三會議」以後，東蒙古人民自治君四個騎兵師番號被取消，統編為「內蒙古人民自衛軍」，烏蘭夫為司令員，阿思根為副司令員。1948年1月改稱為「內蒙古人民解放軍」。因不同意內蒙古騎兵參與國共內戰的民族精英大部分被肅清，因而增添和壯大了漢族士兵部隊。在東北內戰，特別是遼瀋戰役中，內蒙古鐵騎發揮了很大的威力。

1949年5月，內蒙古人民解放軍正式編入中國人民解放軍序列，成立了內蒙古軍區。烏蘭夫任軍區司令員兼政治委員。1959年，達賴喇嘛武裝抵抗中共入侵之際，中共派內蒙古騎兵第五師兩個團入藏參與鎮壓，於1962年撤回。1966年5月，文革爆發後，騎五師首先被解除武裝，從此，蒙古人永遠失去了自己的民族軍隊。

本書研究的焦點在於探索20世紀60年代，文化大革命對蒙古人的大屠殺始終隱匿、至今屬忌諱的人道犯罪問題。蒙古人幾乎所有的家庭被捲入了這場大殺戮，這場殺戮本質上即為民族滅絕大屠殺。其理由是：中共認為「內蒙古人民革命黨員」和其「社會基礎」是「我們偉大祖國北部邊疆的一大隱患」。因此，對於中共來說，「懷疑屠殺」、「預防屠殺」是必須的、必要的、必然的「革命行動」。發動與進行大殺戮的一方為中國政府和占總人口百分之九十四的漢人，少數民族蒙古族則因為曾經展開自由自決運動而被定罪，也因此，

文革給蒙古族留下的集體記憶是民族大屠殺。

日本

日本，在本書中為第三主人公，或者可以稱為「隱身主人公」，緣由日本人並不直接登場，本書通過分析歷史記憶和現實闡述，觀察身受日本影響的蒙古人的命運如何與日本當代歷史互為連動，負荷著日本當代史的蒙古人在中國有著怎樣的生活故事。從他們遭遇的多重迫害中，就中國文化大革命與蒙古民族的關係問題進行實證研究，從而勾勒出蒙古民族對這一政治文化現象的基本認識。

20世紀30年代，由於現代日本插手蒙古草原地緣政治，蒙古人的領土而被中國佔領。具體地說，日本在1932年建立滿洲國後，並不滿足滿州廣闊無垠的黑土，還想進一步北上入侵蒙古人民共和國和西伯利亞。1939年夏，在內蒙古草原的諾門坎地區關東軍與蘇聯和蒙古的聯合軍發生激烈交戰。諾門坎戰役中，關東軍慘敗，日本放棄了北進擴大帝國版圖的計畫，改為南下向中國展開進攻。1945年8月，滿洲國也在蘇蒙聯軍的進攻下徹底終結。之前，在美英蘇三國的雅爾達會議上，在蘇聯強大的壓力下，做出了「蒙古人民共和國現狀予以保持」的決定，同時將滿州和內蒙古轉交中華民國政府，以換取蘇聯在德國投降後三個月內，參加對日作戰。在如此重要的會議上竟然沒有一個蒙古人參加。換言之，蒙古人並沒有參與這一決定本民族自身命運的會議。

第一部分：

沐浴日本近代教育薰陶的蒙古族知識份子如何在嚴酷的中共政治運動中努力探尋民族生存之道，通過當事者自己的視角回顧歷史。他們這一群民族菁英操說一口流暢的日語，烙印著日本型的現代精神，因而中國稱呼他們為「跨洋刀的」。當然，「對日合作者 = 偽滿日奸 ＝ 跨洋刀的」成為他們被任意羅織添加的罪名。這樣，對蒙古人的民族自決運動的否定以及迫害，實質上就是中共對日本殖民統治的間接清算。

第二部分：

接受過日本近代教育的內蒙古東部的教育水準很高，即使進入了中共建政時代，東部草原也培育了無數的新知識青年。青年們在文革爆發後，立即舉起了向共產黨既得利益造反的旗幟。但不久，這些青年無一例外地遭到了肅清，因為被父輩們的「對日協力者＝偽滿日奸」之「原罪」株連。

第三部分：

最初參加共產黨陣營的蒙古人主要是內蒙古西部土默特地區和鄂爾多斯地區的蒙古人。他們都曾在共產黨根據地的延安學習，是「根正苗紅的延安派」。為肅清和瓦解東蒙幹部，中共充分而有效地利用了「延安派」。中共達到其目的之後，「無用的延安派」也被整肅。最後，蒙古民族菁英整體迫害殆盡。

第四部分：

共產黨和被煽動、被愚弄的漢族人對蒙古人的殺戮規模之大、時間之長，為歷史罕見。內蒙古草原化作了名副其實的駭人聽聞的大屠殺原野 - 男人遭清算，女人被強姦，世世代代居住在國境線上的牧民被強制內遷，清騰出來的土地、家園由漢地移民居住，母語蒙古語被禁言...... 

從1964年起，中國發動全國範圍內的「四清運動」，烏蘭夫卻在內蒙古推動了一場與「四清」毫無關係的「反對大漢族主義運動」。這無異於表示，烏蘭夫向中共舉起反旗，是個「根深蒂固的叛逆」。

中共為了取得對蘇決定性的勝利，只有事先對北疆＊「犯有前科的蒙古人」一網打盡，他們早已掌握了殲滅蒙古人的「大義名份」，這就是蒙古人曾經「附逆偽滿」。只有乾淨地收拾了蒙古人之後，在中國本土就可以順利無阻地開展文化大革命了。這就是中國文化大革命為何從內蒙古開始的緣故。而內蒙文革也意味著漢人奴隸主對淪為奴隸的蒙古人的大規模暴力制裁。蒙古人就是這樣理解文革與民族大屠殺關係的。

共產黨與鴉片- [84]

「石砭兒」在蒙古語中是「濕潤地帶」的意思，碧野茫茫的鄂爾多斯大草原，自16世紀以來一直是蒙古英雄出沒之地。也是小薩囊撤辰的故鄉。

小薩囊撤辰的名字漢譯囊斯辰，薩岡徹長 ·  洪 ·  太吉。用蒙文著述的巨著《哈敦 ·  溫都蘇努 ·  額爾德尼托卜赤》，時為西元1662年，後人漢譯為《蒙古源流》。該書影像深遠，後世的蒙古編年史，大體都繼承這部書的傳統體裁。

共產黨首先組織石砭兒的漢人農民加入「抗日聯合會」（簡稱為「抗聯會」），名為「抗日」，實際上鼓勵栽培罌粟。漢人農民掘井挖池，大興灌溉罌粟地水利工程。70年代中期，我上初中的時候，這些水利設施還發會著功能（楊，2003，頁293-341）。從罌粟提取和加工的鴉片，成為共產黨「度過難關」、「過上豐衣足食的日子」，並積蓄軍事、經濟力量的仲要資金來源。當國民黨軍在前線同日軍大規模殊死作戰的時候，共產黨卻躲在後方種賣「特貨」鴉片。

共產黨自家種自己消費的話，是他自家的事。但問題是種植的鴉片主要流通到國統區（司馬璐，2006，頁89），再者就是與之接壤的鄂爾多思地區。他們不僅種鴉片，他們的間諜同時也出沒於鄂爾多斯地區，甚至將鴉片作為禮品「餽贈」蒙古王公、政治強人。這是共產黨自己都承認的事實。被染上抽鴉片惡習的蒙古人因此陷入更加貧困的窘地。

Noewegian Wood

I re-read the Norwegian wood after the adolescence. I just can't remember where I bought this novel, until I saw the receipt - it is Montreal, and I just realise that I once promised myself to remember a place by a book, like The Boat (Stockholm),  Empire of Illusion (Hong Kong), though they just don't have any connection, and I somehow do not follow this rule in the following years (Because of Kindle, thanks). But it reminds me some trivial incidents in Montreal, the feeling of being solitude, with film cameras, the chilly temperature, paper map, Sunlights in square, and I just got in the book store without knowing what I want, and this book was at the corner side of shelves, with one of several authors I knew at that time. 

Reiko wrote to me several times after Naoko's death. 
The memories would slam against me like the waves of an incoming tide, sweeping my body along to some strange new place - a place where I lived with the dead. There Naoko lived, and I could speak with her and hold her in my arms. Death in that place was not a decisive elements comprising life. There Naoko lived with death inside her. And to me she said,"Don't worry, it's only death . Don't let it bother you."

I felt no sadness in that strange place. Death was death, Naoko was Naoko. "What's the problem?" she asked me with a bashful smile. "I'm here, aren't I?" Her familiar little gestures soothed my heart and gave me healing. "If this is death," I thought to myself, "then death is not so bad." "It's true," said Nako, "death is nothing much. It's just death. Things are so easy for me here." Naoko spoke to me in the spaces between the crashing of the dark waves. 

Eventually, though, the tide would pull back, and I would be left on the beach alone. Powerless, I could go no where; sorrow it self would envelope me in deep darkness until the tears came. I felt less that I was crying than that the tears were simply oozing out of me like perspiration. 

By living our lives, we nurture death. True as this might be, it was only one of the truths we had to learn. What I learned from Naoko's death was this: no truth can cure the sorrow we feel from losing a loved one. No truth, no sincerity, no strength, no kindness can cure that sorrow. All we can do is see it through to the end and learn something from it.

Stoner - John Williams

The past gathered out of the darkness where it stayed, and the dead raised themselves to live before him; and the past and the dead flowed into the present among the alive, so that he had for an intense instant a vision of denseness into which he was compacted and from which he could not escape, and had no wish to escape.

already, he realised, he and his parents were becoming strangers; and he felt his love increased by its loss.

Master / Finch / Stoner

Masters - "Have you gentlemen ever considered the question of the true nature of the University? Mr. Stoner? Mr. Finch?"  "I'll bet you haven't. Stoner, here, I imagine, see it as a great repository, like a library or a whorehouse, where men come of their free will and select that which will complete them, where all work together like little bees in a common hive. The True, the Good, the Beautiful. They're just around the corner, in the next corridor; they're in the next book, the one you haven't read, or in the next stack, the one you haven't got to. But you'll get to it someday. And when you do - when you do - " "You'll protest you haven't thought of it. But you have, Beneath that bluff and hearty exterior there works a simple mind. To you, the institution is an instrument of good - to the world at large of course, and just incidentally to yourself. You see it as a kind of spiritual sulphur-and-molasses that you administer every fall to get the little bastards through another winter; and you're the kindly old doctor who benignly pats their heads and pockets their fees."

"We give out the reasons." "but that's just protective coloration. Like the church in the Middle Ages, which didn't give a damn about the laity or even about God, we have our pretenses in order to survive. And we shall survive - because we have to. "

His dissertation

He wondered again at the essay, graceful manner in which the Roman lyricists accepted the fact of death, as if the nothingness they faced were tribute to the richness of the years they had enjoyed; and he marvelled at the bitterness, the terror, the barely concealed hatred he found in some of the later Christian poets of the Latin tradition when they looked to that death which promised, however vaguely, a rich and ecstatic eternity of life, as if that death and promise were a mockery that soured the days of their living. 

Edith

She was educated upon the premise that she would be protected from the gross events that life might thrust in her way, and upon the premise that she had no other duty than to be a graceful and accomplished accessory to that protection, since she belonged to a social and economic class to which protection was an almost sacred obligation.

Her moral training, both at the schools she attended and at home, was negative in nature, prohibitive in intent, and almost entirely sexual. The sexuality, however, was indirect and unacknowledged; therefore it suffused every other part of her education, which received most of its energy from that recessive and unspoken moral force. she learned that she would have duties toward her husband and family and that she must fulfil them. 

Edith parents

Anger was days of courteous silence, and love was a word of courteous endearment.

Middle marriage

And at times he felt that some closeness remained between them, a closeness which neither of them could afford to admit.

Solitude

He heard the silence of the winter night, and it seemed to him that he somehow felt the sounds that were absorbed by the delicate and intricately cellular being of the snow. Nothing moved upon the whiteness; it was a dead scene, which seemed to pull at him, to suck at his consciousness just as it pulled the sound from the air and buried it within a cold white softness. He felt himself pulled outward toward to whiteness, which spread as far as he could se, and which was a part of the darkness from which it glowed of the clear and cloudless sky without height or depth. 

Beyond the jagged outline of the apartment houses the town lights glowed upon a thin mist that hung in the air.

Love tears them apart

But from the moment he walked out of Gordon Finch's office, he knew, somewhere within the numbness that grew from a small centre of his being, that a part of his life was over, that a part of him was so near death that he could watch the approach almost with calm. He was vaguely conscious that he walked across the campus in the bright crisp heat of an early spring afternoon the dogwood trees along the sidewalks and in the front yards were in full bloom, and they trembled like soft clouds, translucent and tenuous, before his gaze; the sweet scent of dying lilac blossoms drenched the air.

Death

Edith- "Oh, Willy, You're all eaten up inside."

Dispassionately, reasonably, he contemplated the failure that his life must appear to be.

It occurred to him that he ought to call Edith; and then he knew that he would not call her. The dying are selfish, he thought; they want their moments to themselves, like children.

The finders loosed, and the book they had held moved slowly and then swiftly across the still body and fell into the silence of room.