What are we calling it?

Everything is Meaningless “Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the Teacher. “Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.” Wisdom is Meaningless 16 I said to myself, “Look, I have increased in wisdom more than anyone who has ruled over Jerusalem before me; I have experienced much of wisdom and knowledge.” 17 Then I applied myself to the understanding of wisdom, and also of madness and folly, but I learned that this, too, is a chasing after the wind. For with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief. Pleasure is a Ghost I said to myself, “Come now, I will test you with pleasure to find out what is good.” But that also proved to be meaningless. 2 “Laughter,” I said, “is madness. And what does pleasure accomplish?” 3 I tried cheering myself with wine, and embracing folly—my mind still guiding me with wisdom. I wanted to see what was good for people to do under the heavens during the few days of their lives. When I found pleasure, it escaped me, and my days...

If you tell someone that you’re learning Chinese, they might ask you, “So, are you learning Cantonese or Mandarin?” Over the years, there’s been some contention about whether or not “Chinese” is a language, and I’ve heard the claim that Chinese isn’t a language several times in my own life. So, which one is it? Is “Chinese” a language or not? The truth is, if you’re studying any of China's 276 indigenous dialects , you’re studying Chinese! At least, you are according to most Chinese people.  Depending on who you ask, Chinese has between 7 to 10 distinct language groups. From a linguistic perspective, these groups are more like separate languages than dialects, but they are still widely considered to belong to a single Chinese language, if only as part of a common cultural/political identity. (It's been said that  a language is a dialect with an army and a navy .) The two most common dialects to study are Mandarin and Cantonese, but they only represent a fraction of China...

In a recent New York Times essay  in the Modern Love column, Meher Ahmad writes about her struggles with interracial dating growing up in America as an ethnic Pakistani. She shares some compelling anecdotes in the process, but ultimately concludes that her mother was right about dating non-Pakistanis. Of her and her boyfriend, she writes, "we wouldn’t have the relationship we have if he weren’t [brown]." To be completely honest, my first reaction to the article was surprise. I didn't think that the New York Times would print something that was  against interracial dating. But her story is important because it highlights some important truths about a certain type of minority experience in the United States. One of the first major themes of the article is Ahmad's self-realization that her interest in white boys (or, later, non-brown men) was problematic. (Aside: I think the word "problematic" is a fun, versatile wrapper we use to bundle up problems that invo...

  (这里不小心写出自己的真名，下面的句子应该是 ”X 又在说中文“）

To those kids, Who in deepest black of night, pace the streets alone, And have no one but themselves. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Three months and ten days ago, on a unusually cloudless afternoon, my father drove me out of the house. The sunlight shone onto our alley like a bright sheet. I tried my hardest to drive my bare feet out of that alley, running over it, looking back, and seeing that my father was there behind me. He seemed to be moving faster than his tall figure would allow, unsteady, and with one hand kept firing the weapon he had once used as a captain on the Mainland. His hair was bright like that alleyway, on end, and a pair of bloodshot eyes flared with rage. His voice, full of grief and resentment, trembled and yelled, "Animal! Animal!" ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Notice: At 11pm on the the 3rd of this month, 12th-grade student Li Qingyu of night class C engaged in obscene behavior with Lab Manager Zhao Wusheng in the chemistry laboratory and was ap...

Every day and night, the endless streams of the Qiantang River wind around the small village of Niujia and flow eastwards towards the sea. Along the riverbank lean ten black cypress trees, their leaves seeming to burn red in the annual August season. Adding to the dreariness of the scene are the weeds surrounding the trees that have just started to yellow under the last evening rays. Two large pine trees shade a group of men, women, and children villagers listening intently to the words of an elderly man. The man speaking was about 50 years old, wearing a once-green robe that had long since faded into an ashy blue. But listen! After several clacks of his rosewood boards, the stick in his right hand struck a beat on a double-skinned drum. He sang, "Flowering trees lacking masters, Boundless crops feeding crows, Broken walls around a dried-up well, This place was always our home." The man who was speaking clacked his wood boards again a few fews times, then spoke. ...

Apple pie. It reminds me of that song, "American Pie" by Don McLean. I was in middle school and waiting for an eye exam when I heard it for the first time. Each refrain of the eight-and-a-half-minute song's six choruses convinced me more and more that the song was an incoherent, drug-inspired ballad. Later, a friend told me a different interpretation of the song. They said that the song was about going to war, saying "bye" to your country, and drinking with your friends one last time before leaving. I'm not sure if all of the lyrics fit that idea perfectly, but at least the chorus seems to work. At any rate, it's a much more sobering interpretation than "Don McLean had a pen in his hand while he was shooting up"—regardless of what the artist was intending to say.