Woeser's blog on Tibet

Although I am not a political blogger, I thought I will bring to attention of some of my readers this blog I have been following.... Woeser's blog which I think is interesting. For those of you who do not know Woeser, here is a brief introduction....
虽然很少写关于政治的博，倒很希望与大家分享我们跟踪的一些博客。其中之一是唯色的博客，关于作者的简介可以在这里读到。

From Wikipedia: Woeser, a quarter-Han Chinese and three quarter-Tibetan, was born in Lhasa. Her grandfather was a Chinese Army officer in the Nationalist Army and her father was a high rank Army officer in the People's Liberation Army. when she was a small child, her family relocated to the Kham area of western Sichuan province. In 1988, she graduated from Southwest University for Nationalities in Chengdu with a degree in Chinese literature. She worked as a reporter in Kardzé and later in Lhasa and has lived in Beijing since 2003 as a result of political problems. Woeser is married to Wang Lixiong, a famous Chinese author who frequently writes about Tibet. According to Reporters sans frontières, "Woeser is one of the few Tibetan authors and poets to write in Chinese."

The issue of Tibet is very controversial with multiple points of view. There are hypernationalist Han Chinese that hold a view that is completely contradictory to the ones held by many Tibetans. The Western media and academic have tended to side with the Tibetan version. Its hard to know which side is right. What is interesting about Woeser is that her family background makes her sympathetic to both sides of the conflict. Her views on the conflict therefore hold a special significance for those who are curious to have a complete picture of the issues surrounding Tibet. Her blog can be found here:
http://woeser.middle-way.net/

关于西藏的问题有许多不同的看法。中国汉族人的观点与藏人截然相反，而西方的媒体与学术界的观点又通常站在藏人一边，作为读者有时很难分辨谁对谁错。"看不见的西藏"与众不同是因为作者的身世决定了她既同情汉族人，也同情藏族人。所以她的博客提供了相对客观的观点。如果有兴趣，建议你也把下面的链接存到你的Reader。

Indians and Chinese - Questions or not?

I am reading the book "The discovery of India" by Jawaharlal Nehru, written during his imprisonment in 1942-1946.

... The Greeks, as a race, may have lived more in the present and found joy and harmony in the beauty they saw around them or which they themselves created. The Indians found this joy and harmony also in the present, but, at the same time, their eyes were turned towards deeper knowledge and their minds trafficked with strange questions. The Chinese, fully aware of these questions and their mystery, in their wisdom avoided entanglement with them. (P152)

Since we have been long time discussing about the differences between Chinese and Indians, this statement struck me. It has taken us a while to figure this out: Chinese are generally lacking the ability to ask questions and think critically, while Indians are obsessed with argumentation. Chinese are doers, while Indians are thinkers.

Of course, you do not have to agree with our version of generalization about Chinese and Indians. We do find many evidences.

The famous poet Zheng Banqiao has written the following, kind of one Chinese philosophy:
聪明难，糊涂难，由聪明转糊涂更难；放一着，退一步，当下心安；非图后来福报也。

Similar meaning was depicted in the image in this post. If it's translated word by word, it says "hard to be muddled". I don't know how you're going to interpret it, its actually meaning is not saying that a person with a clear mind. It somehow praises the way of keeping things fuzzy in some circumstances. Smart people may find ways to get everything clear but wise people not to bother to make everything crystal clear. Leaving some in dark may help things in some ways, you never know! Sometimes, the more truth you know, the more painful you will be.

On the other side of the Himalaya, the Indian Nobel prize winning economist Amartya Sen has written the book called "The Argumentative Indian" which discusses Indian history and identity, focusing on the traditions of public debate and intellectual pluralism. It demonstrates the importance of public debate in Indian traditions generally.

In schools in China, kids tend to follow and believe in what they are told and less to question. This shows up even in this master program in the Netherlands we are involved in. In a same classroom, Chinese students usually do not have any questions to ask. Moreover, they also wonder why the rest of the class have so many questions.