The Fortune of My Blog According to I Ching

In recent months I took three introductory classes on I Ching 易經, sponsored by the Hong's Foundation for Education and Culture 洪建全基金會. The classes were taught by Professor Pei-Rong Fu 傅佩榮. Prior to his retirement from National Taiwan University, Fu was the Chair of the Department of Philosophy and had written numerous books on Chinese classics. I Ching is the oldest of the Chinese classics with ideas that underpin many aspects of Chinese thinking for millenia. As with most Chinese, I know bits and pieces of I Ching and read parts of the book when I was younger.

Since the three classes on I Ching were only one and half hour long each, Fu could only provide an overview of I Ching. Fu said learning the entire text of I Ching would require around 40 classes. Obviously, I only scratched the surface of I Ching, but I have developed a greater appreciation of the text.

In the last class, Fu demonstrated the traditional way of using 50 sticks to derive a Guà 卦 (hexagram). Afterwards we were asked to try the method ourselves to seek our fortune. First we wrote down the questions and then used the sticks to derive six numbers, writing them down from the bottom to the top. The six numbers I drew were, 8 6 6 9 7 7. Each number forms a line (Yáo 爻): odd number means an unbroken line (Yang 陽 ) and even number is a broken line (Yin 陰). The Guà 卦 I got was the 12th one named Pǐ 否. Since the numbers 6 and 9 denote change, I also received a corresponding Guà 卦 (之卦): 57th Guà 卦 named Xùn 巽.

Deriving the Guà 卦 and looking up the related texts in I Ching are not difficult. The interpretation of the texts in relation to the question posed requires deep knowledge. After writing out the Guà 卦, Fu said because 3 of the 6 numbers I drew denote change, my fortune would be based on the texts of both Guà 卦. Furthermore, the focus should be on the main texts of the Guà 卦 rather than the specific Yáo 爻 (line).

Fu asked what was my question. I said, Will my blog make any money?

Fu said with Pǐ Guà 否卦, you probably haven't made any money from your blog. I replied, I never made a single dollar. Even without knowledge of I Ching, one knows the character Pǐ 否 is not good. Fu explained, 否 Pǐ means stagnation. The lower trigram is earth, Kūn 坤, and the upper trigram is heaven, Qián 乾. Heaven and earth are at their usual place but the two are separate and not connected.

But all is not lost as we need to examine the corresponding Guà 卦. Xùn 巽 consists of two trigrams of wind 風. The texts for the Guà 卦 reads: 小亨，利有攸往，利見大人. Richard Wilhelm and Cary F. Baynes translated the Chinese text as: Success through what is small. It furthers one to have somewhere to go. It furthers one to see the great man. Fu explains, my blog may be able to have a small fortune since the wind is starting to blow. However, I will need help from an eminent person.

While Xùn Guà 巽卦 offers a glimmer of hope, it is still the corresponding hexagram rather than the main one I drew. In terms of the overall fortune Pǐ Guà 否卦 is weighted a bit more. In other words, my blog is unlikely to make any money.

Actually ever since I started blogging, I have never imagined the blog would make any money. I didn’t even think the blog would last this long. I am just happy that my blog has a cult following; “cult” sounds so much better than “small”. I’m grateful to know that somewhere in the world someone is interested in reading my thoughts. And that’s plenty rich for me.

Chang Dai-ch'ien's Residence

Chang Dai-ch'ien 張大千 is arguably the most famous Chinese artist in the twentieth century. He was born in 1899 and lived in many parts of the world until 1977 when he moved to Taiwan and remained there until he died in 1983. Afterwards his family donated his residence to the nearby National Palace Museum as a memorial.

Chang's house is named 摩耶精舍 or Abode of Maya. While the residence is open to the public, the visit requires advance booking and the tour is limited to less than one hour. Recently my wife, Maria, booked a tour to take overseas guests to see the house. Since I have never been there before, I tagged along and was eager to see the home of this great artist, who is known not only for his art, but for his love of food and his exquisite taste.

The house is located in a gated residential neighborhood within walking distance of the National Palace Museum; Chang chose this location as it is the place where a stream splits into two. Our group of five people were greeted at the front door of the house by a tour guide, who started the tour at the front courtyard just inside the gate. The first thing to see was actually Chang's limo given to him by the government, which is parked in an open garage. We then proceeded to step inside to tour the two-story building, which was designed as a four-sided courtyard house.

The more public functions of the house are placed on the ground floor. The first room we visited was the dining room, which has a large round table and a few simple chairs. On one corner of the room is a small table with a large television on it. I suppose Chang was into watching television while taking his meals. A framed calligraphy of a menu for a dinner party is hung on one wall, except it is just a copy as the original is owned by a private collector. Next to the dining room is the parlor where Chang received his guests. The room consists mainly of large sofas, photographs of Chang with dignitaries, and some of the scholar rocks from Chang's extensive collection. This room is linked to Chang's large studio where he paints and teaches. A wax figure of Chang stands next to his large desk. The space is a bit awkward and Chang stands in front of a green fabric door that tour guide didn't know what it leads to. On the way to the small sitting room, we passed a wall with a collection of Chang's walking canes, which are just beautiful objects.

The small sitting room was where Chang's wife entertained her guests: a simple carpeted rectangular space with a few sofas and some more of Chang's scholar rocks on display.

The courtyard in the middle of the building is a bit messy and crowded with plants. The large outdoor garden is located behind the small sitting room. The garden is stretched out with varying levels and views of the hills on the east side and overlooks the split of the stream. This is also where Chang is buried. Chang also has a small birdhouse on one side as well as a hibachi grill. The tour ended with a visit to a cage on the second floor where a couple of monkeys reside. The monkeys are sort of like stage props; I am not sure if it is all that necessary. This was the extent of the tour as the rest of the house is closed to the public.

In short, Chang's house was a big disappointment. It is clear Chang's house is preserved as it was at the time of Chang's death. By now the whole place just feels a bit run down. It also doesn't help that all the paintings that are currently hung on the wall are copies of the originals. While the house may look like the way Chang has left it, the feel of the space is definitely not the same. Moreover, I was disappointed with the setup of the house. Chang didn't seem to have much interest in designing and decorating the house. The spaces are not very interesting. The garden at the back with the collection of rocks and bonsai trees is perhaps the nicest part of the house, yet there is very little link both spatially or visually to it from the various rooms of the building; Chang cared more about his garden probably because they serve as inspiration for his paintings. Overall it was just a very banal house. For someone like Chang, who carefully crafted his appearance, often with a traditional Chinese long robe, tall hat, and a sculpted walking cane, the house doesn't seem to quite fit the image. Perhaps Chang's interest lies only with the imaginary spaces in his art. As an artist, Chang has few peers and his paintings certainly rank as some of the bests in the history of Chinese art. In contrast, his residence is not really worth a visit.

Monocle Subscription

From time to time, I would buy an issue of Monocle magazine to read. I enjoy reading the stories and, besides, I like the look and the physical feel of the magazine. Recently I decided to purchase a one-year subscription, which is ten issues for £75. The great thing about Monocle is it doesn't matter where one lives in the world, the subscription rate is the same. Tyler Brûlé, the founder of Monocle, said, "We didn't think you should be penalized because of where you live.”

In certain parts of the world, unlike a typical magazine, it is actually more expensive to subscribe to Monocle than to purchase the issues at the newsstand. For instance, in London, the subscription cost per issue is £7.5 versus the newsstand price of £5; in the U.S., the subscription cost per issue is around US$12 while the newsstand price is US$10. Fortunately, in Taipei, the situation is reversed, where a subscription cost per issue is around NT$350 and the newsstand price is NT$550. Since I am always looking for opportunities to "save" money, I signed up and spent £75.

Happy Year of the Rabbit

A few pictures from our apartment. Happy New Year!

Writing

Recently I spent a whole day writing a short text for the design concept of a project; it was a struggle. While I couldn't believe how long it took, I was reminded of an interview David Remnick, Editor-in-Chief of The New Yorker, did with Princeton Alumni Weekly. He was asked, "Are you doing any writing now?"

He replied, "I had a piece in the magazine about a month ago. But there’s only so many hours in the day. I have three children and recently moved. I’m a fairly quick writer, but you can’t just say, “Here’s two hours and I’ll get two hours of writing done.” You need eight hours in order to get two hours of writing done. You need to screw around, you need to stare at the screen, you need to walk to the refrigerator."

Happy New Year

For Chinese New Year, we did some cleaning, bought some flowers, and put out some holiday decorations.

無中生有

A few weeks ago, we along with our friends visited the Museum of Contemporay Art in Taipei to see the exhibition 無中生有.

The exhibition was a collaboration between the calligrapher 董陽孜 and several architects. Each architect created an installation that drew inspiration from the calligraphy. It was an interesting show. Below are three of the installations.

Architect 阮慶岳 created a skeletal house with real and fake plants.

The design actually reminded me of Robert Venturi's Franklin Court project in Philadelphia.

Architect 簡學義 designed a minimal space where two opposing walls were lined with white lights. A small hole was cut on each of those two walls to allow images to be projected into the space. Visitors were handed fans to catch the images.

I quite liked the idea but I wished there were more than two holes; it would have been more dynamic if the images moved around in the space.

The installation that I liked the best was by 陳瑞憲. He created an abstract landscape that consisted of a white "mountain" and a black "lake". The lake was actually a giant inkwell.

On one side of the inkwell were calligraphies by 董陽孜 and on the other side was a long table and a bench for visitors to practice their own calligraphy. The space was not only very dramatic but also interactive.

Information Overload

Recently due to the Typhoon Morakot, I would watch a few minutes of the local morning news on television before I leave for work. The news programs are prime examples of information overload. Below is a shot of the morning news on the TVBS news channel.

I can count ten different things on the screen at the same time: 1. vertical scroll; 2. anchor woman presenting a story that has nothing to do with the headlines or the scrolls; 3. name of the show; 4. channel logo; 5. headline of a local newspaper; 6. time; 7. stock market index; 8. upper horizontal scroll; 9. bottom horizontal scroll; and 10. headline of another local newspaper. Each of the 10 pieces of information mentioned above have nothing to do with each other.

This bombardment of information has become the norm. Below is a screen shot of the program on another news channel.

Similar to the other channel, this one has ten different things going on at the same time as well: 1. vertical scroll; 2. upper headline; 3. website for viewers to upload images; 4. anchor woman presenting a story; 5. name of the channel; 6. bottom horizontal scroll; 7. lower headline; 8. picture of a story that is different from the two headlines and what the anchor was presenting; 9. weather; 10. time.

It is as if the networks believe if they don't present all this information at once, the viewers will lose patience and switch channels. Or perhaps, television news programs have been influenced by the way information is distributed on the internet. Presenting all the information at once has made the news program on television incoherent and lacking any emphasis and focus. What makes things worse is most of the time there actually aren't too much news to report in Taiwan, therefore, the news program will simply repeat all the information every half hour or so.

Japanese Names

One problem I have been encountering quite often is Japanese names pronounced in Mandarin. In the U.S. Japanese names are all spelled out in English. However in Taiwan, the Japanese names are pronounced in Mandarin because they consist mainly of Chinese characters. Since I know Japanese people mostly by their romanized names, I often have conversations as follows:

"Michael, you must know the designs by 深澤直人 (Shen Ze Zhi Ren)"

"Uh, how to you say 深澤直人 in Japanese?"

"I dunno."

Conversations like these all require a Google search on my iphone to continue. Most of the times I actually do know the Japanese people in the conversations, just not their names in Chinese characters.

Note: 深澤直人 is Naoto Fukasawa, one of my favorite Japanese designers.

Generation Gap

It is hard to believe that Michael Jackson has died. While I haven't paid much attention to him for quite some time, he was one of my favorites in the 80's. Since Jackson's death dominated the news, Vera was curious about him. I found some old videos on Youtube to show my almost five-year old daughter how Michael Jackson did the moonwalk to the music of Billie Jean. After watching for a few minutes, she lost interest. I suppose this is some sort of generation gap. I was five years old when Elvis Presley died in 1977 and I probably reacted the same way. While every generation has its own "king", it is hard to imagine that there will be another one like Michael Jackson.

蕾絲邊

When Kelly McGillis came out of the closet recently, the newspapers in Taiwan used the term 蕾絲邊 in lieu of 女同性戀. I must admit that was the first time I ever heard the term; my Chinese is no longer up to date. A quick search on the internet revealed the term 蕾絲邊 originated with the deceased Taiwanese author 邱妙津 and first appeared in her novel 鱷魚手記 in 1994. I can't help but wonder why there is a need to invent a Chinese term based on the sound of an English word, in this case "lesbian", when there is an existing Chinese term already. It also seems strange that 蕾絲 is the phonetic translation of the English word "lace" but is now being used to refer to the sound of another English word: "les" in "lesbian". Furthermore, what does lace border or periphery of lace really mean anyway?

夯

These days one the hottest words in Taiwan is 夯. I can't quite decide whether I like the word or not, but I do find myself using it from time to time. The character 夯 is being used to represent "hot" because the pronunciation of the character in mandarin is the same as the Taiwanese pronunciation of the character 烘. My problem is the character 夯 does not mean hot but has multiple meanings that all deal with construction; this is quite obvious from the elements in the character: 大 (big) and 力 (force). According to a dictionary by 丁德先, Maria's grandfather, 夯 can also be a replacement for the character 笨, meaning stupid. So hot and stupid are now the same and I suppose that might actually be true some of the times.

Po

An article in today's 聯合報 has this headline: "有夠扯！全美核設施誤PO上網". I didn't know what "po" means. At first I thought "po" stands for pissed off, but that didn't make much sense with regards to the rest of the headline. Then I thought maybe "po" stands for petty officer. Quickly, I figured "po" must be one of those new "Chinese" words that I haven't learned yet.

It turns out "po" is not an acronym but a shorthand version of the English word "post". This is a strange way of modifying the English word. Instead of writing or saying "post online", the general public in Taiwan is now accustomed to using "po上網". I can't understand why people don't just use "po" as an acronym for "post online" and simply eliminate the words "上網".

In my research for the meaning of "po" I came across an alternative explanation. The Chinese term for "post online" can be "鋪上網". The pronunciation for "鋪" In Taiwanese is "po", therefore, "鋪上網" has become "po上網". This version is probably not the generally accepted meaning of "po" but is more fun to me.

粉

Recently, I am learning many new Chinese terms and one of them is 粉絲. I don't know who started using this term since I cannot seem to find its origin. 粉絲 is the phonetic translation of the English word "fans". Frankly I don't really understand this term at all.

First of all it isn't necessary to have this term at all since the Chinese language already has a term for fan, 迷. For instance, a basketball fan is a 籃球迷 and a fan of a movie star is a 影迷. This is unlike western words such as chocolate (巧克力) or coffee (咖啡) where there are no Chinese terms.

Second, 粉絲 is the phonetic translation of "fans" only in the plural condition. Therefore it simply doesn't make sense for an individual to be a 粉絲, because it really should be just 粉.

Maybe I should start a 粉 club (俱樂部) to promote the elimination of the term 粉絲.

邁克爾

In Slate.com Huan Hsu tries to find out why Chinese people have English names. http://www.slate.com/id/2217001/ The article is pretty fun and insightful. I agree with Hsu that having an English name fits with traditional Chinese naming practices.