New Hobby - Drawing & Painting

First time holding charcoal to draw, I really don't know what I am doing. It is very dirty of the black powder on hand, but it is a sense of self-fullfillment while seeing I can draw an image onto a big piece of paper 18"X24". It is fun and encourage everyone to try this hobby.

Instrustor: Jian Wu
The website of teacher's work:
http://www.jwstudio.net/lotus.html

Challenged Homework assigned by Teacher Jian Wu
Drawing Class Homework: Two Perspective assignment#1




Drawing Class Homework: Two Perspective assignment#2




First time using oil painting material, it is quite scary of using a non-erasable material to apply on canvas.
Professor: Kenney Mencher
The website of teacher's work:
http://www.kenney-mencher.com/

Hobby - Floral arrangement

To many people, flower arrangement is too shallow to be mentioned. To me, it is one way of display color and texture. I have viewed some professional art form style of flower arrangement up to competition level and am quite attracted by their works.

Old hobby - Chinese Caligraphy

One piece of my practice caligrphic writing, which usually end inside trash can. A reasonable timeframe for basic achievement on writing good Chinese Caligraphy require at least 10-20 years practice. I am not good at this at all, but the beauty of classic Chinese writing and poem amaze me.

Confucianism

子曰:吾十有五而志於學，三十而立，四十而不惑，五十而知天命，六十而耳順，七十而從心所欲，不踰矩」.
Confucius: "I made up my mind on learning at age of 15, at 30 be spiritually independent, 40 has no doubt of my life, 50 realize the purpose I came into life, 60 no words would offend my ear, 70 going anything with my mind and not crossing the line."

子曰:「年四十而見惡焉，其終也已」
Confucius: who over 40 years old still can not earn a good name in the circle of friends or community should call the end of his life.


北宋初年的宰相趙普是一位杰出的政治家，但絕不是一個學問家。正是由於這個原因，他才會有“半部《論語》治天下”這樣震聾發聵的名言傳世。

《論語》一書影響之廣，一為“治天下”之意識深得士子之心。《論語》一書是孔子及其弟子的言行錄，自戰國初年成書以后，在儒家經典中並不佔重要地位。西漢武帝“罷黜百家，獨尊儒術”，確定《詩》、《書》、《禮》、《易》、《春秋》為儒學“五經”﹔到了東漢因倡導孝道，在“五經”之外又加上《孝經》和《論語》，變成了“七經”，這是《論語》第一次躋身於“經”﹔到唐代變化較大，除了《詩》、《書》、《易》不作變動，將《禮》分作《周禮》、《儀禮》和《禮記》，另加《左傳》、《公羊傳》和《谷梁傳》，稱作“九經”，《論語》未被列入﹔到唐文宗太和年間，在“九經”的基礎上增加了《論語》、《孝經》和《爾雅》，稱“十二經”﹔到了北宋年間，又加《孟子》稱“十三經”，《論語》得以保留。——從漢代到宋代，《論語》幾次作為儒家典籍躋身“經書”之列。

但是，即使同樣是“經書”，也要依照篇幅長短劃分等級，《論語》因其篇幅過短，隻被看作是“小經”，所謂“小經”就是“大經”的輔助讀物，而更多的時候，《論語》是被當作“經”之下的“傳”或“記”來看待的。所以，《論語》一書長期作為婦女兒童啟蒙課本使用，唐代墓志記載不少婦女居家“常讀《論語》”，杜甫在其《最能行》一詩中寫道：“小兒學問止《論語》，大兒結束隨商旅。”詩中講的就是這種情況。直到五代后期，趙普在滁州鄉下對村童教書，授課范圍想必不出《論語》，自己隻知道《論語》，也就不足為奇了。

　　《論語》地位的真正提高，是在南宋時期。理學家朱熹把《禮記》中的《大學》、《中庸》兩篇抽出，連同《論語》、《孟子》合稱“四書”，並為之詳作“集注”，影響深遠，《論語》歷史性地提升到“大經”的地位。到元明清三代，“四書”完全取代了“五經”，成為科舉考試的必考內容，《論語》也成了士子必學之書，所以趙普這句話備受學子關注。

　　其次，儒家倡導“仕而優則學，學而優則仕”，要學以致用﹔要為帝王師，主張“格君心之非”。南宋時期的事功學派堅守了這一點，贊賞“勃然有以拯民於涂炭之心”，主張以天下為己任。后世對這種天下意識得到了很好的繼承，這正是中國古代知識分子的一大優點。所以，趙普的“治天下說”能夠引起士人的強烈共鳴。

　　綜觀趙普個人的“功名事業”，可謂隆隆其始而未能克終，而他“半部《論語》治天下”這句牢騷不平之語，反倒成了“千古名言”！其中奧妙，耐人玩味。

If you want to be a trash Chinese dare to leave your comment here without any linked website of yourself, dare you leave your contact email address here for me to visiting your site to Fuck You.

How to learn from American Fine man and woman about American Fine Culture?

Reading books written by some wise men and women in this country, I am truly benefited by so-called Western wisdom as I keep comparing how these people form their insight about life in comparing to the way that I formed my concept and principal about life by the teaching of Chinese tradition.

"Parents and Teenagers-What you should know about parents?" is the book I am re-reading right now.

---come back later---

European Fancy--- Baroque Art

I used to holding Chinese art exhibition collection book in my classroom of computer graphic and surprising how lucky I was different from the rest of classmates who did not have a culture background as I could have. This happened after I came to this diversified country, so I could have comparison of different cultures.

European culture strongly influenced this country completely which I mean including governmental structure, way of thinking, eating, almost covering everything. I knew this before I came to this country, but I still wondering what is the reason of being so.

Many different small kingdoms combined in a European Continent land, brainstorming art, governmental issue, the comfort of wealthy living which created a peak time of human achievement in art, math, science, ...... and in the meantime sending people whoever complain of under living life to overseas to be a pioneer of new life, which in deed solve the problem of revolution of poverty.

The wealth collection act started from 15th century till the end of 19th century, and even today they are still thinking how to explore more wealth from any corner of this planet. All of the treasure shipped from all corner of the world back to Europe to create such fancy and luxurious art display in cathedral, church, castle, palaces......throughout the whole Europe.

Endlessly breathtaking Wows can not stop me from the amazment of the beauty of Baroque Art. Meanwhile, I am not the first person thinking the underlying meaning of this almost perfect beauty of human art format.

What underlays to the European theory of perfection and the pride behind it while the whole world's treasure being shipped to this gorgeous land from 15th to 19th century?

"The ostentatious displays of material wealth pleasure of life was imbued with an awareness of the inevitability of death."

1920s, Italian philosopher Benedetto Croce complained about the insubstantiality of the style. Baroque was a game a search for ways to astonish. Inherently, in spite of all its superficial vibrancy and warmth, the baroque is ultimately frigid. For all the wealth and potency of its images combined, it leaves the viewer with a feeling of emptiness."

To a Chinese ordinary person like me, I do not have the feeling of emptiness by viewing this art work in buildings, sculptures, .....It is more like a record of humans art works and the levels of effort that human can achieve in transform humans imagination into a real stuff as buildings, art, painting, scrupture, music.......

Even though, I do fee lucky I am not living in that era that need to be deprived of my living standard to contribute to this performance. All of the illness, and poverty in centuries were put into this wealth display showcase. I wasn't those people laying on the cold icy street in snowy winter days with illness and die in hunger for no bread to eat.

The theory of perfection that reflect in human society through the eyes of rulers by their manipulation and control of their people...........I see this art as a record of human activity and their effort of surviving, their desire and passion of working toward perfection. The desire make them chasing for perfection and drive them attacking other countries, killing people, stealing from others, starving weaks........

The pride of such amazed achievements formed superior spirit of nationalism tornadoing the whole Europe and having two World Wars to be the cost paying the high respect to their exceeding outstandings. Two World Wars for the dangerous pride of perfection.

From East to West, I can not stop appraise the beauty of Baroque art with endless Wows for its high achievements beyond human's imagination........

Satan is the prettiest evil angel.

Freak about American's middle class syndrome - I

I put this short article above of this Taiwanese Chinese poet is to symbolize the vulnerability and the typically innocent quality that Chinese usually has about this country as they think of Haven on this earth. Plus, the way Taiwanese fond todeny their cultural identify as Chinese is my consideration of placing this article here.

Many Chinese, well, in deed that includes people all over the world that has never had any chance to understand or even just think of the problem about self-identification in USA before they apply for immigrating to this country they dream of for a long time.

Malcolm X, a famous black civil right activist, had declared long time ago in 1960 to educated the young black African American about the fact they faced: "America isthe white man's country, and the whites don't want you here and will never give youequal citizenship. But it must always be remembered that our blood is here, ournames are here, our fate is here, in a land we helped to invent...... ".

By reading the struggles that Blacks in America had encountered in such bitterness that enduring for such long period of time; being a citizen of different race ratherthan black and white in this country need to be always carefully study the sensitivityof this issue as well as the approachable solution that history teach us.

That contained invaluable wisdom through numerous people's effort working on justifythe imbalance and eliminating the hatred between different races in this country throughout many generations. We really need to be thankful of living in 21 centurywhen all of these all passed."Malcolm preached the necessity of being African at the complete expense of ourAmerican selves, a love of the misty past at the cost of our actual lives, ourtriumphs, our sufferings in the New World......

"Being confident to assuring a positive attitude to the identity about who you are iswhat I would share with Taiwanese Chinese and all others has doubt and uncertainabout this issue, for I think it is a valuable lesson we all need to learn.