giovedì 15 ottobre 2009
Communism
Marxism is the hope, or maybe I should say the dream, that men are different from what they are. Communism has been in various places the horrible attempt to change them, creating a "new man".
It is a fascinating one, a man not driven only by personal interest, keen to share everything that could belong to her, a man with an ultimate purpose, greater than her and society, a man that is carrying out her dream, the same dream together with every other man around her. The man that everyone would like to encounter, and that everyone is not.
Our "fathers" tried to realize their dream, they cannot be so guilty. A dream can make you go too far, spending a far too high price to realize it. They are guilty of not having realized how bloody that price was. They are not guilty of having dreamt the wrong thing.
It looks like we, I mean our generation, is still scared by how horrible this process has been. It looks like we can associate the realization of a dream with the horrible price our "fathers" made us pay during the last century. We should learn more from this lesson, trying hard to reach common goals with a responsible eye on the price we are paying, giving up their obsession to reach something. It looks like we prefer to hide our head in the sand, scared to discover what responsibility is.
It is a fascinating one, a man not driven only by personal interest, keen to share everything that could belong to her, a man with an ultimate purpose, greater than her and society, a man that is carrying out her dream, the same dream together with every other man around her. The man that everyone would like to encounter, and that everyone is not.
Our "fathers" tried to realize their dream, they cannot be so guilty. A dream can make you go too far, spending a far too high price to realize it. They are guilty of not having realized how bloody that price was. They are not guilty of having dreamt the wrong thing.
It looks like we, I mean our generation, is still scared by how horrible this process has been. It looks like we can associate the realization of a dream with the horrible price our "fathers" made us pay during the last century. We should learn more from this lesson, trying hard to reach common goals with a responsible eye on the price we are paying, giving up their obsession to reach something. It looks like we prefer to hide our head in the sand, scared to discover what responsibility is.
Russian communism and Chinese communism: when the poor people are not nice anymore
There are profound differences between the communism of the thousand harvesters in immense Russia (that we shall call the kolkhoz communism) and what I saw in China (that we shall call the muddy communism).
I am conscious that I have seen the same system in two different phases: Still poor Bielorussia, with a dying collectist economy, and on the other side a consumist China running experimenting planned capitalism. They share two features: the absence of coins (and the consequent existence of ridicoulous 1 cent banknotes), and the absence of ideals.
But in the russian fields the people had something that made me fall in love with them: that was dignity. Or in absence of it, consciousness of their lack of dignity, that made us fell piety and made them hiding every sign of it behind liters of vodka.
The chinese people are so striving for money and for things, they work and work and forget cbout any dignity: pollution, just to make an example, is not only the fault of an irresponsible planned economic jump, it is also the fault of every single farmer that covers every single piece of land with thrash, without any concern or love for the land he is cultivating or walking on. The ancient wisdom that pervaded the doma of russian alcholoic farmers does not have space in this crowded and noisy struggle for wealthiness without limits.
This suggest a deep cultural difference: I find it so strange that someone could have dreamt the same society for two such different polpulations.
I am conscious that I have seen the same system in two different phases: Still poor Bielorussia, with a dying collectist economy, and on the other side a consumist China running experimenting planned capitalism. They share two features: the absence of coins (and the consequent existence of ridicoulous 1 cent banknotes), and the absence of ideals.
But in the russian fields the people had something that made me fall in love with them: that was dignity. Or in absence of it, consciousness of their lack of dignity, that made us fell piety and made them hiding every sign of it behind liters of vodka.
The chinese people are so striving for money and for things, they work and work and forget cbout any dignity: pollution, just to make an example, is not only the fault of an irresponsible planned economic jump, it is also the fault of every single farmer that covers every single piece of land with thrash, without any concern or love for the land he is cultivating or walking on. The ancient wisdom that pervaded the doma of russian alcholoic farmers does not have space in this crowded and noisy struggle for wealthiness without limits.
This suggest a deep cultural difference: I find it so strange that someone could have dreamt the same society for two such different polpulations.
domenica 11 ottobre 2009
Chinese Planned Entertainment
8:30 - On the bus, ready to go (it's Sunday).
9:30 - Stop at the petrol station + toilet. It's foggy, and along the way we were not able to see much around us.
10:00 - Back on the bus. Now I see that every valley (we are surrounded by mountains) contains at least a house. Because of the fog you never have a clear idea of all the landscape, so in one alley there are only farmers, with their brick barrack where electricity is the only comfort, in the next there are factories that fill the land. A constant is the thrash that covers many places.
11:30 - Stop for lunch (!). Jakub explain me what is the Georgia syndrome: after more than 5 days of being treated as if it was a marriage every day, you starve for a kaasbrodje much more than for a full 2 hours meal.
1:00 - Back on the bus. Now the landscape is poor. Farmers in the mud of their rice fields, markets where they divide iron from alluminium in garage that here are the suitable places for shops, and around the constant towers full of people.
2:30 - We finally get to Dazu grottes: amazing! In the forest, a Buddhist Temple plus Taohist plus something else, where monks has carved in the stone statues of a thousand Buddhas and judges and soon. Impressive. What you expect to find while wandering in the jungle.
4:30 - Back to the bus - We go to Chongqing and I see: the houses of the workers built 1 cm to their carbon power plant (and for this we have to thanks the communist, I'm sure); the most crowded and filled and horrible and dirty city I've ever seen. It has a super modern metro, a super modern opera house, but everything is dirty, and the people looks like living in cages, like chicken in batteries. The guide later on will talk about the city as a wonderful place, I don't
know if she's sincere, but maybe people do like it.
6:00 - Dinner on a boat on the Yang Tse. My toilet now thanks the cook for the hygienic dinner being served. Next the boat move, and we see the city lighted up by neon. It's impressive, because there are really a lot of neons. But so many. It's very nice but I remember how was it
2 hrs ago with the sun, and I cannot be too impressed.
10:30 - On the way back to the hotel the guide explain us various scientific explanation of why Chongqing is famous for beautiful girls: the first is interbreeding (because they are also famous for interbreeding rice) the second is the fog, that protects from the sun and keep the skin soft.
9:30 - Stop at the petrol station + toilet. It's foggy, and along the way we were not able to see much around us.
10:00 - Back on the bus. Now I see that every valley (we are surrounded by mountains) contains at least a house. Because of the fog you never have a clear idea of all the landscape, so in one alley there are only farmers, with their brick barrack where electricity is the only comfort, in the next there are factories that fill the land. A constant is the thrash that covers many places.
11:30 - Stop for lunch (!). Jakub explain me what is the Georgia syndrome: after more than 5 days of being treated as if it was a marriage every day, you starve for a kaasbrodje much more than for a full 2 hours meal.
1:00 - Back on the bus. Now the landscape is poor. Farmers in the mud of their rice fields, markets where they divide iron from alluminium in garage that here are the suitable places for shops, and around the constant towers full of people.
2:30 - We finally get to Dazu grottes: amazing! In the forest, a Buddhist Temple plus Taohist plus something else, where monks has carved in the stone statues of a thousand Buddhas and judges and soon. Impressive. What you expect to find while wandering in the jungle.
4:30 - Back to the bus - We go to Chongqing and I see: the houses of the workers built 1 cm to their carbon power plant (and for this we have to thanks the communist, I'm sure); the most crowded and filled and horrible and dirty city I've ever seen. It has a super modern metro, a super modern opera house, but everything is dirty, and the people looks like living in cages, like chicken in batteries. The guide later on will talk about the city as a wonderful place, I don't
know if she's sincere, but maybe people do like it.
6:00 - Dinner on a boat on the Yang Tse. My toilet now thanks the cook for the hygienic dinner being served. Next the boat move, and we see the city lighted up by neon. It's impressive, because there are really a lot of neons. But so many. It's very nice but I remember how was it
2 hrs ago with the sun, and I cannot be too impressed.
10:30 - On the way back to the hotel the guide explain us various scientific explanation of why Chongqing is famous for beautiful girls: the first is interbreeding (because they are also famous for interbreeding rice) the second is the fog, that protects from the sun and keep the skin soft.
sabato 10 ottobre 2009
Excusez moi...
L: Monsieur, parlez-vouz Francaise?
M: Che vvoi capretta?L: Mi chiedevo se per caso avesse visto il mio sgabello; sa, ho un comizio tra cinque minuti, e come vede non sono proprio uno spilungone...
M: Er solito parolaio.. Varda che gl'operai han preso un di' di ferie, so' tutti a fa' la coda alla Vodafone che c'ha i sconti per l'Aifon...
L: Oh, capisco. Ma, le chiedo scusa, lei che li ha visti non gli ha detto nulla? Eppure mi pare uno che dice cose serie, in fondo anche lei e' li' incorniciato...
M: Ma va' sto farfallone! Gli han fatto r quadro e pensa d'esser chissa'..
L: Mi scuso, non volevo offender..
M: Oh grullo! Ma varda cosa c'hai scritto lassotto!
L: Dove? Oh, questi segni? Ma io non capisco il cinese, sempre che cinese sia..
M: Ma porc.. A reggia!? Ma dove l'avete pescata a' capretta? E non far vella faccia su, che la gente ci deve creder a vel che ddici..Su dai, un fa' cossi', un volevo mica.. Dai, alza lo sguardo, bravo, bien fait..
venerdì 9 ottobre 2009
## This message is for Italians only ##
We have to be scared! The entire world is ass-licking China. And not
only in the distant sphere of economics, where they only care about
money.
In academy, where we don't think only about money but if we don't eat
we don't prove theorems, most exotic conferences are being organized
in China.
The most prominent professors prefer to listen to a series of
incomprehensible talks in chenglish, sleep in smelly hotel rooms and
breath this thick air. Conferences in the happy hills of Tuscany are
not fashionable anymore, now that the money are off. And they Chinese
people, they are not like us: they stare at us, they observe, and then
they work 12 hours a day to do better.
The talks that I am hearing are getting closer and closer to our
standards, and the content is fair, good quality.
Now what are we going to do? We are not between the big of the earth
anymore, this should be clear, and we are not even able to attract
them anymore with our genialoid improvisations. We have to sell them
abroad.
But our environment, without the interactions that visiting professors
and conferences give, will stand still and the education will of
course not get any better. We are confined at the margin of where the
real things happen.
We know very well that we cannot look for money inside our state, who
cares about research in the parliament? And with research I do not
mean professors salaries. But we are completely uninteresting for
everyone abroad, and we don't even try hard to get there.
The world might try to save himself with China, and we will not be
able to catch that train!
only in the distant sphere of economics, where they only care about
money.
In academy, where we don't think only about money but if we don't eat
we don't prove theorems, most exotic conferences are being organized
in China.
The most prominent professors prefer to listen to a series of
incomprehensible talks in chenglish, sleep in smelly hotel rooms and
breath this thick air. Conferences in the happy hills of Tuscany are
not fashionable anymore, now that the money are off. And they Chinese
people, they are not like us: they stare at us, they observe, and then
they work 12 hours a day to do better.
The talks that I am hearing are getting closer and closer to our
standards, and the content is fair, good quality.
Now what are we going to do? We are not between the big of the earth
anymore, this should be clear, and we are not even able to attract
them anymore with our genialoid improvisations. We have to sell them
abroad.
But our environment, without the interactions that visiting professors
and conferences give, will stand still and the education will of
course not get any better. We are confined at the margin of where the
real things happen.
We know very well that we cannot look for money inside our state, who
cares about research in the parliament? And with research I do not
mean professors salaries. But we are completely uninteresting for
everyone abroad, and we don't even try hard to get there.
The world might try to save himself with China, and we will not be
able to catch that train!
giovedì 8 ottobre 2009
Music: Two Stories
The hall of the hotel features two tables where local students are welcoming us and giving us informations. It's open 24 hours a day, always the same smiling people. It's a task force. Not that they should suffer doing that, but the hall of the hotel continuosly emit music, like a carrillon, but with chinese sounds, repeating "The sound of silence", and a few other songs.
I don't know how they can resist.
In the campus lessons must start after 8.30 and finish before 9.30, and this schedule is given by loudspeakers playing a strange chinese giggle for 10-15 minutes. It's somehow pleasant, nothing comparing to the loudspeakers from 20 years ago that I read in the book of Terzani.
A road, two lanes, in the dark mist; some sparse yellow street lamps and a bridge in the distance.
High traffic on the bridge, a bunch of cars trying to avoid the crowd that surrounds me, in this street as in every other, around some food stands. Cars obviously honking all the time, as well as the food sellers.
It all looks like normal down here: people are living in many families in an apartment, so they are forced to spend all their time outside. Whenever you will go out, there will be plenty of people walking, playing mahjong, eating.
In front of me a guy on his forties, as far as i can guess from the chinese aspect, wearing a sort of mao-style shirt, is staring at a wall. Alone in his 2 square meters, he is practicing playing the horn. Yes, that yellow instrument made of brass.
In the mess that surrounds him, I can clearly recognise he's playing "an old lands hyms", a famous ringing tone for mobile phones, other than a song for funerals in england.
PS1 I'm not sure this is the title of that english song, but when I googled it I got google blocked for 5 minutes by the censorship..why? Old land?
PS2
I'm watching China Today, on the english channel they started to improve their image in the world. The best part is advertisements: I just heard a French guy "qui a vu dans sa vie bien de chateaux" suggesting Chateau Chaliard, Beijing, as one of "le plus fines" wines of the world..
http://www.huibowines.com/sdp/241082/4/pd-1142270/836429-572841.html
I don't know how they can resist.
In the campus lessons must start after 8.30 and finish before 9.30, and this schedule is given by loudspeakers playing a strange chinese giggle for 10-15 minutes. It's somehow pleasant, nothing comparing to the loudspeakers from 20 years ago that I read in the book of Terzani.
A road, two lanes, in the dark mist; some sparse yellow street lamps and a bridge in the distance.
High traffic on the bridge, a bunch of cars trying to avoid the crowd that surrounds me, in this street as in every other, around some food stands. Cars obviously honking all the time, as well as the food sellers.
It all looks like normal down here: people are living in many families in an apartment, so they are forced to spend all their time outside. Whenever you will go out, there will be plenty of people walking, playing mahjong, eating.
In front of me a guy on his forties, as far as i can guess from the chinese aspect, wearing a sort of mao-style shirt, is staring at a wall. Alone in his 2 square meters, he is practicing playing the horn. Yes, that yellow instrument made of brass.
In the mess that surrounds him, I can clearly recognise he's playing "an old lands hyms", a famous ringing tone for mobile phones, other than a song for funerals in england.
PS1 I'm not sure this is the title of that english song, but when I googled it I got google blocked for 5 minutes by the censorship..why? Old land?
PS2
I'm watching China Today, on the english channel they started to improve their image in the world. The best part is advertisements: I just heard a French guy "qui a vu dans sa vie bien de chateaux" suggesting Chateau Chaliard, Beijing, as one of "le plus fines" wines of the world..
http://www.huibowines.com/sdp/241082/4/pd-1142270/836429-572841.html
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