WD Sailing Log

Associated with names such as Francis Bacon, Sir Issac Newton, James Maxwell, Charles Darwin, Watson and Crick, in Cambridge one has every reason to be serious, yet Cambridge students decidedly do not take themselves too seriously. The photo is the front page of Cambridge student newspaper May 2009 issue, which I took from the tourist center in Cambridge University. The year 2009 happens to be the 800th anniversary of this ancient institute, and the front page depicts this 800th graduating class in the most disarrayed form.

The student newspaper is merely one illustration of the light-hearted spirit of Cambridge. Another amusing story I learned is about the champion of the Cambridge pub crawl. The latest winner drank 14 pints in 17 minutes, and was presented a green scarf after his feat, presumably to match the color of his face. The university administration certainly does not like its students spending all their time entertaining themselves. And that's why the Cambridge railway station is built so far away from the university town. The campus police, as I was told, had the authority to arrest any student in possession of a ticket to London on the platform when the station was first built. Another anecdote has to do with the first woman college Girton College. When it was first opened in 1870s, it was located 30 miles from Cambridge, with the intention to keep its female students from "male distractions".

The name Cambridge alone inspires awes and admiration, yet the campus is full of refreshing youthful spirits, sometimes defiant and mischievous. Despite its age, Cambridge is still a quintessential example of vibrant university town. Its success may just depend on this very defiant and mischievous spirit of youth, which is best captured by Rudyard Kipling in "Taking everything you like seriously, except yourselves. "

Started as a trading post for the Dutch West India Company in 1624, New York City (Manhattan more precisely since the rest four boroughs didn’t join officially until 1898) gradually became the major port of trade between North America and Europe during the 17th and 18th centuries. And as the business in the then “new” continent flourishes and with more and more immigrants coming in, NYC grew bigger and bigger in much the same ways as the new land did. The inevitable clashes between the old and the new worlds began in August 1776. They won, of course, and George Washington delivered his first inauguration address in 1789 in this city.

The layout of Manhattan streets indicates the city is very well planned: the neatly divided streets in middle and uptown, and the naming of the streets — 1st to 7th ave from east to west, and 1st to around 160th streets from south to north. This would be boring for many, but is very convenient for visitors to locate themselves in the overcrowded little island.

Some of the traditional must-sees in Manhattan include the Statue of Liberty, the Metropolitan Museum of Arts (the Met), Guggenheim Museum, Museum of Modern Arts (MoMA), Central Park, Financial district and Times Square. Central Park is by far my favorite in the city. Its size is relatively large considering the limited real estate in such a narrow island, and the crowd doing morning exercising is most impressive to me. They jog, bike, doing stretch and yoga and all other kinds of exercises. In central park, I feel the real vitality of the city, and lively, natural, warm and human aspects of the land, whereas the busy bees in business attire on wall street offers a tense urban passion. The Met is huge, which could easily take up a whole week, or even a life time, as one of the museum curators told us: he had been in the Met for 32 years and yet has not seen it all. Millions of other smaller museums offer collections that will satisfy your special interest.

Manhattan is of course not just about museums, parks and streets. A whopping 46% of the population speak another language at home. Here on subway, you can hear most major languages around the world. Chinatown, little Italy, and other ethnic centers are scattered around the downtown areas. Walking around the streets in Manhattan is already a scene by itself, but if you need a higher dose of entertainment, theaters are abound. Mamma Mia!, Lion King, Chicago are some of the current shows, costly though.

Some practicalities. Cost is the major concern for budget travelers. The hostel I lived in costs $35 per night, and plus the food around $15 per day, so $50 per day is for barely survival. The museum admission fee is around $10 each, and if you want to really learn something, an audio set is a must, which would add another $5.  The theater ticket is totally another story: they could easily go up to around $100 if you are looking for a decent seating or a popular show. Eating at a common restaurant would cost you around $15 for lunch and $25 for dinner, and tax (8%) and tipping (10-20%) will add 15-25% more of whatever you pay.

Though the best way to explore the city is on foot, at least in theory, the subway/bus is a cheap way to get around. You can get the Metrocard in any subway station by cash or credit cards. They offer prepaid card (2.25 per ride), one day pass($8.25), and seven day week pass($27.25). You may benefit from studying (yes studying) the subway system fully before entering the underground because it is the most complicated subway system I have ever seen. They use colors, letters, numbers, and geometry in order to distinguish trains. Two or three trains may share the same line for quite a distance. For example, 4,5,6 trains share the same line on most part of the east Manhattan, and only diverge when they are near the boundaries of Manhattan. The difference between “local” and “express” are usually distinguished by the geometry around the number. Take 7 for example, 7 in diamond is the express train, meaning it won’t stop in some stations, and 7 in circle is the local train, meaning it will stop at all the stations. So you may guess already that the symbol for the stations are different as well, plus different types of connections, shuttle buses, and stations that you cannot get to the opposite direction without getting out of the station. Anyway, good luck reading the map.

So this is where the money is shuffled and disappeared.

Time square is not so impressive during the day.

This is one of only a handful of works that I know of before my visit to the Museum of Modern Arts, the so-called MoMA.

Frankly, this is my response to most of the works displayed in MoMA: "mmm, what the heck does the artist want to tell?" The painting is Vir Heroicus Sublimis (Man, Heroic and sublime) by Barnett Newman.

And occasionally, oof... ( the painting is by Edward Ruscha)

Waste Not, by Dong Song. Tons of used old stuff for arts and reflection.

The Lady.

Manhattan from a distance. It would be too depressing to live in those buildings where the only thing you can see through your windows is other windows.

I am very very impressed by the large size of crowd doing morning exercises in central park. They are the vitality of  a city. Watching them jogging makes me want to join them, except that I have the camera.

I have always hated museum, until I went to Met. Now I know that I haven't been to good ones. Completely overwhelmed, I spent almost 6 hours in it, but still couldn't see it all.

Struggle of the Two Natures in Man, by George Grey Barnard. The theme is repeated everywhere in western arts: the light and dark, the civil and savage in every individual. I begins to think it is just nature of blood.

The artist, Georgia O'Keeffe, said a good painting requires the time of a good friend. After the work of arts is finished, the work of heart begins. This black Iris shows the budding, blooming, fading and dying of a flower. According to the orientation guy, the pic gives all the necessary parts for you to reconstruct whatever you imagine. For me, it is more about satisfying the curiosity than appreciating the arts. I believe it is not until one picks up the brush and starts his own trials on the canvas, he won't know exactly how to appreciate those works. The same is true for all kinds of sports and music. You won't know what is good soccer until you played it by yourself, and you won't know what is good music until you tries to lay down some of the notes yourself.

I am not so impressed by the American Museum of  Natural History. Skeleton everywhere. The real highlight of this trip is the show of Journey of the Stars in the planetarium, but no photograph is allowed inside.

This is what we will all become, after all "we all gonna to die, it's just a matter of time". In this sense, we all have the same beginning and the same ending; it is what we do in between that distinguishes every individual.

In the hall of American Museum of Nature History, there are four huge engravings of quotes by Theodore Roosevelt on Youth, Nature, Manhood, and State. One reads: "Character in the long run is the decisive factor in the life of an individual and of nations alike." It's not power, intelligence, or fortune, but character.

People always like to see themselves as being at the center of the world and proudly enjoy doing so. A map sold in China will put China at the center, one sold in Europe will put Europe at the center, one sold in Australia, as I was told, will put the south hemisphere on the top and Australia at the center. The fact is that the earth is, thank heaven, round. You can see it in whatever ways you like and whatever ways that satisfy the collective pride of a people, a pride that is sometimes justified and necessary.

This summer trip starts from the unabashedly dubbed capital of the new world, NYC, to the de facto capital of the old world, London, with an excursion to Edinburgh to satisfy my own longtime curiosity of Scotland bagpipe and kilt.

Five years ago, Bob Xu showed me a book called With Three Thousand USD, I traveled around the world. It was a fascinating book to read at that time, for it not only gave an account of a world totally exotic to me, but also showed the possibility of seeing the world without first being ridiculously rich. As my younger cousin recited the lesson Nothing to Sell and Nothing to Buy in New Concept English to me over Skype several weeks ago, I was quite delightful to see the connection between me and a tramp, or in fact, any backpacker and a tramp. A part of the lesson reads "His few material possession make it possible for him to move from place to place with ease. By having to sleep in the open, he gets far closer to the world of nature than most of us ever do. He may hunt, beg, or steal occasionally to keep himself alive; he may even in times of real need, do a little work; but he will never sacrifice his freedom."

Backpacking is not about a bag, a ticket, a hostel and a destination, that’s what backpacking needs, not what it is. What backpacking really is is wherever you want to go, you go.

When I was setting up my first website justluck.cn with 512j.com back in 2005, I remember that I have to get a license from the Ministry of Information Industry (now the Ministry of Industry and Information), even though it is just for personal use. According the agreement, the license has to be placed in a place easy to be seen. I don't feel much trouble at that time then, except that the Ministry's website is poorly designed that it is not very easy to navigate around.

For the past a few days, I have been keeping track of the demonstration in Iran. And the Iranian postdoc in my lab told me yesterday during lunch time that he couldn't even contact his parents because all means of communication to the outside world are shut. I asked why so. He said that the government installed a software in every cell phone which was initally for tracking child pornograph, but is now used for tracking any communication among demonstrators. As soon as they locate one demonstrator's home, they will go to his/her place, tortue him/her and then force him/her to log into the computer and find all his frineds on social networking website such as facebook and twitter (which are being used heavily for demonstrators to get organized) to locate more protesters. He was apparently emotionally charged when he told me about it.

And what he said deeply troubles me. Blocking pornography seems just a smoke screen for keeping the mass from getting the information. Such measures bears the appearance of righteousness and indeed create a delightful ignorance. But it may be dangerous if used in the wrong hands, and even if correctly used, it creates an over-protection that might eventually indulge the next generation. Also troublesome is its apparent hypocrisy: You say what you want to do is blocking pornography, but actually what you want to achieve is something else. This obvious manipulation insult the intelligence of those who have sound judgment.

防民之口，甚于防川。

《中国青年报》，4月8日，作者：吴稼祥

（原文摘编）一个伟大民族和一个伟大的人一样，都有坚强的心理素质，无论他或她曾经受过怎样的伤害，都不会丧失爱的能力，也不会让仇恨和报复主宰自己的心理。

民族主义的形式虽然很多，但基本上可以划分为两种类型：健康的和病态的。健康的民族主义是面向世界、面向未来的；病态的民族主义是自恋的、向后看 的。病态的民族主义常常会表现出4个基本特征：1．把伤疤当勋章；2．自恋且排他；3．眼睛长在后脑勺上；4．好战。当下这本“不高兴”究竟属于哪种呢？

“不高兴”让世界看到的，是某些人的“暴发户心态”。中国经过30年经济增长，已成为世界第三大经济体，有些人就膨胀得不得了，想当世界的头儿了。 他们喜欢说美国用白条美元绑架了世界，这在一定程度上是真的；但他们也想用中国人深入骨髓的爱国情愫来绑架整个民族，为他们“世界老大狂想曲”扣动扳机， 这样病态的民族主义还不危险么？

病态的民族主义起源于一个民族病态的心理，一个民族的伟大精神和政治领袖不是利用自己民族的负面心理为自己的狂想服务，而是要治疗民族的心理创伤，让她恢复自信、包容和爱的能力。这正是我们拒绝“不高兴”病毒的理由。

【推荐理由】一篇8000字的长文，虽然注定不会像“不高兴”那样好卖、受关注、受追捧，但我们必须有这样理性、清醒的声音。

－－《南方周末》原文：http://www.infzm.com/content/27048

－－《中国青年报》原文：http://zqb.cyol.com/content/2009-04/08/content_2613961.htm

which reminds me of the cartoon:

IT IS an ill wind that blows no one any good. For many in China even the buffeting by the gale that has hit the global economy has a bracing message. The rise of China over the past three decades has been astonishing. But it has lacked the one feature it needed fully to satisfy the ultranationalist fringe: an accompanying decline of the West. Now capitalism is in a funk in its heartlands. Europe and Japan, embroiled in the deepest post-war recession, are barely worth consideration as rivals. America, the superpower, has passed its peak. Although in public China’s leaders eschew triumphalism, there is a sense in Beijing that the reassertion of the Middle Kingdom’s global ascendancy is at hand (see article).

And this comment about the book "Unhappy China":

A book published in China this month, “Unhappy China” (with an initial print-run of 70,000, says a publicist), aims to tap into what the authors believe is a widespread public feeling of disgruntlement with the West. One of the essays argues that the financial crisis could result in an envious West going to war with China to keep it down.

Few are quite that gloomy. One of the book’s authors (speaking in a branch of Starbucks in a luxury mall) says the government worries about books like this because they fuel suspicions in the West that China is a threat. The publishers removed one part about India’s annexation of Sikkim in 1975 because they thought it might upset India. China would like to be number one, but it would still rather get there without making big enemies.