December 18, 2004
Yesterday, I made a post to Slashdot which received a generally favorable response, so I thought I'd re-post it here (edited and expanded a bit). It concerns the day that Jake joined the Santa Claus conspiracy. Contrary to speculation in one of the more negative replies, this actually happened to me; I didn't lift it from some inspirational sayings site.
When Jake was 6, he sprung this question on me:
Jake: "Dad, I think I'm old enough to know now. Is there a Santa Claus?"
I had not expected to have to address this issue for another year at least. Not being the world's fastest thinker, I stalled for time.
Me: "OK, I agree that you're old enough. But before I tell you, I have a question for you. You see, the truth is a dangerous gift. Once you know something, you can't un-know it. Once you know the truth about Santa Claus, you will never again understand and relate to him as you do now. So my question is: are you sure you want to know?"
Brief pause.
Jake: "Yes. I want to know."
Me: "OK, I'll tell you: Yes, there IS a Santa Claus."
Jake: "Really?"
Me: "Yes, really, but he's not an old man with a beard in a red suit. That's just what we tell kids. You see, kids are too young to understand the true nature of Santa Claus, so we explain it to them in a way that they can understand. The truth about Santa Claus is that he's not a person at all; he's an idea. Think of all those presents Santa gave you over the years. I actually bought those myself. I watched you open them. And did it bother me that you didn't thank me? Of course not! In fact it gave me great pleasure. You see, Santa Claus is THE IDEA OF GIVING FOR THE SAKE OF GIVING, without thought of thanks or acknowledgement. When I saw that woman collapse on the subway last week and called for help, I knew that she'd never know that it was I who summoned the ambulance. I was being Santa Claus when I did that."
Jake: "Oh."
Me: "So now that you know, you're part of it. You have to be Santa Claus too now. That means you can never tell a young kid the secret, and you have to help us select Santa presents for them, and most importantly, you have to look for opportunities to help people. Got it?"
Jake: "Sure, Dad!"
November 28, 2004
Cathy returned from an uneventful flight yesterday and stayed up late with me to finish out the galleries. There are two new images to round out Home at the Wangs, and two new galleries from Cathy: Visit to "Prospect Garden" and Visit to Anhui Province.
Prospect Garden was the main venue in the Chinese epic romance Story of the Stone by Cao Xue-qin. It is one of my favorite books of any kind and certainly ranks up with Goethe and Shakespeare in the depth and subtlety of the author's understanding of human nature.
Continuing the literary theme, a few of the photos from Anhui depict Drum Mountain and the nearby Buddhist temple and compound of the same name. Drum Mountain and neighboring Flag Mountain are famous for the part they played in the War of the Three Kingdoms which marked the fall of the Han Dynasty. A book Three Kingdoms by Luo Guan-zhong fictionalizes this period and is another favorite of the Chinese (and mine). Lovers of The Lord of the Rings and military literature are commended to it.
During Cathy's visit to Anhui, she made a pilgrimage to her grand-mother's grave stone. Zhu Yan-zhen died during the Cultural Revolution of natural causes in her 50's. Her daughter Han Yu-ling and son-in-law Chen Yuan-nian erected a grave stone to her and her husband in 1996. Cathy has translated the writing on the stone, but it is too long to fit in the captions of the related shots [update 8-4: I've since changed the layout of the slideshow view to show the entire caption], so I have reproduced the full caption here:
The grave of Cathy's grand-mother. The top line reads "Deeply missed and remembered". The central column reads "Departed: Father Han Yuan-qing, Mother Zhu Yan-zhen" The right-hand column reads "erected 4th May 1996 AC." The left-hand column lists descendants under the broad heading "Filial:" "Han: (son) Jing-hua, (daughters) Yu-ying [Cathy's mother], Yu-fen, and Yu-ling" Beneath Han Jing-hua are "Daughter-in-law Wang Yuo-zhen; grand-son Han Fei." Beneath the daughters are listed "Sons-in-law Wang Wei-xiang [Cathy's father], Liu Zong-shou, Chen Yuan-nian." Beneath the sons-in-law is "Matrilineal grand-son Chen Hao." At the bottom of the descendants are listed "Matrilineal grand-daughters: Wang Zhe-hong [Jacke Wang], Wang Ye [Cathy], Chen Jie, Liu Fang [Jennifer], and Liu Lu." Beneath the descendants are the two characters for "Kotow."
Update 12-1, Corrected spelling of Liu Zong-shou.
November 21, 2004
Much has happened since my last travel update. Tristan, Jake, and I are back home in New Hampshire, over a week earlier than we had planned. All four of us, including Cathy, had changed our tickets to depart Saturday so that I could do some emergency work for a client. Not long after making this change, Cathy was obliged to push her departure back to Friday the 26th due to a medical problem that precluded her flying.
We got to the airport Saturday morning an hour before we thought was necessary, only to find the Northwest staff frantic to get us processed and boarded. We passed beyond the public area into the passenger-only area almost immediately, so we had to struggle to make ourselves understood without the benefit of the Chinese friend who drove us. Tristan had been experiencing flu-like symptoms (though he had been immunized) since Thursday evening, and there was no time to keep him properly hydrated as we were rushed from one station to the next in Beijing Airport. Among the numerous miscues was that Northwest could not locate Tristan's e-ticket. I eventually wound up paying an extra c-note in Tokyo because of this. My hunch is that when Cathy moved her departuer back to Friday, the Northwest ticket agent assumed that Tristan would be with her. I didn't argue the point in Tokyo, but they'll be hearing from us. Having said that, I do want to thank them for their efforts to see us off. Had they not intervened, we surely would not have made it through processing fast enough to make the flight.
After lift-off from Beijing, I managed to get some water into Tristan which he brought back up in mid-flight. As it was almost all water, it didn't make much of a mess, but I was worried for him. In retro-spect, this was the turning point; he managed to keep everything else down from then on. Tokyo had a very well equipped nursery, and the hour-and-a-half spent on terra firma seemed to settle his stomach. By the time we reached Minneapolis, he was back to his regular happy self, eating and drinking normally, walking, and smiling at strangers and family alike.
As I say, there were a number of other problems which threatened to derail our return, but it would be tedious to recount them now. The bottom line is: we arived home safely and had a great time in Beijing. Since we're all OK, I'm already able to look back on the return journey with enough emotional distance to laugh about it.
All galleries are now complete except for Home at the Wangs. There are a couple of photos which are destined for that gallery, but which I have not offloaded from the camera. As I left the camera with Cathy, you can look forward to those as well as any new galleries she cares to favor us with after her return.
In non-Chinese news, I also managed to process a backlog of older photos today. You can find them in the following new galleries: Visit to the Bates's, Gift-wrapped, and Chris's 37th Birthday, as well as scattered about some prior galleries. (Note to self: must code a function to permit browsing of recently added photos regardless of gallery.)
November 18, 2004
Just a quick update today. I've gotten a start on one new gallery: Visit to the Forbidden City. Also, the Visit to the Summer Palace link should work now. I have too much of a backlog to hope to upload everything over this connection, so I'll let you know when all galleries are complete. Look for the next update late November 20.
November 17, 2004
My bandwidth is about half of what I was getting yesterday, and I'm on a tighter schedule, so I won't be able to get as many photos up. I'm still supplementing prior galleries, and I've starated a new one: Visit to the Summer Palace, but that link won't work till tomorrow, I'm afraid.
Yes, we visited the Summer Palace yesterday. We were lucky to have Cathy's father to show us around. He lived in a wealthy family prior to the fall of the last dynasty, and was a veritable fount of interesting and amusing information which gave wonderful context to the structures and objects we were experiencing.
November 16, 2004
Yesterday was Cathy's birthday. Jake and I stayed in with Tristan so that Cathy and her father could go shopping. Cathy's mother prepared a banquet of long-life noodles. The noodles were made fresh that morning and were very tasty. Still not fully adjusted to the time shift, I fell asleep before the cake was served.
I continue to supplement the two galleries I began uploading yesterday: Visit to Yuanmingyuan and Visit to the Great Wall as bandwidth allows. Two new galleries are also in progress: Visit to the Ming Tombs and Home at the Wangs. Left is an image from that gallery of Tristan and Cathy's cousin Liu Lu.
Yesterday, in my haste, I neglected to thank Cathy's cousin Liu Fang ("Jennifer"), Liu Lu's older sister, and Jennifer's husband Xie Ming ("Alexander") for the wonderful hospitality they extended to me and Jake. On November 13, they took us to the Great Wall, the Ming Tombs, and to our first proper Chinese lunch in between. And on November 14, we used their lovely condominium as the staging ground for the entire Wang and Liu families' foray to the Peking Roast Duck restaurant. As a cultural phenomenon, Peking Roast Duck is the culinary equivalent of the Great Wall, and the gustatory equivalent of Peking Opera.
November 15, 2004
Just a quick note to let my readers know that I've uploaded a sample of the photos I've taken during my vacation in China. The bandwidth here is very poor, so I'll have to flesh it out later. Stay tuned.
Today is Cathy's birthday, so I must run.
September 9, 2004
"...Beauty without Vanity, / Strength without Insolence, / Courage without Ferocity, / And all the virtues of Man without his Vices." Thus a grief-stricken Lord Byron described his departed dog. Byron's elegy was forcibly recalled to my memory when I came home yesterday to discover that Cafall had strangled herself in her chain. Not yet two years old, she was full of life as no other creature I have encountered -- man or beast. We miss her bitterly.
May 19, 2004
Been a while!
I've been very busy these last few months as a work-from-home father. It's been huge fun, but there's been no time for updating the site. I have a significant backlog of photos to upload, but don't expect them any time soon.
I felt moved today to write about an issue that's been consuming a large portion of my attention for the past year: The actions of SCO, a company seeking to obtain for itself the right to charge a license to Linux end users. This is an issue that everyone should care about because it is an attack on the only viable alternative to Microsoft's hegemony. The trouble is, it's very difficult for a lay person to understand the highly technical issues involved.
Earlier this morning, I was baited by a masterfully conceived troll on the Yahoo! SCOX message board. (Hat's off to Hardcode57 for the troll.) He was pretending to be a farmer who couldn't understand all the hostility toward SCO over what should be an arms-length dispute between SCO and IBM (who SCO accuses of improperly contributing code to Linux). Swallowing the bait, I wrote a reply in which I attempted to frame the issue using an analogy that I thought could be understood by anyone without a background in Linux and Unix. To my family and friends, I reproduce my post here in the hope that you'll better understand the issues:
Suppose LT, an artist, decided to get together with a bunch of his artist friends and create a free public gallery of their work. Years go by and the gallery booms in popularity. They get frequent visitors, corporate donations, new artists come along to contribute, and LT and some of his friends find as a result that they can devote their full time to painting and upkeep of the gallery.
Along comes DM, who claims to be the successor in interest to some past artist's works. DM further claims that some of the paintings in the gallery are unauthorized derivative works of his copyrighted art.
Now the good and decent thing to do would be for DM to tell LT and his friends which paintings he objects to, so that they can validate his claim and if necessary remove them from the gallery.
Instead, DM keeps this information to himself, and attempts to erect a ticket booth in front of the gallery so that he can charge admission and pocket the full admission price.
That's as far as my Yahoo! post went, but consider this extension to the analogy: DM isn't telling ANYONE which paintings are objectionable. So not only is he essentially claiming to himself the full value of admission to the gallery, he isn't giving the gallery or the gallery's patrons any basis for validating his claim. In other words, he's taking money from the gallery patrons without telling them what they're paying for. Or, to depart from the gallery analogy, it would be as though you got an invoice in the mail from a stranger with a dollar amount but no description of what you're being charged for.
Peace,
Chris
