enter the dragon

june fourth 2004 marked the 15th anniversary of the Tienemen Square Massacre in Beijing. in the spring 1989, democratic movement led by young intellectuals was stirring in the world's most populous country. as university students poured into Tienemen Square to demand democratic reform, armed with nothing but peace and a desire to change motherland, overseas Chinese like us scattered across the world watched attentively with sympathy and concern. how can anyone fault a young though naive generation of believers of China, who despite its size and geographical advantages, has been nothing more than a three-legged dog bowing reluctantly to foreign powers for the entire 20th century? even Beijing police sent to maintain order were moved to tears, abandoned their posts and jointed their cause. local store owners donated food and supplies to applaud the peaceful deomonstration. a spirit of unity was in the air.

pulling ourselves from the daily grind in toronto, we gathered with our extended family every evening to watch its progress on television. we secretly held hope clinched tightly in our fists, however irrational it may seem knowing the long suffering history of our motherland. as I sat on the cold cement floor in Nathan Philips Square during a candellight vigil, surrounded by a motley of Chinese from all walks of life but shared the unique experience of displacement from our origin, we remembered our roots and showed support for our brothers and sisters fighting for our collective future. We prayed. Most of all, we hoped. We hoped that tomorrow will see a better and stronger China, one that we can show the world we are more than a nation of expendable railways slave yellowmen living hand-to-mouth, more than a nation of mocked immigrants barely tolerated as eyesore and denied basic human rights. We hoped with raw and towering anticipation, as history unfolded.

then came the fateful morning when the tanks marched in to color yet another bloody page of Chinese history. One must remember that leadership was occupied by a harder older generation: one that long endured the opium-sickened Ching-dynasty, the lengthy and weary Chinese civil war, then the ruthless Japanese invasion that resulted in generations of hatred and unforgiveness. The Mao-led communism was born out of desperation and survival. the tragedy-hardened leadership was not about to amend its ways. the result was an entire Beijing generation of educated young men and women wiped out simply because they believed. as mothers weeped, street workers scrabbed blood stains off the grounds and walls and nations around the world nominally denounced the military action, stunned and speechless, we returned to our daily chores with a stiletto stabbed in our hearts.

15 years later, as China succumbs to economic greed while stagnant in immoveable politics, the story of Tienemen Square is not lost among a body of surviving witnesses. With our fists still tightly clinched, in silence we continue to hope for a better tomorrow. we hope a return to rudimental ethics famed in the vintage Chinese thoughts. we hope forgiveness and love can once again revive and gather a dispersed people. what is not possible with men is possible with God. the dragon has been undully dormant for much too long.

how shall we then live?

pardon my stolen title (1) for i can find no more fitting words. waking up in a cold sweat just the sheer of dawn, i wrestled w/ my inner demons the implications of utililarianism vs. Christian ethics, pondering the world that is and that is to come. `to be or not to be` (2), that is the question we struggle daily drowning in a sea of relativism. to the gung-ho trumpets of man`s joy and happiness, lurking behind the curtain is the self-affirming self-standardizing egoism. should righteousness be deemed by one`s innate sense or census of the people? are we such fools to accept morals are but socialogical, statistical averages? and who is the tallying lord? He might as well be blind or deaf or both, swallowing in gulps the fate of thousands in misery across this land.

perhaps pursuit of happiness is nothing but ignorant bliss: ignorant of the world of evil and magnificent, or simply willfully ignoring the spirits of swift yet definite presence. even if i stand alone, i fight for a world of absolute, and in the end, be all my sins remembered (2).

1. How shall we then live?, Francis Scheaffer.
2. Hamlet, William Shakespeare.

homecooking

my mother started cooking for us after we moved to Canada. perhaps just a bit too pampered during modern living in the city that never sleeps, her cooking methodology was unorthodox; long wooden chopsticks poking at half-cooked meat and bak-choy on teflon frying pan, the germ-extermination process lasted about 20 minutes. we teenagers gobbled up whatever was thrown before us, usually in front of American television, while my mother sat with a half-smile and half satisfaction. when we got a bit older, we started to realize our relatives' teasings were not without merits, that mother's cooking was bland like the vastness of Lake Ontario. we laughed and continued to devour the coconut milk chicken and stir-fried spinach and the BBQ pork. the days passed by to the sizzling sound of mother's kitchen.

i started cooking myself when i entered graduate school. Strapped w/ a large-sized apron, 9-inch T-Fal pot in one hand and new-age cookbook in another, i experimented with mixtures of soy sauce, oyster sauce, sesame oil and twenty four Spicies of the Orient from President's Choice. like the accidental flame from the wooden stove that caught the newspaper, i was soon livid and burning in the myriad of over-zealous chemicals that were my own creations. was the sauce the seasoning for the food, or the food a bridesmaid to the now boiling monstrous liquid?

like tiny grains of sand in an hourglass, maybe life's happiness and sorrow are best taken in small portions. it is then we can fully intake the servings, digest the lessons behind the ingredients, and appreciate the workmanship of the maker. i see now that beyond the garlic shrimp and the bitter melon, there is unconditional and unspoken love, and tremendous wisdom in my mother's culinary ways. i am looking forward to my mother's beef stew my next trip home.

first meditation on human understanding

back to the subject of objective reality, or more precisely, the question of how we know and how we know we know. for newcomers to epistomology, first note that this is not at all an obvious question. when Decartes began his meditation, he could establish only that he exists, based on his famed declaration "I think therefore I am".

How pessimistic is it that when human tries to establish a foundation of knowledge, one cannot even methodically separate reality from fantasy (for example, awakened state from dream state)? note that years of science and mathematics development offered no advancement in this arena. Consider the following two great 20th century negative theoretical results:

1. Hidenberg's uncertainty principle: one can only observe momentum and position simuntaneously up to a certain degree of accuracy. This manifasts itself in time-frequency analysis of signal processing: one cannot observe the frequencies and location in time of signals to perfect accuracy. This establishes a fundamental limit in observation, and therefore observable reality.

2. Godel's theorem: that only a subset of all truths in an universe constructed based on axioms are provable using the axioms. This means the provably true truths (things we know for sure) will always be less than really true truths (things that are really true). This establishes a limitation in learnable knowledge. (1)

Returning back to Descartes, perhaps he erred not in reason but in assumptions: that the starting point being the observer/thinker -- himself. This is precisely the closed system of modern man that Francis Scheaffer mentioned repeatedly (2). Ironicaly, it is the famed agnostic Yoro Takeshi who brilliantly pointed out (3) that even the concept of true knowledge is impossible unless one permits an omnipotent, omniscient deity, for simply by definition, only He creates all, knows all and comprehends all, while each of us can know only in part. So are you dreaming when u r reading this? Or are you following?

More on Him and knowledge.


1. assumes logical proof constructs.
2. Trilogy, Francis Scheaffer.
3. バカの壁、養老たけし

and so it goes

"A journey of a thousand miles begin with a single step." Lao-Tsu wrote in Tao-te-ching. simple yet profound, Chinese wisdoms, though taught at early age, are often appreciated only after years of life's eclectic collection of experiences.

when i was an infant, my sanctuary was the wooden cradle, and my brave new world was the living room. concept of time goes no further than yesterday, today and tomorrow. as I grew, my horizon expanded in both time and space. the new frontier is either a superset the contains the previous reality, or a clearer image that replaces the previously distorted one. "Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known." (1) Is there an end to this continual expansion of reality, and if and when it does, is it rightful to term it "objective reality"? I know not; I fear only that i am constrained by my own stubborn reluctance to fathom the inevitable vision, only in the end to stand speechless in front of my maker (2). That is a true tragedy.

so i seek, and the journey continues.

1. 1 Corinthians 13:12
2. "Till we have faces", C.S. Lewis