Photos!

Hey everyone!

First, some pictures from my trip to the zoo. They don't really have anything to do with Taiwan in particular, but everyone likes the zoo so why not go take a look.

Second, I've put up a "grab bag" of pictures from the last few months. It includes visiting a massive food court near Shilin night market, the last night of Lane 86, a favorite student bar, and a many others from around the city which I'll add some commentary to later.

Sitting in the computer lab

Hi guys,

So here I am, sitting in the computer lab, again, just like I did when first arrived in Taiwan and didn't have a computer. I'm looking up a few chengyu, or four word idioms on the internet, but what I really wanted to do was let everyone know that I read Confucius's "On the Rectification of Names" today in class. It's actually called the "Great Learning," but it contains probably one of his most famous ideas. In a nutshell, it means to deal with your own problems before you worry about interfering with other people. He outlines a symmetrical path of governing, if you will, from managing your own thoughts and state of mind to the affairs of state and governance. It's presented as advice to kings, to whom he suggested that this chain of logic and its sequence was essential to achieving success as a ruler.

Simply put,

First fix yourself,

Then take care of your family,

Then help your community,

And only then is there any possibility of peace among and within nations.

That's 2500 year old philosophy.

An update

I only have a few weeks left here, really, although it still seems far off with schoolwork and friends continuing the way they have been for the last few months. This semester is a little different from previous ones, both because my life is fairly settled now and because my classes are of a different sort from before. I don't really have the anchor of a centerpiece class the way I did with Talk on Chinese Culture and Thought and Society - the school is slowing letting us go our own ways, taking whatever classes interest us. After this semester, there will be no set guidelines for what to take anymore. But I won't be here :)

I am planning on going to Hong Kong one of the next few weeks; I think it will be a good break. There's always a lot of work to do around here. It reminds me of Swarthmore.

Pictures soon; I promise!