Why l learn English? To enjoy life

Lu Xun

Growing up in Taiwan, one will not have a chance to read the literary work of a great Chinese writer, Lu Xun (魯迅), whose work was banned for he was considered a leftist communist and was greatly admired by Mao Zedong who said of Lu Xun, “'On the cultural front, he was the bravest and most correct, the firmest, the most loyal and the most ardent national hero, a hero without parallel in our history.'”. However he never joined Communist Party.

It is true that he was a powerful critic of Chiang Kai-Shek regime; he would give Mao Zedong a great deal of headache had he lived under Communist regime. He died in 1936 and the Communist took over the government in 1949. He was simply a liberal dissident by heart.

There was an article in NY Times (8/19/1990) “China’s greatest dissident writer”, in which it said, “the [Communist] party adopted Lu Xun because he opposed tyranny, and so now it would a bit awkward to ban him for the same reason.”

The million dollar letter

In 2013 a letter of Lu Xun, written on June 8, 1934, to a publisher who asked him about learning Japanese. The letter was auctioned off for more than one million US dollars.  It is a short letter with only three paragraphs.  The following is the second paragraph:

學日本文要到能夠看小説，且非一知半解，所需的時間和力氣, 我覺得並不亞於學一種歐洲文字，然而歐洲有大作品。先生何不將預備學日文的力氣，學一種西文呢？

The time and effort needed to learn Japanese to the point that you can read a novel — and not just half-understand it –would be no less, I think, than to master a European language. And there are great European works. Why don’t you, sir, use the energy that would be spent learning Japanese to learn a Western language instead? (The translation is from an article in NY Times.)

It just happened that I shared Lu Xun’s view and has been actually doing it for forty some years.

In the early years when I first came to the States reading Lincoln and Churchill led me to discover the beauty of English language, and subsequently the great work in English in science as well as in humanity/literature/history.

I had to learn English well enough to read and enjoy the English literary work.  Without a school to attend and without a teacher to learn, I tried to select books that most likely can improve my command of English.  I tried to read the books Lincoln and Churchill read, not that I have their faculty.  I also constantly look for scientists who write well, the list of which is getting long.

Growing up in Taiwan I was aware of the perception of many adults that if one will pursue a career in science, one doesn’t have to be good in language.  I later found out myself that nothing could be further from the truth.  American educators got it right; recall the National Merit Scholarship has the verbal score doubled in the PSAT.

So Lu Xun was correct that there are great European works; he was talking about literary work, but there are great works in science and medicine, too.  Or he might be also talking about science/medicine as he studied medicine in Japan in early 1900s.  He also mastered the language of German and Japanese.

Coleus (彩葉草) in full bloom at all times

These Coleuses (彩葉草) are not intimated by the nearby flowering pots in bloom.  They say they are also colorful and in full bloom at all times.  They are not worried about 夜來風雨聲, 花落知多少 (Hearing the rain drops during the night; worrying about how many petals would fall.)

Lily: Queen of the flowers in our garden

Being an anglophile, I am never tired of telling the Tudor stories.  Seeing the lilies in bloom, I just cannot but tell the story of the “Great Divorce” in history—that of King Henry VIII and his first wife, Queen Catherine of Aragon.

My daughter gave me this book of Tudors (it lasted for three generations only beginning with Henry VII—Henry VIII’s dad, ends with Elizabeth I—Henry VIII’s daughter) as one of the birthday gifts two years ago with an inscription of

“His knowledge of this English past

is so through and so vast

‘Tis true! This Taiwanese-American-Anglophile

is an honorary Brit of that other Isle”

Rose and lily have been fighting for the tile of Queen of the Flower for ages.  Not that I do not love rose, but I love lily more.  I am of the opinion that among the six wives of Henry VIII, Queen Catherine was the only one worthy to sit on the throne by his side.

Queen Catherine is a daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, who commissioned the first voyage of Christopher Columbus.  She was intelligent, blessed with an indomitable spirit. Imperial ambassador from the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire to Henry VIII of England said of her, “The most virtuous woman I had ever known, and the highest hearted, but too quick to trust that others were like herself.”

A letter of her written shortly before her passing at age of 51 is touching.  She was six years Henry VIII’s senior.  She was first married to Henry's elder brother, Arthur,who died shortly thereafter.  Henry VIII used that as the legal reason for divorce as apparently married to a brother's wife is religiously forbidden.  Queen Catherine claimed the marriage with Arthur was never consummated.  The 17 leading European universities of his day sided with Henry; there was no independent scholarship then.

Our lilies, the Queen of the Flowers, like Queen Catherine in her court, also have many ladies-in-waiting (many flowering pots) surround her in the garden (see photo below).

It is not the purpose of this post to bore you with the details of the ‘greatest’ divorce in history, involving Cardinal  Wolsey, Thomas Cranmer (archbishop of Canterbury), Thomas Cromwell (whose photo was once a JAMA cover—Journal of the American Medical Association; I am not the only doctor fascinated by him), Pope and Spanish Emperor Charles V and all 17 leading universities of the time.

The divorce process brought the Reformation to England and split the Christendom.  In the end Henry VIII became the Supreme Head of the Church of England, which became protestant.

Henry VIII couldn’t get the Pope’s (Clement VII) permission to divorce Queen Catherine, at that time Pope was under control of Spanish Emperor Charles V—Queen Catherine’s nephew.

Cardinal Wolsey lost his head partly related to his event.  He once visited the Canterbury and wept at Becket’s shrine.  T.S. Eliot’s poetic play Murder in the Cathedral is about Becket’s murder (about 400 years earlier) by Henry II’s agents.  見景傷情 or 觸景傷情, visiting Becket’s shrine, thinking about he has Henry VIII to contend with, like Becket Henry II.

Cardinal Cranmer survived Henry VIII, barely.  He held Henry’s hand when the king died.  But the shadow of the headsman’s axe had been in his nightmare.

Catherine said in Shakespeare’s Henry VIII (Act 3 Scene 1) in response to Cardinal Wolsey’s request to accept the divorce from Henry VIII.

Queen Catherine

I am the most unhappy woman living.

Alas, poor wenches, where are now your fortunes!

Shipwrecked upon a kingdom, where no pity,

No friend, no hope; no kindred weep for me;

Almost no grave allowed me; like the lily,

That once was mistress of the field and flourished.

This is a typical poetic play; almost every line rhymes.  So read it loud, you’ll enjoy it more.

Yin-Tsai (Chinese water spinach 應菜) in a beautiful surrounding

Yin-Tsai (Chinese water spinach 應菜) in our garden may not be in the most fertile soil, but they are certainly growing up in a beautiful surrounding.

We planted Yin-Tsai in two different ways: from the stems and from the seeds (the only you in the far end and to the right).

Janice said the Yin Tsai looks good to her and wonder why I said the soil is not very fertile.  It is just the comparison:  The soil is not as fertile as the surrounding is beautiful.  Besides never question a gardener’s judgment on the soil; I have a little sign (in our garden) to attest to it.

A moveable feast and 秀色可餐

A Moveable Feast is Ernest Heminway’s memoir that was published posthumously a few years after he passed away.  Hemingway talked about many American expatriate literary figures in Paris in the 1920s; the one impressed me most was about F Scott Fitzgerald.

A cruise is a moveable feast by all accounts.  This comic strip shows the origin of cruise ship.

Some of the flowers in our garden are in the pots, including many of the voluntary come back celosia.  They will serve wherever they are needed.

I also call them moveable feast, which is not entirely inappropriate if you agree with what I’ll say.

秀色可餐 is a Chinese idiom which means to indulge sensual beauty.  秀色 (beautiful colors; sensual beauty) can be eaten (可餐 indulged).  Thus it is fitting to say these beautiful and vivacious colors in the moveable pots 秀色可餐.

Shakespeare also used the same expression, although not as elegantly as 秀色可餐.  In his Antony and Cleopatra, we read Cleopatra used perfume to seduce Antony, “so perfumed, that the winds were lovesick with them.” The following is the scene when they met.

Upon her landing, Antony sent to her,

Invited her to Supper.  She replied

It should be better he became her Guest

Which she entreated.  Our courteous Antony

Whom never the word of ‘No’ Woman heard speak,

Being barbered ten times over, goes to the Feast,

And for his Ordinary pays his Heart

For what his Eyes eat only. (Cleopatra is 秀色可餐)

It basically says Antony accepted Cleopatra’s invitation as Antony never said ‘No’ to any woman.  “Being barbered ten times over” means Antony had the barber groom him excessively before meeting Cleopatra.  “For what his Eyes eat only” says Cleopatra is 秀色可餐, Antony went to the feast but ate nothing although his eyes did eat.  Antony was satiated and satisfied by looking at (eating, 可餐) the sensual beauty (秀色) of Cleopatra.

Every garden gets to have hollyhocks

The hollyhocks are in bloom; they may not be as exuberant as that we had last year, which are de luxe, double-flowered with fringed and frilled petals; exquisite! However, this year it is more than made up by the increasing number scattered in three different areas. 

2016 hollyhocks

2016 hollyhocks

These tall ornamentals with stately colorful blooms are quaintly charming, graceful and refined; they come in three different colors in our garden: red, soft pink and deep black maroon.  They originally came from China and have been growing here since colonial times; they had been around here even before America came into being.

How tall do hollyhocks grow?  Our hollyhocks had grown taller than I; taller than the six-foot chain-link fence; they are still growing and in bloom.  According to an assistant head gardener in New York Botanical Garden that their hollyhocks usually did not exceed 8 feet in height, although it has been reported as high as 14 feet in New York area.  He had heard, “on good authority,” that California hollyhocks sometime reach 20 feet.

I am not alone in loving hollyhock.  Aline Barnsdall commissioned Lloyd Wright (of the Falling Water House fame; it is less than an hour drive away from our house) to build her residence (5,000 square-foot) in 1921; that was the first house Wright built in Los Angeles.  She “named for its ornamental tributes to her favorite flower the hollyhock.”

On January 30, 2015 U.S. Department of Interior nominated the 1921 Hollyhock House to the Unesco World Heritage List.

2017 hollyhocks

A patriotic garden

Happy July 4^th from a patriotic garden.

I love petunia

The reasons of showing these petunia photos are twofold.  One is to share these beauties with you; the other will talk about my “old flames” (celosia) are coming back as usual.

There are several areas of petunia; one is homogeneous in way of color; the other heterogeneous having various colors contrasting and competing.  It is said that the iPhone camera is good, but it certainly failed to capture the stunning colors that I see and that I cannot describe in English or in Chinese or in Taiwanese.

We have a garden teacher; an accomplished gardener of forty some years’ experience.  He is as strict as he is skillful especially when it comes to weeding.  This photo below shows his exemplary garden showing no weeds at all.  He emphasized the photo was taken without his pulling weeds beforehand.

I am of Cheng’s opinion that “人在照相時都會打點門面，整修一下，何況在替田園之美照相時？” (We have to make up or touch up a bit before photo taking, let alone showing the beauty of the garden?).  Besides the residents in our garden are delicate and sensitive; they will be unhappy had I shown their photos without weeding.

There are practically no weeds in these photos of petunia; if one looks carefully one can tell there are celosia—my “old flame”—coming back again, waiting to be relocated.