Reading Marlborough, learning good English with simple words

Historian Andrew Roberts said of Churchill, “managed to combine the most magnificent use of English — usually short words, Anglo-Saxon words, Shakespearean.”

Here are examples of two short words in his Marlborough:

“Barcelona was captured.  Whosoever's conception it was, whether it arose from accident, caprice, or profound design, the glory belongs to Peterborough, who lost no time in claiming it.  Forthwith he sent Stanhope to England with dispatches couched in a grandiloquent vein. . . .”

couch [put in words to express]

vein [a special character, disposition; state of mind or mood]

JFK said on April 9, 1963 on the Proclamation Conferring Honorary U.S. Citizenship on Sir Winston Churchill, “In the dark days and darker nights when England stood alone — and most men save Englishmen despaired of England's life — he mobilized the English language and sent it into battle.”

JFK quoted “he mobilized the English language and sent it into battle” without giving the proper credit to the war time broadcast journalist, Edward Murrow.

Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough 慧眼識英雄 (a keen eye can tell greatness from mediocrity)

Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough

Reading Marlborough’s story, one will read that of Queen Anne or Sarah [John Churchill’s wife; Churchill is the first Duke of Marlborough]  What Churchill wrote in the following paragraph clearly said Sarah’s keen eyes and mind can tell greatness from mediocrity 慧眼識英雄.  Sarah’s friendship with Queen Anne didn’t hurt Marlborough’s career.

For those are interested in knowing William Pitt better may read the post of “Pittsburgh has a good fortune to be named after a great English statesman, William Pitt”.

http://doctorjytsai.blogspot.com/2015/03/pittsburgh-has-good-fortune-to-be-named.html

“Sarah, whose scent for genius had led her in her youth to marry the penniless John Churchill, and was to lead her in old age to bestow ten thousand pounds upon the great Pitt, then equally undistinguished, was evidently conscious of the Peterborough spell." Certainly she sang his [Peterborough's] praises to Marlborough during 1705, and Marlborough bore responsibility both for the appointment and its exceptional conditions.”

Spending 50 minutes with Bernstein’s Pathetique (by Tchaikovsky) will be worth your while

After hearing Benjamin Sander’s Boston Philharmonic play, Janice sent me a youtube of Tchaikovsky’s 6^th symphony (“Pathetique”—whatever it means, passionate or evoke pity, it is not “pathetic”) conducted by Bernstein.  Spending 50 minutes with this video will be well worth your while.  I tried to read Churchill’s Marlborough while listening to it; it was impossible as Bernstein pulling me away from the book.  He conducted with his heart and soul; with all his being.

Janice and conductor Benjamin Zander

The video did “invoke my pity” on the audience in the Boston Symphony Hall who could only see the back of Bernstein.  I am of the opinion that one or two large TV screens should be installed in the symphony hall so that the audience can see the conductor from different views.  I was fortunate enough to see Bernstein in NYC Lincoln Center in 1972.

Tchaikovsky led the first performance of Pathetique in St. Petersburg nine days before his passing at age of 53.  Rumor had it that this performance was his suicide act, instead of dying from cholera.

Bernard Shaw began his career as a music critic.  Writing in 1894, the year after Tchaikovsky’s death, on a London performance of Pathetique, Shaw wrote, Tchaikovsky “had a thoroughly Byronic power of being tragic, momentous, romantic about nothing at all.” To me this is not a complimentary remark.  Shaw was great and good, but a great man cannot be always right.

Great writers often have a nice way to say something even when they didn’t like it.  Mark Twain once said (some said he merely quoted it), “Wagner’s music is better than it sounds.”  Twain obviously was not a great fan of Wagner’s, as he also said, “I have seen and greatly enjoyed the first act of everything Wagner created, but the effect on me has always been so powerful that one act was quite sufficient; after two acts I have gone away physically exhausted.”

The following is the link Janice sent to me and her comment.  Janice took us to hear Benjamin Zander at Harvard Sanders Theater several years ago; it was quite a memorable experience.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lycTAOOm17w

This video has Leonard Bernstein conducting.  Zander said that people kept wanting to applaud at the end of the 3rd movement (36:20 but start listening at 34:00 to get a feel for the buildup to that climax) but he didn't understand why since he thought of it as a march to an execution. (I was with the masses...I wanted to applaud but refrained...it feels very triumphant to me)

The reports of our luffa failure are greatly exaggerated

Luffa is the center piece of our garden; the success of the garden will not be complete unless there is also success of the luffa.

We have a small group of friends, about 5 or 6 couples, mostly seasoned or retired gardeners, were initially attracted to each other because of the shared love of gardening.  When we’re not together, we, as Katy said, we E 來 E 去, talking about everything under the sun, including Chinese and Western literature, history and language; we also ventured into science or medicine.  We tried to find the “truth” and enjoy the “beauty”.  Our friendship grows along the way.  What else can one expect?

Once a year the group would visit our garden, measuring up or grading our garden.  This year the day was August 20, they came and expected to be awed and inspired by the luffa fruits to write poems, like they did last year.  Little did they know it happened to be during the deep of the three-week slump, during which no luffa fruit produced.  All they saw were several withered luffas of hot dog-sized or the female flowers died in infancy.

September 3 was marked as the day of recovery.  That day we first saw six or seven blooming female luffa flowers; we pollinated them with delight and excitement (it was literally “the joy of sex”) before leaving for Michigan; we went to Michigan to see our daughter’s family emptied handed with no luffa.  However, we made two trips to Boston in late September and early October, in a car loaded with our garden produce and of course, luffa galore, more than our two daughters and one niece can handle.  It was quite a sight of 草地人進城.

August was supposed to be the fast growing time for luffa and yet that was the most crucial and precious time we lost.  We’ve made up several theories of why that happened; that would be another post.  We’re disappointed as we’re unable to give luffas to our friends intended, although we did make up to some extent of late.

Thanks to the “Indian summer” we’re enjoying; our luffas continue to produce.  Katy harvested nearly 30 of them today, not all of them are presentable to be gifts.  We’re watching the temperature very closely.  If the temperature will dip into low thirties during the night, we would wrap the luffa to keep warm (see photo above).  The “gift label” says “Grow with love by Katy & Jer-Yuan”; it was not an exaggeration.

So the luffa season was not an entire failure, let me paraphrase Mark Twain, the reports of our luffa failure are greatly exaggerated.

This one is being saved for seeds

The tale of two books: One cannot put down, the other cannot pick up

I checked out two books from Carnegie Library last week.  One is “The death of cancer by Dr. Vincent DeVita; the other “Marlborough: His life and times” by Churchill.  It turned out I cannot put down the first book (too fascinating) and nor can I pick up the second (over 1,000 pages just for Book Two, literally too heavy).

One of my ambitions is to read “almost” everything Churchill wrote, it is time to read “Marlborough” (whose name is John Churchill, Winston’s ancestor). On our last London/Paris trip, Blenheim Palace (commemorating Duke Marlborough’s triumph at the Battle of Blenheim) was on the itinerary until we decided to take a side trip to Paris.  Churchill was actually born in Blenheim Palace, as his American mother was still whirling and dancing in a party there the night when he was born.

As you know Churchill and FDR had more than 1,500 correspondences during the war.  FDR sent the first letter to Churchill on 9/11/1939, it began with

 “My dear Churchill: It is because you and I occupied similar positions in the World War [WWI]  that I want you to know how glad I am that you are back again in the Admiralty.. . .I shall at all times welcome it, if you will keep me in touch personally with anything you want me to know about. . . I am glad you did the Marlboro [Marlborough] volumes before the thing started--and I much enjoyed reading them.” 

FDR even misspelled Marlborough (he either smoked too much or watched too much cigarette ad), and I doubted he actually finished reading the book.

The one I checked out is Book Two, more than 1,000 pages (the library doesn’t have Book One).  They do have a 4-volume set, but they are so “out of shape”.

I will have a lot to say about Vincent DeVita’s “The death of cancer” later.  Dr. DeVita was credited for the development of combination chemotherapy (MOPP, a four-drug regimen) that cured most patients with Hodgkin lymphoma and I believe, anaplastic large cell lymphoma.

As you know the pitcher, Jon Lester, is going to the World Series beginning tomorrow (Oct. 25).  As a rookie pitcher for Boston Red Sox in 2006 he was struck by anaplastic large cell lymphoma and was cured by chemotherapy.  I still recall vividly watching his pitching upon returning to the field; his parents were there too.  He threw a complete game (one hitter, no walk, facing only 28 batters) in 2013 and helped Red Sox to get the World Series champion in 2013.  Lester went to Chicago Cubs ($155 million 6-year contract) in December 2014.  And this is the survivor of lymphoma.

It was hilarious to watch Chicago Cubs to clinch the NL Champion to go to the World Series at Wiggly Field last Friday.  The last time the Cubs was World Series Champion was 1908, more than 100 years ago. Let’s Go, Cubs!

Dr. DeVita is brutally honest, thus making the story of war on cancer fascinating.  He once was the director of National Cancer Institute and the chief-physician at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.  With his illustrious career he has a lot to say and he “tells it like it is”.

The book is written for the general public and it is extremely successful in this aspect, I would give the credit to the co-author, Dr. DeVita’s daughter, Elizabeth DeVita-Raeburn, a science writer.

I am more than half way through The Death of Cancer and only 40 pages into Marlborough.  Not that I don’t like writing, but that I like/need reading more.

Luffa vs Taiwanese pumpkins

These photos of the Taiwanese pumpkins and luffas are to be distributed to our good friends.  The garden season is winding down, the luffas are getting ever more rare and precious.

The label for the luffa is “Grown with love by Katy and Jer-Yuan”, which we dare not to use for the Taiwanese pumpkins, lest they would protest, saying it was not true.

We have paid meticulous attention to the luffa, even pamper them, and that may not be to their best interest.  For the Taiwanese pumpkin, we at times 視而不見 (look but not see, turn a blind eye to), or even skipped the watering to them when we’re busy.

However, Taiwanese pumpkins, like many of our Taiwanese friends, they quietly do their job growing and flourishing, they don’t whine or complaint, asking no special favor or attention; they are content and are pleased to have a chance to grow in the Grand Garden.

Thanks to our daughters’ thoughtfulness, they prepare different labels for us; a label of “From the Grand Garden of Katy and Jer-Yuan” will do.

English translation of Chinese in Moment in Peking

I have read at least five or six of Lin Yutang’s (林語堂) books, all in English, and read his novel of Moment in Peking, also in English. After writing the Importance of Living in New York City in 1937, he moved to Paris to write Moment in Peking in 1938 when Europe was seething for war; 危邦不入亂邦不居.  Lin Yutang apparently loved Paris so much or he was oblivious of what's happening politically, which cannot be possible.  He also went there after leaving Harvard.  He was the Director of Arts at UNESCO based in Paris 1947-1950.  While living in Taiwan, he led the PEN Group to attend the Congress of International PEN Club in Paris.

It was said that Lin Yutang himself didn’t like the Chinese translation of Moment in Peking, if that were true one should read his English version.

This post will talk about the English translation of Chinese that I came across in his Moment in Peking.  Having mastered both Chinese and English, Lin certainly did a good job the best he could in translating, but as we all know if one knows both Chinese and English, one will have deeper appreciation.

Here are some examples:

“The rice is cooked and I cannot abandon her.”

“The rice is cooked” (生米已煮成熟飯), which usually means the boy got the girl pregnant during a courtship and before marriage.

“a former secretary of a Viceroy had written a poem about her, she had become one of the "reddest" (最紅的) or most popular courtesans of that day.”

“The reddest” is “the most popular”.

In describing the beauty of Sutan, Mulan’s school friend, Lin Yutang wrote,

“She was pale as a ghost, but extraordinarily beautiful, like an exotic blossom, with seductive eyes like the water of an autumn lake. “

眉似春山，眼如秋水 (老殘遊記·第九回)

“The ceremonies were simpler because this was Chinya's second marriage, being known as ‘re-stringing’ (續弦)(of a violin)”

Re-stringing 續弦 means a man’s (not a woman's) second marriage.

Mr. Yao said, “You still have this idea of tsunghsi[沖喜].  It did not work in the case of Mannia, did it . . .? Wait until she is better.”

Tsunghsi [沖喜 ] is a more complicated concept for the Americans. When Pingya, Mr. Tseng’s eldest son, was hopelessly ill, it was arranged to have him marry Sun Mannia, hoping the happiness spirit (喜氣) would “dilute” or even “wash away” the bad luck. Pingya died a week after the wedding.

“Let this be my humble present to you Old People”

Old People (老人家) is a revered way to address people much senior to you; old age commands respect in China.

“This is what is known as ‘killing the landscape [煞風景]’”

煞風景 can be loosely translated to “spoil the fun”.

“Mr. Tseng called the whole lot of revolutionists barbarians, ‘forget-eights,’ ignorance talking about what they didn't understand, particularly Confucianism (which was probably true.)”

The “forget-eight” (忘八) is titally Greek to Americans, “忘八” is referred to someone forgetting the eight virtues of 孝、弟、忠、信、禮、義、廉、恥, 忘八 somehow is evolved into 王八 and 王八蛋.

“But meifatse(沒法子). Who has the luck like you, young mistress? ”

Meifatse (沒法子) was a common fatalistic phrase meaning, “there is no choice,” or “one can do nothing about it.”

“The Dog-Meat General (狗肉將軍) was called a man of ‘three don't-knows’” (一問 三不知)

“The Dog-Meat General (狗肉將軍)is referred to a very bad military general who is also ignorant. 

In 1940, Lin wrote an article about a war lord 張宗昌 " 狗肉將軍回憶記 " " Memoir of a dog meat general ". In it , he described general Zhang 一問三不知，"he doesn't know how much money, how many soldiers and how many wives he had.”

“The Cassia bent down and whispered to him that Dimfragrance had ‘happiness’ in her body( 有喜), and then old man smiled and drew his last breath.”

Having ‘happiness’ (有喜) in one’s body means one is pregnant.

“Cassia said, ‘If this bride of Sunya's can be bullied by her husband or anybody else, I will cut off my head to be a stool for you to sit down.’”

“cut off my head to be a stool for you to sit down.” (我會斬頭譲你坐) is a very common swear emphasizing the swearer is absolutely right.

disturb the bridal chamber

(鬧洞房) is not really “disturb” the bridal chamber; it is a boisterous, animated or even rambunctious and rowdy event to finish the wedding ceremony.

Bob Dylan, a Nobel Literature Prize laureate and Steve Jobs

Bob Dylan, photo credit to BBC News

Bob Dylan was just awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature (the very first as the folk rock music artist).  Oh, how I wish Steve Jobs were alive.  I cannot imagine how rapturous and exalted a heart he might have upon hearing the great news of his idol.

At age of 27 Jobs had a romance with Joan Baez (then 41) for several years. One day Jobs bursted into the office with Baez and showed her the prototype of Macintosh, all the employees were much surprised as it was then a top secret of developing Macintosh.  Baez had once been the lover of Bob Dylan in early 1960s when they toured together.  “Steve loved that connection to Dylan,” Baez later said.  Dylan was Jobs’s idol, his iPod was full of Bob Dylan’s and Beetle songs, Bach and 3 albums of Yo-Yo Ma who performed in Jobs’ funeral service as he had promised him.

Here is the BBC News,

http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-37643621

Steve Jobs and wife

Immigrants made, make and will make America great

It is fitting to talk about the contribution of immigrants in the U.S. , given the anti-immigrant political climate across the Atlantic Ocean.  It is my understanding that anti-immigrant fervor was a major component of Brexit vote.

On September 30, after reading Jan Vilcek’s memoir (Love and Science), I sent my daughters an email extolling the contribution of immigrants in the U.S.  It is a familiar story of Jewish scientists escaping (or hiding from Nazi as a child in his case) not only from Nazi, but also from communist Czechoslovakia.

I always have difficulty saying or spelling Czechoslovakia, but I am not alone; as Churchill once said, “To English ears the name of Czechoslovakia sounds outlandish”.

Jan Vilcek (an M.D. PhD.) made a fortune by receiving the royalty from Remicade (the first tumor necrosis factor inhibitor approved by FDA).  He has a chapter talking about the contributions (esp. in bio-medicine) from the immigrants like himself.  Vilcek Foundation has Vilcek Prizes for the immigrants who have great contribution in science and art—his wife is an art historian, spending her career at NYC Metropolitan Museum.  Vilcek added a new prize for the children of immigrants a few years ago.

Someone should tell Trump that it was immigrants that made America great in the first place and it is still happening.  “Nobels Pouring Across the Border” is one of the editorials today (10/11/16) in the Wall Street Journal.  It just happened that all six U.S. Nobel Prize winners this year are all immigrants.

Economics prize winners:

-          Oliver Hart (from the United Kingdom)

-          Bengt Holmstrom (from Finland)

Physics prize winner are all from Britain

-          David Thouless

-          Michael Kosterlitz

-          Duncan Haldane

Chemistry prize winner:

-          Sir J. Fraser Stoddart (from the United Kingdom—Edinburgh, Scotland)

Being an immigrant myself, I hate to say U.S. is what it is today largely because of her enormous capacity of accepting and absorbing immigrants.

Foreign-born scientists winning Nobel Prizes for the U.S. is not an isolated event this year; from 1901 to 2015, 31% of U.S. Nobel laureates were not born in the U.S.  In cases of Nobel Prize in Medicine between 1901 and 2014, thirty-three of the ninety-eight laureates were foreign-born.  The recent trend is even more astonishing. “The immigrants have won 40%, or 31 of the 78 Nobels won by Americans in chemistry, medicine and physics since 2000.  The winners came from many countries including Japan, Canada, Turkey, Austria, China, [Taiwan]. Israel, South Africa and Germany” as the WSJ editorial reported.

Similar statistic was also observed in the prestigious Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator awards and MacArthur Foundation “genius awards”.

If the children of immigrants were included the percentage would be much higher.  Richard Feynman’s parents were born in Minsk, Belarus (used to be part of Soviet Union).  Arthurs Kornberg’s parents immigrated to the U.S. from Austrian Galicia (now part of Poland). President Obama’s father was also an immigrant. Seventy percent of the forty finalists of the 2011 Intel Science Talent Search had foreign-born parents.

Don’t see the obvious: Luffa cannot run, but they can hide or they don’t even have to hide

Each year several luffas were too “old” when they’re first discovered hiding among the dense lush leaves.  We are determined not to repeat the history this year.  Before our recent two trips to Boston, we looked and inspected so thoroughly, leaving no leaves unturned, only to discover these two huge luffas hiding in pair among the dense leaves on top of the peach tree when we came back.  

Fortunately, one of them was well matured, but not too “old”, the other has passed the stage of being “edible”; we will save it for its seeds.

Well matured though it may be, it is still edible

We also saw this luffa (see photos below) for the first time today; it sat comfortably between a post and the wall behind an old satellite DISH.  There were not even leaves around it, let alone hiding it.  Sometime we just don’t see the obvious.

Our luffas are only human

Our luffas are only human, some are chubby or what Trump would call “Miss Piggy”, the others are slender and curvy.

How immigrants learn English

I just finished reading a memoir by Jan Vilcek with a title of “Love and Science”. A familiar story of Jewish scientist, escaping not only from Nazi, but also from communist Czechoslovakia.

I always have difficulty saying or spelling Czechoslovakia, but I am not alone; as Churchill once said, “To English ears the name of Czechoslovakia sounds outlandish”.

Jan Vilcek made a fortune by receiving the royalty from Remicade (the first tumor necrosis factor inhibitor approved by FDA).  He has a chapter talking about the contributions (esp in bio-medicine) from the immigrants like himself.  Vilcek Foundation has Vilcek Prizes for the immigrants who have great contribution in science and art—his wife is an art historian, spending her career at NYC Metropolitan Museum. 

Someone should tell Trump it was the immigrants that made the America great in the first place and it is still happening.

  

He has given more than $120 million (still counting as it was a portion of the royalty from Remicade) to NYU that gave him a position when he defected from Czechoslovakia in 1965 (only 6 years before I came to the States).

Dr. Vilcek’s (an M.D. PhD.) main interests of research were interferon and tumor necrosis factor, about which I began to read a few articles in Scientific American (more about this later).

A few years after I came to the States, I realized in order to survive or even excel in my adopted country I needed to have a good command of English.  I made a radical decision that I’ll read and write in English only, practically giving up Chinese, then I discovered the beauty of English language somewhere along the line.

I am glad to read that Dr. Jan Vilcek and his wife also made the same radical decision in the issue of language; the only difference is that they focused on the spoken English, mine written one.

The followings are the excerpts from “Love and Science: a memoir”

One day, in our third or fourth year in New York, Marica [Jan Vilcek’s wife] and I made a radical decision.  From that day on we would no longer speak to each other in Slovak.  We were going to converse only in English.  We made this decision because—not unlike other immigrants—in our conversations we started mixing Slovak and English words, creating our own version of “Slovlish,” and we disliked that.  We wanted to improve our English vocabularies, to learn to communicate on a more sophisticated level in our adopted language, and we felt that we could achieve these goals more effectively if we switched completely to English.

The first weeks of implementation of our English-only policy were difficult—it seemed so unnatural for the two of us to communicate in English that we would frequently slip back into Slovak.  Over time we get used to it.  I even forced myself to do sums in English, and to my surprise, after a while it became perfectly natural.  Then one day I realized that I was thinking in English, and when I spoke in Slovak to someone I would mentally translate from English into Slovak—not the other way around—and come up with sentence structures that sounded odd in my native tongue.  After a few more years, I realized that I was dreaming in English—with a Central European accent, of course!