Retreat

The Human Rights Program had its retreat to Shelter Island this weekend. As I look around me, I am marvelled at the talent and the experience my schoolmates bring with them. Above all, it is the idealism that we all espouse that binds us together. We might not be able to change the world, but we will definitely give it a shot and even if we fail, we will try to make it a better place in the process.

Stormy Monday

So the Iranian President came to speak on campus. Some say we shouldn't have invited him but others say why not. In the end, I am sure we all still disagree on some aspects of this event, but I hope that at least we can all agree that Ahmadinejad is after all a rambling populist who is not irrational but a calculated politician who likes to manipulate the feelings of his own people and those of the world for his own good. I hope we have seen through his antics and all came out of Monday feeling a little better about the ability of Americans to think critically and to not fall prey to extreme rhetorics.

I also went to hear Alan Leong speak. Leong is a member of the Hong Kong Legislative Council and ran again Donald Tsang for chief executive. Why enter a race whose result was all but decided? He believes the inspirational role HK can play in encouraging political, economic, and social reforms in the mainland. He shows us that even if a process or government is flawed, by engaging it and showing how it should be done is in and of itself a worthwhile task.

In the library

Studying in the beautiful and ambient C.V. Starr East Asian Library on campus, at a balcony table.

Full swing

It has been quite a week. The school suddenly informed me I've been awarded a fellowship position with the international law class I tooked last year. So I was scrambling to readjust my class schedule to accomodate it.

And I got into Gerald Curtis's class on U.S. relations with East Asia, despite the large number of students who wanted to get in (many unsuccessfully). I am taking this class not because I needed it, but because I am genuinely interested in it.

P and I and a couple of school friends went to Wondee Siam II in Midtown Friday night. I found this restaurant randomly last year and had been there several times for lunch only, but their dinner menu proved to be fantastic. Dinner was followed by a night of karaoke singing.

In Memoriam

Understanding alone cannot solve conflicts. Empathy is more important. Evil is possible when one sees one's adversaries as less than human; it is also possible when one sees one's own cause as exclusively legitimate.

There too many to mourn for on this and many other days past and future, but I just thought of Edward Seidensticker, who just passed away last month in Japan.

The very first reason that got me interested in Japan was Yasunari Kawabata's Snow Country, one of Seidensticker's profoundly beautiful renditions.

Great literature articulates our humanity and great translations help to reveal its universality. A professor in Tokyo interviewed by the International Herald Tribune says: " He did more to make Japanese people appear human to foreigners than all of Japan's public diplomacy combined."

Last Day of Freedom

We had a big lunch at Kunjip Korean restaurant, but we did not succeed in finding any cute eligible Korean guys for our lonely and single friend Ms. S. Ended up with big tummies after the meal, and P said she's pregnant with 梁朝伟's baby because, according to Korean rumors, Mr. Leung could impregnant a woman with his looks, and we had just watched In the Mood for Love last night.

遠いからの涼風

Mr. Kato, the education superintendent of my town when I worked in Japan, sent me another set of his beautiful calligraphy. This time the character is 風, just what I need in this hot and sticky New York summer weather.

Last night, a bunch of us went for dinner at the superb Land Thai Kitchen, which, according to P, is the "best Thai food outside of Thailand and in New York." I wholeheartedly agree.