出门

我也不想把我去Boston这事儿搞得路人皆知，怪心虚的。偷偷在这里说一声吧。明天一早走，22号MIT开放日，23号下午火车去New Haven，24号下午火车去Baltimore4个小时，25号见6个Hopkins老师（据说紧锣密鼓是该校作风），坐夜车回Boston，26日清晨到达南城车站，还可以自己逛一会儿，中午飞机回芝加哥。

颇为期待夜车。要是有几个人一起抵足夜话就更好了。

仰天大笑出门去，我辈岂是蓬蒿人，到现在还没收拾东西，困死我了……

。。。

豪言壮语的计划全没实现。不仅没实现，连计划本身都在被不断地改写啊改写。每看过一本书的introduction就把提纲改写一遍，然后发现一直在改提纲，从来没写过正文……然后恐惧地发现明天就要找John教授讨论了；一个星期之后，就将在MIT的开放日seminar上张口结舌了。我真的真的不知道怎么办啊！

从李约瑟和Sivin的东西里面发现中山茂(Shigeru Nakayama)和Morris Low，从Ben Elman发现David Wright写科学文献翻译的那本书和各种对他的批评，推广开来还有彭慕兰、王国斌、何伟亚、贺萧、卜正民、Gregory Blue、Peter Perdue、Jonathan Spence……又有人说了，你不看费正清的原著，柯文的中国中心论从何谈起？？？

东西太多，时间又太少，又不够努力。捶头。

Foucault v.s. Chomsky in 1971

part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbUYsQR3Mes&mode=related&search=

part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXBfOxfmSDw&mode=related&search=

给今天同去听了那个座谈会，结果被Chomsky放了鸽子的格格。这就是Paul Rabinow在他编的Foucault Reader前言里提到的那个访谈啊！1971年，我觉得说话的两个人都好可爱@@

拖到一个地方听了一会儿，就听到福柯说：你说human nature这玩艺儿真的存在？你也不知道它到底是什么样的对吧。就像毛泽东认为有个资产阶级的human nature，以及无产阶级的human nature，这两个是不一样的……然后Chomsky就笑了。

Sivin

前天晚上看Sivin在李约瑟（Joseph Needham）巨著医学生物卷2000年初版的前言，激动得不能正常写东西。Needham原本一胚胎学家，固然非史学科班出身，其为人为学，也有诸多可讨论可批评的。如Sivin所指，他一直怀有一种单纯的希望，即科学无国界化，东西方独立起源的科技文明当如河流汇入现代科学的汪洋大海；然而十九-二十世纪的碰撞结果远非皆大欢喜，而是一边倒的westernization。另外为了证明东方文明在现代科学(modern science=west science + east science)中的贡献，他不辞劳苦用现代自然科学的分类学的框框去套中国古籍中的只言片语，例如力证炼丹术于现代化学与有功焉，用公众健康的视角去分析养生道。李氏身后，就有人指他被鲁桂珍利用，违背事实为中国说好话。在网上看到颇多fq用中文谩骂他们俩，说他们40年代在国内的研究是为蒋政权服务的，四大发明是个谎言，等等。我只是觉得悲哀：一部中国科技文明史，至今要指仗Needham数十年前的工作，而本土学人不能自立一言，民众无从获取权威的记载，于是自疑自轻或夜郎自大。至今我们的科技史教育，仍是郑和下西洋之后，即跳跃至大洋彼端开始讲瓦特和蒸汽机，仿佛西方在16世纪以前无科学、中国14世纪以后、五四以前无科学。然而这样的历史观，如何能告诉我们自己是从哪里来，又要到哪里去。

激动的另一个原因是传说中脾气暴躁的Sivin老先生开出尚待研究的问题清单一份，与我以前的胡思乱想竟不谋而合。诸如医患关系、治疗方式的选择、医者职业身份变迁、社会对突发灾害的反应、现代医院的诞生及中西医在现代化进程中的政治斗争等等，仍然大致是空白。然后就颇有一些我辈不出更待何人的狂热想法。

学问还是要一个字一个字地写，着急是没用的。

Sivin_On Chinese scholarship in the field of med history

In China before the late 1980s, history remained a risky occupation. In a consciously totalitarian society, reinterpretation of the past is an essential means of control. Any issue may become politically charged, any position ideologically incorrect. Although such threats have largely abated, intellectuals who grew up earlier have not forgotten that they were periodically terrorised in public, and that periods of calm have regularly been succeeded by new terrors. This is not the sort of atmosphere that encourages methodological innovation.

Authors aware of the risks and sincerely eager to be correct, even when there were no government bans or party persecutions, have to some extent censored hemselves,
shunning risks in subject matter and interpretation. At the same time, high officials who aim to build national pride have tended to support history only to the extent that specialists can identify discoveries or inventions that appeared first in China. Such exercises fight with its own weapons the Western parochialism that believed the Chinese mentally incapable of technical priorities. Thanks to the work of Needham and others, that parochialism has become less assertive, but few Chinese policy-makers are aware of the change. It is unlikely that ?leaders? would stop exerting pressure to claim technological priorities even if they knew that who did what first has ceased to be what the history of technology is about.

A scholarly tradition that explicates texts without much conscious interpretation, historians mostly trained as scientists or physicians and thus inclined toward positivism, recognition and praise awarded mainly for claiming scientific priorities, and self-censorship to avoid being linked to the ?bourgeois liberalism? of colleagues abroad have all conspired to inhibit qualitative change proportionate to quantitative growth. This picture has begun to change over the past decade as economics has taken the helm. Pride has come increasingly to depend on wealth, and campaigns against ?spiritual pollution? have begun fading into the featureless past. But it will be some time before iconoclasm becomes nothing more than an intellectual issue. At the same time, many colleagues in China consider the system in crisis, because it has become practically impossible to recruit first-rate graduate students. Exceptional university graduates want a high income quickly.

Needham, Joseph. Biology and Biological Technology : Medicine.
West Nyack, NY, USA: Cambridge University Press, 2000. p 20.
http://site.ebrary.com.proxy.cc.uic.edu/lib/uic/Doc?id=10065242&ppg=40

Copyright © 2000. Cambridge University Press. All rights reserved.

Outlines and deadlines

说什么也要按时完成。

10/09 part 3 on Sivin, Bray and Lloyd
10/10 part 4 on Cohen and Elman
10/11 part 2 on Needham (hopefully the books would arrive by then), or part 5 medical history
10/12 HIST410 essay 2 due!/MIT STS visiting questionaire due!
10/13 part 5 or part 2. If the books still don't arrive, go to Regenstein
10/14 part 6 western-trained Chinese scientists
10/15 part 1 introduction and hopefully, part 7 conclusion
10/16 Bibliography work and footnotes. Revise (whole day)
10/17 Discussion with Prof. John.
10/18 Further revise and polish.
10/19 Flexible...
10/20 Trip to Boston!

决心书

Oct.7-Oct.19
闭关写writing sample???

昨天终于忍无可忍把春天那篇pharmaceutical paper拽出来看了一遍，还真是不忍卒读。更要命的是当时用的那些书，要改的话还得借出来。而且立意不明，怎么改也都是挣扎.

借了一堆Needham的书，打算写一个扩大版的research proposal。成与不成，都早晚要做的事。

看到一些张五常的行径，逃税卖假货，此人竟在大陆受这等推崇，还在blog里大言不惭地自吹自擂，真恶心。那篇佃农理论到底有多少分量？

还看到芝加哥大学每年感恩节前的星期二会举办The Great Latke-Hamantash Debate，大意就是两个学者跑出来一本正经地根据各种social theory及historical evidence讨论两种食物到底哪个好。大概是二战的时候一群人突发奇想弄出来的，然后竟然坚持了50年，也就是在这个nerd学校才能发生的事儿吧。。

今年要去看看热闹。

新事物

昨天在网上看到有人卖二手YamahaP-70电钢琴，$400。忽然意识到自己有车了可以运，就兴冲冲联系，没想到是第一个，今天去试了一下就痛快买下来。由于卖家地址在Loomis街，就决定叫它Loomis。

在家里神奇地找到一个电蒸锅，上个周末尝试做的梅菜扣肉，重点在扣而不在肉。
我从家背过来的景泰蓝瓷盘，中秋夜次日终于派上用场，装木头妈妈寄过来的上好月饼。
最后，家里的不速之客小瓢虫。

更多新事物请访问picasa相册~

Becoming Jo

msn space是个热闹的地方，也是看了叫人放心的地方。所以一旦space坏掉不能留言，也就乏善可陈了。搬家到这里来，私下里倒有一小半是因为国内无法访问，也更少人来往走动，可以不必顾虑吓着谁或闷着谁。那么blogbus可以代替原来的space了吧，报个平安。看我是多么处心积虑地圈出一个小角落给自己来，想着要往里面放多么不一样的东西。然后此去经年，若终于还是两手空空地回来，不是很徒劳么。

最近变得很是sentimental，得知Aung San Suu Kyi十几年前辞别丈夫和儿女回到故乡等待漫长软禁的时候就唏嘘不已，今天看美国内战时医护事业的记述，里面提到护士Louisa May Alcott。这名字看起来怎恁眼熟，后来恍然大悟原来她就是路易莎·梅，后来写了《小妇人》的那个！小时候同读这本书的小朋友们都已经风流云散，心潮澎湃之下借来重读。


《小妇人》是我小时候翻来覆去看很多遍的不多的外国小说之一。具体的情节已记不清，但这么多年过去，还是能直接想起来老大梅格是最漂亮的，老三Amy是会画画小心眼的，小妹妹贝丝体弱多病，当然还有乔，心比天高的、善良坚强的乔，烦恼的时候就爬到树上看书，从来不试图取悦任何人，而她越拒绝承认自己女性的弱者角色，邻居那个聪明可爱的男孩就越喜欢她。因为家里急着用钱，她可以忍着心痛卖掉自己的长发，佯装若无其事，然后回到自己的房间大哭。是不是每一个看过这本小说的女孩都能在其中找到自己的影子，每一个偷偷自己写过小说的女孩都想成为乔。

这个故事来源于她自己的真实经历，路易莎也有三个姐妹，小妹妹也患猩红热早死，而那大团圆的美好解决却是现实中她没能得到的。Alcott家住在麻省的Concord，与爱默生、梭罗等人为邻，年轻的路易莎经常去和爱默生的小女儿玩耍，给她写了一本童话故事集，还经常和梭罗在瓦尔登湖畔散步。原来这就是传说中的美国的Bloomsbury。。1862年，路易莎跑到前线医院里去做护士，六个月后感染了伤寒回家养病。在那个人人都相信氯化汞可以排毒治病的年头，病人时常死于汞中毒。路易莎·梅就在慢性汞中毒带来的疼痛和幻觉中，忍受着出版商的要求写出了这本改变她和她全家命运的小说。乔失去的黑发还可以慢慢长回来，路易莎的长发却因为汞中毒而永久脱落。乔后来有幸福美满的家庭，而路易莎终身未婚。

看照片里这个倔强的乔。在人间地狱一般的前线医院里，她和伤兵们开玩笑，和医生们争论手术给病人带来的痛苦，用一个装满薰衣草水的瓶子驱除恶臭，并拒绝旁观尸体解剖，“my nerves belonged to the living, not to the dead... when I knew the subject was some person whom I had nursed and cared for.”

我经常想像一碰到烦心事就爬到树上去看书的乔该是什么样子。我们似乎对能爬树的女孩有一种奇异的审美想像，以至于连安妮宝贝写的那个会爬树的安生都有些许可爱，尽管她苍白无力神经兮兮。树上的男爵里面，柯西莫那个有着好听名字的小公主情人骑白马飘然而来，也是像小鸟一样轻盈地上树，看到这里就觉得她一定是世界上最美丽的女人。她在树梢看你，你就需仰视她，好像一时疏忽她就会振翅飞走一样。

我不知道路易莎后来连续出了七八本小妇人的续集，写乔成了Aunt Jo，有了孩子什么的，她自己开心不开心。反正她是在和朋友的通信里面说不想被看成幼儿读物的阿姨作家。年轻的乔的苦痛、骄傲与挣扎才是最动人的。

Walk on for Aung San Suu Kyi

2002年夏天做高中毕业光盘的时候用了这首歌，只听明白一句"All that you can't leave behind." 直到今天才知道，它是献给昂山素季的。重读歌词，热泪盈眶。

And love is not the easy thing
The only baggage that you can bring
Love is not the easy thing
The only baggage you can bring
Is all that you can't leave behind...

And if the darkness is to keep us apart
And if the daylight feels like it's a long way off
And if your glass heart should crack
And for a second you turn back
Oh no, be strong

Oh, oh
Walk on, walk on
What you got, they can't steal it
No, they can't even feel it
Walk on, walk on
Stay safe tonight

You're packing a suitcase for a place none of us has been
A place that has to be believed, to be seen
You could have flown away
A singing bird in an open cage
Who will only fly, only fly, for freedom

Oh, oh
Walk on, walk on
What you got, they can't deny it
Can't sell it, or buy it
Walk on, walk on
You stay safe tonight

And I know it aches
How your heart, it breaks
You can only take so much

Walk on...
Walk on...

Home...
Hard to know what it is, if you never had one
Home...
I can't say where it is, but I know I'm going
Home...
That's where the heart is...

And I know it aches
And your heart, it breaks
And you can only take so much

Walk on...
(Hooo)

Leave it behind
You got to leave it behind
All that you fashion
All that you make
All that you build
All that you break
All that you measure
All that you feel

All this you can leave behind

All that you reason, (it's only time)
(And I'll never fill up all I find)
All that you sense
All that you scheme
All you dress-up
All that you've seen
All you create
All that you wreck
All that you hate

我觉得她非常美丽。