从白云观想起的

从白云观想起的栗子五、六年以前，趁着暑假时的空闲，我想偿还心中的一个宿愿：到陕北去瞧瞧那里富有特色的文物古迹。一天，我和我的学生们到了佳县。招待所是一排清洁整齐的窑洞。举目四望，除了山还是山。这连绵不断的、高低起伏的苍苍茫茫的山之国，从古至今目睹了多...     

折射——蒙特利尔拉丁区

第一次从渥太华到蒙特利尔的时候，同行的人带我去了蒙特利尔老城，去了大教堂，去了蒙特利尔奥运中心，后来在中国城吃的午餐，可没有去拉丁区。在后来的日子里我无数次地奔波于渥太华和蒙特利尔之间的417高速公路上，在很长时间内，蒙特利尔拉丁区一直不是我和我像机镜头的目标，虽然也曾多次驾车从拉丁区穿过，就是觉得这里的房子太普通，没有吸引我像机的理由。所以，我没有停车。后来，一个热衷于中国文化的加拿大朋友，其二胡拉得很专业，他非常正式地下帖子邀请我们参加他的独奏音乐会，地点就在蒙特利拉丁区的一个小画廊里。我们到…     

迟到的学习

在我的一生中，这个梦总是在不经意间出现，把我从沉睡中唤醒，而每次醒来之后，我总觉得真是不可思议。在梦中，我又变成了一个小女孩，在家里四处乱窜，一会儿卧室，一会儿厨房，慌里慌张地准备着去上学。 “快点儿，杰恩，你上学要迟到了。”每当这时，我妈妈就会向我喊道。催促我抓紧时间。 “我正在抓紧，妈妈!我的午餐盒在哪里？我的书都到哪里去了？”     

路遇奇事

一天下晚自习,我从教室飞奔出去,到了学校门口,这才发现忘带电筒了。天黑沉沉的,星星和月亮不知躲哪去了,这真是没辙了,但是我还得回家住啊。正当我不知所措时,前方出现了一人们都到田里去收割稻谷了。我的爸爸、妈妈也都去了田间,家中只剩下我一个人。于是我就偷偷地和一位朋友到田间捉蚂蚱去了。     

年画溯源

认真读过宋瑞祥君《朱仙镇年画史话》的书稿，颇感主题、线索、逻辑都很清晰，文字简洁明快，感情丰沛，很有历史的现场感。我觉得已无话可说，但瑞祥君执意要我作序，难以推辞，经过深入思考，我就谈谈年画的起源吧。     

恒河流域随想

今年春节过後，我到印度德里大学作学术访问。这是我第三次到印度。第一次是1963年，带着一片无知去蜻蜒点水。第二次是2001年，应印度文化交流理事会之邀，带着一腔热隋去走马观花。这次在新德里一个月，接触到不少人，也体验了一下印度的生活。     

洞山讲会

秋日,风吹叶落,层林尽染。江西省宜丰县统战部部长希望我能去宜丰参加“曹洞宗创始人良价禅师诞辰1200周年学术研讨会”,我自然愉快地接受了邀请,但我提出了一个“条件”：希望县里能让我带几位老师及十几位学生去洞山开一个读《心经》的讲会。部长很快答应了我的请求。     

我爱读书

还在很小的时候，我就有种感觉，我应该去别处。我清楚地记得我曾注视着火车从远处隆隆驶过的情景：一个模模糊糊的庞然大物，玻璃窗上反射着太阳钻石般的光芒。我一边看着，一边心里暗暗渴慕：要是我坐在车上该多好？我还记得１３岁那年，跟着父母一起去飞机场，我踮起脚，读着高高的布告牌上所有我向往的地方：圣胡安，辛辛那提，洛杉矶，伦敦。 但火车疾奔而去，飞机轰鸣地消逝在蓝天，里面却没有我，我只有在书中翱游世界。顺着《米德尔马奇》和《小公主》的书页，我去了维多利亚时代的英国，携同《安娜·卡列尼娜》一起到沙皇倒台前的…     

城市红土

一 走出那座厂房的大门口，我和苏红对视了一下，什么也没说就分手了。苏红去的是一所中专学校，我去的是二菊打工的小饭馆，我们不是一个方向。等到苏红在阳光里变成一个黑影儿，我转过身，然后就朝那个小饭馆走去。我去那个小饭馆的目的很明确，就是去找杨叨拌，     

阿黑戒赌

桃花（从房里走出来，发现黑狗又不在家，很生气地）黑狗!黑狗!这个挨刀的，又跑到哪里去喽，肯定又是去打麻将去了。唉!大家不晓得，我桃花不知道是哪辈子做了缺德事，今生招了这么个好喝、好抽、好赌的男人。噫!他莫又把我到娘家借来的几佰块钱又拿去打麻将喽。（转身打开抽屉）我的天!这个挨刀的，我才去喂得个猪，钱都被他偷走了，明天我拿什么去给孩子报名读书呀!（转身坐在椅子上，伤心地说）等他回来，我非剥下他的狗皮不可。     

Only the Last Page Left Behind

It is a small town I like most. I went there with my college mates in the 1980s and was quite impressed. The small town extended along the river. From a distant view, overlapping houses and charming roof slopes could be glimpsed through misty morning rays and black tiles and white walls looked plain but elegant. There was a riverside square in the town and a stone bridge in a distance. Adults sat at the bridge, chatting and enjoying the cool while kids chasing and playing on the square. On t…     

戴耳机的男孩儿

他穿着松垮的裤子和肥大的衬衫带着耳机一路哼唱着百老汇的歌。时不时地他回头看我一眼，隔着穿行的车流，一个中年的父亲在向他招手。     

Disassembling the Model Minority: Asian Pacific Islander Identities and Their Schooling Experiences

When I was in kindergarten, I was always in trouble. During recess I either sat on the benches or stood up against the wall. I had few friends; I always seemed to get into arguments with my classmates no matter if they were Filipino American like me, or European American, or African American, or Latinos. I always caused problems for my teacher. Mrs. H. always tried to silence me when I would try and engage in a discussion as to why I was in trouble. Once I got punished for not doing my class work correctly. We were to watch a movie when we all finished coloring our pictures. I hurried to finish my picture so I could join my classmates on the round carpet. I was so proud of my work I ran up to show Mrs. H. I was halted in mid stride by Mrs. M., the aide, and told to return to my seat. Mrs. H. examined my picture and proceeded to show the class how wrong my picture was. My picture was not done correctly because I colored outside of the lines of the lion's mane. As punishment I had to sit in the corner and color another lion picture as the class got to watch the movie. Every so often I would lean back in my chair and get a glimpse of the movie. I would be redirected to my work when Mrs. H. would yell at me to return to my seat and remind me I wasn't part of the group. All I wanted to do was be with everyone else. Was I really wrong to color outside the lines or did I have fine motor issues that needed to be addressed?     

Straight Talk: Talking Across Race in Schools

As a first-year teacher, out of field, European-American, and female, I expected I would have some growing pains teaching a class of African American boys with emotional and behavior disorders. I was unprepared for exactly how much growing and pain would actually be involved. Instinctively, I reached out to the paraprofessional with whom I was working, Mrs. Watkins (pseudonym), and to my surprise I was cleverly deflected with enthusiastic assurances of how I was the teacher and it was my classroom. It was clearly logical to me that, since she was African-American, had worked with African-American boys with emotional and behavioral disorders in the past, and was partnered with me for the year, she would openly work with me to make the classroom the best it could be for all involved. It seemed reasonable to me that I would look to her for guidance. She declined.

After two months, I was barely making it through each day. It was obvious the classroom needed serious changes, but I did not know where to begin. Our interactions were polite, but brief. Our work was always done, but separately. After two months of attempting to solicit her input and begin a reflective conversation about the happenings of our classroom, the most I would get is a shaking of her head or “They're playing you.” When I would ask her to explain how they were “playing me,” she would just shake her head. One day I confronted her unwillingness to engage in a conversation with me. She simply stated, “You're the teacher.” We stopped speaking unless absolutely necessary. (Cicetti-Turro, Personal Correspondence, 2001)     

我在雨中捞月亮

南方让我留恋的只有那温柔的忧郁的雨……我固执地认为这南方的雨同我一样,漂泊在异乡哭泣。这条古朴的巷,被笼在迷蒙的雨雾中,让我恍如走进戴望舒的《雨巷》那种诗境里,这里可会飘过一个丁香样的姑娘,她可是“默默行着,冷漠、凄清又惆怅……”我低着头,想着那个丁香般的姑娘,任雨肆意飘在我身上。忽然我意识到有人在扯我的衣角,我抬头看见一个小小的女孩七八岁的样子,她正仰着脸,不顾那细雨,那双眼睛正被雨濡湿,让我疑心可是那夏夜的星躲入那长长的睫毛下面。我温柔地向她笑笑,童稚的语音已响起。“姐姐,你可是要在南方捞月亮?”我笑了,八…     

Life is not complete without critique: Chua Beng Huat as model

This essay outlines an intellectual portrait of Chua Beng Huat and offers a critical appreciation of his contributions as an academic, a scholar, and an intellectual. I highlight key biographical details: his family upbringing in Bukit Ho Swee, schooling in the Chinese and English mediums, higher education and academic experience in Canada, his return to Singapore, and serving as a sociology faculty at the National University of Singapore, which he made a home base for inter-Asia studies. I discuss his pedagogical approach, which extends to his research and public engagement. In reviewing his works, I focus on the theme of communitarianism as a basis of political legitimacy in East Asia, with housing provision in Singapore as a prime example. His project presents an alternative to Western liberal democracy taken as the universal bedrock of political modernity. I characterize it as the recuperation of the social in the face of capitalist modernity, which is conducive to atomization and corrosive of solidarity. Yet, he projects the possibilities of a more politically liberalized communitarianism. What he offers is not a set of ready answers that reconcile Marx’s “realm of necessity” and “realm of freedom,” but a lucid exposition of the tensions between the two realms under contemporary conditions.     

KASHGAR： A Place as Beautiful as Jade

Kashgar means "a jade-like place" in the Uyghur language, because it is known for its vast reserve of beautiful jade stone. Human activities such as hunting and fishing existed here as early as 4000 years ago. About 2000 years ago, one of the 36 kingdoms in the West Region is located here. Shule Kingdom built its capital city in Kashgar during the West Han Dynasty of ancient China and it became one of the four most important towns in the West Region during the Tang Dynasty. Kashgar is no…     

The Summer of Friendship by Fire: A Doctoral Student Reminisces about Lessons in Diversity

The journey toward becoming a multicultural person is not easy and is never finished. As an educational administrator in a tri-cultural state, I felt comfortable that I was proficient in dealing with diversity. Only when I began a doctoral program at a major Texas university was my naivety exposed. I quickly learned that experience in working with diverse populations and the ability to relate effectively to people of different ethnic backgrounds were vastly different. The two years I spent deeply immersed in a multiculturally rich cohort of doctoral students changed me. My eyes were opened to injustices that I had never before seen as I vicariously experienced life through the eyes of the “other.” Today, I am a professor at a regional university. My experiences, focused through the lens of theory, are the basis for the message to my students. I have traveled the road before and can now point the way toward a broader definition of acceptance and tolerance.     

ABSTRACT ART IGNITED BY PASSION

When I listen to the symphony series of German maestro Ludwig Van Beethoven, I am often inspired by the power of spirit as demonstrated by harmony, purity, passion and elegance. Those extraordinary melodies lead me to the pursuit of truth, kindness and beauty, driving me back to the very nature of humanity. At those moments, all my feelings, passion or reason, sorrow or joy, are purified by the power of love and beauty.[第一段]     

The Cold War and post-Cold War dynamics of Taiwan and East Asia in people's security perspective

This paper was originally written as a keynote speech for a specific occasion, an international forum that was held by the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan (PCT) in Taipei in February 2001, to discuss Taiwan's international status in the post-Cold War era. The PCT is known as a strong advocate of Taiwan independence and democratization, and I had this specific audience in mind in organizing this paper. My concern was that the independence advocacy that had aptly expressed people's aspirations in the democratization movement under the iron-fist rule of KMT was being subsumed, as Taiwan polity was Taiwanized and democratized, into a banal statist discourse. This discourse, I am afraid, has distanced itself from its original popular source and become the elite politicians' discourse, indifferent to the everyday life and security of the people in Taiwan. I approached this problematic from the perspective of 'people's security', which I discussed in my previous essay on the topic in Inter-Asia Cultural Studies , vol. 2, no. 1. As the mutual relationships between East Asian countries had to be shaped overwhelming by the US Cold War rhetoric and material influences, discussing Taiwan with regard to the transition to the post-Cold War era required me to go, albeit in outline, into the basics of these relationships as well as the modes of US hegemony in this region both in the Cold War and post-Cold War settings. I felt that characterization of these diverse elements, if sketchy, was indispensable to discussing the topic, Taiwan today. At my friends' suggestion, I tried to revise the original paper to fit into the concerns of the general readership, with the different aspects mentioned more fully explained. However, I have found this difficult as it would require me to write a completely new article, or maybe a whole book. So I present this paper almost as it was written for the original PCT audience.