A Socialist "third way" was Jawaharlal Nehru's plan for India, which remained in place pretty much until 1991, when liberal economic policies were introduced. With Indira Gandhi as the prime minister during most of my years in India, and with my father deeply committed to Nehru and I. Gandhi, and with political leaders and intellectuals--pseudo and real--constantly praising the USSR, for the longest time I was an avid proponent of Socialism, including the Soviet and Chinese flavors.
And then somewhere in my mid-to late teens I read three books, which I am not sure if I really understood them at that time. George Orwell's 1984, Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, and Solzhenitsyn 's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. A few years after that, I got to watch the movie version of 1984 at the British Consulate in Madras. The pot had been stirred enough. The old facades were rapidly collapsing within me, and the world started becoming clearer and clearer. To this day my parents wonder how I changed my mind and took off to America--after all, I was not a big fan of the US when I was young. I don't think they know how much Solzhenitsyn, among others, played a role.
It is not that I am a rah rah fan of America. Of all the imperfect societies that exist, I am convinced that I will gladly take the US over others. Unlike Solzhenitsyn, I do not ever consider myself to be in exile in America from any country. I suppose he was too much in poetic love with Russia for him that any soil other than Russian was only a temporary lodging. His jingoistic feelings for Russia rubbed many, including me, the wrong way, more so when he casually put down the feelings of non-Russians. And, the philosopher he was, Solzhenitsyn ought to have known that poetic love is idealized way too much that real life then is a failure. Well, he returned to Russia, only to be shocked at how impoverished the country was.
But, thanks to Solzhenitsyn, even if now I don't recall any of the specifics from The Gulag Archipelago. So, hey, thanks.
Sunday, August 03, 2008
This beach is made for walking
I can only hope that I will never run into the situation described in this "Dear Prudence" column in slate.com (with me as the old professor walking down the beach, of course!):
Dear Prudence,I have recently started frequenting a popular clothing-optional beach. This beach is fairly secluded, so I feel very comfortable tanning and swimming naked. The other day, however, I had a very embarrassing encounter. As I lay naked on my towel trying to improve my tan, one of my old college professors walked by me. (He was fully clothed, incidentally.) We recognized each other; however, neither of us said hello out of (I assume) mutual embarrassment. Afterward, I felt rude for not acknowledging him and am now concerned that he may feel that I snubbed him. Was it appropriate not to greet him? Do you have any advice on how I should behave if this happens again?
—Not a Never-Nude
Dear Nude,There are certain situations in which not acknowledging an acquaintance can be the most graceful thing to do. One is if you're in a restaurant, and the spouse of a friend in mid-canoodle with someone who is not your friend looks up and sees you. The other is when you are lying nude on a beach towel and strolling by is your former professor, who may be doing field work, though I doubt his field is conchology. While you are worrying that you snubbed your professor, he's worrying that you think he likes to ogle the shore life. If he comes wandering by again, this is an occasion in which it would be perfectly acceptable to roll over and, figuratively, bury your head in the sand.
Dear Prudence,I have recently started frequenting a popular clothing-optional beach. This beach is fairly secluded, so I feel very comfortable tanning and swimming naked. The other day, however, I had a very embarrassing encounter. As I lay naked on my towel trying to improve my tan, one of my old college professors walked by me. (He was fully clothed, incidentally.) We recognized each other; however, neither of us said hello out of (I assume) mutual embarrassment. Afterward, I felt rude for not acknowledging him and am now concerned that he may feel that I snubbed him. Was it appropriate not to greet him? Do you have any advice on how I should behave if this happens again?
—Not a Never-Nude
Dear Nude,There are certain situations in which not acknowledging an acquaintance can be the most graceful thing to do. One is if you're in a restaurant, and the spouse of a friend in mid-canoodle with someone who is not your friend looks up and sees you. The other is when you are lying nude on a beach towel and strolling by is your former professor, who may be doing field work, though I doubt his field is conchology. While you are worrying that you snubbed your professor, he's worrying that you think he likes to ogle the shore life. If he comes wandering by again, this is an occasion in which it would be perfectly acceptable to roll over and, figuratively, bury your head in the sand.
Saturday, August 02, 2008
Understanding China
As a graduate student, I interacted with quite a few Chinese students. But, I could never breakthrough a wall that I felt existed around them. Interestingly, Taiwanese and Korean students were very easy to talk to, have coffee with, and go to restaurants. I recall very well how one of those students, "RL", tensed up when I brought up the topic of Mao. I never talked about Chinese politics with him after that. My curiosity about China continues on. One of my favorite things to do if we fly Singapore Airlines to India is to watch Chinese movies. All I know is that I simply am not able to peek beyond the wall.
This essay in the New Yorker further complicates the image I have of China and its youth. And the review essay in the NYRB has many interesting insights. Excerpt from the NYRB piece:
After a century and a half of famine, war, weakness, foreign occupation, and revolutionary extremism, a growing number of Chinese—overseas as well as inside China—had come to look to the Olympic Games as the long-heralded symbolic moment when their country might at last escape old stereotypes of being the hapless "poor man of Asia"; a preyed-upon "defenseless giant"; victim of a misguided Cultural Revolution; the benighted land where in 1989 the People's Liberation Army fired on "the people." In one grand, symbolic stroke, the Olympic aura promised to help cleanse China's messy historical slate, overthrow its legacy of victimization and humiliation, and allow the country to spring forth on the world stage reborn —"rebranded" in contemporary parlance—as the great nation it once had been, and has yearned for so long to once more become.
This essay in the New Yorker further complicates the image I have of China and its youth. And the review essay in the NYRB has many interesting insights. Excerpt from the NYRB piece:
After a century and a half of famine, war, weakness, foreign occupation, and revolutionary extremism, a growing number of Chinese—overseas as well as inside China—had come to look to the Olympic Games as the long-heralded symbolic moment when their country might at last escape old stereotypes of being the hapless "poor man of Asia"; a preyed-upon "defenseless giant"; victim of a misguided Cultural Revolution; the benighted land where in 1989 the People's Liberation Army fired on "the people." In one grand, symbolic stroke, the Olympic aura promised to help cleanse China's messy historical slate, overthrow its legacy of victimization and humiliation, and allow the country to spring forth on the world stage reborn —"rebranded" in contemporary parlance—as the great nation it once had been, and has yearned for so long to once more become.
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