I've lately been thinking, in rather broad and underinformed ways, about the future of Western culture, specifically a) European culture, b) the tremendous growth and expansion of Islam in the Western world and its effects thereupon, and in a totally different vein, c) the relationship between China and the West. Pretty much all of my thought has been framed within history as I understand it, and while this affords me a higher degree of insight than a lot of folks, it's also depressing in a way.
I'm not going to write any more, because the things I mentioned above are things I want to talk to people about, and I need to do way more reading before I can commit anything even halfway thoughtful to paper (er, hard drive).
In other news, I looked into taking introductory Chinese classes at either HCC or U of H, maybe as early as this summer, or the fall at the latest. I do believe that I can afford to take a class, probably at HCC, if my schedule allows. The though of learning a couple hundred radicals and thousands of phonemes just to learn the fuckin' basics of written Mandarin is both exciting and daunting, but hey, how the hell am I ever supposed to read the Tao Te Ching in the original if I don't make an effort? It ain't like I'm Ezra Pound and can teach myself enough Chinese to get anywhere, much less live up to one of the most flattering things anyone's ever inscribed to me in a book. (Which reminds me, Matt, that one of us needs to find out the Chinese word and character(s) for "chandelier.")
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