ICLP Week 8

大家好，hello everyone

I think the Final Oral Exam went well. I still have some written final exams next week but it’s slowly dawning on me that after this summer, I won’t have Chinese classes everyday anymore (which was the case for almost the entirety of the last two years). Here’s to making the most of the last two weeks.

We moved on to studying the second chapter of the Zhuangzi last week, the “Discussion on Making All Things Equal”. We’re also simultaneously studying different passages from different parts of the Zhuangzi. There are core themes to the Zhuangzi but it’s not a “continuous” book in the sense that you must read it in order. This was a bit of an adjustment for me because I’m so used to reading cover to cover!

The story for this week continues on the theme of language. Zhuangzi talks about how “Words are not just wind, words have something to say, but if what they have to say is not fixed, then do they really say something? Or do they say nothing? People suppose that words are different from the peeps of baby birds, but is there any difference, or isn’t there?”

This is one of my favorite passages. We all intuitively understand that certain words have certain meanings only because we perceive those words to have those meanings. But if you strip aside those perceptions, words are nothing more than an amalgamation of sounds, just like the baby birds. And because those meanings we ascribe to words can change, and hence are not fixed, it’s a fair question to ask what do all these words even mean? Why do we pride ourselves so much that we have the function of speech and language and use it to lord ourselves over other species? After all, when birds hear us, they probably don’t understand anything and would likely just fly away. If someone who doesn’t speak the language we are communicating in, our words would also not make sense to them. This has such deep implications because these very words are what we use as the basis for accomplishments, of morality and of how we connect to each other. Zhuangzi encourages us to think, what, after all, is right and what is wrong? Why are we so scared of “death” but so embracing of “life”? Why do certain words mean so much to us?

Don’t worry I don’t have most of the answers either but it’s definitely interesting to reflect on!