The age of the pussycats
We must be living in the age of pussycats.
I have been spending a lot of time in the national library these days. Yes, I admit I am quite a loser but I don’t know where else to spend my time. And I finally understand why people commit crime or stick their heads into gas ovens due to boredom.
But at least I think I have spent my time in the national library quite meaningfully in a socially constructive manner without any harm or destruction to life and property.
I have finished one roll of microfilm, one month-worth of Straits Times from March to April 1959.
It is quite fascinating and entertaining.
It had one section devoted to female fashion under “Fashion Forum.” Geisha hairstyle was apparently pretty popular in
Also, nowadays Straits Times has advertisements splashed left, right, and centre over the entire newspaper. Back then, the advertisements were more sensibly confined to rectangles on the left and right side of the newspapers and not the focus of the page itself.
And a notable’s penchant for calling someone “congenital liar” can be traced back to the tumultuous days of 1959. Back then, the notable stood up in parliament and said “That’s an outright lie, you liar,” in response to allegations that he machinated the arrest of his own comrades in his party.
And I do think the 1950s is really the age of heroes in
The 1950s is a period where people dare to speak and carry out their convictions. There is an array of colorful personalities rivaled only by the number of political beliefs. If there is such a thing as political beauty, this must be it. Liberals, Pro-communists, capitalists, colonial stooges, socialists, are all slugging it out for what they believe is good for the future of
虽败尤荣
In contrast, we must be living in the age of pussycats.
It is not just whether some folks can have sex. They are fighting for “equal” and “good” sex.
How ridiculous.
当嫖子还要立牌坊
We must be living in the age of the pussycats.
2 Comments:
Woah how I wish I am as free as you. Reading one whole month of straits times off microfilm is just simply a luxury.
I guess it is pretty similar for Europe too. It is in the antiquities when the great philosophers emerged; then they too have a lull period in intellectual thought that lasted for almost 1.5 millenia when everyone basically followed God + Aristotle. They also have a guy called Thomas Aquinas which might be analogous to Zhu Xi? It's just that China's Renaissance and Enlightenment never came.
Though one thing that struck me was the difference in the scale of the impact of movable-type print in China and Europe. Bi Sheng invented movable-type print 400 years before Johannes Gutenberg did, but we don't see anything happening in the intellectual world in Song Dynasty? I have read somewhere that it is because the style of Chinese books, which are heavily illustrated (?), makes movable-type print even more inefficient. I dunno though...
Well, China's renaissance and enlightenment never came because the political system is fundamentally different from Europe's. In Europe, the vassalage system exists, and the Holy Roman Empire does not have the same degree of control and power over ideas and lives relative to the Chinese empires.
Neo-Confucianism thrived in the Song Dynasty? I mean the movable- type print is only useful if you already have the new ideas to disseminate right? If not, the print will be used to spread old ideas loh. The renaissance and the enlightenment is just lucky that Gutenberg came up with the stuff at just the right time.
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