Thus Spoke a Chinese Dissident
There is no revolution like the Communist revolution. You simply burn all the books, kill all of the thinking people and use the poor proletariat to create a very simple benchmark to gauge social change….
Tag: Ai Weiwei
Kindred Spirits
Sometimes I feel overwhelmed. But I try to work one day at a time. If we just worry about the big picture, we are powerless. So my secret is to start right away doing whatever…
In the Old Days
“You see that old man? He’s from my father’s village. I met him years ago, when I was young. I only met him twice. He just told me he was concerned about me, so he…
Books Inspected This Afternoon
Arthur Waley, Confucius: Analects Kenneth Rexroth, Classics Revisited Ezra Pound, New Selected Poems and Translations Ai Weiwei and Hans Ulrich Obrist, Ai Weiwei Speaks David Hinton, The Selected Poems of Tu Fu Ezra Pound, Confucius:…
By Little and Little
If you can just manage five minutes a day [to meditate], then do that. It is important to do whatever you can, no matter how little.—Dipa Ma I once wrote for a magazine: I made…
From Three Chinese Books
1. The Master said, To learn and at due times to repeat what one has learnt, is that not after all a pleasure? That friends should come to one from afar, is this not after…
Weiwei-isms
Later I became very involved in writing. I really enjoyed that moment of writing. People would pass around my sentences. That was a feeling I never had before. It was like a bullet out of…
For K. L.
After his own New York show in 1988, his work dried up. He moved many times and every time he moved he dumped what little work he had produced. But he didn’t stop thinking of…