He was in America for a couple of weeks on an international conference talking about economics at universities.
He’s passing through D.C. and wanted to meet with me.
He chose the time 4:00 pm. I chose the place: Pentagon City Mall, in front of Panda Express, naturally.
We chit chat for about 2 hours.
I showed him the book I’m using to learn Chinese characters. Chinese Calligraphy. ISBN-13 : 978-0789208705. I also showed him my Enso Buddha Board that I use to paint Chinese. You paint with water, it looks like black paint. When it dries, it disappears.
He has never seen anything like it before.
He came with his latest fancy tablet computer. Me and my paint brush and “ink”. They are the same thing, ok? One is just more fancy than the other.
He said Panda Express is not real Chinese food. It’s fake Chinese food and it’s disgusting.
I guess he’s right.
I asked what what China says about America and vice versa.
He: On the news, it says America is not a country by the people, it’s the rich elite that controls the government.
True.
America makes wars all over the world.
True.
America wants to make other countries to be their puppets.
True.
Me: China steals our trade secrets. China sells cheap knock offs.
It’s funny. We are in an American shopping mall, and everything in the shopping mall is made in China.
He stayed in a hotel. And in the drawer of his room is The Bible!
I told him that is what makes America great! Not all these stuffs in this shopping mall.
I gave him Bulfinch's Mythology previously when he left to go back to China. I mailed it to him in China, which is essentially the Bible before the Bible. It is essentially the Greek Bible that guided the Greek and Roman civilizations before . . . you guess it, my peeps, the Roman Catholic took over.
He observed something I did not observe. This kid is way too smart. He observed that in Greek mythology, there were many demi-gods. Men were closer to gods.
Hmm. That is true. In the Bible, only Jesus is semi-divine.
He: That represents a monopoly power concentrated in only one semi-divine Being.
This kid is too smart.
Me: Very good. That is how Christianity monopolizes its power.
He: Are you religious?
Me: Yes, I’m Catholic. Catholic means “public education” in Chinese. 公教 Công Giáo.
Somewhere along the line we talked about Taoism. He showed me I-Ching binary numbers. I knew that.
I: It’s on the South Korean flag. They stole it from China.
He: Korea stole a lot of things from China. Their holidays, etc.
He wants to come to America. Via Canada first. The kid is smart, Chinese smart. He knows that the shortest distance between 2 points is not a straight line but a round-about-way.
He said he wants to come to America because in China everybody is working 14 hours days, or something ridiculous like that.
He’s learning French (because Canada is French). But he has no one to speak French with.
I told him about what the Japanese called kata 型, form. Pretend fighting. Pretend you have a conversation by reciting French movies, Amalie, etc . . .
I noticed that he does not know what I”m talking about when I talk about kata. He is young and not exposed to all art. He’s a little scholarly and bookish.
He: But it is better with a real person.
I: Yes, of course.
I’m going to mail him the Bible. And Madame Bovary, the original French. The audio of Madame Bovary, in the original French is free on LibriVox.
I told him he can come to America if he divorces his wife and marry a “gringo/a”. (Then I have to explain the “gringo/a” joke.)
He: That is the fastest way.
Me: I’m just kidding. I’m talking non-sense. Don’t listen to me.
I had to quiz him.
I: Where does the Shaolin Temple 少林 (little forest, I had to tell I know what it means) come from?
He: Buddhism.
I: Where does Buddha comes from?
He: Nepal.
Thought to self. Hmm. That was a little too specific. In my head the “answer” was “India.”
I: Think about that. That is how great India was that China imported its religion.
He: But Hinduism is not as popular in India, as Buddhism is in China.
The kid is too smart.
I: Correct. Just as people know about The Old Testament from Christianity and not Judaism.
(I am smart too. I know what he said is true because it is the same thing in the Western counterpart.)
I: Now, where does Chinese chess come from?
He did not know. I told him. And I retold him in written form in this email I sent to him.
To be continued.
Story time.
I’m going to tell a story. 100% true story. To write naturally, I have to use real names and places.
Wei Li (Tony, his American pen name) and I worked at the World Bank in DC. I a lowly administrative assistant, he, some kind of analyst.
The kid is incredible. He’s Chinese, from China. At one time he taught mathematics and economics at the University of Maryland. Think about that for a moment. The kid is Chinese, educated in China, but is a professor in an American University.
We spent many hours sitting at lunch playing chess, and talking about cultures and history.
I: Vietnamese is half Chinese like English is half French.
He: The Morman invasion, 1066!
How did he know that? Nobody knows that. That is not common knowledge. I only know because I researched the history of English.
He: I love history.
The kid is incredible.
My score against him in Chinese chess is 5-5-2. It could have been 5-6-1.
I quibbled on perpetual check. I insisted that perpetual check is a draw because it is so in real life. Later thinking about it, he is right, because Chinese Chess rules are different from Western Chess rules, as it should be.
He quit the job and goes back to China to be a research professor in economics at the University of Beijing, I think.
He is the one that told me in ancient China, to be considered an educated person you have to learn the 4 arts: music, calligraphy, painting, and chess.
To be continued.