On Friday, February 18 the Fred Jones, Jr Museum of Art hosted a special symposium to honor Han Shaogong, 2011 winner of the Newman Prize for Chinese Literature. The event featured three scholars and translators who have studied Shaogong’s book Dictionary of Maqiao in its original Chinese, and the author himself spoke to the crowd and answered questions via a translator.

According to Dr. Julia Lovell, who translated the work to English, Shaogong is a memorable author because of his slow, ponderous writing style that gives the reader plenty of time to become absorbed in the work. Lovell says it is especially notable that he does not exaggerate the text or use overly crude language, as many other contemporary Chinese writers do, so the humor in his writing style is even more appreciable. Not only does the story progress slowly, but every step in the process of creating the work moved slowly, and it took Shaogong more than 10 years to write the book.

“Books are an art started by the author and finished by the reader,” said Shaogong through his translator. “Literature is about how we look at our hearts, and instead of blaming others for everything that’s going wrong, looking to see if we ourselves have done anything wrong.”

More than 6,000 books are published each year in China, which has its own style and flavor of literature. One speaker explained that the Chinese word for “science” literally means “laziness,” clearly showing view of science held by the people of Maqiao, who value hard work over science and technology. Shaogong said that as he traveled in the United States, he could see that science can help, but it can also be misused. Much of his view of Americans included fat Americans, trapped in their offices, not exercising.

The event was an eye-opening view of a culture very different from our own, with its own views on history, literature and life. “Sometimes I realize that after more than 2,000 years of literature, the world is no better. I think that the role of literature is not to make humanity better, but to keep it from getting worse.”

More Information:

http://www.ou.edu/uschina/newman/HanShaogong.html

Aguilera's Star Spangled Banner

On February 6, 2011, Christina Aguilera performed the National Anthem at the Super Bowl. Amidst all the confusion, excitement, television cameras and general hubbub, she managed to forget the words, accidentally singing "What so proudly we watched at the twilight's last gleaming,” repeating part of the previous phrase. People, her nickname is Xtina, what sort of linguistic perfection did you expect?

To be a little sarcastic, too bad they picked an impromptu volunteer out of the crowd to perform on spot… Too bad they picked an average American who isn’t used to lights and cameras, unprepared to sing on a national stage...too bad they sprung an unfamiliar, recently written song on the poor singer… Easy to forgive.

Most people would call that a colossal embarrassment. Okay, so a lot of those words have gone out of use in today’s society – it isn’t the easiest poem to remember. Alright, so you would find a similar failure if you administered a nation-wide test requiring all Americans to sing or write down the correct lyrics. This still does not explain to me why there isn’t a single person the nation who actually knows the words to the song that represents our country to the world and can sing it correctly all the way through.

Eh, they don’t even pay most Super Bowl musicians, so I guess you can’t threaten to dock their pay, or get mad at them for underperforming for their compensation….nope, it’s all for the personal glory. She got her exposure, and as everyone knows, nationwide publicity is priceless. Janet Jackson figured that out a few years ago, and it looks like Christina has too.

I asked people in my classes today if they’d heard Christina sing the National Anthem. The percentage of people who knew she’d sung the words incorrectly was minuscule. For those that didn’t even watch the Super Bowl, cheers to you. You missed some wonderful commercials, which can be watched online at your convenience, but you were also spared the halftime performance. For those of you who watched the performance but didn’t notice that she messed up the words….you’re the jokers I’m worried about. I’m not going to worry about administering my test to you because your first question would probably be “What’s the national anthem….”

Well, enough of that. Most people guessed her rendition would be horrendous before she even started. Who likes any version of the Star Spangled Banner ever sung at a sporting event? It’s over-sung, over-ornamented, and over-glamorized, and singers try too hard to raise the bar. There’s no key to put it in that will make it any easier to sing, and it’s too easy to cover up poor breath support and nervous insecurity with a few more trills.

Most viewers spend most of the time thinking about the artist performing and making judgments about the musical merit instead of actually thinking about our country or the reason the song was written in the first place.

Name-calling, accusing and heading up the blame game, check. Unnecessary sarcasm and overdone writing, check. Generating all the right answers while sitting behind my laptop, check. Contributing nothing to the solution but mocking everyone involved, check. I think I’ve served my purpose here.

In the meantime, why aren’t you reading about riots in Egypt, Obama and the Chamber of Commerce, Planned Parenthood, or something actually important in the world?

Watch Christina's performance here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgxA3Aus8jY