Uncouth Reflections

Fenster writes:

It is hard for the mind to grasp itself since it is inside looking out.  Consider the case of that poor neuroscientist I wrote about here, who had to reason through that he was a sociopath on the basis of data about his own mind.

Sometimes, though, you can have an experience that suggests something of how the gears work.  Like when you have a name on the tip of your tongue.  Who was that actor in the remake of 3:10 to Yuma?

Aussie Aussie Aussie Aussie.

R. R. R. R. Raymond?

Richard? Robert? Russell?  Russell?!

C. C.

Crowe!

Why does the R seem right somehow, and how does it head you to the name?

Better yet, consider the experience of apprehending a visual illusion, like the famous one of the old crone and the young woman.

Here, there’s a flickering that goes on as your mind shifts perspectives.  Flick.  Crone.  Flick.  Young woman.  You can feel it.

Something very similar happens in the process of cultural immersion—amateur anthropology, if you will.

My entire gestalt since arrival in China has been that of a stranger in a strange land.  Yes the people smile and carry themselves in recognizable ways.  Yes there are buildings with windows and doors and rooms, and the rooms have furniture like chairs and couches.  But everything is different—that is, it is the differences that come to the front of mind, and dominate.

It doesn’t help that the Chinese style of interior decoration seems derived from David Lynch—no conversation pits, just chairs and couches pushed back as far as possible to the walls, leaving an existential open space that is faintly threatening.

without the zig zag rug of course

I am in China at a meeting with university officials discussing higher education research in China.  I’ve been here for over a week now, in constant communication with the Chinese and only the Chinese, and still am the stranger in  a strange land.  The room has the David Lynch look.

As always, I have my translator with me, who doubles as guide and, increasingly, friend.  We are conversing through the translator, back and forth when . . .

Flick.

These are just people that I know.

The feeling is as palpable as the shift from crone to woman with hat.  Cool!  Then . . .

Flick.

Stranger in a strange land.

Flick.

Friends talking.

Flick.

Stranger in strange land.

I think this means I am in the “no mountain” stage I discussed here.

The experience of perspective shifting is pleasurable in its own right.  And it also suggests something interesting about how the mind works, the importance of perspective in understanding and how experience works in tandem with learning and growth.

I can feel it, Dave.  It is rather satisfying.

Fenster writes:

I was going to write about urbanism and bikes in Beijing but it’s been done before.

The New Urbanism Blog has a short piece, and a nice picture, of group dancing in front of St. Joseph’s Wangfujing Church, in downtown Beijing quite near the Forbidden City.

That was exactly the scene as I walked by last week, so it is a regular thing.  And, as the blog points out, it’s a nice urban thing, too. Check it out.

Meanwhile, I was also going to write about bikes and e-bikes, but it turns out that this guy Eric Osnos at The New Yorker has done so, and done it quite well.

The nerve of that guy Osnos, though.  He obviously copied me by entitling his series of articles “Letter from China”, and to make things worse, he got them into print before
I got mine online.  Sheesh.

But take a look at his e-bike piece.  This article and the blog piece suggest that, despite China’s overall seeming indifference to urban values in its headlong development spree, such values continue to have a place there, at least in Beijing.  Hutongs, bike lanes, a busy streetside retail scene and density that does not allow for hiding out.

So this will not be a letter from China.

But let’s consider the e-bike phenomenon while we are on the subject.

E-bikes have exploded in popularity in the past few years in China.  In 2009 China had 25 million cars but four times as many e-bikes.  That proportion has probably grown further in favor of e-bikes.

A Goggling of the topic reveals that just in the past several years there has been a similar explosion in Europe, Canada, Australia and other parts of the world.  The explosion is not as big as China’s–how could it be otherwise?–but it has been remarkable nonetheless.  Further, Googling also reveals scads of links dealing with e-bikes in other parts of the world but almost none dealing with e-bikes in the US.  That’s because, in effect, no one is interested in buying them stateside, though they are available.

Much is made of the car culture being the reason for this.  I buy that, but it can hardly be the only factor.  It is probably also the case that the bike culture resists as well.

I am myself much in favor of promoting cycling in the US and for a while commuted about 15 miles each way to work in Boston and Providence.  But bike culture, while a lot more than an affectation, is still an upper-middle class thing, and a statement about values as much as a means to keep fit and save money.  Looked at from that perspective, e-bikes are a fairly reprobate phenomenon.  A schlub in Beijing looking for a cheap and easy way to get to work is likely to have no such reservations.  So while I suspect e-bikes will take off here at some point in the not-distant future, they still has something of an image problem for being neither fish nor fowl.

Here’s one on the way from Germany.

Would you consider one?