Japan 2013
I was away in Japan from November to December 2013 for a mini, informal student exchange program with Kyoto University. I say it's a mini exchange because I was there for only a month, which is less than a usual school semester, and I say it's an informal exchange because I wasn't formally required to take any classes, save for a 2-week seminar by a pretty distinguished professor, Graham Priest. I say it's an exchange because I was partially sponsored by the hosting university, and some of their students are coming over to Singapore for a short 2-week seminar too next month.
It was enjoyable. I liked the cool autumn air, I liked staying in a nice cosy apartment all by myself, I liked the freedom to pretty much do what I want, anytime I want. A typical day would see me wake at 10am, do some static exercises and have brunch, go sightseeing, attend a lecture at 430pm to 6, and have dinner with either some local students or a fellow Singaporean student and his wife. I would sometimes crash the latter's apartment thereafter to use the Internet; they stayed not more than 1km away from my apartment. I would then almost always have a long warm bath in my own apartment, read for 1 or 2 hours, then sleep at 12.
I hung out with the couple on sightseeing trips too, on occasion. A warm, hospitable, optimistic pair, the guy an intelligent, philosophical, humorous guy, though I think I'm funnier. They're the sort of people I can see myself giving my life to rescue in a zombie apocalypse, partly because of their general kindness and friendliness. Suspecting that a zombie apocalypse wouldn't happen anytime soon, I took it upon myself to cook a simple meal for them in my apartment the weekend before I left. That would be the first time I cooked for anyone else. And I'm glad they liked it, thus not only reinforcing our bond, but also helped me unlock the achievement 'Cook a simple, edible meal for some guests', which I suppose is a necessary and sufficient condition for graduating to a Level 1 Chef, where Level 0 is to only cook instant noodles for one's self.
It was a generally beautiful trip. I'll let the photos speak for themselves here; more can be found on my Facebook, in due time. I'm not exactly a seasoned traveler, but I will say, that of all the countries I've been to so far (which includes Germany Austria the UK and Australia and of course some Southeast Asian countries), I find myself most at ease in Japan. Westerners in Western countries are often friendly and hospitable, but their kind of friendliness seems more intrusive to me, which I didn't like. Perhaps I'm being biased here though, as I tended to feel more conspicuous in Western countries than in Japan. That would make me more uncomfortable, thus skewing my judgment of how comfortable I am in the different countries, as a result of its people. But I guess the fact still remains that I feel most at ease in Japan.
I'll make a note or two about the academic portion of the trip now. The 2 week seminar I attended was a class on applying paraconsistent logic to some parts of Buddhist philosophy. In other words, it was a fusion of Western analytic philosophy and Asian philosophy. This itself is a loose project involving several notable Western and Asian philosophers who are in close contact with each other. There were postgraduate students from other Asian countries as well, and people were generally rigorous and passionate. And some of us - around 12, perhaps - went on a weekend excursion with the Japanese professor who brought together the whole event and Graham Priest, both of whom were in the loose collective mentioned earlier. We had a 3-hour long steamboat dinner Japanese-style in a cottage, during which the Japanese professor stood up to give a short speech.
He told us that we are the generation that is in the best position to expound on, develop and teach this new philosophical tradition across the world. Western philosophers studying Asian philosophy is nothing new, and they usually do it in their own terms; but we now have the opportunity to be Asian philosophers studying Asian philosophy on our own terms (this doesn't mean completely denying Western influences of course). Not only that, we have the potential to make this 'movement' the center stage of philosophy in the future. This is especially so, as one might think contemporary Western philosophy is in some sort of decline due to the increasing technicality and ivory-tower, game-playing nature of the discipline - sooner or later, it's going to give philosophy a bad name, if it hasn't already.
He said that we in this generation have a much more open mindset than people in his generation. We'd take Asian philosophy seriously. He pointed out that for the dinner, he had been thinking of ways to divide us into tables so that people from different nationalities would be mixed. But he said that in the end he didn't need to - we had very naturally diffused into tables such that each table had a heterogeneous mix of students. He said, quite earnestly, (he's a very playful professor in his 50s) that when he observed this it nearly brought tears to his eyes. It was a very joyous thing for him to observe.
Seeing the groundwork laid by that collective of philosophers, and seeing the earnestness in some of the postgraduate students present, I do think that something noteworthy will emerge in the years to come. I am still skeptical, though, that this something noteworthy will turn into a worldwide movement that will be recognised as a cohesive, important movement in the history of philosophy. We shall see. Truth be told, I have no interest in this area of philosophy, no interest in this fight; my fight in philosophy lies elsewhere. If it does turn out into a historical movement though, if the 3-hour steamboat dinner in a small cottage at a Japanese countryside was a historical moment marking the birth of a renowned school of future philosophers, let the history books record, then, that I was part of that historical dinner, if only as a quiet observer who spent more time eating and listening than talking.
We can probably start counting now. I estimate it'd take 10 years for more groundwork to be set (and for people to actually earn their Phds), another 10 years for people to meet, discuss things and publish landmark papers, another 10 years for landmark papers against those landmark papers to be published, another 10 years for the debate to mature, 10 more years for people to start recognizing and appreciating this is a very big movement in philosophy, and 10 more years for historians to start tracing the history of this movement. November 18th, 2072 then. We shall see if history treats this dinner 60 years back as a noteworthy moment in the history of philosophy.
That aside, it was definitely a most enjoyable dinner, on a most enjoyable trip.
It was enjoyable. I liked the cool autumn air, I liked staying in a nice cosy apartment all by myself, I liked the freedom to pretty much do what I want, anytime I want. A typical day would see me wake at 10am, do some static exercises and have brunch, go sightseeing, attend a lecture at 430pm to 6, and have dinner with either some local students or a fellow Singaporean student and his wife. I would sometimes crash the latter's apartment thereafter to use the Internet; they stayed not more than 1km away from my apartment. I would then almost always have a long warm bath in my own apartment, read for 1 or 2 hours, then sleep at 12.
I hung out with the couple on sightseeing trips too, on occasion. A warm, hospitable, optimistic pair, the guy an intelligent, philosophical, humorous guy, though I think I'm funnier. They're the sort of people I can see myself giving my life to rescue in a zombie apocalypse, partly because of their general kindness and friendliness. Suspecting that a zombie apocalypse wouldn't happen anytime soon, I took it upon myself to cook a simple meal for them in my apartment the weekend before I left. That would be the first time I cooked for anyone else. And I'm glad they liked it, thus not only reinforcing our bond, but also helped me unlock the achievement 'Cook a simple, edible meal for some guests', which I suppose is a necessary and sufficient condition for graduating to a Level 1 Chef, where Level 0 is to only cook instant noodles for one's self.
It was a generally beautiful trip. I'll let the photos speak for themselves here; more can be found on my Facebook, in due time. I'm not exactly a seasoned traveler, but I will say, that of all the countries I've been to so far (which includes Germany Austria the UK and Australia and of course some Southeast Asian countries), I find myself most at ease in Japan. Westerners in Western countries are often friendly and hospitable, but their kind of friendliness seems more intrusive to me, which I didn't like. Perhaps I'm being biased here though, as I tended to feel more conspicuous in Western countries than in Japan. That would make me more uncomfortable, thus skewing my judgment of how comfortable I am in the different countries, as a result of its people. But I guess the fact still remains that I feel most at ease in Japan.
I'll make a note or two about the academic portion of the trip now. The 2 week seminar I attended was a class on applying paraconsistent logic to some parts of Buddhist philosophy. In other words, it was a fusion of Western analytic philosophy and Asian philosophy. This itself is a loose project involving several notable Western and Asian philosophers who are in close contact with each other. There were postgraduate students from other Asian countries as well, and people were generally rigorous and passionate. And some of us - around 12, perhaps - went on a weekend excursion with the Japanese professor who brought together the whole event and Graham Priest, both of whom were in the loose collective mentioned earlier. We had a 3-hour long steamboat dinner Japanese-style in a cottage, during which the Japanese professor stood up to give a short speech.
He told us that we are the generation that is in the best position to expound on, develop and teach this new philosophical tradition across the world. Western philosophers studying Asian philosophy is nothing new, and they usually do it in their own terms; but we now have the opportunity to be Asian philosophers studying Asian philosophy on our own terms (this doesn't mean completely denying Western influences of course). Not only that, we have the potential to make this 'movement' the center stage of philosophy in the future. This is especially so, as one might think contemporary Western philosophy is in some sort of decline due to the increasing technicality and ivory-tower, game-playing nature of the discipline - sooner or later, it's going to give philosophy a bad name, if it hasn't already.
He said that we in this generation have a much more open mindset than people in his generation. We'd take Asian philosophy seriously. He pointed out that for the dinner, he had been thinking of ways to divide us into tables so that people from different nationalities would be mixed. But he said that in the end he didn't need to - we had very naturally diffused into tables such that each table had a heterogeneous mix of students. He said, quite earnestly, (he's a very playful professor in his 50s) that when he observed this it nearly brought tears to his eyes. It was a very joyous thing for him to observe.
Seeing the groundwork laid by that collective of philosophers, and seeing the earnestness in some of the postgraduate students present, I do think that something noteworthy will emerge in the years to come. I am still skeptical, though, that this something noteworthy will turn into a worldwide movement that will be recognised as a cohesive, important movement in the history of philosophy. We shall see. Truth be told, I have no interest in this area of philosophy, no interest in this fight; my fight in philosophy lies elsewhere. If it does turn out into a historical movement though, if the 3-hour steamboat dinner in a small cottage at a Japanese countryside was a historical moment marking the birth of a renowned school of future philosophers, let the history books record, then, that I was part of that historical dinner, if only as a quiet observer who spent more time eating and listening than talking.
We can probably start counting now. I estimate it'd take 10 years for more groundwork to be set (and for people to actually earn their Phds), another 10 years for people to meet, discuss things and publish landmark papers, another 10 years for landmark papers against those landmark papers to be published, another 10 years for the debate to mature, 10 more years for people to start recognizing and appreciating this is a very big movement in philosophy, and 10 more years for historians to start tracing the history of this movement. November 18th, 2072 then. We shall see if history treats this dinner 60 years back as a noteworthy moment in the history of philosophy.
That aside, it was definitely a most enjoyable dinner, on a most enjoyable trip.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home