Never Let Me Go

Life comes with surprises, and that is the beauty of it. One kind of surprise that occurs to me, occasionally, is from watching movies. I am a movie buff, but I barely have time these days indulging myself in movies - too luxurious an act. So after a crazy week of work, I randomly picked a film to watch. And it is surprisingly good. How do I define a good movie? Here are some of my criteria: 

• Interesting plot that provokes plenty of afterthoughts 
• excellent performance
• somewhat depressing
• great ending
• great soundtrack

The movie, called “Never Let Me Go,” appears to fit all of them. It tells an unconventional sic-fi story that images history unfolded differently in the past fifty years. In the 1950s, medical science made a breakthrough that was able to to “cure the incurable” and markedly increased life expectancy. This came with a condition: Fresh organs were needed. As a result, the society decided to clone a special type of “creatures” whose only purpose of living was to give their organs to save humans’ lives. Of course in the movie these “creatures" are played by human actors - you cannot tell from their appearance, and only at a certain point of the movie you realize that they are, or supposed to be, different (in this sense, forgive me that I am spoiling the suspense). These creatures, when still young, were sent to a special school. And when they grew up, they started to give their organs. After three or four givings, they “complete.” The movie traces the lives of three of these “creatures” from childhood to their ultimate “completion,” telling a touching story of love, friendship, and redemption. These are terms we reserve for humans, but they seem to have them too. That is the point of the movie.

Well, sounds pretty depressing, doesn’t it? And it is. The first response we may have is that this is one of those dystopia movies that do not paint a rosy picture of our future, with a highly suspicious attitude toward modern science (think about another good movie “Children of Men”). It asks a familiar ethical question: At what price shall we pay to benefit ourselves? Here “ourselves” could mean a subgroup of us or the entire humanity. There are many tragic examples of this in history, unfortunately. A famous example is the notorious Tuskegee Test done in Alabama in early twentieth century, where US physicians deliberately untreated the African-American community contracted by syphilis to acquire information about the disease. Obviously they considered the community as sub-human, which justified their action. To go broader, we can also think about the arguments of animal rights movement, their critiques on the cruel use of animals in scientific research. We are nowhere near the end of debates on the ethics of doing science. Perhaps that is a good thing.

Although its plot directs audience to ask many provocative, if not polemic, questions, this is a movie that reflects rather than attacks. And it delves deeper to ask a philosophical question: How do we define ourselves as humans? Evolutionary theory teaches us that we came from animals, and at a certain historical point, a critical point, we broke from them and became unique. What is this uniqueness about us? Is it language, capacity of using tools, morality, special way of thinking, free will, or ability to love? The answers could go on and on, offered by our ancestors ever since the dawn of civilizations, but we still haven’t found the answer definitively. Maybe we never will. One of the most fundamental puzzles that challenge science today is the rise of our consciousness. Philosophers, at least in the Western tradition, phrase it in a different way: Where did our soul come from? In one moment of the movie, one of the “creatures,” Tommy, has a conversation with the principal of the school where he was sent to as a young child. Children in the school were asked to draw pictures from time to time that were inspected by a lady from an art gallery. The purpose was never explained to the children. Tommy suspects that this is an exercise to look into their souls. The principal, played by the superb Charlotte Rampling, retorted matter-of-factly: “We didn’t use them to look into your soul; we used them to see whether you have a soul at all.” 

How do we know we have a soul? The psychiatrist Rollo May, in his Freedom and Destiny, suggested a fascinating response: We anticipate our own death. Animals do not seem to have this consciousness, unless they are in duress (admittedly, children don’t have this as well.) Soul and mortality are intwined - all religions in our world address this fundamental relationship in various ways. In essence, humans live in paradox: we are endowed by free will on the one hand, and the knowledge of the inevitability of our demise, on the other. We are torn between freedom and destiny. And I think this is the most profound dimension of the movie - it is a sobering reflection on mortality. The ending, in this sense, is poetically beautiful. One of the “creatures,” Cathy, stands in front of a fence overlooking a wild, open field. She will have her first organ-giving soon. She ponders, with eyes brimmed with tears: “What I am not sure about, is if our lives have been so different from the lives of the people we save, we all complete. Maybe none of us really understand what we’ve lived through, or feel we’ve had enough time.”

Before death, we all become equal (“we” could be quite expansive here). Sounds familiar? That is what Jane Eyre says to Mr. Rochester in Charlotte Brontë’s acclaimed novel Jane Eyre: 

Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong! - I have as much soul as you - and full as much heart! ... I am not talking to you now through the medium of custom, conventionalities, not even of mortal flesh: it is my spirit that addresses your spirit; just as if both had passed through the grave, and we stood at God's feet, equal - as we are! 

And we can find the similar sentiment in China a thousand years ago. Here is the wisdom from the renowned poet Tao Yuanming (陶淵明): 

I lament the change from light at dawn to sunset, and mourn the long labor of life. Since we all complete in a hundred years, why do we have so few joys and so many sorrows!   

悲晨曦之易夕，感人生之長勤；同一盡於百年，何歡寡而愁殷！

Death not just demands equality; it also compels us to cherish life more (and I believe this is Rollo May’s point).

But this thought, to many minds in our modern world, sounds too passive, if not fatalistic. A film critic from the New York Times - I suppose a typical response from a liberal-minded newspaper - accused the movie of being too dull, with too many tears that deprive the feeling of life. Life here means action, and perhaps rebellion. These poor creatures dutifully comply with their fate and sacrifice their lives without fighting back. Too docile and obedient an attitude that counteracts the spirit of this nation, which was founded on rebellion and fighting for a better life. For this critic, these creatures probably should take actions, like the animals in the movie "Chicken Run,” fighting with the evil owner of the farm to seek a life of freedom (George Orwell’s Animal Farm looms large here.) The political undertone of these actions are patent.

Yet as I said before, "Never Let Me Go" is more philosophical than political, so it will never appeal to a political-conscious reviewer such as the one from the New York Times. To understand this point more, perhaps it is necessary to bring the novel upon which this film is based into the picture. Not surprisingly, the novel, with the namesake title, was written by a Japanese-British writer Kazuo Ishiguro (石黑一雄). Born in Japan, Ishiguro spent most of his life in the UK, and his novels do not have a strong connection, at least on the surface, to Japanese culture, as he admitted that he was rather unfamiliar with that culture. But I think the East Asian thoughts have a subtle influence on his writings. The meditative, plaintive, and even somewhat fatalistic tone in his Never Let Me Go is a good example. Life is not just to confront, but also to comply with. There is beauty in such thinking - the so-called “mono no aware” (sorrow on things, 物の哀れ) in traditional Japan. Things like the blossom of sakura are beautiful, but also ephemeral. So is our life, and death that ensues. Instead of striving to improve life or trying to avoid death, the simple observation of them, and the reflection upon them, are truly beautiful. 

With that thought, let me finish by citing a line from the Greek stoic philosopher Epictetus:

Do not seek to have everything that happens happen as you wish, but wish for everything to happen as it actually does happen, and your life will be serene.

     

      

So long, my friends!

I haven't updated my blog for a while. Of course I have all kinds of reasons, which I will save here. Now the summer is moving fast, and I don't want to let it go without leaving a few traces here. My first entry after the hiatus, however, is about sending my friends off, sadly.


The two persons in this photograph, besides myself, are my colleagues and friends. The guy in the middle is Hung Kuang-chi, three years above me; the girl on the right is Bian He, one year above me. We are all from the same department - History of Science at Harvard. And if Kuang-chi is right, we are the only three Asian graduate students in the entire history of this department.


That fact has made us a special species, and nucleated us tightly. The first time I came to Harvard - in the spring of 2009, I met them for the first time during my campus visit. They have different personalities: Kuang-chi is laid-back, expressive, and passionate; He is modest, reserved, and attentive. We became quick friends.


More than five years have passed, and we have together shared many memorable moments during our fun and arduous PhD study. Kuang-chi liked to work in the basement of the Science Center, where he finished his magnum opus - his over-600-page dissertation - within half a year. Often before I left the building, I would drop by and say hello to him. He then would pull himself out of the piles of books, and get out so he could light a cigarette and talk with me about his favorite subject - Asa Grey, the great American botanist in the 19th century. Yes, that is where his passion stays - how Grey gathered species all over the world, how he communicated with his collectors, how he supported or disagreed with Darwin, etc. After ten minutes, he would go back to his place, continuing transcribing Grey's letters. And I would bike home, still immersed in Grey's expeditions.


I met He more often, because we worked on similar subjects - materia medica in China, and with the same mentor - Prof. K. He is a quiet person, but underneath her serene face lie a perspicacious mind and a warm heart. Her words are always precise and incisive, compassionate and caring. Most impressively, she understands well the potentials and limits of her capacity, and executes her plan with ambition, but rarely impractical, with creativity, but never loose-ended. Many times I went to her place, chatting with her about our research, and, of course, playing with her lovely cats - Little Black and Little White. Years later I may forget the content of those conversations, but one thing I won't forget is the way she cuts cookies. Once she and her husband came to my place to borrow my car. It was deep fall, right before the Thanksgiving. I just finished baking some cookies and took them out of the oven. Seeing that they all solidified into one big chunk, He carefully cut them into pieces, quietly, precisely, full of enjoyment. And I think that said a lot about He as a person: her enjoyment of life may not be easily discerned, but always real.


Sometimes I think that at the fundamental level, what connects us three is less of our Asian identity than of our shared background - we all studied biology before, and later defected. Although we are now historians, the science part never left us - it has made us humble, honest, and most importantly, tough. With passion, we entered the new field; with the toughness, we have persevered - at least so far.


Now my good comrades have both graduated and continued their illustrious career: Kuang-chi will teach at the NTU in Taipei and He will teach at Princeton. Early today, we had the last dinner in Boston. It was good that we didn't dwell much on the past memories - as what I did here because I am a hopeless sentimentalist - and spent more time on the future: what kind of scholars we want to be, how to produce the first book, etc. Yes, the friendship in the past is cherishable, yet what is coming is even better. One day, as Kuang-chi suggested, we may offer a course together on the history of Chinese natural history. That is the spirit!

So long, farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, goodnight. I hate to go and leave this pretty sight.

So long, farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, adieu. Adieu, adieu, to you and you...






                        

Janus

Another academic year just passed, so quickly. Compared to my year of traveling and exploring, this was a year of staying and producing. What have I done? Writing two chapters of my dissertation, teaching two courses, submitting a short article, attending a conference, and surviving a harsh winter. Not bad. Of course I can always do more, a sentiment, for better or for worse, readily cultivated at a place like Harvard. But that is often a view in retrospect, not in prospect. It is also a year I clearly felt becoming a senior student, or starting the transition from a student to a scholar - I have become more comfortable calling professors by their first names, I realized that I could offer good comments for my cohort's writings, I started to engage in my dissertation research more deeply. Becoming senior also means an increased awareness of what is coming ahead - to graduate and to find a job. Those are not easy thoughts.

In fact, they are not. Since six and a half years old, I have been in school - non-stop, that is, 31 years (82% of my life). I have enjoyed most part, especially the past five years when I was doing what I like. Now I am about to enter the transitional stage of my life - from a permanent student to a scholar/teacher. It wouldn't be much different since I still want to stay in academia. But it will be a change nonetheless, and I need to prepare for it. Most importantly, I think this transition entails two developments. First, a strong view or justification of the way I do my research. I could be sympathetic to other people's approach and appreciative of the value of their works, but I cannot be an absolute relativist. I must develop my own professional voice. Professors tend to be opinionated. I think that is true. Second, the confidence or comfort of engaging in scholarly activities. I often get nervous when I participate in scholarly conversation - seminar participation, conference talk, teaching, etc. - as if every activity was an exam to be passed. No more exams. They are opportunities to learn and improve. It takes both knowledge and experience, together with a healthy dose of self-awareness, to be more relaxed and spontaneous. The fun part should be always there.

The summer is coming. Nice weather aside, it is also a good season to get things done. This means more chapters to be written, more preparation to be done for job-hunting. But most importantly, I need to keep a good rhythm of life and get comfortable with the upcoming transitional stage, no matter how it unfolds. Anxious but hopeful, humble but assertive, prepared but not to the frozen degree that kills joy. That is my goal. 

Janus is the Roman god with double faces looking to the past and to the future. It generally means beginning and transition (hence January as the first month of the year). For me, it is the beginning of the end - the end of my current PhD, and the end of my long student life. It is also a transition to a new stage of my life, with uncertainties and possibilities. But I am generally hopeful, for something new and exciting coming up soon. Janus, be my guide!
             

         

The Power of Poison (II): Poisonous herbs

As mentioned in the last entry, despite its promising start, the AMNH exhibit largely focuses on the one-sided meaning of poison as harmful agents, without showing much of its beneficial functions. In the only non-West demonstration, it presents a servant offering an elixir to the first emperor in China, Qinshi Huangdi, along with some brief descriptions of elixir poisoning in China. Again, poison is something to be avoided. That is the general impression of poison in our society, which the exhibit captures and reinforces.

Along this line of thought, the show gives some examples of herbal poisons. One is called Monkshood, a plant with blue or purple flowers that look like the hood on a robe worn by a monk. 

It grows around the world in northern temperate climate. Its root contains powerful neurotoxins and cardiotoxins that can kill a person by heart attack. Any medicinal uses? Yes, yet the exhibit says that the plant is “sometimes used in extract form as an anti-inflammatory agent, but this is extremely risky because of the plant’s toxicity.” So better to be careful with it. In history, it is also the case in the West. As early as the first century CE, the plant was recognized as a powerful poison. In his monumental work De Materia Medica, the Roman pharmacist Dioschorides called the plant wolfsbane, and, as the name implies, only used it to kill animals. However, if I tell you the Chinese name of this plant, you might be surprised: fuzi (附子). It is one of the most commonly used drugs in Chinese medicine since antiquity. Of course it needs to be carefully processed before application. But why did the West ignore the medicinal value of the plant? This is the same type of plants in the Aconitum genus. In Europe it is condemned as the “queen of poisons,” yet in China it is hailed as the “chief of all medicines.”(百藥之長) Interesting, isn’t it?

Let’s flip the coin. There is another poisonous plant in the show called Belladonna, which grows in Europe, northern Africa, and western Asia (because of this geographical restriction, the plant did not enter Chinese pharmacy). 

The toxic chemical called atropine in the plant can induce hallucination and coma. Atropine derived from the name of a Greek goddess Atropos, who represents fate and destiny (another entry is on its way for this fascinating, if not somewhat melancholic, topic). 

Atropos has two sisters: Clotho, who spins the thread of life, and Lachesis, who measures the length of the thread. But Atropos’s role is most decisive and cruel: she cuts the thread. And that is the conceived power of the plant. Belladonna belongs to a large group of plants of Solanaceae family called nightshade. If these names sound too technical for you, the following foods in the group may not: tomatoes, potatoes, eggplants, and hot peppers. Of course they don’t contain the same kind or level of toxins as Belladonna, but if one eats them improperly, for example, eating potatoes with sprouts that contain a high concentration of alkaloids, the omnipresent Atropos may start her job…

Finally, let’s take a look at a famous poison called hemlock. This parsley-looking plant (picture on the left), grown in Europe, northern Africa, and Asia, can cause paralysis and death. It is famous because Socrates allegedly drank the lethal poison for his death sentence. I couldn’t find this plant in Chinese pharmacy, but people often confuse it with a herb called gouwen (鉤吻) in China (picture on the right) . They look somewhat similar – yellow and clustered flowers, slim stems, but belong to utterly different families (see the edges of their leaves are different). Interesting, gouwen is the plant that, according to the legend, the Divine Farmer (神農), the alleged founder of Chinese pharmacology, tried and died from. It later acquired a colorful name in China – duanchangcao (斷腸草), which we often see in kong-fu novels. Unlike the fate of fuzi, gouwen was mainly imaged and employed as a poison in Chinese history. 

Well, this entry might feel a bit technical. If nothing else, here is the message - don't be afraid of fuzi, and be careful when you next time eat potatoes.

The Power of Poison (I): Arrow Poison

 

The American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in NYC recently put up a new exhibit called “The Power of Poison,” which a few colleagues pointed out for me. “That is my thing!” I mused. It may not have much history in it given the curator being a zoologist, but the topic is too close to my research to be missed. So I went early this week to check it out.

As a whole, the exhibit is not bad. In an online video, the curator introduced the show by citing the words of a famous 16^th century alchemist Paracelsus: “All things are poison and nothing is without poison.” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=dEuJqbJo6S4) I love this quote because it speaks to the essence of poison – poison is not defined by what it is but by how it is used. [Paracelsus is such a fascinating figure who deserves a full entry. Stay tuned!] The start of the exhibit echoes this philosophy. It shows a box of chocolates: they are our favorite treats, but poisonous to dogs (theobromine causes seizures in dogs). What makes a poison depends on who or what you are. It then shows a large bowl of salt: it is vital to life, but too much of it can kill. Dose matters. Despite the promising start, the rest of the exhibit doesn’t follow suit, but rather focuses on the toxic effects of various poisons. The relativistic and paradoxical meaning of poison is largely lost.

The most interesting section of the show is “Poison in Myth and Legend.” What were the earliest human experiences with poisons? Imagine that we lived 30,000 years ago, when agriculture was yet developed and we co-inhabited with dangerous plants and animals. Our first experiences with poisons probably came from eating toxic plants or being attacked by poisonous animals such as snakes and scorpions. It is believed that the original meaning of Chinese character du (毒) is snake in grass. The 2^nd century BCE work Masters of Huainanzi (淮南子) includes a legend that the founder of Chinese agriculture and pharmacology the Divine Farmer (Shennong) tasted hundreds of herbs to find useful medicines for his people. A later legend adds that the courageous and benevolent Shennong eventually died from eating a highly poisonous herb called gouwen (鉤吻). These early interactions with poisons, likely by accident, gradually taught humans to avoid them or even better, use them for good. In a hunting society, the earliest use of poisons was probably for making poisonous arrows. The exhibit presents a nice animation of a Greek legend: The Greek hero Hercules (that is where the word “Herculean” came from) killed the nine-headed serpent Hydra and smeared its blood onto his arrows to make powerful weapon. 

  

Such a legend may have a historical basis. The earliest evident of using poisons came from an archeological site recently discovered in South Africa (dated 24,000 years ago), where residues of castor beans (蓖麻) were found on a wooden poison applicator. Interestingly, the English word “toxic” derived from the Greek word “toxikon,” meaning poison arrows. 

            Ancient China also used poisonous arrows, most prominently with a poisonous herb called wutou (烏頭). In a famous story in the Romances of the Three Kingdom (三國演義), the Shu general Guan Yu was wounded by an arrow poison of wutou, and he courageously asked the physician Hua Tuo to scrap off the poison from his bones. I need to remind the curious readers that although the story is also in the original Sanguo zhi (三國志), which the Ming novel is based on, the poison of wutou is not specified there. In any case, the use of wutou for military purposes lasted long in Chinese history. In a military treatise called Wubei zhi (武備志) in the 17^th century, we find a detailed recipe to prepare an arrow poison called 見血封喉, which involves wutou. The name gives us an instant chill. 

            Finally we have an arrow poison called curare used by tribesmen in South America jungles. When European explorers in the 19^th century encountered the poison in the exotic land, they were fascinated by its power to cause temporary paralysis. Later, it was introduced into Europe for studying human physiology, notably by the famous Claude Bernard. In the early 1900s, doctors even used it during surgery to keep patients from moving, though they were still conscious. That is a tale of the positive use of poison.  

Tuning the Rig (Harvey Oxenhorn)

Francis Bacon once said, some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and only a few to be chewed and digested. Harvey Oxenhorn’s book Tuning the Rig is one of that few. It is a book of expedition and exploration, on the faraway seas of Newfoundland and Greenland, and in himself. Harvey took on a journey on the Regina Maris, an old sailing vessel, to watch and study whales in the Arctic. The book is about that unique, and life-transforming experience. When I first picked up the book, I was not very enthusiastic. No need to be convinced of wild life protection; neither am I interested in ships or sailing. But as I went on, the book engaged, and absorbed. Yes, there is an environmentalist argument in it, though presented subtly; yes, lots of accounts on the nitty-gritty details of daily routines on the Regina, but with a purpose. Most important of all, the book is meditative. There are moments when Harvey stood alone on the deck, facing the immense and quiet sea, he contemplated the meanings of life, and living. Such as this one:

What in the world was I doing here? Why was I standing in sleet in the middle of nowhere at one in the morning? What was I trying to find out or prove? … It had always been this way; maybe that was why I had no “bright hall” to dream of coming back to. I had made a botch of it; I had failed to find, or at any rate to keep, my hearth back home. Indeed, it was from this emptiness, this absence, that I was fleeing. Yet nothing could feel emptier than the prospect at which I now stared. … All I could think to answer was no answer, the Buddhists’ “noble truth,” that life is suffering. You feel it as our prow divides the wet black world in half: Time’s fabric splits, then mends astern.

Beautiful, isn’t it? Harvey, after all, was a poet. He had a special eye to capture beauty and elegance, even in the most routine and trivial things. Take this one, as he observed one of his shipmates’ measuring with a sextant in his hand at 3am:

To see him standing there, against the vacant sky, is to be reminded just how small and how impermanent we are. And to admire all the more the way his feet are planted, the dignity in his unturned face, his hands controlled and quiet, his mind the same. He is not posturing, not even thinking of himself. Yet as he aims and reads the instruments, he is aligning himself, literally, with stars.  

But I should not use “even” here; I should use “because.” This is the lesson Harvey learned. In the epigraph, he cited James Clerk Maxwell’s words “the object of knowledge is relation.” On a ship, on the high seas, unity was the key for survival. Everyone, even inexperienced Harvey, needed to chipped in, and strictly followed the daily routines to guarantee the safe sailing of the vessel. People were so interdependent in this special environment that the spirit was written into the sub-consciousness. The word “routine” had a profound meaning for Harvey:

“Routine: derived from ‘route,’ a line of pilgrimage or travel.” How widely must one travel, and how far afield, to discover the value of the word? No matter. To believe in the journey is to have already arrived. And to surrender to the long haul, willingly, is to take it and make it your own.

To take the haul willingly, but also tactfully. Hervey further reflected:

When I first came on board, I thought that the whole world owned me. I was ready to make music, damn it. I was disappointed, angry that so little in my life would stay in tune. But tonight, as I barely heard the sounds we made before they were blown astern, I understood such disappointment to be arrogance.

It is arrogance to expect that our life always be music. It is false pride to demand to know the score. Harmony, like a following breeze at sea, is the exception. In a world where most things wind up broken or lost, our lot is to tack and tune.  

To lower the self-ego, to accept limitations and failures, to always ready to adjust, is the secret of a full life. 

Five years after the journey, Harvey wrote in the epilogue, aptly titled “Home,” as follows:

I am of a generation often faulted for preoccupation with the self and an inability to make or keep commitments. From childhood we were relentlessly exhorted to make ourselves special – to achieve, achieve, achieve. Beneath that impulse (and the style of education it inspired) lay the assumption that the way to be a complete and successful human being is to cast your own net ever wider, to leave your individual mark upon more and more.

What many of us are coming to understand is that this way of living has enormous costs. We are perpetually spread too thin, fragmented, scattered. As we strain to hold together more and more, we bring less and less of ourselves to each spinning moment. In the manic pursuit of gaining and becoming, what is lost is the capacity for simply being: with each other, with nature, with ourselves. Not surprisingly, when we think of freedom, we locate it outside our daily round. We define it as escape.

What I discovered abroad Regina is that we have it backward. Freedom, Hegel said, is recognition of necessity. In exercising self-restraint, in accepting the kinds of limits that I had previously squandered so much energy evading, I experienced a sense of purpose and a kind of solidarity I’d never known before. I had gone far off to bring what mattered closer – gone to sea and come back feeling grounded – relieved of the burden of specialness, reprieved from the lonely ego, released but also reengaged.   

It took Harvey another three years to publish the book. Shortly after, sadly, he died from a car accident. I am glad that in his short life, he had this transformative experience on Regina and was able to share that experience, with his humble and revelative reflections, with us. That is his legacy; his spirit of living and being will continue to resonate.