Toronto, in transition

Here I am, Toronto.

This is the third city I live in North America, after Ann Arbor and Cambridge. Although the stay will be brief (10 months), it is long enough to get a real taste of the city, with all the commotion of re-settling. I am a guy who is slow to adjust to a new environment. The initial excitement is often followed by a period of melancholy and withdrawal. This is how I feel now. The transition has duel meanings: physically I am moving to a new place, and professionally I have left my student life behind and become a scholar. Hence the need for double-adjustment. For the former, it is a matter of finding my favorite spots in this new environment and re-establishing my daily routine: the café to read and think, the grocery to shop, the gym to swim, etc. I am sure it is just a matter of time, though I am a bit under time pressure. The latter is more challenging. Most important, I am on my own now to pursue a career that I find both interesting and meaningful. Although I often think of my former mentors as role models, now it is time to develop my own ideas and guide my own students. 

It is almost winter here in Toronto, nippy and crisp. Leaves are changing colors, so is the politics of the country (the national election just finished with the change of power from the conservative to the liberal). What is my impression of Toronto? It is a fairly large city with lots of interesting activities. My territory is pretty much restricted to the downtown area, close to the UT campus. Life is convenient. I live close to the Korean Town and the China Town, so I have no difficulties to get decent Asian foods. I see more 24-hour shops here. Toronto probably resembles Boston more than Cambridge; although the university is large, it is engulfed in city life. In general, Torontonians are more patient and laid-back than Bostonians, easy to talk to. Making friends is the first step, and perhaps the key step to get immersed in a new place. I am still navigating to find the right people—I don't need a lot; just a few would make my life different. My cultural adventure has just started: several cool museums to visit, a fantastic independent movie theater (TIFF), and some enjoyable biking trails along the lake. Have I ever mentioned that there is a lake nearly—Lake Ontarian. A déja vu of my Ann Arborian life. Indeed some people here say that Toronto is a mid-Western city, not really Canada's New York City, as often portrayed in popular imagination. In that sense, my life has circled back. 

Although the downtown area is populated, it is easy to go to somewhere that is quiet and pretty. Last weekend I visited the Toronto Island, which is just off the lakeshore. From there you can have an open view of the Lake Ontario. It was a cold and windy day, so the island felt vacant and vast. Maybe that is our impression of Canada, a huge country with sparse population. Cold weather too. What would be like standing on this island two hundred years ago? I have little knowledge of the history of Canada. Considering it is a politically more liberal country, I cannot help musing upon the historical roots of that political consciousness. Something I am yet to explore.

Time goes fast. If this whole year in Toronto is a transition to my next stage in Buffalo, I am at the transitional stage of this transitional year. Looking backward, or nostalgia, is futile; I must look forward. Transition is not always easy, but if my current uneasiness prepares for a better transition in Buffalo, it is all worth it. This prospective attitude is all I need now.

Toronto, looking forward to knowing you more.

Post-graduation thoughts

All of a sudden, I graduated.

The whole process feels incredibly fast: the defense, the Hooding Ceremony, the Commencement. Although they span the whole month of May, they seem to happen over the snapping of fingers. Surely it was a happy and memorable moment as I had the chance to celebrate it with my family and friends, including some special ones from far away. I wish I could hold that moment longer so I can enjoy it more fully; after all, it took me six years to reach this point. But it disappears as quickly as it comes, like the dissipation of the mist by the morning sun—the campus becomes quiet again, family and friends have left, and life goes on.

I already feel nostalgic, not just for that fleeting moment of happiness, but for a way of living I am too familiar with and too used to. Now I must leave that comfortable student life behind, and start the new career as a scholar and professor. Although I try to make this transition slow and smooth, it is a change nonetheless, which creates both excitement and anxiety.

To alleviate the anxiety, I initially planned to travel to Europe to take a break. This plan didn't work out because of an unexpected logistic issue (my passport is not with me). This is rather frustrating because I do want to travel after two years of staying in Cambridge, and this is a rare opportunity to enjoy myself. But bureaucracy presents a formidable barrier, and I have to learn to live with it. At every turn of the rosy moment of life, reality strikes back.

I should not complain too much considering what is ahead of me in the following years. It is a fortunate year after all. But sometimes I feel that underneath my docile and gentle facade lies an independent and rebellious soul, a free spirit. I like to explore both the physical world and the world of books, to learn more and experience more. But as I enter the next stage of my life, I wonder how long I can sustain this way of living, to live life the fullest. On this matter, I often think of Frank Capra's movie "It is a wonderful life." In one scene, the protagonist George is waiting at the train station for his brother, who just graduates from college, and, as George expects, will come home to take over their father's bank so George can be free. George has big plans; he shows a bunch of brochures to his friends and tells them that he will travel to many beautiful cities in Europe and fulfill his dream. George didn't go because later he realizes that his brother has a job in the factory of his fiancée's father. Neither does George go anywhere for the rest of his life. He stays in his hometown, and enjoys a wonderful life there.

I love this movie, and cry every time at the end. It reminds me that freedom always comes with restraints, without which freedom becomes purposeless and disorienting. Opposite to freedom is sacrifice and responsibility, string to stability and source of happiness. It is a fine balance between the fulfilling of self and the caring of others—too much of the former makes one detached and too much of the latter becomes a burden. It is a balance I will continue to learn and test out in the following years. Between soaring to the sky and sticking to the ground, where is me?

Birthday thoughts

Today I turn 38.

This birthday feels special as it heralds a new stage of my life. Looking back to almost four decades of my life, the path is straightforward but with twists: first six years, pre-school life. Not much memory; from six to now, more than thirty years of school life. Ridiculous long but also extraordinarily rich; from now to the following years, probably decades, post-school life. Challenging yet with lots of hopes.

Age is an interesting thing precisely because we all know that life does not last forever. So the central question is: what truly matters? I spent quite a while to contemplate that question. More than a decade ago, while I was studying biology at the University of Michigan, I read Ray Huang’s autobiography, Yellow River, Blue Mountain. Ray received his PhD in history at UM at the age of 46. That inspired me. A concrete role model was a driving force for me.

Making decisions, especially unconventional ones, requires strong inner power. In the fall of 2005, I went to a small state park along the Lake Michigan, walking along the lakeshore, drawing on the sand, thinking hard, interrogating my soul. In the epic movie Lawrence in Arabia, there is a scene that Lawrence sat on the edge of a vast desert, his eyes intensely gazing into the horizon. He was thinking hard to make a decision, an extremely dangerous one to cross the deadly dessert for a military action. Finally he made up his mind to do the impossible. So did I.

It has been a long journey from that critical moment to where I am now. Making a decision is a highly personal act, but to implement that decision requires lots of support from others. In that respect, I am blessed. Many memorable moments well up.

On a quiet Saturday morning in December 2005, I had a heart-to-heart conversation with my boss Ken about my change of career. Impressively, he never asked why I wanted to make this change, but rather eagerly offered all justifications for such a transition. The script I prepared was not of much use. He understood well the importance of respecting others’ decisions.

Later when I was pursuing a Master in China Studies at UM, I attended a lecture by a renowned historian Timothy Brook. After his talk, Christian, my MA advisor, introduced me to him. “He has a biology PhD,” Christian whispered. Hearing that, Tim looked into my eyes deeply, “Now you are doing something you really like.” Sometimes a few words encompasses the whole universe.

During that period, I also met a junior scholar Yiching, who spent many years at U. Chicago to find a project he found driving and meaningful. Naturally, he understood my decision well. “You don’t have a choice,” he opined. It is interesting to think about the decision-making process: we exercise our power of free will, only to find something we are destined for. The process is powerful, and transformative: to find a path for our life, with great confidence, is an integral part of our growth.

Another moment with my dearest friend Margo, my colleague at Harvard: We all become accustomed to our ways of living, making redirecting of a set trajectory hard. But once a change is initiated, no matter what the outcome would be, people rarely regret. Change is a positive action. My own experience is a good testimony: Before I changed my career, the most intimidating thought was whether I would regret later. A decade has passed, and I never regretted.

There are many more friends, and moments that touched my heart and motivated me to move forward. If my career has changed drastically, one idea has become more affirmative and sturdy: my dependence on others; my positive, even innocent, belief in the goodness of people.

Now I am about to close up my long life of a student and move on to be an adult and a scholar. The future is full of challenges and possibilities. Right now, I can just enjoy this moment of quiet happiness, with a sense of accomplishment and closure. I always think that true happiness is a temporary feeling, and it often happens when I anticipate something rather than actually doing it. I tend to believe that for a good life, happiness is like small islands floating in the ocean of contentness. Sitting on one of these islands now on my 38^th birthday, with the waves in the past flapping on my back, I look ahead to an exciting new sail to an adventurous and promising future.

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.