During one of our Wednesday night gatherings, Shirah brought her Japanese high school Chinese literature text book to share.

After the dinner and the dessert, Shirah took out her book from her bag and placed it on the dinner table. We all turned our heads to peek into the Chinese articles in the book with curiosity.

Majored in literature since college, Grace enjoyed reading many familiar old poems and articles. While explaining to us in details, she discussed some of the works with Shirah.

Grace said: “Some articles in this textbook have a few different characters from the same articles in our textbook.”

After hearing Grace’s comment, Shirah thought a bit and replied: “Maybe they came from different versions.”

Shirah recited a few famous Chinese pomes for us, we noticed the sounds in Japanese lacked the rhythm carried by Chinese.

Curious Lou studied the title of the Japanese textbook: a single Chinese character in Xiaozhuan style.

I took a peek and said: “It seems like the dragon character in Xiaozhuan.”

Everyone took a close look at the title on the book cover and said that character is different from dragon character. Then Lou found “capable” in Xiaozhuan, which has the same left part as the title. However, the right part is different from the title.

Someone thought out loud: “‘Capable’ or ‘able to’ is not noun.”

Someone found: “Capable is adjective. how could an adjective be title?”

Lou seems addictive to doing research now. He focused his attention on his cell phone for a while and announced : “I found the completed sentence in the same XiaoZhuan style on a Japanese museum web site: ‘to be capable one needs to learn, to be wise one needs to ask.’”

After reading the completed sentence on Lou’s phone, we all understood the meaning of “capable” as the title on the Japanese textbook of Chinese literature: “want to gain ability, one must learn.”

Six highly skilled readers, including three PhDs in science and there PhD candidates in liberal arts, worked together to learn about the character of capable in XiaoZhuan and to solve the puzzle of using a single character as the title. Learning how to do research while playing is fun.

I remembered a story of Grace’s “to be capable needs to learn”: recently she told us: “I just learnt how to hold a cat on Youtube: one hand hold the butt, another hand hold the chest.” She immediately picked up Kara for a demo. Seeing Kara quietly curved in front for Grace, we all cheered for Grace.

Little Episodes

1. Grace held Kara (by Lou)

2. Our Wednesday Dinner.

3. The cover of Japanese high school Chinese literature textbook

“to be capable one needs to learn, to be wise one needs to ask” come from Confucius’ family language: disciple’s journey.

4. I was surprised to see BaiJuYi’s famous poem of “Man Sells Charcoal” in the textbook.

When I was in middle school we were all required to recite “Man Sells Charcoal”. Rereading this poem again, I remember my literal teacher’s comment of this pome deeply exposed the ruler’s cruelty to ordinary people. In addition, I was also touched by “Even with a thin layer of clothes, the man still wished for an even colder weather”, because he wanted a good price for his coal，which expressed his strong desire for survival.

Rereading the poem of “Man Sells Charcoal”, I had a chance to recall more than 40 years’ memory and see the change in my perspective now: I understand more about the desire to survive, as a primeval force in a ordinary life which could bring great fulfillment and satisfaction. I was happy for this understanding.

BaiJuYi’s “Man Sells Charcoal”
（摘自：廊桥梦者）
卖炭翁，mài tàn wēng
伐薪烧炭南山中。fá xīn shāo tàn nán shān zhōng
满面尘灰烟火色，mǎn miàn chén huī yān huǒ sè ，
两鬓苍苍十指黑。liǎng bìn cāng cāng shí zhǐ hēi 。
卖炭得钱何所营？mài tàn dé qián hé suǒ yíng ？
身上衣裳口中食。shēn shàng yī shang kǒu zhōng shí
可怜身上衣正单，kě lián shēn shàng yī zhèng dān ，
心忧炭贱愿天寒。xīn yōu tàn jiàn yuàn tiān hán 。
夜来城外一尺雪，yè lái chéng wài yī chǐ xuě ，
晓驾炭车辗冰辙。xiǎo jià tàn chē niǎn bīng zhé 。
牛困人饥日已高，niú kùn rén jī rì yǐ gāo ，
市南门外泥中歇。shì nán mén wài ní zhōng xiē 。
翩翩两骑来是谁？piān piān liǎng qí lái shì shuí ？
黄衣使者白衫儿。huáng yī shǐ zhě bái shān ér 。
手把文书口称敕，shǒu bǎ wén shū kǒu chēng chì ，
回车叱牛牵向北。huí chē chì niú qiān xiàng běi 。
一车炭，千余斤，yī chē tàn ，qiān yú jīn ，
宫使驱将惜不得。gōng shǐ qū jiāng xī bú dé 。
半匹红绡一丈绫，bàn pǐ hóng xiāo yī zhàng líng ，
系向牛头充炭直。xì xiàng niú tóu chōng tàn zhí 。

2020-09-26

I picked up a novel which my daughter recently read called: “Mathematician’s Shiva”（2014）.

I remembered our conversation about this book earlier.

She said: “This book is an interesting read. I learnt about how in Judaism there is the Shiva, a seven-day period of mourning after reading the book. This book also won a 2014 National Jewish Book Award.”

I said: “Chinese WuQi is a very old tradition mourning. Do you remember you came to Beijing before Waipo’s last WuQi to mourning Waipo?”

My daughter said: “Judaism Shiva starts following the burial, Chinese WuQi starts following the death.”

“Mathematician’s Shiva” is the first novel about Jewish culture in ordinary life that I read. This novel spans from 1939 to 2001 and from Poland to Soviet to United States. The story about extraordinary Hilbert’s 23 Question advanced mathematics and the broad Polish Soviet Jewish mixed culture daily life along with occasional touch of humor drew my attention fully. I have not been so immersed in a novel for a long time. This reading brought me joy on acquiring new information along aside, this reading also caused me suffocate on entering life’s darkness… in a comfortable place.

After finish reading this novel, my daughter asked me: “Did you enjoy it?”

“Yes, I did. The beginning of the novel where the son sat next to his mother’s death bed, brought back memories about how Waigong, XiaoJiuPo, XiaoJiuGong, and I sat next to WaiPo’s death bed, which gives the feeling of crossing time and space.”

“Mathematicians believe the cold climate will boost their intelligence. Their acting on solving the famous problem during the Shiva is lively and funny.”

“It is true that cold climate will keep the brain more clear. ” I assured her: “When I was at work, I tend to wear less, I found I could code more efficiently when I was cool.”

“Oh, do you remember I talked about Chinese worker built the California railroad story? Drinking boiled water make them health. In this novel, the mathematician believed her mother died during the cholera epidemic because her mother drank unboiled water outside their apartment. I realized that food hygiene is the wisdom learnt by death through the long history.”

“Mathematician’s Shiva” is a book full of history, culture, and humor, worth to read.

Little Episodes

1. goodreads.com

“Alexander “Sasha” Karnokovitch and his family would like to mourn the passing of his mother, Rachela, with modesty and dignity. But Rachela, a famous Polish émigré mathematician and professor at the University of Wisconsin, is rumored to have solved the million-dollar, Navier-Stokes Millennium Prize problem. Rumor also has it that she spitefully took the solution to her grave. To Sasha’s chagrin, a ragtag group of socially challenged mathematicians arrives in Madison and crashes the shiva, vowing to do whatever it takes to find the solution — even if it means prying up the floorboards for Rachela’s notes.

Written by a Ph.D. geophysicist, this hilarious and multi-layered debut novel brims with colorful characters and brilliantly captures humanity’s drive not just to survive, but to solve the impossible. ”

2. The mathematician believed her mother died during the cholera epidemic because her mother drank unboiled water outside their apartment.

“My father was aware of the potential danger, and made sure that my mother boiled the water before any use. But other families weren’t so cautious and the extra wood necessary for precautionary boiling was almost impossible to find. cholera erupted that spring, and it’s likely that my mother who would occasionally visit other women at the camp, had taken a drink of water from somewhere outside our apartment.”