I was reading about Oscar Wilde a couple of weeks ago. There are many reasons not to imitate Oscar Wilde's either life or literature (and he famously reminds that life more often than not imitates art... especially a propos in the modern world where things passing for "art" are ubiquitous and penetrate everywhere thanks to the media), but I'm not sure the western world will ever see such an epigrammist again. Anyway, there was a quote in the introduction to one of his that struck me about editing. It said that his experience editing a newspaper in his post-Oxford days led him to become a indefatigable and fastidious editor of his own work. This is interesting and somewhat inspiring. If I look honestly at myself, my own experience editing has led me to just want to get the thing done and out of my hands. But since I have read this, I have felt compelled to at least look a bit more closely at my writings before showing them to anyone else.
In other news, my wonderful wife and I went to the hospital today for some routine checks. There are signs all about that warn people that they ultrasounds for pregnant women will not reveal for them the sex of the baby. This is not on scientific or even moral grounds, so much as legal ones. One of the fallouts from the One Child Policy is that people have preferred boys to girls, and even gone to such lengths as getting abortions to avoid being restricted to having a daughter without any hope of someday getting a boy. But don't worry, there's also a sign addressing this warning people that it is strictly forbidden to abort a fetus on the grounds of its sex. Thank goodness for Malthus for providing a sufficiently convincing economic model to give this country the excuse to be even more draconian in its policies. Then again, people here are creative and clever enough to get around nearly any regulation. It is not uncommon for little stands to exist right outside the hospital grounds for the lucky couples to check the gender of the little package. It's very James Scott.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
About TimAs you can see elsewhere on this webpage, I conduct research on ethnic minorities in western China. This blog offers semi-academic musings on the minutiae of daily life out here--the sort of information otherwise destined for footnotes. Categories |