Encounter 2010
Harvard-Radcliffe Asian-American Christian Fellowship hosted event.
5 Feb 2010
Frosh Skit 2013
This is the best frosh skit in the history of AACF. You 13allers have raised the bar real high. My camera ran out of room at the end, so you'll have to wait for Winston's video to see the group dance. *RAWR*
--Winter Retreat--
30 Jan 2010
Story of a Dragon
once there was a well. it was a deep well that was fed by an underground stream. around it stood bent and gnarled trees, some green with foliage, others bare and broken. one night, there was a terrible storm. the skies were dark and unforgiving. rain poured down in angry torrents. lightning flashed and thunder roared. suddenly, there was a loud clap, like the striking of two large stones. the well was split into two. between the bright flashes of lightning, a small dragon emerged from the bottom of the well. it was a strange looking dragon. the body was small and frail, but on each end was a head. joined at the middle, it walked awkwardly. first staggering to the right, then to the left. in the midst of the pouring rain, it made its way under a tree.
as the days passed, it grew stronger and larger, but the left side remained small. thus it would always lead the way because it couldnt keep up if the stronger side walked in front. like this, it lived in harmony with the other. but one day, the stronger side became angry. it didnt want to be joined any longer. it was always slowed down, restrained by the weaker half. the stronger one wanted to fly, to run, to kill, to eat, without a sickly half. so one night, when the moon was shrouded behind walls of clouds, it ripped itself from the weaker half. it broke the bones, separated the flesh and ran off into the night. of course the weaker side couldnt fight back. it couldnt defend itself. so there, helpless, it lay, bleeding and slowly dying.
free at last, the other dragon ran and flew. the wounds healed quickly and caused him no pain. he ran from village to village eating the people, the animals, leveling whatever it saw. he delighted in his own destructive power. quickly he grew bigger and bigger. meanwhile, the weak dragon crawled its way back to the well and found refuge in its healing waters. although it did not die, it soon became too weak to move and started shrinking. before long, it disappeared.
as the other dragon continued its pillaging, it grew so large that it could no longer move its joints. one night, after destroying yet another village, he stumbled around annoyed at its own bulk. angry, it ripped and tore away its own flesh. screaming in pain, he fell against a house.
weak from the self-inflicted wounds, he sat there. frightened villagers returned to find it sitting in a stupor. boiling with hatred, they picked up whatever they could find and charged at it. the dragon knew that it was finished.
with each new wound, the dragons heart too began to crumble. at the very last moment, before a stake was driven between its eyes, all it could think about was its other half.
Body and Form
When I was a kid learning Chinese, there were many similar looking words that often confused me. One pair was 体 vs 休. They look very similar, don't they? One has a horizontal line on the bottom and the other doesn't. 休 (xiū) means to rest. 
is a pictogram of a person
, (
is more abstract version) leaning against a tree
. Doesn't that just sound relaxing? 休 is not simplified, but 体 (tǐ), which means body or form, is.
體 is the traditional way of writing 体. You look at it and wonder, "How are they the same word?" As I have written before, the simplified form of the character isn't completely random. There is reasoning behind the simplification. But you lose the original etymology with the switch. So let's dig into the etymology of 體 and see what we can find.
Looking at 
, we can see that it can be split into left and right components 
and 
and both right and left can be split into even smaller parts, 
,
,
. Let's take a look at what each part is and then let's construct the meaning as we put them back together.
丰 (fēng) is a pictogram of a plant. You can see the stem and the branches. 豆 (dòu) is a pictogram of a container on a stand. (豆 also means "bean".) You might be able to see it better in this version: 
. So combined, we have . You can see that on the top is . There are actually two of them and they seem to be in their own containers. On the bottom you see .
豊 (lǐ) means a ceremonial vessel. It is a simple pictogram of plants, most likely harvested grains, placed upon a stand. As in many agricultural societies, people offered sacrifices and gifts to the gods and forces of nature for good harvests. But how does this have anything to do with the word for body or form?
骨 (gǔ) on the left side means bone. is actually a pictogram of a slab of meat, not the moon, although it closely resembles 月, whose pictogram is 
. You ask, how does look like meat? Take a look at this version 
and now at a picture of meat.
Looks similar? The part above in the character represents that to which the meat is connected. You can also see in the picture that there is bone on the far right part of the steak.
So when we combine "bone" and "ceremonial vessel", we get body, shape or form. I'm still trying to understand why this means body or form. I have a few interpretations. First, I feel that 體 originally meant form more than body. There is another word 身, which means more directly "body" because it is a pictogram of a person 
, with stomach and legs. 身 is definitely more "human" and less abstract than 體. The reasons why I think 體 originally meant form is the fact that it is coupled with . So I feel that there is an element of animal sacrifice. In these ceremonies, I'm sure that the shape of the particular animal was important for the ritual. The way in which the animal was sacrificed was probably also significant. Because of these ritualistic connotations in this word, I feel that it is more abstract than 身 is.
That gives us a little background into the traditional form of the word, but what about the simplified? Let's look at 体. It can be broken into left and right. The left part is a person, as mentioned above when describing the word 休 (xiū), meaning rest. The right side is 本 (běn), which means root, source, origin. 
is a pictogram of a tree with roots. You can probably see it better in this one: 
. So the new version of body can be interpreted as "the source or root of the person". What makes a person a person? His or her physical body. The new character is not only easier to write and remember, but it also breaks from the "feudal" and "superstitious" past. It's interesting that the meaning of the word hasn't really changed, but through the simplification, it was ripped from its cultural past and redefined in modern context.
the meaning of anger
i started a chinese etymology blog about 2 years ago. today, i finally imported the posts to this website. so check it out if you're interested. you'll find it in the category section.
here's another word i want to talk about. it's the word anger: 怒 (nù). this word can be broken down without looking at the ancient scripts.
it's broken by top and bottom, and then from the top part, left and right.
怒, nù
---奴, nú
-----女, nǘ
-----又, yòu
---心, xīn
奴 (nú), the top part means slave. it's interesting to see the character choices for slave. it's broken up into left and right components. 女 (nǘ), means woman. 又 (yòu), means hand, (explain here). A hand holding a woman, that was the idea of a slave in ancient china.
怒 (nù), has the character for heart, 心 (xīn) in the bottom. 心 (xīn), literally means heart, but it is often times used to mean emotions. 怒 (nù) is ultimately a pictogram describing, "the feelings of a slave."
anger is a very powerful emotion. it's eruptive, destructive and ugly. but in chinese society, outward expression of emotion is looked down upon. any kind of outward expression is a sign of weakness or lack of control. so one could ask, why is the word for anger associated with the "feelings of a slave?" first off, i'm sure that slaves felt anger often. but it's also interesting to note that the heart is on the bottom, not on the left or in another position. it can be further interpreted as slavery weighing down on the heart, crushing it, leaving nothing but anger.
second, slaves were in a different social strata. this might have allowed them to express their emotions more freely, because they were not governed by the "proper" behavioral standards.
also, there is the question of "why women?" i suppose in ancient societies, after a war, the men were killed and the women were taken in. they became the first slaves.
the ancient chinese associated anger with slaves. what do you associate with anger? if you were to write a symbol for anger, what would you draw?