新浪网友2010-10-09 12:27:27The rough translation from Chinese is:
问：有没有中国人获得诺贝尔奖？
答：有，但他们都拿着外国国籍。
问：有没有中国公民获得过诺贝尔奖？
答：有，但他们都是中华民国的公民。
问：有没有新中国的公民获得过诺贝尔奖？
答：有，但他不承认自己是中国公民。
问：有没有承认自己是中国人的新中国公民获得诺贝尔奖？
答：有，但是我们不承认他是中国公民。
问：有没有自己承认自己是中国公民，国家也承认他是中国公民的新中国公民获得诺贝尔奖？
答：有，但他在监狱里。
with my mobile phone camera, hence quality of images is poor, but hopefully my "angle" of seeing of things can still be felt even despite image quality deficiencies...)
I selected some photos which I took for the past month (i.e. November) in Kyoto, and also in the nearby Ohara and Nara during a few one day excursions. They are mostly of Buddhist temples and temple gardens, but there are also some of Shinto shrines, or of some places or images in Kyoto that impressed me.
These two photos are of (very cute moss covered) stone images of "Jizo", a child image of the Bodhisatva Jizo 地藏菩萨 who out of compassion willingly entered Hell in order to save all sentient beings there...In Japan he is especially associated with saving children, and people often make little Jizo statues such as those as a remembrance for a lost child... 
This is another photo taken on Wednesday at Sanzen In (in Ohara) and at the stone statue at the back is actually a statue of the "grown-up" version of Jizo Bodhisatva... The commission also found that China has launched an effort to influence US think-tanks and academia by rewarding scholars with access and depriving visas to more critical voices.
"It becomes self-censorship. If you're in graduate school and want to become a China scholar, you need to go to China. And if you criticize the Chinese government on certain things, you won't get in," said Bartholomew, a former top aide to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
"What it means is that we have a generation of China analysts who are being created who don't necessarily have the freedom or the ability to think through a broader range of questions," she said.
My current emotional condition is actually really not good. I feel very depressed, disheartened, sad. I lack any motivation to do anything.
After a very improved emotional condition in August, during which I felt full of motivation and ability to be organised and constructively being able to do many things, now I feel completely exhausted even since waking up in the morning and feel completely disheartened...
It is really not good, but I see no way to cope with it, currently that's how it is..
Yesterday afternoon I went to see an exhibition about Ikebana (the Japanese art of flower arrangement) at the Museum of Kyoto in an attempt to go out of my room and do something meaningful. (The exhibition was actually somewhat disappointing.)However, at one point I remembered my first encounter with ikebana which was long time ago. I think I was 10 or 11 then. Our school (as any school in the country at that time) each year had something like a knowledge competition day in which students would prepare for and be a day of competition on very broad fields of knowledge, from science, history to art and culture. Students from various grades and classes will compete in different fields of knowledge participating in various types of competitions in which they would demonstrate their knowledge or skill in the filed of knowledge. It is actually a very interesting paradox about the then education. Although we were heavily politically brainwashed, the education was actually very comprehensive and definitely good, and did not made us culturally ignorant. I remember that among other things I participated in an ikebana competition (I really don't know how ikebana was even a part of the Soviet-style competition), but I remember I won it. Of course I didn't receive any training or instruction on flower arranging, I just used my intuition.
Yesterday, while walking through the museum exhibition I remembered this childhood memory and it really deeply struck me again how deep and long-standing is my connection to Japan and East Asia. And here I am now, having realised my childhood and adolescent dream, due to my melancholy and very low spirits I fail to actually enjoy it and use this great chance creatively and constructively...
Just as the depressed angel in Durer's picture, sitting dejected and melancholy...
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