心雅轩

今天从网上看到新闻说湖北经适房摇出14连号，具体就是从1138人中摇出514名购房者，其中出现了14名连号的，武汉某大学的教授算出的结果大概是百分之一点多，在概率论上并不属于小概率事件，然后网上某些论坛就是一片骂声，如果说骂得言之有理那还罢了，很多千奇百怪的计算公式都冒了出来，有些拿着自己算出的错的离谱的结果振振有词的大骂，实在有点看不下去了。

其实这是一道并不算复杂的概率题，在1到1138个数字中抽出514人且至少有一个14连号（包括超过14连号）的概率是，1125*combin(1124，500)/combin(1138, 514)，结果大约是1.5%。

我在这并不是要为政府或者专家教授辩护，1.5%的概率看来的确不大，但还并不能属于很小的概率，至于网上那些个算出几亿分之一  几十亿分之一的，只能是让人哭笑不得。

批评 监督政府是必需的，但是没有个solid的argument而只是自己的胡思乱想的话，那就只会让人感到可笑，让被批评的人有口实来反驳。 再联想到最近杭州“胡斌案”传出的替身的说法，更让人感到有些可悲，一方面是为政府公信力的丧失，另一方面是为网上不负责任肆意捏造的帖子以及那么多”打酱油”的围观群众对此还深信不疑，难道真的是they just wanna believe what they believe吗？我现在对“谣言止于智者”这句话越来越没有信心了，网络上很多事情分明就是“谎言重复了一千遍就是真理”。

建议大家有空读读

My Han Relatives’ View From Xinjiang

Yan Sun, a native of Sichuan, has lived in the United States since 1985 and
been a professor of political science at the City University of New York
since 1992. She has also written “A Sichuan Family and Tibet’s Future.”


After arriving at the home of my parents in Chongqing on July 7, I asked my
mother how many relatives we still had in Xinjiang and how they were doing
lately. Ten families of close relatives, she said, and several more distant
ones. Some were born and raised in Xinjiang, but the majority migrated there
in the 1960s and 1970s from the Sichuan countryside. The sole reason was to
get out of the poor farmland and have a chance at becoming urban residents.
They were introduced to Xinjiang by an aunt who was assigned there in the
1950s but had managed to bring her family back to Sichuan in the 1980s.

My relatives mostly see “outside forces” as the main reason for the latest
as well as other riots in Xinjiang in recent years.
I scrambled to reach some of them by phone and talk to them candidly about
the issues that are often cited in the Western media as responsible for
growing ethnic divide and tensions between the Uighur and Han Chinese. Some
of my cited reasons took them by surprise; others made them laugh. With
their decades of life and work in an austere region, I have little reason to
dispute them. As a social scientist, it is fascinating for me to learn
about their perspective on the deeper roots of the recent riots. After all,
they were supposed to be the very source and targets of local grievance.

Without any need to repeat government accounts to me, my relatives mostly
see “outside forces” as the main reason for the latest as well as other
riots in Xinjiang in recent years. Citing long-term good friendship with
local Muslims, they are hard-pressed to think of divisions serious enough to
cause deadly riots. Rather, they claim to have seen outside influences at
work from their own experience, e.g., money for underground mosques where
mullahs engage in inciting rhetoric, for “terrorist groups” that make
explosives and bombs, or for restless Muslim youths who stage trouble on the
streets. They also see a pattern of Uighur separatist forces imitating the
tactics of Tibetan exiles, namely, phrasing issues in terms that appeal to
Western sensibilities, such as religious freedom, cultural and linguistic
preservation, ethnic equality or territorial autonomy.

But aren’t there problems in these areas? My relatives were unanimous in
their view that state policies are already tilted in favor of local ethnics.
Freedom of religion? My relatives see the state restrictions are
justifiable: no mosques for those under 18 because they are not mature
enough to have good judgment, and no mosque attendance for those holding
government jobs. The state does send an (Uighur) official as a liaison with
the mosques on a weekly basis, but again this is seen as justifiable since
the state funds helped with their construction and to pay the mullahs’
salaries. Why not let them fund on their own? The answer is that outside
religious forces would otherwise fund them. Having read about how foreign-
financed madrassahs spring up and spread in western Pakistan, I am hard-
pressed to pass judgment here.

How about the imposition of Chinese language instruction in schools? This
was news to my relatives. They grew up attending separate schools from their
Uighur peers, where different languages were used in instruction. Some
Uighurs chose to attend Han Chinese schools for career benefits. Only since
2005 has bilingual education been introduced in public schools in Xinjiang.
Most technical colleges use Chinese in instruction, because of available
resources, while colleges for ethnic nationalities instruct in minority
languages. Rather than seeing bilingual education as forced assimilation, my
relatives see it as a good skill to have in the job market, because many
modern-sector jobs will involve interaction with Han Chinese in and out of
Xinjiang. For their part, my Xinjiang cousins speak enough Uighur to
communicate with Uighurs on a daily basis, and tell me that they live more
like Uighurs than Han Chinese, enjoying mutton more than pork.

What about widened income gaps between Han Chinese and Uighur Muslims in the
market economy? My relatives cite different attitudes toward education,
achievement and life. This is where some “racist” assessments may be found
, if they may be so-called: nomadic traditions do not value sending kids to
schools, but rather roaming around or bathing in the sun; nor do they
prioritize professional and material pursuits like the Han Chinese, or hard
work or long-term planning for this world, but rather satisfaction in the
spiritual world, etc. These are the contrasts I have learned in Western
social sciences — conflicts between pre-modern and modern values, religious
and secular cultures, or an achievement and non-achievement ethic. So it is
hard for me to pass judgment here as well except to urge Han Chinese to
loosen up and enjoy life a little as our ethnic brothers do.

What about the squeezing of Uighurs in their own native land by growing Han
presence? Is that occupation or colonialism? These lines usually shocked my
relatives. One aunt, a college professor who spent three decades in Khotan
of southern Xinjiang, gave me a history lesson about how Xinjiang came under
Chinese control in the Han Dynasty in the 200s B.C. and remained so on and
off till the Manchu Dynasty finally consolidated Chinese rule in the 1770s.
Xinjiang was loose whenever China was weak internally and its rulers were
preoccupied elsewhere.

But successive rulers always reasserted control and sovereignty. Another
aunt who had lived in a Tibetan region called the Chinese nation a melting
pot of different ethnic groups over millenniums. Citing our own ancestors
who had migrated to Sichuan generations back, my mother recalls her
grandmother as one with white skin and yellow hair, possible of Turkic
origin herself from western China.

Are there government policies on minority regions responsible for increasing
ethnic tensions? Surprisingly (or not so surprisingly for someone familiar
with America’s ethnic politics), some of my relatives fault the government
’s preferential policies for helping to enhance ethnic identity and
entitlement for minorities. Uighurs with disciplinary problems or criminal
offenses are treated leniently, they say. In matters of employment,
appointment and promotion in the public sector, Uighurs may be preferred
over (perceived) more qualified Han candidates. “Reverse discrimination”
in college admissions and population policies are other areas of Han
complaints. While Han Chinese can have only one child, Uighurs receive
honorary and monetary rewards for stopping at three, along with yearly
bonuses. Whether legitimate or not, such complaints make it difficult for
Han Chinese to appreciate Uighur grievances.

Do they think the World Uighur Congress and its exiled leader, Rebiya Radeer
, were behind the recent riots? My older relatives from Xinjiang recalled
Soviet instigations of Uighur separatism in the 30s and during the cold war,
so they said they would not be surprised by any outside support for the W.U
.C. or Radeer. Younger relatives point to the U.S. — not the U.S. per se
but to the exploitation of U.S. apprehension over anything Beijing does and
of U.S. sympathies for any group that Beijing opposes. The real point of
staging riots inside China, they assert, is that they enable the exiled
groups to survive and thrive. So they expect such riots for years to come.

天下事有难易乎？为之，则难者亦易矣；不为，则易者亦难矣。人之为学有难易乎？学之，则难者亦易矣；不学，则易者亦难矣。 

　　吾资之昏，不逮人也，吾材之庸，不逮人也；旦旦而学之，久而不怠焉，迄乎成，而亦不知其昏与庸也。吾资之聪，倍人也，吾材之敏，倍人也；屏弃而不用，其与昏与庸无以异也。圣人之道，卒于鲁也传之。然则昏庸聪敏之用，岂有常哉！ 

　　蜀之鄙，有二僧：其一贫，其一富。贫者语于富者曰："吾欲之南海，何如？"富者曰："子何恃而往？"曰："吾一瓶一钵足矣。"富者曰："吾数年来欲买 舟而下，犹未能也。子何恃而往！"越明年，贫者自南海还，以告富者，富者有惭色。西蜀之去南海，不知几千里也，僧富者不能至，而贫者至之，人之立志，顾不 如蜀鄙之僧哉！ 

　　是故聪与敏，可恃而不可恃也；自恃其聪与敏而不学者，自败者也。昏与庸，可限而不可限也；不自限其昏与庸而力学不倦者，自力者也。

1月4日  多云转阴

老天总算给面子，虽然不是个晴天，但也没像昨天那样瓢泼大雨。

亚特兰大的路挺不错，环城高速很新，好像是单向6车道，比很多美国大城市的都要宽，我想大概是由于96年奥运会的缘故。说到奥运会，亚特兰大的奥林匹克公园可真够烂的，没人提醒的话我都没看出来这是个奥林匹克公园。

奥林匹克之父——顾拜旦



围绕着奥林匹克公园集中了亚特兰大的几个著名旅游景点：CNN的总部，世界上最大的水族馆，以及可口可乐世界。

CNN的大门口


去年的一年，我们都见识了包括CNN在内的西方媒体所谓的"新闻自由“和”公正“，当CNN的某位评论员说中国人是”goons and thugs"的时候，我们无法保持沉默：


CNN内部



世界最大的水族馆


水族馆里拍的照片太多了，只好随便挑个几张了




这个是鲸鲨，最大的鲨鱼



海马

海龙


白鲸，镇馆之宝


这个是赫赫有名的“食人鱼”


出口处可爱的卡通形象


从水族馆出来，因为时间关系，来不及去world of coca-cola了，同行的女生们是《飘》(gone with the wind)的忠实fans，而亚特兰大就有当年作者Margaret Mitchell的故居，确切的说，是作者当时租了那里的一间小屋子在里边写成了令无数人着迷的《飘》, 而根据小说改编的同名电影《乱世佳人》更是好莱坞历史上不朽的经典。


作者本人也称得上是美女了

今天一个朋友离开了屯里, 不知何时再能相见了, 由此想到了杜甫的一首诗:

赠卫八处士---- 杜甫

人生不相见，动如参与商。
今夕复何夕，共此灯烛光。
少壮能几时，鬓发各已苍。
访旧半为鬼，惊呼热中肠。
焉知二十载，重上君子堂。
昔别君未婚，儿女忽成行。
怡然敬父执，问我来何方。
问答乃未已，驱儿罗酒浆。
夜雨剪春韭，新炊间黄粱。
主称会面难，一举累十觞。
十觞亦不醉，感子故意长。
明日隔山岳，世事两茫茫。

1月3日  阴转暴雨

在新奥尔良北部有个很大的湖，叫做Lake Pontchartrain, 湖上有座桥横跨南北，称为Lake Pontchartrain Causeway, 总长38.42公里，是世界上水面部分最长的桥。早上我们离开新奥尔良的时候，特意绕路去开了这座桥。这天湖面上满是大雾，能见度很差，只能以30迈的时速开着，桥边上时不时的能看到海鸥滑翔而过。

开了将近一个小时，穿过了大桥，就正式往亚特兰大奔去了。一路上没什么风景，倒是大雨一阵阵的，有很长一段路上甚至是暴雨，雨刷基本上没啥用了，几乎看不见路，高速上的车子都只能开着应急灯以不到40迈的速度龟行着，有些车干脆就躲在路肩上歇着了。就这样，本来只需要6个多小时的路开了差不多10个小时才到了亚特兰大。

1月2日，多云，温度挺高。

新年第二天，经过了一晚上的修整，劳累顿去，好的休息对长途旅游来说真的是至关重要。

由于历史原因，新奥尔良深受法国文化的影响，市中心著名的旅游景点French Quarter弥漫着法国风情，而我们今天的目的地正是此地。French Quarter中基本上都是横七竖八的小路，街道两旁到处是酒吧与餐馆，由于今天是Sugar Bowl的比赛日，从Utah和Alabama赶来的球迷们充斥了了整个French Quarter，每个酒吧与餐厅门口都排满了长队，街上到处是穿着印有自己支持球队名字T-shirt的球迷，而我们自然也是见人说人话，见鬼说鬼话了，碰到utah的球迷，大喊"go Utah"，碰到alabama的球迷，自然要说"go alabama"了。别看French Quater不大，可逛的地方可一点不少，我们花了整整4个小时的时间也只是走马观花了一把。

金人


银人


马车


制作雪茄的大叔，据说是雪茄不离口


这是街上胖到的最吸引人的一对艺人，特别是黑大妈，乐器和演唱都是一流，且赚钱速度一样强大，据我友观察，收钱速度为每分钟2刀，前边放的桶都是用来收钱的。


这大概是街上最欢快的一群艺人，弹欢快的曲，跳轻松的舞


French Market中到处充斥着廉价的小商品，颇像国内的小商品市场


密西西比河畔


傍晚的St. Louis大教堂



后记: 是夜，我与老陈慕名而去当地一家从1840年就开始营业 颇负盛名的法国餐馆吃了一顿法国菜。可惜我的中国胃算是万年难改了，怎么吃都没吃出来好吃，个别菜甚至有难以下咽的感觉，如果对面是位窈窕淑女，大概还能见色而忘味，可惜却坐着很有吨位的老陈，唉，煞风景啊煞风景。