Washington DC revisited

Last time when the family visited Washington DC was over a decade ago. While the history of America only aged a little since, there have been some new additions and several exhibits that we had not visited before, not to mention the excitement and constructions for the impending inauguration of President Barrack Obama. During the X’mas vacation, the family decided to pay another visit to DC and below is some of my observations.

National WWII Memorial: it was dedicated in Aug 2004 and sits right between the Reflection Pool and the Washington Monument on the East-West axis defined by the Capitol and Lincoln Memorial pf National Mall. It is ugly, unimaginative and pompous. Only thing it does is to take away the beautiful green open space and replaced it with concrete Roman ruin like columns, completed with wreaths. Fortunately, it is short enough and far enough from the Reflection Pool that if you stand on top of the staircase of Lincoln memorial, it would not ruin the reflection of Washington Monument.

Korean War Veterans Memorial: US Congress did not declare war of this 3 years 1950-1953 armed conflicts in Korea Peninsula although by all accounts, the state of war did exist. This memorial was dedicated in July 1995 in honor of those who fought the war including over 60,000 died and MIA (Missing in Action). The center piece consists of 19 larger than life-size stainless steel statues of soldiers silently on patrol in a rugged terrain (see the photo on the right).

What is often overlooked is that there were also estimated almost 2 million Koreans (North and South) and half a million Chinese who lost their lives in that war, not including associated family and social destruction. All in all, it was clearly a proxy war at the dawn of the Cold War right after WWII ended. Many human tragedies and casualties are resulted. For some reasons, I have not come across too many western films and arts that address or motivated by Korean War. There have been however some good works from east (culturally). The 2004 novel War Trash by the award winning Chinese American author Ha Jin 哈金 depicts the war through the eyes and thoughts of a captured Chinese army clerical officer. There is also a well-made Korean TV history drama Seoul 1945 by KBS in the 2006 season. It explores the history through the tragic lives and intertwined paths of several young people and their families who were caught up in the proxy war and politics that they could not possibly foresee or change.

There is a black granite wall with sandblasted figures on the southern border of the Korean War Veterans Memorial that echoes the serenate Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall built earlier on the north side of the National Mall. It was dedicated in Nov 1982 and I never got bored of listening to the stories of how the 21 years old Chinese American Yale architecture student Maya Ying Lin 林瓔 won the open blind competition, the ensuing controversy and how she defended her design in front of US congress; and most of all, how she conceived such an incredible work that broke away from the traditional war memorials and touched so many hears and souls. With it, she healed the wounds, delivered the calm and closure through this simple V-shape black reflecting granite in an otherwise overwhelming political theater and crowd. She had done it without a single gun or figure or uniform or medal or rank or name of military unit. Rather, a full circle of 58,253 names of dead soldiers and MIA engraved in chronological order (1959-1975) absorbs and connects with the visitors and mourners through the reflecting wall as if you had become a part of deceased’s world. Without a doubt this is the most beautiful architecture work among numerous monuments in DC and the world. It is the only war memorial I know of that attracted millions of people not because of the glory and grandness of the cold stones but the humility and the lives connected to it.

Of course, Vietnam War was another major proxy war of the Cold War. With more advanced weapons, it took 3-4 millions Vietnamese lives, not counting additional millions of Laos and Cambodians. A little different from the Korean War, it was authorized by US Congress but was never declared officially as a war either. Unlike Korean War however, it has drawn huge debates and confrontations, and produced profound impacts on social, political, and cultural fabric of US.

On south side of the National Mall behind trees and hills, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial was dedicated in May 1997 with 4 outdoor rooms of sculptures tracing through his historical 3+ terms of presidency from Great Depression to Post WWII. One dramatic sculpture in the first room is George Segal’s Depression Bread Line (see photo on right). The second copy (1999) of this sculpture can be found in Grounds for Sculpture garden in New Jersey that I will talk about later in this blog.

Instead of revisiting the popular National Air and Space Museum on National Mall, we drove to its companion Steven Udvar-Hazy Center near Washington Dulles International Airport, west of DC. With its large hangars, the center houses a few impressive large aerospace vehicles in history, among others. They include a Concord, the only supersonic commercial passenger aircraft (that ceased to operate in 2003), a SR-71 Blackbird “spy” plane which is the fastest jet ever (at Mach 3+ or 2,200+ miles/hour) and ceased to operate in 1998, and the Space Shuttle Enterprise, the first Space Shuttle built for test flights in atmosphere only. Facing those beautiful shapes of flying objects and enormous engines and power, one can only be wowed by the decades of smarts and technologies that had gone into the designs and tests, starting from some concept and dreams. In contrast, quietly sitting at one end of a hangar, you will find the famous Enola Gay, the B-29 Superfortress bomber that dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, on Aug 6, 1945 that hastened the end of WWII in Pacific. 60+ years later, with the continuing controversy and debate of the use of atomic bombs, the display only highlights the technical data and briefly states the plane was used to drop the first bomb - no discussions and no fanfares.

The last morning before we headed home, we walked a few blocks from our hotel near DuPont Circle to visit Phillips Collection, the first Modern Arts museum of America, opened in 1921. It has wonderful collections of impressionists’ work and contemporary arts in galleries and cozy family rooms of its founder Duncan Phillips. Of course, every visitor will not miss its most famous collection – Renoir’s Luncheon of the Boating Party. Duncan Phillips, at age 27, acquired it for $125,000 in summer of 1923, the highest price ever paid for modern arts painting at the time. By the way his fortune mostly came from his grandfather’s Pittsburgh steel mills business.

180 miles north in New Jersey, American Sculptor Seward Johnson, the grandson of Robert Wood Johnson I, founder of the Johnson & Johnson Corporation (at a market cap of almost $200 Billion dollars), had set up a beautiful sculpture garden in 1993 called Grounds for Sculpture, 40 minutes from our house. Seward Johnson is famous for his trompe l’oeil painted cast bronze sculptures, some of which are displayed at the garden. Among them, you will find his creation of Renoir’s very painting of Luncheon of the Boating Party. It is interesting to see the painting and the sculpture side by side below. The garden is close to the main highways connecting NYC, Philadelphia and Washington DC that makes it a perfect stop-over for arts enthusiasts.

We had a wonderful family vacation in Washington DC. We wish you Happy New Year. Talk to you soon!

The Longest Night

Last night was the longest night of the year; did you notice it? Yesterday was the winter solstice 冬至 when northern hemisphere receives the least sunlight. A popular Chinese custom to get you through the long night is to have family together to have ball shape dumplings 湯圓 made of sweet rice flour with various kinds of filling. Although it is much harder to do so nowadays, luckily Christmas will be upon us in a few days after winter solstice when most people do have time off to be together. Better yet, these dumplings are available year-round from Chinese stores, thanks to the modern food preservation and transportation methods.

Don’t recall exactly when it started, but the greeting “Merry Christmas” has often been replaced by the more politically correct greeting of “Happy Holidays”. The problem is I have had a hard time to name specific holidays other than Christmas and New Year. How many major religious holidays are there around this time of the year anyway?

The most popular one is of course Christmas on December 25^th of the Gregorian calendar. This shouldn’t surprise anyone since over 75% of the population in U.S. consider themselves Christians to begin with. For those who don’t concern themselves with the history of it, it suffices to know that the day was meant to honor and celebrate the birth of Jesus of Nazareth or Jesus Christ (the word Christmas itself comes from Latin that means “the Mass of Christ”). For those who are more curious, I like Issac Newton’s suggestion that the choice of the Dec 25th date was meant to tag it to the winter solstice that seems to be consistent with the early beliefs of the connection of birth of Jesus to the “rebirth of sun” (for northern hemisphere!).

Anyhow, over the centuries with many twists and turns in the interactions of social, political and religious forces and circumstances, Christmas has evolved to become the most prominent holiday in the Christian-dominated world. However, it would not have been as popular if it were limited to be a religious event. The blurring of those boundaries and incorporation of secular and pagan’s customs in observance such as the myth of Santa Clause allows it to become popular and accepted by many countries in modern world today. Further, with its gift-giving custom, it has become tightly knitted with our economic fabric and “Christmas Shopping Season” is critical for practically all consumers and merchants, Christians or not.

When we first moved to New Jersey in 1979, we noticed near Christmas day, windows of some of our neighbors displayed a special candelabrum of nine-branched Menorah. We later learned that it is used by Jewish for the eight-night observation of Hanukkah (from the Hebrew word for “dedication”), the Festival of Lights. The celebration, from sunset to sunset, starts on the 25^th of Kislev, the ninth month of the ecclesiastical year on the Hebrew Calendar. It is for the commemoration of the rededication of The Second Temple in Jerusalem of the successful Maccabees rebellion against king Antiochus IV Epiphanes of the Hellenistic Seleucid Empire in 2^nd BCE. According to the legend, the Temple was purified and the wicks of the menorah miraculously burned for eight days, even though there was only enough sacred oil for one day's lighting. Thus the observation and ritual includes the kindling of one light at the nightfall of each of the 8 nights and a series of family and communal rituals are performed.

Unlike Christmas, Hannkkah remains a religious/cultural holiday and is now one of the most significant symbol of Jewish identity. Interestingly, the tradition includes giving Hanukkah gelt (Yiddish for "money") to children. I was told however many families nowadays give gifts as well, responding to the “peer pressure” from the popular Christmas gift giving custom.

For Islam, since Islamic Calendar is a pure lunar calendar that is not synchronized with the solar calendars (most lunar calendars are actually Lunisolar calendars), it is not possible to identify religious holidays that always take place around this time of the year. It so happens that for 2008, one of the most important Islamic holidays had just taken place. It is the Eid ul-Adha, Festival of Sacrifice, celebrated by Muslims worldwide to commemorate the willingness of Ibrahim or Abraham to sacrifice his son for Allah, the Arabic term for God. It is on the 10^th day of Dhu al-Hijja, the twelfth and final month in the Islamic Calendar and the festivals last for three or more days depending on countries. The festival marks the end of the Pilgrimage or Hajj to Mecca each year for the millions of Muslims. People dressed in their finest clothing go to mosques to pray. Those who can afford sacrifice their best domestic animals and give large portion of the meat to the poor. The remainder is then shared with family and relatives.

All three religions above - Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are monotheistic and closely related. They all revere Abraham in the Book of Genesis as the founding patriarch and thus referred to Abrahamic religions by scholars. They diverge on biblical interpretations and beliefs was further complicated by many issues including the contention for the land of Canaan. The result is more than one thousand years of conflicts and wars in many regions without clear resolution in sight. Almost two thousand years ago in China, Cao Zhi曹植 wrote the following famous poem within the 7 paces deadline that his King brother Cao Pi曹丕 gave him and escaped the execution: 煮豆燃豆萁，豆在釜中泣。本是同根生，相煎何太急。 It says essentially “We both come from the same root. Why are you then after me so much?”

Yes, we are all brothers of the same root. Why are some of us so eager to harm each other?

Happy Holidays and Peace!

Martyr or Corrupted Politician

7 months after the former president (2000-2008) of Republic of China (Taiwan) Chen Shui-Bian 陳水扁 (aka A-Bian) left the office, the trial phase of the first criminal case against him has begun. On Dec 12^th, government prosecutors indicted him along with his wife, son and daughter-in-law, and ten relatives and formal aides on charges of graft, money laundering, embezzlement and forgery. Early morning of Dec 13^th, he was released without bail by the Taipei district court on his own recognizance, ending the 30-day drama of his detention by prosecutors since Nov. 12^th.

At age 58, Chen Shui-Bian has accomplished a lot and could have left his office with his legacy in the history of democratization of Taiwan. He was born and grew up in extreme poverty but excelled academically. He attended the best schools of the island and obtained a degree in bachelor of laws from the prestige National Taiwan University. He became involved in politics at age 30 as a young lawyer when he represented and defended the "The KaoHsiung Eight" in a military court (Taiwan was still under martial law then) in 1980. These clients of his were the most prominent opposition leaders and co-organizers of the Formosa Incident, the landmark demonstration by oppositions in the largest southern city KaoHsiung.

Since then, he participated in and fought his ways through elections to serve at various capacities in local and national government and was the celebrated mayor of the capital city Taipei from 1994 to 1998 when he demonstrated convincingly his governing ability and integrity. He was a rising political star unlike other opposition party politicians who often were entrenched in party and petty politics. He was pragmatic and moderate in ideology. Promising reforms to the government, he was elected to presidency in 2000 with 39% popular votes in a three way race when the ruling KMT (nationalist party) of 55 years split into two contending camps. Four years later, he was reelected for his 2^nd term with a 0.2% margin.

Chen Shui-Bian is a shrewd politician. During his 8 years in office, with lack of mandate from both elections and minority position in congress, he often resorted to rhetoric of Taiwan Independence and acts of Taiwanization during his presidency that are designed to pit citizens against each other by ethnic origin or ideology. While I do not agree with many of his positions, I would like to believe he was driven for a legacy that his autobiography called “The Son of Taiwan”. I would postulate that he had made a conscious choice after he lost his reelection bid of Mayer of Taipei and began to walk down a different path of “end justifies the means”. He must have recognized long ago that for a young politician like him and a new party like DPP (Democratic Progressive Party) to contend with the incumbent KMT’s machinery, he needs significant financial resources. Indeed, by leveraging the power of his presidential office, he and his wife have managed to amass a significant amount of “contributions” at their disposal in short eight years. Whether he will be found guilty by the court as charged, his legacy has already been severely tainted in the court of public opinion. It is a sad day for him and for people of Taiwan.

Corruption of some public officials is nothing new in practically every country including U.S. as evident from historical records and the most recent charge against the Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich. This is not to excuse anyone in any government who violated the trust of people including Chen Shui-Bian. We should however take a step back for a moment and examine the issue in a larger social-political and historical context. It is a fact that not until 1991, the opposition DPP was allowed to register and operate legally in Taiwan. It is also a fact that since the end of WWII when Rep of China reclaimed Taiwan from Japan, Taiwan was ruled under the Chiang Kai-Shek’s KMT who monopolized the resources to the extent that the designation of the nation’s vs. Party’s assets was sometimes arbitrary. There is no doubt that the initial growth and success of DPP came mainly from cumulated dis-satisfaction of some to single party rule and the conviction of opposition leaders and their supporters.

Unfortunately, no democratic system is ideal. As each country develops and evolves its own system and rules of game, a fundamental issue emerges. Elections and campaigns are costly. Where is that money going to be coming from? It is ironic but perhaps not totally surprising that Chen Shui-Bian is now alleged to have committed for the very same corruption and crimes that he and DPP have been accusing KMT of doing.

I am not optimistic that the integrity of Taiwan’s political system will see significant improvement anytime soon. The model and balance of executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the government does not make it easy. Similar to U.S., attempts of reforms and increased transparency in campaign finance and related laws have been met with much resistance by the very legislators who are impacted but needed to pass such laws. The last hope is the will and priority of the people; after all, that is what the ideal of democracy promises us all. Until we draw a line and send a message that we will vote them out for violation of our trust, corrupted politicians will continue to try to “buy” enough votes to stay and abuse their power for their personal gains. We have no one else to blame but ourselves; that is the beauty of democracy as well.

Talk to you soon!

My Right Brain

After seven 2-hour sessions of oil painting workshops with Grace Graupe-Pillard, I managed to complete my first-ever oil painting of a still life. The thoughts and the memory of my late sister resurface again as I owe much of my interests and appreciation of arts and literature to her. Although she is no longer around for me to share my wonderful experience, I do fell we are even closer now as I attempted something that she did long before. This first oil painting of mine is for her as much as it is for myself.

My sister was 9 years older than I and the eldest child of our family. She passed away 22 years ago of T-cell lymphoma when she was at age 45. The last two times I was with her was 1985 in Taiwan; first when she was diagnosed of cancer and undergoing chemotherapy in the hospital. I can’t remember details of our daily conversations at her bedside or when we strolled down the hospital corridors and courtyards, but the images of her numerous vomits after she was injected with the chemo drugs remain with me till this day. Later in early fall of 1985, I visited her again when she was in remission and resting at home in a more hopeful mood, wearing a white hat to keep her bald scalp warm. She died in the following February.

She has always been the vanguard of her peers and our small family with the thirst to explore the world. Since our childhood, my brother (who is 18 months older than I am) and I were lucky enough that we were introduced by her popular to the world literatures by writers like Alexandre Dumas, Jane Austen, and Charles Dickens. She also brought us to the world of classical music from violin sonatas, symphonies to opera arias by performers like Jascha Heifetz, Berlin Philharmonic, Mario Lanza and Maria Callas. In fact, I don’t recall we had any toys in the house when we grew up other than those shelves of novels and some 78 and later 33 1/3 rpm records. They were our best companions that got us through the boredom of the long summers and bonded us in ways we have never imagined.

She started working right after graduating from a vocational high school but never gave up her interest and dreams in arts. She commuted to the nearby city to take private water color painting lessons after work. When I was in high school, she transferred to an office in capital city Taipei and got admitted to the Night School of the then National Taiwan College of Arts where she pursued western fine arts primarily in oil painting. Back home, soon rooms of our small house became her gallery with her lively work. Once I entered the university and moved to the same city, she would show me those beautiful, heavy, and colorful books of masterpieces and take me to museums from time to time. After receiving her college degree and marrying a classmate of hers, she suspended her art work, stayed on with her full time government accounting job and raised two children.

Sis, I never got around to tell you how much I loved you and appreciated you opened my eyes and mind to arts and literature. Now I have more time to work my right brain, but you are no longer around to talk with me and see my work. Sis, please visit me soon in my dreams as you did sometimes. I miss you very very much.