《大学》

“大学之道，在明明德，在亲民，在止于至善。知止而后有定，定而后能静，静而后能安，安而后能虑，虑而后能得。物有本末，事有终始，知所先后，则近道矣。”

fine-grained crosswire

Love

给树理发

春天来了，万物即将复苏，也是该给树理发的时候了。我不记得我在其它国家看到工人锯掉路两旁的树枝，除非树枝真的影响到交通了。可是在法国这似乎是每年一度开春儿必做的事情。工人们把锯掉的树枝放在搅碎机里，霎时机器的另一端喷出锯末，存在车上，然后被拉走，整个过程干净利落。抬头一看，一排树愣愣的，秃秃的，就剩下几枝粗树杈，傻傻地站在那里。记得刚来到法国的时候还挺为它们担心，不过在看到葱郁的新枝发出来后，就感到它们只不过被理了发。

可能法国人太讲究艺术气息了，随处可见各式各样发型的树。香榭大道，还有皇家庭院，到处是再创作。难道自然本身不是一种艺术吗？［不过我自己也该理发了。］

Art

Saturday morning, opened my eyes, I saw wall, wall, wall, plain walls around me. The good thing about having plain walls is that you can see mosquitoes easily if there is any. Now, it is winter, plain walls  lose their functionality. It would be nice to have some paintings on my wall.

Talking about paintings, it reminds me of my trip to Lake Annecy in 2009. Annecy is a beautiful town with many artists selling their work there. I used to watch some live painting for a hour struggling with whether I should buy one or not. The painting was beautiful, but after knowing how it was done, which seemed to be easy, the desire of buying one gradually disappeared. Of course, it also costs money.

Like many other children, I did some paintings when I was young. Parents were very happy to use them to decorate their house. Maybe it is time to do some paintings myself and hang them on my wall. I am in Paris!

Life is short -- only a few decades left. Once having a good idea, should carry it out immediately. So I shopped as an artist and bought many things: 12 pencils scaling from 6B to 5H, 12 colours for water painting, 2 painting brushes, 1 protractor, 1 triangle ruler, 1 normal ruler, 1 drawing board, 1 small drawing stand and many drawing papers for different purposes.

Since I have got myself well-equipped, I have no execuse not to start. So I spent the whole Sunday creating some art, from pencil sketching to water colour painting. Out of three pierces of work I did, only one is presentable. Not sure which part of muscles artists use for painting, my whole body starts to feel painful. Nothing is easy!

No pain, no gain. Overall, the experience is good. Not sure colours stimulate creativity or not, but they do relax my mind and motivate me to continue.

Warmth and Peace

When do you feel warmth and peace? When I see my grandma doing some sewing, I feel warmth. When I see my mother doing some reading, I feel peace.

Durian

Durian is a delicious tropical fruit with a distinct smell. Last month, I had a trip to Singapore. On my way back, I bought some durian chocolate at airport planning to share with my colleagues in France. Even if each chocolate ball is a small piece of dried durian wrapped with a layer of white chocolate followed by a layer of dark chocolate, you can still sense the durian smell after opening the packing.

Colleagues, who tried durian before, thanked me for the chocolate. Colleagues, who have never tried durian, either refused to try because of the smell or tried it and felt regret. I understand all their feelings as I remember that it used to take me at least half a year from disliking it to accepting it, enjoying it and loving it. My colleagues' reaction again justifies the saying, "Durian is a fruit that you may not like it initially, but the more you eat it, the more you like it".

Many things in life are like trying durian: before dawn, it is darkness; before spring, it is winter. So, if someone offers you durian next time, try it!

Trip to fairyland

I had a chateau-trip to Blois, Chambord and Cheverny last weekend. My main destination is Chambord, which is the most beautiful architecture in France in my eyes. Nowadays, with the google map, giving you the name of the place is enough, pictures worth thousands of words.

To have a relaxed trip, I chose to stay at Blois over night. In the evening, before sunset, I joined a horse carriage tour. It is quite a big carriage with about 15 seats, driven by two beautiful white horses. I sat on the first row waiting for the rest of the tourists to join. Suddenly, I saw one horse kissed the other. [You might ask, are you sure that was a kiss? Dana: Yes. I am sure.] Aha! One is taller than the other and the smaller one looks more gentle. They must be one female and one male. I looked around. There were four such carraiges and each was driven by two horses that one is taller than the other -- four couples. In the past, when a horse carriage was a main form of transport, a good horse carriage used two horses of the same height to achieve speed and better balancing. Now, these factors are not so important to tourists and I am happy that they take care of horses' welfare. It makes the carriage tour more romantic.

Trip started, we passed by ancient buildings, river and bridge; rode on ancient lanes as well as modern streets. When I was capturing these beautiful moments, the carriage stopped. I looked at the front. Oh, it was because of the red traffic light, [Yes. Horses also follow traffic light.], which took me from the fairyland back to the reality.

After my chateau-trip, my first feeling is that I do not want to live in any of them as it does not seem to be a place that gives you much privacy. But it is quite pleasant to walk in the royal gardens being companied by these nice architectures. My second feeling is that my French seems improving. Although I only know a few sentences, it seems that they are good enough for me to travel around in France. Local people are quite happy to meet a Chinese tourist speaking some French. Some of them also speak some Chinese back to me, quite a friendly atmosphere in general. My third feeling is ...  Must I have the third feeling? Maybe not.  

New dictionary

If a man tells a woman "this is good for you, that is bad for you", it is called caring.

If a woman tells a man "this is good for you, that is bad for you", it is called nagging.

If a husband tells his wife "don't come back too late", it is called concerning.

If a wife tells her husband "don't come back too late", it is called controlling.

Spider

Today, I met my neighbour "Spider" in my room. As my window was open, the spider wrongly assumed that it was welcomed. I was shocked and also a bit scared when I saw it because it is so big -- as big as half of my palm.

People always judge other people or creatures by their look. For example, when you see a small rabbit, you may think that it is cute and lovely even if it is known that rabbits are tricky animals. For another example, when you see a lion, you may think that it is violent and cruel, but lions have good family values among animals. 

Although I know that judging the spider by its look is unfair to it, I had to invite it out by catching it in a plastic bag and then put it outside. On my balcony, I found that the spider net had been destroyed by the rain. So au revoir, my spider.

Spider net

Today, I found a spider net on my balcony. It is only visible when you face a tree and look up. No wonder I have never noticed it through my window. The net is very thin and looks quite new as there is no dust on it. For many people, spider nets indicate that the place has not been cleaned for long time and the first cleaning job is to remove it. But I did not. If spiders catch mosquitos, they should be my friends. So why not let them be my neighbours. 

Human beings always talk about being equal, talk about animal rights, etc. But it is very hard to achieve. I personally like spiders more than mosquitos so bon appetit to spiders.    

Personality determines forture

Motto in Texas

I visited a friend in Texas in the southern U.S. two years ago. In her house, I saw a motto:

Work as if you do not need money;

dance as if nobody is watching;

love as if you have never been hurt.

She told me that it is quite a popular local motto. Yes. From the motto, I can smell the care-free air in Texas.

Manners

I have had such a dream for a number of times:

"It was a luxurious buffet. I saw a lot of food I like. But we had to wait for the rest of the guests to arrive before we could start. I stared at the food and waited and then woke up."

Each time I woke up like this, I blamed myself, "It is in a dream. It is safe to do whatever I like as there won't be any consequence to face. Why care about manners. Just go ahead and eat. Don't be silly next time." But each time, I was still unwillingly waiting in my dream. I think sometimes people care too much about their manners than what they really want.

Yes. I just had such a dream last night.

Housework

When I was very young and lived with my parents, I always heard working women complaining about the burden of doing housework. So each time my dad asked me to either study or do housework, I chose to study because it seemed to be a much easier and less boring task. Although I did not do much housework at home, at that time in China, students were supposed to take turn to clean classroom themselves. So I did some cleaning in school before.

When I live oversea, I have to do some housework myself. To my surprise, maybe more advanced cleaning facilities and detergent have emerged, doing housework seems to be a very easy task. It turns out to be a great pleasure to see the kitchen and bathroom shine in few minutes.

What motivated me to write today's blog? I just realised that I could be a plumber as well -- unblocking the blocked basin and bathtub in few seconds. Well, I think everybody can do that. Only the person, who did it for the first time, feels so proud of herself.

回家吃饭

过年了，真想回家吃饭！

小的时候，每次做饭前，妈妈都问我：“今天想吃什么”。我的回答每次都一样：“随便”。我是个不挑食的孩子，有什么就吃什么，只要可口就行。妈妈后来对我说，每次问我是为了尊重我，每次我的回答都让她觉得很贴心。没想到我随便的回答竟也给了妈妈一丝温暖。

每次回国，也是回家，妈妈都问我：“想吃什么”。我的回答总是：“家常便饭”。不是我不挑食，而是在国外吃上一次地道的家常便饭很难。有人说，最好吃的饭菜还是妈妈做的。的确如此。

Chinese lunch today

Guess what? INRIA canteen cooks Chinese food for today's lunch and they provide chopsticks! Not only that, the canteen is also decorated with Chinese lanterns. What a surprise! 

The Chinese population in INRIA is quite small and I appreciate that they have this Chinese lunch during the Chinese New Year period. Today, one main vegetable dish is spring sprout, which is made from soya beans, which is also a good representative of Chinese vegetable dish. Spring sprout is the name I see in UK supermarket, Chinese call it Dou Ya, meaning bean sprout.

Some time ago, someone: I stayed in China for one year and I missed cheese very much because you do not find cheese in supermarkets in China. How can you people live without cheese?!

Dana: I know exactly what you feel because I cannot find Tofu in supermarkets in Europe and it is also hard for me to believe that European people can live without Tofu!

While cheese represents the west, soya bean represents the east. Besides bean sprout and Tofu, there are hundreds of food made from soya beans just like there are many types of cheese.

So INRIA canteen chose a right vegetable today!

Making wishes

New year, new wishes! I would like to make wishes. Making wishes is like setting goals or reminding yourself what you want at that particular time of your life.

I bought a French novel last Saturday. Bingo! One of my wishes is to master French. (Of course, I also have other wishes and subwishes.) I remember that my English was improved rapidly after I read a series of books titled "The Famous Five". This is a curiosity-driven way of learning a language. As you keep wondering what happens next in a novel, it pushes you to look up dictionary to find the meaning of those new words. As looking up dictionary is a tiresome job, you will try to remember as many words as possible so as to reduce the frequency of looking up the dictionary. After staying in France for one year, I feel that I am somewhat used to the French grammar although I did not feel comfortable at the beginning. One linguistic professor says that, once you accept a language, you can learn it fast.

Each time I learn a foreign language, I recall a Chinese great master JI Xianlin's words, "Cultural exchange is the main drive for humankind's progress. Only by learning from each other's strong points to make up for shortcomings can people constantly progress, the ultimate target of which is to achieve a kind of Great Harmony".

So look forward to the day that I can write blogs in French. Bingo! That is one of my subwishes.

Strolling

Last weekend, the weather was beautiful. (Actually you can see blue sky quite often in France even in winter. Feel jealous?) It was definitely not a good day to stay at home and write blogs so I went out for a walk.

I like strolling especially along a river. That is why I need a good pair of shoes which allow me to stroll for a couple of hours comfortably and gracefully.

The royal garden outside the chateau of Versailles is the best place to have a walk. There are ponds and a canal in the garden. You can see a thin layer of ice on the surface of the ponds. But the layer of ice is thick enough for swans to walk on it. Looking around, statues are there as usual. Do statues feel cold? I cannot help wondering because they are quite naked.

Standing in the royal garden, looking to the north, I hardly see any high buildings. I was told that there was a law in the past stating that no windows of a building should be seen from King's bedroom. So in order to  have slightly higher houses, people hide them by planting trees around. It seems quite true as I can only see roofs of some buildings which are not higher than trees around them. I do not think there is still such a law nowadays. I guess people do not build high buildings now partly because it is not necessary and partly because it may destroy the peaceful scene of Versailles.

There are benches made of marbles in the garden, pure and elegant. Imagine that lovers used to sit over there having a long chatting under the moon. I would say that the garden was quite a romantic place if all tourists and their cameras disappeared. (But I was one of them the first time I visited Versailles.)

Walking and thinking, walking and thinking ...

I feel lucky that I am a person who lives in the 21st century. I also treasure whatever I have today.

Shoes

It is very hard to find a good pair of shoes that are both stylish and comfortable. But I had found one before winter came. They are warm, smart, comfortable and lovely.