Can you understand the comment?

True dat

I enjoy listening to traditional Chinese music played on the pipa.

We are very lucky in Toronto, as there are several excellent pipa players here. My favourite pipa player is Wen Zhao right now.

I haven't been able to find many examples of her work on youtube, but I have found examples of some of the pieces I have been fortunate to hear/see her perform.

One is Sunny spring with white snow

Here is Wendy (Wen Zhao) with an amazing local lutenist, Lucas Harris, from Tafelmusik.



I am very much looking forward to a concert next spring where Lucas and Wendy will be featured.

http://www.torontoconsort.org/season/schedule.html#5 (Lutefest)

The word "God" is quite misleading. When Einstein talked

about his God I got impressed that he might be a Christian.He

wasn't. He told us in his work that his God is not the same God

in the Bible. We know God or Not is one of most controversial

topics in this world. With the help of Hawking's description on

General Relativity and through my own thinking, I began to

understand why so many scientists, including Einstein, have

had to accept the concept of God. Einstein's theory GR is

shattered at the level of black hole or at the level of the

singularity. Without God the present-day Universe is still a

black hole or Singularity according to his theory. So Einstein

believed that God created the Universe.

Hawking has gone along the way a bit further. He reasons

that there may be no place for the existence of God if his new

theory Quantum Gravity stands. What a man! He wants to

stand on the should of God.

And now it boils down to one thing: How you define the word

God. In my book, it is a right direction and you can name It

with whatever name. If you believe a brighter, happier, more

useful future, there you are in the right direction with God. Some one (Rockefeller?) said that very well before.

===== Sunny spring with white snow =====

In Chinese it is: 阳春白雪

One of the most graceful phrases in classical Chinese literature. Can you recognize the four Chinese characters, ehBeth ?

and to think newton could only stand on the shoulders of giants

I can only recognize a very few Chinese characters. They are ones that I find on menus - so I can tell what kind of food I'm considering ordering.

oristarA, thank you for showing us the characters for Sunny Spring with White Snow. It is such an evocative phrase in English - it tells a whole story with just four words.

Clearly, there is sometimes an implied imperative, Joe. There can even be one with a sarcastic 'might'. I can't, right off, imagine how this situation could have reached the point of an implied imperative.

I think that even a "You really ought to join in the conversation threads" wouldn't have necessarily implied that. Even a "You really must ... "for this situation, with the context, would fall short of an implied imperative.

That's why we have the word "May" in the language.

I don't understand what you mean, Roger.

I wonder whether Roger can make it a bit clearer?

I meant to say that if a choice is entirely discretionary, I would be more likely to say "may" than 'ought" or "should".

You could say that "may" implies that permission is needed, so I am most likely to say "You are entirely welcome to. . . ."

Now, I understand, Roger. Do you mean, as in,

1. "You may want to join in the ... ." ?



If I've paraphrased you accurately with the sentence above, I don't think you intended to say, [though I might be mistaken]

"You may join in the ... "

then the underlined 'may' from the sentence 1. isn't a deontic/[social sense-permission] modal, Roger. It's an epistemic 'may', which can be paraphrased by, "it's possible that you want to join ... "

This discussion illustrates just how complicated the modal/semi-modal verbs are, given that they are so weighted by personal feeling, intonation and context, even accompanying word choice.

I think that this also illustrates just how much someone like Oristar would benefit from seeing the nuancial differences inherent in modal use.

Sometimes a paraphrase is just what is needed. This is one of those times.

With the comma after the word Now, I might understand that you are extending great patience with me. I think I'll ignore it, and understand that you at last understand.

I enjoyed reading this post. In fact I read it 4 or 5 times. There's a lot of nuance in your writing and sometimes an inscrutable essence...much like the picture in my mind of the inscrutable Oriental

wonderful ehbeth...we can always count on you to bring us fresh music, or ancient music newly discovered

To be frank and come to the point, I wonder whether you are more welcome than really enjoyed reading it. I wonder what nuance they might be and whether you would like to take an instance to discuss it? I know different cultural backdrops cause a lot of nuance in expressing and understanding, but I have not talked about Oriental philosophy after all. I was talking about Western science led by the big shots like Einstein, Hawking et al.

I will be perhaps away from here for 2 - 3 day traveling to another city. I will come back soon.

See you all.

Have a safe trip ori and we'll "talk at you on the flip side".

Citizens Band radio parlance.

I've just completed my mission, and safely come back from the city in Eastern China.

I've been late, right? Not only has it been a week long storm, but typhoon Morakot is pommelling the coast of East China, my city included. Most of shops is closed here, and of course anything gets delayed.

I just watched some coverage of the typhoon on the news. Apparently a hotel was knocked into the ocean by the force of the storm.