Word game

I watched Babel over the weekend and I loved it. I think it deserves the Oscar for Best Picture way more than the Departed or even Crash. It does resemble Crash but I enjoyed the international cultural crash and conflicts caused by communication breakdown in this one a lot more. Babel is more believable than the melodrama and sensationalism in Crash. I love the Mexican baby sitter's acting.

I'm 1/5 into reading the over 1000 pages of a report on the "June 4th Incident". Our teaching materials also touch on the crazy events in modern Chinese history such as the Cultural Revolution, Great Leap Forward, and the educated youth going into the countryside. I'm glad to be a linguist which helps me realize the power of words and language. Some people can use it to kill people physically or mentally or spiritually. I found these couple sayings particularly interesting from the book:

“文革”十年是無政府主義，改革是無主義政府；
"Cultural Revolution" was ideology without government, (Chinese) reformation is government without ideology;
“文革”十年是十年動亂，改革十年是十年亂動。
"Cultural Revolution" was ten years of turmoil, (Chinese) reformation is ten years of random movements.
~民運學生 Students in the pro-democratic movement

一個革命政黨，就怕聼不到人民的聲音，最可怕的是鴉雀無聲。
A revolutionary political party is afraid of not being able to hear people's voice. What is the scariest is dead silence.
~鄧小平 Deng Xiaoping.

Did Deng put his words into action? Maybe he did (in the opposite way: having people study his "sacred" words like Mao's instead of listening to people's voice). I just hope people either in China or anywhere in the world now enjoying the benefits from the vibrant Chinese economy would think about if there is something more important than wealth and the so-called "social stability". Is the sacrifice of truth worth it?

Ok, I'm stepping down from my soapbox now.