Paris oh Paris

Rembrandt

Thou shalt not

Thou shalt not kill.

Thou shalt not commit adultery.

Thou shalt not steal.

Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant,..., nor any thing that is thy neighbor's.

Blablabla

The Temple of Ceres in Paestum

BM and others

Late 10th c.: Tung Yuan
c. 1020-90: Kuo Hsi
c. 1040-1106: Li Kung-lin
1051-1107: Mi Fei (米芾), or Mi Fu (Chinese: 米黻; Pinyin: Mǐ Fú)
Chü-jan (fl. latter half of 10th c.), Five Dynasties Period (907-960)
"The English term 'jade' is used to translate the Chinese word yu, which in fact refers to a number of minerals including nephrite, jadeite, serpentine and bowenite, while jade refers only to nephrite and jadeite. Chemically nephrite is a calcium magnesium silicate and is white in colour. However, the presence of copper, chromium and iron gives colours ranging from subtle grey-greens to brilliant yellows and reds. Jadeite, which was very rarely used in China before the eighteenth century, is a silicate of sodium and magnesium and comes in a wider variety of colours than nephrite.

Nephrite is found within metamorphic rocks in mountains. As the rocks weather, the boulders of nephrite break off and are washed down to the foot of the mountain, from where they are retrieved. From the Han period (206 BC - AD 220) jade was obtained from the oasis region of Khotan on the Silk Route. The oasis lies about 5000 miles from the areas where jade was first worked in the Hongshan (in Inner Mongolia) and the Liangzhu cultures (near Shanghai) about 3000 years before. It is likely that sources were known that were much nearer to those centres in the early periods and were subsequently exhausted."

Most used languages on the Internet

According to http://alis.isoc.org/palmares.en.html,

These are the most used languages on the Internet:

1 English 2 722 84,0 % 82,3 % 332 778
2 German 147 4,5 % 4,0 % 17 971
3 Japanese 101 3,1 % 1,6 % 12 348
4 French 59 1,8 % 1,5 % 7 213
5 Spanish 38 1,2 % 1,1 % 4 646
6 Swedish 35 1,1 % 0,6 % 4 279
7 Italian 31 1,0 % 0,8 % 3 790
8 Portuguese 21 0,7 % 0,7 % 2 567
9 Dutch 20 0,6 % 0,4 % 2 445
10 Norwegian 19 0,6 % 0,3 % 2 323
11 Finnish 14 0,4 % 0,3 % 1 712
12 Czech 11 0,3 % 0,3 % 1 345
13 Danish 9 0,3 % 0,3 % 1 100
14 Russian 8 0,3 % 0,1 % 978
15 Malay 4 0,1 % 0,1 % 489

Gotama Buddha by Hajime Nakamura

the Japanese scholar Hajime Nakamura has written a very thorough biography on the Buddha. It is based on the most reliable texts. I want to speak about Volume Two.
It starts with the last journey of the Tathagata and proceeds up to his death in Kusinagar. There is a final and very interesting chapter on the beginnings of deification of the Buddha. If I want to read the major texts of Buddhism, I need Pali, Sanskrit, Cinghalese, Chinese, Tibetan and Japanese at least. Obviously I can't master all these languages, fortunately, Dr Nakamura is a very knowledgeable scholar who based his book on the most reliable texts and on his own experiences and anecdotes about his visits to the important sites in the life of Siddharta.
I have to add that the translation in English is great, so congratulations to Gaynor Sekimori too!

The Analects translated by Burton Watson

The Analects,this little book of Zhongni has played such an important role in Asia over the centuries and it's a mere matter of a few hours to read it entirely. Now, Dr. Watson has given us a translation for the 21st century. Here are some quotes almost chosen randomly (in the book, the Chinese characters are not provided):
"The Master said, The gentleman is not a utensil."
子曰:「君子不器.」
"The Master said, In nature close one another, in practice far apart."
子曰:「性相近也,習相遠也。」子曰:「唯上知與下愚,不移。」
"The Master said, Persons who lack trustworthiness-I don't know how they get by!"
子曰:「人而無信,不知其可也。大車無輗,小車無軏,其何以行之哉?」
"A person who really hated the lack of humaneness would conduct himself humanely, never allowing those who lack humaneness to affect his behavior."
惡不仁者,其為仁矣,不使不仁者加乎其身。
"The Master's Way consists of loyalty and reciprocity alone."
「夫子之道,忠恕而已矣。」
And my favorite one: "Standing by a stream, the Master said, It flows on like this-does it not?- never ceasing, day or night."
子曰:「見賢思齊焉;見不賢而內自省也。」

Dr. Watson is a great translator of fine letters and we are all in his debt. The only regret is that publishers could stop taking the readers for ignorami and publish the Chinese and English face to face, as there are many free blank pages available in this charming book.