WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.510 align:middle line:90% 00:00:00.510 --> 00:00:03.210 align:middle line:84% And this is a poem also in my book, Empathy, 00:00:03.210 --> 00:00:05.220 align:middle line:90% and it's called "Chinese Space." 00:00:05.220 --> 00:00:09.780 align:middle line:90% And, it's an imagined-- 00:00:09.780 --> 00:00:12.180 align:middle line:84% my mother once drew a picture for me 00:00:12.180 --> 00:00:15.540 align:middle line:84% of the house, floor plan of the house where I was born, 00:00:15.540 --> 00:00:20.370 align:middle line:84% and this is an imagined recreation of that. 00:00:20.370 --> 00:00:23.600 align:middle line:90% 00:00:23.600 --> 00:00:26.100 align:middle line:84% We were talking at dinner about language, 00:00:26.100 --> 00:00:29.190 align:middle line:84% and I also think that your spatial sense 00:00:29.190 --> 00:00:34.060 align:middle line:84% is, different cultures is completely different. 00:00:34.060 --> 00:00:38.070 align:middle line:84% And for me, the Chinese spatial sense is something fascinating. 00:00:38.070 --> 00:00:41.070 align:middle line:90% 00:00:41.070 --> 00:00:41.970 align:middle line:90% "Chinese Space." 00:00:41.970 --> 00:00:45.030 align:middle line:90% 00:00:45.030 --> 00:00:49.140 align:middle line:84% "First there is the gate from the street, then 00:00:49.140 --> 00:00:54.870 align:middle line:84% some flowers inside the wall, then the inner roofed gate. 00:00:54.870 --> 00:00:57.510 align:middle line:90% 00:00:57.510 --> 00:01:02.760 align:middle line:84% It is a very plain wall without expressionistic means, 00:01:02.760 --> 00:01:05.580 align:middle line:84% such as contrasting light on paving 00:01:05.580 --> 00:01:10.090 align:middle line:84% stones inside the courtyard to the calligraph foundation 00:01:10.090 --> 00:01:10.590 align:middle line:90% stones. 00:01:10.590 --> 00:01:13.110 align:middle line:90% 00:01:13.110 --> 00:01:18.270 align:middle line:84% My grandfather called this the facade or Baroque experience, 00:01:18.270 --> 00:01:22.530 align:middle line:84% rendering a courtyard transparent. 00:01:22.530 --> 00:01:25.890 align:middle line:84% The eye expecting to confront static space 00:01:25.890 --> 00:01:30.990 align:middle line:84% experiences a lavish range of optical events 00:01:30.990 --> 00:01:33.930 align:middle line:90% such as crickets and Ming jars. 00:01:33.930 --> 00:01:36.180 align:middle line:84% Their syncopation, like the right, 00:01:36.180 --> 00:01:40.650 align:middle line:84% then left, then right, progress into the house. 00:01:40.650 --> 00:01:45.930 align:middle line:84% An experience that cannot be sustained in consciousness 00:01:45.930 --> 00:01:51.360 align:middle line:84% because your movement itself binds passing time more than 00:01:51.360 --> 00:01:53.340 align:middle line:90% entering directs it. 00:01:53.340 --> 00:01:56.550 align:middle line:90% 00:01:56.550 --> 00:01:59.280 align:middle line:84% A red door lies on a golden mirror 00:01:59.280 --> 00:02:02.250 align:middle line:84% with the fascinating solidity and peacefulness 00:02:02.250 --> 00:02:06.360 align:middle line:84% of the pond in the courtyard, a featureless 00:02:06.360 --> 00:02:10.650 align:middle line:84% space of infinite depth where neither unwanted spirits 00:02:10.650 --> 00:02:15.420 align:middle line:84% nor light could enter directly from outside. 00:02:15.420 --> 00:02:19.950 align:middle line:84% It lies within the equally whole space of the yard. 00:02:19.950 --> 00:02:24.240 align:middle line:84% The way we surrounded our individuals, 00:02:24.240 --> 00:02:31.290 align:middle line:84% surrounded by a house we could not wholly retain in memory. 00:02:31.290 --> 00:02:34.020 align:middle line:84% Walking from the inner gate across a bridge, 00:02:34.020 --> 00:02:39.090 align:middle line:84% which crossed four ways over the carp moat. 00:02:39.090 --> 00:02:41.520 align:middle line:84% Turning right before the ice rink, 00:02:41.520 --> 00:02:45.210 align:middle line:84% we pass roses imported from Boston 00:02:45.210 --> 00:02:50.430 align:middle line:84% and enter the main courtyard, an open structure like a ruin. 00:02:50.430 --> 00:02:52.980 align:middle line:90% 00:02:52.980 --> 00:02:56.010 align:middle line:84% This is not remembering but thinking its presence 00:02:56.010 --> 00:03:00.870 align:middle line:84% around eccentric details such as a blue and white urn turned up 00:03:00.870 --> 00:03:02.610 align:middle line:90% to dry. 00:03:02.610 --> 00:03:06.390 align:middle line:84% Although certain brightnesses contained space, 00:03:06.390 --> 00:03:10.410 align:middle line:84% the way white slip covered chairs with blue seams 00:03:10.410 --> 00:03:11.340 align:middle line:90% contain it. 00:03:11.340 --> 00:03:15.390 align:middle line:90% 00:03:15.390 --> 00:03:17.940 align:middle line:84% The potential of becoming great of this space 00:03:17.940 --> 00:03:22.050 align:middle line:84% is proportional to its distance away from us, 00:03:22.050 --> 00:03:24.660 align:middle line:90% a negative perspective. 00:03:24.660 --> 00:03:26.790 align:middle line:84% The way the far corner of the pond 00:03:26.790 --> 00:03:32.040 align:middle line:84% becomes a corner again as we approach on the diagonal, which 00:03:32.040 --> 00:03:33.825 align:middle line:90% had been a vanishing point. 00:03:33.825 --> 00:03:36.480 align:middle line:90% 00:03:36.480 --> 00:03:41.040 align:middle line:84% The grandmother poses beside rose bushes. 00:03:41.040 --> 00:03:44.520 align:middle line:84% That is to say, a weary and perplexing quality 00:03:44.520 --> 00:03:48.870 align:middle line:84% of the rough wall behind her gives the power of tolerance 00:03:48.870 --> 00:03:54.060 align:middle line:84% beyond the margins of the photograph. 00:03:54.060 --> 00:03:57.540 align:middle line:84% Space without expansion, compactness 00:03:57.540 --> 00:04:02.160 align:middle line:84% without restriction, make this peculiar and intense account 00:04:02.160 --> 00:04:07.290 align:middle line:84% of the separable person from her place in time. 00:04:07.290 --> 00:04:12.480 align:middle line:84% Although many families live in the partitioned house now. 00:04:12.480 --> 00:04:15.570 align:middle line:84% The reflecting surface of the pond theoretically 00:04:15.570 --> 00:04:20.339 align:middle line:84% manifest too many beings to claim her particular status 00:04:20.339 --> 00:04:25.545 align:middle line:84% in the space, such as a tigerskin in space. 00:04:25.545 --> 00:04:30.080 align:middle line:90% 00:04:30.080 --> 00:04:33.740 align:middle line:84% After the house was electrically wired in the 30s, 00:04:33.740 --> 00:04:36.890 align:middle line:84% he installed a ticker tape machine connected 00:04:36.890 --> 00:04:41.060 align:middle line:90% to the American Stock Exchange. 00:04:41.060 --> 00:04:43.880 align:middle line:84% Any existence occupies time, he would 00:04:43.880 --> 00:04:47.900 align:middle line:90% say in the Chinese version. 00:04:47.900 --> 00:04:50.420 align:middle line:84% Reading stock quotations and meaning 00:04:50.420 --> 00:04:56.570 align:middle line:84% the simplicity of the courtyard into a lavish biosphere. 00:04:56.570 --> 00:04:58.790 align:middle line:84% Elevating the fact of its placement 00:04:58.790 --> 00:05:03.680 align:middle line:84% to one of our occupation of it, including the macaw 00:05:03.680 --> 00:05:08.600 align:middle line:84% speaking Chinese, stones representing infinity 00:05:08.600 --> 00:05:09.275 align:middle line:90% in the garden. 00:05:09.275 --> 00:05:12.650 align:middle line:90% 00:05:12.650 --> 00:05:16.400 align:middle line:84% This is how the world appears when the person becomes 00:05:16.400 --> 00:05:22.640 align:middle line:84% sufficient, that is, like home, an alternation of fatigue 00:05:22.640 --> 00:05:27.560 align:middle line:84% and relief in the flexible shade of date trees. 00:05:27.560 --> 00:05:31.940 align:middle line:84% Making the house part of a channel in space, which 00:05:31.940 --> 00:05:35.900 align:middle line:84% had been interior with mundane fixtures 00:05:35.900 --> 00:05:39.830 align:middle line:84% as on elevator doors in a hotel, a standing 00:05:39.830 --> 00:05:42.035 align:middle line:90% ashtray that is black and white. 00:05:42.035 --> 00:05:44.950 align:middle line:90% 00:05:44.950 --> 00:05:49.720 align:middle line:84% The family poses in front of the hotel, both self 00:05:49.720 --> 00:05:55.750 align:middle line:84% knowing and knowing others at the same time. 00:05:55.750 --> 00:06:01.990 align:middle line:84% This is so because human memory as a part of unfinished nature 00:06:01.990 --> 00:06:08.550 align:middle line:84% is provided for the experience of your unfinished existence."