A break, leaving the office for a short walk across the campus, around the small pond in front of my office building, my thoughts lost in life between worlds – a privilege not to be here on holiday. Music is coming from one of the nearby buildings, I look through the door: dance performances. A notice that I struggle to decipher:
2025 Celebration of the diamond and golden anniversary of Central South University and inauguration of the branch of the National Open University for the Elderly, as well as cultural performances for the Double Ninth Festival
The dances help me understand what I recently learned in theory while studying Confucius: harmony is very important here, and it is not least about being in tune with nature
— easier to understand in dance than in a textbook. The performances are a combination of dances and a film projection in the background: scenes of nature, matchine the movement of the dance and the dance matching the movement of nature. This is surely very different to what some Europeans think when they hear harmony.
On the way back to the office, I chat with Tian, a student — chat = sending messages back and forth; I still haven’t quite got used to this excessive use of these stupid smartphones. The topic is the Double Ninth Festival — off the cuff, references are made to texts from Chinese classics, such as Han Yu.
This classic text is part of the standard curriculum in Chinese secondary schools, and virtually all students have to learn it and memorise it.
Studying music was part of the curriculum of my students when I taught economics here. — No glorification, I know the pressure to perform here … but I also repeatedly experience the ‘calm’ side of this often noisy country.
COMMEDIA DELLA VITA OR PÁNTA RÊI'S FIRM GROUND 