Venkatesh Rao

Someday, they’ll speak of us in 2020 thus, when each person has name/surname/& innumerable usernames on different platforms. “Most Chinese surnames (xing) consist of only a single syllable (e.g., Wang, Zhang), but 2-syllable surnames are also found (e.g., Sima, Ouyang). 1/5

The surname precedes the personal name (ming), which will consist of one or two syllables. On reaching adulthood, a man also may take a style name (zi). Many literati also use one or more hao (artist’s name, pseudonym), 2/5

which in many cases has a connection to the name of their study or garden; they may also assume religious names. Chinese women may also adopt a hao alongside their personal name. In many contexts, both before and after marriage, women are designated only by their surname 3/5

(e.g., Li Shi, the woman surnamed Li: Miss Li, Madam Li, Lady Li). Manchus have a clan name (e.g., Gioro); lineages within clans are distinguished by prefixing a second term to the first (e.g., Aisin Gioro). Manchu men may have names taken from a wide range of words 4/5

(e.g., Dorgon, means badger) & are designated by their personal name without the use of their clan or lineage name. After 1644, once the Manchus moved their capital to Beijing, they increasingly came to use names made up of auspicious Chinese characters, style names & hao.” 5/5

“...Gabriel Marcel, whose The Mystery of Being attempted to distinguish between a ‘problem’, which exists independently of any individual & can be solved, & a ‘mystery’, which is one’s own, and cannot. Life for Marcel is not a problem to be solved but a mystery to be lived.”

“History as we know it was born, not when criticism was invented -- for that happened long ago­ but on the day when the work of the critic and the work of the historian were joined in one task:“ — Paul Veyne

"You must become an ignorant man again And see the sun again with an ignorant eye And see it clearly in the idea of it." -- Wallace Stevens, 'Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction'