昭君， I hope you will not think this is 宣宾夺主. What has become clear in all past discussions is that, the imprecision of English-Chinese translation is a key barrier in cross-cultural communication and understanding (something you have oft pointed out in the past)*. An example is Liberalism (or Western Liberalism). It, and the concept of "freedom" and "liberty" all translate to Chinese as 自由，and yet in English they are philosophically very different. I recommend the following links for further elaboration: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism http://bopuc.levendis.com/weblog/archives/-2006/01/07/freedom_vs_liberty.php
Thus the Chinese translation "自由" is much too simplistic. Perhaps I'll get to visit this subject with you one day.
* - It is no accident that international contracts are often held to be authentic in the English language version.
Haha, there will be no "heavy weight" this week - I'm bombarded at work by back to back candidate visits, committee meetings and classes this week. Then there's the emergency which caused several of us to evacuate from our offices - our offices got flooded over the weekend because a graduate assistant left the window open (which caused a pipe to burst). The repair will take at least two weeks!!! So it looks like I'll be "idle" here for a few days at least, which is actually much needed break. So there's the "silver lining" in the "series of unfortunate events":).
昭君， 早上好！ Nice. This is a welcome break from the heavy-duty debates of the last few sessions.. (But I am looking forward to your next thought-provoking essay, and to continuing our [highly stimulating and enjoyable] discourse. No pressure though.) 我虽然不是大夫，但我知道昭君的文章是抗痴呆症的好药剂。They exercise your brain!
