January 24, 2012
Hermeneutics LP
released 24 January 2012
Harrison King (producer) made this up and recorded it December 2011-January 2012 at his house, but he couldn’t have done it without the mind-blowing talents of (literally) hundreds of animals (in their “natural” environments), dozens of musicians and singers and poets (in their “unnatural” environments), V. I. Lenin (both/and), and the streets and restaurants and temples and train stations of Japan (neither/nor).
January 18, 2012
The Discursive-Rhetorical Formation of the Lotus Sūtra: An Archaeology of Buddhist Strategy and Polemics (Part 2)
Does the development of the doctrine of upāya create a strategic opening that safeguards the internal diversity of Buddhism, or does this doctrine instead work toward an ideological closure that secures deliberative authority for a single vision of Buddhism? Contemporary scholars researching the Lotus Sūtra tend to disagree about the text’s intentions on this point. Tsukamoto Keishō, for example, argues that in the Lotus Sūtra, “the practice of the three vehicles was not rejected” because the text’s ecumenical spirit “allow[ed] various sets of values to exist.”[1] However, the integrative pluralism of the Lotus Sūtra has not gone unquestioned by other contemporary scholars, who point out that the text’s inclusivism masks a powerful normalizing judgment about the practice of Buddhism. Jamie Hubbard locates in the Lotus Sūtra a “pragmatic or utilitarian strategy”[2] with the hegemonic capacity for knowledge-ordering; this strategy, which Hubbard calls “exclusivist inclusivism,”[3] does not operate in spite of the accommodative aspirations of the sūtra (as represented by the doctrine of upāya) but rather because of those very aspirations, for “like other forms of inclusivism, the Buddhist argument for tolerance is virtually always articulated with the underlying purpose of legitimizing one’s own position as the authoritative position from which differences are unified and reconciled.”[4]
Hubbard is correct to point out the way the interface of power and knowledge is crystalized in text of the Lotus Sūtra, though it is my feeling that he overlooks the potential for new readings of the text to emerge in different social contexts. Therefore, in the following paragraphs I turn to engage the reception of the Lotus Sūtra in premodern China. My interest is primarily in locating the intellectual and social trends that together allowed this text to achieve lasting power and authority—something the text never achieved in its original context in India—and the way this new context opened the Lotus Sūtra to new readings and uses that Hubbard’s analysis does not anticipate.
On the early development of East Asian Buddhism, it is important to note that the Lotus Sūtra was not the first or one of only a few Buddhist scriptures available to Chinese practitioners of Buddhism. On the contrary, Stephen F. Teiser and Jacqueline I. Stone remark that the plethora of texts being introduced to China created an alarming interpretational issue: “As translation and study proceeded, it became obvious that not only the teachings but even the goals set forth in various Buddhist scriptures were sometimes at variance, or even contradictory. Yet for Chinese Buddhist exegetes of premodern times, all sūtras represented the Buddha’s preaching.”[5] The inconsistency of the texts, coupled with the fact that they were so often attributed to the same source, necessitated the development of some taxonomical scheme that would allow its readers to make sense of the frustrating multiplicity of Buddhist texts without being wholly knowledgeable of the extent of polemical discourse in Indian Buddhism.
This led to the formation of the discursive practice panjiao. According to Liu Ming-Wood, panjiao constitutes an epistemological discipline that is “concerned with distinguishing and integrating various systems of Buddhist ideas, various forms of Buddhist religious cultivation and various strata of Buddhist texts, with the view of highlighting their distinctive characteristics as well as reconciling their apparent disparities.”[6] As such, though the discipline did lead to the prizing of some texts over others, one should not conceive of panjiao as concerned with constructing a doctrinal hierarchy in the Western, theological sense; rather, panjiao is a discipline that seeks to elucidate the structural relationships among an influx of Buddhist scriptures that seemed to have no self-organizing pattern.
With this framework in mind, it is easy to see why the Lotus Sūtra’s doctrine of “expedient means” would have been a powerful epistemological tool for Buddhists in China. In the context of Chinese Buddhism, “expedient means” did not represent a preliminary articulation of a shift in Buddhist practice that aimed to secure deliberative authority for the nascent Mahāyāna movement but rather became the guiding hermeneutic for panjiao schemata constructed by several important Buddhist schools. Perhaps the most important school to take the Lotus Sūtra as its primary scripture is the Tiantai School, which was founded by Zhiyi. While it would be impossible in the space of this short essay to encapsulate the entire process of the sūtra’s ascendency or do justice to the many dynamic interchanges that occurred, I would like to summarize briefly Zhiyi’s usage of the text in his classificatory project to give one example of how the adoption of the Lotus Sūtra took place in Chinese intellectual history.
Zhiyi developed the insights of Huiguan (n.d.), a disciple of Kumārajiva who is recognized for establishing a panjiao that allowed sūtras to be relationally ordered according to the “two teachings and five periods.”[7] In Huiguan’s scheme, the two bodies of teaching (“sudden” and “gradual”) are divided among the “five periods” of the Buddha’s ministry, in which the Lotus Sūtra fits in the fourth period, “whose characteristic is to unite the three vehicles [which were first taught as distinct teachings] and demonstrate their convergence on the one ultimate goal of ‘Buddhahood.’”[8] In an important modification of Huiguan’s scheme, Zhiyi shifts the Lotus Sūtra to the fifth period, delivered just before the Buddha entered nirvana, which places this sūtra as the fullest, most important disclosure of the dharma.[9] Thus, the Lotus Sūtra occupies a singular position in Zhiyi’s doctrinal structure: all other sūtras are defined by their relationship and proximity to this sūtra, and, in terms of practice, all other sūtras are subordinate to it.
In conclusion, two summary observations can be made regarding the Lotus Sūtra’s role in the discipline panjiao. First, by contributing to Chinese discourse the doctrine of expedient means as the foundational element of the Buddha’s teaching, the sūtra made the process of establishing structural and chronological relationships among multiple Buddhist scriptures much easier. Second, and as a result of the first point, the Lotus Sūtra came to be prized as a particularly significant and singular text by several Buddhist schools, which must have contributed to its popularization in China and continued transmission into other East Asian countries. More broadly than this, this essay has discussed the discursive-rhetorical formation of the Lotus Sūtra and argued that the doctrine of “expedient means” functioned variously as a polemical tool in its original context of intra-Buddhist discourse and as an epistemological tool in its adoptive context in East Asia. In doing so, I hope I have elucidated the way structures of power and knowledge dominate Buddhist discursive practice and the way the interpretations of texts necessarily vary based on social and intellectual context.
Notes
[1] Source Elements of the Lotus Sutra: Buddhist Integration of Religion, Thought, and Culture (Tokyo: Kosei, 2007), 264.
[2] “Buddhist-Buddhist Dialogue? The ‘Lotus Sutra’ and the Polemic of Accommodation,” Buddhist-Christian Studies 15 (1995), 119.
[3] Ibid., 129.
[4] Ibid., 120.
[5] Stephen F. Teiser and Jacqueline I. Stone, “Interpreting the Lotus Sūtra,” in Readings of the Lotus Sūtra, Stephen F. Teiser and Jacqueline I. Stone (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009), 33.
[6] Liu Ming-Wood, “The ‘Lotus Sūtra’ and ‘Garland Sūtra’ According to the T’ien-t’ai and Hua-yen Schools in Chinese Buddhism,” T’oung Pao 74.1 (1988), 52.
[7] Ibid., 53.
[8] Ibid., 54.
[9] Ibid., 60-61.
Hubbard is correct to point out the way the interface of power and knowledge is crystalized in text of the Lotus Sūtra, though it is my feeling that he overlooks the potential for new readings of the text to emerge in different social contexts. Therefore, in the following paragraphs I turn to engage the reception of the Lotus Sūtra in premodern China. My interest is primarily in locating the intellectual and social trends that together allowed this text to achieve lasting power and authority—something the text never achieved in its original context in India—and the way this new context opened the Lotus Sūtra to new readings and uses that Hubbard’s analysis does not anticipate.
On the early development of East Asian Buddhism, it is important to note that the Lotus Sūtra was not the first or one of only a few Buddhist scriptures available to Chinese practitioners of Buddhism. On the contrary, Stephen F. Teiser and Jacqueline I. Stone remark that the plethora of texts being introduced to China created an alarming interpretational issue: “As translation and study proceeded, it became obvious that not only the teachings but even the goals set forth in various Buddhist scriptures were sometimes at variance, or even contradictory. Yet for Chinese Buddhist exegetes of premodern times, all sūtras represented the Buddha’s preaching.”[5] The inconsistency of the texts, coupled with the fact that they were so often attributed to the same source, necessitated the development of some taxonomical scheme that would allow its readers to make sense of the frustrating multiplicity of Buddhist texts without being wholly knowledgeable of the extent of polemical discourse in Indian Buddhism.
This led to the formation of the discursive practice panjiao. According to Liu Ming-Wood, panjiao constitutes an epistemological discipline that is “concerned with distinguishing and integrating various systems of Buddhist ideas, various forms of Buddhist religious cultivation and various strata of Buddhist texts, with the view of highlighting their distinctive characteristics as well as reconciling their apparent disparities.”[6] As such, though the discipline did lead to the prizing of some texts over others, one should not conceive of panjiao as concerned with constructing a doctrinal hierarchy in the Western, theological sense; rather, panjiao is a discipline that seeks to elucidate the structural relationships among an influx of Buddhist scriptures that seemed to have no self-organizing pattern.
With this framework in mind, it is easy to see why the Lotus Sūtra’s doctrine of “expedient means” would have been a powerful epistemological tool for Buddhists in China. In the context of Chinese Buddhism, “expedient means” did not represent a preliminary articulation of a shift in Buddhist practice that aimed to secure deliberative authority for the nascent Mahāyāna movement but rather became the guiding hermeneutic for panjiao schemata constructed by several important Buddhist schools. Perhaps the most important school to take the Lotus Sūtra as its primary scripture is the Tiantai School, which was founded by Zhiyi. While it would be impossible in the space of this short essay to encapsulate the entire process of the sūtra’s ascendency or do justice to the many dynamic interchanges that occurred, I would like to summarize briefly Zhiyi’s usage of the text in his classificatory project to give one example of how the adoption of the Lotus Sūtra took place in Chinese intellectual history.
Zhiyi developed the insights of Huiguan (n.d.), a disciple of Kumārajiva who is recognized for establishing a panjiao that allowed sūtras to be relationally ordered according to the “two teachings and five periods.”[7] In Huiguan’s scheme, the two bodies of teaching (“sudden” and “gradual”) are divided among the “five periods” of the Buddha’s ministry, in which the Lotus Sūtra fits in the fourth period, “whose characteristic is to unite the three vehicles [which were first taught as distinct teachings] and demonstrate their convergence on the one ultimate goal of ‘Buddhahood.’”[8] In an important modification of Huiguan’s scheme, Zhiyi shifts the Lotus Sūtra to the fifth period, delivered just before the Buddha entered nirvana, which places this sūtra as the fullest, most important disclosure of the dharma.[9] Thus, the Lotus Sūtra occupies a singular position in Zhiyi’s doctrinal structure: all other sūtras are defined by their relationship and proximity to this sūtra, and, in terms of practice, all other sūtras are subordinate to it.
In conclusion, two summary observations can be made regarding the Lotus Sūtra’s role in the discipline panjiao. First, by contributing to Chinese discourse the doctrine of expedient means as the foundational element of the Buddha’s teaching, the sūtra made the process of establishing structural and chronological relationships among multiple Buddhist scriptures much easier. Second, and as a result of the first point, the Lotus Sūtra came to be prized as a particularly significant and singular text by several Buddhist schools, which must have contributed to its popularization in China and continued transmission into other East Asian countries. More broadly than this, this essay has discussed the discursive-rhetorical formation of the Lotus Sūtra and argued that the doctrine of “expedient means” functioned variously as a polemical tool in its original context of intra-Buddhist discourse and as an epistemological tool in its adoptive context in East Asia. In doing so, I hope I have elucidated the way structures of power and knowledge dominate Buddhist discursive practice and the way the interpretations of texts necessarily vary based on social and intellectual context.
Notes
[1] Source Elements of the Lotus Sutra: Buddhist Integration of Religion, Thought, and Culture (Tokyo: Kosei, 2007), 264.
[2] “Buddhist-Buddhist Dialogue? The ‘Lotus Sutra’ and the Polemic of Accommodation,” Buddhist-Christian Studies 15 (1995), 119.
[3] Ibid., 129.
[4] Ibid., 120.
[5] Stephen F. Teiser and Jacqueline I. Stone, “Interpreting the Lotus Sūtra,” in Readings of the Lotus Sūtra, Stephen F. Teiser and Jacqueline I. Stone (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009), 33.
[6] Liu Ming-Wood, “The ‘Lotus Sūtra’ and ‘Garland Sūtra’ According to the T’ien-t’ai and Hua-yen Schools in Chinese Buddhism,” T’oung Pao 74.1 (1988), 52.
[7] Ibid., 53.
[8] Ibid., 54.
[9] Ibid., 60-61.
January 16, 2012
The Discursive-Rhetorical Formation of the Lotus Sūtra: An Archaeology of Buddhist Strategy and Polemics (Part 1)
The acceptance of the Lotus Sūtra as the foundational scripture of Buddhism in several Buddhist schools, perhaps most notably the Tiantai School founded by Zhiyi (538-597 CE), endowed the text with doctrinal authority and helped lead to its popularization in East Asia, despite the fact that the text did not achieve such power of influence in South Asian Buddhist cultures. By analyzing important passages of the Lotus Sūtra and considering the reception and usage of the scripture in the Tiantai School, my general goal is to establish the original polemical purpose of the text and understand why the text garnered such importance and authority in the course of its transmission into East Asia. Specifically, this essay argues that the discursive-rhetorical formation of the Lotus Sūtra, which initially places the text in a more specific, limited tradition of South Asian Buddhist polemics, was particularly useful in developing structural taxonomies of doctrinal knowledge (panjiao) in Chinese Buddhism.
Though this essay is not primarily concerned with establishing the original authorship or date and place of composition of the Lotus Sūtra, I nevertheless find it necessary to begin with a brief discussion of the Lotus Sūtra’s textual history. Unfortunately, the textual history of the Lotus Sūtra before being translated into Chinese, first in 255 CE and later in a much more popular version by Kumārajiva (trad. 344-413 CE) in 406, remains mysterious. While scholars seem to agree unanimously, based on philological study and analysis of veiled cultural referents in the text, that most of the sūtra was composed and compiled before the second century in northwest India, there is insufficient documentary evidence to substantiate more exact claims as to when the text was composed, where, or in what language.[1]
Using only this meager information, however, two important general conclusions can be reached regarding the Lotus Sūtra. First, because the earliest Chinese translations appeared by the middle of the third century, researchers can reasonably assume that the translators were working with reliable source material. The Chinese translations may, in fact, be closer to the original text of the Lotus Sūtra than the later Sanskrit versions that researchers have more recently discovered. Second, if the Lotus Sūtra was composed between the first and second centuries, as most scholars have indicated, then this conveniently places the composition of the text contemporaneous to the emergence of Mahāyāna Buddhism. The text, therefore, should be read as a preliminary articulation of this major shift in Buddhist practice, and as such is entrenched in the context of intra-Buddhist polemical debates that erupted following the emergence of the Mahāyāna movement. These two critical insights into the Lotus Sūtra provide the modern reader with enough historical background to commit to a critical analysis of the text.
The basic discursive-rhetorical structure of the Lotus Sūtra is revealed in its second chapter, “Expedient Means,” in which the historical Buddha gives an extended discourse on the Law (dharma). The famous parables that follow it (as well as the less famous chapters extolling the virtues of preaching, reciting, and venerating the text itself) can only be understood after one grasps the basic premises of this chapter, which can be neatly summarized in two contrasting teachings about the law. At the opening of the chapter, the Buddha proclaims, “The wisdom of the Buddhas is infinitely profound and immeasurable. The door to this wisdom is difficult to understand and difficult to enter,” and only bodhisattvas are capable of understanding and practicing the true Law of the Buddha.[2] This statement emphasizes the profoundly recondite nature of the Law, yet it also functions as a pre-emptive defense against part of the sūtra’s imagined readership, which would likely include adherents of the so-called “lesser” vehicles. The Lotus Sūtra maintains that those who fail to understand it are merely deluded by lesser teachings or their own hidden malevolence.[3]
Despite this defensive, possibly elitist posture that the text assumes at the opening of the chapter, the Buddha then goes on to make an equally bold but now universalistic gesture:
The original vow of the Buddhas
was that the Buddha way, which they themselves practice,
should be shared universally among living beings
so that they too may attain this same way.[4]
In marked contrast to the monastic emphasis among the southern schools of Buddhism, the Lotus Sūtra argues that everyone, regardless of institutional affiliation, is capable of practicing the religion and attaining Buddhahood.
These two statements, equally important for Mahāyāna Buddhism’s soteriological mission, are nevertheless in tension with each other: on the one hand, the true teaching of the Buddha is seen as impenetrable to the majority of practicing Buddhists, while on the other hand, the Buddha is obliged to convey this teaching to all sentient beings. The first assertion depends on the ineffability of the dharma to explain the incongruities between the Lotus Sūtra doctrine and the earlier scriptures in the Pali canon, while the second assertion would seem to depend on the dharma’s accessibility to uphold a new advance toward universalism. This tension finds resolution in the doctrine of upāya or “expedient means,” which claims that Buddhas of the past, present and future without exception use “countless numbers of expedient means, various causes and conditions, and words of simile and parable in order to expound the doctrines for the sake of living beings.”[5] In this model, which reconciles the text’s universalistic language with its contextual grounding in Buddhist polemics, the teachings and doctrines in their multiplicity are revealed to be merely provisional measures, rhetorical facades designed to captivate listeners and draw followers toward a deeper, more meaningful “encounter” with the dharma.
Notes
[1] See Burton Watson, Introduction to The Essential Lotus: Selections from the Lotus Sutra (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002) and Tsukamoto Keishō, Source Elements of the Lotus Sutra: Buddhist Integration of Religion, Thought, and Culture (Tokyo: Kosei, 2007).
[2] Burton Waton, trans. and ed., The Essential Lotus: Selections from the Lotus Sutra, 1.
[3] Ibid., 24: “When evil persons in ages to come / hear the Buddha preach the single vehicle, / they will be confused, will not believe or accept it, / will reject the Law and fall into evil paths.”
[4] Ibid., 19.
[5] Ibid., 9.
Though this essay is not primarily concerned with establishing the original authorship or date and place of composition of the Lotus Sūtra, I nevertheless find it necessary to begin with a brief discussion of the Lotus Sūtra’s textual history. Unfortunately, the textual history of the Lotus Sūtra before being translated into Chinese, first in 255 CE and later in a much more popular version by Kumārajiva (trad. 344-413 CE) in 406, remains mysterious. While scholars seem to agree unanimously, based on philological study and analysis of veiled cultural referents in the text, that most of the sūtra was composed and compiled before the second century in northwest India, there is insufficient documentary evidence to substantiate more exact claims as to when the text was composed, where, or in what language.[1]
Using only this meager information, however, two important general conclusions can be reached regarding the Lotus Sūtra. First, because the earliest Chinese translations appeared by the middle of the third century, researchers can reasonably assume that the translators were working with reliable source material. The Chinese translations may, in fact, be closer to the original text of the Lotus Sūtra than the later Sanskrit versions that researchers have more recently discovered. Second, if the Lotus Sūtra was composed between the first and second centuries, as most scholars have indicated, then this conveniently places the composition of the text contemporaneous to the emergence of Mahāyāna Buddhism. The text, therefore, should be read as a preliminary articulation of this major shift in Buddhist practice, and as such is entrenched in the context of intra-Buddhist polemical debates that erupted following the emergence of the Mahāyāna movement. These two critical insights into the Lotus Sūtra provide the modern reader with enough historical background to commit to a critical analysis of the text.
The basic discursive-rhetorical structure of the Lotus Sūtra is revealed in its second chapter, “Expedient Means,” in which the historical Buddha gives an extended discourse on the Law (dharma). The famous parables that follow it (as well as the less famous chapters extolling the virtues of preaching, reciting, and venerating the text itself) can only be understood after one grasps the basic premises of this chapter, which can be neatly summarized in two contrasting teachings about the law. At the opening of the chapter, the Buddha proclaims, “The wisdom of the Buddhas is infinitely profound and immeasurable. The door to this wisdom is difficult to understand and difficult to enter,” and only bodhisattvas are capable of understanding and practicing the true Law of the Buddha.[2] This statement emphasizes the profoundly recondite nature of the Law, yet it also functions as a pre-emptive defense against part of the sūtra’s imagined readership, which would likely include adherents of the so-called “lesser” vehicles. The Lotus Sūtra maintains that those who fail to understand it are merely deluded by lesser teachings or their own hidden malevolence.[3]
Despite this defensive, possibly elitist posture that the text assumes at the opening of the chapter, the Buddha then goes on to make an equally bold but now universalistic gesture:
The original vow of the Buddhas
was that the Buddha way, which they themselves practice,
should be shared universally among living beings
so that they too may attain this same way.[4]
In marked contrast to the monastic emphasis among the southern schools of Buddhism, the Lotus Sūtra argues that everyone, regardless of institutional affiliation, is capable of practicing the religion and attaining Buddhahood.
These two statements, equally important for Mahāyāna Buddhism’s soteriological mission, are nevertheless in tension with each other: on the one hand, the true teaching of the Buddha is seen as impenetrable to the majority of practicing Buddhists, while on the other hand, the Buddha is obliged to convey this teaching to all sentient beings. The first assertion depends on the ineffability of the dharma to explain the incongruities between the Lotus Sūtra doctrine and the earlier scriptures in the Pali canon, while the second assertion would seem to depend on the dharma’s accessibility to uphold a new advance toward universalism. This tension finds resolution in the doctrine of upāya or “expedient means,” which claims that Buddhas of the past, present and future without exception use “countless numbers of expedient means, various causes and conditions, and words of simile and parable in order to expound the doctrines for the sake of living beings.”[5] In this model, which reconciles the text’s universalistic language with its contextual grounding in Buddhist polemics, the teachings and doctrines in their multiplicity are revealed to be merely provisional measures, rhetorical facades designed to captivate listeners and draw followers toward a deeper, more meaningful “encounter” with the dharma.
Notes
[1] See Burton Watson, Introduction to The Essential Lotus: Selections from the Lotus Sutra (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002) and Tsukamoto Keishō, Source Elements of the Lotus Sutra: Buddhist Integration of Religion, Thought, and Culture (Tokyo: Kosei, 2007).
[2] Burton Waton, trans. and ed., The Essential Lotus: Selections from the Lotus Sutra, 1.
[3] Ibid., 24: “When evil persons in ages to come / hear the Buddha preach the single vehicle, / they will be confused, will not believe or accept it, / will reject the Law and fall into evil paths.”
[4] Ibid., 19.
[5] Ibid., 9.
January 5, 2012
A dialogue in French
[This was written for French 101. My skit partner and I wrote this piece and performed it in front of the class.]
Lauren : Bonjour, Harrison! Comment ça va?
Harrison : Bonjour, Lauren, comme ci comme ça. Et tu?
Lauren : Ça va bien.
Harrison : Bien. [Regarding the teddy bear] Et comment tu t’appelles?
Lauren : Harrison, je te présente Monsieur Petit Chat, mais il est très timide.
Harrison : Il est très mignon ! Est-ce que il peut parler ?
Lauren : Oui, mais c'est rarement. Il récite de la poésie française.
M. Petit Chat : « Avec chacune l’absence d’amour est pareille. »
Harrison : Où est-ce que tu et M. Petit Chat aller?
Lauren : Nous voulons chercher doué les gens à l'université! M. Petit Chat veut retrouver un acteur!
Harrison : Je veux aller, mais je ne peux pas. Je suis un cours français, et je dois aller.
Lauren : Oui, bien! J’ai une mineure en français. Est-ce que tu aimes beaucoup ton cours?
Harrison : Eh, oui. J’aime bien le français, mais les examens sont très difficiles. Il y a beaucoup d'écrivains français, je veux lire en français, mais je préfère l’allemand en général.
Lauren : Pourquoi est-ce que tu préfères l’allemand ?
Harrison : Je préfère l’allemand parce que j’aime Karl Marx et l’Ecole de Francfort. Philosophes français sont trop ésotérique pour moi.
Lauren : Arrête! Est-ce que tu as majeure en l’allemand?
Harrison : Non, j’étude les beaux-arts. C’est facile et j’adore d'art moderne, par exemple Kandinsky, Pollock, Francis Bacon.
Lauren : Intéressant ! Ce n’est pas typique. Nous devons doué artistes à mon travail.
Harrison : Ou est-ce que tu travailles ? Avec des associations étudiantes ?
Lauren : Non, au nouveau café, à côté de centre informatique.
Harrison : Oh, est-ce que le café derrière un terrain de sport et en face de résidences ?
Lauren : Oui, c’est très joli et petit. Je préfère le petit café et je déteste la vieille cafétéria.
Harrison : Moi aussi. La cafétéria a mauvais cuisine. Le poisson est comme un poison. Quel est le nom du nouveau café ?
Lauren : Nous appelons « Le Chat Noir. »
Harrison : Comment sont les gens ?
Lauren : Nous sommes très créatifs, très individualistes, et très idéalistes. « Le Chat Noir » est notre utopie.
Harrison : C’est inspirant !
Lauren : Est-ce que tu as s’intéresser à travail à notre café ?
Harrison : Oui, je veux travailler. Il sonne comme une bonne communauté.
Lauren : C'est une grande responsabilité!
Harrison : Bien sûr !
Lauren : Excellent ! S’il vous plaît, retrouver moi après demain matin dans la bibliothèque universitaire.
Harrison : D’accord ! Est-ce que la bibliothèque est près de la station de métro ?
Lauren : Non, c’est loin de la station de métro. La bibliothèque est à gauche du labo de chimie.
Harrison : Ah, merci ! A bientôt.
Lauren : De rien ! A demain.
(The end)
Lauren : Bonjour, Harrison! Comment ça va?
Harrison : Bonjour, Lauren, comme ci comme ça. Et tu?
Lauren : Ça va bien.
Harrison : Bien. [Regarding the teddy bear] Et comment tu t’appelles?
Lauren : Harrison, je te présente Monsieur Petit Chat, mais il est très timide.
Harrison : Il est très mignon ! Est-ce que il peut parler ?
Lauren : Oui, mais c'est rarement. Il récite de la poésie française.
M. Petit Chat : « Avec chacune l’absence d’amour est pareille. »
Harrison : Où est-ce que tu et M. Petit Chat aller?
Lauren : Nous voulons chercher doué les gens à l'université! M. Petit Chat veut retrouver un acteur!
Harrison : Je veux aller, mais je ne peux pas. Je suis un cours français, et je dois aller.
Lauren : Oui, bien! J’ai une mineure en français. Est-ce que tu aimes beaucoup ton cours?
Harrison : Eh, oui. J’aime bien le français, mais les examens sont très difficiles. Il y a beaucoup d'écrivains français, je veux lire en français, mais je préfère l’allemand en général.
Lauren : Pourquoi est-ce que tu préfères l’allemand ?
Harrison : Je préfère l’allemand parce que j’aime Karl Marx et l’Ecole de Francfort. Philosophes français sont trop ésotérique pour moi.
Lauren : Arrête! Est-ce que tu as majeure en l’allemand?
Harrison : Non, j’étude les beaux-arts. C’est facile et j’adore d'art moderne, par exemple Kandinsky, Pollock, Francis Bacon.
Lauren : Intéressant ! Ce n’est pas typique. Nous devons doué artistes à mon travail.
Harrison : Ou est-ce que tu travailles ? Avec des associations étudiantes ?
Lauren : Non, au nouveau café, à côté de centre informatique.
Harrison : Oh, est-ce que le café derrière un terrain de sport et en face de résidences ?
Lauren : Oui, c’est très joli et petit. Je préfère le petit café et je déteste la vieille cafétéria.
Harrison : Moi aussi. La cafétéria a mauvais cuisine. Le poisson est comme un poison. Quel est le nom du nouveau café ?
Lauren : Nous appelons « Le Chat Noir. »
Harrison : Comment sont les gens ?
Lauren : Nous sommes très créatifs, très individualistes, et très idéalistes. « Le Chat Noir » est notre utopie.
Harrison : C’est inspirant !
Lauren : Est-ce que tu as s’intéresser à travail à notre café ?
Harrison : Oui, je veux travailler. Il sonne comme une bonne communauté.
Lauren : C'est une grande responsabilité!
Harrison : Bien sûr !
Lauren : Excellent ! S’il vous plaît, retrouver moi après demain matin dans la bibliothèque universitaire.
Harrison : D’accord ! Est-ce que la bibliothèque est près de la station de métro ?
Lauren : Non, c’est loin de la station de métro. La bibliothèque est à gauche du labo de chimie.
Harrison : Ah, merci ! A bientôt.
Lauren : De rien ! A demain.
(The end)
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