I feel that your message offers an important alternative way of thinking,
but here's a response not so much on the theoretical or academic level.
Zen Buddhism has certainly fascinated me ever since I was a child, hearing
those stories of the Buddhist monks' supra-intelligent dialogues. Yet, it
is one thing to talk and hear about all these beautiful ideas and stories
and another thing to live through them in a world still through of everyday
instances that put you down, demean you as a colored person, a woman, or
whatever "categories" people have constructed to lock you into; the
language of resistance might be a bit outdated or not post-modern, but like
the defence-less's weapon, at least helps them in their situated contexts
to generate a discourse to oppose oppression. Eastern or western, both are
categories not so real; but the practices of constructing categories are
real and their consequences real.
Is resistance not necessarily categorical or defined by the categories it
seeks to resist? Or if we do not talk about resistance, the
translinguistic actions you mentioned just feel a bit too elusive to
me--perhaps I'm still miles and miles away from the level of a Zen Buddhist
monk. (There's a saying in Chinese that a young reformist is likely to be
a Confucianist, and when s/he grows old and has met with too many failures,
has become wise and a Zen Buddhist or Taoist). I'm afraid I'm still too
young and too-unwise.
Angel
***************************************************************
Angel Lin, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of English
City University of Hong Kong
Tat Chee Ave., Kowloon
Hong Kong
Fax: (852) 2788-8894
Phone: (852) 2788-8122
E-Mail: enangel who-is-at cityu.edu.hk