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Wednesday, 6 December 2006
Robert Pirsig interview ::
Via MetaFilter I came across this interview with Robert Pirsig, author of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.
Most of the army guys were horrible to Koreans, they called them gooks and beat them up whenever they could. And we were hated in turn. It was kind of like Iraq in a way. I was assigned to malarial control in charge of all these local labourers. The caretaker was a kid about 16, and he spoke perfect English. I said: ‘How in hell did you learn English that well?’ And he said: ‘I just picked it up.’ This guy was another of these prodigies, you know, but he had no school. So I paid for him to go to school - $16. This changed my relationship with the Koreans. I started to teach them English. The Koreans and I became good friends and they gave me a Korean chess set. I told them one time the most marvellous thing about the English language is that in 26 letters you can describe the whole universe. And they just said: ‘No’. That was what started me thinking. In the East, the basis of experience is not definable. That 16 bucks set me on the road to Zen.
Bill told me about Pirsig’s Lila a couple years back; I just put it on my Christmas list.
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