A Beautiful Day Begins with a Be

五月，利物浦依然阳光明媚动人，前后花园的花儿久久盛开着不肯褪色，随手採几朵耐人寻味的，熏了花香的书容易上头。

今晨，期待已久，轻轻翻开剑桥大学人文系教授Alan Macfarlane硬核的《The Origins of English Individualism》。

Ever since I started my scholarship in Materials Science Engineering at Liverpool University in the past Cold War decade, the English language and English culture have predominantly been part of my professional career, except for my private life. The hidden rules of British behaviour were always fascinating to me, such as home rules, rules of road, work to rule, rules of play, dress codes, food codes, rules of sex, rites of passage, and so forth as per Kate Fox's book - Watching the English. Your subconsciousness of enthusiasm never voluntarily stops the learning journey after you make yourself a volunteer on such a scattered but special subject outside your dedicated profession.

Back in Feb early this year I wrote an essay about how I understood Britishness on a weekend morning, which was utterly based on personal observation and experience in terms of anthropology. I am pretty sure there are plenty of great anthropological books out there on the market, but somehow in an odd opportunity, I picked up Alan Macfarlane's book - The Origins of English Individualism from social media, which immediately grabbed my attention according to the author himself, a professor of anthropology in Cambridge University, said the book was a thesis concerning the nature of English social and economic structure between the thirteenth and eighteenth centuries, especially for those who would not normally read a book on English social history. In this case, I have to admit I might be the exceptional one in the engineering industry.

晨读有感