這幾年在臺灣流行講『本土文化』，但有時候難免要打個問號: 臺灣有文化嗎?
今天是烏來的櫻花季。 起碼今年將前兩年倭風十足的櫻花『祭』改成櫻花『季』。 也許我太天真，我以為山地村櫻花季應該是讓都市人浸淫山溪間觀大地春綴繽紛的花，聆賞鳥聲蛙鳴，窺探松鼠，讚仰雲仙瀑布，機緣好則可以瞭解一些泰雅的生活智慧，看他們如何與山巒應對。
太天真了吧，由紺! 今天櫻花季的主要活動是搖滾演唱會，音量大到一公里之外還逃不出音響的侵犯。
其實，這應是意料中的事。櫻花季是縣政府辦的。這幾年臺灣政壇的文化水準降落，全世界惡名昭彰。
臺灣空有這麼靈秀的山。
Saturday, February 21, 2004
I need your advice. A friend who wishes to improve his English (not his native language) has asked me to look over his compositions. Do you think I should tell him the difference between S and E in this passage?
At present, individuals attend universities to acquire new experience and face challenges. The liberal learning environment, enlightening concepts, abundance of faculty and equipment, and aptly designed teats are all most alluring.
Please enlighten me.
At present, individuals attend universities to acquire new experience and face challenges. The liberal learning environment, enlightening concepts, abundance of faculty and equipment, and aptly designed teats are all most alluring.
Please enlighten me.
Friday, February 20, 2004
Monday, February 16, 2004
Friday, February 13, 2004
If you had a digital camera ten years ago, in 1994, please raise your right hand… just as I expected, still firmly on the mouse. Ten years ago, who even knew what a digital camera was? And now, in 2004, Kodak has stopped producing film, driven out of that business by digital cameras.
You probably remember the sensation created a few years ago when photo shops started offering to develop your film in only an hour. An hour? Nowadays, who is going to wait an hour to see a photo? We want to see it immediately, on the camera's LCD. If a computer is handy, within moments the photo can be sent all over the world. Who foresaw that twenty years ago?
For that matter, twenty years ago, a mouse was something you tried to keep out of the kitchen. Twenty years ago: 1984. Few now remember the dread connotations of the name of that year, 1984. If somebody from the 1980s read that sentence about your hand being firmly on the mouse, they would not have been able to make heads or tails out of it.
If the past is a foreign country, how much more so the future. We can visit the past, but it will never come again. We cannot visit the future, but it will surely roll in on us.
There's a Jewish saying, “If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.”
You probably remember the sensation created a few years ago when photo shops started offering to develop your film in only an hour. An hour? Nowadays, who is going to wait an hour to see a photo? We want to see it immediately, on the camera's LCD. If a computer is handy, within moments the photo can be sent all over the world. Who foresaw that twenty years ago?
For that matter, twenty years ago, a mouse was something you tried to keep out of the kitchen. Twenty years ago: 1984. Few now remember the dread connotations of the name of that year, 1984. If somebody from the 1980s read that sentence about your hand being firmly on the mouse, they would not have been able to make heads or tails out of it.
If the past is a foreign country, how much more so the future. We can visit the past, but it will never come again. We cannot visit the future, but it will surely roll in on us.
There's a Jewish saying, “If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.”
Thursday, February 12, 2004
Monday, February 09, 2004
Raining Umbrellas
Toan wanted to take the noon bus from Rahaw to Wulai, so we went out to see if it was coming. As we waited by the road, admiring the view of the mountains in the rain, a noise downhill attracted my attention. I saw Tobut walking out to his car. 'Now this is fine,' I thought, 'I can rush over to ask Tobut to take Toan to the city, for that is surely where he is going. That will be better than standing here in the rain waiting for a bus that may not come.' Just then, Mrs Tobut appeared on the scene and forcefully hurled a black umbrella at Tobut. Hmmm. She stepped back inside for a moment, and flung a yellow umbrella at him. I realized that the noise which had attracted my attention had been Mrs Tobut shouting at him. She stepped inside again, and threw a green umbrella at Tobut. Tobut stood behind the car, so Mrs Tobut threw the red umbrella at the car. This was followed by another black umbrella, a plaid umbrella, a light blue umbrella, a dark blue umbrella, another green umbrella, and a nice red and yellow umbrella. Tobut stood behind the car. It rains a lot in Wulai, so people accumulate umbrellas. I imagined Tobut counting umbrellas, sort of like Indians used to count how many bullets the cowboys had left. A few moments later, a blue and white umbrella bounced off the hood of the car. I came to a decision: apparently the chimes of marital bliss were not pealing in the Tobut household, so it might not be politic to rush over and ask Tobut to drive Toan to the city, assuming, of course, that Mrs Tobut ever ran out of ammunition. A green umbrella with red flowers crashed into the back door. Tobut stood behind the car. The bus finally came, so I shepherded Toan onto the bus and waved goodbye. As I moved homeward, I heard more metallic crunches from the direction of the Tobut house. People in Wulai have a lot of umbrellas.
Toan wanted to take the noon bus from Rahaw to Wulai, so we went out to see if it was coming. As we waited by the road, admiring the view of the mountains in the rain, a noise downhill attracted my attention. I saw Tobut walking out to his car. 'Now this is fine,' I thought, 'I can rush over to ask Tobut to take Toan to the city, for that is surely where he is going. That will be better than standing here in the rain waiting for a bus that may not come.' Just then, Mrs Tobut appeared on the scene and forcefully hurled a black umbrella at Tobut. Hmmm. She stepped back inside for a moment, and flung a yellow umbrella at him. I realized that the noise which had attracted my attention had been Mrs Tobut shouting at him. She stepped inside again, and threw a green umbrella at Tobut. Tobut stood behind the car, so Mrs Tobut threw the red umbrella at the car. This was followed by another black umbrella, a plaid umbrella, a light blue umbrella, a dark blue umbrella, another green umbrella, and a nice red and yellow umbrella. Tobut stood behind the car. It rains a lot in Wulai, so people accumulate umbrellas. I imagined Tobut counting umbrellas, sort of like Indians used to count how many bullets the cowboys had left. A few moments later, a blue and white umbrella bounced off the hood of the car. I came to a decision: apparently the chimes of marital bliss were not pealing in the Tobut household, so it might not be politic to rush over and ask Tobut to drive Toan to the city, assuming, of course, that Mrs Tobut ever ran out of ammunition. A green umbrella with red flowers crashed into the back door. Tobut stood behind the car. The bus finally came, so I shepherded Toan onto the bus and waved goodbye. As I moved homeward, I heard more metallic crunches from the direction of the Tobut house. People in Wulai have a lot of umbrellas.
Monday, February 02, 2004
I began work on this scholarly paper last March. Unfortunately, this is as far as I got, and now I forget what point I was aiming at. Maybe you can tell me.
On the Evolution of Oral Traditions:
A Scholarly Examination
In days of yore, when men were men, women were women, rabbits was rabbits, pigs was pigs, and a dollar a day was not a white man's pay because the United States, land of the almighty aforesaid, had not been invented yet, very few in the global economy were receiving monetary compensation for their labors, and besides, globally, the whites have always been a minority, this seems to have become such a run-on sentence that even I have forgotten where I was headed.
Oh yes, the days of yore.
In the days of yore, I suppose people actually did say 'yore,' but it's not one of those words that really draws you in. Take 'rambunctious,' for example. Take 'aspirin' for another example, and phone me in the morning if you're not better yet. But 'rambunctious' is one of those words that you can say over and over. 'Yore' may sound intriguing the first couple of times you say it, and then you sound like a donkey with the hiccups. But 'rambunctious' is one of those words you say over and over again, and it gets more and more absorbing. The syllables flow out like a limpid mountain stream murmuring melodiously in a gradual crescendo as it bounces past sun-lit boulders dappled with spray, and you start thinking, 'my dog, this is really exciting!' but then you start thinking, 'But how come the sound "rambunctious" means "rambunctious"?' And before you know it, you have forsaken all your worldly possessions to spend a significant lifetime with your legs tied into knots as you sit contemplating dapples of spray on sun-lit boulders as a limpid mountain stream blah blah blah. Come on, give it a try, loud and clear: Rambunctious! Rambunctious! Rambunctious! Rambunctious! Rambunctious! Admit it. Tell the world proudly just how you feel. "I feel like a total fool for standing here saying this stupid word five times just because some idiot duped me into it." We are in touch with our feelings. That's what so great about the post-modern world.
That is the post-modern world, not days of yore. In the days of yore, they didn't understand these things, they didn't GROCK these things. One of the reasons they led such insipid lives was that they did not have the benefit of prolonged multisensory experiences. In other words, they didn't have television to tell them every night, in the privacy of their own living rooms, about sex in the city and other topics vital to human happiness.
Every night, they sat around talking to the same people: "Two summers before you were born, a raccoon took four of our turkeys in one night. I have never seen such a greedy raccoon. It came in the night and ate four turkeys. We woke up in the morning and found that four of our turkeys were gone. We saw raccoon tracks on the ground. There were four turkeys gone. That was two summers before you were born. It happened at night. It was dark. A raccoon took four turkeys, four of our turkeys, all in one night, that was some greedy raccoon. I remember, I woke up in the morning and found that four of the turkeys were gone. I saw raccoon tracks on the ground. I went inside and woke up your mother. 'Mother of my children,' I said, 'During the night, a raccoon took four of our turkeys.' 'How do you know that, father of my children?' your mother asked. 'Because, mother of my children, when I woke up this morning, I discovered that four of our turkeys are missing, and there are raccoon tracks on the ground' and your mother said, 'Father of my children, yes, perhaps a raccoon did take four of our turkeys" and they go on and on and ON about those dumb turkeys, night after night, year after year, and you understand why the human race traveled across vast deserts and soaring mountains to inhabit new lands: to get away from the old codgers at home going on for the zillionth time about the time the raccoon took four turkeys in one night.
This was definitely a significant motivation in human migrations.
On the Evolution of Oral Traditions:
A Scholarly Examination
In days of yore, when men were men, women were women, rabbits was rabbits, pigs was pigs, and a dollar a day was not a white man's pay because the United States, land of the almighty aforesaid, had not been invented yet, very few in the global economy were receiving monetary compensation for their labors, and besides, globally, the whites have always been a minority, this seems to have become such a run-on sentence that even I have forgotten where I was headed.
Oh yes, the days of yore.
In the days of yore, I suppose people actually did say 'yore,' but it's not one of those words that really draws you in. Take 'rambunctious,' for example. Take 'aspirin' for another example, and phone me in the morning if you're not better yet. But 'rambunctious' is one of those words that you can say over and over. 'Yore' may sound intriguing the first couple of times you say it, and then you sound like a donkey with the hiccups. But 'rambunctious' is one of those words you say over and over again, and it gets more and more absorbing. The syllables flow out like a limpid mountain stream murmuring melodiously in a gradual crescendo as it bounces past sun-lit boulders dappled with spray, and you start thinking, 'my dog, this is really exciting!' but then you start thinking, 'But how come the sound "rambunctious" means "rambunctious"?' And before you know it, you have forsaken all your worldly possessions to spend a significant lifetime with your legs tied into knots as you sit contemplating dapples of spray on sun-lit boulders as a limpid mountain stream blah blah blah. Come on, give it a try, loud and clear: Rambunctious! Rambunctious! Rambunctious! Rambunctious! Rambunctious! Admit it. Tell the world proudly just how you feel. "I feel like a total fool for standing here saying this stupid word five times just because some idiot duped me into it." We are in touch with our feelings. That's what so great about the post-modern world.
That is the post-modern world, not days of yore. In the days of yore, they didn't understand these things, they didn't GROCK these things. One of the reasons they led such insipid lives was that they did not have the benefit of prolonged multisensory experiences. In other words, they didn't have television to tell them every night, in the privacy of their own living rooms, about sex in the city and other topics vital to human happiness.
Every night, they sat around talking to the same people: "Two summers before you were born, a raccoon took four of our turkeys in one night. I have never seen such a greedy raccoon. It came in the night and ate four turkeys. We woke up in the morning and found that four of our turkeys were gone. We saw raccoon tracks on the ground. There were four turkeys gone. That was two summers before you were born. It happened at night. It was dark. A raccoon took four turkeys, four of our turkeys, all in one night, that was some greedy raccoon. I remember, I woke up in the morning and found that four of the turkeys were gone. I saw raccoon tracks on the ground. I went inside and woke up your mother. 'Mother of my children,' I said, 'During the night, a raccoon took four of our turkeys.' 'How do you know that, father of my children?' your mother asked. 'Because, mother of my children, when I woke up this morning, I discovered that four of our turkeys are missing, and there are raccoon tracks on the ground' and your mother said, 'Father of my children, yes, perhaps a raccoon did take four of our turkeys" and they go on and on and ON about those dumb turkeys, night after night, year after year, and you understand why the human race traveled across vast deserts and soaring mountains to inhabit new lands: to get away from the old codgers at home going on for the zillionth time about the time the raccoon took four turkeys in one night.
This was definitely a significant motivation in human migrations.
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