本月十四日的blog，我曾提出臺灣一個極嚴重的問題，即政府給地方的預算沒花完，明年可能沒錢。

最近烏來鄉的道路在換護欄。舊的護欄是水泥作的，幾年前作好的；鄉公所現在用怪手把舊護欄挖掉，換了金屬護欄，工程規模不算小。鄉民抱怨，這項工程實在太浪費錢。問題是，官員最怕預算被刪減，今年錢不花，明年可能沒錢。起碼，這個工程有好處：一方面可以讓地方官員把剩餘的公帑耗費掉，另一方面沒有直接破壞山林，在原有道路作工，沒有直接害到處女地。間接的破壞當然很大，可是耗費民眾的錢，比環保重要得多。

過三五年後，鄉公所又可以把金屬護欄挖掉，換水泥的。不過說真的，納稅人賺錢不易，繳稅辛苦，這種工程可稱善用民眾的稅金嗎？這是政府照顧老百姓的好例子嗎？

PS:其實我幫鄉公所解民怨。鄉民氣憤，舊護欄好好的，看不出為甚麼要換；我就替鄉公所說話：「問題在于舊護欄是水泥的，所以不透風，因此一定要挖掉。」

PPS: 你認為我這個解釋不合理嗎？到現在鄉公所還沒提出更合理的解釋，所以我覺得我這個說詞很好呀。

Confession of a Pot Addict
I have a confession to make: I am a pot addict. This has been going on for many years. I have struggled to keep this addiction within bounds, with limited success. I feel that I have to come to terms with this, and face my addiction, in order to deal with it. Honesty and public confession are part of my therapy.

To live with my addiction, I have to accept it, not fight against it. That is hard. I am sorely tempted to visit my main dealer, Chi, although from time to time I do buy from other dealers, and even off the street, too. When I visit Chi, I try to avert my eyes from the good stuff he has on sale, and steer our conversation to safe topics.

Chi knows me well. He doesn't need to bring it up. Sooner or later, I am bound to ask, "Well, Old Chi, I'm trying to keep my eyes shut, but I keep wondering what you have in that drawer.”

"Oh, I shouldn't show you, it's rare stuff.”

"Really?”

"Yes, the purple clay we talked about last time.”

"You mean eggplant purple?" My breathing became quicker.

"Yes, I was able to find two more excellent examples of eggplant purple." He opened the drawer and rummaged around. "Here, look at this, it is from the Ching dynasty.”

I reverently picked the pot up in my hands and examined the color and texture. I sniffed it. "Exquisite, I can just imagine the flavor.”

"But I really don't want to sell that. Here's something for you." He placed another superb example of eggplant purple on the table, and I knew I was gone.

For form's sake, I said, "I don't need another pot. I already have over fifty pots." Chi merely smiled and poured hot water into the Ching dynasty pot. It shined with brilliant luster. "Here, let's make some Shuihsien with this one, so you understand its character.”

"No, Chi, let's not, I'll just admire the color and texture." The handle of the Ching pot was proportioned just right. The spout was short and rising. The pot he was willing to sell me was a Standard pot, but in eggplant purple clay. I had never seen anything like it.

"What kind of tea goes best with eggplant purple?" I asked.

"It's versatile, but you'll probably get the best results with High Mountain tea or something less strongly fermented, like some sort of Oolong.”

I sighed. "I surrender. How much is it?" and with the prices Chi offers, it would be a crime to refuse, so I paid and he got out the packing paper and I came away with yet another tea pot. I just have to face it, I am a pot addict, so I may as well just face it and live with my addiction ….. hey, hey, what kind of pot did you think I was talking about?

reformation
Last weekend I met some friends out on the mountain. They decided to take a little walk along a trail. The trailhead was about a five minute walk from where we were, so they drove, and I set out on foot to meet them there. Yumin was scampering hither and yon, and did not come when I called. Tlahuy and I walked up the road. I called several times, but Yumin did not come.

The road curves. When I got to a spot not too far above our starting point, I bellowed for Yumin. I heard an abject yelp. I told Tlahuy, We had better go back and fetch the beagle.

My friends were still chatting by the car. Yumin was rushing back and forth. I shouted for him. He stopped dead in his tracks, and made a beeline for me. He leapt up into my arms. My friends told me that when he realized I was gone, he chased this way and that trying to find me, almost in a panic.

You know what? Since then he has become a changed beagle. He is more tractable, more demonstrative, and less cantankerous. I am not guaranteeing this will last, and I am not claiming he has become a model of obedience, but between getting caught in that trap in January and losing Tlahuy and me, he has become less wayward.

=||photo by Kelly: in the car on the way back down the mountain||=

When I was in about the fifth grade, for various reasons, my mother went back to work. She got a job drafting for Caltech Geology. During vacations I haunted her office, playing with the drafting tools, following around the geologists, pestering the staff, and generally making a nuisance of myself.

It was a great place. Down in the basement they had aquariums that might have had something to do with geology, with fluorescent nudibranches that fascinated me. The geologists were a merry lot who scattered their footprints all over the geology. One professor had returned from Greenland, where, at considerable expense, effort, and danger, he had succeeded in extracting cores of ancient ice from crevasses deep inside glaciers. From these cores, he intended to analyze the content of the atmosphere long in the earth's past. The best laid plans of lice and men: the precious samples that he was working on were temporarily placed in a special refrigerator in his office, where they stayed until one hapless graduate student wandered in looking for some ice for his coke. Definitely not a good career move for the student, although I understand he later did find gainful employment toting baggage at LAX.

Andy Ingersoll, who had the whole field of interplanetary geology to himself, took me up to the observatory to look through the telescopes. All of the geologists were nice to me (probably because I didn't want any ice in my soft drinks), but Juri van de Wode was in a special class.

Juri came to Caltech by way of the Royal Dutch Air Force. He loved flying the prop planes, with his silk scarf fluttering behind him, and he loved telling stories about the good old days. The good old days before he was married, when his beloved lived in a pleasant house near the base. Juri drew pictures as he told stories, the pleasant house, a pine on each side. One day he was flying over the neighborhood, so he decided to salute her. He buzzed the house, dropping like a dive bomber until he almost hit the chimney before he pulled up. He returned to base very pleased with the impression he must have made on her.

That evening he was surprised by the glacial expressions on her parents' faces. He sat down in the living room with her father, who was puffing on his pipe. Her father asked, "Juri, did you fly today?”

"Yes, I did." For some reason Juri felt that it was not yet time to boast about his buzzing skills.

Puff puff. Silence. Pause. Glares. "Juri, were you flying at around 4:15 this afternoon?”

"Yes, I was.”

Puff puff. Silence. Pause. Glares. "Juri, did you fly over our house?”

"Yes, I did.” Juri was definitely becoming uncomfortable. It turned out that his beloved's mother had just washed a pile of her heirloom plates, and had been carrying them to return to their cupboard when Juri dropped by. She was so surprised that she dropped the whole pile, shattering every one. Juri laughed uproariously when he told me this story, but after all, Caltech is a long way from the Netherlands, twenty years had passed, and they got married anyway.

Another one of his proudest moments was when they were on maneuvers, and had set up a special officers' latrine in the woods. As he flew by, Juri took some wonderful photographs of the colonels and generals doing their business. Oh yes, and Juri was also the Dutch Air Force's first Mach buster. That too, but he didn't take so much pleasure in telling the story, because it was in a jet, and when you pilot a jet, your silk scarf doesn't flutter in the wind.

What fun is flying if your silk scarf doesn't flutter in the wind? Ask Snoopy: no fun at all! No more silk scarves, no fun. Juri left the Air Force and emigrated to US, where he became the top astronomical photographer in the world. He was the best part of my vacations. One spring vacation I helped develop photos of moon which had been taken by a space probe; those were the best photos of the moon that existed at that time.

One day Juri asked, "Did I ever tell you the story of the little sergeant?” No, he hadn't. You see, one day, a little sergeant was transferred to their base. Ok, that happens all the time. Juri told me how he reported in, carrying his duffle bag over one shoulder. He was a quiet man, short, dark, never talked much. For some reason, another sergeant took a strong dislike to him. For convenience, we will call the mean sergeant Leo, and the meek sergeant Vincent. Leo picked on Vincent mercilessly. Even though they were the same rank, Leo ordered Vincent around as if he were a raw recruit. Vincent bore it meekly, without a word. In Leo's eyes, Vincent never did anything right, and Leo always jumped on his back. Vincent bore this meekly for several months. Finally one day Leo yelled at him and insulted him in front of everybody. Vincent said nothing, but returned to his quarters.

Twenty minutes later, a large black limousine flying the Queen's insignia drove into the base. Everybody snapped to attention. Out stepped the largest, meanest, nastiest officer anybody had ever seen in the Dutch armed forces. In a voice like a cannon, the officer called for Leo, and as Leo stood trembling before him, proceeded to scream and yell at him with such eloquence and vehemence that Juri learned many new words. After a quarter of an hour of this, the officer ordered Leo to pack his bag as quickly as he possibly could. Leo was roughly pushed into the Queen's limousine, and driven away. The word was that he spent the rest of his military career in the most remote, most uncomfortable base the Dutch Air Force had in some miserable corner of Indonesia.

That was when they found out that Vincent was the one and only Dutch survivor of the Bataan death march. After the war when he was released from Japanese prisons and returned to the Netherlands, the Queen personally awarded him Holland's highest military decoration. With the decoration came a special privilege: the recipient was allowed to phone the Queen directly at any time, with any request. Juri picked up the phone in his office and gleefully imitated the conversation: "Your Majesty, Leo keeps picking on me. Can you make him stop?”

有人問我，大學通識課我選甚麼？對不起，我念大學時，沒有通識課程。那種制度的好處是專；很多學生修通識課，結果雜，找不出個重心。當年我們師大國文的課幾乎都是必修的，選修呢，一學期修一門就差不多了。我選了管子啦、金文啦、甲骨等等。念完學位最大的好處，對我而言，是沒有必修課，可以念自己愛念的書。

必修課有它的好處，硬讓你學重要科目，管你有沒有興趣。到現在很多韻、攝，紐都還能背，通江止遇蟹臻山效果假宕梗咸曾，有時候腦中突然浮現開齊合撮，反而背的文章詩詞都忘了。

想念就念，不急不緩，高興才念。前不久把世說新語看完了。大學讀過，可是畢業後，想到就看一看，翻一翻，有時候放個三五年不碰，再拿出來看幾頁便擱回書架。有時候再看看前面，高興就隨便翻開讀幾段。可是有個書籤一直從第一頁朝最後一頁前進。前不久，書籤終于到達了最後一頁。算一算，這本書，看了二十九年。不急不緩，再看一遍吧。

戰國策較快，這次五年就看完了。應該把左傳再摸一摸，可是最近又讀韓非子、歐陽修全集、宋元學案。資治通鑑也是。上次看，好像在東漢。慢慢來，很好看。不急不緩，想讀就讀，這不是很過癮嗎？

A couple months ago, Watan asked, "Yugan, Basang Yulaw had his son-in-law, the backhoe operator, drag some driftwood out of the stream after typhoon season last year. He's making luhung. Are you interested?”

I said, "Sure, why not?" and at once forgot all about it. Luhung are the wooden mortars aborigines use to pound millet, sticky rice, and the fingers of the unwary. Nobody makes these any more. The Chinese never used them, and the Aborigines use blenders now. I'd never even heard of a full sized mortar for sale.

The other day Watan phoned. "Yugan, come down to the road, I'm waiting for you. I've got these luhung in my car and I can't do anything with them in here.” He had two large hunters and two large luhung in the car, one of tkbin (櫸, Chinese elm) and the other of skalu (烏心石, of the magnolia family). We wrestled them out of the car. Them: the luhung: the hunters got out by themselves.

"Talakay, Watan, where did he find such a big piece of skalu?”

"I told you, after the typhoon.”

"It must have been a huge tree, I don't think I've ever seen such a big piece of skalu.”

"There are two sshu for each one.”

"Sshu? In Wulai we call a pestle a gsiju.” The workmanship on the mortars was excellent. They are undecorated, but the form and grain speak for themselves.

"Yukan, see the angle of the inside of the skalu mortar, this is better for beating the husks off millet. The tkbin mortar would be better for beating hekin (糯米作成蔴糬 sticky rice cakes)." The mortar comes with two long spoons of lighter wood, for scraping the rice off the walls of the mortar while pounding. Two people pound, and a third keeps the walls clean.

I chose the tkbin mortar, and selected two pestles, be they sshu or qsiju. The mortar is a bit lower than waist level, so you can pound easily with the pestle; a pestle reaches my bellybutton. "Yugan, take this qesu pestle, because you can see it's already been eaten by insects, so that means it's dry and stable." Qesu is 九芎, myrtle, a very hard wood. Nobody could figure out what wood the other pestle I chose is made of, but it weighs around twenty kilograms.

Fortunately, Watan had conned two hunters from Tampya to come along for the ride. When I had chosen the mortar and pestles, Watan and I looked at the hunters significantly. "Watan, Yugan, is something wrong, why are you looking at us like that?" We smiled sweetly: "What do you think you are along for?" Akay laughed and said, "I understand." He hoisted the mortar onto his shoulder; I haven't weighed it, but I would guess the mortar to be around forty kilos. "Let's go. Yugan, lead me, but once I start, I can't stop.”

I ought to hold a rice pounding party. But I'll have to invite strong guests, because those pestles are heavy!

紫色酢醬草, Oxalis corymbosa DC

I have a large collection of photos like this ~~ too large, if you ask me. As I was composing the photo you see above of the pretty flowers, Faithful Tlahuy came over to see what I was looking at. Just for good measure, he sniffed the flowers and walked across them.

Lots and lots of photos like this….

I was talking with my buddy, Mr Tomato. I asked, "Can you still call yourself a vegetarian if you anthropomorphize your food?”

身體髮膚，受之天地
不敢毀傷生態，孝之始也

Happy Earthday!

宋‧永嘉水心先生葉適曰，不深于古，無以見後；不監于後，無以明前。古今並策，道可復興，聖人之志也。

恐怕教育部長不求道之復興、不要老百姓思攷，要國民上學，只是為了接受教條，學習服從政府的命令。

乾，一音古寒切，見母寒韻，古今音同ㄍㄢ，為乾濕之乾。一音渠焉切，群母仙韻，古音ㄎ一ㄢ今音ㄑ一ㄢ’，天也，君也，堅也。佛經常以譯ㄍ、ㄏ音，如Gandharva 乾達婆、Gandhara 乾陀羅等；皆應讀ㄍㄢ，今佛子多讀ㄑ一ㄢ’，失之。絕無以「乾」為ㄑ譯音。

One of the most terrifying scenes I have ever witnessed was a man taking off his sunglasses.

To reach this point, we have to wander about the background lining up developments.

Begin with Zack, I suppose. Zack was a stringy black man from Alabama. He stayed in Saigon after he retired from the US Air Force. He opened a soul kitchen and gave it the mellifluous name The Red Door. When we moved out of the bakery, we moved in two doors over, next to the whorehouse. It was that kind of neighborhood, so Uncle Jim saved a bundle on rent. Business was good and Zack's food was better. Sometimes when the mood struck him, he would play the piano and sing the blues, which was even better. Zack eventually moved to Singapore, I forget why, and Brownie took over. Brownie never sang, but his food was even better. He made some of the best cornbread I have ever tasted. Somebody tried to frag him, though, which spoiled the ambience, to say nothing of his awnings. He moved over to Cowboy Alley, near the old USO, but by that time, the US forces were gone.

One evening in the summer of 1974 I was sitting in Brownie's enjoying some delicious cornbread when a man I had never seen came and sat at my table. Ok, fine, there were only a couple tables, fine with me. I knew all the other men, all Americans, mostly blacks, all of them with some years in Viet Nam, mostly construction workers who stayed after they finished their military service. The newcomer was not a military type. He was about my height and build, with longish dark brown hair, wearing black pants and a long-sleeved brown shirt. His complexion was not very good, but I couldn't see all of his face because he was wearing sunglasses with black rims. That was sort of weird, because it was nighttime. I thought the sunglasses were an affectation.

If he was trying to be cool with those shades, it wasn't working. He seemed uptight. He didn't talk much. He was civil, but there was a tension in his posture and words. He ordered cornbread and a drink. Then he took out a pack of cigarets and lit one. He put his lighter on the table. It was a typical silver Zippo, with one difference: it was decorated with a Phoenix. Immediately all of the men began buying drinks for the newcomer, treating him with great deference. He accepted their drinks calmly, almost as his due.

The Viet Namese are very proud of a saying, 王法不入村, Royal law stops at the village gates. Traditionally Viet Namese villages were autonomous to the point of anarchy. Village elders decided what was what, and if the Emperor did not like it, he could come enforce the law himself. The emperors were content to respect tradition, so village elders had immense authority in Viet Nam. The village elders stood up to the Viet Cong as they had stood up to the emperors, but the Viet Cong would not brook any challenge to their authority. They began a systematic campaign to assassinate village elders and murder their families, in order to terrorize the people, break down traditional authority, and force all to submit to their rule. They murdered one hundred thousand people in this campaign.

The response was brutally efficient. The South Viet Namese found out just which men were murdering these village elders and their families. The Phoenix program sent American shooters to kill the families of the Viet Cong hit men. Immediately, the Viet Cong stopped killing village elders. However, Congress found out about Phoenix, and with great sanctimony, ordered the end of the Phoenix program. Immediately, the Viet Cong started killing village elders again, and our Senators were proud to be so virtuous. This is the story behind our newcomer's lighter.

After his third drink, the newcomer loosened up a bit. He took off his sunglasses and put them on the table. I instantly understood why he wore them. When a poisonous snake has bitten its prey, it waits patiently, dispassionately for the animal to stop struggling and die. This was what I saw in that man's eyes. He must have noticed how discomfited I was, because with an apologetic grimace, he put his sunglasses back on again, and kept chewing his cornbread.

He paid an awful price for his patriotism.

我自認記性不壞，可是時間觀念糟透了。事情往往記得很清楚，但是發生是在半年前或五年前，完全搞不清楚。

曾經有一次遇到一位助教，叫郭大碁，寒暄幾句便問，「現在申請學校的進展怎麼樣？」

他愣了好一回，慢慢回答說，「老師，我已經念完博士回來了。」

「喔，是這樣嗎？你念了幾年？」

「碩士博士，我在美國念了七年…」

前幾天跟朋友講這個故事(好像是前幾天吧)，你說巧不巧，今天坐捷運又遇到郭大碁，寒暄幾句，他在上海工作，一年回臺灣兩三次，剛好去客戶公司討論事情，過兩天要回上海。跟他真有緣。

可是這次我就沒問我們多久沒見。從他談話中猜，大概九年了吧。Don't ask me.

Go metric? No, no, a hundred times no, never in a thousand years. It's unnatural. If the good god in heaven had wanted the US to give up inches and pounds and go metric, he would have made us all with ten fingers and ten toes.

不是我想做廣告，可是用了Balahu作的手工洗髮皂之後，不想再用一般商品洗髮精 www.ewuyu.com。問題是，頭髮亂翹，像颱風過後的鳥巢。我問Balahu怎麼辦？

Balahu說，「用手工皂洗頭髮會這樣是正常的，因為它們都沒有一般市售洗髮精的柔軟髮質化學成份。我看書上說用手工皂洗頭，可以嘗試用1比10的醋水或者檸檬水潤絲，洗完頭以後到些醋水者或檸檬水把頭髮揉一揉，再稍為沖一下水即可軟化髮質。」

好吧，專家是這麼說，我就帶了醋進浴室準備洗頭。突然一種很不妙的感覺，心中彷彿看到Balahu跟Rabbit兩個人抱在一起笑，笑到精疲力盡，「我跟他說，看書上說用手工皂洗頭，用醋作潤絲，那個呆瓜一定會相信，一定拿醋作潤絲…」
「噗哈哈哈哈，可能家裡沒有醋，去買的時候問，『小姐請問，那一種醋洗頭比較好？』『先生，你說要用醋作甚麼？？』哈哈哈，不行，再笑會脫水！」

站在蓮蓬頭下，手上拿著醋，猶豫了很久，最後想，「如果沒效或有甚麼意想不到的後果，不要讓Balahu知道就好了，反正她在臺東，夠遠。」

結果發現效果很好，頭髮很順。還好。

PS: 用醋潤絲效果好，可是我現在又在想，是誰發現的？是怎麼樣發現的？
~~用西瓜汁潤絲很涼，可是滿頭紅肉不雅觀。
>>總比我好。上次試火龍果，老婆以為我出水痘，打了好幾針。
~~醬油潤絲效果不好，可是看起來比較年輕，白髮都不見了。
>>你也太認真，上次還用麻油被當作神經病報警。
~~我一時興奮，看到麻油想到，這個還沒試過，不知道效果好不好，索性馬上擦。
>>你應該想到。
~~我忘了是在水餃店…
>>那個老闆有點激動…
~~他不了解科學實驗精神。
>>你賠了多少？
~~還好，可惜的是，老闆說以後我敢在他店裡露臉的話，他把我砍成餡，做成水餃餵野狗。那家水餃真好吃…
>>不管了。下一個試甚麼？
~~不要再試蜂蜜就好了。我第二天早上被癢醒，眼睛一開，枕上幾百隻螞蟻。
>>對，我忘了問，律師認為這樣構成離婚條件嗎？
~~不只，還要贍養費呢。
>>蜂蜜不行，那麼我們用醋看看。
~~用醋潤絲？你有沒有搞錯？
>>不然你用烤地瓜。
~~好了好了，我用醋試試看…
…..the rest is history.

I have written before on this blog about attending the annual gathering of the Jingpo (景頗, Kachin) in Taiwan: November 27, 2005; November 29, 2004. You can find those in the Archives on the right of this page.

The other day I received an e-letter from a Kachin organization in London. They had no idea that there is a Jingpo organization in Taiwan, and asked me to get them in touch. The London contingent and the Taiwan contingent got on the phone and had a good long talk. I am delighted and honored to have this chance. How often does such an opportunity arise?

www.kachinland.org
www.kachinnews.com
www.kachinpost.com
www.kachin-today-usa.org

韓非子：鄭人有欲買履者，先自度其足，而置之其座。至之市，而忘操之。已得履，乃曰，「吾忘持度，反歸取之。」及反，市罷，遂不得履。人曰，「何不試之以足？」曰，「寧信度，無自信也。」

現代很多迷信科學的人也是如此，寧信度，無自信也。

這裡是烏來西螺岸靠近保慶宮的地方，一般遊客不到之處。

一個月前，這裡是杉林。杉中也長其它野生種的樹、草、爬藤、蕨，生命卬卬，氣息雝雝。一個月的時間，樹幾乎砍光了，野生植物靡有孑存，整個地型被破壞；要蓋溫室，「種一些適合這個環境的植物。」如果適合這個環境，為甚麼要毀滅生態？如果不適合這個環境，為甚麼要在烏來種？

如果適合這個環境的植物一定要溫室才能長，為甚麼不能順地勢蓋，或作不規則地基？這個答案簡單：不肯用腦筋，也深怕多花一毛錢。如果作好環保要多一銖的成本、損一毫的利益，業者寧死不肯，願留爛攤子害死子孫。

一個月前，這塊地的樹上傳鳥聲蟲鳴；現在鳥禽蟲獸沒有了，只剩機器噪音。

臺灣山林保育，誰理它？是土地配合我，不是我配合土地。說愛臺灣嘛，是愛嗎？簡直是強暴。

官員最怕預算被刪減，今年錢不花，明年可能沒錢。你知道這種慣例對臺灣產生多嚴重的傷害嗎？為了耗費今年的經費，山中亂開路；也許對某些地主、業者、財團有利可圖，但是環境破壞，害死大家。

路開了，不太有人走，因為沒有實用價值。可以到烏來看這些路旁，全是垃圾；舊建材、彈簧床、冰箱、電腦、馬桶、洗衣機，都往山上丟。寧毀山林生態，不願送垃圾場：垃圾場收費，要自己出錢，丟山上的代價是大家一起付的。

我說，「愛臺灣」這個口號，是騙人的。

This morning I was awakened by incessant barking, and darn if it didn't sound like a beagle. It sounded like the neighbor's Andy was chiming in, too. Not a distressed barking, more like they had something treed, but I sure couldn't get back to sleep. Faithful Tlahuy was prancing by the back door. I followed the barking up a very steep slope. Sure enough, Yumin and Andy. A feral cat was holding a defensive position on a tree trunk, but it was a fallen tree, and what with the angle of the slope, it was just a few handspans out of paw-reach. I tried to call the dogs off, but I knew how much good that would do. I began edging toward the confrontation, with the idea of holding the dogs while the cat made its escape, but I am heavier than a dog, and the slope crumbled under me. Then clever Yumin got an idea: he started inching out along the branches of the tree, which still had enough twigs and dry branches to hold him. The first several twigs did, anyway. Suddenly he plummeted out of sight: thunk. Then scritch scritch scritch Yumin pulled himself up the slope: I would estimate it at about 70 degrees. With a look of grim determination on his face, he gradually pulled himself back up to his original position, mostly by the strength of his front legs, like someone doing pullups. Yumin is as cute as all getout, but he's also a very headstrong doggie, not to mention just plain strong. The cat watched him approach with resignation. Tlahuy and Andy kept barking, just for good measure. Finally, Yumin clambered back up. He decided, if a cat can do it, I can do it, so gingerly he started moving out along the trunk. The cat arched its back, but it didn't look good, so I hacked off a length of bamboo and used that to smack the trunk between cat and dog; Yumin hesitated, but the cat didn't. It flung itself off the trunk and down the slope. Tlahuy was after it in a moment, but a moment too slow, and the cat made good its escape.

Rather than go back down that slope, I continued upward and circled home. Sure enough, about an hour after I got home I keeled over for a nice makeup nap.

Yeah, I know you've seen it before, but I never tire of the view.
This is a sequence of photos I took one afternoon last month.

Some photos I took one day last month. There was something wrong with the blog, so I couldn't post them then.

The US is an amazing country. It has produced both Walt Disney, who made wild animals all cutsie-wootsie, and Hugh Hefner, who made nudity boring.

申時春雷

我來臺灣時，對中國語言、文學一無所知，但被國字吸引，這麼迷人的字，我一定要學會，所以就來了。學中文半年，開始讀文言文，從此不再想看語體文；沒味道。好茶喝了，開水就顯沒滋味。文言才好看，沒標點更好。(本篇屬論時事小品，故以白話譔)

如果看懂國字，看文言不難，但要用頭腦；作者把讀者當聰明人。讀文言與讀白話不同，要慢慢看，慢慢思攷，用心尋字意句旨。其它語言若干結構詞(如英文冠詞之類)，文言不須要，所以非常精簡；全世界語言，中國文言最適合寫詩，因為只有意境詞，不須文法結構詞。我最愛左傳：簡明扼要，整本書無一字可刪。

當然，審美觀是主觀的。文言一個最好的特質是經古不易，換朝改代，文言依然。Shakespeare才四百年前，現在幾乎看不懂，因為是白話；十三世紀的Chaucer也寫白話，現代人只能猜一兩個字，Beowulf連一個字也不用猜。英文是我的母語，教英文三十年了，可是對我來說，讀四書、竹林七賢、韓愈、戰國策比讀Shakespeare輕鬆，就是因為文言不隨時代變遷。

班固、孟子、Shakespeare死了那麼久，看他們作品有甚麼好處？(其實，會問這種問題的人極端缺乏深度，將近無藥救的情形)幾千年來的人都是笨蛋嗎？只有現代人的話才有參攷價值嗎？現代西洋科學觀不是萬能的，任何一種學術有其極限；多讀古人書，了解他們的觀點，學習他們的理路，集思廣益，有助于突破現代思想的窠臼。誠如賴明德老師所說，現代學術越走越狹隘：博士的頭銜應該改為「精士」。

否定文言，對于一個從事文學創作的人，有它的魅力在：如果屬于華夏五千年的文學傳承，作品義必與左丘明、韓非、王弼、柳宗元、歐陽脩、張岱他們比一比，這的確是十分令人洩氣的事。如果否定這個傳統，另起爐灶，有利于孤芳自賞，很爽。

浩瀚文獻，垂手可得；若置之不理，對于我們社會的思攷、討論、處事，是莫大損失。照理說，一個開放、自由民主社會，應該鼓勵國民多方採取不同觀點，讓我們從更多角度看問題，有更多法子處理事情，有更多意見參與討論；除非教育政策存心愚民。

說也奇怪。今天全世界爭先恐後要學中文，而臺灣教育部想封殺國民中文能力。不止是奇怪的政策，實在也很可惜。會認國字不讀文言，好比來臺灣專吃麥當勞；真正好的、有特色的、有深度的，全沒嘗到滋味，太可惜。入寶山，空手歸。

我的床前面的月亮光芒好亮喔。你覺得這樣比較好嗎？

Springtime in Wulai.
Ini mita ali.

if you look carefully, you can see a beagle tail in the background.

竹花了
發瘋了

This afternoon I heard a thump. A mkuang had flown into a window on the second floor. I know only the Tayal name, mkuang ~~ it's a kind of pigeon, bright green. I was afraid Tlahuy and Yumin would tear it apart, as they are avid hunters, and go after everything that moves. To my surprise, Tlahuy carefully picked it up and deposited it at the front door. Yumin was excited, but did not approach the bird. I swear they knew it was wounded in an accident, and not fair game. I sat with them for a while, and told some mantras for the bird. Then I put my finger behind its feet. It perched on my index finger, and I placed it on the branch of a tree in the ravine out front.
About an hour later, I went out to see how it was doing. When it saw me coming, it flapped its wings and flew away: see, I'm ok!

::I looked it up, 綠鳩, sphenerus sieboldi, Green Pigeon.

你比較欣賞誰，曹操或者劉備？

劉備、關公、張飛、諸葛亮雖然終告失敗，但在華人心目中，永遠是英雄。曹操勝利，可是視為有才華的姦詐梟雄。中國人欣賞悲壯、耿介之士。

說不定，百年後，蔣中正是萬民景仰的英雄。

Yesterday just at dawn, the bamboo frame I hang drying clothes on came crashing down. Well, it's been nine years, I should have thought to replace the bamboo earlier. I had class, so I didn't have time to fix it yesterday.

This afternoon I took my headhunting knife and saw and selected several nice bamboo poles. The crossbar is as thick as my forearm. When I had cleaned the bamboo and stacked it on my front gate, I suddenly got a whim to take off uphill across the jungle in a straight line. I had my knife in case I had to chop through anything, but that would be only a last resort; I try not to mar the jungle. Walking barefoot does not spook snakes, so I figured it would be fun. I wasn't going any great distance, just a couple hundred meters, but it was rough going. I waded through a thick sludge of mud and climbed up a little waterfall. I move cautiously in the mountains, because when I go rambling, nobody knows where I am, so if I were hurt, nobody would ever find me. I'm not in any hurry anyway. As I reached the top of the waterfall, delicately placing my toes on the loose rocks, suddenly Tlahuy came charging up through my legs, and almost launched us both off.

As I expected, I came out near Singang's hut. His brother, Abus, and father-in-law were there. "Yugan, why are you so muddy?”

"Just having fun." I chatted with them a while, but sniffing the wind, took my leave. Minutes after I dragged my bamboo onto the back porch, it started pouring. When I had finished my repair job, I came in and made some fine tea to drink as I listened to the rain.

FYI: carrying a long bamboo pole is like riding a raft in choppy water.

Steph informed me of this:
On Wednesday of this week, at two minutes and three seconds after 1:00 in the morning,
the time and date will be

01:02:03 04/05/06.

That won't happen again for a hundred years!

You may now return to your normal stuff

人生
年輕，享受
中年，想瘦
老年，想壽

Overheard on the bus
從烏來坐車下臺北，一個女的帶著一個八九歲的小男生；看樣子可能她是姑姑、嬸嬸之類的。
>烏來他們跟我們臺北不一樣，他們是原住民。
<甚麼是原住民？
>跟我們不一樣，他們很久很久以前來臺灣，比我們早，所以叫做原住民。
<我們不是原住民？
>不是。烏來他們是原住民，他們是阿美族的。
<甚麼是阿美族？
>烏來他們就是阿美族，原住民還有很多族，有阿美族，還有…還有……還有排灣族…有泰雅族…還有……還有邵族……鹿族…哇，你看你看，這邊有一家餐廳，這個餐廳好大好大，你看這個餐廳真的很大，一定很多人來吃，才這麼大。我們等一下到新店可以坐捷運，你喜不喜歡坐捷運？

=可惜她把話題扭開了，我正想幫忙：鹿族之外，還有兔族、鱷魚族、螃蟹族，而且不要忘記客家族！

Coming home one night last week, I spotted a pile of bricks by the road in New Store.
Hey, Chang, look, bricks.
Mm.
Let's stop.
You need bricks?
They look lonely there, you know. It's been raining a lot, they look abandoned, like nobody really cares about them.
You need bricks?
I've got some pots I want to fire on a bonfire, and some bricks to hold the fire would be an improvement.
You need bricks.
They look forlorn here, all by themselves.
How many do you need?
I can't just take them, but how sad, there's nobody around to ask permission.
Are you kidding? It's almost midnight.
Good, nobody will see us then.
How many do you need?
A dozen will do.
Put them in the trunk.
If the weather holds, maybe I can fire my pots on Sunday.

Who needs April Fools' when we've got Bush in the White House and President Bean here?

The ROC VP shoots her mouth off at minorities and the disadvantaged. The US VP shoots defenseless animals and lawyers. It's difficult to say who inflicts more pain.

Happy April, fools.