Thursday, July 31, 2008

overheard on the Taipei subway

The words of the prophet are heard on the subway car

二十幾歲女:經理這樣對我很不公平!

中年男:這麼久妳還在煩惱這個事情!妳要放下,妳跟他們的緣是這樣,妳還在煩惱。妳一直抓著煩惱不放就變成垃圾,妳垃圾帶在身上幹麼?垃圾久了會發臭。

20-something whining lady: The manager was really unfair to me.

Middle aged man: You’re still fretting about that after all this time! You should let go of it, but you’re still worrying. If you keep holding on to worries they turn into garbage. Why are you carrying garbage around with you? Garbage reeks after a while.

板主招供:妳跟他們的緣是這樣沒英譯,因為「緣」翻不出來。

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

晉靈公造九層臺,費用千金,謂左右曰:「敢有諫者斬。」孫息聞之,上書求見。靈公張弩持矢見之。曰:「臣不敢諫也。臣能累十二博棊,加九雞子其上。」公曰:「子為寡人作之」。孫息正顏色,定志意,以棊子置下,加九雞子其上。左右懼慴息。公曰:「危哉,危哉!」孫息曰:「此殆不危也,複有危於此者。」公曰:「原見之。」孫息曰:「九層之臺三年不成,男不耕,女不織,國用空虛,鄰國謀議將興,社稷亡滅,君欲何望?」靈公曰:「寡人之過也乃至於此!」即壞九層台也。

出西漢劉向說苑,史記亦有記,而茲文依後漢書卷六十九注。孫,說苑作荀From Shuo Yuan, A Garden of Stories, by Liu Hsiang, 1st century BC:

Duke Ling of Chin (620-607BC) was building a nine story pavilion, with costs running into thousands of pieces of gold. The Duke told his followers, “Anybody who dares to dissuade me will have his head chopped off.” When Sun Hsi heard about this, he submitted a petition for an audience. Duke Ling held a drawn crossbow and arrows to see Sun Hsi. Hsi said, “I do not dare to dissuade your excellency. I am able to stack up twelve ch’i stones* and put on top of that nine chicken eggs.” The Duke said, “You do that for me.” Sun Hsi put on a solemn face and settled his mind; he stacked the ch’i stones below and stacked nine eggs on top of that. All in the court held their breaths. The Duke said, “Oh, it’s tottering, it’s tottering!” Sun Hsi said, “This is not really tottering, there is something even more precarious than this.” The Duke said, “I would like to see that!” Sun Hsi said, “The nine story pavilion has been under construction for three years and it still isn’t finished. The men don’t have time to plow the fields, the women don’t have time to weave cloth. The treasury is emptied, neighboring countries are planning to rise, and our society faces destruction. What more would you like to see?” Duke Ling said, “This is my mistake!” and ordered the nine story pavilion be razed.

*ch’i, often known in the West by the Japanese pronunciation go,

is played with rounded stones.

Three years? Thousands of pieces of gold? The war in Iraq has been going on for much more than three years, and costs the US ten billion dollars a month! Bush has killed far more Americans than bin Laden ever did. When will he admit his mistake?

Monday, July 28, 2008

A spider spun a nest inside the shell of a small beetle on a little leaf in my front yard.

家前一石上落一片葉;葉上有蟲屍,蟲裏有蜘蛛編網。網中捕一蝨;蝨前右足上另有一片天地;蝨足竟有山有海,一城坐落海上,「街衢洞達閭閻,人不得顧,車不得旋;填城溢郭,集「五都貨殖,既遷既引,商旅聯槅,隱隱展展,冠帶交錯,方轅接軫」,熱鬧非凡。城外遠郊有山,山中千巒萬壑,其中一壑深峽有道人居,結幽曲之延澗,「飛觀榭乎雲中,開高軒以臨山,列綺牕而瞰江」,庭廨廊院莫不具,園池徑圃無弗備,「反宇業業,飛檐巘巘,長廊廣廡,途閣雲蔓」,「雕楹玉磶,繡栭雲楣」,「庭扣鐘磬,堂撫琴瑟」。道人坐于一亭下,案上拱南華經。道人啟閱:


北冥有魚,其名為鯤。鯤之大,不知其幾千里也。化而為鳥,其名為鵬。鵬之背,不知其幾千里也;怒而飛,其翼若垂天之雲。是鳥也,海運則將徙於南冥。南冥者,天池也。


道人仰頭大笑,曰,「豈有此理!鳥之大者,不過展我雙臂而已,詎信鳥之大如彼言者歟?莊子果誕詭者矣!」棄卷搖頭,終身不復讀。

photo by Chao

街衢句出班固西都賦

雕楹句、反宇句、貨殖句出張衡西都賦

飛觀句、庭扣句出左思蜀都賦

颱風天之娛樂


Sunday, July 27, 2008

One time when I was a boy, with my father in a hardware store, he stopped in front of a bin full of screwdrivers. He very disdainfully picked one up and showed me the words stamped on it: MADE IN JAPAN. “See that?” he said, his voice dripping with disgust. “That means its junk. Never buy anything made in Japan. It’s all junk, and it’ll break the first time you use it.”

One of our teachers told us that some businessman noticed that a little village in Japan was named Usa. Factories started sprouting up there, producing goods stamped MADE IN USA, in order to avoid marking them made in Japan, because everybody knew anything made in Japan was junk, and so poorly made that nobody wanted them.

For a while there was good business in Usa, Japan until the American authorities found out about it and told them they had to mark their products with the name of the country, not the village.

現在臺灣很多人說大陸貨多差多爛,且不當忘記,四十年前,Made in Japan是爛貨的標誌、三十年前Made in Taiwan也是爛貨的標誌。

Saturday, July 26, 2008

Poor little Byajing is in the hospital. She’s had a fever, so Denise the Vet recommended Byajing remain under her care for a few days. Tlahuy and Yumin are morose. Get well soon, little doggie!

Photo: we visited Byajing at the hospital. Denise is walking her, while Byajing is leaning as hard as she can into my leg.

Friday, July 25, 2008


The firemen say there are a lot of hornets this year. Every day three or four hornets blunder indoors and can’t find their way out again until we open windows and shoo them out.

Yesterday I found the dread 虎頭蜂 tiger head hornets building two nests, one on the back balcony and one on the front. Normally I get along well enough with these big hornets, but I just simply can’t have them building nests close to the house, much less on the house! A nest of tiger head hornets can have over twenty thousand of these large hornets; they are very territorial, and four stings will generally kill a person.

Reluctantly, I sprayed the nest on the back balcony with insecticide, ready at every moment to leap back into the safety of the screen door. But the nest on the front balcony was too high to reach, so, also reluctantly, I phoned the fire station for help. Again.

The fireman were busy taking down a hornet nest at one of the neighbor’s, but when that was finished, they came to examine the nest. They propped up a ladder, and after a short discussion about whose turn it was, and who was the tallest fireman, one of them suited up and removed the nest.

I assured the firemen that they are always welcome in our home, but I really hope I don't have to call them again for another hornets' nest. Twice within two weeks is more than enough.


Thursday, July 24, 2008

How much responsibility should a consumer shoulder? Is it proper to buy goods that are produced at the cost of the suffering of others? 自己的快樂不該建立在別人的痛苦上;何況,如果買的產品在生產過程中讓其它眾生受苦~毋論是人是畜生~跟那些眾生結了惡緣。

"Kids in Congo were being sent down mines to die so that kids in Europe and America could kill imaginary aliens in their living rooms," said ex-British Parliament Member Oona King.

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

很不幸,今天在外頭看了幾分鐘電視。新聞報導一對名人()在不丹結婚。畫面:一群不丹僧穿著樸素的傳統服裝,右邊站的新郎穿西裝,新娘穿如夢魘一般的婚紗。不丹人可憐:有錢人把他們當道具,撒幾個錢拉他們來增添照片的氣氛。人家窮,不能怪他們想收下那幾個錢。

婚紗的規矩:新人不許保留一絲毫自己的人格,尤其是新娘。

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Why do feminists have to be so doctrinaire and sentimental?

A sister is a friend forever.”

Really? I know plenty of sisters who are at each others’ throats. Frankly, I would rather feminists develop some semblance of a sense of humor, rather than give us all this stultifying, self-righteous dogma.

I come from a long line of tough, independent women. My grandmother several greats back was on the frontier when the frontier was east of the Mississippi. A poorly felled tree crushed a man’s leg, pinning him. The doctor was called, looked at the carnage, and fainted. My greatx grandmother Mary Loree took the saw and sawed off the man’s leg, neatly leaving a patch of flesh, which she folded over the bloody stump so the wound could heal better.

I admire my mother’s father’s father, he was a brave man, because with one look, from twenty paces, my mother’s father’s mother could frighten off a pack of hungry wolves. She was never a woman to be trifled with. In our family, we don’t let children under twelve see their wedding photograph, because the look on her face was so grim that it causes children to have nightmares.

Both of my grandmothers were tougher than nails. Militsa was Serbian, enough said. Ethel on the other side was independent enough to divorce my grandfather in the Dust Bowl, in days when divorce was beyond the pale. My mother served in the army during WWII, and drove around the war zones in Viet Nam. My sister Steph, truly a friend forever, is as strong, resilient, and self-sufficient as any Special Forces combat veteran I have ever met. But you want to hear my dear Sister Steph blow her stack? Read her this icky quote from Laurel Thatcher Ulrich: “Well behaved women seldom make history.”

Yuck! I suggest we heed the advice of a Dead European Male named Samuel Johnson: “Clear your mind of cant.”

Monday, July 21, 2008

韓非子五蠹:「上古之世,人民少而禽獸眾,人民不勝禽獸蟲蛇,有聖人作,搆木為巢以避群害,而民悅之,使王天下,號曰有巢氏。」

或因「搆木為巢」,以為初民樹居,悖:樹屋難作,應屬後起。揣之,民未居室,則未成字辭,故以類比:鳥築巢,夕歸巢眠,故以「巢」喻其宮室。

說文:宮,室也,从宀窮省聲…許說失之,宮殆為合體象形,「呂」于是非弓非膐力姓氏之呂,而為初民半穴居象形,如大雅緜:「古公亶父,陶復陶穴,未有家室」,陶復者是也。于攷古有據,新石器時代華夏民室,多為半穴居。

Sunday, July 20, 2008

The Olympics are coming, so all eyes are on Beijing, which you may recall I taught you how to pronounce properly: Bay-jing, and none of this zzhhing nonsense, unless you want to sound like an utter ass.


Now for a few words on how to eat Chinese food. In the US, I was bemused to see how Chinese food is eaten American style: each person orders a plate and eats that plate exclusively. Chinese style, each person orders a plate, and everybody eats out of every plate. You get a better variety of food that way. BTW, this also explains why Chinese like to have big crowds at the dinner table: more people, more plates, more variety of food. I watched one young lady in Boston eating a whole platter of tofu, while her friend ate a whole platter of eggplant. They could have shared. Should have.

Be brave, be adventurous, but if you don’t know what something on the menu is, ask. This is especially true in Cantonese restaurants, where they like to use literary allusions to name dishes. When I first came to Taiwan, a friend and I were intrigued by the “phoenix paws” on the menu of a Cantonese restaurant, and then very gamely struggled to finish off a whole platter of chicken claws, which is what the name disguises.

First rule of eating Chinese food authentically: never, ever put soy sauce on your rice! Would you put ketchup on a cake? Ok, I suppose some of you would, in which case, you can stop reading right here. Enjoy your soy sauce.

As a matter of fact, don’t put soy sauce on anything. I am wracking my brains, and believe that there is no dish that absolutely requires soy sauce. Try and find out what Chinese food really tastes like, not just what soy sauce tastes like.

All right, so now you’ve got your bowl of rice, and you have valiantly restrained yourself from drowning it in soy sauce. Now, hold your chopsticks with your right hand and your rice bowl with your left hand. Pick up a morsel from one of the plates on the table and transfer it to your bowl. Then, holding your bowl to your mouth, shovel the morsel and some rice into your mouth. Lift and shovel, that’s the proper way to eat Chinese food.

Chinese table manners are not very stringent, but leaving your rice bowl on the table is bad form. Eating from a rice bowl on the table is even worse. And never drum on the table with your chopsticks… but you knew that one anyway, I should hope.

When you have finished your rice, if you want more, hold the empty bowl up high and look meaningfully at the waiter or waitress, and they should bring you another bowl. If you want to save them some work, dump the new rice into your old bowl and set the new bowl aside.

If someone at your table is trying to pick some food off of a platter but, for example, it is too long, or catches on other items of food, rescue that person; use your chopsticks to twist off the unwanted portion or pull it down. However, confine your efforts to your own table. Let the people at other tables fend for themselves.

Another no-no: don’t pour sugar in your tea! This is not Indian burning-rubber-band tea, for crying out loud! It’s real tea! No milk, no lemons, no sugar, no rubbish, just drink the tea!

That said, I have to admit that outside Asia, Chinese restaurants are not going to waste good tea by serving it to woebegone barbarians who have no idea what tea tastes like. If you want good tea, come to Taiwan; stay away from Japan.

And finally, fortune cookies do not exist in Asia. They are purely an American invention. If you want to know your fortune, go to a temple, go to a physiognomist, go to a palmist, go to an astrologer, but don’t expect to have your fortune told by a cookie!

But I would like to revise something I just wrote. First rule of eating Chinese food authentically: never, ever eat at F P Chang’s.

Friday, July 18, 2008

In 1940, E B White wrote, “There was a scene in ‘The Hunchback of Notre Dame’ showing the King of France taking his annual bath. One of his attendants urges him to take two baths a year instead of only one. And right there my attention wavered from the picture and I began brooding about the problem of personal cleanliness in the 15th century and realized that if the King, enjoying all the advantages of wealth and position, took only one bath, then the gypsy girl Esmeralda, who lived among beggars and with no facilities whatsoever, probably took none. … the picture was spoiled for me, and I reflected that there was hardly a heroine in fiction prior to the present century whom I would feel attracted to at close range, so spoiled is the modern male by the clean girls that are found everywhere today.”

Thursday, July 17, 2008


On a trip along Taiwan’s beautiful northern coast today, I saw something that delighted me: wind turbines!

Power production has long been severely politicized here, with the far right fighting nuclear power but advocating no practical substitutes: just keep burning coal, and forget about the environment. Much emotion, intrigue, and dueling have been devoted to the issue, but little imagination or practical thinking. If people insist on wasting more and more electricity, power has to come from somewhere.

Wind turbines! That is progress, at long last!

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

妙蓮長老圓寂了。老和尚是安徽巢縣人,九歲出家,修苦行,虔修般舟三昧;迺不坐、不臥、不睡、日中一食,不時經行,誓願入念佛三昧,一期九十永日,師修二十次,蓋為史上之最。

老頭陀修彌陀四十八願,並誓願:「凡見過我面、聽過我法、乃聞過我名號者,我皆度令往西方極樂世界;若此生未能生西方者,我必再來化度,直至生西為止。」其悲願宏誓如斯。

老頭陀于民國六十八年來臺,予有幸,于七十年初前往拜見。師開示,可惜緣不足,安徽鄉音重,實在聽不懂。老實念佛就好了。阿彌陀佛。西方見。

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

We came across a group of neighbors working in Yata’s fields, preparing it for an organic farm. They were working hard on a hot summer day, but were enjoying the rigorous effort.

Tayal Aborigines, Wulai, Taiwan

烏來的田已經廢耕多年。現在部落的一群泰雅在西螺岸準備作有機菜圃。從遠處看,很容易看出,原住民田裏工作模式異于漢人,而這是我第一次在烏來看到群夥事農。他們工作很辛苦、很累,可是看得出,每一位很開心,很有成就感。

請靜心等待,將有口福。等菜長好,
敬請來捧場!

Monday, July 14, 2008

It is not for nothing that I have spent so many years in the mountains: alert senses, keen perception, quick judgments, that’s me.

Yesterday afternoon while I was working outdoors, I walked around back to get some tools. Suddenly a flurry of hornets attacked me, stinging me a dozen times on my torso and arms. Immediately, I processed the data and came to the conclusion that there must be a hornet nest nearby and that I should remove myself from its vicinity. Impressive, isn’t it? You might be able to do the same, if you had spent most of your life with mountains.



As much as I love wildlife and the ecosystem, I do not particularly wish to get stung a dozen times every time I need tools. After all, half of those stings were through my shirt: nasty neighbors. With a long bamboo pole, I tried to dislodge the hive, which was about 30 centimeters long and growing, hanging about shoulder height from the ground on a 蛇木tree fern leaf. I failed, so this morning, I phoned the fire department for help.

They sent a fireman, who examined the hive and went for gear. He and another fireman came back ten minutes later with a thick, padded suit with velcro closures, a netted helmet, and heavy plastic gloves. The other fireman helped him close up the suit, and the brave man walked to the hive with a plastic trash bag, put the whole hive inside the bag, and pulled it off the fern. Problem solved.



It took him longer to suit up than to deal with the hive, and the fireman stoically said, the suit is well-designed and safe, but very hot to wear.


The photos look a little fuzzy, because I was standing indoors shooting through the screen. I’m not a total idiot.


Many thanks to the fire department, and profuse apologies to the hornets. Build farther away next time, okay?

Sunday, July 13, 2008

Somebody sent me this cartoon; unfortunately, I do not know who to give credit to. Sorry. I will be happy to give credit where due.

The gates have opened, and the first tourists from the PRC (AKA mainland China, AKA Red China, AKA Communist China) are arriving in the ROC (the Republic of China, AKA Free China, geographical name Taiwan). The cartoon depicts the first sentence mainland tourists say after leaving Taiwan: “Nuts, the stuff I bought is Made in China.”

There is poetic justice to this. Twenty, thirty years ago, everything you tried to buy in the US said Made in Taiwan. It was very difficult to buy gifts to bring back for people, because everything, and I mean every thing, was Made in Taiwan.

On one trip after extensive searching I finally found a gift for someone: a very cleverly designed, nicely made ice cream scoop. I proudly brought it back and presented in to my friend Ho. He marveled, “Where did you get this?” Before I could tell him that I had bought it for him in San Francisco, he continued, “My buddy Chang makes these!” and turning over the scoop, showed me, hidden on the back inside the mechanism, the words MADE IN TAIWAN.

What goes around, comes around.


Saturday, July 12, 2008

Today’s comment is, as usual, about something I know little and care less about.
To wit: why are almost all rappers male?

Friday, July 11, 2008

聽鄭曼卿說,抗戰前在北京有一個賣牛肉的屠夫,生意很好,可是慣性不用秤錘,客人要牛肉一斤,喀喳,刀子一砍,包一包,下一位?半斤,喀喳,刀子一砍,包一包,下一位?就是不秤。有一天呢,來了一位先生,要買牛肉一斤,屠夫喀喳,刀子一砍,包一包,可是這位客人不依,說,「你這樣亂砍一定不準,你把這塊肉秤一秤給我看。」屠夫思索了一下,在櫃子裏摸一摸,好不容易將秤錘找出來了,放在檯面上;又思索須臾,把剛給客人切好的牛肉拿過來,拿起厚重的屠刀,喀喳,刀子一砍,砍掉了三分之一,賸餘的秤一稱,銖兩不差,恰恰好一斤……

Thursday, July 10, 2008

韓非子顯學:「世之顯學,儒墨也。儒之所至,孔丘也;墨之所至,墨翟也。」

或曰墨子名翟,宋人;或曰魯人,宋之大夫。生卒年月不詳,殆晚于孔子、早于孟子。史記不立傳,僅于孟荀列傳末綴一句:「蓋墨翟,宋之大夫,善守禦,為節用。或曰並孔子時,或曰在其後。」

江瑔讀子卮言墨非姓,故錢穆先秦諸子繫年攷辨曰,墨為刑徒之稱。

墨水書中稱為「子墨子」,故或曰,翟為姓;或曰,翟者,狄也,揣是北狄之人,總以墨非姓而不解其生品家世。

今予遇一先生,姓墨。問之,為江蘇銅山人,不知姓之所出。其父與兄均為戰鬥機駕駛,倘果為墨子之嗣,确合墨子禦敵非攻之趣!以識。

Tuesday, July 08, 2008

Freedom is precious, for man and beast alike. In the western US, there are about 33,000 wild horses, living a hard but enviably free existence.

Now the Bureau of Land Management plans to kill these glorious mustangs, because ranchers view them as competition for forage. Free horses are eating food on public lands that ranchers want for their cattle, so they can kill the cattle and put money in their own pockets. Kill the mustangs so ranchers can kill cows, that is supposed to balance out.



The ranchers say the mustangs have to be killed. Ron Cerri, of the Rebel Creek Ranch in Orovada and president-elect of the Nevada Cattlemen's Association, said, "I don't know of another solution."

Sure, that’s easy, I can think of a simple solution: dismantle all the cattle ranches, ban ranching, and find other jobs for the ranchers. That would be a natural development if everybody ate healthy, eco-friendly vegetarian food.

Producing meat to eat not only requires the killing of the innocent animals, but also entails such extensive environmental destruction that you can hardly call yourself environmentally conscious if you aren’t a vegetarian. Take Arizona, for example; in this arid zone, there isn’t enough water for people, so aquifers are drying up, but 90% of the state’s water goes to cattle. What havoc are Cerri’s cattle playing with the water table, vegetation, and the natural balance?

IMHO, free, independent mustangs are a better symbol for the West than doomed cattle being fattened for the kill.

Of course, western cattle are high quality meat animals. Your typical fast food joint hamburger comes from ranches in Central American rainforests, where the production of one kilogram of beef destroys 660 kilograms of plants and animals. But think of the profits the companies are making! And think of all the health problems the consumers are building up! Certainly destroying the global ecosystem is a small price to pay!

Do you eat beef? If you do, then you are contributing to either the devastation of Central America or the death of spirited mustangs on Western public lands.

Monday, July 07, 2008


Lately I have posted several pieces about airlines and flying. Today I would like to bring up something I read, bittersweet.

The population of India is over one billion eighty million. Of those, about one billion have never flown in an airplane and most likely never will: only eighty million Indians have ever had this experience. In Delhi, one Badahur Chand Gupta bought an old, disabled Airbus, which now sits immobile on the earth. For about US$4.00, a customer boards the grounded airliner, takes a seat, fastens the seatbelt, gets served by ‘flight’ attendants, and listens to the ‘pilot’ make announcements, such as, “We are about to begin our descent into Delhi.” For the billion Indians who see planes fly overhead, hopelessly out of reach, this is a way to share the experience.

Who said flying isn’t glamorous? As for me, I’m sort of ashamed for griping about uncomfortable seats and endless flights.



Not ashamed enough to shut up, of course ~~ how come Northwest forgot my vegetarian meals? From LA to Tokyo on crackers, for crying out loud! But a little ashamed. We are indeed fortunate.

Sunday, July 06, 2008


Stray comment on carry-on luggage

In theory, air passengers are permitted carry on luggage because these are supposedly items you use aloft. In practice, almost nobody opens their carry-on luggage between take-off and landing.

You should be impressed that I spend so much time and energy pondering such engrossing concerns.

Saturday, July 05, 2008

a weighty problem

After boarding my flight from Detroit to Boston in May and taking my seat, I was somewhat distressed to see the passenger who took the seat next to me. He weighed at least 150kg, and although he was polite and tried to hold himself in, he overlapped. I could barely move. I was thinking, civility is one thing, but I paid for my ticket; why should I have to travel in discomfort just because some stranger is destroying his body with junk food?

Flying out of LAX, we were confronted with vigorous luggage weight checks. Chao’s bag was two or three kilograms over the set limit, so we had to unpack and disperse the weight. Fortunately, the airline representative was very helpful. She provided us with a box for the extra things, and tape to seal it. But after we had finished our struggle with the luggage, another passenger waddled by who alone certainly weighed more than Chao and all of our luggage put together.

Does that make sense? Once you board the plane, it doesn’t matter if you are animate or inanimate, you are weight. Thin people should be allowed more luggage.

Friday, July 04, 2008

independence day

I read an article stating that the number of Japanese businesspeople working abroad had reached a million. Of these a large number are in mainland China, but they are scattered around the world. With such a large portion of the business community outside the country, the Japanese government is apparently concerned about constraints this may cause on Japanese foreign policy and the economy.

The population of Japan is 125 million.

The number of Taiwan businesspeople working in the PRC alone is one million. The population of Taiwan is 23 million.

There are clear reasons for this: Taiwan is culturally, linguistically, and so forth part of China, so with the economy booming there and withering here, a hop across the strait is the obvious choice. One million of the best and brightest have made the hop across the Strait. The effects go far. Taiwan businesses employ people in mainland China, which means the jobs do not go to workers in Taiwan. Also, since they live there, their money is spent in the PRC rather than in Taiwan; any taxi driver can explain that to you, because taxis are really hurting with all those high wage earners over there. Politicians cannot be unaware of this, but many still talk about Taiwan Independence. Are you pulling my leg? You can’t even pretend to be independent when one out of twenty of your people works elsewhere. Without the PRC, the economy of Taiwan would fall flat on its face.

The problem is not simple. Taiwan men, especially the Minnan speakers (including every Independence proponent I have ever met) are strongly male chauvinist, while many women are quite liberated. The women want careers, the men want babies. If local women are unwilling to produce, men seek brides in Viet Nam and the PRC. In elementary schools, something like one third of the kids have mothers who were not born here.

Also, because the DPP of President Chen pursued reactionary, isolationist policies, Taiwan has closed itself to the world at large, and in particular to the incredible economic growth across the strait, setting restrictions on our own business community, and refusing to permit flights between Taiwan and the mainland. This effectively strands those one million business personnel, because to travel from Shanghai to Taipei entails traveling through Hong Kong or Seoul, making what should be a 2 hour flight an all day venture. Families were split, creating all sorts of marital problems that could be solved by the simple expedient of allowing direct flights across the Taiwan Strait. But Chen, bound and blinded by dogmatism, refused to consider direct flights.

That outmoded policy dates back to when it made sense. Under Chairman Mao, the PRC endeavored to wash Taiwan in blood. Spies, saboteurs, and agitators from Communist China infiltrated Taiwan (and vice versa) at a time when the average PRC peasant was earning a dime a month, living in a commune, and wearing the same clothes for years. There were no private businesses in the PRC, no private money, and no economic incentives to open transportation, but very good reasons to fear communist aggression.

But we can’t always live in the past, no matter how much the DPP tried. One of the first things President Ma did after wiping out the DPP in the March election was to arrange for direct flights across the Strait. These begin today, Independence Day. Great things are sure to follow.

Thursday, July 03, 2008


熬出「頭」了

好消息─我昨天教的班,三十幾個學生,沒有一個戴棒球帽,只有一個染頭髮的。今晚的班有八十幾個學生,沒有一個戴棒球帽,沒有一個染頭髮的。這兩個似乎已經退流行了Finally!

:審美觀固然是主觀的~~豬看豬美~~可是我很討厭棒球帽。南北戰爭的forage cap,好看!火車司機的帽子,好看!可是棒球帽…小家子氣!

圖:forage cap.

Tuesday, July 01, 2008

Evidently the earth is screaming. Astronomers have discovered that our planet emits ear-piercing chirps and whistles from high above the land surface, where solar wind collides with Earth's magnetic field. The screams, called Auroral Kilometric Radiation (AKR), are 10,000 times more powerful than any radio waves we create, but the atmosphere blocks us from getting hit by them. But the rest of the universe can hear Mother Earth carrying on like a wounded banshee.

I’d scream too, if I were polluted and ravaged like our dear planet is.