翻譯真難。看到一句：耶和華是我的牧者。這句當然是舊約詩歌篇第二十三，

The lord is my shepherd。這句的英文很美：the lord is my shepherd。可是中文：耶和華是我的牧者：始終覺得拙拙。

原文希伯來文如何寫，我不懂，可是英文, the lord is my shepherd，在文法、在文化，一樣得體。又好聽：念念看：the ‘lord is my ‘shepherd, I ‘shall not ‘want，平順悠閒，不急不燥：安。

看過一個學生的翻譯題，He is a good swimmer，直譯：他是一個很好的游泳者。很直、很呆、很不像中文。英文這種情形用名詞，中文用動詞：他很會游泳。又如：她很會唱歌：若譯, she can sing very well，尚可，但比較習慣的英文是she is a good singer (若言she can sing very well，似乎為她辯解，別聽她今天叫的像野驢胃痛，事實上she can sing very well。)這句英文She is a good singer直譯：她是個很好的歌唱者：你會這樣講嗎？

將the lord is my shepherd譯耶和華是我的牧羊人，問題多。第一，「牧羊人」不太像中文。第二，信徒可能反映，我是人不是羊、耶和華是神不是人。第三，剛說過，英文用名詞，中文用動詞。那怎麼辦呢？耶和華放我。不行、不行，想到「鯀治水無狀，乃放鯀于羽山」的「放」，不好。耶和華放牧我。

在文化上，希伯來人處沙漠，逐水草移居；因為環境嚴苛、物資虧乏，所以牧羊是一項重要工作。英國氣候嚴寒、物資虧乏，所以牧羊也是一項重要工作。中國氣候宜人、物豐資盛，以農立國，所以牧羊是邊疆遊牧民族的特色：匈奴之類的人才會牧羊，腥臊腐垢、殘虐野蠻、韋韝毳幙、羶肉酪漿。想到牧羊，想到蘇武、李陵、文天祥，要不然想起王照君，在中國，都不是很快樂的聯想。

我今天只提出問題，我沒有答案。我只覺得，看似簡單的一句the lord is my shepherd，可真難翻譯。耶和華照顧我？耶和華牧我？真難。

Sir Nelson’s son 陳宇軒 got me a great hat while he was in Beijing. Problem is, I can’t wear it in Taipei, and only from time to time in Wulai: much too warm.

Perfect for Boston, though. No matter how cold it got, my head was toasty warm.

But then I realized that I was amiss. Fashion! Don’t you know that to be fashionable, you can’t wear your hat straight forward, you have to turn it around at an angle.

Think it looks stupid? Tell me how much smarter a baseball cap turned around like that looks. Same angle. Coooooooool!!

讀 Needham著Science and Civilization in China，彷彿甚麼都是中國人發明的、甚麼都是中國人最早，結果情形比我想像的還嚴重：

周書：獨孤信(人名)在泰州時，嘗出獵；日暮馳馬入城，其帽微側。詰旦，吏民慕信者，咸效其側帽焉。其為士庶所重如此。

(獨孤信，公元502年— 557年)

連帽子斜戴的呆樣子，也是中國人最早。

photos by long-suffering Ah Chao: www.flickr.com/photos/achao/2224279333/

On the way to Boston, by happy coincidence from Taipei to Detroit I sat next to one of my old students, who is now at Ann Arbor. After the exit stampede at landing in Detroit we drifted together again as we waited for our luggage, idly chatting. His came first, so off he went. A moment later, my pack came out. Since it’s awkward to pull the heavy pack off the conveyor belt I told the college student standing next to me I’d be heaving it, so keep an eye out. Somewhat to my surprise, he answered, “沒有關係” (“It’s ok” in Chinese). It turned out that he is taking Chinese lessons at a small college in Wisconsin, heard my old student and me talking, and wanted to try out his Mandarin.

This is new. You never used to hear Chinese spoken outside of Chinatown and Chinese restaurants, and the Chinese spoken there was Toyshan /台山Cantonese. The first time I heard Chinese spoken outside of those places was at an arboretum near Pasadena in 1995; a family from Taiwan was speaking Mandarin. Needless to say, I don’t spend much time in the US; there were definitely people speaking Chinese all over before that, but the point I am trying to make is, you didn’t hear it often or many places.

Times have changed. Now when you fly from Taiwan to LA, it seems like nobody in the arrival hall speaks English, only Mandarin, Minnan, and Spanish. Maybe some Russian, too, now.

::=::

one of my favorite stories, from Orange County, CA, around 1990. At a supermarket checkout counter, a cashier and a customer were chatting in Chinese. An American waiting in line called out, “Hey, come on, you’re in California now! Speak Spanish!”

::=::

Ok, lots of Chinese have moved to the US, that’s hardly news. But a couple points are noteworthy. First, in the old days, the Cantonese spoken was the only dialect they used; now the Cantonese speakers speak Mandarin, and you hear a wide variety of dialects and accents. These Chinese speakers are first generation. Second, nowadays, blue-eyed Americans speak to me in Chinese, which absolutely never happened before. A couple years ago I stopped in a SoHo shop the New Yorker said was one of the most cutting edge places in the city (I found that out only after I had gone), and was suggesting to my friends, in Mandarin, that we find out how much some piece of merchandise cost; a clerk walking by, a very fashionably dressed blond kid in his early 20s, told us the price in Mandarin: Mandarin with a heavy NYC accent, but Mandarin nonetheless.

Obviously, Chinese hasn’t overtaken French, Spanish, and German as foreign language of choice in schools. But it may.

Note to my students: you still have to practice your English. For the time being, anyway.

I have enjoyed sea shanties for years, so when I realized that there was an authentic sailing ship docked at Boston, naturally I wanted to go. I refer, of course, to the flagship of the US Navy, the USS Constitution, two hundred years old.

Actually, we started walking the Freedom Trail to visit the ship last February when we visited Faneuil Hall, but took a wrong turn somewhere and never found it, although we did enjoy a nice walk along the waterfront.

A few weeks ago, we set out again. We got the subway to Bunker Hill Community College. As I mentioned on this blog for January 10, we stopped by the Bunker Hill Monument and didn’t get away until dark. The Navy Yard was closed.

Never mind, persistence has its own rewards, by golly! On January 16 we approached once again, from North Station, quickly finding our way through the baffling maze set up around the Station exits by road repair crews. We marched briskly into the Charlestown Navy Yard and walked right up … right up to the locked gate with the sign informing us that the USS Constitution was closed, Monday through Wednesday.

But we got right up to the locked gate this time, by golly! Next time I’m in Boston, maybe I will get through the gate!

An American gentleman who was curious about Buddhism asked me the far-reaching effects of living in the Buddhist way. I tried to explain a very important concept, which is simple in Chinese: 淡薄 (澹泊) or 看淡 (literally, see dilute), but was unable to. I was trying to say that Buddhists become less extreme in thought, deed, and choice: more moderate, milder. Not just Buddhists: this is a characteristic of Chinese culture overall, but especially Buddhists. Tread lightly.

Now that I am on the other side of the world, I have figured out how to explain it a bit better, not that it will do that gentleman much good. Hello, the big biomass Slav (Croat, I’ll bet) from western Pennsylvania who went to Green Bay and has a Greek-Am wife? Yeah, you. Not much chance you’ll see this, but it’s worth discussing.

I am sure most people have been in a situation where the person talking to you is breaking your eardrums: “You don’t have to shout, I can hear you.” When you can be heard without shouting, there is no need to shout, unless you are hard of hearing and shouting is the only way you can assure yourself that you have made a sound.

In Copley Square there was a car that had the bass on so loud that the whole chassis was rattling. If the driver wasn’t deaf last week, he is by now. Somebody who needs such loud music must have very, very dull senses; you can also be pretty sure he doesn’t know much about music. He has to beat it to death: THIS IS MUSIC!! Otherwise he cannot tell he is listening to music. If your senses are keen, and you appreciate music, subtlety is better savored than jackhammers.

In Buddhism, you want to settle your heart, like you set a bucket of muddy stream water in a quiet place until the mud settles to the bottom, leaving clear water. When you can see clearly, you don’t need all the shouting and stomping and ruckus to know who you are.

In my last post I mentioned the perplexing phenomenon of a New York restaurant with a Buddhist name offering so-called ‘vegetarian’ food that Buddhists do not regard as vegetarian.

Again, Buddhists eat no animal products whatsoever. Saying we eat no animal products does not imply that we eat all vegetable matter indiscriminately. Nobody eats oleander, ebony, azalea, or curare. Likewise, Buddhists do not eat the fetid vegetables: no garlic, no leeks, no onions, no chives, no scallions, no shallots.

The animal products part is because we don’t kill animals or make them suffer, much less build the karmic debt of stuffing them into our bellies. Also, we aren’t designed to eat dead animals. The human being is a mammal. All mammals that suck their liquids chew their food and have flat teeth; these are herbivores. All mammals that lap their liquids gulp their food and have pointed teeth; these are carnivores. Next time you drink something, observe how you drink it to understand what kind of food your body is designed for.

Buddhists adhere to this diet not so only for physical health, but also to settle the mind as well. I don’t understand why, but the fetid vegetables keep your heart restless.

You may think garlic or onions taste just fine, in the same way that someone whose system has been poisoned by tobacco may think a cigar smells great. Try it yourself and see. You can go for months without eating, say, celery, and when you eat it again, it tastes wonderful. Cut the fetid vegetables out of your diet for a couple months and try to put one in your mouth again. They are foul!

On my recent trip to Boston and New York, Chao and I ran into this problem: the Western-style vegetarian restaurants there fill their dishes with garlic and onions. This is more a problem on the East Coast than in California, which, closer to Asia, probably has better understanding of Buddhism; Boston and New York must be more Eurocentric.

What was also distressing was the attitude of people in some of these restaurants: superior and unwilling to accommodate, or even consider, the Buddhist vegetarian tradition. A couple of the restaurants were practically hostile to the idea of removing onions and garlic, as though we had offended them or questioned their authority. The staff in one downstairs ‘vegetarian’ pizza place we visited last year near Harvard sneered and turned their backs on us when we made our request.

Ironically, we generally had better luck, and better service, ordering vegetarian dishes in dead-animal restaurants!

The heartiest meal I had in the US was at the unfortunately named Mamma Buddha restaurant on Hudson Street on the Lower West Side of Manhattan. I say unfortunately named, because seeing people chewing animal corpses in a restaurant with that name is like coming across Mama Hitler’s Gestapo Kosher Deli. But they are very accommodating about their dishes, and we enjoyed two heaping platters of clean, fresh greens, expertly prepared.

翠苑/Wok ‘n Roll in Porter Square, Cambridge, fixed us excellent food, and again, they are not inflexible about their ingredients. Tip for hungry vegetarians: stay away from vegan restaurants, go to Chinese restaurants and talk to the staff. Even 潮州坊 on Main Street in Flushing, Queens cooked us a great meal; sorry, I forget the English name.

Blossom, at 187 9^th Ave, Manhattan, had almost nothing a Buddhist would eat, but once we kept the unhealthy vegetables off the plate, the food was good, if heavily flavored.

The vegetarian pizzas at Cambridge 1, on Church Street near Harvard Square, are among the best. Try the potato pizza.

If you’re in Boston, be sure to visit Fiore’s Bakery, on South Street, Jamaica Plain, near Arnold Arboretum, for their vegan pastry. I would put on weight if I lived near there.

I will say that hands down the very worst food I ate during this trip was at a grungy Boston Chinatown restaurant called Buddha’s Delight, where almost every dish was filled with garlic and onions. The main flavor of the food we got was soy sauce. The staff speak Viet Namese, not Chinese; their sign had Chinese characters 齋素 on it, but that is false advertising.

(note: due to the environment, Tibetans don’t have vegetables to eat, but for lamas to eat corpses when they are not in Tibet is, in my eyes, inexcusable.)

Other restaurants I will not mention. Again, I was perplexed by the unwillingness, even hostility, some vegans displayed towards Buddhism.

Look at it this way. The vegetarian tradition has never been strong in the West. I believe there were no vegetarians of any stripe in the US before about the middle of the 19^th century. Buddhism has over two thousand years of experience with vegetarian food. Would it be a bad idea to see if there’s anything to be learned from this rich experience?

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跋: Garlic, scallions, and such were considered fetid in China long before Buddhism arrived. 說文：葷、臭菜也。从艸軍聲。許云切、段十三部。士相見禮注：葷、辛物、蔥薤之屬。荀子、哀公：志不在于食葷；注、葷、蔥薤之屬也。莊子人閒世：唯不飲酒不茹葷者、數月矣。

PS: I forgot to mention that we had delicious meals at 台北東京 Taipei Tokyo and Martsa on Elms (Tibetan), both at Davis Square, Somerville. There’s a great place for 火鍋/shabu shabu firepot in Boston Chinatown.

Kind of sad that the none of the best vegetarian food we had was in vegetarian restaurants.

When Chao and I were in New York, friends took us to a restaurant called 禪味 Zen Palate. In this day and age, if it says Zen, it ain’t, so you can’t ask too much, and you need not take an eatery to task about philosophy. But reading the menu I was startled to see their comment that:

Zen means sudden understanding.

It means no such thing! Zen is the Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese 禪 (ch’an, 形聲字，从示單聲；單，都寒切、又常演切。禪，市連切、又時戰切), which is short for 禪那, the Chinese transliteration of the Sanskrit dhyana, which means settling your mind. Dhyana belongs to the vital helix of sila/戒 (尸羅)discipline, precepts > dhyana / 定 > prajna / 慧 (般若)wisdom. Living according to sila, the ground rules, allows your heart to settle, dhyana, and then prajna, wisdom, flowers, which helps you understand the precepts better so you achieve deeper dhyana which gives rise to further-reaching prajna which allows greater control through sila, and so on, until after millions of years you may achieve buddhahood.

Reiterate for emphasis: we live by the sila / principles in order to foster dhyana, for there can be no real dhyana without sila, no prajna without dhyana, and without prajna, sila are rootless.

(note: it is not necessary here to go into a detailed comparison of dhyana with samadhi/三昧地.)

This vital helix is basic for Buddhists, and one of the reasons our sila calls for a 素/ su vegetarian diet. Eating unclean foods unsettles your mind; in Chinese terminology, dead animals are 腥, and the proscribed vegetables are 葷: garlic, onions, leeks, scallions, chives, and so forth.

I do not understand why, but try it and see. Once you have cleansed your body of the fetid vegetables, they are as offensive as dead animals. Any Buddhist knows this. Trying to meditate with garlic and leeks inside you is like smoking four packs a day while you train for a marathon. It can be done, but why make life difficult for yourself?

So I was even more surprised to see that this restaurant, which claims to be Buddhist, had the fetid vegetables in most of their dishes. Once we told the chef not to put those on our plates, the food was excellent, but from a Buddhist standard, most of the dishes on the menu at Zen Palate are not vegetarian. Am I the only one who thinks that’s ironic?

Americans can commercialize anything, even Buddhism. And of course, Americans are thrill junkies, Americans don’t want a settled heart, they want fun and games. Act crazy and make senseless remarks and shazoom, you have got sudden understanding! That’s not ch’an / zen, but it probably sells a lot better in New York.

American dogs are lucky. I was delighted by the sight of happy dogs romping in deep snow. Taiwan dogs are not so lucky. First, in Taiwan there is snow only high in the mountains, and second, as soon as the temperature drops to 25c, people torment their pets by dressing them up in “cute” outfits, sweaters, and raincoats. I would say that, in Boston at least, less than 10% of dogs were humiliated in that manner, and those generally small, old, or short-haired dogs, so that’s understandable.

Taiwan dogs are lucky. On my way home to Wulai, I was delighted by the sight of happy dogs trotting along the roadside, footloose and fancy free. American dogs are not so lucky. In Boston and New York, at least, I didn’t see dogs roaming around free, with no leash or fetters. American dogs apparently never go out unchaperoned, much less untied.

See? Not even dogs have it perfect.

Various ruminations on flying Boston > Detroit > Osaka > Taipei

The more convenient computers make flying, the less convenient Homeland Security makes flying.

It’s wonderful. Now you can choose your seat online, check-in, and even print your own boarding pass, right at home. But any efficiency wantonly gained there is valiantly shot to pieces by Security.

In fairness, the Security people in Detroit and Boston are far more civil than those in LA, if that’s saying much. At LAX, nobody is allowed on the plane until you are thoroughly humiliated and peeved. Boarding a plane in Taiwan for the US is simple and swift, but the planes don’t get bombed out of the sky. If it can be done here, why not in the US?

It may be worth noting that Homeland Security was thrown together slap-dash in post 9/11 panic by a bunch of junior staffers who didn’t know much about bureaucratic structure, benefits, pensions, channels, procedures, or incentives. This may have something to do with morale and attitude. Bush should have outsourced the job to India

Note to presidential candidates: you can be sure of winning votes from frequent flyers if you promise to reform Homeland Security at the airports.

+

When I passed security in Boston's Logan airport, the boarding line was not moving an inch. Soon a flight attendant came out and asked if anyone spoke Chinese. No one else volunteered, so they took me onto the plane. Sprawled in a seat was a young man, about 30, with an oxygen mask. His father sat on his right, rubbing ointment and massaging him. His mother expressed grief. The flight crew was stymied, because none of them could speak a word of English. The young man spoke Mandarin, but his parents’ dialect was very difficult to understand. Maybe 江西?

Apparently while he was boarding the plane, the young man collapsed. He revived with oxygen, but was still weak. He said he had no previous condition, no medication, no premonition of his collapse, but obviously he couldn’t make the long flight around the world. A flight attendant pointed out the man’s hands. That startled me. I have never seen anything like that on a living person. His hands, backs, palms, and wrists, were waxy white. Something was seriously wrong. His father massaged some color back into his hands, but flying was out of the question. With his father’s ministrations, the young man’s hands looked waxy yellow instead of waxy white. I assured him that he would be put onto a flight as soon as he was healthy enough to fly, but he couldn’t risk going aloft in that condition. He tried to stand, and sat back down after a moment. His parents pummeled me with questions; I reassured them, promised medical attention, and that their luggage would be taken care of.

A very buoyant firefighter / medic boarded the plane, a young African-American who exuded confidence and good cheer. We helped the patient to the door of the plane and loaded him into a wheelchair, and off he went. I have no idea what that was about, but those hands really spooked me. They looked more like white candle wax than living flesh.

Good luck, wherever you are.

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Northwest Airlines gets you where you want to go, but don’t ask for legroom or wiggle room. At least their food has improved vastly. The last time I flew NWA, the food was so bad I simply could not place it in my mouth.

No in-flight meals for domestic flights, though. American airlines save money by cutting back services and staff benefits, so that they have more money to spend on CEO bonuses.

+ +

Perhaps the only good thing to come out of 9/11 to the flyer is that they are much more careful about luggage now. That, plus computerization and scanning barcodes, provides much better luggage service than before. I haven’t seen statistics, but I suspect there is much less lost luggage now.

+

Airplanes seem to have improved, too. Maybe I’m just lucky, but it seems to me that flying is much smoother now than before.

When I was 17, bound for Viet Nam, the flight from SF to Honolululu was so rocky that I wondered how much worse the war could be than the flight. Things on my table danced throughout the whole flight, from take off to landing. This month, flying from Taipei to Boston, I encountered barely a bump, and flying back through stiff winter headwinds, we were jostled for maybe a grand total of two minutes, all put together.

FYR: Boston to Detroit, about two and a half hours. Detroit to Osaka, fourteen hours, longer than you want to sit confined in a narrow seat. Osaka to Taipei, two hours and some.

Planes are more efficient; this is good and it is bad. When I flew to VN, we hopped from SF to Honolulu to Guam to Manila to Saigon, hop by hop, because passenger jets couldn’t fly that far without refueling. Now you can fly over 10,000km from Detroit to Osaka without stopping to stretch your legs or get the kinks out of your back. When we reached Osaka, my bottom was numb.

14 hours. In addition to various programs, there were four inflight movies. I had thought that the big screen at the front of the cabin was a thing of the 1980s, but they still exist on NWA. I didn’t pay much attention. The first was an impressively clever animation of a rat chef. What is it with Disney and rats? Mickey Rat, now rat chef.

The next was a National Geographic documentary about polar bears and elephant seals (what’s the difference between an elephant seal and a walrus?). As with all NG documentaries, the photography was stunning. They showed a polar bear swimming in pursuit of a seal – filmed from below!! What kind of dedication is that? Can you imagine diving in the Arctic? And no WAY I’m getting in the water when there’s a hungry polar bear hunting.

Wonder how many photographers got eaten in the filming.

Following was an awful pre-teen horror movie about something I didn’t pay attention to, and then a film about a Jane Austen book club, in which the characters read Jane Austen to reinforce their own prejudices and cultural biases.

+

I thoroughly admire Japanese esthetics and have been deeply influenced by Japanese art, but that doesn’t mean I have to like Japanese airports. Japanese can produce beauty, but they seem incapable of producing anything grand.

Kansai International, Osaka’s airport, may be big, but the spirit is petty and insular.

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正如陳總統的其他措施一樣，演給鄉下老人看也許賣座，可是國際上沒人理；在國外，似乎沒有人用中正機場的綠名。一則蔣中正是二十世紀重要人物；桃園，誰聽過？一則對西洋人來說，Taoyuan這個音極繞口，念不出來。ㄩㄢ元圓園，我當初練了好幾個月才有人聽懂。所以我看過的，在國外全用Taipei不用Taoyuan.

不如不改。

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Boarding in Detroit was quiet and orderly. When we landed in Osaka, the Japanese got off and were replaced by a whole plane full of travelers returning to Taiwan. When they called for boarding, predictably, chaos ensued. People lined up in every which way, shouting instructions back and forth, joking, laughing, pushing luggage, arranging clothes, playing games, and in general creating pandemonium.

It felt wonderful to come home!

Overheard in Park Plaza Au Bon Pain, Boston
"The weather was beautiful today! It was a gift from god! I took my plants out into the sunshine and I didn't have to worry about them freezing.”

somebody got left behind
Overheard in Porter Square, Cambridge
high school girl looking at seagulls feeding: "That ain't crows, them are ducks!"

I'm not sure if it's just Boston or the whole country, but it seems to me that people now are even more crazy about sports than they used to be. Before, football was something that men got excited about, but now you hear women talking animatedly about some play in the last game (and for all those years I thought women were more intelligent than men, because most women don't hunt, fish, or watch football). For days before the game Saturday, people on the subway and on the streets were going on and on about the upcoming contest, and during the game, the streets were empty.

Chao and I happened to wander into Boston's beautiful Mt Auburn cemetery, founded in the 1830s. Most of the tombstones recorded nothing more than the occupant's name, date of birth, and date of death. Even this is a greater trace of their existence on earth than the vast majority of humanity leaves. Name, date, date. No hint as to what sort of person dwelled within, what he had done for a living, how she passed her days, and certainly there was nothing saying that on such and such a day the dead soul had gotten all jazzed up because some overpaid jocks ran up and down a field or court with a ball.

If you want to watch football or basketball or whatever, fine, just so long as you don't expect me to pretend the slightest interest; I think watching other people play games is pathetic. I think a sense of proportion is needed. Remember that we say they play football or baseball: it's just a game, and ultimately, it doesn't matter a bit who wins or loses.

"All he did with his life was get excited when his team won a game. None of the players on the team were aware of his existence or showed any concern about his life." Would you like that written on your tombstone?

唐‧王梵志
城外土饅頭
餡草在城裏
一人喫一個
莫嫌沒滋味

Thank heavens that His Serenity President George has assured us that global warming is a figment of environmentalists’ imagination. Otherwise I would be deeply concerned. Chao and I went to New York City for three days last week and saw not a single flake of snow. Even in Boston the leftover snow has been melting away. January??

Today finally we got snowfall. This morning we woke up to a new world, covered with sparkling snow. The little boy in the house behind rushed outside. His father handed him a snow shovel; he dug it into the snow, hurled the snow and the shovel over his head, and flung himself into the snow yelping and yowling. Although in my post the other day I extolled the virtues of 賞雪 viewing snow in a dignified manner, I quite agreed with the little boy. Maybe you could leap into the snow for a good romp and frolic, and then behave in a dignified manner.

Certainly a snowfall would not be complete without a snow angel or two!

Voters in Taiwan have explicitly voiced their opinion about eight years of incompetence under the DPP of President Bean. Maybe now we can finally move forward, and start bringing progress and democracy to Taiwan again.

Looking at the vast array of winter footwear in Boston I am reminded that when I first started heading into the mountains, in junior high, there were only a couple styles of hiking boots available, and you really had to look for them. Hunting boots were what people wore, because why would you go into the wilderness except to murder the wildlife?

It is good that people have gotten used to appreciating nature without mayhem, but the West has, for the most part, yet to get past the idea of Nature as Recreation. When you get out the city, you have to do something: hike, ski, skate, snowshoe, snowboard, snowmobile! For millennia, Chinese have known the joys of 賞雪 enjoying snowfall just for the sake of snowfall, without feeling the requirement to rush around like a frenzied puppy. Just enjoy the snow.

When I was a boy, on snowy days we wore galoshes, rubber boots you wrestled up over your shoes and buckled into place; hard enough to put on, good luck trying to get them off. Women got along as best as possible in heels as usual, and adult men wore rubbers, unsightly form fitting rubber shoes worn over wingtips. I am glad that these are no longer to be seen, now replaced by a resplendent variety of shoes.

The old hunting boots are gone. They were ugly: leather boots that laced all the way up the calf with leather laces. Now there are all sorts of warm, waterproof boots and shoes, but maybe we have gone too far the other way. I was also one of the first American kids to start playing soccer, and we just played in gym shoes. Now it seems that sporting good shops are filled mostly with specialized clothing for every sport. If you wore basketball shoes in a baseball game, you would probably get tarred and feathered.

The 19th century British explorer Henry Savage Landor felt that you should wear clothes you were used to and felt comfortable in, so you can see photos of him high amongst Himalayan peaks, crossing Tibetan glaciers in tweeds, sensible walking shoes, straw hat, and bowtie. That's a bit much, but maybe it is possible to enjoy a various activities without mortgaging the house for the clothing.

Today we visited the Bunker Hill Memorial. We planned to visit Old Ironsides, the USS Constitution, but when we saw the BH Memorial, we got sidetracked. On the way up Bunker's (or Breed's) Hill, making much easier progress than the white-eyed redcoats in 1775, we spotted this church, The First Church, built in 1849 on the site of a spot where a group of Puritans in John Winthrop's colony began to worship. The church here has met continuously since 1632.

My ancestors on my mother's side, the Burnetts, came to Boston with Winthrop in 1630. I was moved to think that I was standing at a place probably frequented by my ancestors over 370 years ago.

I'm afraid they didn't get to drink hot chocolate, either.

Chao and I took a bus to NYC for a couple days, and the train back to Boston. I endeavored to take photos of the scenery rushing by. The key word here is rushing.When I shot the photo below, Chao very helpfully said, "You really can't tell from the photo, but the river is very scenic."

as our train raced past a particularly attractive scene, river + trees + house, I grabbed my camera just in time to record the scene for posterity:

Amtrak really ought not to pile things up next to the tracks, out of consideration for the poor passengers trying to take photos.

Today's post is not for the squeamish. Also, I should probably warn you not to try this at home without practice.

I have long lived by the theory that nature will not allow harm to come to those who abide by her rules and work with, rather than against, her. Be gentle with nature, and nature will be gentle with you. In theory, anyway.

Around winter solstice, I was walking through the jungle near my home in Wulai, barefoot as usual; what fun is being in the mountains if you wear shoes? I came to a patch of bamboo that had been blown over in a typhoon last summer. Although I always carry my knife, I use it sparingly, trying to leave as little trace of my passing as possible. Rather than chop through the mess, I strode over it – and stepped on the broken top of a bamboo stump. Ouch! As soon as I stepped on it, I relaxed and fell to the ground, so it did not penetrate too deeply, but it did make an impression. I had a deep cut about five centimeters long on my right sole.

I washed the gash, but couldn't see clearly if I had gotten out all the little pieces, so I went to the doctor, something I almost never do. I usually let my body heal itself, but this time I figured I needed some help, because I couldn't twist my sole around enough to see clearly, and I didn't want a bunch of bamboo splinters decaying inside me. The doctor examined the inside of the cut with a magnifying glass and said it looked clean.

I wanted to let my foot rest, but I had commitments, and simply had to walk a lot before I left. The cut was very slow to heal, and even after I reached Boston, it still hadn't closed, but I kept walking as normal. From time to time I felt a sharp pain, but it was getting better, very slowly though.

From Boston, Chao and I came to New York, and walked all over. Washing this evening, I examined the cut and saw what I thought was a fleck of dirt in it, so after I washed, I probed, and gradually pulled out not a piece of dirt but a hunk of bamboo. Okay, hunk may be an exaggeration, but a piece of bamboo about the size of a capital M at 16 point font, as thick as about six pieces of A4. I figure it had been too deep for the doctor to see. I think it worked its way out to the surface for me to pluck precisely because I walked so much. Maybe if I had sat with my foot up, it would have been lodged tight.

An interesting lesson. 隨緣.

Overheard in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston.
Mother: See that stone sculpture? The lion is attacking the poor man underneath it. The man may get eaten up by the lion!
8 year old daughter: Go lion!
Mother: No, no, no, no!

If you see a twelve hour flight on your itinerary, and your immediate reaction is, "Oh, only 12 hours? That's not bad," you can tell you've done some long distance flying.

Actually, from Osaka to Detroit is not even 12 hours, just eleven and a half. Two things did not really impress me on this trip: Osaka airport was the first. The plane from Taipei stopped there. Those of us continuing got off the plane, walked around to a lounge, and got back on the plane. That took over an hour. The kids in front of me in the interminable line for the security check got bored and were bouncing around, and the whole floor was shaking. Not very substantial building. More like cardboards and tacks. Things Japanese can be beautiful, but they are never majestic or grand. The airport managed to be large in size but small in spirit.

The other thing that did not impress me was the airline. I do not wish to complain too loudly about, about shall we say Westnorthern Airways, because they did have a seat for me and they did deliver me to Boston safely, but let's say, next time if I have to fly Westnorthern Airways, I am going to grease myself so I can get into my seat. I felt like the vegetarian ham in a can: just enough space, no more. Maybe I've been spoiled by Singapore and other airlines, but I thought that the large screen everybody watched had disappeared by 1990.

But not to complain too loudly, because I did get here.

On my way to the bus stop, I met three kids from Wulai Elementary near the fire station. One little boy called out to me at the top of his lungs, rushing his words all together in one breath, “Hello Yugan how are you I’m fine sank you and you I’m fine too sank you” and without a moment’s stopping struck a dramatic pose, and playing the air guitar sang out “Oh my baby I lah BYOOOOO!”

At the next turn of the road, four little girls were straggling uphill. I asked, “下課了吧?” is school out? One little girl piped up, “Yes, Yugan!’ Another shouted “Yes! No! Yes! No! Yes!” and the other two started up a chorus: “Book! Cat! Dog! Eye! Ear! Nose! Mous!”

Evidently, the kids in Wulai Elementary had an English lesson today.

A year or two ago the Readers’ Digest did a survey of the most polite and least polite cities in the world. Of all the cities they surveyed across the world, Taipei came in dead last place. The fallacy of their methods was proven by their selection of the world’s most polite city: New York! Yeah, fuggedaboutit!!

Anybody who has been in Taiwan knows that one of the marvels of this island is the civility of the people: not, mind you, necessarily according to Eurocentric standards, and definitely not by New York City standards, but a very deep humanity nurtured by strong cultural roots.

I pondered the Readers’ Digest’s standards the other day on the bus to the city. A little boy from Wulai Elementary sat up front, but gave his seat quickly when his teacher got on the bus at the stop after mine, and moved to the back of the bus. At the next stop, she yielded her seat to a middle aged man, and two stops later, he stood up so a pregnant lady could sit down. The pregnant lady gave the seat to a shuffling old man a few stops later, and moved to the back of the bus where a high school boy stood up so she could sit. All within about 12 minutes travel time.

To me, this sort of life is more important than having a bunch of fancy opera halls, five star restaurants, and exclusive boutiques.