我建議，今年金馬獎最會演戲的獎，應該給陳前總統。

聽說他在土城宣佈堅持臺灣獨立。貪污罪犯講臺灣獨立有甚麼用？總統給他當了八年，那麼想要臺灣獨立為甚麼不在總統府講？

如果他真的由心想要臺灣獨立而不是當幌子騙傻瓜的話，當總統而不講必有後顧之憂；那麼現在當總統的難道沒有相同的顧慮嗎？

陳總統堅持他沒有作錯事。總統的職責為何？用人。自古已知，居上位者縱能日理萬機，猶憾不及，必須委任眾人，故為上，責在知賢用人。假使當總統的人再清白，但手下貪污，是上官不知人不能用賢，這本身就是很嚴重的失職。更何況，物以類聚，上司會看上那一種人、會用哪一種人，也是他自身的反射。若滿朝正職廉官，難免一兩個小嘍囉貪小便宜；但親信都有問題，上司難逃責任。

事到如今，我覺得最可憐的是陳前總統的女兒。愛爸爸，這是天性；偏偏陳家瞋心尤重，所以千金公眾形象很糟。丈夫有罪。哥哥認罪。媽媽認罪，爸爸立即喊一聲，「我太太背著我作這種事，我甚麼都不知道！」作父親的，不會想一想兒子女兒的感受嗎？處處表明，陳前總統連最親的人都樂于犧牲；推輪椅果然是演戲拉票而已。當他的女兒，真可憐。

康熙皇帝在木蘭圍場曾「于一日內射兔三百一十八隻。」殺業姑且不談，這個射術厲害的很！木蘭圍場，立秋後之獮獵；熱河秋季，算日光十二小時，扣除兩小時用餐、休息，打獵十小時的話，折算一小時射中三十隻兔子，平均兩分鐘一兔。縱有上萬官兵趕禽獸入圍，兔子狡黠疾馳，體積又小，康熙射藝實在很強！

The K’ang Hsi Emperor (Kangxi, 1654 – 1722, reigned from 1662) once shot 318 rabbits in one day. Even considering that he had beaters chasing game towards him, that is an astonishing skill in archery.

Plus, he sure had a lot of arrows!

Perhaps you have read accounts of primitive people mired in savagery. They spend their lives in barbarous activities such as raiding and idolatry. With little control over their passions, they are prone to bickering, squabbling, fighting, and conflict, with rare resort to reason. Their coarse food may be cooked directly over a wood fire, with no seasoning or skill, and is gnawed hand to mouth. If they enjoy the benefits of civilized consumer goods, they drink themselves senseless on firewater more akin to jet fuel than to a potable beverage.

We view such miserable savages not with superiority, but with pity and sadness, but also with a very strong feeling of YUCKKK! Sad: life can be so civilized and refined, such a shame that they cannot enjoy the fruits of refinement and culture.

In the book I am reading, I just finished a detailed description of an afternoon spent by a group of very rich British aristocrats, after a morning fishing in a private stream. They took their engraved and ornamented heirloom shotguns out to shoot pheasants, which they brought home in their finely tooled leather bags to turn over to the chef to prepare for dinner. Then they repaired to the library where the butler served them expensive whiskey.

YUCKKK! Sad: life can be so civilized and refined, such a shame that they cannot enjoy the fruits of refinement and culture. Slaughtering wildlife and calling it sport; burning corpses and calling it food; imbibing firewater and calling themselves superior because theirs costs hundreds of pounds the bottle.

The first time I ever saw the sibekay (Chinese, 臺灣藍鵲; English, Taiwan Blue Magpie; Latin, Urocissa caerulea; Tayal, sibekay) was not far from where I live now. Silan was taking us along a primitive road in a secluded backwoods when a beautiful blue bird with a glorious long tail flashed across the road, from side to side. Silan shouted out, That's a blue magpie! A what?? By then I had roamed around isolated mountain areas of Taiwan for twenty years; not only had I never seen the bird before, but I had never even heard of it or seen a photo. They were quite rare: a Tayal from our village told me he had never seen one; a birder said he had never seen one in ten years of birding. On the one hand, most people didn't go out into the wilderness often, and printed material was not developed. On the other hand, Taiwan did not have laws protecting wildlife yet, and I understand the sibekay are delicious. Don't look at me, I'm a vegetarian.

Shortly after I moved to Wulai, a group of four sibekay flew across the slope to my north. I didn't see them again for a couple years. Then small groups would come down the mountains in the winter, to stay for a couple weeks. Then they started showing up in our area year-round.

The sibekay is a beautiful bird with an awful shriek. Their lovely visage graces postage stamps in both Chinas, the Republic AKA Free China AKA Taiwan, and the People's Republic across the strait, AKA Red China, even though the sibekay is found only in Taiwan.

A year or two ago, a contest was held to choose a national bird for Taiwan, a national bird without a nation. The Sibekay won handily; I was relieved that another nice, innocuous bird was not chosen, because its English name is the "yellow tit". Taiwan has had enough image problems in the last decade; I had nightmares about the bird being chosen and the web being flooded with jokes about "Let's go to Taiwan to see the yellow tits."

The blue magpies travel in groups, almost never alone. Burdened down by their beautiful tails, they do not fly very far. They bob from tree to tree. The farthest I have ever seen a sibekay fly is about a hundred meters, from one side of the river to the other. They are very shy and very sensitive. They can tell if you are watching them, and they don't like that. Get out your camera, and flit, they're gone.

With strict conservation laws in force, the sibekay, among other species, have made a resounding comeback. Once rare, they started appearing in the trees around my house year around. The local tkrat (Chinese樹鵲; English, Himalayan Tree Pie; Latin, Dendrocitta formosae; Tayal, Tkrat), a strongly territorial species, would chase them away. Let a sibekay perch in a tree for a moment, and the tkrat would start arriving, by twos and by threes, to pressure it to leave: Keep moving, we don't want you here, don't loiter here, get a move on! Outnumbered, the sibekay had no choice but to go elsewhere.

But events have taken an interesting turn. Protected, the sibekay have proliferated, and they are after all larger birds than the tkrat. Gradually the tkrat stopped pestering the sibekay, and now the sibekay outnumber the tkrat. The tkrat now admire the sibekay from a respectful distance.

Overhead in 碧潭: Whadya want, ma?

媽媽對十歲兒子：吃快一點。細嚼慢嚥。

Mother to ten year old son: Hurry up and finish your food. Chew slowly.

老百姓能不能過自己的生活，不受干擾？

我們過我們的生活，可是一旦商家發現有商機，有利可圖，立即介入，原先的生活流質。例如美國的Halloween鬼節，本來純粹是西洋好玩好鬧的節日。先是商人發現可以賣道具賺錢(服裝等等)；如今不僅可以買鬼節卡片寄給人讓商家賺錢，甚至感染到臺灣了，誤以鬼節當萬聖節，兒童補習班可以藉此讓家長以為給孩子嚐嚐西洋生活，好賺錢。好了，鬼節好玩就算了，不必消費也可以過節。可以嗎？

我小時候，Valentine’s Day情人節蠻單純；小朋友上美勞課作卡片偷偷送給異性；我還記得我小二把我作的卡片送給了隔壁的阿媽Mrs Smith(有的老師規定，班上有多少個異性就要送多少張卡，一張也不許少：這時只好用買的，不然作不完)。到了高中，已經漸漸把情人節給淡忘了。我來華時，情人節與元旦在臺灣的氣氛差不多：不太有人理它。但是後來大概為了給商人機會賺錢，情人節大作文章，情人節就一定要買花呀、巧克力呀，沒完沒了。

好吧，情人節也許好玩，商賈要賺錢沒錯，可是為甚麼我們一舉一動都要當商客的傀儡？

我想告訴大家一個秘密，可是我希望大家保密，不要把這個搞成賺錢商機：農曆二月十二日，古人叫做「花朝節」，是百花的生日。今年﹝己丑九十八年﹞花朝節正好是陽曆三月八日婦女節。建議大家那天挪一點時間靜靜地賞花：形、色、味、還有她生命雖忽忽來匆匆去，卻也能燦爛芳馥。

我與花店無怨無仇，但我不期望業者加入，一則想單純地享花，不想把花錢當享受；一則還是希望我們民間能夠單純地過我們的生活不受商賈或政府指揮或安排；一則花朝節原本意義是百花的生日，若弄到花店就變成了百花的死日，不美。

簡子沉鸞徼于河，曰，吾嘗好聲色矣，而鸞徼致之。吾嘗好宮室臺榭矣，而鸞徼為之。吾嘗好良馬善御矣，而鸞徼求之。吾好士六年矣，而鸞徼未嘗進一人也。是長吾過而絀善也。
呂覽、驕恣
趙簡子，春秋晉大夫

Chian-tzu (active around 500BC) drowned his underling Luan Chiao in a river. He said, “I took pleasure in music and women; Luan Chiao procured them for me. I took pleasure in palaces with pavilions and walkways; Luan Chiao built them for me. I took pleasure in excellent horses and skilled chariot drivers; Luan Chiao sought them for me. I have taken pleasure in capable subordinates for six years, and Luan Chiao has not introduced one person. He encourages me in wrongdoing and drives away the good.”

Splash, burble burble.

post #1600.

Translation Exercise: Pearls of Chinese Wisdom
原文：何足掛齒?
英譯：On which foot should the tooth be hung?

現在臺北市充滿著文學氣息，到處可見創意溢溢的小作品。例如，在台北車站捷運捐血室外面就有一篇現代詩作品，真是耐人尋味，可惜作者未留名。我把全篇抄錄于下：

不可
用電
有再腦
捐填列
過表印


看呀，這是多麼的大膽的寫法！多麼的勇于顛覆傳統的詩句！看那「捐填列」的句子，譔詩大師聲韻素養必然渾厚才敢如斯下筆*！看那末句：「過表印」，這是嘔心瀝血的傑作，鏗鏘有聲有響！

如若要問我這首詩的「意思」，要我詮釋斯詩，我只能以「唯美」稱讚，這匿名詩人境界太高，我如何能囿限曠世大作于一個固定的「解釋」呢？詩的意象，非我所能引頸高盼，我敢說，要「解釋」或「解讀」斯詩，太委屈它了，不要用一般世俗的態度去問「寫甚麼？看不懂。」它生龍活虎，屹立自得，不需我庸人自擾強為之「解讀」，我們凡夫俗子，就欣賞它吧！

我們現代臺北，很多人說沒品味只想錢，看到這個小小作品，我可以站出來作證人，向世界的人民說，不！你看我們臺北，有心人到處有！不乏文學奇才！

多麼的欣慰！！

*按：捐填列三字皆山攝四等韻；捐，與專切，仙韻，合呼；填，徒年切，先韻，開呼；列，良薛切，薛韻，合呼。請注意：全篇只用到一個入聲字，迺與前句「電」﹝堂練切，霰韻，山攝﹞雖不在同一詩句卻又聯袂，遙遙相韻，而結尾的「印」字﹝於刃切，震韻﹞竟以臻攝收場，作者既細膩又大膽的筆觸，怎讓人不佩服呢！這種用心鍊字，令人熱淚盈眶呀~~~！我太感動。

I can't believe this: I saw an ad for a radio for swimmers, so that you can listen to a radio underwater. Is this a product or torture? Well, certainly, I suppose you wouldn't want to get bored while you have fun, right? And how can you possibly have fun unless you are numbing your ears?

One reason I enjoy biking (or did before my bike fell apart) is that you can enjoy peace and quiet, moving smoothly along a road with no machinery noise, listening to the sounds of nature. Ha! Now that bicycling is the great fad in Taiwan, on any day with reasonably good weather, you can see dozens of bicyclers pumping their way along our beautiful mountain roads. I am astonished at the number of them that pump music into their ears.

People today are deathly afraid of quiet, calm, and introspection. Give me entertainment or give me death!

If you were to drive to the sun at 100kph, 24/7, it would take you something like two hundred years to reach the sun; light makes the trip in about eight minutes. It takes light four years and four months to reach the closest star, and 25,000 years to reach the center of our galaxy: big.

There are billions of stars in our galaxy, maybe as many as a trillion: ten to the twelfth power. When astronomers talk about the number of galaxies in the universe, they say there are billions. Billions of galaxies, each with billions of stars: big.

Recently I have found a highly addictive website, Galaxy Zoo. You look at photos of galaxies, and sort out if they are elliptical or spiral. The main thing is, you get to look at all these photos of galaxies; on the one hand I think they are surpassingly beautiful; on the other hand, give your imagination free reign, to imagine all those billions of stars, with untold worlds.

And some galaxies even celebrate Valentine's Day. Happy Valentine's Day!

and I will refrain from pointing out the interesting fact that Valentine's Day shares the same initials with Venereal Disease.

In general, Americans have longer legs and shorter torsos than Chinese. I am taller than average in Taiwan, and have long arms and legs, even for an American. When I first came to Taiwan, ready made pants weren't even worth looking at, because they would never come close to fitting. If the waist fit, the crotch would be down at my knees, and the bottom of the pants somewhere on my calf: like Porky the Pig. I tried having pants tailor made, because hand made was not much more expensive than off the rack in those days. In theory, great; in practice, the tailors in my end of town had no experience with foreign frames, and if you went up near the US Army base, you'd come out looking like a color-blind soldier on furlough, hardly what I wanted to look like. So I made do with what I had: a couple pairs of jeans.

Jeans wear out, you know? If you cross your legs a lot, the front of your thigh wears out pretty fast, so after a year or two, my jeans were deteriorating. I became quite efficient with needle and thread, first mending rips, then patching gaping holes with cloth scrounged from other sources, although I certainly hope Dan never figured out what happened to his nice denim jacket, sorry buddy.

By the time I was a junior, the seats on my jeans had gone, as had the fronts of both thighs. They had been replaced by a carefully stitched medley of patches, held precariously in place with the best stitching I was capable of. 好個百衲褲！

I remember very distinctly the day in November of my junior year when I was walking to class on the third floor of the Administration building and the wind came up to blow. It entered through the seat of my pants and exited through the knees, thoroughly chilling me on the way. Something had to be done!

I knew someone whose father was a tailor, and I begged her to help out. One Friday, wearing my dress slacks which I almost never wore, I gave her a bag with the two pairs of jeans that still held together, and on Monday she gave me a bag with the resuscitated jeans. Her father had replaced my collection of patches with one good, solid, windproof patch in each appropriate location, and from then until graduation, every time the cold wind blew, I mentally expressed my gratitude for his generous rescue.

About the time I graduated, my father finally sent me two pairs of Big Ben Gorilla on the Button workpants, thus solving the problem with finality. He had thought I was kidding when I told him I couldn’t get pants that fit.

About ten years after that, it became the very apex of fashion to wear jeans that have been carefully ripped and torn, a fashion that draggles on to this day. But after walking around for years like a ragged starveling, I have never thought very much of paying good money for ripped clothing.

大概是我中文程度不夠吧！買了一包湯圓，看到這個句子，怎麼看也看不懂。請問，甚麼叫做結帳前才買？

moonrise

元宵節

我們看了最大的燈籠

When I was a boy, I heard people say that you can tell a dog is sick when it starts eating grass. Here in Wulai, the aborigines say, Healthy dogs eat grass. Observation bears that out. My dogs eat grass all the time, as you may be able to tell from this picture. It could be that our dogs, living in the mountains, are closer to nature than city dogs, so they know what they need, without getting sick.

今天中午看到這片雲，聯想到聖嚴法師吉祥臥入捏。

Overheard in Wulai, from 200 meters away
垃圾車廣播，很重的泰雅口音：Lawa，不要站在那裡，我要倒車…. Nagat cikay, Lawa…好了，Lawa，妳現在可以來倒垃圾…Lawa, 我好愛妳!

Garbage truck loudspeaker, with a heavy Tayal accent: Lawa, don’t stand there, I’m going to back up… Just a minute, Lawa… Okay, Lawa, you can come over and toss in your garbage now… Lawa, I love you so much!

I watched two children racing along a mountain path. Boy and girl, probably brother and sister, maybe first and second graders, they raced along under a canopy of trees and the bright winter sun, until they reached a large tree which they both hugged, laughing and panting from their exertion.

My eyes filled with tears as I watched this scene unfold, my heart filled with sympathy. Poor children! In this day and age, why is it necessary for some underprivileged children to remain so deprived? If this boy and girl had a wii game console, they would not have to run along that path. They could stay in a closed room, safely away from any sunlight or fresh air, shaking their battery-operated handheld wireless controllers. Their parents, certainly guilty of irresponsible neglect, ought to consider whether it is advisable for children to hear wild birds chirping in trees overhead; they may even have been exposed to the sound of frogs croaking! If the children had wii and wanted to run a race, they could choose from a variety of colorful characters to represent their true selves, race (without moving) across a television screen to the accompaniment of cheering crowds, have their race timed to the split second with a slow motion rerun of the finish, and have the winner announced with a grand flourish.

Do you realize that those unfortunate benighted children I saw were running without music playing in the background? And what’s worse, they were not using any electricity, plastic, or other resources, and ~~ the meek at heart will wish to shield their eyes rather than read any further ~~ they were not consuming, they were not spending money! How could they possibly be enjoying themselves?

I trust the authorities will look into this deplorable incident, and remedy it before such things happen again.

我出生四十天，父母抱我去教堂受洗。我成長環境是虔誠、嚴謹的路德會家庭。禮拜天早上一定上教堂作禮拜、讀經。我們家守Sabbath，禮拜日除了教堂不外出，不嬉戲，靜休家裏。小學時我就已經被選出來做牧師儀式上的acolyte僮子。長大以後，我發現由于小時下的功夫扎實，我對聖經熟悉、了解超過一些牧師。

可是來華念大學，讀了中國典籍、先秦諸子、百家思想，腦子裏出現了很多問號。于是我犯了一個基督徒不可思議、不可饒恕的罪：我開始懷疑。懷疑上帝，是要下地獄的；對一個在宗教氣氛濃厚的環境長大的人而言，這個恐懼非常深。遲疑、懷疑、探討、恐懼時，剛好友人借我一本聖嚴法師著的「正信的佛教」來看。讀了斯書，換了角度看，砉然，把聖經戡破了，解脫了。

雖然離開了基督教，但那幾年不近任何宗教。

後來路過農禪寺，知道是聖嚴法師的道場，便遶進去看看。當時，只要師父在，就會出來接客。我們與法師交談，我懷著極為感激之心，把我從基督教解脫的原委講給師父聽，想表達那時怕下地獄的恐懼。聖嚴法師說，「如果你看了我的書要下地獄的話，我替你去。」

慈悲的心，至今讓我感動不已。

我後來雖然沒有皈依聖嚴法師﹝我的師父是無生道場上心下道法師﹞，可是那幾年常到農禪寺見見聖嚴法師。後來我在補習班忙，法師創辦法鼓山，沒再見面。

法師俗緣已了，寂滅去了。現在說不定在兜率天搖頭與眾菩薩說，「回來了！果真名不虛傳，娑婆眾生真頑強！好難渡啊~~~！」

阿彌陀佛，聖嚴法師，再見。

臺北小市民生活歷史綴筆，溪濯篇
昔年臺灣鄉間常看婦女成群結隊在溪邊洗衣服。當時臺灣太窮，只有富豪才買得起洗衣機，也捨不得那筆電費，假如有電的話。

可是村婦溪畔洗衣，絕不落單，而且她們不會大家一排一起洗；一定是每一個人佔一角，往外看，眼觀八方，警覺提高，只要有陌生人(我)來，就顯得很緊張。問其由，她們說，其實這是日據時代留下來的習慣；日據時代的臺灣，到處都有土匪，離開村子一步，就有生命危險。聽說，臺灣光復以後再也不見土匪，可是日據時代留下的恐懼難除根，所以還是習慣那樣洗。
大概民國七十年以後，比較少見溪濯，因為家家戶戶有洗衣機、有電。

現在有人說，日據時代治安比較好，我很懷疑。六十年代，聽老人說，日據時代日本警察嚴酷，把都市裏、村裏的人管的很嚴苛，每一個人都怕的要命，村外則不管，只要不去碰日本人，給漢人、臺灣人殺呀劫啊日本警察不過問，所以土匪橫行、盜賊跋扈。老宜蘭人說，日據時代走草嶺古道，一定要結隊請保鑣，因為沿路土匪太多。六十年代，我跟老一代的本省人說我要爬山，他們都勸我不要去、千萬不可露宿，如果一定要睡野外的話，一定要縮頭，免得被土匪割喉嚨：這番話，我聽過很多遍。每次老人家很婉惜，叫我不要涉足山林，我每次追問，臺灣有土匪嗎？老人家都說，日據時代，到處都有，可是光復以後就沒有了。

A sight you don't see very often in Taiwan anymore: ladies washing their laundry on rocks by a stream. In the early 1970s, this was still a common sight, because people didn't have money to buy washing machines, and were too frugal to buy electricity for what could be done by hand, assuming that they had electricity at all.

Rambling about Taiwan in those days I frequently came across groups of ladies squatting over their laundry by the stream. Groups, never one by one, and they never worked in a row facing one direction. Each woman would face a different direction, and they were very alert to passersby. They said that during the Japanese Occupation of Taiwan, there were so many bandits that it was unsafe to leave a village alone or in small groups.

I gather that during the Japanese Occupation, the Japanese police kept the people in towns and villages under tight control with iron fists, but territory outside the villages was terrorized by bandits that the authorities cared little about.

In the 1970s, when I went camping, old Taiwanese Chinese would always try to dissuade me from going, telling me that bandits would murder anybody who slept outdoors in the mountains. Time and time again, I was told by old people to stay out of the wilderness, but that if I had to go, to be sure to tuck my chin into my chest when I slept, to make it harder for the bandits to slit my throat. I always asked where the bandits were. The old folks invariably said, Well, the wilderness was full of bandits during the Japanese Occupation; your life was forfeit the moment you stepped away from a village, and the Japanese police didn't care, just so no Japanese were killed; but after the Japanese left after they lost World War II, the bandits were all cleaned up. But old habits die hard, and old folks always tried to talk me out of going into the mountains or hiking in the wilderness.