Yesterday Yumin's barking called my attention to a 青蛇/Green Snake (cyclophiops major) going about its business peaceably.

This is a non-venomous snake. Some people scream and panic at the sight of any snake, but even poisonous snakes have better things to do than bite you. Keep a distance and don't make trouble. If you can conquer your fear, you can enjoy the beauty of these magical creatures.

Yumin barked at the little neighbor. Eventually it overextended and fell back to where it started from. I had to leave, so I prodded it to safety in a ditch, away from the road.

貔

貅

五代亂世，難得後周明君。太祖本姓常，母改嫁郭氏，故姓郭，名威。頸文雀，故號郭雀兒。唐莊宗崩，明宗出其宮人各歸家。嬪有柴氏者，歸家時于塗遇郭威，柴氏問，此何人？曰，郭雀兒。柴識為非常人，隨以貲半與父母，半以嫁雀兒，資其進身。雀兒即位為周太祖，但柴氏已歿。太祖欲立嗣，然其子全為後漢劉承祐所殺。念柴氏之恩慧，故立其兄之子柴榮為太子，後立為周世宗。

史載世宗「器貌英奇，善騎射，略通書史黃老，性沉重寡言」。九五四年即位，遂下令招撫流亡，減少賦稅，恢復中原經濟。戰火連連，民苦不堪，故世宗整頓吏治，政治清明，百姓富庶，經濟開始繁榮。

商賈缺貨幣，銅材亦匱乏，故周世宗下令毀佛鑄錢，曰，「釋迦舍身飼虎，以身世為輕，以利和為急，使其真身尚在，敬利于世，猶欲割截，豈有所惜哉！」

「周元通寶」始鑄于周世宗顯德二年（公元九五五年），于五代銅錢中，鑄行最多、質量最好。但因為以法器造，故民多不肯流通，卻留為護身。

書影云，產婦手握此錢，卻瘧利產，可治難產；秋燈叢話曰，清順治初孝感多病症，或于古錢幣中檢周元通寶一文，持之即癒，遠近宣傳，每文值一緡。

The tenth century was one of the most chaotic times in Chinese history. Ch'ai Jung, who ascended to the throne of the Later Chou as Shih Tsung, was one of the few reasonable rulers. To stimulate the economy, he reduced taxes and improved the administration. To encourage trade, in 955 AD, he took bronze statues and implements from Buddhist temples, and melted them down for currency.

Because the coins were made from Buddhist relics, people were unwilling to spend them, but kept them as good luck charms. There are still some around. I managed to find one, which you see here.

住山上真是好；若不是為了工作，根本不想下山。但是住山，也有許多工作要作。樹長太高、擋視線、颱風天可能會吹到房子，必須修。修樹，需要竹竿上綁鋸子，慢慢鋸。這分工作，有些必然的定理。

定理一、夏至後兩天午時適合修樹、伐木。月虧更好；就是今天。

定理二、鋸時不管你站哪裏、不管風向，木屑一定會掉進你的眼睛。

定理三、所鋸的樹沒有蜂巢的話，旁邊的那棵絕對有，當你修斷的樹枝掉下來，群蜂會出來表達牠們的情緒。

定理四、川七葉咀嚼一下敷上刀鋸傷口，止血效果非常好。

I love living in the mountains. I go to the city only for my job, and unwillingly. But living in the mountains entails a lot of work. For example, trees grow and block your view, or may get blown into the house during a typhoon, so they have to be trimmed. To trim them, you attach a saw to a long bamboo pole and get to work. Experience shows that there are several inescapable laws concerning this task.

Law 1, noon two days after summer solstice is a good time to trim trees or cut wood, especially during a waning moon. That's today.

Law 2, no matter where you stand as you saw, no matter what direction the wind is blowing, the sawdust falls into your eyes.

Law 3, if there is not a hornet nest in the tree you are trimming, there is one in the tree onto which your sawn branch falls; the hornets will come out to express their feelings about your trimming.

Law 4, know which plants and leaves in your environment will stop bleeding from cuts.

This is worrisome. On this blog, I have posted about my friendship with Taiwan's small number of Jingpo / Jinghpaw / 景頗族 , a national minority from Southwest China and Burma. The Jingpo are also called the Kachin, but the situation is, to say the least, confusing. The Burmese regime recognizes the Jingpo, Lisu, Trone, Dalaung, Gauri, Hkahku, Duleng, Maru (Lawgore), Rawang, Lashi (La Chid), Atsi, and Taron as Kachin. The "Jingpo" language actually includes Jingpo proper, Zaiwa載瓦 (小山話, including Atsi, or Azi), Maru馬尤 (aka浪莪, 嬤魯, or浪速), and Lashi勒期(茶山話 Leqi). I bet this is something you have always been wondering about.

Joking aside, the situation in Burma is grim. For decades, the Kachin have been fighting for autonomy. Their army is the Kachin Independence Army, which makes for the unfortunate intials, KIA. Because of my affiliation with the Jingpo, I get newsletters from Kachin around the world, which usually average about one every week. But in the last couple of weeks, the newsletters have been pouring in, many with photos of fleeing refugees, such as the one with this post. The problem is, every post is in Jingpo, and I can't read anything. Something is going on, probably not good, but I'm not sure what. All I can do is wish them every success.

I am amazed to see the growth of the In N Out Burger chain. Not that I have anything in particular against them, and they are probably much less disastrous for your health than Mickey D, but In N Out and I have a past…

Around 1970, I was a student at Pasadena High School near LA. After school every day, I went to work and work out at Ed Parker’s Kenpo Karate Studio. On the way, I passed one of the first stores in the In N Out Burger chain; there were only about a dozen all told at the time. Every day, I would order a burger, and eat it as I walked to the studio. It was a full semester before I realized that the burgers were wrapped in paper…

And no, once I found that out, it didn't really make much difference in the taste.

白蓮霧樹上兩個毛毛蟲怪怪的，本來以為對歧，再看發現中間夾一隻比較小的。看了一段時間，就用葉子給牠們撥開，免得牠們一直扗那兒耗。

按：黑毛毛蟲長六公分左右。

I saw two caterpillars acting strange on a tree trunk. It turned out there was another smaller one between them. I watched the action for a while, but finally broke the impasse by pushing them apart with a leaf.

FYI: the black caterpillars are about 6cm long.

商周社會，雞重要，不僅為家禽，並為司晨、為祭品，彝不可少。但銅器金文很少畫雞。

我要畫商周雞，翻遍書籍，金文雞圖例極少，幾乎是孤例：所謂金雞獨例歟？找到一幅差強人意，與阿超說，「把這個當雞，給牠畫個雞冠就可以。」

阿超點頭說，「當雞立冠。」

= 由紺，我很皮，可是我不壞。我太皮就是了。

= 我年輕的時候跑漁船，常常打架。我打停事，我打船長，我打副排，我通通都打。後來，船長實在受不了我，所以他拿一個麻布袋，把我塞進去，然後綁的緊緊的！真的啊，由紺，他用一個麻布袋把我包起來，把袋子的口綁的緊緊的，然後把我丟到海裏！

─ 你怎麼辦呢？

= 我用我的意志力！我用我的牙齒咬、咬、咬，把麻布袋咬破，然後我拼命游！我游到八斗子漁港，警察扗那裏，他們看，誒？怎麼好像有人要游上岸？他們以為是偷渡客，來抓我，把我抓回派出所。我叫他們打電話。我說，你們打電話到臺北縣烏來鄉烏來派出所，問有沒有A~~s這個人。

─ 警察當然都認識你。

= 是啊，所以我這樣才能回來。

= Yugan, I get into a lot of trouble, but I'm not bad. I just get into trouble.

= When I was a teenager I worked on a fishing boat, and I got into fights every day. I fought the other workers, I fought the captain, I fought the second mate, I fought everybody. Finally the captain couldn't stand it any more, so he got a burlap bag, and stuffed me into it and tied it tight. Really, Yugan, he put me in a burlap bag, tied it up tight, and threw me overboard.

+ So what did you do?

= I used my determination! I bit my way through the burlap bag, and swam for my life! I swam all the way to Patoutse Fishing Harbor. The police on shore saw this guy swimming in, and figured I must be entering Taiwan illegally, so they came and grabbed me and took me to the police station. I told them to phone. I told them to phone the police station in Wulai in Taipei county and vouch for the Tayal tribesman A~~s.

+ I suppose the police all knew you.

= Yes, so I was able to come back.

今早聽Byajing吠聲特別，好像吠貓也不像吠貓。地方不遠，也聽得到Yumin興奮地吠，接著Tlahuy也開始吠。我決定去探一探。牠們扗水源附近，一看，原來小樹上有一隻白鼻心，比我頭高一點點而已，岌岌可危。我又想叫狗退下，又想拍照片；狗看到這麼棒的獵物，豈肯捨下！牠們三個扗白鼻心下方跳呀吠啊，我不敢過去抓，因為怕白鼻心會誤會、想逃跑。這個矮樹，牠無路可逃。鬼聰明的Yumin發現扯爬藤可以搖晃小樹~~Yumin不把聰明用扗正徒實扗可惜~~我第一段影片就是拍到這兒，好像白鼻心真的要被搖下，我繞過去趕Yumin，順便把Tlahuy推開。好家扗，我刀鞘上綑一節麻繩，我解下來綁Yumin的項圈，把牠拉開，請阿超看管。乖寶寶Byajing太興奮，不聽話，我只好趁她靠近時把她抱起來，四腳離地，跟Yumin綁扗一起牽回家。到家又給牠們綁了半小時，好讓白鼻心逃跑。

This morning Byajing's barking was different from her usual treed-cat bark. She was not far away. I could hear Yumin, and faithful old Tlahuy joined the chorus, so I figured I had to go rescue the kitty cat or whatever. I was a bit surprised to find that they had treed a qbux, in English called a gem-faced civet, Latin name Paguma larvata taivana. I had always reckoned there must be qbux around, but in fourteen and a half years, this was the first one I had actually seen. It was not having a nice day. It was on the branches of a small tree, only a bit higher than my head. The dogs danced and barked underneath it. I wanted to remove the dogs without posing a threat to the qbux, because if it had come out of its tree to make a run for it, it would have been a dead qbux.

How smart is beagle Yumin? He discovered that if he yanked on the vines trailing down, he could shake the tree, and maybe shake the qbux out of the tree. The first clip here ends with the tree shaking, when I had to stop filming to do something about Yumin. I pushed Tlahuy out of the game. In the second clip, you can hear the qbux growling at the dogs. Fortunately, I have a length of strong hemp twine wrapped around the sheath of my laraw (Tayal knife), so I used that to fashion a leash and drag Yumin away, and left him in Sabiy’s care. That left Byajing, who was too excited to be her usual obedient self, so at the first chance, I grabbed her, lifted all four feet off the ground, and removed her from combat.

After we got home, I tied the dogs for half an hour to give the qbux time to escape. It did.

又：Yumin說，聰明用扗抓白鼻心才是正塗。沒救。

漢儒重讖緯，夫子之學至斯，面目全非。所謂讖者，預曉吉凶利害之讔語；緯者為政治預言。

漢儒羈束夫子說、煞其神而陷于拘泥成規，罪莫大于董仲舒。夫子高堅、瞻前忽後，董仲舒無从窺其堂室。但畢竟深入讖緯，故其預言之遠見，亦令人佩服。早在兩千年前，已預知臉書。

何以知之？因為漢儒說，君命臣死，臣FaceBook。

You think teenagers today dress outlandishly? They can't hold a candle to traditional outfits.

Pearls of Chinese Wisdom

原文：比上不足，比下有餘

英譯：Compare up no feet, compare down have fish.

Presidential hopeful Sarah Palin (R – Alaska) gave a deathless rendering of the midnight ride of Paul Revere:

He who warned, uh, the … the British that they weren't gonna be takin' away our arms, uh, by ringin' those bells and, um, by makin' sure that as he's ridin' his horse through town to send those warnin' shots and bells that, uh, we were gonna be secure and we were gonna be free … and we were gonna be armed.

For Sarah Palin, that's actually not too bad. At least she didn't say Paul Revere shot wolves from his airplane so the oil interests could drill in the Arctic.

But isn't it stirring to think that a lady with this kind of brain could conceivably have the power to toss nuclear bombs around?

A presupposition of democracy is that you can think for yourself.

Many product warnings are based on the premise that you can't think for yourself, so you'll sue.

Is there a contradiction here?

禁煙節萬歲！天天禁煙節！