An antique seller on Ebay has a very catchy slogan:
NEVER HESITATE TO LOSE THE CHANCE TO GET IT.

I have never made any pretension that I could understand what is buzzing around in the exalted cranium of His Travesty George Dubya Bush. He accuses the Islamic radicals of trying to 'intimidate the world.' And pray tell me, what was Shock and Awe designed to do? He sends the National Guard to shoot Iraqis because the Suadi bin Laden is a terrorist hiding somehwere in Afghanistan or Pakistan. The National Guard is, naturally, unavailable to help in Lousiana, but that doesn't matter because neither is he. He sends billions of dollars to Mars but won't let people cross a bridge to escape flooded New Orleans. He cuts taxes. Who benefits from his tax cuts? 97% of these tax cuts go to people making over US$200,000 a year, and 54% to people making over a million dollars annually: not the types you see huddling in the Superbowl, slogging through ankle-deep urine as the roof rips off. Since these tax cuts will save those rich people something like US$150 billion over the first ten years, there won't be much money for things like Medicaid, and a lot of the health care for victims of Katrina will be cut by those compassionate conservative Republicans. Saudi Arabia is doing little to discourage their current slave trade in prostitutes, child prostitutes, and forced laborers, but President Bush decided to look the other way, apparently because he believes Saudi Arabia to be our allies in fighting terrorism, regardless of where those 9/11 hijackers came from, and regardless of how little the Sauds have done to crack down on Al Qaeda. I guess he looks back to precedent: they used to have slaves in Texas, didn't they? So wouldn't be banning slavery in our beloved Saudi Arabia be playing a double standard? The man who won his second term on a ‘moral vote’ disregards the Geneva Convention and condones the torturing of prisoners. Now he is complaining that the investigations into his wrongdoings and the uproar over his inappropriate Supreme Court nomination are "background noise, a lot of chatter," complicating the work of his administration. That's like blaming a policeman for pulling you over for doing 120mph in a 35 mph zone.

how come I'm not surprised they're both Northwestern?

最近忙著寫一篇文章，討論演化。演化中一個非常重要的現象是，一個群體如果內部和諧，成員將心力投入謀生，群族繁榮，子孫眾多，可長久于世。反之，一個群體如果把心力投入權力鬥爭，自然較無精力、時間花在資源的攝取利用；這種群體很容易遭淘汰。

今天坐計程車，聽廣播；一個香港評論人談陳水扁這幾天發表的為時三個鐘頭的演講，說陳總統談的幾乎都是黨爭等爭權奪利的事，而沒談到經濟或實質的政績。

Taiwan has the most gorgeous moonscapes imaginable. The full moon, still hidden behind the ridge, lit up a column of cloud so that it shined like a lightbulb against the dark sky. Then the moon climbed out, a soft light against the black mountains and sky. I sat on the porch roof, eating my dinner and enjoying the fall cool. Then I started wondering, is there something wrong with my eyes? The moon doesn't look round. The lower right hand corner looks sort of flattened out. I soon realized: eclipse.

The eclipse was partial. It lasted only from about 7 until after 8, and was never really noticeable, although all the neighborhood dogs started barking about the time I noticed the effect. Of course they always bark, so that might not have been why. Maybe just general dogginess. I felt privileged to see an eclipse that I imagine very few people noticed. The moon is not so important against city lights, and at that time, most people were transfixed by their televisions anyway.

feeling crabby?

Traditionally the Tayal are weavers, producing practically indestructible cloth (women) and equally indestructible baskets (men). They have produced little pottery and no woodcarving.

The town hall arranged for the first ever wood carving class for the Wulai Tayal. They invited a teacher from the Paiwan tribe, at the other end of the island, Taiwan;s woodcarvers par excellence*. Of course I signed up, and our first lesson was today. Lucky me.

Seven people showed up. It seems that one specification for the class is that you ought to have Temu in your name, because we had Yoyung Temu, Temu Heyong, and Yasa Temu. (Where was Temu Hakaw?) Lalung was there too. About a year ago, he came down from the mountains, where he spent three or four years hunting, come down once a month or so to buy rice. I expect the best carving to come from Temu Heyong and Lalung.

Each participant was issued ten unsharpened chisels, a canvas bag to hold them, a wooden mallet, paper and pen, and a board to carve. The board is about five or six centimeters thick, 50 wide, and two meters long. It weighs about 35 kilograms. Ok, for those who don't know metric, that means it's about 3 fingers thick, and I could lie comfortably on it, with space for a watermelon at my feet. The board is about half my weight. The cost of the materials is hardly covered by the nominal registration fee; the town hall made up the difference: an advantage of being part of a disadvantaged minority. (You have to be a registered resident of Wulai to take the course, and technically, it is restricted to Aborigines, unless you really want to join.)

Our teacher, Saguliu Jiagun, looks like a typical Paiwan, has a short beard and hair that reaches his shoulder. He is laconic, or perhaps just shy. He first gave a short speech, explaining that we were going to study woodcarving; carving may be relief or three dimensional, the difference being that anything with a hole all the way through it is three dimensional; there are old and new styles of Paiwan carving; there are three kinds of chisels; you carve this way (whack whack whack);
first you have to sharpen your chisels. We trooped outside to learn how to sharpen the chisels. "You hold the chisel this way….. not this way…. and you do this….” Each statement was followed by a five second pause and a demonstration. "Here is how you do this…… not this way….. here is how you do this….. who will volunteer to demonstrate what I just showed you?" Yasa Temu stepped forward and started stropping away. Temu Yoyong explained to Teacher, "We call him Wulai Picasso, because Yasa is the only painter in Wulai." Teacher accepted this pronouncement in silence. Somebody goofed: instead of dozen whetstones, we were supplied with only four, three fine and one coarse. When Yasa had worked for a while, Teacher said, "These whetstones are too fine….. you should each sharpen all ten of your chisels, but because of these whetstones, just sharpen one of each kind."

Four men went to work on the whetstones. The rest of us wandered inside. Teacher told us to plan our carving. He handed us a sheath of pictures of Tayal in traditional dress. "Carve something like these, they are your tribesmen…. You may want to draw a picture on paper first…. There is paper for you." Lalung and Temu Heyong took paper and pen in hand, probably for the first time in a decade, and grimly set to work, like grade schoolers taking a particularly difficult math test. Teacher approached one of the boards. "….we need chalk to draw on the boards…." The other day I unthinkingly carried a piece of chalk out of class and dropped it in my backpack, for lack of anything better to do with it. I fished it out and handed it to Teacher, who began roughing a sketch on a board. Naluwan, from the Town Hall, was dispatched to lift a box of chalk from Wulai Elementary. Teacher demonstrated how to clear out chips with a compressor-powered chisel.

Yasa finished sharpening a chisel, and came indoors. He immediately set to work on his board. He roughed out a sketch in moments, and started chiseling. He hadn't sharpened his chisel properly, so in a short while, he put it down and attacked his board with the power chisel. Teacher looked on without saying anything, but ignored him from then on. I took over Yasa's whetstone, and then got a turn on the rough whetstone, so within an hour I had the three main chisels ready to carve. Yasa was halfway through his carving by this time. Temu Heyong called me over and very proudly showed me his drawing: Lalung in traditional dress, headhunting tattoos and all. Temu had difficulty with the nose. It meandered all over Lalung's face. I praised his work, but privately thought it would be impossibly difficult to carve. Teacher silently took the drawing, and sketched out the basic ideas on a board for him: "Carve it that way."

"Teacher, may I borrow your Paiwan hundred-pacers?" I asked. The Paiwan totem is the poisonous hundred pacer snake. He was pleased by the idea, so I sketched a standing Tayal man with a Paiwan hundred pacer coiled over his head. Teacher helped me sketch the head-hunting knife. I put chisel to wood.

All too soon, it was 11:30. Although class runs until 5, I had to teach in the city at 2, so with great reluctance, I packed my tools and took my leave. When I left, I was surprised to find that I felt like I had had a good morning's exercise. Woodcarving is more strenuous than it looks.

+++
* Par excellence is a French term of such abstruse significance that any attempt at translation into English is futile, leaving me no choice but to display my erudition by reverting to the original French. For you pathetic, uncouth troglodytes who do not read French, allow me to condescendingly inform you that the phrase means par excellence.

Gnash your teeth
Imagine if, in advance of Hurricane Katrina, thousands of trucks had been waiting with water and ice and medicine and other supplies. Imagine if 4,000 National Guardsmen and an equal number of emergency aid workers from around the country had been moved into place, and five million meals had been ready to serve. Imagine if scores of mobile satellite-communications stations had been prepared to move in instantly, ensuring that rescuers could talk to one another….

Actually, this requires no imagination: it is exactly what the Bush administration did a year ago when Florida braced for Hurricane Frances. Of course the circumstances were very special: it was two months before the presidential election, and Florida's twenty-seven electoral votes were hanging in the balance. It is hardly surprising that Washington ensured the success of 'the largest response to a natural disaster we've ever had in this country.' The president himself passed out water bottles to Floridians driven from their homes.
-Richard Clarke, Things Left Undone, The Atlantic Monthly, November 2005 p37

死要面子
現代廣告太厲害，有催眠作用。越是語無倫次越好；混淆視聽，讓你頭腦打結，乖乖把鈔票掏出來。

汽車廣告有個好例子：九人座是男人對家庭永遠鬥陣的保證。鬼扯蛋嘛!稍微用幾個腦細胞就知道這是nonsense。為什麼是永遠?五億年後還有這台九人座嗎? 有甚麼保證? 說不定買了後座寬敞的車是方便男人拈花惹草。可是現代人被訓練得服服貼貼的，毫無主見；一定很多人看到廣告詞就決定買一台九人座。九人座：老公 + 老婆 = 二人，現在有幾家生七個孩子？誰管它! 廣告這樣寫，我們趕快去買吧!! 有空位?沒關係，多生幾個就恰恰好。

「個性」是現今廣告業者的最愛。買這件大量生產的商品來表現你的獨特個性! 今天看到一個廣告：
個性殯儀
虧他們想得出來。我很想問，個性殯儀是葬送個性嗎?

誠摯的評語、二
「Yugan，你有沒有聽過一個畫家，叫做XXX?」
「有啊，很有名，好像很大牌。」
「他前一陣子到烏來，想看看我們的山找畫的靈感。我遇到他在 tataq na balang qasa，跟他聊起來，請他到 ngasal ku, maniq mami, 很開心他啦。他說是他第一次交原住民朋友，我叫他常常來烏來tama cisal啦，mosay啦。後來他送我一副他的畫。」
「balay bi?」
「balay. 那副畫我放在家裡看了幾天，後來拿去丟掉了。Muling syuq.」
「Muling syug? Nanu sa?」
「Yaqeh kitay bi. 他說他畫鵝在水池，鵝也不像鵝，水池也不像水池，留它幹嘛？垃圾車來的時候，我把它丟掉了。留它幹嘛？」
「說的也是。」
「Yugan，他還說有畫個甚麼甚麼象，我看，哪有象？沒有啦。我看不出有象。」
「他說有畫象？」
「Aw，他說有個甚麼抽象，連鵝都不像鵝，他怎麼可能畫象？」

今天是重陽節。乾脆改名「崇洋節」，列為國定假日。執政黨急著「去中國化」，問題是，真正到地的臺灣文化(原住民的本土文化)，壓跟鄙視排斥，所以只剩拜日哈韓崇洋。現在花很多心血推廣英文；英文有沒有進步先甭談，國文退步是事實，正好「去中國化」…..嗎？或是邯鄲學步？

不管。先把崇洋節列為國定假日。崇洋節如果講中國話(國語、閩南語、客家語、任何方言)，要罰。連姓名都要洋化；例如總統陳水扁先生要叫 Mr Bean。家裡的筷子用一條綠布封起來，用餐要拿刀叉，最好吃漢堡。嚴禁吃麵、飯等。開車一定要遵守交通規則(這一項最難)。進到家裡要穿鞋子，不可以脫! 入門脫鞋原是中國傳統，所以要摒除。回家也不准換舒適的便服，上班的衣服要穿到睡覺才脫，而且不可以睡覺前洗澡，規定要等早上起床後。也可以效法歐洲人，乾脆不洗澡算了。
真心愛臺灣的人把頭髮染成金髮、戴上綠隱形眼鏡 (不可以戴『藍』!!!小心被批鬥!)，最好把血都抽出來換洋血，去中國化!

順便廢除農曆年，因為英文叫 Chinese New Year. 改「譴華節」，祖先牌位列出來，歷代祖先痛罵，因為幾乎都是外省人。要這樣罵：「可惡的外省人來臺灣幹嘛!?好好的臺灣，都是外省人搞壞了!」如果罵累了，原住民很樂意幫忙。

+++
備註: Mr Bean在歐美頗有名氣。http://www.mrbean.co.uk/

誠摯的評語

書法比賽交件時限到了，參加創意組的作品寫好了，準備寄。「夢幻泡影」，字體是自創的「飛篆」。

美術系正科班出身的怡伶看了，猶豫了一下，很誠懇地問，「這也能算書法嗎？」

Today is Double Ten, the 94th anniversary of the beginning of the revolution that ended the Chinese monarchy (nominally, and for now, anyway) and established the Republic of China.

I am not for any political party. In my view, asking a politician to be honest goes against the nature of the beast. If the people are well fed, well clothed, have decent houses, are well educated and reasonably content, that is a good government.

I believe that by 1990, the situation in Taiwan was like that. The economy was strong, people had money in their pockets for more than just the next meal, and everything was running smoothly for the vast majority of people here. People had stopped caring what dialect you spoke at home, or what province your ancestors were buried in. The feeling was especially strong around Double Ten. There were big parades in the morning and fireworks in the evening. Lights were hung all around the President's Office. Crowds of people visited in the evening to admire the lights and their accomplishments. The feeling of pride and achievement was palpable.

The problem arose that some ambitious politicians were not eating enough pork. They decided they had to do something to make people dissatisfied.

Come Double Ten, 1991, the opposition (I forget, was the Democratic Progressive Party organized yet then?) announced plans to disrupt the parade past the President's Office, with promises of violence. In response, the whole area around the Parade route was cordoned off with barbed wire. At the time, Merica, where I teach, was in three buildings (後來都重建。現在南陽街襄陽街角那棟大樓，本來是一棟八層樓的；美加租二樓到五樓，旁邊有一棟四層樓的，是美加的，現在美加大樓是原來老舊的房子，像兔窩。) The demarcation line ran right through the middle, so when I came out of class at ten, I walked out of the cordoned area, past the barbed wire. The MPs on duty were obviously embarrassed as we all trooped through their little gate. You could leave, but not enter without the proper papers.

The problem was I lived inside the cordon, a kilometer away, by the parade route. I had brought identification. I got on my bike and pedaled homeward, turning, as usual down 紹興南路 (那時才打通沒很久), where I approached a gate back through the cordon. Dismounting my bike well before I reached the gate, I pulled my ID out of my bookbag and presented it to the MPs. They ascertained that my address showed I did live within the cordon, so, apologizing for the nuisance, they opened the gate and let me through.

It was very quiet that night, no traffic on the street. The next morning I went out with the neighbors to watch the tanks go by. Everybody cheered the soldiers, trying to make up for the thin number of spectators. The politicians ruined everybody's holiday, but what do they care? They're in power now.

He's not a nuisance, he's my brotherrrrrrrrrr~~

sunset one day last month

living room

Tloyal Tlahuy.

alert Tlahuy.

The news says President Bush insists that Harriet Miers is the nation's best-qualified candidate and assured skeptical conservatives that his lawyer-turned-Supreme Court nominee shares his judicial philosophy and always will. "I've known her long enough to know she's not going to change, that 20 years from now she will be the same person with the same judicial philosophy she has today," Bush said. "She'll have more experience. She'll have been a judge, but nevertheless the philosophy won't change."
This may be the best reason I have heard to keep her out of the Supreme Court.

賓至如龜
This morning when I opened the front door, I found I had a little guest.

I am proud of the iron discipline I have inculcated on Yumin. Here is a genuine, unretouched photograph of his lightning reaction after I called him for the fourth time.

Any disinterested observer will note that he is very definitely looking at me, responding to my call. And only the fourth call!

For a beagle, that is iron discipline.

laterally projecting prominence of the pelvis, laterally projecting prominence of the pelvis, HOORAY! for Cousin Steve.

Yesterday I belittled Americans for not being metric, and queried why front yard is two words, but backyard one.

Steve asked, If the US goes metric, does that mean we have to call them the front meter and backmeter?


It's in the genes.

The typhoon knocked a branch off the 茄苳tree in my front yard. Here is a caterpillar I found munching on the leaves just now. Without stretching too much, it's 10 cm long.
When you see a caterpillar like this, you say Mr Caterpillar, sir, would you care for some more leaves?

I don't know what kind of butterfly this will become. An aircraft carrier, I suspect.

For you benighted folks who don't know metric yet (shame! shame!) 10 cm is about four inches.

Query: how come backyard is one word but front yard is two?

surprising discovery
You may end up tracking blood all over the place if you trim your toenails with wire cutters.

The season's 19th typhoon is leaving. We had lots of wind. The highest gale force is 17. The east coast got force 17+, which probably means they have to buy new gauges again.
Mountains protect. Here we got only force 8 or 9, but it was impressive, the strongest winds we've had since I moved here, I believe. Thin shafts of bamboo were shorn off clean. A lot of tree branches got broken; not old wormy stuff but vigorous growing branches that were in the wrong place at the wrong time. The old wormy stuff all got knocked off earlier in the summer. A branch the size of my calf got wrenched off the 茄苳tree I planted out front. I was thinking, that's sturdy wood, what does it take to rip that off the trunk? The wind shook my house, which fortunately is well built.
They really shouldn't name typhoons Dragon King. or Elephant God.
I should clarify: bamboo is resilient. Thick bamboo may split due to the weight of its leaves, but thin bamboo is so springy that it is very difficult to snap. You can whip it, leaves and all, and it won't break.

This morning I stood on the second floor porch watching the rain go like this:
J
It fell, then the wind blew it into my porch and up.
For some reason, a pigeon was out, and it was flying like this:
W
And very fast, too! The wind was tossing it up and down like a rubber ball in a child's game. The poor pigeon must have been getting airsick!
Ever see a pigeon barf?
A strange green butterfly flew past me, circled around, hovered, came back, went forward. Strange, I had never seen a butterfly like that. When it suddenly shot upward, I realized that it was a sprig with a couple leaves on it.

So the wind was impressive, roaring back and forth, but there wasn't much rain. Wulai got only about 10 inches this afternoon, very little in the morning. I spent over an hour working outdoors this morning without a raincoat, and my clothes were pretty dry when I came in.

Tlahuy and Yumin spent the whole time sleeping in their doghouse. Smart dogs!

We've got another typhoon, number 19 this season, the third in the last month that has been bigger than Katrina. If they occur in the Atlantic, they're called hurricanes, if they occur in the Pacific, they're called typhoons. Typhoon comes from the Chinese 颱風tai-fung, which is of obscure origin, but probably means 'winds (fung) coming from Taiwan (Taiwan),' since most of them hit us. That's why we handle them so well.

It's relative. Hurricane Rita caused trouble in the American South with 8 or 9 inches of rain. At the same time, a little hurricane passing south of Taiwan – I didn't even pay attention to the name – brought 25 inches (640mm) of rain to Wulai; buses ran as regular, schools held class, no big deal. There was a problem in some places with Typhoon Nali, which brought over four feet of rain, but not in Wulai, and Taipei city was okay too, just wet. If Taipei got an inch of snow, that would cause utter havoc, and I seriously think that five degrees below freezing would bring down the government. Buildings are constructed to withstand typhoons and earthquakes, but not freezing temperatures. Water pipes would burst. A lot of walls are so saturated with water that if they froze, they would probably crumble. Everybody would freak out. I can't imagine what traffic would be like. Think of hordes of frenzied race horses on ice skates.

Interesting bit of trivia: Taipei has tall buildings, including the world's tallest, the 101, but that's not my trivia. Here it is: earthquakes are not as deadly to tall buildings as typhoons are. We get both. An earthquake jiggles and shakes, pretty much from one direction, for at most a minute or two. A typhoon can blow at full strength on the whole building for twenty four hours or more.
Had both today, as a matter of fact. There was a little earthquake this afternoon.
All in all, I'm just as happy I'm not up on the 92nd storey today.

Here in the mountains, we are protected from the worst winds, which on the coast are so strong they destroy the measuring equipment. That's why we handle typhoons so well: everything that can be blown away was blown away years ago. Signs are better made now, so they rarely fly down streets any more. That's comforting. They must use better acrylic, too, because 30 years ago, after a good typhoon, the streets would be covered with fragments of pulverized signs, but that doesn't happen any more. Fine with me. Not with the people who make signs. They used to love typhoons.

This typhoon is a bit strange. Meteorologists named it 龍王Lungwang, not a very good name: Dragon King. Dragons bring rain. Not too much, please. It's almost on the coast, but we haven't had much rain or wind. Instead, we have thunder and lightning, which usually don't go with typhoons. Satellite photos show it is tight, with a long plume reaching almost to the Aleutian Islands. More like a tadpole than a dragon.

I may be reading too much into this, projecting.

It's been eight months since Bengax died, and Yumin still spends time at her graveside. I often see him sitting there looking at where she is buried.

Of course he may just feel that that piece of ground is more comfortable, and I am just projecting. But they were great playmates. Tlahuy is too dignified for such childish horseplay (dogplay?), but silly sappy Bengax would race back and forth with him, ready for a tussle any time of the day or night. He followed her everywhere, even when she growled at him, and stole his food. The time Bengax was injured in a dogfight, Yumin chased away the enemy and protected her, challenging anybody to come near her until I came. I have never heard him roaring like that since. While she recuperated, pesky Yumin stayed patiently by her side, watching over her, licking her wounds, making sure those wild dogs didn't come anywhere near her. Not that she repaid his kindness with any gratitude. When she could walk again, she was so mean to him that I couldn't help thinking of the term ‘bitch’.…. Yumin doted on her none the less.

As I write this, Yumin is lying by Bengax's grave quietly, as if he remembers her.

this is the last photo I have of the three dogs together.

When I was in high school, from time to time we would get ice cream at a little place off Hollywood Boulevard. The lady who worked there was middle aged and had a funny accent I couldn't place, not German, but something like that. She was gentle: always pleasant and smiling, never raucous but nothing could take the cheer off her face.

One day she was wearing short sleeves and we could see the numbers tattooed inside her left forearm.

We cried because she had no tears left.

This is what perplexes me about Israel. If nobody else, the Jews should understand suffering and the need for compassion for displaced minorities. Little compassion has Israel shown the Palestinians! Rather, they seem to delight in finally taking the upper hand and making others suffer as they have.

Jews are 'the chosen people.' Jehovah always encouraged them to slaughter their neighbors.

But still….

師大校歌第一句：教育國之本。我非常贊同這句(說實話，我也只記得這句)，因為國家是由人組成的；人的行為、能力、思攷、態度，個方面，都由教育塑造。教育不限于學校教育，卻包羅各種人格的栽培，但學校教育集中，而老師，尤其萬世師表的孔老先生，可以代表一種成長的意願、智慧的追求。

講現實一點，這個年代，社會的競爭力、生存力、生活水準，都建立在教育制度上。

孔子誕辰，教師節，從前是國定假日，至少一年一度想一想尊師重道，也是提升心靈。現在政府廢除這個假日。歎息。

不過，我想起了第二句：
師範尤尊重
再來
啦滴達，啦滴達，旦旦旦~~~

Happy Birthday, Confucius!

A man in the Tribe who lost his ability to speak because he got a fever when he was 6. He went to sleep on a rock by the stream after he went swimming with some friends, and when his temperature soared, his parents didn't have money to take him to a doctor. He has never been able to speak since then. He explained this all to me through gestures and mimicry. He's about 40 now, a very, very nice guy, and he loves to give people (me) rides on his motorcycle.

Problem is…

Not that he drives fast or anything, but he has his own style. The most memorable ride I got from him was 4 or 5 years ago. I was coming home one rainy night, got off the bus at the bridge. He had been out drinking, and was very happy to give me a ride on his motorcycle, especially since I had an umbrella, and he was getting wet. He pulled the umbrella down in front of him, like a windshield. He held the bottom rim of the umbrella below the handlebars with one hand and drove with the other. How could he drive that way, you may ask? Easy, by following the yellow line, sort of. I watched it weave back and forth. Occasionally headlights would light up the umbrella and we'd hear frantic honking, from cars coming the other way. Of course since this is Taiwan nobody slammed on the brakes, they just dodged. One passed us on our right. I decided not to worry. My idea was, if I'm going to die, I may as well enjoy it. God protects fools, and we got home safely. I was soaked, because the umbrella was up in front where it didn't do any good, but it was an experience.

The reason this comes to mind is that I got another ride from him the other night. It wasn't raining, and he was sober, so we managed to get all the way back without falling over more than once, which is pretty good.

九月臺大社團舉辦手語週，關心失聰朋友。固然美，但心裡也癢癢的。二十年來，手語頗流行，很多聽覺正常的人士熱心學手語，表示對弱勢團體的認同、關切。很好，我贊成、佩服。可是在我印象中，從沒看過社會大眾學山地話…..

即使是山服社，也是帶外界的觀念教育他們如何跟我們一樣，而不是去了解他們有甚麼人格、思想、文化。

說愛臺灣，是說愛臺灣的中國文化。

欒開花了
蝴蝶蜜蜂戲玩花間

Four or five years ago, over 80% of the laptops in the world were Made in Taiwan. Thursday, Taiwan's very last laptop production line closed down. The authorities say it doesn't matter. Yes, but what are we going to eat?

Maybe we can shriek "I love Taiwan" until our bellies are full.

Please look at your calendar and note that today is the Autumnal Equinox. In addition to other celebrations, let us raise our voices and sing the traditional autumnal equinox song, sung to the tune of Greensleeves*.

Oh, when Mary Queen of Scots was young and beautiful,
One day her Maid In Waiting to her these words did say,
Oh my lady, when I was young and beautiful,
One day my true love brought to me a piece of cheese,
A piece of cheese hey diddley trum trum hey diddley trum trum,
A piece of cheese,
But it fell on the ground and got all dirty.
And Mary Queen of Scots these words did unto her Maid In Waiting address:
How much do you think I care?
Rum tiddley trum trum, How much do you think I care?
And her Maid in Waiting replied,
Not much.

Oh, when Mary Queen of Scots was young and beautiful,
One day her Maid In Waiting to her these words did say,
Oh my lady, Today is the Autumnal Equinox,
Which means that the daylight and nighttime are of equal length, due to perturbations in the axis of the earth as it orbits the sun on its annual voyage at a speed of one hundred thousand kilometers an hour,
As it orbits the sun on its annual voyage at a speed of one hundred thousand kilometers an hour hey diddley trum trum hey diddley trum trum,
As it orbits the sun on its annual voyage at a speed of one hundred thousand kilometers an hour,
And Mary Queen of Scots these words did unto her Maid In Waiting address:
How much do you think I care?
Rum tiddley trum trum, How much do you think I care?
And her Maid in Waiting replied,
Not much.

Oh, when Mary Queen of Scots was young and beautiful,
One day she did to her Maid In Waiting these words say,
Since I am a queen so young and beautiful,
How come you never call me Your Majesty? Huh?,
How come you never call me Your Majesty hey diddley trum trum hey diddley trum trum,
You never call me Your Majesty.
And the Maid in Waiting did unto Mary Queen of Scots with these words reply,
I would, but it would ruin the meter of these verses,
I would but rum tiddley trum trum it would ruin the meter of these verses.
And Mary Queen of Scots replied,
Not much.

++

No wonder she was able to meet the executioner with such composure.


* Let this be a challenge to you.

Maybe it's time to learn how to drive.

Actually, I did learn how to drive once. In California, to graduate from high school, you had to learn how to swim and how to drive (the law may be the same now, I don't know.) Whether or not you knew how to add and subtract, who signed the Declaration of Independence, the difference between a molecule and an atom, or what the Gettysburg Address was about, these were not required for graduation, but if you could not drive or swim, you could not graduate. This sort of education may have something to do with how the current governor got elected. Or Reagan.

Along through the smog came the first Earthday. An awakening: cars make smog! Pasadena High was only a mile from the mountains, but you usually couldn't see them at all. As a friend said, "We may as well be going to school in Ohio!" The smog in LA in those days was lethal, but nobody wanted to stop driving. I figured, somebody has to do something about it, and I would be a likely candidate to start from. I hadn't learned 捨我其誰 yet, but I knew the principle. For a high school boy in LA, not driving was social suicide. I didn't bother to take the test for a driver's license. Less acceptable than burning your draft card, and more defiant. I got a bicycle.

Now bikes are cool, but you have to understand, in those days, in LA riding a bike meant you didn't want any friends. Fortunately, I took up martial arts years before most Americans had even heard of karate (nobody called it martial arts then). My teacher, Mr Ed Parker, being Hawaiian, simply loved to fight, so our style was noted for macabre murder and mayhem even by other karate people – beat you to a pulp as artistically as possible, and don't forget what a good time you're having. Enjoy!

The best fighters at Pasadena High tried me out even before the driving thing came up, but for me, they weren't a challenge. I spent my time out of school getting beaten by Steve Saunders, Mike Pick, people like that, some high school thug wasn't going to slow me down a bit. Word got out that I was bored trashing the school's best fighters. That saved me a lot of trouble, especially when I pedaled to school. Otherwise, I would probably have been beaten up for not driving.

As it was, kids from the school would drive by me on my bike and curse at me or throw things. I wasn't going to go to jail for that. I let it slide.

In the middle of my 12th grade I left the country anyway, and went to Viet Nam. Then I came to Taiwan, which has excellent public transportation, even before the subway, and nothing's far away, anyway. When I went to the mountains, I hitchhiked. I got around without learning how to drive.

Not knowing how to drive is not without its dangers. Steph picked me up at the airport on a visit to San Francisco. Driving up those circular counterclockwise exit ramps, she explained that she had to work, but she would let me use the car. Without thinking, I said, "Thanks, but I don't know how to drive." She was so astonished that she turned to gawk at me, a grown man who doesn't know how to drive; not such a good idea with the steering wheel in her hands, and we almost went out the right side of the ramp.

That was ten, fifteen years ago, but I still don't know how to drive. It might be a convenient skill.

Wulai is the Romanization of the Chinese transliteration of the Tayal Ulay. The word means hot spring. Ten years ago, nobody in Taipei believed you if you told them there are hot springs by the stream in Wulai, but five years ago, hot springs became fashionable … really hot … so our village has been invaded by investors out to make a quick buck in the spa business. So many spas sprung up, pumping hot spring water out of the stream bank, that Huanshan Rd, which goes above, started to crumble. At considerable public expense, and benefiting only the businesses, embankments were installed to shore up the slope between the stream and the road.

Although Ulay is Tayal land, a small number of Han Chinese (平地人) have lived here for years. They constructed a small shrine to the earth god, 土地公. Aborigines are mostly Christian, partly because the missionaries couldn't convert anybody else in Taiwan, partly to emphasize their difference from Han society, partly so they can look down on the Chinese as superstitious heathens, damned to hellfire.

The shrine was demolished during the building of the embankment, and now has been rebuilt, ten times larger, a full fledged Chinese temple in Aborigine land, a symbol of encroaching sinification. Today is the consecration and formal opening of the temple. As I went past on the way to the bus, the mediums and sorcerers, musicians and acolytes, and crowds of incense burning worshippers lined the road. The Tayal are not happy. Who does this land belong to?

寒流來了
這是我很久以前寫的

昔者吾聞之，有小人國，騎雞而戰。有狐狸國夤夜襲小人國，盡食其雞而歸。晨，事覺，小人欲興師問罪，卻無由討伐之，何故耶？因其師無雞可乘。

雖有此傳說，恐是無雞之談耳。

Many English language publications make use of the famous old Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times." You've seen it a dozen times, right?

Slight problem here. I am familiar with over three thousand years of Chinese literature, and have never come across anything even remotely similar. I'm not even sure how you could say that in Chinese. "Interesting" is almost impossible to translate precisely, because the Chinese equivalents ~ 有意思、有趣 ~ have connotations of amusing, entertaining.

Another one bites the dust, like the famous old Chinese saying, "A picture is worth a thousand words," which was invented by an American adman in the 1920s. And don't even talk to me about how Coca Cola was transliterated to read "Bite the wax tadpole." Pure rubbish.

臺灣的日出日落，普通而已。但是臺灣的月景，無與倫比。

這幾天常跟朋友討論中秋烤肉風氣的由來。大約十五年來方盛，從前未聞此事。好處是，家人相聚，可是為什麼這麼風行？

古人為生活忙碌。日出而作，都是為了吃衣住行的基本要求；晝爾于茅，宵爾索綯，耕稼織績，全自己來，否則家用不周。一年到頭忙，所以了解清閒。

現代人忙，為的是鈔票刷卡。上班、服務、工廠，很少直接生產自己生活用品，仔細想一想，給人一種無事忙的感覺。習慣團團轉，靜不下來。看月亮嘛，好無聊，那就找事兒給自己忙。木炭難燒，烤肉麻煩，正好可以忙一個晚上。又好吃。

我呢，坐吊椅賞月。今晚中秋月尤甚美。月圍雲最美(久離加州心)。六時月上嶺但未現，晚餐吃完就處理掉了幾個月餅。所幸，溫泉館沒有魍魎吼魑魅哭卡啦OK鬼。多年衷心水仙茶，最近重新學習；紫砂包子盉，泡了鳳凰單叢，不虧斯夕月光。遠坡傳來唱泰雅傳統歌，山寧。

十點遊客多已下山，只留蟲鳴溪音。熒惑突出，乍為天燈。少不了一道普洱，當然是宋韻今茗，我最愛。子時進來換茶，捨不得今晚月光。

I would like to remind one and all of the imminence of two important holidays.

The first is today Sunday, September 18: the Moon Festival. The Moon will be full, so be sure to go out and admire it, preferably with tea and mooncakes.

The Moon Festival is my favorite holiday of the year. It's not for any political or religious beliefs, it's just a time to enjoy the beauty of a full moon. And eat moon cakes.
(it also means summer is over, and I can sweat less.)

The second important holiday follows immediately, on September 19: Talk Like a Pirate Day. For those of you who do not know the ins and outs of the significant philosophical underpinnings of this day, please growl ARRGH AVAST ME HEARTY and click on http://www.talklikeapirate.com/piratehome.html


Arrgh! Happy Mooncakes, you scurvy dog!

An interesting headline:
UN Urges Afghans to Vote Amidst Violence
Fine, but if there's no violence to be found, may they vote anyway?

John Ellis Bush, 21, the nephew of President Bush and son of Florida Governor Jeb Bush, was arrested in Austin, Texas, for public intoxication and resisting arrest. The governor's daughter, Noelle Bush, was arrested in January 2002 on a drug charge.

hey, let's elect this guy president! we've had such good times with Dubya, I bet Jeb'd be GREAT!~

Note: I seem to be writing a lot about the Bushes lately. Outrage, I suppose. Bush is alienating international allies with his policies at a time when the armed forces have their hands full with Iraq. Now we show the world that we can't even rescue our own people. If you were a strategist from a hostile nation, what conclusions would you reach, based on the president's performance? If you were a terrorist, what plans would you make?

However, I would like to commend President Bush for his contribution to the spread of the English language. Worldwide, the famous words are recited from memory:
I think I need a bathroom break. Would that be a problem?
Read that out loud. The man shows definite literary talent.
I think I need a bathroom break. Would that be a problem?
It sings.

Oh, and singing. If I am not subtle enough in my views of Our Exalted President, allow me to direct you to
http://www.ericblumrich.com/idiot.html

You know what? I suspect that Katrina might have saved the US. Without this tragedy, policy seemed to be racing straight towards a greater tragedy: war in Iran. Maybe this will reign in the galloping Texas Ranger before he leads us over a cliff.

I mentioned that about six months ago I read an article that predicted almost exactly what happened to New Orleans in Katrina. Tim sent another one, from the October 2004 National Geographic, with the comment that "The damage from Katrina could have been minimized for a tiny fraction of the funds that are being wasted in Iraq."
President Bush said that nobody foresaw this event. He's too busy riding his bike to read National Geographic.
http://www3.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0410/feature5/

Kaway shot off a roll of film, and her camera started rewinding automatically. Yumin was captivated by the strange whirring. He had never heard such a sound before.

The other day somebody was telling me his god is omnipotent and quoting that "he gave his only begotten son" twaddle at me.

-- Please, don't insult my intelligence. If he were an omnipotent god, why would he have only one son? Cheapskate. Is that all we're worth to him? If he were omnipotent, he could give three thousand sons, one for each victim of 9/11, or eight thousand sons, one for each victim of Katrina, or two hundred thirty thousand sons, one for each tsunami victim, or eight hundred thousand sons, one for each victim of Rwandan genocide, or forty million sons, one for each Soviet who died in World War Two. Or better yet, if he were omnipotent, he wouldn't put us through all that in the first place. Don’t give me that 'only begotten son' nonsense. What kind of skinflint do you make your god?

- the lord works in mysterious ways, that surpasseth all understanding.

-- that's doublethink.

-- I don't know what doublethink is.

-- Yes you do.

-- the lord works in mysterious ways, that surpasseth all understanding.

-- each life lost is a precious lesson about impermanence and suffering.

-- you need faith. The lord is omnipotent. You can never hope to understand his mysterious ways.

-- Yes, yes, absolutely. Amitabha.

ridiculous bordering on the sublime
Biographies of the Various Immortals records that Shangchiu Tzechin of Shang Town was seventy years old but had never married and looked very young. His hobbies were playing the yu instrument and herding pigs.
孫綽 Sun Cho, of the Eastern Chin Dynasty wrote a poem with the immortal lines:
What was he herding?
Certainly not genuine pigs!
and went on to hint that they were dragons in disguise.
列仙傳曰，商丘子晉者，商邑人。好吹竽牧豕。年七十不娶妻，而不老。
東晉孫綽贊曰，所牧何物？殆非真豬。儻遇風雲，為我龍櫖。
Yugan續贊曰，雖無豕不成家，吾寧妻矣。
說文家字从二豕。Home is where the pigs are.
為之歌:
Oh give me a home
Where the porkers do roam ~~~

FEMA under Brown's management inappropriately gave away $30 million in disaster relief funds to people in the Miami, Florida, area even though they were not affected by Hurricane Frances, which made landfall more than 100 miles away.
This may be so, but don't forget, without those Florida votes, Bush wouldn't be president.

"I think it puts into question all of the Homeland Security and Northern Command planning for the last four years, because if we can't respond faster than this to an event we saw coming across the Gulf for days, then why do we think we're prepared to respond to a nuclear or biological attack?" said former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

好的文章不是寫的，而是沛然瀉出。如母生子，雖劬勞，但其出則必矣。

一排男子坐圓凳吃飯，二十出頭到五十幾歲。每一個人磬折：臀至頸，脊承「ㄑ」形，最嚴重的卻是年最少的。這樣會健康嗎？也許現代床椅須改善。

中醫說，人老先從足上起。腿鬆軟才是健康。向來西方人腳僵硬。清朝洋人來華，中國人看他們走路、坐的樣子，以為他們沒有膝蓋：太平天國軍訓，將洋兵推倒為先，因為無膝，一蹶不起 ─ 爬不起來。這幾年看登山報導，怪事：嶺上野外圍營火，每一個健行、登山客坐塑膠椅，還有靠手呢！阿拉斯加曠野、聖母峰，離不開塑膠椅。誰要扛椅上山？幹嘛不坐地上石上就好了？因為腿太硬，沒高椅不能坐。強壯登山高手回歸大自然，一定要帶椅子去才能坐好，你說奇怪不奇怪？

昨天開始燒火─枯葉、颱風吹列樹枝─今猶未熄。下午到後坡種樹、餵蚊。完，進來沖冷水。沏一盉青餅普洱。啜茶，飄來火煙味。怡然。

As Apache men and women advance further along the trail of wisdom, their composure continues to deepen. Increasingly quiet and self-possessed, they rarely show signs of fear or alarm. More and more magnanimous, they seldom get angry or upset. And more than ever they are watchful and observant. Their minds, resilient and steady at last, are very nearly smooth, and it shows in obvious ways.

-- Keith H Basso, Wisdom Sits in Places: Landscape and Language Among the Western Apache.

Please tell me

What I want to know is, since when did America become such a nation of whiners?

Ok, so a levee broke and New Orleans got wet. What did you expect? They cut the budget for levee maintenance because of all the expenses the troops are racking up in Iraq. The money has to come from somewhere. It's not like the government is rolling in the stuff, especially since they hatcheted taxes for the richest ten per cent of our citizens. But surely those rich people earned a little consideration, didn't they? You don't see those people lolling around on rooftops waiting for a helicopter to come rescue them at government expense, no sirree, so that should count for something.

And let's face it, who lives in New Orleans? The city is two thirds black. See? They're not all in jail (yet), and some of them still have the right to vote. Problem is, everybody knows how African Americans vote. What do you expect a Republican president from Texas to do for them?

Who does Jesse Jackson think he is, saying "We deserve better leadership"? We've got the best president money can buy. He did interrupt his five week vacation, after all, some time after the corpses of American citizens rotting on the streets started to reek. He even put down that guitar he was strumming while the Gulf Coast was drowning (let's not hear a word about Nero). You should just be happy Our Exalted Leader didn't show up in his flight suit, the one with the cod piece. Although he was on vacation, he was under severe stress due to having That Woman trying to see him. Her son died in Iraq. Does that make him a hero or something? If he had been anybody, he would have sat out the war in the Texas National Guard, or someplace safe. Surely you can't expect the President to talk to everybody whose kid got killed in Iraq. How much time would that leave him for golf?

All this griping that people weren' evacuated. The prisoners got evacuated, shackles and all. And those were mostly black people, so let's not have any more of this unpatriotic talk about racism. Maybe we can fly some choppers back from Iraq to pick people off rooftops. They've been up there fix, six days now, they should be getting comfortable, just hold on a while longer. No more whining. Look at the corpses floating past, and think how lucky you are to have a nice rooftop to hunker down on.

Our Illustrious Leader George W Bush said, "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees." For years experts have been predicting exactly what happened – they must be real unpatriotic sickos who hate America. Those are the kind of weirdos who want The Glorious Commander in Chief to sign the Kyoto Protocol and Land Mine Treaty, and don't want drilling for oil in nature preserves. Like those traitors who squawked when Our Gracious Leader said it's okay to pollute those salmon streams. It's only fish, for crying out loud. Big deal. Who's the President listen to, a bunch of pointy heads who probably voted for Kerry, or his business buddies who donated a bunch of money (and beer) (no pretzels, thanks) to his campaigns?

The liberal press is wetting its pants because people in New Orleans are shooting at rescue planes. So what? That's what people in New Orleans do, that's what gives the city the flavor Our Incomparable Leader George W Bush so fondly recalled when he stood amidst the devastation and reminisced about coming to New Orleans years ago and enjoying himself "occasionally too much" (such a sensitive man!). Tell me what day of the year there is no gunfire in New Orleans. They've got all these choppers flying around for targets; no red-blooded American could resist exercising our god-given right to bear arms and indulge in a little target practice. Tell me what's wrong with a little gunfire. Ask the NRA what's wrong with a little gunfire. Charlton Heston loves guns, and he's a man who played Moses! Keep that in mind!

And I don't want to hear any more of this nonsense that the government isn't doing its best. They are sending in the best in the world. The National Guard being deployed in New Orleans is just back from Iraq. Just listen to what Louisiana governor Kathleen Blanco said: "These troops are battle-tested. They have M-16s and are locked and loaded. These troops know how to shoot and kill and I expect they will." How's that for gutsy? She's cheering for soldiers to shoot the people who voted her into office. I bet Osama bin Forgotten is quaking in his turban!

Of course they had better be careful about who they shoot, because some of the local good guys have, mmmm, have gotten into the spirit of things. Police Chief Eddie Compass admitted even his own officers take food and water from stores. But as Kanye West said, you have to understand the difference. If they're white, they're hungry so they're trying to find something to eat. If they're black, they're looting: ready, aim, fire!

Don't you worry about a thing, no bellyaching, no whimpering, and NO aspersions on the character of Our Gracious Sovereign, His Majesty George W Bush, because he is not at fault! He said, "The response is not acceptable," clearly indicating that this is not his responsibility. The buck stops somewhere else nowadays, Harry.

But really, we shouldn't spend any more tax money on New Orleans. We've got dozens of cities, one more, one less, big difference. That money should be spent to good purpose, meaning the war in Iraq. Nobody told those people to live in New Orleans, so they should take responsibility for their decisions, like patriotic Americans. The administration really ought to privatize the rescue and rebuilding. I bet Vice President Cheney could find us a good deal on that.

+++++
+++++
Here is a photo of Our Noble Leader George Nero Bush strumming on a guitar in San Diego on August 30.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/050830/480/capm10208301856

You can almost hear him singing:
There was a place in New Orleans
It's now a sunken swamp
It's been the ruin of many poor blacks,
Not me, thank god, I'm rich.

I love satellite photos. Look, there we are, that little green island over on the left about to be engulfed by a typhoon that's even bigger and badder than Katrina, that's Taiwan. But this typhoon isn't coming, we had one the same size just the other day, thank you, so Japan gets this one.

Chances are you won't hear about either of these typhoons, because they don't cause that much damage. Partly because we get lots of typhoons, big and small, every summer, and partly because – okay, this is a novel idea, I admit, so prepare yourself – they don't build cities below sea level. Ha ha ha, isn't that something?

But even if these typhoons did devastate cities, how much looting would there be? I predict, the same as in the last several dozen typhoons, the same as after the tsunami which killed 230,000 people: zilch, nada, squat, none.

America, America, listen to a Sri Lankan, Sajeewa Chinthaka, 36: "After the tsunami our people, even the ones who lost everything, wanted to help the others who were suffering. Not a single tourist caught in the tsunami was mugged. Now with all this happening in the U.S. we can easily see where the civilized part of the world's population is."

It should surprise no-one that New Orleans, located below sea level, got flooded in a storm surge. It should surprise no-one that New Orleans, where they used to train military medics for battle because of the abundance of gunshot wounds, approaches anarchy. But has anybody commented on the irony of some of our troops being sent to Iraq to spread democracy through the gun barrel, while some of our troops are rushed to one of our own cities to reinstate social harmony with orders to shoot to kill? What a glorious example of democratic society for all those uncivilized Ay-rabs to emulate. But this is not a shining city on a hill; this is a sinister city in a morass.

Maybe we really should take a moment to ask where the American dream leads, before we force it on others.

Here is what St Eph wrote:
News reports forecasted that Katrina would be a Force 5 storm. It wasn't as big as expected, that's all I know, plus I'm up to here in every horrible thing the networks can drag out; dead bodies SLAP RADIO OFF! Please pass the tea?

Well doesn't that make me cold and unfeeling. We're supposed to grieve along with the anchor-person... buy the products in the commercial... be appalled at the horrors... listen to the next commercial... then we all change gears with the "on a lighter note" story.

Like what, that makes it all go away? That's cold and unfeeling! How long should we care about these people, stricken by catastrophe, every detail lovingly dredged up for public consumption (full face photo of relatives wailing in grief a plus)~ I think the punctuation there is a question mark~ the answer is, until the media drops it? Oh, until the fund-raiser is over?!

The National Guard is being deployed in New Orleans after recent duty in Iraq. Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco said "These troops are battle-tested. They have M-16s and are locked and loaded. These troops know how to shoot and kill and I expect they will."

The lower the barometer, the stronger the typhoon (or hurricane). The one that swept by a couple weeks ago was 980. Katrina, which devastated New Orleans, was 940. Talim, which we are now enjoying, is 925. So why aren't you being flooded with disaster reports from Taiwan?

Mostly because we get several typhoons every year, so anything that can be blown away, got blown away years ago. Typhoons are nature's way of keeping the land clean.

Poor Louisiana. They are doomed by generations of levees and decades of work by the Army Corps of Engineer. About six months ago I read a magazine article ~ Natural History, I think ~ that predicted exactly what has happened to New Orleans. It seems the entire state of Louisiana is disappearing beneath the waves, thanks to upstream flood control. Maybe we should use some of the money we are spending to buy enemies in Iraq to rebuild New Orleans on higher ground.

Doesn't it ever rain in New Orleans? I saw videos online of the wind and rain there, which look pretty much like a regular typhoon, and people were just walking through it as if they did not know how to deal with rain. Don't they have raincoats or umbrellas? If they need umbrellas, let me know, because I could probably arrange to ship half a million within two weeks.

Sure is a lot of news from the Gulf Coast. As cousin Steve said, 200,000 can drown in Bangladesh, and everybody shrugs. What's newsworthy about that? The bridge panic in Baghdad created a stir because the good ol’ U S of A has spent billions of dollars to grant those people the freedom to trample each other; otherwise, who would care? A biting scene in Karel Capek's War with the Newts (1936) describes an international conference on the flooding engulfing Germany and China, the Chinese delegate rises to plead for help, as millions of Chinese have already drowned. The other delegates all ignore him. All attention is focused on Germany, because people are used to disasters happening in places such as China, so they are not noteworthy.

In the meantime, the wind blows, the rain rains, and I drink tea, because my class this evening was postponed, ha ha!

Despite living most of her life in San Marino, Mildred considered the place barbaric.
--Jonathan Kellerman, Bily Straight

子曰，參乎，吾道一以貫之。曾子曰，唯。門人問曰，何謂也? 曾子曰，夫子之道，忠恕而已矣。
斯章多曲說。貫，阮元曰，「行也、事也…. 此言孔子之道，皆于行事見之，非徒以文學為教…. 猶言壹是皆以行事為教。」貫或訛訓串，失之。貫者，為也、習也。
又，曾子出，門人問曰，何謂也?或為曾參門徒，謬。夫子弟子以曾參最幼，師在焉敢授徒？門人，于論語指夫子門人，即曾驂師兄也。
或曰，門人問以求解，尤謬。驂也魯。曾子出，門人問曰，何謂也?是師兄考他，「喂，小魯蛋，老師教你甚麼？」意在看驂懂不懂老師的教誨，而非為己求解。

約莫民國六十六七八年，臺灣一個陶匠遠赴印尼，取了一袋印尼白陶土回來試作茶具，印記『奉華』。我猶藏一茶砵。茶盉，說實在，普通而已，早已送人去了。
且說，陶匠拎著一袋白色粉料回來，進松山國際機場；海關打開袋子問，"這是甚麼？"
陶匠依印尼華僑陶匠術語回，"這是白泥。" 殊不知，毒梟黑話中，"白泥" 指的是海洛因….

Rebellion is fashionable. There is a difference between being rebellious and being obnoxious. Many who pride themselves on the former are merely the latter.

一個臆測
連雅堂臺灣通史論臺灣之名，曰，臺灣為岱員，於音寔似。然臺灣、岱員之由來，無說。臆之，霧社事件前，泰雅為臺灣首大族，且最早來臺，為泰雅、賽夏、鄒。泰雅/Tayal正音『達燕』；達燕、岱員、臺灣，或一音之變？

Suddenly, I love my job.

Reports of a large reptile, probably an alligator, have drawn crowds to a lake in the LA area. The LA Times (August 17) ran a photo of Mr Jay Young, an employee of an alligator farm, who has been hired to catch the alligator. He said, “At most, I can lose a couple of fingers.”

No matter how dreadful some classes are, I have never had to slog shoulder-deep through water concealing a large carnivore. (and I have never had to wear a cowboy hat, either.)

No matter how atrocious some classes are, I have never had to worry about losing "a couple of fingers."

Teaching English is great!

有人問我怎麼不入中華民國籍。 我來臺大半輩子，但是在美國生的，留個根吧。何況，色目高鼻在眾人眼中，永遠是外國人：陌生、疎誕。反正，我有外僑居留證，與國民身分證一樣好用，不同的只是，不當兵、不投票，如此而已。也罷。問我是甚麼人，真不知如何回答，也不放在心上。Yugan, 山地人也，talah nunux qloxyu nguhux na Tayal, nanaq la：syaqan。十八歲來華學中文，對臺北有一種特殊情感在，因為我覺得我跟臺北市一起長大。這是我的經驗。

時而想，我是美籍讀書人、老師，經驗如此。如果我是菲傭、越南新娘，感覺未必相同。我認識一位印尼女生，十分聰穎能幹：來臺北工作，證件被僱主扣壓，在家幫傭，在店顧生意，一個禮拜工作八十多小時。她對臺北人的看法，與我大相逕庭。

高雄泰勞暴動，我猜想臺灣所有的外勞都了解，說不定還暗中喝采叫好。

魯肅化干戈
網上傳來的，應是杜撰，不知出誰手，但中國字實在妙!

諸葛亮出使東吳遊說吳蜀聯合抗曹之事。周瑜嫉妒諸葛亮的才智，總想找藉口殺他，在一次宴會上，周瑜故意對諸葛亮說：“孔明先生我吟一首詩你來對，對的出有賞，對不出以殺頭問罪如何？”諸葛亮從容笑到：“軍中無戲言，請都督說。”周瑜大喜，開口便道：

有水便是溪，
無水也是奚，
去掉溪邊水，
加鳥便是雞。
得志貓兒勝過虎，
落坡鳳凰不如雞。

諸葛亮聽罷，隨口便道：

有木便是棋，
無木也是其，
去掉棋邊木，
加欠便是欺。
龍遊淺水遭蝦戲，
虎落平陽被犬欺。

周瑜聽了大怒，但礙於有言在先，不便發作，便又出一句：

有手便是扭，
無手便是醜，
去掉扭邊手，
加女便是妞。
隆中有女長得醜，
百里難挑一個醜。

諸葛亮聽了知道這話是在嘲笑自己的夫人黃阿醜長得醜，便立即應道：

有木也是橋，
無木也是喬，
去掉橋邊木，
加女便是嬌。
江中吳女大小喬，
曹操銅雀鎖二嬌。

周瑜知道這話是在奚落自己的夫人，怒髮沖冠，幾次都想發作。

劍拔弩張之時，魯肅在一邊和了句：

有木也是槽，
無木也是曹，
去掉槽邊木，
加米便是糟，
當今之計在破曹，
龍虎相鬥豈不糟！”

詩罷眾人一齊喝彩。周瑜見有人從中和解，無奈只好收場。

千年彈指已過，故人化為黃土，而魯肅化干戈為玉帛的做法卻一直流傳在中國的歷史。

但願我們的生活當中也能有一些“魯肅”喔!!

Ling went back to her hometown, Rohan(羅漢門、內門 in Kaohsiung), also home of bananas, litchis, and lungan (龍眼dragon eyes, rong ngan). She sent me a crate of lungan from her uncle's trees. Delicious, sweet, I am turning into a big dragon eye. The refrigerator is full and there are still some left. I took some to yaba, Dali Watan. This morning I took another bunch to Fu. He was sitting in his favorite seat, in the corner of his living room, with windows behind him and to his right.

Standing outside his dogs' protective zone, I called out to him through the window, "Wuuuuuuaaaay, Fu, I need your help!"

"What's up?"

I held up the lungan. "Ling sent me a crate of lungan, and I need you to help me eat some."

"Thank you, thank you! Come in and sit down. You've got long legs, Yugan, because the water just boiled and I am making tea."

I have zero resistance to freshly made tea, so I slipped in the door, shutting Tlahuy and Yumin outside. We drank the tea and discussed the merits of various teas. A ruckus outside disturbed us: Tlahuy trying to get in the door. "Good boy," I called, cup in hand, "I'll be out before long."

As we were discussing the water supply, a perennial topic in Wulai, another ruckus disturbed us: Tlahuy managed to slip in through the door. I shooed him, but he wouldn't budge. I lifted him into my arms and deposited him outside the door. "Good boy, I'll be out before long."

Fu's grandson attempted to pick up a teapot. We quickly disarmed him. "Oh, how big he's grown!" Fu told me how much his grandparents spoil him. Ms Fu went out to clip me some yam leaves. Tlahuy slipped in. I went to pick him up, but the Fus said, "Tlahuy is such a loyal dog, let him in, because he will just sit quietly beside you. He just wants to be with you." So Tlahuy sat beside me as Fu changed the tea. "Good boy, I'll be finished before long."

Tlahuy sat quietly. We laughed and said, "What a loyal dog he is! Not like Yumin the beagle! Yumin just runs around and makes mischief all day long! He runs all over, not like loyal Tlahuy."

Ms Fu brought me a pumpkin she grew herself. "Don't waste it," I said. "Keep it and cook it yourself, because if it can't be eaten raw, stir-fried, or scalded, I don't know how to cook it.” Tlahuy sat faithfully by my side. Heaven only knows where Yumin was, probably out doing something naughty: beagles!

Fu is rightfully proud of his bananas, growing on the slope behind his seat. He has twenty trees bending under heavy bunches of bananas. I made a mental note to be especially nice to the Fus, in the hopes of getting a bunch of those bananas. There are not many bananas in Wulai: a little bit farther north or higher on the mountain and they wouldn't grow. The bananas grown here that I have eaten are so sweet, so succulent, firm but yielding, you would remember them on your deathbed, and be reluctant to leave the cruel world behind.

Just then a head appeared in the window behind Fu: Yumin, tongue out, ears flying. Somehow he had managed to climb the wall, and was attempting to come in through the window. He slipped down the wall. My expression caused Fu to turn around, just in time to see Yumin make another effort, eyes wild, mouth wide open, like something out of Jaws, only with big floppy ears. The third time he made it to the sill and was attempting to clamber in through the window, determination blazing in his eyes: "I want to be with Pa."

I felt like the stereotypical Irishman of the short stories who pawned the alarm clock and now his wife's shawl and is trying to concentrate on drinking down the proceeds, while his children huddle outside the public house, piteously whimpering, "Pappy, Pappy, won't you please come home?"

學習、翻譯中英文最棘手的問題是，這兩種語言表達方法截然不同。舉例：英文用名詞的句子，中文用動詞表示。
He's a Buddhist. 他學佛。
I'm a vegetarian. 我吃素。
He's an air conditioner repairman. 他幫人修理冷氣。
She is a careful driver. 她開車很小心。
She's a good actress. 她很會演戲。
He's a good cook. 他很會煮菜。
His wife is a lousy singer. 他太太唱歌很難聽。
從前幫學生看他的翻譯，一句 He's a good swimmer 翻 "他是很個好的游泳選手。"
他參加比賽嗎？
好像沒有。
沒參加比賽，能算選手嗎？
學生拿起筆，改成 "他是很個好的游泳者。"
我叫他唸。順口嗎？
不順。
如果你寫信給朋友，你會怎麼寫？
他很會游泳、他游泳很幫。
就這樣嘛!

現在新店客運烏來線的公車，從烏來出發到台北車站，不堵車的話，單程大約要一個小時十分鐘。自己開車，習慣開山路的人，五十分、一個小時就可以到。

Losin退伍的時候，民國六十二年，烏來到新店的路窄，來往車少，Losin與Haxa開計程車，主要在烏來裡面跑。美軍仍駐臺，他們最喜歡帶美國阿兵哥，因為只要你開的快，錢多多。他們烏來台北車站來回的時間，平均一小時五分鐘：來回，不是單程…

那時路窄，未拓寬，鄉界還要過隧道。有一次Haxa進去，才發現一個天才在隧道裡尿尿，車子就擱在那兒。Haxa將天才的車撞到隧道外，賠了兩萬元。六十二年，兩萬元是上班族半年的薪水。

他們現在年紀大了，比較收歛。

Chengkung bridges falling down, falling down

I am losing count. The latest replacement replacement replacement bridge at Chengkung got wiped out again last weekend. How many is that now?

I may be mistaken, but I was under the impression that Pakistan was a Muslim nation, and that Muslims don't eat pork.

If that is the case, I wish somebody would explain to me why the Pakistani embassy in Washington DC is built to look like a mosque surmounted by a humongous rind of pork.

西瓜西瓜我愛西瓜，夏日吃西瓜，是莫大的享受。有古詩為證：
西瓜消夏炎 快樂勝神仙

吃了西瓜肉，西瓜皮怎麼辦呢？外層硬皮削掉，白皮切細片，加辣椒炒竹筍，人間美味。

可惜，削下的綠皮還不知道怎麼吃。

問：消夏炎古詩何出？
答：蘇軾刑賞忠厚之至論

a somewhat meaningless story

Once when I visited Mom when she lived in Honolulu near the beach, with jet lag, I woke up early in the morning and went to Waikiki, which was almost deserted. I love lolling around in the ocean or a stream. I was floating around when I heard a woman speaking loudly in German. She was a middle aged tourist, walking alongside her husband, who nodded, ja mine darlink, ja ja ja. Nonstop; she barely stopped for breath. Not fast or hysterical, just steady. She kept it up as they arranged their hamper neatly on the beach, and waded into the water. I figured she would shut up soon, but I was mistaken! She kept her head out of the water and talked nonstop as she swam. Her husband swam alongside, ja mine darlink, ja ja ja. I was sitting on a diving platform then, open mouthed. They were coming closer! As they swam towards the diving platform, I couldn't stand it any longer, and dove into the water. I practiced underwater swimming for the rest of my stay in the ocean.

Sticking your head in the water shuts off sound pretty effectively. Her husband should have given it a try.

八八過後才有七七。先是爸爸節，之後才有情人節，再過一周就阿彌陀佛，中元普渡，鬼門要關。這個順序，另人深思。

枷鎖
重刑犯坐牢，一天有二十三小時關在牢房裡，一小時運動，而運動是在一個長十公尺寬五公尺的水泥地，四面高牆矗立，可以散步，其他不准。你說他沒有運動嘛，他有運動。

電視也是如此。通常只準你乖乖服從它，不準你思攷‧十幾二十分一個廣告，不許深思。說有益智節目，是有啦，但是還是一刻二刻就有廣告，擾斷思緒。

I never tire of the view. Wulai 烏來大桶山, August 7.

難道納利颱風的教訓還不夠明顯嗎？ 從烏來到新店二十幾處坍方，其中只有一處可說是天然、與道路較無關的，其餘全屬人為，因為開路造成土石流。

政府學乖了嗎？唯恐不消公款，不計生態，依舊到處開山路。子孫可憐。

Last night when I came home after class, halfway through my shower the water pressure dropped. I quickly rinsed myself off. Sometimes typhoons knock apart pipes, and it may take a day or so for the water tower to empty. (In Wulai, you find your own water. Our pipes go from the water tower up to a cement tank by the road above. That's a concrete tank 蓄水池 about three meters cubed. From there up our pipes go half a kilometer to a spring.)

This morning, the dreaded call came through my window: Yugan! No water! I was expecting it this time. I had thought we would be tracking off through the jungle to find where the pipes came apart, but this time was different. A mudslide had half-buried the cement tank. The road had been cleared yesterday, but our pipes were thrashed in the slide. Various people from the Tribe were trying to figure out how to get water home. Being barefoot, I got the honor of picking a way across the knee-deep mud to the reservoir. Then I pointed out the best steps for my neighbors. All of our dogs did a magnificent job of getting in the way. I uncovered some of the pipes.

A smaller pipe leading from the tank's main pipe had been snapped off, and sprayed us with water as soon as I uncovered it. "It could be worse," I cheerfully told the neighbors. "ven though the sun is boiling hot, we have nice cool mud and water to work in." Nothing could be done unless we patched that hole, but the pressure from a three inch pipe spurting out a half-inch hole is terrific. Fu went home to find something to stop the hole, and I came back for more plumbers' tape, and to phone Sinkang with the cheerful news that his shack was getting flooded.

An American would rush to the hardware store to buy a plug specially designed for a pipe snapped in a landslide; here people use their ingenuity. Fu came up bearing a Hello Kitty refrigerator magnet, impervious but flexible enough to mate the curve of the pipe. I was afraid it fit a bit too nicely. We passed the tape cordoning the remains of the last mudslide, sort of like police crime scene tape. I cut off a section of that. Fu wrapped the pipe with a layer of tape, placed Hello Kitty over the hole, and wrapped the rest of the yellow tape around the pipe until it was all gone. Then he tied it up with strips cut off an old acrylic sweater; the stretch keeps everything tight, and the acrylic will last forever. When we turned on the water again, not a drop leaked out.

We had a discussion: was the slide caused by the road or by the wanton cutting of trees? Both, I think, and in both cases, the government is the culprit. The mudslides that terrorize Taiwan are man-made, brought to us by courtesy of the government in its haste to spend tax money.

We were lucky. The other head of our pipe had twisted itself out of the mud, so we quickly found it and attached a pipe to lead down to our towers. The whole thing took less than three hours, including shoveling an embankment to keep water from drowning Sinkang's shack and fiddling with connections to our water towers. There I was happy for the thick coating of mud covering my legs and arms, because our water towers, under the shade of trees by the bamboo grove, is Mosquito City.

When I got home and rinsed myself off, I was thinking, there's a certain satisfaction in wrangling your own water pipes. Or is that just rationalization?

Boiling hot sun this morning, pouring rain at 2PM. Good old Taiwan weather.

武之上者，至于無形，隨機應變，應勢自至。若師『留一手』，必非上乘拳法，傳之無益，佚之無損。

問：不解，請進之。

答：招術無高下，唯中用而已，時中而已矣。雖正拳前踢，若得其宜，足以破萬招。

For years I have abided by the principle that vigorous writing is concise. In choosing a word, a short word is more vigorous than a long word, so if several words are appropriate, choose the shortest. Remove suffixes: choose use over utilize.

I am rethinking my ideas. Maybe I should bring my writing in closer step with the times. Music characterizes the spirit of the age. Rap is nothing if not pretension and posturing. Therefore, in my writing, I will no longer say:
I used the black pot for this tea.
I will say:
I performed the utilizificationment of the black pot for this tea.

Ya, dooood, you da man!
Barf.

Are you happy?

Today we emphasize happiness so strongly that it almost becomes a source of stress; look at how many people commit suicide on December 26th. It is worth remembering that the word is related to happen and happenstance, and that originally happiness was considered a situation fortune might at times permit: a happenstance.

Nathaniel Hawthorne: "Happiness is like a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you."

You can't buy your way into happiness. But you sure can try. If nothing else, you make the loan companies happy.

An open letter to my 86 year old Mother
Dear Momosaurus,

This has been on my mind for some time, and now is the time to discuss this, because I think you have been neglecting your social duty. Indeed, this is your duty to America, and all it stands for, and you have not been doing your part.

In the interests of society, Mom, I think you ought to go buy a car. You can still ride the bus to work and walk to the supermarket, but when you go to church on Sunday, you ought to drive.

Then, when you've had the car for 3 or 4 years, you can sell it to a used car lot. This is your duty. Otherwise, where are the used car salesmen going to get cars to sell and tell people, "This beauty was owned by a little old lady who only drove it to church on Sunday"?

This is your duty, Mom! What would become of America if all the old ladies relied on public transport? The used car market would totter, and the economic consequences for the nation ~ indeed, for the entire world ~ would be dire.

Verily, what would become of American society if used car salesman could not tell their customers that cars had been driven by little old ladies to church on Sunday? Morals would teeter, and when the market tottered, we'd be in a fine fix!

If you're going to do this properly, you're going to have to get one of those Caddies the size of the Queen Mary, and lower the seat so you can just barely peer over the steering wheel. I know this is asking a lot of you, but as part of the War on Terrorism, sacrifices are called for. Just don't ask a Bush to go fight.

一個很奇怪的現象。
閩南人在臺灣兩三百年，而閩南語全然不受臺灣語(南島語系的語言，非漢人的藏漢語系方言)影響，十分奇怪，因為通常人到一個新環境，極容易吸收土語詞彙。Columbus到美洲第一天，日記裡已使用印地安詞canoe(拼木舟)。這是正常現象。但在臺灣，除了地名，漢人完全不接納臺灣語的影響，可能在世界上是孤例。是不是閩南人極端保守的個性使然，不知。臺灣閩南人用語中，法文的詞彙反而比臺灣語多，真奇怪。

反正，臺灣向來就是不按牌理出牌。

Maybe you can, after all.

During the Ching dynasty, the sorcerer in charge of烏魯木齊八蠟祠a government-sponsored temple in Urumqi was in his 80s. one night, he laid seven thousand coins under his bed, lay on top of it, and died peacefully in his sleep. When this was discovered, there was some discussion as to whether the sorcerer had left the money for his tomb. That night, the sorcerer appeared in dreams, saying, "I was in charge of a government temple, so my tomb should be supplied by the government. I scrimped and saved for years to collect that money. I want it put in my coffin. I will come back in my next life and pick it up myself.”

So maybe you can take it with you, after all.

The Viet Nam vet has quickly become an overworked stereotype in American literature. If any character was in Viet Nam, you know immediately that he is stressed out, messed up, suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

But this is at odds with the bulk of literature, in which battle joy is extolled. Beowulf and many Icelandic sagas are built on blood lust. In Quiet Flows the Don, two admiring characters listen enthusiastically to an old soldier tell once again of his exploits in battle.

Could there be something in the American psyche that is averse to violence? I managed to write that whole sentence without laughing. Stokley Carmichael hit the nail on the head: "Violence is as American as apple pie." Compare our cliché of the battered battle vet to The Red Badge of Courage, in which the protagonist is eager to prove himself in battle.

What happened? Americans still love violence, but mope after wars.

Part of the reason may be that the business of killing now is so remote and detached. A warfighter may die from a landmine he never saw placed as easily as from a missile fired from many miles away. In the days of knives and swords, savage hand-to-hand fighting necessarily put a face to the enemy, somebody you had to connect with (sorry about the pun). Even archers were not so far removed from their targets that they could not see them. Maybe the mind is satisfied by the physical exertion of hacking and grappling at close quarters in a way that pulling a trigger cannot replicate. We can deal with an enemy we can fight at close quarters; how do you cope with death raining from a bomber so far overhead you can't even see it?

Then there is the factor that those who returned from wars past were not the severely wounded. Earlier soldiers, if wounded, were killed off by infections and doctors. Now soldiers survive wounds that would have invariably fatal. Just as modern medicine can allow a cancer patient to suffer pain that would finish off an unattended person, crippled soldiers are more apt to survive now. Before, the soldiers who managed to return were, in a sense, all victors, and experienced the exhilaration of surviving near death.

Maybe we have advanced war technology so much that fighting has become psychologically intolerable. Hope so.

Some years ago, Jane Goodall startled everybody with her reports of chimpanzees hunting. Nobody had ever imagined such a thing before, but although skeptics demanded further proof, by and large this was eagerly seized on as justification for the conventional meat diet. Better to change our ancestry than our habits.

In Why We Run (2002), Bernd Heinrich says, "Studying hunting parties of male chimps at Gombe in 1995, Craig Stanford found them depleting one-firth of their prey population of colobus monkeys each year…. In just half a day of observing olive baboons in Kenya’s Amboseli Park, I once saw a troupe of about fifty individuals catch a hare, tear it apart, and eat it with great gusto."

If hunting has always been a trait of primate behavior, how could it have escaped observation for centuries?

The environment African primates live in has been disrupted by human activity for millions of years, desperately so for centuries. Perhaps hunting is a new behavior chimpanzees developed to cope with their restricted resources, and it has escalated greatly over the last decades.

The twins came.
A nice picture.

how a beagle sleeps on a hot summer day

after the typhoon

眼花

路上瞄到一台車上有寫
台北縣救雞隊
Huh??? 再看一眼
台北縣救難隊

Our maples don't wait for fall or cold weather. Summer is a fine time to shine.
I took this photo last week, a few days before the typhoon.

颱風天，適合在家裏溫暖閒暇，泡一盉好茶，聽外面風雨聲，想一些無聊問題…
想颱風…颱灣…想台灣對中華文化的靜默貢獻…想一想台灣寶島為大陸海岸折了多少颱風的銳氣。幾萬年來，數不盡的颱風由太平洋來襲，撞到台灣矗屹的山脈，失散威力，送豐沛雨水到對岸。有這屏障，長江下游才能穩定發展、河姆渡才能種稻、沿海才能繁榮。
臺灣的山陡峭參天，一般偌小的地，無偌高的山；臺灣的山沒這樣高，保護大陸效果差了，更何況倘使沒有臺灣，很難想像中國東南如何發展。

颱風…無聊…想臺灣…憂患。二十年前是臺灣最好時機。二十年前，大陸需要臺灣，但臺灣卻不需要大陸。現在大陸不需要臺灣，而臺灣不能沒有大陸。醒一醒吧。

颱風天，適合在家裏溫暖閒暇，泡一盉好茶，聽外面風雨聲，想一些無聊問題…

on the tenth, I wrote about a snake that visited. Many thanks, blogspot, now bloggers can upload photos from hard disk files, so here's one of the photos I took. Notice that this beauty's head is green, and there are dark markings behind the eyes.

Hello from Tlahuy
and Yumin

愛沒有對錯嗎？
從來沒有聽過感情受傷的人說「愛情沒有對錯」。說這一句的，一定是負心人傷無辜的人時，為自身的自私狡辯，除此之外，沒有人說愛沒有對錯。

張六接到詐欺集團電話：「你女兒在我們手中。」
六心奇之，甚麼時候生女兒，都不知道，自己以為只有兩個幼男，故回：「我女兒甚麼時候從美國回來？」
賊曰，「是你兒子從英國回來。」
各一笑，掛電話。

I'll be happy when rap goes out of fashion. Not only is it boring, but worse, it's pompous and affected.

It's too bad that Americans have to waste so much time and energy in battles over evolution and creationism. The Christians want to have it both ways: they want to believe what they choose to believe, and ignore what they choose not to believe.

Science is interlocking; the same principles that hold true for mechanics and physics also hold true for biology and thermodynamics. If your car runs when you put gas in the engine, the same basic principles govern that we descended from earlier organisms: early mammals, primitive primates, homo erectus, and so forth. You can't say that sparks fly upward and then claim some hocus-pocus mumbo-jumbo for the origin of fossils. That's just doublethink.

If the Christians are going to demand the teaching of creationism, why don't they demand that all the school maps be redrawn to accord with the bible? Somewhere the bible says that six parts of this earth is dry land, and only one part is water. I forget where it says that and I'm not going to waste time looking it up, but that's why Columbus sailed west to go east; he reasoned that if the globe is only one seventh water, the ocean certainly can't be very wide. So to be consistent, the Christians should either demand that school maps be redone to show very small oceans, or they should deny the existence of Columbus and the experience of anyone who has ever flown or sailed across the Pacific.

Of course facing facts and consistency are not something Christians are noted for. If they demanded strict acceptance of the literal meaning of the bible, a lot of laws would have to be rewritten. The Old Testament decrees that any farmer who plants two crops in the same field is to be stoned to death (my memory is a bit shaky on this one, but that's the gist of it). Get the legislators to work on this.

And the controversy about the ten commandments? More laws need rewriting, if we are to live faithfully according to the dictates of scripture. I don't read Hebrew, but Jewish scholars point out that the original commandment against adultery specified that you could not fornicate with another man's wife, but it was fine for a married man to fornicate with prostitutes. So if the Christians demand obedience to the literal scriptures, prostitution has to be legalized ASAP.

Naturally, Christians don't like to think about what the bible really says. Christians don't really like to think. Their attitude is simple: if you agree with my beliefs, you understand the word of god, but if you disagree with anything I say, you have been tricked by Satan. What a load of hogwash.

My old neighbor Jenny brings her 12 year old daughter Kaway to Wulai about once a month, to get out of the city, get some fresh air, make sure I’m eating, and fret over me.

Yesterday after lunch I was drowsing off as I chatted with Kaway. Discussing Hangzhou black fans, I explained to her that a folding fan you carry with you all the time wears out quicker than one you leave at home. To drive my point home, I told her, "When you carry your fan with you, it wears out when you stuff it in your mouth…" I meant pocket. We decided it was time for a nap. We each found a cool spot on the floor and were soon asleep.

I was closest to the front door. Yumin disturbed my nap with his barking. I tried to hush him without disturbing Jenny or Kaway. He hushed for a moment, then started barking again. I hushed him again, and again. I couldn't let him keep barking while Jenny and Kaway were still asleep, so I surged out the door ~~ funny, he seemed to be barking at the door. Then I noticed the qosun next to the front door steps. A qosun is a python with such beautiful patterns that its Chinese name is 錦蛇 jin she, the embroidered snake. This one was well over two meters long, and eager to get away from barking Yumin. I asked it to stay a moment longer while I got my camera. It quickly moved over to the embankment ~~ I held Yumin back. There it took up a strong defensive position amongst the ferns, draped across the slope, head up, mouth open. Yumin had his mouth open too, arf! Arf! Arf arf and arrrf! Tlahuy stayed close by my side, silent, ears up, eyes burning, alert, ready to protect me or support Yumin the moment he was needed.

When Yumin had barked enough, I carefully moved forward and scooped him into my arms. I apologized to the snake for bothering it, and for good measure told a couple mantras. The snake slowly, elegantly withdrew its head, and in a moment disappeared into the ferns.

Frightened fawns freeze ~ no, I'm not writing tongue twisters, I'm thinking over a problem, but while we're at it, let's hear you say that lickety-split five times: frightened fawns freeze. Many animals, especially the young, freeze and allow their stillness and coloring to protect them. Humans run. This indicates that the human being is predisposed to running, that 'in nature' enough of our human ancestors have been fleet enough of foot to leave behind their genes.

A modern human toddler, frightened by a dog, may cower and shrink, or seek refuge in adult arms. Those a bit larger may try to run away. Consider the circumstances which initiated these primordial reactions.

Fightened frawns fees. Frightened frawns fees. Aww, nuts.

Tali Lalun, rangi na Bulang Yugan, qimholan Barung, ptsal rgyas.

A young Tayal from 復興鄉 named Tali Lalun has his face tattooed in traditional style, the first new Tayal facial tattoo since the Japanese abolished the custom before World War II. This is a tradition worth reviving (perhaps without the prerequisites), one of the few tattoos that means anything.