Most Americans probably know the children's joke:
A: What's red and black and has 14 pairs of legs?
B: I don't know, what?
A: I don't know either, but there's one crawling down your back.

I have no idea what this is, but it was crawling across my living room. It's red and black, has 14 pairs of legs, and measures about ten centimeters from front to back.

Can anyone identify it?

Abdul Rahman of Afghanistan is being prosecuted for converting to Christianity 16 years ago. He was arrested last month after his family, including his former wife and two teenage daughters, reported him to the police, who discovered him with a Bible.

Islamic comments are bizarre. "The Prophet Muhammad has said several times that those who convert from Islam should be killed if they refuse to come back," says Ansarullah Mawlafizada, the trial judge. "Islam is a religion of peace, tolerance, kindness, and integrity." This could go in the dictionary as a definition of doublethink.

Here's a runner-up: "We will not let anyone interfere with our religious practices," declared cleric Inayatullah at Kabul's Pulakasthy mosque, one of the city's largest. "What Rahman has done is wrong and he must be punished." If it is not permissible to interfere with religious practices, why are they interfering with his religious practices? It is permissible to convert to Islam, but not permissible to convert from Islam. The Aljazeera website carried a convoluted explanation that it is not permissible to convert from Islam because Islam is right and everybody else is wrong. That's the gist of it. I practically strained my brain reading that one.

"What is wrong with Islam that he should want to convert?" asks an agitated Abdul Zahid Payman. "The courts should punish him and he should be put to death." A model of clarity and logic. Not to speak of compassion.

"Regardless of the court decision [whether or not he is hanged], there is unanimous agreement by all religious scholars from the north to the south, the east to the west of Afghanistan, that Abdul Rahman should be executed," Engineer Ahmad Shah Ahmad Zai told Asia Times Online on telephone from Kabul.

"We will not allow God to be humiliated," Abdul Raoulf, a member of the Ulama Council, Afghanistan's main clerical organization, told Associated Press. "We will call on the people to pull him into pieces so there's nothing left." IMHO, a god who is not humiliated by followers calling for the death of converts is not worthy of being called a god.

Days like this make me especially happy to be Buddhist. Amitabha!

當年毛主席想砸孔老二的店，現在是毛主席的子孫踴躍走資本主義路線，儒者慢慢又起頭。論語是挖不完的寶藏，但是要用心讀。夫子頭腦靈活的不得了，不要被高中課本的死板形象束縛了。故宮前的孔子象應該銷熔，順便把塑象的人吊起來打：污衊前賢。

污衊前賢，方法很多。在書店看到一本論語中英對照，還註明是2004年最新翻譯。著書的方法很特殊。編者好像把Legge十九世紀的便秘翻譯拿來強迫國中生背，然後叫他們默寫：憑半知半解的印象，配上初級英文，慘不忍睹。要出版英文書的話，最起碼應該了解英文的基礎文法，這樣要求不算太過分吧。

不過也有精彩文句。第一篇「學而」怎麼翻？Hoe Urh. 很特別吧。我家附近有時候可以聽到野豬的叫聲，我現在才明白，原來它們在朗誦2004年最新翻譯的論語篇名：Hoe urh, hoe urh, hoe urh!

越大未必越好。

聽說誠品在信義區開了分店，忍了很久。我進書店，好比酒鬼進酒巴：欲罷不能。唯一可救藥是，我愛看的是冷門書(超弦啦、婦好墓啦、岩畫啦、西伯利亞馴鹿族啦)，很難買到，一般書局沒有。我知道我不缺書，我知道我書架上很多書還沒看，可是…可是…進了書店就很難克制。總有好書…

終于進了巨大誠品。信不信由你，我逛了一個小時，連一本也沒買。問題在哪？雜而不精。他們甚麼都要賣，變成沒用心選書上架。例如，音樂部門賣樂譜；點子特別，一般書店不賣樂譜。結果賣的是一些基本Bach、Beethoven、Brahms鋼琴曲、電影主題曲、流行曲。所有樂器、所有種類，一兩百個譜。想買譜的人，這種早已有了，想買新的，在此沒有。中國文學部門不賣重要的工具書，也不賣專門的重要文獻：沒看到經籍篡詁，找不到三代吉金文存。

逛了一個小時，只覺得疲勞眼花。誠品大概要跟101的Page One打對臺。坦白說，我認為Page One只是大、貴，以地點取勝。

懷念大亞百貨四樓的站前誠品。那時很少空手歸。

I will now present you with scientific proof of the infallibility of democratic elections; that the election process winnows out the inept and selects the best and the brightest.

On the stock market, a fund manager who can beat the market by 3% is considered a star. However, on the average, US Senators beat the market by 12%. Remember that professional fund managers dedicate all their time and energies to the markets, and Senators have little time to spend on the market. This proves their superior powers.

This is a genuinely authentic scientific conclusion, reached by Georgia State University researchers. Makes you proud, doesn't it?

This is something I wrote when I was 17, about a month after I had arrived in Viet Nam. My duty was to help deliver pizzas to US bases around the Viet Nam war zone. I'll explain that some other day. I should explain that driving through the rubber plantations was an eerie sensation, because they were so black within the rows, and because everybody knew the North Viet Namese Army regulars were in there. Here is what I wrote:
Yesterday I went out to Phuoc Vinh, a couple hours drive out of Saigon. It was kind of weird driving. You'd get into the country, and it'd be like you were on the lip of a huge saucer. It'd be flat to the horizon in all directions. Most of the time there wouldn't be a car in sight. Just shrubs on the horizon. These shrubs would eventually turn into villages, full of people (not crowds, really, but after the plains they seemed to be masses) then you’d hit the end of the village and suddenly you're on the lip of another saucer, and so on. We were riding along and I noticed a truck, US Army, on the edge of the road, looking rather sad, and a tank full of GIs over there by the road. Hi boys. Then some 15 minutes later, I saw that the lane about a kilometer in front of us had some barrels in it. By now, we were getting into the rubber plantation area – off a ways from the road, huge groves of rubber trees. As we neared the hole, it showed to be about 12 or 15 feet across, and circular. There were only a couple of feet on the side of undamaged road. We slipped by. The asphalt was all broken.
What's that? I asked the driver.
VC.
O really.
Yes. American (motion of cutting throat)
When was it?
Huh?
When?
Huh?
Khi nao?
O, long time ago – before, beaucoup VC – long time.
How long before VC go blooey there?
So the driver meticulously inscribes on his palm: 10-3-71.
Great, two weeks ago. Not a car in sight. Nothing but the rubber trees, the road, and the hole.

社會的潮流、流行，可真好玩。換個角度講，消費者很好騙。比酷，做你自己，買我們的產品你就可以跟三十二萬個人一模一樣做你自己！

寧願盲目效法美國流氓幾年前退流行的樣子，千萬不許有自己的風格。

法國人喝葡萄酒，眾所週知；他們喝葡萄酒的原因是，歐洲的水源污染太嚴重。幾百年前，他們發現喝水斃命，因此他們從小就喝葡萄酒。現在歐洲污染比以前嚴重多了，水更不能喝。

每次看到臺北人手上的法國礦泉水，就想到這個問題。我要買礦泉水的話，寧買埔里的，縱不純也比歐洲的好很多。

可是喂！喂！沒看到瓶子標籤嗎？這可是法國來的，是進口的，多氣派！多時髦！我們越喊「愛臺灣」，越要買進口貨。

Today Wulai was swallowed by thick fog that seemed to hold innumerable secrets. The birds and bugs were all silent, Tlahuy and Yumin spent the day sleeping in the doghouse, and wonder of wonders, the spa (泰雅達利) refrained from polluting the atmosphere with their vile junk music.

::the fog turned to rain at sundown, then the sky cleared to show a thousand bright stars. Then it rained again. I just love island weather!

前不久的全球商用英文能力檢定，日本最後一名，臺灣略高些。日本的英文本來是笑話(www.engrish.com)，但這裡有問題值得商榷：英文能力排在日本前面的國家，有幾個經濟比日本強？科技？藝術？

臺灣也是如此。英文沒有日本爛，但經濟、科技、藝術程度，未必輸給英文佼佼者。不免質疑，目前臺灣投下這麼多人力學英文，有多大的必要？

我當然感謝大家學英文，讓我添飽肚子，但目前學英文的風氣，像無頭蒼蠅，不知是指使國民最有效的策略，或者障眼法、轉移注意力。

The other day I saw a really spiffy hat. It was a Tayal man's hat, tightly coiled rattan, with mountain goat (serow) horns on the front.

Now that is a hat! A hat with style and personality, culture and history. Each one is handmade from scratch, and there are not many who retain the ancient skills. A hat with flair, for sure.

In the city, some parents intentionally put their kiddies' caps on askew in a bumbling attempt at cuteness. Cuteness should be spontaneous, not a meticulously planned do-or-die saccharine overdose.

Personally, I don't care for baseball caps. A forage cap, fine; a baseball cap, ugh. For some reason, in recent days everywhere I go I have come across adolescent boys wearing baseball caps at a carefully adjusted angle. Didn't that sort of thing go out of style in the last century? Perhaps they are attempting to define the uniqueness of their personalities, if they can be said to have such. I wasn't carrying a protractor, but I would bet that each of these youths had his hat at almost exactly the same angle, with the bill centered over the outside edge of the right eyebrow. Blindly conforming to out-of-date styles, they may be hoping to show the world that they are Cool and Being Themselves, sort of the way aging American yuppies ride identical Harley hogs to show that they Did It My Way and do not follow the beaten path.

How can something as common as a baseball cap possibly suggest individuality?

picture from Lpgan Ke' na Tayal. Mhway!

Perhaps the most outrageous event in America of recent years is the protests Christians hold at the funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq. The Christians gather to insult the bereaved family, shouting that they celebrate every time an American is killed in Iraq and that the dead soldiers go straight to hell, because god hates homosexuals. If that is not warped, is that is not sickening, then I do not know what is warped or sickening.

Suppose Christ really died on the cross for others' sins; suppose that these young Americans really died in Iraq for others' sins; that makes them at least as holy as Jesus Christ.

I am waiting for mainstream American churches to voice their outrage at these sick people dragging the bible through filth.

I hear nothing.

When it was discovered that many of the terrorists on September 11 had lived in the US, Americans asked, If they know us, why don't they love us?

For narrow minded bigots, familiarity breeds contempt. Furthermore, in the US, they may have seen the world's richest society frittering life away on television, cars, and malls while much of the world goes hungry; the adoration of drugs, sex, and violence; the mindless materialism in the world's most wasteful society.

Certainly nobody reading this will imagine this is meant to condone terrorism or say that that is all there is to America. But the United States is a society dedicated to the inflation of the ego, and we have to understand that we are not idolized by everybody, and why.

qabu ru gbubu
Traditionally Tayal men wore hats made out of tightly coiled rattan. The hats leaked, so in October and November, they collected the fruit of the qabu tree (野柿, wild persimmon) before it was fully ripe. They mashed the fruit and let it ferment (rot, if you prefer). After a few weeks, they worked the goo into the hat, waterproofing it and producing a beautiful reddish brown color.

When the men were home, they left their hats on the rack over the cooking fire to smoke. When they went to the plains to deal with the Chinese, buying rice, salt, and other necessities, the hat was their measure.

清溪遇暴雨，水便混淆，岸土沖入水流，下面的久腐淤土翻上，增益生命力。若要清溪永遠清澈，鋪水泥；縱使水流，缺乏生命力。

心識也是如此。

=誦心經、金剛經開智慧。
=看不懂裏面寫的。
=你放心，真正看懂了就成佛了。沒成佛勢必看不是很懂。起碼把字句粗略搞清楚。
=能懂多少就算多少？
=對。其實，經裏的道理太深，表層意識無法了解。好比我畫一個圓圈、一個三角、一個正方，感受不同，可是也很難明明白白地說那個不同感受在哪，因為象徵是深層意識的語言。
=那麼經裏說的是象徵嗎？
=我說的是比喻。心經、金剛經，你可以想成是像電腦程式，我們看，00110100011101，完全看不懂，因為不是對我們這種意識說話。可是輸入電腦，電腦就能有作用。心經、金剛經誦久了，深層意識吸收，就靈活了，開花結果。
=所有誦心經、金剛經的人都開智慧嗎？
=當然要看慧根深淺。老子不是講過嗎？「上士聞道，勤而行之；中士聞道，若存若亾；下士聞道，大笑之。不笑不足以為道。」可是總有好處。

=怎麼誦經？
=有沒有聽過人唱文章？以前讀書，是用唱的不是用唸的。可是誦文章，音可以拉長，自己高興就好了。誦經有木魚打拍，一敲一字，不然共修會亂。調子呢，隨你自己，一個人誦的話，自己高興就好了；共修盡量和大家的調，最忌諱搶拍子，次之，慢拍子；要整齊。不要太詭異的調子，但要唱出自己的心得、感受，不要死跟著維那。有的寺廟唱「平板音」，那是根本不懂誦經；死板音，對不起諸天護法。
=換句話說，沒有固定的調子，不像教堂的音樂。
=唱讚有固定的調子，誦經沒有。西洋比較愛規矩，中國文化自由自在；教徒守誡不達誡，佛子守戒但不守約束，所以唱誦也很自由。只要和。
=和為貴。
=還有很重要的一點，用鼻子換氣。千萬不要用嘴巴嗆氣，身體會搞壞。共修的話，換氣的時候可以用默念念過字句，慢慢用鼻子換氣，切莫用嘴換氣！
=用鼻子換氣慢。
=慢沒有關係。最好的唱誦法，用鼻子吸飽氣，唱誦時振舌不振唇，誦到肺裏氣全吐完了，再徐徐由鼻孔吸飽氣。這叫做金剛念誦，是養氣之道。真正要誦經的話，用金剛念誦最好。

是不是有人想篡改歷史？某人這樣跟我講：「抗戰結束的時候，美國原來要讓臺灣跟琉球一樣，要獨立成自己的國家。可是當時因為麥克阿瑟在日本太忙，他請蔣中正暫時接管一下臺灣。沒想到，來不及讓臺灣獨立，蔣中正已經佔了臺灣，所以不能獨立。」

「你說不能像琉球一樣獨立？」

「對。」

「琉球甚麼時候獨立過？」

「本來要讓它獨立，可是因為蔣亂搞，就不給它獨立。」

我覺得臺灣現在有個很大的問題：很多人的想法與事實嚴重脫節，卻以為自己的幻想有說服力。只要稍知二十世紀歷史的話，就知道上述言論毫無事實根據。還有人說，臺灣有危機的話，日本一定會出軍打退解放軍讓臺灣獨立；這已不是理性的思攷。我們需要的是冷靜、理智的建設性的思攷，不要再浪費時間、精神在狂想上。

捷運廣告台北文學季，現在正在進行，活動名稱秋之興。也許我搞錯了，我以為現在是春季。

廣告說文學的好處，「泡妞工具」、「跟很多人談戀愛」。我們現代台北人真的這麼沒水準嗎？

Raran ga, ciboq ta la, ini baqi mguy, ini baqi mxan~小時候，不知道甚麼是累，不知道甚麼是痛。那時Tali Watan種柳丁，我們趁他不在的時候去偷，二三十個小孩子一起去偷，他知道是誰，可是沒辦法抓，頂多到家來向父母抱怨，只有這個辦法，可是沒用。然後我們到tlahuy sulu ngasan su，你家後面那個坡不是很陡嗎？我們到上面，爬竹子，然後往下跳，抓下一個，再彈去抓下一個。桂竹彈性很好，我們就跳、跳、跳。

Tnaq yabic bi. 你們是不是學飛鼠那樣跳?

Aw, 就是這樣在竹子頂端跳。小孩子可以，大人太重。Ini usu liquy。

好可惜，我很動心，聽起來很好玩。像泰山。

對，就像泰山，可是往下。真的很好玩。我們那時還小，根本不懂得怕。我們泰雅小孩比非洲野人還要野。現在的小孩不行，可是以前我小時候，我們實在有夠野。

Aw, Yulaw, snhyun gu isu! Raran ga, 大概二十幾年前，musa ku rgyax 中部 mosay, tring Musya 進去那條路，baq su ga?我聽到很多小孩在笑，好像玩得很興奮。結果，我看到有一棵樹長在山坡上，那棵特別高。它最外面的樹枝上有wasin或爬藤，我看不清楚，七八個小孩抓著爬藤盪出去，好像盪鞦韆一樣~~那個坡很陡，他們盪到最高的地方，離地少說有一百公尺，萬一爬藤斷，他們再往外甩，也有兩百公尺的高度。我看了傻眼。光看到會怕。

Yugan，你放心，他們一定不怕，因為他們是泰雅。我們泰雅小孩比非洲野人還要野。

bullcacky… make that, bushcacky
At the National Newspaper Association, Bush just said, "Democracies don't war." That's so nice to know. Now will someone explain to me what is going on in Afghanistan and Iraq?

The other day I received a catalog from a book seller in England. The catalog was printed in Italy and mailed from Sweden to this American bookaholic in Taiwan. Last year I bought a book from them; the credit card company (wherever they are) debited my Taiwan dollar account for so many euros, and the book was shipped to me from a warehouse in Belgium. Now I would like to ask, where do the concepts of state and sovereignty fit into our modern world?

On September 11, terrorists from several nations proved that you don't need a state to wage war, leading Bush to frantically rush about seeking somebody to attack. He chose Iraq, because it's a family tradition to invade Iraq for oil, but he could just as well have chosen Yemen or Botswana. I personally still think he should have invaded Canada; they had as much to do with 9/11 as Iraq, they're a lot closer and more convenient, and it would be easy to train our troops to speak Canadian ("All right, everybody, repeat after me: 'eh?'") The only obstacle being that attack Canada doesn't rhyme as well as attack Iraq.

The modern state is simply that: it is modern in a post-modern world, and it is a state, not an immutable entity ordained by god. I believe that the concept of the modern state no longer fits the realities of a world in which many companies have larger budgets than many countries; when cell phones, faxes, and the internet stride across borders; when everybody's environment is peppered with people bearing a spectrum of passports; when – I'm not going to give any more examples, just look at the world today and tell me how hidebound concepts of statehood benefit anybody. This is especially important for Taiwan. A serious problem here, which is becoming a threat to Taiwan's status quo, is that political leaders have never updated their thinking past about 1955. All references are to a mythical society in never-never land; political strategies are designed for conditions which they imagine existed in about 1920, and 1920 looks better and better with every passing year. Much time and energy are wasted hashing over conditions that may or may not have existed generations ago. If the Taiwan business community's heads were filled with as much bilge as the administration's, most of the population would still be plodding barefoot through rice paddies, staring at a water buffalo's tail. If the leaders here don't open their eyes and look at the 21st century, they are in for a very rude awakening.

Sometimes you have to shut your mouth before you can open your eyes.

昨天寫臺灣的情形，很難過，可能太悲觀。莫懼，本野人有妙法嚇住共匪。喂、喂，胡先生，請你冷靜地思攷一下：臺灣的老百姓是天下最刁鑽的人，你真的想管嗎？

一個美國朋友剛從大陸回來：她精通中文，深入民間，到處跑。她提到，從烏魯木齊到喀什(Kashgir)不遠，「坐火車十一個小時就到。」對呀，在臺灣住久了，忘記臺灣有多小。她在新疆遇到一個司機，老家在甘肅，他說「很近，開車一個星期就到。」

我們心中認為臺灣很重要，很容易忘記，在大陸人眼中，兩千三百萬人不算多；臺灣問題要解決，但不是一個天大的問題。(在世人眼中，以為臺灣的首都是曼谷。)

這方面，我覺得臺灣需要警惕。崇拜日帝軍閥的李登輝以為自己比中共大，執政者以為能夠刷招數，大家都要服服貼貼。陳水扁廢統，還有人高興地說，美國沒甚麼反應，好像還ok啦；我擔心的就是美國沒甚麼反應。好比太太鬧脾氣，老公在旁邊看，冷冷的沒甚麼反應；這個老公心裡只有想：離婚吧，把這個聒噪的瘋婆子休了，討個安靜，日子比較好過。

很多老百姓儍愣愣的，完全不懂世局：幾年前中共為了甚麼事情(我忘了)火大了，看似解放軍快要出動收臺灣，局面非常緊張。臺灣的老百姓如何處置此千鈞一髮的危機？…大家都在排隊買Hello Kitty最新商品，沒有意識到刀口已經在脖子上。

那次僥倖沒死。現在還有人以為美國永遠會來救。以前是看在蔣公、民主、文革的分上；現在美國如果再出軍，不是把軍隊陷到伊朗，便是去救蘇丹。但事實上，軍隊黏著于伊拉克泥淖裡，無力往它處發威，Bush再想黷武，也不敢卯上解放軍。尤其在，Bush總統已經公開說陳水扁是son of a b|||ch{王(2x4)蛋}。

美國政府的國債，有一半在北京；換言之，美國經濟生死大權已經操在北京手中。你認為美國會攷慮為了一個區區的臺灣砸自己的經濟嗎？如果回答「也許有這種可能性，」您一定是首一次來到這個地球，完全不了解人性，對美國歷史一無所知。

我個人認為，臺灣最麻煩的問題是，現在臺灣從政的人，思想停留在六七十年前。他們沒有辦法看到眼前的局面，怎能為將來作出長遠計畫？　

中華軍隊不比當年的健兒，現在局勢與三十年前不同，現在世人眼中的臺灣，不是勇敢抵擋共匪的民主保壘，而是鬧三一九、立委群架的笑話。中共要換我們的國旗，恐不必花一天的功夫，不算太難。不是他們不敢用力解決臺灣問題，而是寧讓我們自己爛，到時候來收拾殘局，人家還會感謝。

臺灣很多人以為美國、中共要看我們的臉色。臺灣目前的處境，像似兩艘驅逐艦中間有竹筏，撐筏的小子拿他的撐筏竹竿敲左邊的軍艦，沒反應；敲右邊的軍艦，沒反應；搓掌自喜，說，你看，他們不敢對我怎麼樣！

大約民國六十七八年，一個蛙人跟我講了這麼一個故事。當時中共最怕的是「國民黨特務」，嚴防自由中國的蛙人進入大陸進行任務。
「新蛙人第一次進大陸，我們的規矩，要去看一場電影，把電影票帶回來，才算畢業，才能算是真正的蛙人。
「晚我一期的一個兄弟進了大陸，完成了任務，看了電影，得意忘形，想吃一碗麵。坐下來叫，『老闆，來一碗陽春麵。』共匪自稱無階級，哪有人叫老闆？而且，陽春麵是臺灣的講法。
「把他打的快死，留一口氣，等著清晨遊街槍決，先帶到屠宰場，暫時把他掛在肉鉤上，就是那種在菜市場賣肉攤販掛肉用的大鐵鉤，從掖下肋骨進，從背部肩胛出。反正早上就要槍斃，暫時掛放而已。
「他們沒有人留守看他。他們沒料到，這位兄弟性子可是硬得很，不服氣。不知道是怎麼弄的，他竟然從鐵鉤掙脫了，爬到河翻下去，游到集會點。我等了一個晚上，沒看他蹤影，不知道出了甚麼事，可是以為他一定是死了，怎麼樣也意想不到，天快亮，我正好準備回營報告，就看到他順著河流漂來，趕緊跳下水救。
「他那個手後來沒用了，可是命保住了。」

信耶穌得永生。
普庵祖師說，佛法是甚麼事，速求易得？
只要喊一聲「讚美主，」你就讚美主了。
設壇懸幡、燃燈點香、建寺養僧、繞佛頂禮、唱贊念佛、持戒修律，這些是助緣；縱然重要，可是不重要。梁武帝無功德，你的心在哪？

聖經給你很多答案：答案有了，只要信就好了，不用思攷。佛法給你很多答案，然後問你，哈哈傻瓜，你以為答案是真的嗎？

信基督確是比較簡單。
沒有答案，不能進步。放下答案，才能進步。

Who says Republicans are dumb?

One Republican Vice president was a lawyer named Quayle. Today's Republican Vice President shoots a lawyer instead of a quail.

Okay, now I'll try to stop the Cheney jokes. but it's difficult.

Different Strokes for Different Folks
Women must be smarter than men: you rarely see women fishing. Women rarely spend fistfuls of bills for expensive equipment and spend hours and hours to try to outwit a fish you could buy for a couple coins – a fish! This may come as a surprise to you, but fish are not high up on the intelligence ladder. Higher than snails, granted, but hardly challenging when matching wits.

But there are benefits to fishing – not for the fish, but who cares about them? Fishing provides busy city people with much needed relaxation, and generally entails getting out of the city, walking to the stream, seeing some trees, and breathing some fresh air while you smoke. Of course birding provides all those benefits, plus you have to use your eyes and your brain, and you don't pollute streams with lost lead sinkers. Or kill anybody.

All the benefits and challenges of fishing evaporate at those square cement fishing ponds. What can be the joy of sitting by an ugly cement pond where you know there are fish waiting to be caught? I used to think that that was the ultimate in a futile waste of time. Then one day I passed one of those hideous ponds and saw spectators outside! There were actually people who could find nothing better to do with their lives than stand by the road watching somebody fishing in an esthetically disastrous cement pond.

My mind boggled. Something had to be done! I steeled my will! I resolved to go to a pond and WATCH THOSE PEOPLE WATCHING the people fishing at an ugly cement fish pond.

Before I could put my dramatic plan into action, Balahu bested me. She said that when I go to watch those people watching people fishing at an ugly cement fish pond she will come to watch me watching them watching them fishing. I am floored in utter admiration: genius!

But then I discovered that we lag behind the United States. In the United States, they have entire television channels that show nothing but programs of people fishing. You can sit in your own living room, on your own sofa, and watch somebody standing by a stream proving that he is smarter than a fish. See how advanced they are there? No wonder the US won the Cold War! How could the Soviets compete with a country that televises a man standing practically motionless with a fishing pole in one hand and a can of beer in the other?

Of course, people have different ideas about what's fun. I think sparring is great fun, but I understand it scares some people. Even I don't go as far as my old friend Ruben. His idea of having a good time on Saturday night was squaring off with a buddy and taking turns kicking each other in the stomach. ("It's good for you! And it doesn't hurt too much, the first twenty or thirty kicks! Especially if you take off your shoes!") Given a choice between watching a professional basketball game and spending the same amount of time playing mahjong, I believe I would drink rat poison, but some people seem to enjoy them (the games, not the poison). In my opinion, one of the greatest joys of life is working out a difficult composition by Bach or Telemann on the recorder, but I know this is not for everybody.

Fun is subjective. So is beauty: pigs think pigs are beautiful. Not everyone may agree with me when I say that Taiwan is one of the earth's most beautiful places (at least, the parts that aren't covered with tombs, developments, or factories, or the government hasn't built roads across or tried to improve the scenery), and that Wulai is one of the most beautiful places in Taiwan. But this is what I believe.

Come visit these beautiful mountains before more useless roads are built to destroy the ecosystem, and before the local authorities beautify the environment further. People from all over the world are astonished at the ugliness of the statues and sculptures with which the authorities degrade the esthetic environment of Wulai.

I have lived here for nine years now, and every day I marvel at the never ending play of sunlight, cloud, and wind on mountain, jungle, sky, and stream.

From time to time as afternoon fades into dusk, a flock of about a hundred egrets flies up and down the valley. I don't know why they do this. The flight is one of the most beautiful sights to be seen. The flock stretches out, closes up, extends into a line, wheels, groups, spins, races south, races north, rushes straight up, whirls, and flies off towards the waterfall. Depending on their height and angle, the white flock may suddenly disappear against the cloudy sky; turning this way makes them appear larger, rolling that way changes them into dots. I have no idea why they do this or how they coordinate their movements. It is worth dropping everything to watch.

One beautiful afternoon I stood enraptured as the flock engaged in its airobics (pun protected by copyright). The beauty of the scene was marred by the muffled sound of some cretin sightseer closeted in the conference room at the spa downhill, singing vulgar karaoke noise at the top of his lungs. Maybe he even had one of those karaoke televisions where you can look at scenery on the screen as you pollute your surroundings. God forbid that he stop that wretched caterwauling, look outside, and see the beauty of the world. It might make him human again.

坐捷運，每一次聽到公告：「如果發現火災情形」，我百思不解，「火災」跟「火災情形」有甚麼不同？如果失火，是否有義務先判斷是「火災」或者「火災情形」，再決定要不要救火？如果是火災，而不確定有沒有到火災情形，要不要救火？希望有關單位指點。

現代科技真好：電話可以拉近人與人的距離。
今天中午接到一通電話。先是一個男的跟我講，「你等一下。」(閩南語話)
接著，一個年輕人跟我喊，「爸爸!」
我十萬分驚訝。我有兒子嗎？甚麼時候生的？我感動得只能說，「咦？」
他說，「爸爸，爸爸!你趕快救我!」
一般人突然發現有兒子，一定很振奮，可是我很冷靜。我問，「你是我兒子嗎？」
他說，「爸爸，你趕快救我!」
我說，「But if you were my son, you'd be able to speak English, wouldn't you?」
他説，「蛤?」
我說，「You mean you've forgotten how to speak English?」
他說，「你去洗。」
我說，「Yes, that's a good idea, I think I will. A nice hot shower on a cold day sounds great. Thanks for the suggestion.」
他說，「你去洗」就掛斷了。
我們的交流雖然只有短短幾句，卻很深入。我被一個完全不認識的人叫爸爸，而且他還好心建議我去洗，真貼心。
誰說現代人感情淡薄？

語言不是理性的，是習慣性的。但是有時候很怪。
開關，開的相反詞是關，對不對？
開燈，燈就亮；關燈，燈不亮；開燈的相反詞是關燈，對不對？
開門、關門，開門的相反詞是關門，對不對？
那麼請問，開心的相反詞是…關心??

難怪大官喜歡說他們關心我們~~

Pintriqan Musya na mrhuw Mona Utaw, sgleng nya Tayal ru mlluhuw squ paris nha ciboq gipun tohuy. 莫那‧魯道務霧社起義抗日，雜貨商人巫金墩將店裡所有貨物捐給泰雅義軍，盡一己之力支持、鼓勵抗日英雄，因此後來被日本軍閥統治者關了好幾年。

有人說巫金墩是平地人；他是平埔族，不是漢人。不過，真是一條好漢。

PS: Mnnaq pi ~ yutas na pintriqan Musya Mona lalu Utaw, lalu na Mona Utaw, mswa mugan gmayan 莫那‧魯道？ Ini ku baqi，lalu莫那‧武道 balay ga?

From the news:
Iraq's defense minister warned of the risk of a "civil war" that "will never end" as sectarian violence flared again.
For this Bush has killed thousands of American soldiers, alienated allies, weakened the country’s international prestige, and depleted the treasury.
To paraphrase Country Joe and the Fish,
For it's 1, 2, 3, what are we fighting for?
Don't ask me, I don't give a damn,
It's worse than Viet Nam.
For it's 5, 6, on your way to heaven,
Stop by in Iraq,
You won't come back,
Whoopee, we're all going to die!


"We" of course refers to the valiant young people whose fathers did not hide them in the Texas National Guard. American soldiers have my greatest respect, and my greatest sympathy. I wish no more would die.

Janis on my mind
Janis Joplin died in 1970 at the age of 27. With the money she made singing, she was able to buy such good heroin that she killed herself with it.
Her singing was definitely not easy listening. A lot of people didn't like her, because her music was so wild and so demanding. To me, she was god.

That line from Bobby McGee:
Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose.

Is that depressing or liberating? I've never been able to figure it out.

師徒兩個從金山材窯遶淡水回臺北。
老師，我上次到富貴角，漂流木很多。
那麼我們看風景就好了，不要看漂流木。
贊成。
老師看，漂流木真多。
真多。我們只要看就好了，不要撿。
是啊，我家已經一堆，我們只要看就好了。
老師看那一塊。
你說像鐮刀的那塊？
是。
很漂亮。
我們從這裡看就好了，不要下去。
不要下去。
不過，那塊很漂亮。
的確。
大概已經腐朽了。
應該是。
形狀很特別。
的確。
下去看看好了。
好，不看會難過。
木頭還是好的。
(....十五分鐘後 ....)
好了，只要撿這三塊就好了。
我們趕快回車上。
看正前方，不要看左右，不要看地上。
走快一點。
這三塊就夠了。
也夠重了。
不過很漂亮。

右邊是金山材窯的王春長
左是盧展能老師

三代師徒
柯太師、盧老師、老齊
at 新店上仁茶行

Could someone please explain to me what this ship is doing at 白沙灣?

萬里On the northern coast of Taiwan

這幾天本blog一直避開一個話題…我們不要談高砂義勇，好不好？有人搞不清這是甚麼時代，烏來一併受污，冤。

For the human race, cultural evolution long ago superseded biological evolution. For instance, many, many years ago our ancestors faced population pressure. An animal subject to biological evolution would have had to either reduce its numbers, adapt to other sources of food, or move into hospitable lands. The human race moved into cold, inhospitable lands, where biological evolution would have required us to grow warm pelts; our digestive systems would have had to adapt to the different food in the strange land. Instead, human beings put on clothing to adjust the microclimate and cooked food to adjust it to our digestion. We did not adapt to our environment; we used our culture (technology) to adapt our environment to us.

Tools are indispensable in this process. The more sophisticated tools become, the less intelligence is required to use them. (Wow, Victorian anthropologists would have loved to hear me say that!) Consider a leisure, high status occupation that approaches religious prestige: hunting. Male dominated academic studies focus on the importance of hunting, and it has been undeniably important in regulating the hierarchy; this is a serious exposition, so we will not make any jokes about Vice Presidents weeding out lawyers. It also keeps the men out of the women's hair while the women go about the vital task of foraging and gathering; the human race has always relied mainly on vegetable matter to keep body and soul together. Meat has always been a frill, a status symbol, not a main source of nutrition (Inuit excepted, because they had no plants.)

Be that as it may, a Stone Age hunter required a vast array of complex skills. Consider a hunter with a bow and arrow. First, he had to know which wood to use to make his bow and arrows, when to harvest it, how to process it, and how to fashion the materials into usable tools. Years of practice were required for proficiency in the use of these weapons. Then, he had to know which animals to hunt, where, and how. Since an arrow does not fly very hard or very fast, he needed the stealth to approach close to the animal. The arrows would usually not bring down the prey at once. The prey would run, and the hunter required incredible skills to follow it. From the footsteps, he would judge more than which direction his game had gone: he could tell how fast it was moving, and whether the wound had been superficial or deadly. From grasses and twigs the animal brushed in passing, the hunter ascertained what part of the animal had been hit and how deeply; how long before it had passed; how steady its pace was, and so forth. Only in this way could he track down the animal.

Compare this to the modern hunter who gets out his credit card and buys a gun. He may consult friends and consumer indexes for which brand to buy, and may spend time at the firing range getting used to the sniper's scope. Then, if he is rich and prestigious, his guide escorts him to a stand where he fires at animals lured into position. His rifle is so powerful that the animal drops dead in its tracks. Which requires more intelligence and skill?

This is why I say, The more sophisticated tools become, the less intelligence is required to use them.

Just think of WordStar. You had to memorize a whole list of commands to use that early word processor, popular before the mouse had been invented. Now you can use a word processor like Word with just a few minutes training. Point and click. Duh, now what? Oh yeah, write something. Uhhh ~~~

逛書店時，看到宜蘭專刊十大冊，有宜蘭縣生活技能、宜蘭縣民間信仰、宜蘭縣基督教傳教史、宜蘭縣口述文學等等。十大本。

先翻一翻「民間信仰」，發現裡面講的都是中國大陸傳來的道廟，看不到臺灣自己民間信仰的蛛絲馬跡。後來想，大概是因為泰雅幾乎都改信耶穌了，教會不許他們傳自己的信仰。所以把「基督教傳教史」抽出來翻，這樣翻一翻，只看到漢人與洋人，看不到泰雅。怪。

「宜蘭縣歷史」有兩張原住民的照片，接著是蛤蟆蘭族賣地契，然後只有中國大陸來的人事記載。地拿到手就不理老地主了，不聞不問。我猜是編者對原有的臺灣人沒有興趣、懶得想、不肯了解。

再把「生活技能」拿出來，只有中國大陸傳來的技藝，看不到泰雅。不會是我記錯吧，宜蘭縣原住民很多吧，我認識很多宜蘭來的達燕、Sateq，怎麼在書上沒有留下痕跡？講本土是中國大陸來的漢人的專利嗎？是不是太漠視原住民的存在？編這套書的人，知不知道宜蘭有原住民？或者有族群優越感、蔑視弱小民族？

好吧，看看「口述文學」，總于找到一篇『漢人眼中的泰雅族』。只有漢人眼中的泰雅族，沒有找到泰雅眼中的漢人，好像地主沒有發言權。也罷，寥勝于無，看到「泰雅」字樣該滿足了。漢人眼中的泰雅族，1993年記述，第一句：

「生番的祖先是狗。」

The idea of conquering nature is as absurd, and as repulsive, as the idea of conquering a mountain or conquering outer space.

The only thing you may some day conquer is your own nasty little self.

現在臺灣學英文的風氣，有點沒頭沒腦亂抓，大家趕快學英文呀！趕快學英文，不要問為什麼，不要問怎麼學，這個方法學不好，趕快換一個方法好了，全島各各角落到處貼不成英文的英文來提升國民英文能力，大家趕快學英文呀！

第一個要提的問題是，「全民」有必要學英文嗎？國中義務教育培養出一個普遍的基本實力，再來大學生、研究生能讀專業領域原文書，另外栽培專攻英文的精英，應該比較合理。(當然，目前本島政治環境內，合理不合理不是一個重要攷量，尤其執政者盡量洋化、否定華夏的氣氛下。)

其實，二00三年是英文的高峰；當年全世界學英文的人數最多，接著直線下降。現在，全世界學中文的人數直升。歐美報章雜誌強調，年輕人要有前途，必須學中文。聽說現在Chicago首輪高中裡，中文已經是必修課程。

管它的。臺灣的可愛，就是很有個性，不管外面的世界是怎麼樣，自己認為怎麼樣才算數。所以說，管它的，大家趕快學英文呀！趕快學英文，不要問為什麼，大家趕快學英文呀！

see? I'm not always a mischievous little scamp.
Give me a nice rain gutter on a sunny morning, and I can be a good little doggie, for several minutes in a row.

Daybreak at Tienchih
I wrote this in October 1983 after a hike near Nenggao 能高山 and Nanhua 南華mountains.

Bamboo green Nenggao peak on the south edge of the Hualien divide, clad in the pink dawn sunlight, proclaimed the morn. To the left of where I stood enraptured, thick pine forests climbed the steep edge of Nanhua to timberline; high overhead, the rocks of the peak were distinct in the first light. The valley fell away below my feet to the stream so far below. From the rockstrewn streambed, the Nenggao wall rose to a line of grey peaks turning green as they caught the sun. To my right, slightly misted mountains lay still in predawn silence, layer upon layer of ridged summits receding west into lowland morning fog. Behind me I could hear the waterfall as it bounded down the defile from its spring high above at Chilai South Peak.

Behind me I couldn't stop hearing the hiking team waking up, breaking camp, washing, cooking, all with military order, and military lack of concern for their surroundings.

I turned my attention to them. They were lost in their routine, oblivious to the glory of the day. I was amused and distressed. Why bother to come if you're not going to use your eyes? It's no easy hike to get this view.

Two young women had broken away from the morning drill to sit quietly on the edge of the flat ground, facing that breath-taking valley and the advent of morning on the Nenggao range.

Kindred spirits. I was warmed to think that, after all, there were some who could appreciate the superb scenery.

Then I saw the mirrors they held before their eyes, and the makeup brushes they were applying with such skill and concentration.

I stopped by Takyu's place on an errand after dinner. Abus's 6 year old daughter, World, appeared out of the darkness and slipped her hand into mine. "Yugan, Daddy is home, why don't you come visit?" In a moment, Takyu's granddaughter, about the same age, took my other hand.

"Yugan, you have to carry us piggyback!”

"Do I have to?”

"Yes, get down, let us climb up." Once they were holding on tight, I wiggled and jiggled and threatened to throw them over the side of the road into Abus's duck pond below. They shrieked into my ears with excitement until I was sure I would go deaf. Tlahuy and Yumin scampered back and forth. A little boy I do not know, maybe Hayay's son, about 3 years old, climbed up World's legs among great hilarity. Qosun threw down his little bike and jumped on. Now I know how Yumin feels when he gets fleas. There may have been a fifth back there. It was dark, and I couldn't turn my head to count. I trudged up to Abus's house chanting, "Come take your pick, 50NT for one, 3 for NT100, buy two and get one free!”

Writing about my arrival in Asia has triggered memories.
Some teenagers in the neighborhood, Phu Nhuan, called me over to their place one evening a few weeks after I arrived in Saigon. They explained they wanted my help in stealing some mangoes. With my taller frame and longer arms, they figured I would be able to reach over from their balcony to pluck mangoes from their neighbor's tree. However, between their basic English and my basic Viet Namese, they warned me to be quick and not be seen, or else the guy whose tree it was would shoot me to death. That was no idle threat. The man kept an M16 at home, and we had heard him shooting at prowlers. With the war going on, everybody had good reason to shoot suspicious figures lurking in the night. I had never eaten a mango, and they looked delicious, so I figured it was worth the risk. It was as close to rock climbing as I was likely to get in Saigon, which was another good reason. We went up to their balcony. They clung to my left wrist. I gingerly leaned over and cleaned the man's tree without his knowing it. The fruit was especially tasty, well worth the risk, tart and sweet, and I had made some of my first friends in Asia.

再見吧，孫院長。臺灣福不足。

Just a suggestion
You know how when the President appears the band plays Hail to the Chief?
Maybe when the Vice President appears, the band can play that old tune,
I Didn't Know the Gun was Loaded.

Support our troops in Iraq!
Send Dead-Eye Dick over there!

But seriously, what would happen if (not to wish bad things about anybody, even a Republican lawyer who chums around the White House) if, dog forbid, the guy died? Would they try the Vice President for manslaughter? Can you imagine the VP in an orange jumpsuit, some heavy case's plaything as he does hard time?

No, of course you can't, because VPs don't go to jail. You and I, we go out and shoot a buddy without a quail license, we'd be looking at a five hundred dollar fine, at least. Cheney gets out his checkbook and very righteously writes a seven dollar check to retroactively pay for the license. Fiddlesticks.

A new slogan for the NRA:
Guns don't shoot people,
Vice Presidents shoot people.

Vice President Cheney's approval ratings have been soaring since the news came out that he shot an attorney, which is a secret desire most Americans harbor. 803 informs me that the shootee had just told Cheney that he planned to vote for a Democrat in the next election.

At least with Jerry Ford, it was just a tennis ball.

Mnnaq slawa ru laga na gwari.
On February 3, I mentioned that an eagle flew to the camphor tree uphill and cooed; I had never heard an eagle coo.
This morning at 10, I heard an eagle coo in the camphor tree; the same eagle, I would assume. Then it flew off, but it fluttered its wings. Eagles rarely flap their wings, and this is the first time I have ever seen an eagle flutter its wings. Some sort of iconoclast, perhaps.

And it was an eagle in a camphor tree, not a partridge in a pear tree. Different holiday. Maybe this eagle was doing the eagle's Valentine's Day dance?

On the first Thursday of November, 1970, Mom had momentous news when she picked me up from my job teaching Kenpo at Ed Parker's karate studio. Uncle Jim had sent a telegram announcing his arrival in LA, so she had gone to meet him. He was a contractor in Viet Nam then, mostly electronics, and he won a contract to supply our fighting men with pizzas. I have always suspected that he won the contract by accident. Be that at it may, he needed staff to set up his bakery, so Mom was in Saigon by Thanksgiving. I was in the 12th grade at Pasadena High; I arranged for an early graduation.

For three days after the semester ended, I stayed at Josh Potter's. For the last time, I rode my blue Peugeot bicycle, to get my final inoculations. In those days, your yellow book was as important as your passport: a lost phrase, the yellow book: your record of immunizations and inoculations. I enjoyed the odd freedom of being out on the streets during school hours. Josh drove me to the airport, and I left LA. It would be 25 years before I returned for a visit.

I flew to SF to stay with Steph as I got my visa at the VN consulate there. This was only 3 years after the Tet attacks of 1968, so Jim and Mom told me to stay in the US until after Tet (春節).

Finally, the big day came: my first international flight. Steph, Gary, and Trin saw me off at SF International. I flew to Honolulu. The Filipino baby boy in the next seat cried all the way. They served us breakfast before we landed. The next leg of the voyage landed us in Guam. The baby boy in the next seat cried all the way. They served us breakfast before we landed. Then we flew to Manila. The baby boy in the next seat cried all the way. They served us breakfast before we landed. The baby boy in the next seat got off, at last. He was still crying. Then we flew to Saigon. They served us breakfast before we landed. 24 hours after I embarked in SF, Mom picked me up at Tan Son Nhut Airport on the morning of February 13. She took me to downtown Saigon, to the Blue Diamond, and we had breakfast. I was getting pretty tired of eating breakfast.

That was February 13, 1971, 35 years ago today. Mom showed me around Saigon. Different smells, different heat, different sunlight. As a boy, I had traveled all over the US, but I had never seen the green of Southeast Asia. Different traffic, full of motorcycles, pedicabs, cyclos, and lambros dodging rice trucks, jeeps, and tanks. Armed soldiers everywhere with their fingers on their triggers. The sounds of Viet Namese, which I had never heard before; signs in Viet Namese, English, Chinese, French.

We had dinner at Uncle Jim's villa. Halfway through, jet lag caught up with me. My face almost landed in my plate. We went to the bakery, which was to be our home. I was shown my room, given stern instructions to brush my teeth only with bottled water, and issued a whiskey bottle full of rusty water which was allegedly safer than tap water. I made it to the bed before sleep hit me.

Late at night, I woke up. I peeked out the barred window at the empty street below. Soon I heard a vehicle coming. A heavily armored American jeep rumbled by on patrol. The soldiers were alert. The man in the back had his hands at his quad 40 machine guns, ready to fire. They didn't see me watching them pass under the streetlights.

I fell asleep again, and was awakened shortly after dawn by the call of a peddler hawking something to eat. For some inexplicable reason, I felt that I had found where I belong.

The Tri 9 Bakery as it appeared in 2001. We used to come and go from the other gate. The peach colored room on the second floor was my bedroom.

Happy 元宵節！我最不會猜燈謎，但我想在門口掛個燈，題
十足品味
....
了？
我 + Tlahuy + Yumin = 一家三口，品字也。
我兩個腳，Tlahuy 、 Yumin各四個腳，2 + 4 + 4 = 10 (沒錯吧？我用計算機算過，好像沒錯…)所以為十足。

Dear old Tlahuy still thinks that if he barks long enough and barks loud enough, the squirrels will come down out of the trees to him.
Sort of like a teenager who thinks that if he honks his horn at a pretty girl, she'll get in the car with him.

Cool weather, about 12C this afternoon and dropping. The sun burst through the clouds for a moment at noon. The afternoon was cloudy but not dreary. The mountains were muffled in mists that muted the colors, except for the stipples of light green where camphor trees are budding. I wanted to catch the 5:15 bus to New Store for my pottery class, but I was a bit late, so I was walking briskly. To keep up a good pace, I sang Peggy of Fife, and then Kevin Barry. I followed that with The Rising of the Moon, and then Tipperary. Tipperary sounded good. I finished as I passed the defunct toll booth, and decided to sing it again. I turned right onto the bridge just as I sang the first line,
The moon it shown down
and stopped dead in my tracks. The peak of Ulay Mountain, 700 meters overhead, was hushed in drapes of mists flowing in from Bucket Peak, a hundred meters higher than Ulay. Each valley showed a different tint of grey blue green, and the trees on each ridge stood clear in soft profile. The moon, three days shy of full, had just risen above the V between the peaks, with just enough light to stand away from the muted sky and to poke through the gentle mists.
Minutes later, I remembered to shut my mouth. If I live to be a hundred, I may be lucky enough to see something so beautiful again.

Sometimes I really can't figure out what's going on. Ever since Apollo 11, the standard of education in the US has been leaping downhill like an Olympic slalom racer. It's like we accomplished what we wanted with the moon shot and moved on to other things. Now His Travesty, The Most Exalted President Bush proposes a budget slashing funds for education. He's eliminating programs he doesn't think are necessary, such as arts, math, technology, foreign language, and drug-free schools (of course we all understand why he isn't in favor of drug-free schools).

Ok, sure, you can't be using money on kids when you could be spending that money for the war in Iraq. Think of all the Iraqis you could shoot for the price of a junior high school laboratory that the kids wouldn't appreciate anyway. American kids don't want an education, they want the latest basketball shoes. With fries. What do we need with arts, or math, or technology? Just outsource them. Foreign languages? You should hear some of those Indians on support lines, you would swear they grew up in Ohio. So why bother with foreign languages?

In the meantime, on another front, parents in California are preparing to sue the State, because California law requires students to pass tests to graduate from high school. They say it's unfair that their kids have to be able to read and write to graduate from high school, because it's hard to get a job without a high school diploma.

Well, duh! Some people have jellyfish where their brains should be. This kind of … no, I can't call it thinking…. cranial activity? …whatever… this kind of chaotic neuron firing shows precisely why standards in education are necessary: education is supposed to teach you how to think. They can't. Looks like the only job that'll be open for them is President of the US.

The world is such a confusing place. To protest a cartoon in a Danish newspaper depicting Islam as a violent religion, Muslims riot, kill innocent people, attack embassies, and assault a US army base.

The Danish journalists have received death threats. That should teach them to insinuate that Muslims are violent! However, the cartoons would not have received second notice if not for the hard work of Ahmed Abu Laban, the religious director of the Muslim Society in Copenhagen, who evidently endeavored to stir this up. It's interesting to hear him try to dismount the tiger now:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5195798

A recent headline tells us
MAN WHO SHOT THE POPE
FOUND UNFIT FOR MILITARY DUTY

I'm not sure what to do with that. On the one hand, why would they want someone like that in the military? On the other hand, hasn't he already proved that he can't shoot?

百行，孝為先。
甚麼叫做孝？
對父母好。
怎麼樣才是對父母好？
要孝順父母，就是對父母好。
為甚麼要孝順父母？
因為百行，孝為先。

這種思攷邏輯對社會一點好處都沒有。人云亦云，要孝順父母，但是孝道是甚麼，就不肯用心思攷：這就不孝。孝經薄薄一本，起碼拿出來翻一翻再噴飛口沫，可以吧。

如果父母要講孝，家庭教育已經告失敗。孝應該是子女理所當然流露出的，由衷的敬愛之心…講到此，好像已經跟現實開始脫節。現在家庭已不像已前，為生活重心。孩子生出來放小床跟父母隔離，喝奶粉長大，趕快送去給保母、托兒所、幼稚園、安親班、補習班管，然後責求孩子孝順。要求孝順，在很多父母嘴裡的意義有兩種：一、薪水帶回家敬奉父母；二、傳宗接代，生個寶寶，讓兩個老的有個玩具在鄰居面前炫。這種人常用一句壓人，不孝有三，喂喂喂，另外兩個是甚麼？管它的，生個寶寶來玩一玩。

不孝有三，這句不是孔子講的，是魯蛋弟子曾驂說的。曾驂對孝的觀念，總是很偏的，可能是因為是被虐兒童，長大成人，父親還是把他當出氣桶，拿棍子打，打到昏過去，快出人命了，驂以為忍住不逃就是孝順。這件事被孔子知道了，差點把曾驂開除，很誠摯地問他，你頭腦壞掉了是嗎？你以為你這樣算是孝順嗎？

真正孝順，是要量狀況而為。不忠不孝，不是人；但是盲目效忠、愚蠢孝順，對國家社會家庭有損無益。

pointed remarks on censorship
A furor has risen over American Internet companies complying with PRC requirements that they censor the Web in communist China. While I do not intend to be an apologist for any company or any government, I think the situation warrants another look.

The first point to remember is that world leaders dread political instability in China, and will go to any lengths to avoid the possibility of, say, eighty million Chinese refugees fleeing the country. Make noise, but better to keep the communists in power and let them hold the lid on the pot.

The second point to remember is that the PRC government, like all governments, places great importance on face and maintaining appearances. Yowling that they are in charge satisfies fat cats.

The third point to remember is that the PRC government, Yahoo, and Microsoft all know better than you or I how cunning Chinese hackers are. Example: Microsoft introduced a new package – I recall it was Windows 2000 – with the boast that the encryption was so perfect and so unhackable that nobody would ever be able to pirate it. The gauntlet had been flung down; the race was on. Taiwan won, cracking the encryption early in the afternoon of the first day of issue, and hackers in the PRC cracked it an hour or two later.

So tell me how Yahoo and Google are going to keep determined Chinese computer users from finding whatever websites they please. I think this is just a face-saving device. American companies have put up some nominal barriers for the PRC government, they make their money, US lawmakers make their headlines by denouncing Bill Gates, and everybody is happy. It would be nice if freedom of speech were enjoyed by all people everywhere, but since it's not, I can say with reasonable assurance that at the moment I write this, hundreds of thousands of Chinese hackers are happily hacking their way through the Great Wall of Chinese Internet.

friends inform me that the Stupor Bowl is being played today, but they neglect to tell me why I should give a hoot. I'd rather look at the cherry blossoms or watch Tlahuy and Yumin tussle.

more cherry blossoms

佛法能于中國發揚光大，立于儒家奠下的基礎；故佛子尊孔子為儒童菩薩。(佛法在西洋難扎根，也是因為無斯奠基。)

身安則道隆。身安，不止于溫飽安定，必心安理得才可立身安命。無法處理現實生活而圓頂是逃避，不是出家。必須要能處世怡然自得，才能出世。現實環境第一大課題，就是跟自己家人相處。沒有人生下來是出家人；每一個人生下來有父母。所以要能出世，必先知入世。立身安命之學，備于儒。

出世法不離入世法。

This morning shortly after 10:30 I was surprised to hear two eagles calling on the slope north of my house, because it was drizzling and eagles rarely fly or announce their presence in rain. One was calling sharply, the other practically cooing. I have never heard eagles coo. Then the shrieker flew directly south, past the back of my house, and flew away. A few minutes later the other eagle flew clockwise around my house and perched on the big camphor tree, where it cooed for several minutes. I have never seen eagles behaving so.

cherry blossoms in Wulai

oh boy, how exciting, it's
GROUNDHOG DAY!
hubba hubba

有一次我到六龜拜見廣欽老和尚時，來了三個中年佛子，程度都很高，各自準備了問題，與老和尚對對禪鋒。

他們問的問題都太深，記不得。我只記得第一位的問題的開始：假如有一個人，左手摸著非想天，右手摸著非非想天…天啊，問題又深又長，總于問完了，很滿意地看著老和尚，九十幾歲的老和尚回答：念佛。

第一個回到坐位，第二個上陣，問的問題更深更長，總于問完了，很滿意地看著老和尚，老和尚回答：念佛。

第二個回到坐位，第三個上陣，問的問題非常深非常長，總于問完了，很滿意地看著老和尚，老和尚回答：念佛。

第三個回到坐位。三個人排排坐，不講話，各擺深思狀。一回兒，老和尚似乎睡著了。片刻醒過來，站起來了，抖抖衣服，瞪三位飽學佛子，斥詈一句：妄想！走兩步又回頭，指著他們，厲聲補充說明：妄想！都是妄想！一搖一晃離去了。

the mist all blew away five minutes later.
Rain in the afternoon.
Figures.

未時，上坡的溫泉館放鞭炮，十分鐘不熄。知道是年節了吧。

民國六十幾年的臺北市，由尾牙到元宵，沖天炮不停；除夕從亥到丑，鞭炮不斷。不管在臺北哪一個角落，一樣只聽到轟隆炮爆聲，沒有方向、沒有距離。全市濃厚火藥味，久久而散。

說鞭炮危險嘛，製造鞭炮危險，玩鞭炮不一定危險。畢竟中國小孩比美國小孩能思考。兩個美國小朋友兩個爆竹怎麼玩？"I can hold it longer than you can!"兩個美國小朋友一個爆竹怎麼玩？"I dare you to stick it up your nose!" 中國人發明火藥，玩爆竹歷史悠久，那種基因大概在宋元明已經淘汰。玩鞭炮不一定危險，但是製造鞭炮危險：以前很多燄火工廠剎那間停止營業、拆員遷廠，到天國再會。為了讓這些燄火工廠裡煙癮發作的工人有機會傳香火，燄火業嚴格管理。現在這種炮風，都集中在鹽水。有意者自己去，俺不送，謝謝。

狗
年
旺
旺
旺

吉
歲
福
福
福
It's OUR year!!

偶讀歐陽修為范仲淹譔碑銘，引言，士當先天下之憂而憂之，後天下之樂而樂之。讀書人當為民備患于未然，而非為民肇禍。戒之，勉之。

雲遺嵐徙，飄渺御逸，有一對情侶在希螺岸山麓涼亭下，各夾長柄鼓/pot drum，迎著虛實遷眷的山景拍出有常無常的節奏。有人真懂得享受。

= Yugan, why are Americans so fat now?
=Junk food.
=Doesn't American food make you strong? Americans drink a lot of milk, don't they?
=That's one of the problems.
=What do you mean?
=Your body can't absorb calcium without phosphorous, so drinking milk alone is bad for your bones.
=Really?
=Sure, osteoporosis is a much bigger problem in the US than in Taiwan, because Americans drink more milk.
=But they say milk is good for you.
=Who says milk is good for you?
=Well… people who sell milk.
=See? If you want strong bones, stay away from milk. Eat leafy vegetables, because they have a high proportion of phosphorous to calcium, so your body can absorb lots of calcium. That's the way to build strong bones.
=Really?
=Sure, just think about how strong the Tayal used to be, and they never drank milk, did they?
=No, you're right, our people were much stronger before we started eating things like beef and milk.
=Because they ate a lot of wild vegetables, and millet.
=That's true. Our people had such strong bones that sometimes they might get hit by a headhunting knife without serious damage.
=Are you kidding?
=For real! Tayal are very strong, but sometimes we just don't think. Bones like iron, and heads like iron, too!
=How could that happen?
=When Tayal start doing something, sometimes we just do what we do and we don't think about it. So sometimes two men would be out clearing the underbrush, one working here and the other working there. They would be clearing out the underbrush, hacking and hacking with their headhunting knives, but they wouldn't think, Hey, he's over there, they just cut and cut and cut, and sometimes they would get too close and cut the other man.
=Then what?
=But usually the other man wouldn't be hurt too bad. These are headhunting knives and they chop down saplings with one cut, but the other man would not be cut too bad. Bones like iron, our Tayal had in the old days.
=Strong people.
=Right, and we didn't get that way by drinking milk or eating your American food!
=I know. The old folks weren't tall, but they were really strong.
=But Yugan, sometimes Tayal just don't think, they don't plan, so things like that would happen. I've served in the Army. They trained me how to plan so that sort of thing doesn't happen, but you know our old Tayal just don't have any brains at all. So sometimes they hit each other with the headhunting knives by accident, and the knife comes out worse than the Tayal.
=Amazing.
=Amazing how stupid we Tayal can be. No heads, no brains. Did you hear about Yutas and Yaki at the last community outing?
=No, what happened?
=You know we all went to that amusement park, right?
=I heard.
=They have this big heavy mallet, a ball, and a bell. If you hit the target hard enough with the mallet, the ball goes up and hits the bell. If your ball hits the bell you win a prize. Otherwise you can see your score.
=I know that sort of game.
=The Tayal took turns hitting the target, but although they are strong, they didn't hit the target on center, so the ball didn't hit the bell. Then Yaki said, You young men are useless, let an old lady show you how to do it, and she took the mallet.
=Then what happened?
=The mallet was heavier than she thought, so she could barely hit the target. So Yutas said, Yaki, you are useless, you are worse than the young men. Here, give me the mallet and I will show you how to hit the target so the ball hits the bell.
=Yeah, Yutas is an old man, but he's still strong.
=For sure, he chops all his firewood with an ax. So he said, Yaki, watch and I will show you how to use the mallet. Yugan, Tayal don't have any brains! Yutas took the mallet, and Yaki stood right behind him, watching over his shoulder. Yutas hoisted the mallet to give the bell a big hit, but he forgot Yaki was watching over his shoulder, so he knocked her clear out of the ring on the backswing!
=Was she hurt?
=No, the Tayal watching him caught her, but it ruined his swing.
=He should have gotten a prize for flinging his wife.
=I tell you, Yugan, we Tayal don't have any brains at all!

O'er the Laaaaaand of the Freeeeeeee
In 1950, the incarceration rates in the USSR under the heinous demon Josef Stalin was 1,423 per 100,000.
In 2002, the incarceration rates in the USA under the compassionate conservative George W Bush was 2,298 per 100,000.

Yeah, but if you let all those black people and Hispanic people out of jail and gave back their voting rights, how could a Republican get elected?

"In politics, stupidity is not a handicap." -- Napoleon Bonaparte

Loziq gave me a lift to the bridge, where I wait for the bus. Three Wulai Junior High boys were there already. They hailed us, "Yugan, where are you going?”

"I'm going to the city to teach."

"Loziq, where are you going?”

"I am going to the court to play basketball. Where are you going?”

"We have a game我們要打.”

I asked, "Game or a game?"打球或者打架?

"Some boys are coming to Wulai to fight," one answered. A bus zipped past us, coming in to Wulai. The boys strained to see who was on the bus.

"So we are going to advise them not to fight," another dutifully proclaimed, although his tone was dubious.

"Fight? Who's coming?”

"Some boys from Wufeng Junior High in the city.”

The littlest of them sneered, "They come to die." All other conditions being equal, I would place my money on kids who grew up scrambling up steep mountains, thrashing through rushing streams, and listening to the old folks reminisce about the good old days of headhunting, rather than on kids who grew up watching basketball on tv and listening to the old folks reminisce about the size of that squash 4th Uncle grew fifty seven years ago.

I could see a group of kids by the bus terminal. "Whose are those?" I asked.

"Wulai Junior High. Those are ours.”

"So you haven't seen the Wufeng kids yet.”

"No, and if they have any sense, they won't come and try to fight us.”

We could see the recently arrived bus stop at the terminal and disgorge passengers. The boys watched keenly. Aborigine kids have good eyesight.

"Fighting isn't good," I said. "If they want to come, they should enjoy our beautiful scenery.”

"Yes, Yugan, Wulai is beautiful, but we have to protect our land. They are the ones who want to come fight.”

"That's really stupid," I said. "Can't they find anything better to do with their vacation?”

"We didn't ask them to come … look, who's that getting off the bus now?”

"No, can't be one of them, look, he's with his parents.” The tension in the air was palpable.

"Yugan, we are going to go patrol." They climbed on a motorcycle. As they headed off, I told them, "Remember to keep your wrist straight when you punch." Huge smiles.

The mood was eager, tense, happy, and full of suspense. This is what I would call excitement.

IMHO, excitement is a word that Americans seriously abuse. A potter tells me he is excited about a new glaze. A teacher declares a student's particularly apt use of a difficult word exciting. A blog promises you can make a fortune marketing DVDs and implores you to send in "for truly exciting details." A glaze may offer intriguing possibilities and the prospect of engrossing experiments, wonderful discoveries, and surprising results. A student's use of a word may be indicative of great progress. This does not make them exciting, and, IMHO, nothing about marketing is remotely exciting.

It must be true that, as Master 心道法師 Hsindao said, "America is an 18 year old girl, always in love, always bubbling with enthusiasms."

I watched the boys motorcycle go down past the terminal. My bus came and I left. Evidently the city boys had some sense, because there was no fight.

As I walked uphill, three tiny little girls from the Tribe were coming downhill towards me, arms around each others' shoulders, all about first grade. As I approached them, I heard them saying, "1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3," and then they shouted all together, "Hiiiiii, Yugan!" and dissolved into giggles.

That's one of the nicest things that's ever happened to me.

Outside magazine admonishes me, "Every second you're not living life to the fullest is an opportunity missed," and proffers a list of 50 things to do before you die. The author of the first piece shows us how it's done by telling about a party he went to attended by the wife of the lead singer of some band I've never heard of; how someone he knows got invited to play golf with some actor I've never heard of; and how once he was 'standing several feet' from some model I've never heard of. Hmm, I'm not a very good student. I haven't figured out if living life to the fullest means performing those dreadfully boring frills, or name dropping. If living life to the fullest means playing golf with some actor, please, please somebody send me some cyanide.

Okay, let's try #2 on the Big 50 list. Climb an 8,000 meter peak. I love mountains and probably could not thrive without mountains, but I long ago gave up the dream of climbing an 8,000 meter peak. Above 6,000 meters, lack of oxygen causes continuous headaches. If you get a cut, it doesn't heal, for lack of oxygen. In the previous issue of the same magazine, Nick Heil described climbing an 8,000 meter peak: gravity, darkness, snow, ice, frozen boots, peeing in a bottle, runny nose, headaches, stomachaches, lethargy, dizziness, sleeplessness, and windburn. See what you miss by not living life to the fullest?

Also, you can't just whistle up your dogs and go. You need massive support teams and huge wads of money to climb the Himalayas. For a couple NT, I can get a plastic bag and a brick; I can cut off my oxygen with the plastic bag and hit my head with the brick, thereby simulating the 8,000 meter peak experience.

#3 is Race Hawaii's Ironman. 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike, and 26.2 mile run. Well, swimming and biking, maybe, but I don't enjoy running. Do I have to?

#4 is finally something I can grasp: Love a dog. Now we are talking about living. Why do you have to scream and shout to feel you are alive? I suppose I have had some adventures in my time; give me a minute and I am sure I can come up with something. But for me, living life to the fullest doesn't mean name dropping, torturing yourself, or spending gobs of money on equipment and training. Okay, I've thought of an adventure I had. When I was in Pasadena High, one night I bumped into a carload of vicious crazies who planned to take me apart with hammers and saws; I ran so fast that I outran their car. I've lived through big earthquakes, typhoons, and blizzards. I've seen things almost nobody has seen, such as a Viet Cong sentry standing at attention. But I didn't plan these things. I didn't go out seeking them. For me, living life to its fullest means taking each day as it comes and finding what is in it. Take a good look and see what you have right there in the palm of your hand.

And for gods' sakes, please don't make me play golf!

pathetic
A recent study in the US shows that fully one quarter of the people talking on cell phones in public actually do not have anyone on the other end of the line: they are just trying to look official and important.

I simply don't know what to say about this. But PIPE DOWN seems to be a good start.

In the last 35 years, altogether I have spent only several months in the United States. Because of this, some trends become apparent that may not be obvious to those who live there every day.

On my recent trip to New York, in a department store something struck me. Now you see all sorts of people together. When I was a boy, in Illinois, in DC, in LA, when you went someplace like Sears, you rarely saw black people. I don't think they were prohibited from entering, they just didn't go. That was Sears, much less Macy's or Sax! They were still separate. The prohibitions may have been struck down, but maybe black people felt uneasy, or just hadn't taken the steps in through the door. In airports, black people were redcaps, not passengers. Now you go to a department store, a restaurant, a theater, an airport, a mall, a bookstore, a clothing store, and everybody is together as they should be. If there is any tension, it isn't noticeable.

So progress has been made. There's still a long way to go, but it's not hopeless. People just have to take steps.

Happy birthday, Dr King, even if I am a bit late.

Monday night when I was firing pots outdoors on a bonfire, Yumin slipped off to go a-roving. Nothing new, but an hour later he hadn't returned. He usually doesn't stay away so long. Two hours later, he was still not back. I called, but no response: nothing new. He was still not back by the time I was ready for bed. That is unusual. I called and called, but no response. I fell asleep listening carefully to all the dogs on the mountain, but did not hear Yumin's distinctive beagling.

Tuesday morning I woke up because it was so quiet: no beagle barking at the morning light. He still wasn't back. I called. No beagle. I was not particularly worried about him having an accident in the jungle. He has lived in these mountains since he was 2 months old. He was brought up by Tlahuy and Bengax, who are plenty tough, and his short legs had to pump extra hard to keep up with their long running legs. He grew up tussling wild dogs, hunting dogs, snakes, and whatever happened his way. Yumin is as cute as all get-out, but he is also a rough tough fighter. I don't worry about anything happening to him in the jungle, but the road is another story. He goes down there, and no matter how agile he is, some of these drunk sightseers drive like maniacs. I went out for a quick walk around, especially down by the road. No beagle. I called. No beagle.

I had to spend the day in the city. A neighbor's dog walked all the way to the bus stop with me. This has never happened before. I was happy for the company. In the city, worry preyed on my mind. It's been almost exactly a year since Bengax died (January 18, 2005), and Yumin was deeply attached to her. He still sits pensively by her grave. Don't let this anniversary mean anything. When I got out of the subway terminal on my way home and stood waiting for the Wulai bus, something touched the back of my leg. I looked back to find a beautiful aborigine dog wagging its tail at me. I had never seen this dog before. He was dark with brown stripes, a striped face, and beautiful intelligent eyes. He played with me for a few minutes and then walked around a pillar and disappeared. I was happy for the company.

When I got home around midnight, still no beagle. Tlahuy was forlorn, but not very helpful. I went out back to feed Tlahuy and to call again. From uphill I heard a yelp. I grabbed my knife and a flashlight and set off uphill. When I got to Yata's vegetable patch where he loves to play, I called again, but the yelp was not repeated. I went further uphill. As I passed the shacks and called, I heard the yelp again. I called again, but no response. Tlahuy and I went to the shacks, and there I found Yumin trapped in a snare. Evidently he had been trying to investigate (discrete choice of words) Sinkang's henhouse. Sinkang had told me he had trouble with a python stealing his hens, so he probably set this snare for the snake, and caught a beagle instead.

His head and left foreleg had been caught in the snare. He was subdued as I very gently released him. As I rearranged Sinkang's snare, Yumin touched noses with Tlahuy and started staggering home. On the flat space by Yata's shack, under the bright moonlight, I sat down and called Yumin, but he walked slowly by me and jumped into the ditch, where he spent several minutes lapping up water. Then he came and sat in my lap. The snare had not cut into him, but he was exhausted and shaken. As we walked home, I was marveling at how meekly he walked, hardly his typical dog-of-war take-all-comers demeanor. He quietly sat down to polish off his bowl of kibbles, and second helpings too. Then he went to the doghouse and began to snore.

I hadn't thought to search uphill because I figured I would have heard Sinkang's dogs barking if Yumin were there. For some reason, Sinkang's dogs are gone. I still don't understand why Yumin didn't bark when I called earlier. Maybe pride? Maybe guilt? He may have thought he could get out of the snare by himself and didn't want me to find him there.

All's well that ends well. Maybe he's learned a lesson. But I doubt it.

野燒

燜

Voila

說文鹿部，麠，大麃也，牛尾一角。从鹿、畺聲。麖，或从京
{真沒想到Word也有麠字。了不起。連或體都有!}
麠似乎就是西方所謂的unicorn.

PS: 麠，舉卿切，ㄐ一ㄥ一聲。

古人說，「受命之士，正衣冠而立，儼然，人望而信之。其次，聞其言而信之。其次，見其行而信之。既見其行而眾皆不信，斯下矣。」古人沒有電視。現在從政者爭電視新聞十秒一言，所以講求形象，一句驚人，駭人聽聞。

古人所說儼然人望而信之，是品行修出來的威德，跟現代商品包裝的政員大相逕庭。現在，正衣冠而立，儼然，望而先不要信之，聞其言、見其行、多方思攷而後信也不遲。只怕現代電視民無法耐心思攷。電視廣告訓練我們，看到就要，不要思攷，趕快搶購。

On 南昌 Street near 南門市場 South Gate Market is a store called 雅式, pronounced ya-shi, roughly, elegant style. The store proudly displays a bilingual sign declaring itself in English to be the Royal Yasl, Yasl being somebody's brilliant transliteration of 雅式. Now, I don't care how carefully you enunciate, when you say that you are going to sound like you are discussing Our Beloved President Bushbaby, who, all patriotic Americans will agree, is a royal yasl.

A student of mine last year gave himself the Western name Axel. He probably thought it was a good, masculine, rough and tough name. the problem is that his pronunciation wasn't all that great. It was a real surprise to hear him say, “Hi, I'm Axel.”

He must be having a great time in the States by now. "Hi, what's your name?”
"Axel.”
"You too, sh|thead!”

遇到福山的朋友，好像很生氣。 "Yugan, mwah ktay qani bi!" 他拿一份報紙給我看。臺中一個裝潢師贈春聯，上聯說中華民國滾出臺灣。"Yugan，我們才是臺灣人。不是高山族、平埔族的，通通不是臺灣人，通通滾回大陸，還我們臺灣！"他越講越生氣。"春聯是中國的東西，不是我們臺灣的!殖民霸權回大陸，讓我們原住民好好過日子！”
"那我怎麼辦呢？”
"Yugan，你是外勞。你來幫我顧我家裡的狗好了。”

The banister on the steps needs replacing. This is the season to chop bamboo. The weather was pleasant, so I chopped some poles and wired them in place. I got the job half done, just enough exertion to feel pleasantly exerted, but I had misjudged. I should have noticed that the humidity was so high that the ground was like soup. The mosquitoes were out, and very happy to see me. I had been bitten so much that I was feeling short of breath: time to come indoors. It would be dark before long anyway. At the top of the stone steps, I glanced back and gasped at the sight of the moon, two days short of full, two palms over the ridge, shining brilliantly against the gloaming.

At dark, the sky was bright and speckled with stars. I poked my head outdoors from time to time to enjoy the moonlight and stars. Later in the evening I picked up a book to read before bed. Next time I stuck my head out, a gentle rain was spattering down. Good old Wulai weather.

About twenty years ago, negotiators seeking to do something about Japan's trade imbalance pointed out, Japan exports everything and imports nothing: not even dogs were allowed to be imported.

The Japanese delegation accepted that yes, maybe banning the import of dogs was a bit much. But, they said, if we import dogs, we have to have some sort of standards, we can't let people import mutts or something.

This was taken as a valid point, so the Japanese delegation retired to draw up their standards for an acceptable dog. They presented their standards: full grown dog should be about a meter tall, male should weigh about 50 kg, coat should be black, white, brindle, fawn, or combinations, and so on and so forth, and lo and behold, the only dog in the world that met these specifications was… the Akita.

In much the same way, northern Europeans used to say that the ideal environment for producing perfect people would be cold, so they had to struggle to stay alive, not hot where people would be slothful. Lo and behold, the perfect environment seemed to be nowhere but northern Europe. On the one hand, they neglected to note that the knowledge required to live in a cold climate can be much simpler than the knowledge acquired by people living in a rich jungle environment, where they may be familiar with thousands of plants and animals. On the other hand, when confronted by Siberian peoples, whose environment is far more rigorous than anything the blonds had encountered, the Nordics scorned the Siberians' perfect adaptation and masterful skills as 'primitive,' probably because they don't listen to Wagner out on the taiga.

Heads I win, tails you lose.

A middle aged man got on the bus wearing a baseball cap that had on it, TALK ENGLISH TO ME. I groaned. First, I detest baseball caps. Second, talk English to me is lousy English: speak English with me. Third, I knew what was coming. As soon as he saw me (sinking down into my seat, looking desperately out the window, cringing), his eyes lit up: opportunity! "Hello, sir!" He said in a voice loud enough for the entire bus to hear. Asses always have the loudest voices. "Hello, sir! How are you! Are you a teacher? You are the best teacher! How long you come Taiwan? Are you married? What's your name? You have children how many? You are the best teacher!" Do I have the right to remain silent? I do not wish to be ungracious. Am I obligated to engage in asinine conversation simply because you have put on a stupid hat? You don't have anything to say in the first place, why do you have to say it in English?

I said, "Uh, uh, uh," a few times, just to be civil, and scrunched down further into my seat. I considered putting my backpack over my head or hiding under the seat. I hope this is an isolated case. Is there some place handing out these idiotic caps? If there is, I'm going to get one of those French Foreign Legion caps, the kind with the flap down the back. If I spot somebody wearing a TALK hat, I'll turn around the cap covering my face with the flap, and on the flap I will have written SHUT UP.

+=+=+=+
PS: writing this has triggered a long-repressed memory. When I came to Taiwan, there were very few foreigners walking loose on the streets. Society here in those days was, shall we say, less sophisticated. From time to time you would be accosted by a total stranger who would pump your hand, fling his other arm around your shoulder, and say, "Hello, you my best friend, you teach me English." Then he (invariably he, never she) would reach into his bag and drag out a notebook full of execrable English and ask interminable questions about grammar. And the problem was that these were never people you would find personable or want to deal with anyway. They confined their efforts to untangling the minutiae of dreadful grammatical quandaries, and never had any inclination to learn to actually use the language or talk about anything. This was common enough that we even had a term for them: English leeches.

My dog, maybe I've met this guy in the baseball cap before.

從前常被一個問題問倒：「枸杞」英文怎麼講？答不出來。美國沒有枸杞。

時代不同了。畢竟枸杞是健康極品，現在美國進口，所以有答案了。枸杞英文怎麼講？Goji berries。有道理吧。