Today is my favorite holiday on any calendar: 中秋節, the Moon Festival. Only the Chinese would have a holiday that is not to glorify any religion or great ego or patriotism, and has no more utilitarian value than to enjoy the full moon.

And eat. In China, everything is seen as a good reason to eat. In recent years the custom has arisen in Taiwan to barbecue and gorge as you watch the moon. Be that as it may, there's another great attraction (for me) to the Moon Festival: mooooon cakes, yummy rummy.

A further attraction: the Mid Autumn Moon Festival means that summer is over, and cooler weather is on the way. Cooler is a relative term. Usually it's around 17C in Wulai on the big night. Typically it is cloudy at dusk and moonrise for this holiday. The moon peeks out from behind the clouds at around 8:30, and at 9, just about when all the sightseers have gone back to the city, the moon shines brightly. But you really can't have a moon festival without some clouds to play with the moon.

One year it poured on the great night. Some of my friends, confined to their dorm by the gale, cut a circle out of white paper, stuck it up on the wall, and ate their moon cakes beneath their own private moon. Good enough.
________
photo courtesy of Chao

Something I learned in Tae Kwon Do: some people have such powerful side kicks/側踢 that you can't block them. If you root your stance and put up a strong block, they'll just break your arms. What you want to do in a situation like that is take the kick on your forearms and float with it. If you catch it at the right angle, and the kick is powerful enough, you can spin around and use his power to launch a reverse roundhouse (後旋踢). Otherwise, float with it and be prepared to come back the instant you set down, and dog help you if you stumble. You're safest if you never even give the opponent a chance to kick.

A lot of life is like that.

Writing this reminds me of the time someone fighting in a tournament around 1969 fouled on Joe Lewis, which was definitely not a good move. (Joe Lewis was a Marine bodybuilder who picked up karate when he was stationed in Okinawa, and returned to the US to become a champion fighter and famous bad boy.) Lewis kicked him with his famous side kick; the guy blocked it, the kick broke his arm and pushed the bones into his ribs.

Here's something most people probably don't know. Freshly cut cherry wood has a rich, sweet smell.

Yesterday I took the dogs out for a little hike. Coming home, I saw that one of the roadside cherry trees had been culled and thrown by the road to return to the earth. Some of the wood still looked nice, so I chopped off a section to bring home. When I got home, I put it inside for the time being. This piece has an unusually strong smell. Now the whole house is full of that rich smell.

前幾天提到帶書在山中看。山中靜寂亙長，適合多想一些事。這就是為甚麼很多人帶收音機、CD、ipod到山裡：為了逃避自己。

大學時，有一年我過年到玉山，滿腦子是大學。(注：第一大學是學校，第二大學是書。)我趁過年去，因為算準山裡一定沒有人，大家回家團圓:民國六十幾年，登山風氣不盛。當時我跟平地人說要去爬山，一般無法了解這種觀念，閩南人尤其如此；年紀越大越不能接受登山這種想法。很多老人家還好心勸我不要到山上，因為他們活在日據時代的陰影下：他們告訴我，日據時代，土匪蠻橫，善良平民不敢出村門；心猶有餘悸，很多上了年紀的閩南人憂心忡忡地告訴我，如果不得已一定要在山上過夜，千萬記得捲成一圈，下巴貼胸，這樣土匪要割喉比較難。一方面他們明明知道國民政府來臺以後沒有土匪，另一方面，昔年留下的恐懼太深。他們對臺灣的山有敵意。在他們觀念中，爬山等于送死。他們看我背背包開心往山上走，總是婉惜的同時懷疑我頭腦有問題。大概吧。

後來讀臺灣歷史，比較了解。先來的外省人來臺，泉漳相仇廝殺，閩人不敢涉足客家村，漢人不肯入山，除非冬補獵「番」。留在家裡最安全。日本統治者鼓勵這種想法；百姓比較容易駕馭。可能是這個關係吧，我剛來臺灣的時候，原住民與後來外省人外，深山裡不太有人。好哇，留個清靜的山。

不出所料，除夕中午過後到達排雲山莊(即玉山頂峰下的招待所)，除了管理員以外，只有我一個人。管理員看到我來，非常高興，因為他本來以為要一個人過除夕夜；縱使高鼻子的外國人，也勝沒有人。為了慶祝過年+禦寒，他給我一碗很濃很濃的薑糖水。我很快就冒汗了。

管理員是河南人。他說他家鄉是平原沒有山，他來臺灣的時候很好奇看看臺灣的山是甚麼個模樣。他不怕冷，沒有家眷，派來排雲山莊很適合。過年過節很想家就是了。

我選過年爬山還有一個原因：雪。大年初一早上睡醒的時候，室內溫度零下五度。過癮。只有一個問題：鞋子。我腳大，到今天在臺灣買鞋子不容易買，何況三十年前。我在萬華的tsa la chi(我不會寫：小偷市場，在YMCA附近。據說是小偷脫手的地方)買了一雙軍鞋，充當登山鞋。鞋子的貨源只怕不是小偷，是騙子，因為好像是冒牌貨。還不到排雲山莊，一腳的鞋跟開始脫落。釘子刺到腳，我找了一片石頭塞進去，還可以，可是走久了要鏟雪。那個腳有點冷。

吃了一點熱糧，就出發了，往山頂走。已經幾天沒人走過，雪深，步道不好找。繼續下雪，風滿大，一步一步走，滿腦子都在想，欲治其國者，先齊其家，欲齊其家者先修其身，欲修其身者先正其心，欲正其心者，先誠其意；這句把我搞糊塗了；為甚麼正心要誠意？我卡在一個觀念，把誠當誠懇想，對待它人的信用；說文說，誠，信也。我突然想通了。這個誠字不是對別人，是觀照自心要誠，要洞察自己的起心動念，不可躲躲藏藏，不可給自己找臺階下，不可有藉口，要盡誠意探索赤裸裸的心。

這個想清楚了就通暢了，可是雪不停地下，風不斷地吹，越走鞋跟越開，另一隻鞋也開了口，一兩步就鞋裡雪很多。雪深過膝，不大好走，而且越高步道越難找。風很大。我決定了：目的是爬山，有沒有到頂無所謂，這種天沒有view，反正「誠」弄清楚了，其它，隨便。

回頭往排雲山莊，就想，中國字實在太好玩。「ㄣ」是「隱」本字；十目看，能隱嗎？不成，所以十目盯住ㄣ是「直」；直心是悳，但要付諸「行」動才算數，所以悳後來加了ㄔ成為「德」字。真妙。

回到了排雲山莊，管理員看到我，大笑說，「你看你這副德性。」原來我後腦漏出帽子外面的頭髮都結冰了。

「到了山頂嗎？」

「沒有，雪太深，風太大，到了上面那個風口我看不好過，就回頭了。」

「沒關係吧。」

「沒關係，踏到雪了，爬了山了，夠了。」我就準備下山…這又是一個故事，改天吧。可是直視本心為德，德又是甚麼？我到現在還不清楚。我看，我必須到山上走走，也許會想通。沒想通也好，有山就好。

Not only had her family not brought Agniya up to believe in God, but in the past when one had been obliged to go to church her mother and grandmother did not go, did not observe the fasts, did not take Communion, snubbed the priests, and always ridiculed religion because it had accepted serfdom so easily. Her grandmother, mother, and aunt had their own creed: always be on the side of those who were oppressed, arrested, pursued, and persecuted by the authorities. Her grandmother had evidently been known by all the "People's Will" revolutionaries because she gave them refuge in her home and helped them in whatever way she could. Her daughters took after her and hid fugitive Social Revolutionaries and Social Democrats. And little Agniya was always on the side of the rabbit that was being hunted, of the horse that was being whipped. As she grew up, this came to mean, to the surprise of her elders, that she was for the church because it was being persecuted.

Whether she came thereby to believe in god or forced herself to believe, in any case she insisted that it would now be ignoble to avoid church, and to her mother's and her grandmother's horror she began to attend services and little by little came to care about them.
--- The First Circle, Chapter 23, The Church of St John the Baptist

美國民主黨的標誌是驢，共和黨是大象。臺灣的黨沒有這種代號。

如果有的話，用甚麼呢？

國民黨可以用藍鵲。很漂亮，可是飛不太起來，因為尾巴重。漂亮歸漂亮，叫聲不好聽。

民進黨，非青蛙莫屬。叫聲非常響喨，這是我的地盤你滾開你滾開！不然就是坐在井底說天星都聽他的。

至于李登輝的臺聯，這就不能用動物代表：咖啡色黨最適合的是木乃伊。曾經是國王，可是時代已經過去很久很久了。

The other day I finished rereading The First Circle ~~do I have to annotate that it was written by Solzhenitsyn? And that Hamlet was written by Shakespeare?

I suppose I read The First Circle twice by the time I was 25, and at least twice since, but it's been years since the last time I read it. What surprised me reading it this time was howmuch I learned from Solzhenitsyn.

In his best work, Solzhenitsyn doesn't tell you: this is what to believe. Especially in The First Circle, his characters argue many standpoints, and each life portrays its own standpoint. The reader weighs everything.

I have been very lucky. I remember when Solzhenitsyn was first being translated into English; I devoured all his early works as soon as they were available, although I sort of bogged down by 1919 and The Gulag Archipelago.

My major in college was Chinese Lit (師大國文). Our teachers did not bother with trying to attract students with appealing course lists: almost everything was required. Take this, it's good for you. But we learned from the giants of China, in philosophy, in literature, in etymology and phonology, in calligraphy, and in history. Even if we never became giants, we stood on their shoulders and looked at life and at the universe.

Our teachers told us, We do not read literature or philosophy from the Ming or Ching periods (in other words, anything written after about the 14th century) because it is still too new. It hasn't passed the test of time. You can read it yourselves, you don't need guidance, you can handle the material by yourselves. But in class, our courses concern those works which have stood up to the scrutiny of many generations, and which you may have difficulty studying unassisted.

I suppose if I had taken a less rigorous major, I could have earned credits in Movie Criticism or Studies in Contemporary Advertising Strategies, and I would not have had such a workout.

人生最難處理的是人際關係。越親越難。生疏的人，以禮儀相處，否則不理他就罷了。如何跟親人相處，是一門很難的學問。

可能也是因為自心不正，不敢直視本心，所以投射于日日相聚的人。

唐朝有一家九代同堂，早婚長壽故。因為千載難逢，唐太宗特地親自架臨。戶長由一位約六十歲的子嗣當的。皇上問，九代同堂，如何修身齊家？如何與九代相處？戶長不語，要了紙筆，寫了「忍」字百張。

九二八祭孔大典由馬市長主祭，President Bean缺席。去參加一下有甚麼關係嘛~~禮義廉恥是管仲講的，不是孔子。免驚。

從前住中橫的，不是山胞就是山東人，因為山東人忠信可靠，又不怕冷，所以這條重要幹道由他們守護。那時沿路很多小孩講話都是山東音。

我向來愛山，尤愛臺灣的山。大學時，冬天一有假就往山裡跑(夏天去浮潛)。經常到大禹嶺借住救國團招待所，去的時候通常只有我一個人住。負責招待所的陳世華先生看到我又爬上階梯來了，就不講話，掉頭往裡面走，拿幾個饅頭出來給我，說，你又來爬山了，再往裡面走，找東西給我吃。我沒記錯的話，民國六十一、二年，大禹嶺的人口是七。可是其它「村」的同鄉時常來串門子。

他們的生活很簡樸。有一次我跟陳先生要了一張名片。他思索了一回，慢慢從架子上拿了一條煙，把尾巴端的那片紙板小心撕下來了，在抽屜摸索找出一枝筆，在紙板上一筆一畫寫成他的名片。你大概沒注意過吧，一條煙盒尾端的那一片紙板，剛好也是名片的尺寸。

因為我趁假期去，所以常把課本帶在背包。山中讀古書，韻味尤佳。有一次課業是左傳；招待所只有我一個客人，我坐在通鋪榻榻米上靜靜地看，一個同鄉老兵(其實不老；中年人)看到問我，你在讀書嗎？
是。
讀甚麼書？
左傳。
讀到哪兒？
我就把我讀的那一句念出來了，沒想到，老兵接下來把那段念完──背誦的。我傻眼。怎麼那麼巧，剛好我念的這段他會背？他笑笑說，隨便翻開找一段念。好，我隨便翻，念了一句，他馬上接口繼續念下去。試了四五段，從隱到哀，一字不漏。

我目瞪口呆，左傳不容易懂，還有人背！他說他小時候十三經都背了，只是爾雅與周禮念比較不順。可惜學業未成，日本人發動戰爭，家破人亡，他只好投筆從戎。戰爭勝利，正想重飭學業，毛澤東搞局，他知道毛澤東手下的讀書人沒日子好過，就隨軍來臺灣。

講到此，他搖搖頭，站起來往廚房叫，老陳！咱們再喝一杯兒，俺就該回去了。他對我說，小老弟，俺不吵你了，你好好讀書吧。

從前，美加對面巷子裡開了一家素食自助餐，天喜，69塊吃到飽，菜色多，東西好吃，又便宜，氣氛佳，很多吃葷的人愛吃，一兩年生意好到把老闆累垮了，停止營業，實在可惜。生意太好，大家擠在一起盡情吃美味的菜，所以大家都很親切。常常兩個人的話題，即使不認識，全桌人都加入。
一個美加的學生常在天喜碰到，常聊天；他念法律，很優秀。有一次星期天模攷講解後下課，他女朋友來接他，剛好我在南陽街遇到他們。打了招呼，誇了男生幾句，因為確實是個人才。講完，他女友轉過去看他的崇拜眼神，讓我感受到，我當老師能這樣，也就夠了。

前幾天有人問我得過甚麼獎。想一想，這生我幾乎沒有拿過獎，只有高中畢業時拿了個甚麼歷史獎；畢業典禮舉行時我已經離開學校一萬多公里，所以沒有關係。問我有沒有得過甚麼教師獎之類的，我教書是為了錢不是為了獎。說真的，把我放在臺上拿獎，叫大家鼓掌，多尷尬。這樣講不是酸葡萄，是孤癖成性。我不喜歡熱鬧、大群場面。對我來講，學生進步是最好的獎。雖然這樣講很噁心。

Spinach all over the US has bee recalled due to some sort of contamination.

Oh no! What will Popeye do?

The worry has entered my peevish little mind that I haven't alienated my readers recently. Readers? Readers? This blog has readers? Well, let's suppose. Make believe.
Pause here while I consider the pros and cons of installing a hit counter on my blog… do I really want to know?
Ok, let's roll up our sleeves and get to work. I wish to state that wedding photos are silly and vapid. People don't look like their wedding photos, thank heavens, so what are they preserving memories of? A fantasy totally divorced from reality? (please remark my choice of words: intentional)

It would be better to find a friend with a camera and ask that friend to shoot pictures of the great day. No, that won't do, it's not enough of a hassle, and nobody is making money off of it. I suspect that many couples secretly pretend they are celebrities, movie stars being photographed for fancy magazines. That's why they hire a cameraman to get in everybody's way to film the event and make CDs nobody will ever watch. Nothing is more realistic than marriage, the day after day year after year joy and turmoil of accommodating another soul in your life. Fantasy does not seem a good way to kick it off.

But fantasy is lucrative. According to a study by the Fairchild Bridal Group, in 2005 the average American wedding cost US$26,327. That's average for the whole country, and then you consider that the divorce rate in the US is 50%. In this respect the US is better off than Argentina, where the divorce rate is 200%. But still, twenty-six thousand bucks is a lot for a party that has an even chance of ending with both participants spitefully setting fire to a big pile of glossy wedding photos and trampling on the ashes.

Consideration should be given to the suggestion by Ky Phong Tran, a Viet Kieu in Cali, that weddings be carried out privately on a small scale, and public feasts and celebrations be held only when the couple has proved their staying power, on an anniversary of the wedding.

Maybe when they've been through a couple years together, they'll have the sense and maturity not to dress up in those ridiculous outfits to strike preposterous poses for the camera.

Once I read an article about the hierarchy in science. The author said that the more removed a science is from our daily lives, the more prestigious it is. Physics, especially concerning the Big Bang, is at the top of the ladder; I still remember his well-turned phrase: "the important science of meteorology is beneath notice.”

This afternoon I was reading yet another paean of gushing enthusiasm for Einstein. All due respect to Einstein, who was a great genius, but was he the only genius? Was inventing the Xerox machine easier than discovering relativity? I don't think so, but please tell me the name of the man who invented the photocopier. Yes? See? Because a photocopier is something we can't do without, there's one in every office and convenience store, but relativity has almost no direct bearing on our everyday lives.

I do remember the guy who invented the photocopier lived in Pasadena. I think. California, anyway. Well, definitely the West Coast.

A story about Viet Nam
I wrote this in 1980.
_________
Ngo was about my age, born and raised in Hue.

When he was in grade school, he and a classmate were down by the bridge when they saw an anti-Diem demonstration. Tanks came, and his friend was shot dead by a tank. Ngo showed me the stone put up on the spot in commemoration.

He was a teenager in 1968, when Hue fell to the Viet Cong in the Tet Offensive. He saw the attempt by the VC to liquidate the intelligentsia, the opposition, and almost everybody else not rabidly communist. Walking around his hometown, he saw hands waving futilely from the earth, the hands of people trying feebly to claw a hole out of pits where so many of them had been buried alive.

I met Ngo in Quang Tri in 1974: six years after the assault, six years after the great massacre of Hue intellectuals, two years after the nearby massacre of thousands of peasants fleeing from communist aggression. We did not know it was the last summer of the Republic of Viet Nam. We were trying to rebuild a schoolhouse on a desolate patch of sand that had been a city before the 1972 invasion.

Ngo's philosophy of life he explained to me one night as we listened to the drumming of the North Viet Namese psychological warfare troops a kilometer away across the border:

"Prayers don't stop tanks.”

買東西，朋友問價錢的話，從他的反應可以看出很多。
有人，不管你說買多少錢，他一定說「太貴啦！」甚至「你被騙了」。有人就說「很便宜，你賺到了」。心態不同。你是屬于哪一種人？

講到此，想起美國一個故事。 Somebody bought a house in a development called Eaglewoods for $400,000. He really liked the house, but after he bought it, he was thinking maybe he had paid too much for it.

A few days later he went to a party, where he told one of his friends about the house, and was wondering if he had paid too much for it. His friend said, "There's my brother-in-law, he's in real estate, let's ask him," so they did. They asked the brother-in-law, "What do you think about the real estate in Eaglewoods?”

The brother-in-law said, "Eaglewoods? Great investment, you can't go wrong, because let me tell you, you can get a great return on your investment. Why, just the other day some stupid idiot paid $400,000 for a house there!”

男友也好，
女友也好，
不要怒友才好
吃飯時我前面坐著一對情侶，男的講甚麼，女生的反應一致，不是裝生氣臉就是出手假裝要打人。說可愛、撒嬌嘛，再看她眼神，其實這應該是她真正個性的表露。我很想跟男的說，十年二十年你要活在她脾氣的陰影下嗎？

幾年前看過托福班上一個男生，每次選錯答案，握拳輕輕地貼在女友臉上，我幾乎忍不住要當場叫女生趕快逃命。現在熱戀中他一點點挫折的處理法只有拳頭，現在拳頭輕，將來必定越來越重，這是可以保證的；這種人妳敢跟他住嗎？
(我怕講出來女生下課被修理，只好暗示一番，希望她聽董了。)

被配偶打的人失去信心，以為真的是自己不好，會幫對方想藉口，想要改變他。

打配偶是絕症，有一絕對有二有三有四數到死，別想改變他，自己先逃生要緊。
________
按：現在提倡男女平等的時代，有寫「他/她」，很礙瞻觀，我不喜歡這種寫法，可是虐待配偶不是男人的專利。要看誰的業障重。

listen to the cicadas, watch the mist

east and southeast
tring ngasan ku, Pinsknus, Uray

relax a bit, watch the mist, listen to the mountain.
ngasan ku, Pinsknus, Uray

我不了解時事，我有幾個問題想請大家幫我解釋一下，多謝多謝。

一、當年的口號是「換人作作看」。人換了，請問，六年來為國民作了些甚麼？看得出來嗎？
二、就任時，某人說，尹清風命案一定要嚴辦，絕對要察到水落石出，否則決不罷休；請問「水落」與「水扁」不一樣嗎？
三、字典上說，「挺」是直立的意思，「扁」是平薄的意思，請問，挺扁兩個字不是反義詞嗎？
四、秘密外交是甚麼？是不是秘密把錢送到外國交給銀行？
五、面對臺灣的問題，我們應該為全民的前途著想，或者為政黨集權著想？
六、臺灣的問題，我們是要改善、昇華，或者要情緒化、加深百姓的敵對？
七、為甚麼政府不再用「團結就是力量」這個口號？
八、三十年前，臺灣各各角落，常看到「炎黃子孫都是同胞」的標語，為甚麼現在看不到？
九、假如最近臺灣民眾的活動果真中了中共的計謀，假設最終目的是要顛覆中華民國政府，這不就證明幾十年前蔣中正、國民黨講對了嗎？
十、假設最近臺灣民眾的活動果真是中共的計謀，是不是表示臺灣民眾都是傻瓜，很容易上中共的當？如果是這樣的話，需不需要控制一下、預防陰謀得逞？如果是這樣的話，當年關黨外的人有甚麼不對？
十一、假設最近臺灣民眾的活動果真是中共的計謀，為甚麼那麼多人熱烈相應？是不是表示中共比民進黨更了解臺灣民眾的需求？
十二、你認為所有不如意的事都可以歸咎於中共？可不可能有些事情是執政者自己不完美？如果執政者是人，不是神，作事也會犯錯，他們一概把事情推的很乾淨，這是一種負責任的作風嗎？