極右與我說，陳總統執政黨八年毫無建樹，不得怪他，因為他接國民黨執政五十年，所以甚麼都不能作。

臺灣政治第一律：全怪國民黨的錯。

問： 說國民黨對臺灣沒有貢獻，可是毛澤東要血洗臺灣，國民黨捍衛臺灣，救了大家。

右答： 二二八！

問： 二次世界大戰，美國本要殺進臺灣，蔣中正不允許，因為怕傷到臺灣人民。

右答： 二二八！

問：國民政府本不准洋煙洋酒垃圾食品進臺灣，怕影響人民健康。

右答： 二二八！

問： 三七五減租呢？

右答： 二二八！

問： 美國看在蔣中正面子上派艦隊保衛臺灣？

右答： 二二八！

問：美國看在蔣中正面子上辦美援送了巨款幫助臺灣的建設？

右答： 二二八！

問： 把臺灣現代化？

右答： 二二八！

問： 臺灣奇蹟？

右答： 二二八！

問： 十大建設？

右答： 二二八！

問： 六十年代竟挫敗共匪外交攻勢，令全世界嘆為觀止，且救了臺灣。

右答： 二二八！

問： 六十年石油危機，臺灣安全過關。

右答： 二二八！

問： 教育普及？

右答： 二二八！

問： 日據時代，臺灣以髒亂聞名，後來新生活運動把臺灣洗乾淨了。

右答： 二二八！

問：…這個嘛…阿姆斯壯登陸月球？

右答： 二二八！

我的目標絕不是要為國民黨辯白，只是希望我們可以就事論事，不要一味墨守黨的教義。一味堅持己見，死腦筋，不負責任、敢作不敢當、拒絕冷靜、客觀、多面思攷，用情緒、幻想代替理性、踏實，對臺灣有害無益。

看過孫子走路不專心跌倒哭了，阿媽教他打地板、懲罰地板，可能有人這樣養成推卸責任、遷怒轉怪它人的習慣。我個人欣賞敢作敢當的人、能誠實為自己行為負責的人。

至于陳總統執政失敗的原因，是不是出于國民黨，我們回想一九九零年吧。我想再偏激的人也會說臺灣1990年的情形比捷克、波蘭好很多；再盲信黨教的極右份子也不敢把蔣中正的國民黨與史達林的共產黨比。可是捷克、匈牙利、波蘭等國掙脫蘇聯五十年的虐政，現在2008年他們的視野、魄力、計畫、遠見、開放、踏實、政策各方面遠遠超過陳總統政權所能比的。

A mother boarded the subway with her son: about junior high, around 160cm, over 85 kg easy, big bones soft flesh; ankles thicker than my calves, heavy shoulders big belly, the kind of figure you get only by eating lots and lots of junk food and shunning exercise; a face set for scowls and frowns, no smiles. He had his MP3 earphones in place before they got on the train, and a moment after they sat he was already immersed in some handheld video game, totally ignoring his mother as well as the rest of reality. She made a call or two on her cell phone, and said a few words to him, but nothing penetrated.

“Mother’s too busy to cook tonight, so Father is bringing home a Happy Meal.”

“Father is busy now, go watch television.”

“Look at the toy Father brought you from Mickey D.”

“Mother’s is busy now, go watch television.”

“Father doesn’t have time now. Go watch television.”

“Mother doesn’t have time now. Go watch television.”

“Father bought you a handheld video game for your birthday.”

“Mother doesn’t have time to cook. Let’s go out for a quick dinner.”

“Father is too busy to bring home a Happy Meal. Here’s some change, go to Mickey D and order whatever you like.”

“Go watch television after you’ve done your homework.”

“Father doesn’t have time. Go watch television.”

“Mother doesn’t have time. Go watch television.”

“Father bought you the newest video game for your birthday.”

“Get yourself a soft drink to go with your hamburger and fries. Super size.”

“Go watch television.”

“Go play your video game.”

“Go watch television.”

.

..

...

“Why do you spend so much time playing video games?”

Lately I’ve been trying to figure something out. Let’s go through this real slowly, step by step.

Step 1. Most of us have to work for a living. It would have been nice if Dad had left me a fortune so I could spend my days flitting around the world in my private jet, but that’s not how things worked out in my family; probably in most families.

Step 2. In today’s society, a diploma usually helps find a nice job with good pay. Unless you want to spend your lifetime flipping burgers, you need an education. I haven’t looked up the statistics, but I would assume that most of those living comfortably ~~ say members of the middle class ~~ have a pretty good diploma.

I hope everybody is nodding in agreement.

Step 3. Those who have a nice job with good pay usually live longer and are healthier than those who toil for low pay in lousy jobs, so there is something to be said for getting a degree of some sort.

Is everybody following me? If there are no questions, let’s go to Step 4.

Step 4. Getting a degree of some sort requires a lot of work; if nothing else, it requires that you show up at school consistently, at least when roll is called.

Now the next step, Step 5, is tricky, but if you think about it, you will probably say it’s a pretty accurate summation of how things stand.

Step 5. Females get pregnant; males don’t get pregnant.

No objections to that one? Okay, on to Step 6.

Step 6. Say students, teenagers for example, have a baby. They may not want to have a baby, but mistakes happen, especially when inexperienced teenagers fool around. Not all babies are the result of planned parenthood. The father may sincerely want to do his best for his woman and kid. So he quits school to get a job and goes to work, but what kind of job can you get with a high school diploma? Low pay, long hours, hard work. What if the kid didn’t have a chance to finish high school? Low pay, long hours, hard work cause stress. Stress builds up. Stress is not good for relationships, especially marriage. Most marriages of this sort don’t last.

Step 7. Even if the mother has managed to stay in school, having a screaming baby doesn’t do a lot for your concentration. By the time this mother reaches whatever degree she manages, she has probably not committed 100% to her studies; she has not fulfilled her intellectual potential, because she has a kid to take care of; even if her husband divvies the duties equally, that’s 50%, time she could have spent developing her skills and abilities.

Step 8. A woman can be more than just a womb for bearing babies. A woman can find more fulfilling things to do than have babies.

Are we all together so far? The reason I am going into this is that I was reading feminist theory that asserted that the patriarchy denied women sexual freedom in order to deprive them of happiness.

Translation Exercise: Pearls of Chinese Wisdom

原文：心花怒放

英譯：Heart flower angry put!

素食館公告欄貼一張零亂的傳單

佛咒用梵音念才正確

我念大悲咒、一切如來全身舍利咒、虛空藏咒，都是「梵音」，可是我很清楚，我發音很不標準，若是給世尊聽的話，一定把他老人家給笑哭了。我最常持往生咒，習慣用國音，這就表示無用嗎？難道兩千年來中國修行人都無公德，因為念國音不念梵音嗎？更何況，同一種語言的native speaker發音往往偏差很大；那麼請問，是不是要發音與釋迦牟尼完全相同，持咒才有效？胡說。我個人喜歡念「類似梵音」，好玩嘛！可是持咒要點在于心。Love 這個字，臺灣沒有幾個人念「對」，可是很有心用臺灣腔跟愛人說I love you，愛人不可能說，發音不標準，拒收！

那張傳單，說實在的，很亂，看起來心很不平靜。上面還手寫很多驚語，其中一條：

信佛的人身上要帶三部金剛經

我學佛。說信佛，層次太低了吧；畢竟不是基督徒、伊斯蘭教徒，因為我不肯『信』偶像。學佛，小疑小悟、大疑大悟。信佛的人是誰？

三部金剛經？多累贅！我剛入佛門時學到一句很棒的教誨：學佛要放下煩惱。不要頭上安頭；如果出門只帶了一部經，少兩部怎樣？金剛經教我們不要著相；說身上要帶經，好笑吧。

學佛要放下煩惱。通常經幡像舊了就燒燬；從前聽過人說，佛經、佛像舊了不可以燒，燒了不敬；主張收在櫃子裏。放櫃子等櫃子舊了總有人拿去丟掉，並沒有比較好。高僧活佛舊了都要燒燬，經書華幡佛像舊了也該燒。不要給自己增添很多限制、規矩、煩惱。

丹霞劈佛；心存金剛經，足矣。持咒，發音再爛，心繫焉，足矣。管它的。

East is East and West is West.

One of the pipes that delivers water to our towers from the spring was gouged by Town Hall’s careless roadwork. An American would examine the pipe to discern the manufacturer and material of the pipe, measure the hole with calipers, and proceed to the hardware store to buy a patch just the right size and the glue for that particular brand of pipe, and come back with a sheet of instructions to patch the hole.

We looked at the hole and shook our heads. Fu measured it with his thumb and went home. He rummaged around and came back with a Hello Kitty refrigerator magnet and a strip of cloth torn from his baby grandson’s old towel. The magnet fit the PVC pipe just right, and the towel stretched enough to hold it on tight. It’s worked fine for two years now, and they didn’t want the Hello Kitty magnet anyway. Would you?

I have been shooting a bamboo flatbow for some months now. It could hardly be simpler, just a length of bamboo cut, shaped, and mounted with a string. To improve my shooting, I have been reading up. An American guide to traditional archery (ie, without all those pulleys, sights, and shock absorbers) introduces, among a myriad of other tools, gadgets, scientifically designed armguards, and officially approved quivers, a special pair of pliers for attaching nock sets!

Bet you don’t even know what a nock set is. They’re put on the string so the arrow doesn’t slip up or down. Bet you didn’t know you could buy specially designed pliers for attaching those nock sets! And there’s more than one brand on the market! And don’t forget the bow square, a scientific instrument you use to determine the nocking point, because you certainly can’t just judge by looking at the string or (gasp!) pull it before you have measured it scientifically! If you haven’t rushed out and bought some nock sets and nock set pliers yet, let me inform you that you can just as well tie off the string with dental floss (credit where credit is due; the book did mention that one.)

Last time I went to buy arrows, at a store on the outskirts of Taipei, the boss asked me what kind of target I use: old cardboard boxes. He suggested I find an old worn-out 棉被 cotton blanket and shoot at that. Lasts longer. Armguard? He said you can make an ideal armguard (worn on the left forearm to prevent bruising when the string slaps) by going to any old hardware store, sticking your hand through the PVC pipes, and when you find the right size, saw off a length of pipe from wrist to elbow: voila! A custom made armguard.

(note for American readers: remove your arm from the PVC pipe before you saw off your armguard.)

Problem is, PVC pipes are hot, and not environmentally friendly, so I am chopping some takan (麻竹, thick bamboo) in half the long way and tying it onto my forearm. Doesn’t cost anything here, either, and it matches my bamboo quiver. And my bamboo bow, for that matter.

Anybody have an old blanket you don’t want?

Originally uploaded by myn91

Wulai, my home, is extraordinarily beautiful even for Taiwan, an island of beautiful scenery. This is good for a photographer, and this is bad for a photographer. Good, because there is so much to photograph; bad, because you can hardly take a poor photo here, although I have seen many successful efforts in that endeavor.

When I was a little boy, we lived in Ottawa, Illinois, certainly not a state noted for any particular scenic beauty. Surrounded by cornfields sprinkled with factories, we found scenery in only a few places, such as Starved Rock Park on the Fox River.

A couple months ago, out of curiosity, I searched Starved Rock on flickr, and came across the photos of myn91, Manuel Diaz of Aurora, Illinois: http://www.flickr.com/photos/myn91/ He works magic with the sights of Illinois, producing images of such great beauty and such strong allure that someone who didn’t know better would want to visit the state. He is among the best photographers I have seen on flickr.
In particular, I would like to recommend this photo http://www.flickr.com/photos/myn91/2393631511/ one of the most beautiful photographs I have ever seen (I disagree with the comments that the sun is an unnecessary distraction; I feel that the sun provides a bittersweet note of life, depth, and a reminder of time). I always look forward to his new posts, and if you take some time to examine his photography, I am sure you will too.
Thanks to MD for permission to link up.

We lived for five years in Ottawa, Illinois when I was little. Every so often we piled into the car and rode to the Brookfield Zoo near Chicago. How I remember the elephants and the hippos and the smell! Whew!

I have a very distinct memory from the Monkey House. We had seen the monkeys, the chimpanzees, and the handsome gorillas, and were just leaving when there was a terrific ruckus! There was pounding! and jumping! and hooting! and thumping! Crowds of people rushed over to see what the commotion was, 爭先恐後. Naturally I wanted to go see too, but my parents held me close and said we would stay put. I was disgruntled, but moments later the crowd came fleeing back the other way in great distress.

The smart, handsome, and bored gorillas were working the crowd. Every so often they would start to pound and jump and hoot and thump their chests, creating a terrific ruckus, until crowds of people rushed over to see what the commotion was. Once they had a large number of people watching closely, the gorillas would suddenly scoop up sand and feces from the floor of their enclosure and fling it at the onlookers. By the time I was old enough to remember, my parents must have learned from experience, because my mother always told me how strong gorillas are, and how much a handful of gorilla-flung sand can sting. Ah, the lessons we learn from Mother.

Looking back on it, I see that that was a formative experience: follow the crowds, rush to the excitement, and you may end up getting pelted with gorilla shit.

「工友」這個職稱很親切。可是假設工友凶凶的，還叫工友嗎？

工凶？

Sung to the tune of Away in a Manger

Away in the doghouse

Asleep in his bed,

The little Lord Beagle lay down his sweet head;

Papa with his camera looked down as he lay,

My little Lord Beagle asleep through the day.

梁家驊居士很發心，從前經常為土城承天寺住持^上廣^下欽老和尚開車。從土城上車開到高雄六龜，六七個小時，廣老雙盤不易。老和尚矮小，看起來很輕，可是山路車晃顛，老和尚很穩，從不抓把手。

“The Picasso of Wulai,” Yasa Temu 烏來畢卡索顏有德 is a Tayal tribesman who taught himself how to paint. His work is colorful and lively, documenting traditional Tayal life. We almost ran into each other yesterday ~~ I was walking to the bus stop, he was driving down to the city, and fortunately I was able to dodge his car at the head of the bridge. He gave me a lift.

A couple years ago he gave me a floppy disk with a collection of his paintings. With his permission, I am posting these on flickr:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/talovich/sets/72157604447974518/

Amazing. I never knew before that leeches attached themselves to toads, but here you can see charming photos of two leeches which have done just that.

It’s simply marvelous the useful, tasteful information you can accrue by reading this blog!

overheard on 南陽街

女甲：她到美國的時候帶了幾盒洗衣粉，因為她不喜歡美國洗衣粉的味道。

女乙：是呀，我也不想身上像美國人的味道。

Woman A: When she went to the US, she took along several boxes of detergent, because she doesn’t like the smell of American detergent.

Woman B: Yeah, I wouldn’t want to smell like an American either.

公園裡鴿子很多，兩個小兄弟玩鴿子。大約四歲的弟弟蹲在鴿群的一端，摸鴿子的頭，十幾二十個鴿子圍繞他，等待他摸，很祥和的氣象。約六歲的哥哥在另外一頭，用手比手槍，姿勢很正確、很熟練，追逐鴿子叫砰！砰！砰！砰！打死你！快死！打死你！

媽媽從公廁出來看到情形，大吼一聲，衝過去扼住她的兒子，抓他的手痛罵一頓。

試問，媽媽罵的是哪一個兒子？

「那個鳥很髒！不可以摸！鳥很髒，你怎麼那麼笨？」弟弟惘然，哥哥繼續享虐待動物之樂。

當然這個媽媽不代表臺灣所有人，可是我常覺得現代人不把動物當生靈看待。不要講到吃死屍的肉；一般消費者未見其生。狗養在陽台上，高興就想到帶出去溜，新鮮感沒有了就找人代養。也罷，找人代養也好，帶到遠方丟棄也好，起碼沒賣給香肉店。

Call me a cynic, but when I hear golden-oldie love songs, I can’t help speculating how many years ago they got divorced.

Be a relationship ever so shallow or transient, there’s a lot more to it than impractical dreaming or projection. How much more so marriage! Jonathan Kellerman put it well: Marriage “is a great institution…. But it takes a lot of work to keep it going. I used to race yachts in college, and it seems to me marriage is like a big boat. Put the time into maintaining it, and it’s something to see. Get lax, and it goes to hell in a handbasket. “

中庸：君子之道、譬如行遠必自邇、譬如登高必自卑。詩曰、妻子好合、如鼓瑟琴。

我很喜歡這個比喻，如鼓瑟琴。鼓瑟琴，宮商角徵羽共鳴，弦有長短粗細不一，各得其所以龢；鼓者矯柱，適機求和，不可泥滯；疾徐喨歙以襯情且不失節。如鼓瑟琴，正是妻子好合之道。

臺北小市民生活歷史綴筆，清明節篇
剛來臺時，在野外、山中，經常看到一種陶罐擺在大石邊、巖洞內。高大約過厀蓋，直徑如大腿粗，土色釉，有蓋，常用麻繩綁或有紅紙貼。雖然看不懂，不知道裡面裝的是甚麼東西、為甚麼要放在那兒，可是總可以感覺到，這個東西不應該去碰它。

後來才知道，那是撿骨的甕。從前鄉村郊外到處可見；今清明，我想起，已經很多年沒看過那種在岩壁邊等著子孫來收拾的甕。

The Viet Namese are justifiably proud of being the only people to beat back the Mongolian hordes of Genghis Khan and his heirs. Viet Namese soliders’ forearms were tattooed with 殺韃 Kill Tatars, which probably encouraged their vigor and valor, as you wouldn’t want Tatars to take you captive with those tattoos.

Aside from the determination of Viet Namese soldiers, other factors also influenced the outcome. By the time the Mongolians reached Viet Nam, they had fought their way all through China. Although the Sung is not noted primarily for military might, they did take a toll on the Mongols. The heat and humidity protected Viet Nam from the Mongols as well as General Snow and General Mud protected Moscow from the French and the Germans.

Another factor has come to mind. I have taken up archery again, and have been looking at bows. Mongolian bows are among the best, if not the best. English longbows were feared for their long range, topping out at around 200 meters, a very respectable shot. But Mongolian bows easily hit 300 meters. In the words of Per Inge Oestmoen of Norway,
the Old Mongolian bow was incomparably superior to everything seen in the West. Not until the advent of breach-loading firearms in the 1800's was the Mongolian bow decisively surpassed as a long-range shooting tool.
>Quoted with kind permission from http://www.coldsiberia.org/monbow.htm<

The bows had a layer of sinew from moose or deer. The whole thing was glued together with fish glue. I have noticed that traditional makers caution that their bows are not to be used in hot, damp climates.

This brings two points to my mind. First, I have a traditional Tayal bow and arrows. The bow is about 40 pounds and the arrows are not fletched. In a jungle, you can’t shoot very far, because … well, because it’s a jungle, and you don’t get wide open spaces. A shooting range of 300 meters in a jungle would be overkill. The only natural places in our mountains that you could get a clear shot that far would be in streambeds, and not often there (not counting shooting across valleys). Most hunters or fighters would be shooting within maybe 30 or 40 meters at the most. The great advantage Mongol bows enjoyed on the steppes of Central Asia would have been nullified by the thick growth of Viet Namese jungle.

(note: for archery contests, the Tayal would shoot at targets from a distance of 150m, but those were special occasions, fun and games. Outside of fields, open spaces were rare.)

Second, I wonder if by the time the Mongols fought all their way to the humid rainforests of Viet Nam, their bows were rotting and falling apart. Their bowstrings were made of hide; traditional Tayal bowstrings were made of rattan or ramie. Hide rots, rattan doesn’t. These may have been factors which helped to stop the Mongol advance south.

Of all the species of animals on earth, only two walk upright on two legs with their heads held above their spines: human beings and penguins. Aside from human beings, birds are the only animals that habitually walk on two legs, rather than four, six, eight, or more, but aside from the penguin, they do not hold their heads above their spine, and their knees go the other way.

Such strange behavior cries for explanation. I personally believe the only convincing theory is Elaine Morgan’s Aquatic Hypothesis (read The Scars of Evolution) but academics avoid her like the plague. I have written to many physical anthropologists asking what fatal flaws lurk in her theory that condemn it to be ignored, but to date, none have ever answered me. I suspect the main flaws in the Aquatic Hypothesis are A, Morgan is female, and even more lethal, B, she is not a tenured professor. She doesn’t even have a PhD! The temerity of the woman!

The old mainstream dogma was that our ancestors took to standing erect because it was cooler than running around on all fours. That’s why on a hot day, nobody goes to a beach or a swimming pool, everybody likes to stand up straight under the hot sun. An advanced degree or even tenure does not guarantee common sense.

The new doctrine is that our ancestors took to walking upright so they could chase game more efficiently. This is a theory that appeals to a lot of deep-rooted prejudices; academic types love to think of Man the Conqueror striding lustily across the Pleistocene, slaying beasts left and right.

Problems abound. First, meat has never been the mainstay of the human diet (Inuit aside). Feeding the human race has always been a woman’s work: good healthy vegetable food, and some scraps of meat thrown in for status when My Lord and Master happened to bag an animal.

Even in hunting gathering societies, men do not spend all their time hunting. From the ethnological records, it appears that they spend most of their time sitting around boasting and shooting the breeze, and go out to hunt once or twice a week. In other words, if hunting were the impetus for walking upright, it would be occasional behavior, not habitual.

Second, some human hunters have evolved a strategy of running their game to the ground, but that is hardly the only way to hunt. It has been postulated that the earliest human technology was weaving bags for carrying. Living in a jungle, I would suggest that early human beings got the idea of knotting by getting tangled up in vines; this happens to me a lot. Early hominids may have taken advantage of other animals snarled up in vines, and from there gotten the idea of snares and traps. That would suggest trapping game before weaving bags, and trapping game requires no running whatsoever. Just because Kalahari Bushmen run their game to exhaustion is no proof whatsoever that hominids did the same.

Third, hunting is a man’s problem (read Russell’s Lemur’s Legacy.) In traditional societies, women do not hunt ~ one reason I have always felt women are more intelligent than men ~ so women would not have the necessity to walk upright.

Bipedalism puts a terrific strain on the spine, and calls for the restructuring of the hips, pelvis, and birth canal. Walking upright made pregnancy and childbirth difficult, even deadly, for women. This does not seem like a strong evolutionary endorsement for women to get up and walk on two feet.

Right there you’ve made more trouble than solutions for half the human population. Show me the evolutionary pressure on women to run. Or don’t women count?

Yeah, yeah, I know, I am a heterosexual Caucasian male, but I don’t have a PhD in physical anthropology from an expensive university, so I am not permitted to voice opinions.

this is NOT an April Fool’s joke
I saw something really strange this afternoon: a 鳩 (I’m pretty sure it was a 金背鳩, rufous turtle dove, streptopetia orientalis) flying along carrying another bird in its beak. The other bird was a 紅嘴黑鵯 black bulbul, Hypsipetes madagascariensis. As soon as I saw that, I thought, 一定要拍照，不然大家以為我神經錯亂, I have to get a photo of this, or else people will think I have taken leave of my senses. The dove flew into some bushes. I got my camera out, but before I could snap a photo, it (they?) flew off further into the mountainside, and it would have been useless to follow.

I wish I had got a photo. The bulbul may have been dead, because it didn’t seem to be moving. The dove was carrying it by the shoulder of the bulbul’s wing. The birds are about the same size, so you could see the dove was having some trouble carrying the other bird. I have no idea what that was about, I have never seen anything similar, I have no idea what the dove planned to do with the bulbul. Carnivorous doves?

I assure you, this is NOT an April Fool’s Day joke. If anything, old Mother Nature was playing a joke on ol’ Yugan. Ha ha ha, now everybody thinks Yugan is nuts.

Yeah, I can hear what you’re thinking, “No, Yugan, we were sure of that long ago.”