Crisp Apple...

Don't Mess with an Angry Librarian [Re-post]

2011-05-05T11:13:00.004+01:00

*Newscorp is selling e-books that literally self-destruct. Stand with the librarians who are fighting back.
<http://www.change. org/petitions/ tell-harpercolli ns-limited- checkouts- on-ebooks- is-wrong- for-libraries? utm_source= action_alert& utm_medium= email&alert_ id=TTXQNOfuGs_ OOGkxAGDei>
*

<http://www.change. org/petitions/ tell-harpercolli ns-limited- checkouts- on-ebooks- is-wrong- for-libraries? utm_source= action_alert& utm_medium= email&alert_ id=TTXQNOfuGs_ OOGkxAGDei>

[Sign the Petition]<http://www.change. org/petitions/ tell-harpercolli ns-limited- checkouts- on-ebooks- is-wrong- for-libraries? utm_source= action_alert& utm_medium= email&alert_ id=TTXQNOfuGs_ OOGkxAGDei>

************************************************************

Dear Readers of the World,

By day, Andy Woodworth is a mild-mannered librarian. By night, he's still a librarian, just less mild-mannered.

Andy is *kind of famous* in the librarian community, mostly for getting *the Old Spice guy* to do a video about how great libraries are, and unsuccessfully campaigning to get Ben & Jerry's to create a flavor called the *"Gooey Decimal System."* (If you don't get the pun, just ask someone ten years older.)

Oh, and now *he's using Change.org to help lead the charge in a fight against NewsCorp<http://www.change. org/petitions/ tell-harpercolli ns-limited- checkouts- on-ebooks- is-wrong- for-libraries? utm_source= action_alert& utm_medium= email&alert_ id=TTXQNOfuGs_ OOGkxAGDei>*, one of the world's most powerful companies.

See,* more and more libraries are beginning to buy e-books, like those read on a Kindle or similar device.* They're programmed to be like normal books -- lent out to one reader at a time, returned, and downloaded by another reader. It's simple, and especially great for working parents or the disabled who have a hard time making it to a library.

But publishing giant *HarperCollins *(owned by NewsCorp) is trying to force libraries to only buy e-books that* literally self-destruct after the 26th reader** *in an attempt to maximize profits.* *

* *Having to repeatedly buy the same book* *will be a *financial and logistical disaster* for libraries, one that could force a few to close their doors.

Even worse, there are signs that other publishing companies may soon follow the lead of HarperCollins, which could devastate libraries all around the world.

Some *amazing librarians have launched a full boycott *of HarperCollins until the decision is reversed, but they urgently need widespread support to force NewsCorp to back down.

*Andy's petition demanding an end to self-destructing e-books has a goal of 100,000 signatures -- click here to add your name now:*

*
http://www.change. org/petitions/ tell-harpercolli ns-limited- checkouts- on-ebooks- is-wrong- for-libraries<http://www.change. org/petitions/ tell-harpercolli ns-limited- checkouts- on-ebooks- is-wrong- for-libraries? utm_source= action_alert& utm_medium= email&alert_ id=TTXQNOfuGs_ OOGkxAGDei>
*

Andy declares on his blog that "The world needs more badass librarians." It's true, though right now the world also needs more readers who will stand alongside them.

Thanks for doing your part,

Patrick and the Change.org team

Yayyyyyyyy! Power to the People!!!!!!!!

2011-02-11T19:07:00.006Z

Mubarak gone!!

Egyptian military says: "We have no legitimacy but the legitimacy of the people."

This just in: Switzerland just announced that it has frozen all assets of the Mubarak's family that are located within its borders. (Other countries like Britain and France where Mubarak also owns assets -- YOU SHOULD FOLLOW SUIT!)

I'm so so happy that Idealism has triumphed over Cynicism :D

Spending time looking up June 4th images online is not to be recommended...

2011-02-11T02:27:00.004Z

... because it would make one really depressed.

(Anyway am going to sort out those images later in updating my post about the similarities of the Tahrir and Tiananmen Square protests... Like the Egyptians, we had SO much hope and solidarity, it's almost painful to look back on that time now. I really hope that, in the final analysis, the comparison between the two protests does NOT stand up at all.)

"We want to choose our President because we want to take this country into the future." [Updated with Photos, Links and Quotations]

2011-02-01T13:23:00.031Z

"This is not just a Facebook revolution, not even an Internet revolution... This is not about the Internet, this is about the needs and demands of the Egyptian people."

(The slogan on her t-shirt reads: "I love my country. It's the government I'm afraid of.")

"Egyptian anti-government protesters sleep in front of an army tank to prevent it from moving during the night." February, 2011.
Text credit: The Guardian
Image credit: Patrick Baz/AFP/Getty Images (via Guardian here)

Chinese protester stood in front of a column of tanks outside the Tiananmen Square. June, 1989.
Image credit: Unknown (via Seechuen, see my previous blog-post re: June 4th memory here)

"Anti-government protestors hold candles as they walk in Cairo, Egypt, Wednesday, Feb. 9, 2011. Protesters appear to have settled in for a long standoff, turning Tahrir Square into a makeshift village with tens of thousands coming every day, with some sleeping in tents made of blankets and plastic sheeting."
Text and Photo Credits: Emilio Morenatti/AP (via Andew Sullivan's The Daily Dish at the Atlantic).

"Tens of thousands stage a candlelight vigil at Hong Kong's Victoria Park to mark the 20th anniversary of Tiananmen Square." June 4th, 2009.
Text Credit: NY Daily News
Photo Credit: Cheung/AP (via NYDailyNews "Demonstrators honor memory of Tiananmen Square in Hong Kong")

"Protesters Are Awesome: Look at This Beautiful Photo of Christians Protecting Praying Muslims in Egypt"
Text credit: Cord Jefferson at Good.is (via Justbesplendid)
Photo credit: Nevine Zaki/Anonymous (via Cord Jefferson at Good.is)

Further Reading:

鄒頌華：「中東波」給香港的警告訊號.

Willsin: 埃及

Timothy Garton-Ash: "Not 1989. Not 1789. But Egyptians can learn from other revolutions" (Published: Wednesday 9 February 2011 21.00 GMT)

One leathery old victim of this revolution, at whose death we should rejoice, is the fallacy of cultural determinism – and specifically the notion that Arabs and/or Muslims are not really up for freedom, dignity and human rights. Their "culture", so we were assured by Samuel Huntington and others, programmed them otherwise. Tell that to the people dancing on Tahrir Square. [...]

While we are talking determinisms, let's dispense with another one. In tags like "Facebook revolution", "Twitter revolution" and "Al-Jazeera revolution", we meet again the ghost of technological determinism. Talking to friends in Cairo, I am left in no doubt that these media did play a major role in organising and multiplying the popular protests that began on 25 January. [...] these old and new technologies of communication matter enormously – but they did not prevent popular protest movements being crushed in Belarus and Iran, they do not determine the outcome, and the medium is not the message.

(Bravo to Timothy Garton-Ash for advocating that we should scotch the dangerous notion of cultural determinism on its head -- an excuse all too often used by CCP apologists for disregarding human rights for Chinese people, as well as by that silly colonialist commentator Tao Kit, with his stupid "cultural DNA" theory. Anyway, funny how Garton-Ash happened to reiterate [vanity or more correctly delusions of grandeur alert] *my* line [/vanity or more correctly delusions of grandeur alert] in my comment response to LCL previously on Sunday 6 February, 5:25 PM GMT, on this very post!)
.

Interpreting Hidden Meanings... and Chinese New Year Greetings...

2011-01-31T01:20:00.011Z

Just saw this via Mad Dog's shared items, seems like a fun one to try :) (I've translated the entire passage, and had thrown in a couple of stage directions even!)

某老外苦学汉语十年，到中国参加汉语考试，试题如下：
请解释下文中每个“意思”的意思
　　
阿呆给领导送红包时，两人的对话颇有意思。　　

领导：“你这是什么意思？” 　　

阿呆：“没什么意思，意思意思。” 　　

领导：“你这就不够意思了。” 　　

阿呆：“小意思，小意思。” 　　

领导：“你这人真有意思。” 　　

阿呆：“其实也没有别的意思。” 　　

领导：“那我就不好意思了。” 　　

阿呆：“是我不好意思。”

老外泪流满面，交白卷回国了

My translation of the above is as follows:

There was once a foreigner who spent ten long years studying Chinese, and at the end of his painstaking scholarship he went to China to take a language test. The test question was given as follows:

Please translate the word "meaning" as it appears in various places in the below passage:

When Mr. Joe Bloggs handed one of the local party leaders a laisee (Cantonese transliteration, also known as "huangbao", literal meaning: "red pocket". A red paper packet containing a small amount of money that is given out to wish others good health and prosperity, usually at a time of festivity, such as the Chinese New Year), the conversation that took place between them was full of unspoken meanings:

Leader: What do you mean by this? [looking at the bulging laisee being handed to him]

Joe: Oh I don't mean anything by it at all, just a small gesture really.

Leader: Well in that case you really shouldn't have.

Joe: Oh please it's only really small.

Leader: You're really an interesting fellow.

Joe: Actually I really don't mean anything by it.

Leader: Well then if you *really* wouldn't mind...

Joe: Oh no I wouldn't at all, and I rather hope that you wouldn't mind either... [smiling as the leader accepted his proffered laisee]

[And scene]

The foreigner was left in tears after reading the above passage, and went back home after handing in a blank page to the Chinese examiner.

The End.

Translated by Snowdrops, 2011. All rights reserved.

Further reading:

新中國政治不是一般人能吃透的。簡單一句話包含的意思可以是完全的正反兩面，語意學在這裏施展不開來。這必須要有點能耐才能把片言隻語背後的深層意義剖釋，SARS和禽流感爆發之後，中共一些部門發出指引，對於呈報類似疫症有幾條大原則，包括要上報及時、不得隱瞞，末了是「不得亂報」。放在這套文字框架下的語意，誰都以為既是要求及時上報又不許隱瞞，不得亂報只是附例，是敬告而不是警告。過了一年，細心的人覺得疫症忽然都像少了下來，但每次爆發卻都已是鋪天蓋地死禽無數，這才想到「不得亂報」這四字是話中有話，實是拐個彎把「不得報」這三個字隱在千把字的通告裏。新中國的人民都是語意專家，只一瞄便知道黨中央國務院的文件精神在哪，倒是我們特區上下沒有人能看得懂。

From here

2. The Oxford University Press very recently put up a whole list of English terms derived from Chinese words in celebration of the Chinese New Year. It's really brilliant! Like I never knew that "chin-chin" -- the phrase we'd say here when clinking glasses (whether wine- or pint-) together -- is actually from the Cantonese phrase "請請". How great is that eh?

Link here: Hopping into the Year of the Rabbit

Which is also cue for me to say: 祝大家兔年好運！身體健康！萬事勝意！

Simon Shen: A Letter for Henry Tang -- Lend Me Your Ears, What Went Wrong? [Translated Blog-post - Further polished, amended and updated with links]

2011-01-25T02:57:00.039Z

沈旭暉：給唐英年的信－－Lend Me Your Ears, What Went Wrong? (Original article in Chinese can be found here)(Please refer to the linked blogposts under "Further Reading" for conversations I had had with fellow bloggers regarding the quality of writing in Shen's essay; links are also provided for a couple of other articles that critiqued Henry Tang's speech as well as Shen's essay itself).

Simon Shen: A Letter for Henry Tang -- Lend Me Your Ears, What Went Wrong?

Dear Henry(唐老)﹕

Dear Henry (Old Tang):

再次感謝上週出席Roundtable週年活動。有說你選擇那場合作深度發言﹐是因為我們太溫和而籠絡、或太反叛而立威﹕這是non-issue。有說那是準特首政綱﹕這更是non-issue﹐不就是一個市長麼。但你代表的五十後青年觀如何產生﹐卻是issue。

Thanks again for kindly attending the Roundtable anniversary event of last week. Some say that the reason you chose that particular occasion to air some deeply-held views, was either because we are too moderate and you wanted to get us onside, or because we are too rebellious and you were keen to show us who's boss. Either way, that is a non-issue. Some also say that you were simply rehearsing your policy speech as the next-in-line governor of Hong Kong. That is even more of a non-issue. Aren't you already the de facto mayor of our city? On the other hand, the way in which you represented the dominant post-50s' generational view of today's youngsters in your speech, that really is an issue.

不少前輩都是令人尊敬的老好人﹐說起青年議題卻往往不歡而散。為什麼﹖關鍵除了以往提及的「五十後超穩定社會結構」﹐我想還有重要一環﹕若憑昔日情懷研判今日﹐認識問題的方法論必有時代缺憾﹐可稱之為「五十後超穩定認知結構」。你觸及的都是正面概念﹐問題一是主流五十後和八十後對同一概念有相反認知﹐問題二是雙方對這差異的本質欠認知﹐問題三是管治香港不能忽視這認知鴻溝。

這令人不安。

There are many among the senior generation who genuinely inspire and command respect, but whenever the topic of today's youth is broached, their views often generate mistrust and disgust instead. Why is that? Apart from what I previously discussed regarding the "post-50s super-stable societal structure", I think the key to this question relates to what could be described as the "post-50s super-stable identity structure", whereby one relies solely on the sentiments of yesteryears to evaluate the current events of today, which inevitably leads to methodological limitations for understanding issues due to differences in referential era. Whilst what you touched upon in your speech were all positive concepts, the first problem is that the mainstream post-50s generation have the exact opposite takes on the same underlying concepts vis-a-vis the post-80s generation; the second problem is that both generations have little inkling regarding the nature of this enormous gulf in understanding between them; and the third problem is that one simply cannot govern Hong Kong without taking into account this huge gulf in consensus.

This is what is alarming.

「唐五點」發表後﹐身旁很多青年不以為然﹐也有說你抽空而言其實頗有理。但就是後者﹐也希望你和周秀娜一樣﹐有衝動疏理一下自己的思想。基於這些回響﹐我天真地相信作為當日主人家﹐有責任為你解構這認知鴻溝﹐說明何以同樣的五點必被相反解讀﹕

After the dissemination of the "Tang Five Points", many young people of my acquaintance are rather sceptical of your views, whilst a few would agree that your hollow-sounding platitudes do contain some grains of truth. Yet even those among the latter group would prefer that you behave a bit more like Chrissie Chau in having the urge to comb through your thinking in a bit more depth. Based on these feedbacks, and as the host of last week's event, I very naively believe that I have the obligation to help you bridge this gulf in understanding, and explain how the same five points you had proposed are bound to generate the exact opposite reading to which you intended:

一、甚麼責任、自由、權利組成公民社會﹖
你說「一個真正成熟的公民社會，在重視權利的同時，必須自覺地承擔責任」、「權利並非絕對，必須尊重他人的自由和權利」。這類字眼無人反對﹐只是責任、自由、權利從無統一定義。
不少五十後視遵守現制度為「責任」、哲學家柏林定義的積極自由(做甚麼的自由)為「自由」、法律賦予的為「權利」﹐由此斷定青年「三違反」。單按這定義﹐北韓也是法治社會。
在不少新一代眼中﹐lend me your ears﹐「責任」還有以公民力量彌補現制度局限、「自由」著重消極自由(不受外力干預的自由)、「權利」包括此刻並不完全享有的普世價值﹐才能造就一個真正成熟的公民社會。按這定義﹐沒承擔責任、沒尊重他人自由和權利的卻是一些五十後。

1. What kinds of responsibilities, freedoms and rights are comprised within a society of citizens?

You declared that "a genuinely mature society that values citizenship, would place emphasis on rights at well as ensuring people are aware of their own obligations in discharging their societal duties", and that "no rights are absolute, one must also respect the freedoms and the rights of others". Nobody would at all argue with the wording in the above lines. The only thing is, these words mean quite different things to different people.

Plenty from the post-50s generation see abiding by rules and adhering to the status quo as one's "societal duty", whilst "freedom" refers only to "positive liberty" (freedom to act as defined by the philosopher Isaiah Berlin), and that which is sanctioned by the current laws of the land as the only "rights". They then use this schema to judge today's youths as having "triple faulted" in coming up short on these key measures. But using these benchmarks, one could also say that the North Korean society is rather respectful of the rule of law.

From the point of view of many among the new generation, Mr. Lend-me-your-ears, "societal duties" include the empowerment of civil society to counter-balance the repressive limits of current laws and regulations; "freedoms" include "negative liberty", the freedom from coercion; and "rights" include those universal human rights that are currently not fully realised within our society. These are the ingredients of a genuinely mature society that values and respects citizenship. And according to these benchmarks, those who shirk their real societal responsibilities, who disregard and disrespect the most the rights and freedoms of others, are actually those from the post-50s generation.

二、怎樣定義多元與反多元﹖
你說「這個世界是豐富多元的，我們應該有包容的胸襟，尊重他人的想法和意見，而不是對持相反意見的人動輒口誅筆伐」。每字都正面﹐但句子是不平衡的﹕「多元」是客觀、形而上的﹐泛指不同觀點、生活方式的並存﹐是恆常的﹔「動輒口誅筆伐」、「謙恭」是主觀、形而下的﹐每個時代都不同﹐說句術語﹐被建構的。
五十後常主觀標籤青年「動輒口誅筆伐」﹐得到後者客觀上反多元的結論。但單以形而下論證形而上是無意義的﹐像形而下的五四運動口誅筆伐﹐帶來了形而上的多元﹔上一代不接受粗口﹐「百X成才」卻是個別網絡百花齊放的grammar。
青年發表不同意見正是支持多元﹐若因形而下的「口誅筆伐」而被標籤、邊緣化﹐難免深信五十後在偷換概念﹐進行反多元的思想壟斷。若有心確立多元﹐lend me your ears﹐無論對方的口筆如何﹐都應有包容胸襟。

2. How to define pluralism and anti-pluralism?

You said, "This is a rich, pluralistic world, we should all strive to be tolerant and inclusive and respectful of others' thinking and opinions, rather than engage in verbal mudslinging at the slightest provocation to those who hold opposing views." Every single word in the above sentence is positive, but unfortunately, the sentence itself is unbalanced: whilst "pluralism" is an objective concept, an abstract ideal that refers generally to the enduring coexistence of different viewpoints and different lifestyles within a social body; but words like "verbal mudslinging" and "respectful" are subjective and empirical, differing from era to era -- to put it in more technical terms, their meanings are socially constructed.

The post-50s generation subjectively labels today's youths as engaging in "verbal mudslinging" to somehow demonstrate that they are being objectively anti-pluralist. But it is pointless to use that which is subjective as evidence to prove that which is objective, just like how the subjective verbal mudslinging that occurred during the May Fourth Movement was somehow nonsensically used to show it had generated an "objective" intellectual pluralism. And while the older generation may not condone foul language, on certain internet forums such rhetorical whiplash is skilfully employed as the grammar that allowed for the vibrant exchange of ideas and knowledge, and "Letting a Hundred Expletives Bloom" actually helps generate a fruitful proliferation of viewpoints from across all sections of society.

The fact that the youths of today are declaiming different ideas and viewpoints is precisely what helps to promote societal pluralism. If their voices are being marginalised and stereotyped instead with a subjective label of "verbal mudslinging" by the post-50s generation, then one cannot blame the youngsters for criticising the post-50s for engaging in an anti-pluralistic monopolising of thought by way of a conceptual bait-and-switch. If you are indeed serious about embracing pluralism, Mr. Lend-me-your-ears, you should strive to be inclusive and tolerant of those whom you deem as engaging in verbal combat, however rhetorically violent those speech-acts may indeed be.

三、妥協、民主、社會進步之間有何關係﹖
你說「以各退半步去尋求最終大家能夠共同進一步的結果」不錯﹐只是「妥協是民主的產物」並非共識。據Lijphart概括﹐共識性民主為荷比盧瑞士等採用﹐ 英式議會民主為反妥協模型。也許你不是說民主﹐只是談哲學﹕盧梭的社會契約論主張「每人都放弃天然自由而获取契约自由」﹐倒算妥協。
不少五十後認為這契約等於每人都應妥協﹐否則社會不會進步。但假如人人妥協而欠權力平衡﹐只能完全向建制傾斜﹐社會也不會進步。盧梭論擴至極端﹐曾令法國大革命以人民之名出現暴政。
新一代多認為修正的社會契約應有分工﹐由個別群組負責不妥協來彰顯理念。伯夷叔齊採薇而食是毋須妥協的﹐戴高樂被勸拘捕「搞事」的哲人薩特時說「'On n'arrete pas un Voltaire」。若社會不接受﹐不妥協也無影響力﹔接受了﹐價值觀則會改變﹐正如沒有保育人士的不妥協﹐政府不會修改基建指引加入保育評核。Lend me your ears﹐這就是進步。

3. Compromise, Democracy, Societal Progress -- What are their links?

What you said about "Each backing down half a step to ensure that both can move forward a whole step together" is not bad, though your other statement that "compromise is the product of democracy" isn't the common consensus view. According to Lijphart's summary, consensus style democracy are prevalent in countries like the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and Switzerland, but the British parliamentary democracy is actually predicated upon an anti-compromise model. Or perhaps you weren't really talking about democratic systems per se but general political philosophies, like what Rousseau proposed regarding the social contract, in which case what you said actually made some sense.

Quite a number of the post-50s believe that this societal contract requires everyone to compromise, otherwise society would not progress. But if everyone just compromises within a society that already has a severe power imbalance, so that everything is stacked in favour of the establishment, then society would not actually move forward either. If one took Rousseau's ideas to the extreme, it could lead to the kind of mob rule as had been witnessed during the French Revolution. [Translator's note: hmm, not sure if this historical example really is the result of taking ideas of social contract to the extreme?]

The new generation believes in an amended social contract the obligations of which should be split among different societal groupings, whose disagreements with each other are a way of sharpening their individual ideological ballasts. When Pa Yi and Su Chai chose to forage in the wild during the Chou dynasty, they didn't need to compromise their political views; when Charles de Gaulle was urged to arrest the "trouble-making" philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, he said, "On n'arrete pas un Voltaire" ("One doesn't arrest a Voltaire"). If society does not accept one's ideological standpoint, there is no need to compromise as the individual poses no threat to the social order anyway. On the other hand, if society does accept one's views, then its values will have changed accordingly to accommodate. Without the uncompromising stance of the conservationists, for instance, the government wouldn't have amended its guidelines on infrastructural development to include an audit rating for conservation. My dear Mr. Lend-me-your-ears, this is called progress.

四、怎樣論證複雜問題簡單化﹖
你提示青年不要「將複雜問題簡單化」﹐要獨立思考﹐大家都贊成﹐但如何論證﹖
建制論證青年「甚麼事情只要涉及政府、商界，就必然會得到官商勾結、利益輸送的結論」﹐常因做了好事得不到支持。但邏輯不應是這樣的﹕這是高牆一方的有罪假定。
科學論證應以雞蛋一方的無罪假定為起點﹐以研究作準。假如某君關心五個議題、五個都找到官商勾結的數據﹐lend me your ears﹐只能算「言簡意賅」。何況不同商人、部門有不同口碑﹐盲目逢商必反不會這樣。在青年眼中﹐以一個標籤否定一個論點﹐也是「懶於理性思考的借口」。

4. How to prove one is oversimplifying a complex matter?

Your reminder that youngsters should not "oversimplify complex matters", that they should pursue independent thinking, is something that everyone can agree with, but how is your negative perception of today's youths actually shown to be valid?

Those who are part of the status quo often lament that they don't get any credit from today's youths, whose attitude they typify thus: "Anything to do with the government and the corporate world would result in a knee-jerk accusation of corruption and transmission of interests among the politicians and business leaders involved".

But this is not entirely logical. The above is simply a wrongful assertion by those already occupying a dominant position on the high wall.

Scientific proofs work instead by assuming the null hypothesis in favour of the meek and fragile, on the side of the egg, and requiring research evidence as the sole arbiter of truth. If someone is interested in five different topics and uncovered evidence demonstrating collusion among politicians and business leaders in all five cases, then my dear Mr. Lend-me-your-ears, those aren't knee-jerk accusations but rather succinct and valid commentary. The fact is that different business leaders and different government departments do have differing levels of ethical repute among the general population, which would not have been the case at all if indeed we were simply being anti-business on principle. From the point of view of the young generation, refuting a valid argument simply on the basis of a simplistic label is just another example of what you yourself referred to as "an excuse for lazy irrational thinking".

五、甚麼環境會觸發政治暴力、如何比較案例﹖
你說美國槍擊案令你反思香港青年的激進。我曾對此研究﹐略知各地暴力或恐怖主義多由五元素互動造成﹕(1)有鼓勵暴力的組織(如蓋達)或容易被暴力濫用的法例(如美國若干修正案)﹔(2)有激進意識形態(如白人至上主義)﹔(3)組織帶來資源或令武器氾濫(如美國槍支協會)﹔(4)激進組織有慈善支部吸引普羅支持者、或有NGO支援激進行動者(如哈瑪斯孤兒院、美國為極端思潮辯護的ACLU)﹔(5)擁有主流媒體(如真主黨燈塔電視臺)。香港一無所有。
從這案例想到香港八十後、從電視畫面的反高鐵示威驚呼失控﹐容或苦口婆心﹐但只是通過條件反射的比較示警﹐缺乏結構分析﹐不符合比較政治的道德。正如我們不應隨便從愛國示威想到六七﹐更不應以有人喝醉紅酒弒母請你深思。
在互聯網世代﹐上述「方法」還有致命訊息盲點。我們在電視報章也許看不見菜園村﹐但lend me your ears﹐這在網絡是常識﹔香港槍擊論沒有佐證﹐社運青年被摔傷的影片卻有極多網民check it out。有前輩通過麥長青獲TVB最佳男配角論證獅子山下精神長存﹐對青年﹐這只反映電視台北望和沒落﹔有前輩說林峰得巨獎證明電視台實力﹐在網上﹐這常被視作又一不公義。

5. What kind of environment would instigate political violence, and how do we compare different examples?

You mentioned that the recent incident in the United States, where people at a political rally were gunned down, caused you to reflect on the rebelliousness of today's youths in Hong Kong. I actually researched the topic a while ago, and can tell you that political violence or terrorism witnessed around the world could roughly be summarised as being caused by the interaction of the following five factors: (1) the existence of organisations that promote violence (e.g. Al Queda) and/or the existence of legislation that could easily be usurped as an instrument for violence (e.g. a certain American constitutional amendment); (2) the existence of extremist ideology (e.g. white supremacy); (3) organisations that provide resources for the proliferation of weapons (e.g. the American National Rifle Association); (4) the existence of extremist groups with a philanthropic wing who could garner popular support, or the existence of NGOs that support extremists (e.g. orphanages run by Hamas, the ACLU in America who protects the ideology of extremists [Translator's note: not sure if I entirely agree that ACLU exists solely to reinforce extremist ideology to be honest]); (5) the ownership of mainstream media organisations (e.g. Al Manar [Translator's Note: After further digging I am finally positive that Shen was referring to Al Manar]). None of these factors are actually present in Hong Kong.

Generalising from the isolated example of the Tucson shooting in America to our own post-80s generation in Hong Kong, reacting with fearful screams at televised pictures of citizens' protests against the high-speed rail, making knee-jerk, alarmist and unsubstantiated comparisons and lacking any systemic analysis in your commentary regarding society's ills, all these run counter to the ethical conduct of comparative politics, even if you are actually being sincere in your admonitions of the young. Like we wouldn't casually associate any patriotic protests with the events of '67, nor would we ask you to be careful with your drinking just because somebody else had killed his mother when he got drunk on red wine.

In the age of the Internet, this kind of "logics" has several additional irredeemable informational blind-spots. Perhaps we might not be able to read about the wanton destruction of Choi Yuen Chuen from the mainstream media, but Lend-me-your-ears, this is already a case commonly acknowledged in the online world. While your theory regarding a Hong Kong shooting incident similar to the one that occurred in the States has yet to find any actual empirical support, there are plenty of online footage that records how a young Hong Kong political activist was injured when he was gratuitously thrown to the ground during peaceful protest, with plenty of netizens checking it out. A senior commentator once opined how a television soap star winning the best supporting actor award from TVB is proof positive that the Lion Rock spirit survives in Hong Kong -- this however only demonstrates to today's youngsters that the broadcaster concerned has merely become increasingly Mainland-oriented to the detriment of the Hong Kong viewers, signalling the station's decline. Another senior media commentator mentioned how the fact that another television soap star winning a top music award is testament to the strength of the same broadcaster -- online this entertainment news is simply greeted with derision and viewed as another instance of gross injustice.

不同世代的觀念差異不易調和﹐但回應結構性問題的青年本身不可能是「問題」﹐把這當成問題的方法論才是問題﹐遺憾地﹐不少資深建制青年工作者卻如是觀。你笑說別稱「唐老」﹐據說因看過我以「呂老」尊稱呂大樂的文章﹐說起來﹐上述確和與呂老的方法討論大同小異。老吾老以及人之老﹐出發點是善意的﹐一如你的坦白。

Different generations' views and attitudes are not easy to blend together, but the youths who respond to the systemic problems within our society today could not possibly be labelled as the "problem" themselves. The trouble lies precisely with those who treat this as a "problem", but that is unfortunately the view held by many experienced youth workers. You jokingly suggested that I shouldn't refer to you as "Old Tang", apparently because you have seen how I humbly addressed Dr. Lui Tai Lok as "Old Lui" in responding to his article. Now that you mentioned it, the above viewpoints do actually exhibit much similarity with those propounded by Old Lui. As the saying goes, respect to our own elders as well as those of others, my intention is entirely benign, just like your honesty.

可惜﹐這份坦白建基於對世代認知鴻溝的漠視﹐無論主觀意願如何﹐都有以五十後定義單向批判八十後的客觀效果﹐或曰「機已屈」﹐引起的反響無助世代溝通﹐反加深了誤會和對立﹐這不應是你樂見的。按華人傳統﹐評論主禮發言並不合禮﹔對一些八十後﹐本文會被批評為太溫和﹔但若「平等位置」真的存在﹐我衷心希望你與公眾分享反思﹐這才符合你定義的跨代溝通﹐畢竟世界是你們的﹐也是我們的﹐但歸根究底是你們的。古代說lend me your ears﹐今人說listen up guys﹐都是發自肺腑的﹐thank you。

Simon

Sadly, this honesty of yours is predicated upon a profound ignorance regarding the enormous gulf in understanding between the different generations. Whatever your subjective intention, your speech has the objective effect of unilaterally criticising the post-80s generation using a fixed and fixing post-50s lens -- in other words, you have already gamed the system to your generation's advantage. The waves of negative response generated by your speech are not only unhelpful towards inter-generational dialogue, but actually serve to further deepen the misunderstanding and opposition across the generational divide. This shouldn't be what you would be happy to see. Whilst it is against traditional Chinese etiquette to criticise the speech by one's guest of honour, for some post-80s readers, my article here would actually be seen as being too kind to an undeserving target. If however there could indeed be a semblance of parity of esteem among all participants, I sincerely wish that you would partake in the above reflections together with the general public, for this should be what is really meant by inter-generational dialogue as you yourself have identified. After all the world is all yours, as well as ours, but at the end of the day it is still yours. There's an old saying, "lend me your ears", whereas nowadays people would say "listen up guys", both expressions are sincere and heart-felt. Thank you for listening.

Simon

Translated by Snowdrops, 2011. All rights reserved. (Translation polished at 11:38; "Russell" amended as "Rousseau" at 14:38 - was thinking of Bertrand rather than Jean-Jacques - a most embarrassing slip!)(Translation amended again with slight modifications at 23:23 on 28 January further to kind suggestions by Sidney Sweet - see comments)(Translation further amended at 6:42am on 2 February, 2011 to polish off certain clunky sentences and corrected "straw man" as "bait-and-switch").

Further reading:

向沈旭暉進一言: 辭達而已矣

形而上 / 形而下

寫的．讀的

雕蟲小技有高低

自由的理念——與沈旭暉博士商榷

沈旭暉﹐你寫啥狗屁文章﹖

唐司長的通識課

陳雲：反對壟斷　對抗複製（節錄自《九評地產黨》）

香港的問題，絕不是「五十後」鬥「八十後」的問題。大量「五十後」的人，都是被社會遺棄的窮困階級，很多老人家流落街頭拾荒謀生，只有絕少數人成為中環大亨。香港面對的不是世代抗爭，不是老人不願退位而年輕人不能上位的問題，而是共同的時代問題，是機會重新開放、經濟轉型和社會價值觀改變的問題。「八十後」提出的議程，是跨世代和跨階級的香港人的共同利益。踏入二十一世紀，2000年之後的幾年，八十後提出的保育香港運動，保衛天星碼頭皇后碼頭、保衛灣仔喜帖街的街坊生活、反對時代廣場圈禁公共土地、反對興建高鐵浪費公帑破壞人文地理、保衛菜園村及鄉郊農民生計，都是代表香港整體人民、特別是代表被剝削的弱勢社群去抗爭的，絕不是為了自己的世代利益。

Some Last Images of 2010, a Translation of Su Shi Poetry, a Warming Vatful of Chinese Chicken Broth.. and Finally, a Mid-Life Stock-take...

2011-01-13T22:27:00.059Z

At the height of the snowstorms last month.

Things don't look so dreary actually when the sun came out.

Kids played during the first thaw.

As can be seen from the shallow footprints above, this first snowfall in early December really wasn't that bad. In some parts of the country, the snow managed to recede significantly to give a wonderful feeling of springtime in winter...

Little did we know of course that a much bigger snowstorm was to arrive within a fortnight to enable us to have the proverbial White Christmas as well as a White New Year. We sure hit the jackpot this winter!

Anyway, this was taken when the kids in the neighbourhood still had the mood to make a snowman (albeit a headless one).

And yup, much of my gardening efforts earlier in the year turned out to be for nought because of the snowstorms... as sadly there are only so many plants I could save by putting them indoors.

I mean, if the first snow didn't kill them, the above second severe snow almost certainly did. ( I say "almost", as I don't want to rule out the tenacity of any living things -- I find, in my experience, even very sick ones could be gradually nursed back, given the right support and encouragement.)

Of the ones I managed to save indoors, none had done so well thus far than my lovely Camellia , bought as a small plant without any buds since early summer, which finally managed to flower in the depths of winter.

For a long time, I thought it was not going to flower at all (the buds had appeared for a full six months before flowering). I mean, right up until early December, the plant pretty much just looked like this (and yes, those were egg-shells on top of the soil. I also used coffee grounds for their acidity, as Camellia hates alkaline soil. So glad these folk gardening tips worked out well):

And I had to wait a good several months just to get the bud to turn white and open up a tiny bit:

I am so happy that my little plant stays true to its name as "the Rose of Winter".

The whiteness of its blossoms has an ethereal beauty that is similar in purity, though very different in tone, to the heavy snow lying just outside the glass-panes that separate this lively plant from the cold, harsh elements outside.

The above was the first to flower in mid-December, and has since declined, but there are luckily four more still to come into full bloom, some of these are captured below (though strictly speaking these are 2011 pictures):

It's such a wonderful reward to see something come so beautifully into fruition...

It is complete serendipity that, just as my white camellias are flowering, I came across the below poem by Su Shi, and although he was referring to Pear blossoms rather than Camellias (中譯：茶花), how wonderful that he was also contemplating the pale white blossoms against a backdrop of snow. I like his imageries so much that I want to set his poem down here and attempt another one of my literary translations (see here for my previous flower-themed translation of Chinese poetry):

"東欄梨花" --- 蘇軾

梨花淡白柳深青,

柳絮飛時花滿城。

惆悵東欄一株雪,

人生看得幾清明?

"Pear Blossoms by the East Fence" --- Su Shi

Pale pear blossoms, white amid dark green willows;

While leaves from willows fly, over town, blossoms gently a-float.

A column of snow droops dolefully from the far east railing,

How much of Life could one discern with the pure clarity of crystal?

(Alternative last line: How many times could one behold the annual passing of Ching Ming?)

(Final satisfied version published 04:06 on 14 January, 2011)

(Added alternative last line at 02:20 on 14 January, 2011)

(Translation note 1: "清明" could be referring to the ancestral tomb-clearing festival in Spring -- the Ching Ming festival -- rather than as meaning "crystal clear"; I only took the literal meaning of the phrase in formulating my translation above. For a translation that incorporated the meaning of the Ching Ming festival, please refer to Alice Poon's work here and here.)

(Translation note 2: I'm really happy to be able to utilise some onomatopoeic assonances / alliterations in the manner of Gerald Manley Hopkins as part of my translation above, as in "pale pear blossoms", "while leaves from willows fly", and "droops dolefully". I'm sure this could be improved much further but am happy with what I was able to attempt so far.)

(Translation note 3: After a bit of deliberation, I've added an alternative last line that does take into account the translation of "清明" as Ching Ming festival as opposed to the literal meaning of the words themselves.)

From the Wikipedia entry on Camellia japonica (which is the genus that my pot plant belongs to), I am very glad to learn that there has been a beautiful English poem that is dedicated to the White Camelia japonica:

THE WHITE CAMELLIA JAPONICA — Charlotte Elizabeth

Thou beauteous child of purity and grace,

What element could yield so fair a birth?

Defilement bore me - my abiding place

Was mid the foul clods of polluted earth.

But light looked on me from a holier sphere,

To draw me heavenward - then I rose and shone;

And can I vainly to thine eye appear,

Thou dust-born gazer? make the type thine own.

From thy dark dwelling look thou forth, and see

The purer beams that brings a lovelier change for thee.

Okay... enough of poetic musings on ice and snow and purity :) How about a vatful of delicious Chinese chicken broth that is sure to warm the cockles of your heart as well as fill your stomach?

This is my first ever attempt to make Chinese broth. In fact, I invented the recipe when I found myself craving Chinese soup in the middle of the snowstorm last month (last year technically also). Will put up the recipe in the next while, as I have to say it tastes absolutely gorgeous and, more importantly, even authentic (even though it was a complete invention by a newbie / amateur Chinese cook such as myself!)

* * * * *

Finally, a little note to sum up my past decades... 人踏中年，與其來個中年危機，倒不如做一個小小總結，積極的面對人生。

Late 70's. -- Toddler. 襁褓幼稚時期。也有片段回憶，都是開心的。

80's -- Growing up. 成長；價值觀成立及鞏固。最快樂的童年；自信心爆棚。然而，好景不常：八九六四；父母離異。

90's -- Emigration. 移民；激烈轉變。自信變自卑；外向變內向。可是，也遇上好好的本地朋友和老師，慢慢地學會欣賞這裡的人和環境。考上理想大學；真正重拾信心。九七回歸，難忘的暑期工。完成四年愉快充實的大學生涯。拿獎學金，出國進修，初次真正獨立生活，亦正式明白「夏蟲不可以語冰」這七個字的意思。

00's -- "Lost decade". 困惑之年。事業選擇不如理想，被某些同事抵制（初時以為是單純的背景問題，後來了解到其實自己的不圓滑也是致命傷）。當一些自己尊敬的上司與同僚也走了，自己也選擇重回學園，並幸運的覓得一教席。然而沒想到學府內同樣爾虞我詐，理想曾一度破滅。自在外回來再次與家人同住後，與家人關係尤其日益惡劣，終於頂唔順，搬出去自成一家（雖然現在是名副其實的負資產苦業主，但我還是認為自己能擁有自己的天地是非常幸運的，加上不打算賣樓，亦暫支持得住，還不心存感激嗎？）。可惜還未在待人處事上學乖，也遇上不少小人，工作縱有熱誠，但也常遇滑鐵盧。可是也僥倖遇上幾位真誠支持鼓勵後輩的模範前輩（雖然其中一位已在兩個月前輕輕的走了...），和很多讓我受益不淺的的學生，在研究途中，也遇到很多善良的，美自內心的，深具啟發性的人。當身心疲憊得像一個破機器般勉強地運作，他們是我堅持下去的理由。

Last 3 months -- 十年了，破機器終於有機會給停下來稍為修補。我也真的幸運，當機器壞了，身邊竟還有親人好友，他們竟然還未完全被蒸發掉，儘管我是非常沒有給予他們應得的時間和關心，真是奇蹟！而我也未因那些困惑之年而放棄自己，也是奇蹟！

有些東西。。。 (Updated with full text of Charter 08 in Chinese)

2011-01-07T18:07:00.032Z

有些東西。。。

有些東西，說不清，愈說愈糟 --

時間如細水流，

一切濯然明淨。

有些東西，理還亂，滋擾視聽 --

時間如雪下墮，

一切安然緘默。

有些東西，極無謂，雞毛蒜皮 --

時間如大江河，

一切豁然有容。

有些東西，明白了，不會介意 --

時間如風飄過，

一切坦然無聲。

有些東西，錯過了，需懂放下 --

時間如輪運轉，

一切井然有序。

有些東西，放開了，可以忘記 --

時間如海浪奔，

一切恍然無痕。

然而。。。

有些東西，要執着，好好堅持 --

時間如水蝕石，

一切自然落出。

Addendum:

This is a Chinese companion piece to my earlier poem, "Some things..."

Further Reading (excerpted from 2010年那些失踪的新聞未完待續……):

新聞是明天的歷史，歷史是昨天的新聞。
歷史學者朱學勤說，新聞像一條河流，每天在流經我們的眼前。

這是新聞，這是2010年的新聞，這是已經從我們視線裡消失了的新聞，這是依然在刺痛著我們的心房，烙入我們腦海裡的新聞。

一個月前的上海膠州路，大火熊熊，28層高樓化作廢墟，58名市民葬身火窟。...十萬市民走上街頭，第一次集體表達他們的“非暴力不滿意”。

兩個月前的河北保定, 河大校園裡，一聲刺耳的剎車聲過後，燭光點點，冷風淒淒，如花生命驟然離去。我爸是李剛，這是肇事者現場遺下的只言片語；官二代和平民女，這是二者的階層身份，社會情緒排山倒海，一邊是出離憤怒的萬眾聚焦，一邊是戛然而止的事態進展。

三個月前的江西宜黃，強拆大軍兵臨城下，民宅屋頂烈焰焚身，昌北機場攻守防截，南昌街頭強虜弱女...

你還記得舟曲縣城的廢墟嗎？ 8月7日，暗夜裡，暴雨中，噩夢般的泥石流巨龍... 這是“覆舟曲”的滅頂之災，也是生態失衡後驚心動魄的慘重代價。

你還記得王家嶺的礦難嗎？ 3月28日，黑沉沉的大地深處，115名幸運者死裡逃生，38名遇難者長埋地下。沒有人知道遇難者的姓名，也無從探究事故的真實原因。瘡痍大地無語靜默，唯有血煤依舊在燃燒，地火照舊在運行。

你還記得富士康高樓頂上，那些徘徊著的孤魂嗎？ 1月23日，19歲的富士康員工馬向前，從富士康華南培訓處的宿舍裡縱身一躍，就像打開了一個魔咒。 ... 馬向前之後，我們至今不能準確地知道這些後來不幸者的名字，也不知道那一跳之後究竟還有多少隱情。

你還記得那些可疑疫苗下的受害孩子嗎？ 3月的山西，病床上百餘名孩子的哭聲，攪動了中國。 2010年度的疫苗孩子，和2008年的大頭娃娃、2009年的結石寶寶一樣，成為成人世界里永遠洗刷不掉的恥辱標籤。

這是新聞，這是2010年的新聞，這是已經從我們視線裡消失了的新聞，這是依然在刺痛著我們的心房，烙入我們腦海裡的新聞。

是什麼在讓這些新聞成為2010年的失踪者？是什麼讓探求和接近真相的過程總是戛然而止？

是誰在加速我們的遺忘？又是誰在干預我們的記憶？

我們看到了公權力的驕橫不法。我們追溯的信息鏈條，總是在最密集的環節，齊刷刷地斷掉。我們關注的公眾事件，總是在最緊要的時刻，進入時間停滯的黑洞。

我們總是忍不住會想起那個著名的問題，“如果我們的苦難，單調和貧乏得連故事都沒有了，那該怎麼辦？”

我們看到了注意力的轉移，消息源的關閉。

我們忍不住會想起那個著名的寓言。想起那個在沙灘上來回奔走，將退潮後陷在沙坑水窪裡的小魚，一條條奮力送回大海裡的小男孩。你救不過來啊，你能救多少條小魚呢？是啊，這條算，這條也算，還有這條……

是的，你們可以斬斷歷史，也可以漠視公眾的聲音，甚至可以消除記憶的痕跡，就像小說《盛世，中國2013》裡所描繪的前景，讓某一天不再重現。

但，

我們不要一份殘缺不全的日曆，我們不要被姦污和被刪除的公共記憶。

我們是觀察者，我們也是記錄者，我們還是打撈者。

我們在觀察世道與人心，我們在記錄社會的演變，我們在打撈時代的真相。

我們在打一場戰爭，一場記憶與遺忘的戰爭。

Source: 南都周刊 (2010-12-31 12:26:30). Article contains original news reportage links to the events mentioned above which have not yet been harmonised away by CCP officialdom as of 8 January, 2011.

“我翻開白皮書一查，這白皮書沒有內容，歪歪斜斜的每頁上都寫著'和諧'二個字。我橫豎睡不著，仔細看了半夜，才從字縫裡看出字來，滿本都寫著兩個字是'吃人'！”——魯迅《狂人日記》

Further reading:

Full text of Charter 08 in Chinese (thanks to Sinan for sharing):

零八憲章1

2008年12月10日公布

一、前言

今年是中國立憲百年，《世界人權宣言》公布60周年，“民主牆”誕生30周年，中國政府簽署《公民權利和政治權利國際公約》10周年。在經曆了長期的人權災難和艱難曲折的抗争曆程之後，覺醒的中國公民日漸清楚地認識到，自由、平等、人權是人類共同的普世價值；民主、共和、憲政是現代政治的基本制度架構。抽離了這些普世價值和基本政制架構的“現代化”，是剝奪人的權利、腐蝕人性、摧毀人的尊嚴的災難過程。21世紀的中國将走向何方，是繼續這種威權統治下的“ 現代化”，還是認同普世價值、融入主流文明、建立民主政體？這是一個不容回避的抉擇。

19世紀中期的曆史巨變，暴露了中國傳統專制制度的腐朽，揭開了中華大地上“數千年未有之大變局”的序幕。洋務運動追求器物層面的進良，甲午戰敗再次暴露了體制的過時；戊戌變法觸及到制度層面的革新，終因頑固派的殘酷鎮壓而歸于失敗；辛亥革命在表面上埋葬了延續2000多年的皇權制度，建立了亞洲第一個共和國。囿于當時内憂外患的特定曆史條件，共和政體隻是昙花一現，專制主義旋即卷土重來。器物模仿和制度更新的失敗，推動國人深入到對文化病根的反思，遂有以“科學與民主”爲旗幟的“五四”新文化運動，因内戰頻仍和外敵入侵，中國政治民主化曆程被迫中斷。抗日戰争勝利後的中國再次開啓了憲政曆程，然而國共内戰的結果使中國陷入了現代極權主義的深淵。1949年建立的“新中國”，名義上是“人民共和國”，實質上是“黨天下”。執政黨壟斷了所有政治、經濟和社會資源，制造了反右、大躍進、文革、六四、打壓民間宗教活動與維權運動等一系列人權災難，緻使數千萬人失去生命，國民和國家都付出了極爲慘重的代價。

二十世紀後期的“改革開放”，使中國擺脫了毛澤東時代的普遍貧困和絕對極權，民間财富和民衆生活水平有了大幅度提高，個人的經濟自由和社會權利得到部分恢複，公民社會開始生長，民間對人權和政治自由的呼聲日益高漲。執政者也在進行走向市場化和私有化的經濟改革的同時，開始了從拒絕人權到逐漸承認人權的轉變。中國政府于1997年、1998年分别簽署了兩個重要的國際人權公約，全國人大于2004年通過修憲把“尊重和保障人權”寫進憲法，今年又承諾制訂和推行《國家人權行動計劃》。但是，這些政治進步迄今爲止大多停留在紙面上；有法律而無法治，有憲法而無憲政，仍然是有目共睹的政治現實。執政集團繼續堅持維系威權統治，排拒政治變革，由此導緻官場腐敗，法治難立，人權不彰，道德淪喪，社會兩極分化，經濟畸形發展，自然環境和人文環境遭到雙重破壞，公民的自由、财産和追求幸福的權利得不到制度化的保障，各種社會矛盾不斷積累，不滿情緒持續高漲，特别是官民對立激化和群體事件激增，正在顯示着災難性的失控趨勢，現行體制的落伍已經到了非改不可的地步。

二、我們的基本理念

當此決定中國未來命運的曆史關頭，有必要反思百年來的現代化曆程，重申如下基本理念：

自由：自由是普世價值的核心之所在。言論、出版、信仰、集會、結社、遷徙、罷工和遊行示威等權利都是自由的具體體現。自由不昌，則無現代文明可言。
人權：人權不是國家的賜予，而是每個人與生俱來就享有的權利。保障人權，既是政府的首要目标和公共權力合法性的基礎，也是“以人爲本”的内在要求。中國的曆次政治災難都與執政當局對人權的無視密切相關。人是國家的主體，國家服務于人民，政府爲人民而存在。
平等：每一個個體的人，不論社會地位、職業、性别、經濟狀況、種族、膚色、宗教或政治信仰，其人格、尊嚴、自由都是平等的。必須落實法律面前人人平等的原則，落實公民的社會、經濟、文化、政治權利平等的原則。
共和：共和就是“大家共治，和平共生”，就是分權制衡與利益平衡，就是多種利益成分、不同社會集團、多元文化與信仰追求的群體，在平等參與、公平競争、共同議政的基礎上，以和平的方式處理公共事務。
民主：最基本的涵義是主權在民和民選政府。民主具有如下基本特點：
（1）政權的合法性來自人民，政治權力來源于人民；
（2）政治統治經過人民選擇；
（3）公民享有真正的選舉權，各級政府的主要政務官員必須通過定期的競選産生；
（4）尊重多數人的決定，同時保護少數人的基本人權。
一句話，民主使政府成爲“民有，民治，民享”的現代公器。
憲政：憲政是通過法律規定和法治來保障憲法确定的公民基本自由和權利的原則，限制并劃定政府權力和行爲的邊界，并提供相應的制度設施。
在中國，帝國皇權的時代早已一去不複返了；在世界範圍内，威權體制也日近黃昏；公民應該成爲真正的國家主人。祛除依賴“明君”、“清官”的臣民意識，張揚權利爲本、參與爲責的公民意識，實踐自由，躬行民主，尊奉法治，才是中國的根本出路。

三、我們的基本主張

藉此，我們本着負責任與建設性的公民精神對國家政制、公民權利與社會發展諸方面提出如下具體主張：

修改憲法：根據前述價值理念修改憲法，删除現行憲法中不符合主權在民原則的條文，使憲法真正成爲人權的保證書和公共權力的許可狀，成爲任何個人、團體和黨派不得違反的可以實施的最高法律，爲中國民主化奠定法權基礎。
分權制衡：構建分權制衡的現代政府，保證立法、司法、行政三權分立。确立法定行政和責任政府的原則，防止行政權力過分擴張；政府應對納稅人負責；在中央和地方之間建立分權與制衡制度，中央權力須由憲法明确界定授權，地方實行充分自治。
立法民主：各級立法機構由直選産生，立法秉持公平正義原則，實行立法民主。
司法獨立：司法應超越黨派、不受任何幹預，實行司法獨立，保障司法公正；設立憲法法院，建立違憲審查制度，維護憲法權威。盡早撤銷嚴重危害國家法治的各級黨的政法委員會，避免公器私用。
公器公用：實現軍隊國家化，軍人應效忠于憲法，效忠于國家，政黨組織應從軍隊中退出，提高軍隊職業化水平。包括警察在内的所有公務員應保持政治中立。消除公務員錄用的黨派歧視，應不分黨派平等錄用。
人權保障：切實保障人權，維護人的尊嚴。設立對最高民意機關負責的人權委員會，防止政府濫用公權侵犯人權，尤其要保障公民的人身自由，任何人不受非法逮捕、拘禁、傳訊、審問、處罰，廢除勞動教養制度。
公職選舉：全面推行民主選舉制度，落實一人一票的平等選舉權。各級行政首長的直接選舉應制度化地逐步推行。定期自由競争選舉和公民參選法定公共職務是不可剝奪的基本人權。
城鄉平等：廢除現行的城鄉二元戶籍制度，落實公民一律平等的憲法權利，保障公民的自由遷徙權。
結社自由：保障公民的結社自由權，将現行的社團登記審批制改爲備案制。開放黨禁，以憲法和法律規範政黨行爲，取消一黨壟斷執政特權，确立政黨活動自由和公平競争的原則，實現政黨政治正常化和法制化。
集會自由：和平集會、遊行、示威和表達自由，是憲法規定的公民基本自由，不應受到執政黨和政府的非法幹預與違憲限制。
言論自由：落實言論自由、出版自由和學術自由，保障公民的知情權和監督權。制訂《新聞法》和《出版法》，開放報禁，廢除現行《刑法》中的“煽動颠覆國家政權罪”條款，杜絕以言治罪。
宗教自由：保障宗教自由與信仰自由，實行政教分離，宗教信仰活動不受政府幹預。審查并撤銷限制或剝奪公民宗教自由的行政法規、行政規章和地方性法規；禁止以行政立法管理宗教活動。廢除宗教團體（包括宗教活動場所）必經登記始獲合法地位的事先許可制度，代之以無須任何審查的備案制。
公民教育：取消服務于一黨統治、帶有濃厚意識形态色彩的政治教育與政治考試，推廣以普世價值和公民權利爲本的公民教育，确立公民意識，倡導服務社會的公民美德。
财産保護：确立和保護私有财産權利，實行自由、開放的市場經濟制度，保障創業自由，消除行政壟斷；設立對最高民意機關負責的國有資産管理委員會，合法有序地展開産權改革，明晰産權歸屬和責任者；開展新土地運動，推進土地私有化，切實保障公民尤其是農民的土地所有權。
财稅改革：确立民主财政和保障納稅人的權利。建立權責明确的公共财政制度構架和運行機制，建立各級政府合理有效的财政分權體系；對賦稅制度進行重大改革，以降低稅率、簡化稅制、公平稅負。非經社會公共選擇過程，民意機關決議，行政部門不得随意加稅、開征新稅。通過産權改革，引進多元市場主體和競争機制，降低金融準入門檻，爲發展民間金融創造條件，使金融體系充分發揮活力。
社會保障：建立覆蓋全體國民的社會保障體制，使國民在教育、醫療、養老和就業等方面得到最基本的保障。
環境保護：保護生态環境，提倡可持續發展，爲子孫後代和全人類負責；明确落實國家和各級官員必須爲此承擔的相應責任；發揮民間組織在環境保護中的參與和監督作用。
聯邦共和：以平等、公正的态度參與維持地區和平與發展，塑造一個負責任的大國形象。維護香港、澳門的自由制度。在自由民主的前提下，通過平等談判與合作互動的方式尋求海峽兩岸和解方案。以大智慧探索各民族共同繁榮的可能途徑和制度設計，在民主憲政的架構下建立中華聯邦共和國。
轉型正義：爲曆次政治運動中遭受政治迫害的人士及其家屬，恢複名譽，給予國家賠償；釋放所有政治犯和良心犯，釋放所有因信仰而獲罪的人員；成立真相調查委員會，查清曆史事件的真相，厘清責任，伸張正義；在此基礎上尋求社會和解。

四、結語

中國作爲世界大國，作爲聯合國安理會五個常任理事國之一和人權理事會的成員，理應爲人類和平事業與人權進步做出自身的貢獻。但令人遺憾的是，在當今世界的所有大國裏，唯獨中國還處在威權主義政治生态中，并由此造成連綿不斷的人權災難和社會危機，束縛了中華民族的自身發展，制約了人類文明的進步——這種局面必須改變！政治民主化變革不能再拖延下去。

爲此，我們本着勇于踐行的公民精神，公布《零XX八YY憲ZZ章》。我們希望所有具有同樣危機感、責任感和使命感的中國公民，不分朝野，不論身份，求同存異，積極參與到公民運動中來，共同推動中國社會的偉大變革，以期早日建成一個自由、民主、憲政的國家，實現國人百餘年來锲而不舍的追求與夢想。

有國內朋友說沒看過這東西，即管放到這裡看看能放多久。朋友們能看到就盡量看吧！ [↩]

Some Late August Colours...

2010-08-31T19:11:00.015+01:00

Can't believe the students are back tomorrow, and another academic year begins. Here's to the final summer of the first decade of the not-so-new millenium. Whilst I didn't get to go away this summer, but I did appreciate the sun, oh-so-very-much. It had been one of the nicest Irish summers in living memory (perhaps as belated compensation for the dreadful winter and so-called spring we had). I'm glad I stayed, even if I had not had much choice in the matter, for this summer has already marked one of my many firsts when it comes to letting my creativity blossom, like in the colourful photos above (thank you Nikon Coolpix for being a handy point-and-shoot until such time as I could pick up your heftier cousin again, or I wouldn't have been able to capture that pretty butterfly otherwise). And as autumn comes, I would be even gladder to have completed one of my important milestones in my life thus far... :)

The quality of mercy is not strain'd... [Translated Shakespearean Quotation and Excerpts from an Essay by Ms. Lee Ying-Chuen, Bus Hostage Survivor]

2010-08-30T22:26:00.074+01:00

Translation of a Shakespearean passage offered in humble tribute to all victims and survivors of the Manila bus hostage incident, and in admiration of the grace and true courage displayed by Ms. Lee Ying-chuen in her recent essay (Ms. Lee is one of the handful of survivors of this man-made tragedy)...

"The quality of mercy is not strain'd,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown;
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptred sway,
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God's,
When mercy seasons justice...
... we do pray for mercy;
And that same prayer doth teach us all to render
The deeds of mercy."

-- Excerpted from the Shakespearean play "The Merchant of Venice" (Act 4, Scene 1)*

慈悲的本質是不吝嗇，也不牽強的；
它像天堂賜下凡間
一陣陣溫柔的雨；
它是一份雙重的恩典；
它的恩澤滋潤了它的受惠者；
也同時滋潤了傾贈它的人。
它是強者中的強者；它成為
一個比皇冠更能代表皇者的加冕；
皇帝的權杖顯示出的俗世力量，
只是敬畏與威嚴的象徵；
是諸王憂慮和恐懼的根源。
但慈悲是在這種權杖威力之上，
它立基於皇者的心坎裏，
它本來源於天上的聖靈，
令凡間的勢力更趨上帝
那恩義雙全的國度。。。
。。。我們祈求天主的慈悲憐憫，
而那個禱告亦同時教我們去學懂
表現慈悲為懷的作為。

--- 節譯自莎士比亞劇目《威尼斯商人》（第四場，第一幕）

Translated by Snowdrops, 2010. All rights reserved.
(Most recent satisfied translation version published on 31st August, 2010, at 20:32).
(One key phrase change instituted on 14 January, 2011, at 16:44. Originally the first line of the translation had "strain'd" as "不吝嗇，也不費力的", to alert readers to the double-meanings of the term "strain'd" in this sentence. Further deliberation initially led me to utilise 牽強 instead of 吝嗇, even though I like 吝嗇 just as well if not better (it indicates the mean-spiritedness of Shylock very well, and also befits the meaning of word "Mercy" in the line as a quality that is generously given rather than forced). However 牽強 is more in keeping with the context of the dialogue between Portia and Shylock (where Portia was responding to Shylock's question about why he must be merciful), I have therefore ultimately decided to include 牽強. Subsequently I replaced 吝嗇 with 牽強, as I was going to leave 不費力 as part of the sentence because "not strain'd" does also refer to the fact that true mercy should be natural and effortless, precisely like how heavenly rain falls gracefully to earth. On further reflection however, 不牽強 does have this similar connotation to 不費力, and so the new translation of the phrase "not strain'd" becomes "不吝嗇，也不牽強的")

Further reading (Translations of these passages by Snowdrops published on 31st August, 2010, at 07:27; Slightly amended on 31st August at 17:48):

李瀅銓（馬尼拉事件倖存者）：還死傷者公道，不向弱者抽刃
Lee Ying-Chuen (Survivor from the Manila incident): "Demand Justice for the Victims; Don't Lash Out at the Weak"

回到香港後，知道香港這幾天出現了不少反菲言論，網上有人說要把所有菲傭趕走，使菲國立即陷入經濟困境作為報復，又有菲傭在街上被辱罵，一聲聲「奴隸國、僕人國」來作菲國代號。我明白市民對菲國政府和警察的無能的憤怒，我親身體會，但是，這與菲國人民何干呢？難道我們都忘了被歧視的滋味嗎？香港曾是長久被殖民的一個社會，華人在體制上和生活上都被所謂的「主人」歧視，現在卻有一些香港人財大氣粗地聲稱「我哋請咁多菲律賓人，我哋係佢哋老細」，以一副「聘用你是恩惠，你卻敢以下犯上」的奴隸主姿態來責備那些和挾持人質事件全不沾邊的菲傭，實在讓人心驚。菲傭明明就是她們無能政府的受害人，正正因為政府無能讓人民溫飽，無數的菲國婦女才要離鄉別井、丟下自己的孩子去寄人籬下照顧別人的孩子呀，為什麼在香港菲傭反而成為無能政府的代罪羔羊呢？為什麼在悲憤的同時有些香港人會變成種族主義者？同樣讓人難以明白的是，香港政府竟也在此同時宣布要把包括菲傭在內的外傭繼續凍薪，使外傭都無法分享經濟好轉的成果，這是我們的政府在渾水摸魚嗎？政府能不能公開檢討外傭薪酬的標準和機制是什麼，在這個時候作這些舉動，給人政府要懲罰外傭的感覺，對消除仇菲情緒沒有任何幫助。有位友人引了魯迅的一句話：勇者憤怒，抽刃向更強者；怯者憤怒，卻抽刃向更弱者。香港人難道是只會向弱者開刀的怯者嗎？

[Since returning to Hong Kong, I realised quite a lot of anti-Philippines talk have surfaced here in the last few days. On the Internet there were those who claimed that all Filipino maids should be deported, so as to exact revenge by ruining the economy of the Philippines. There were also reports of Filipino maids being insulted on the streets, and epithets of "Slave country" and "Servant country" replacing the name of Philippines. I understand my fellow citizens' anger and frustration against the utter fecklessness of the Filipino government and its woefully inept police force. This is something I personally experienced. However, what has this got to do with ordinary Filipino folks? Have we ourselves forgotten what it's like to be discriminated against? Hong Kong had for a long time been a colonial society, in which Chinese had been discriminated against in the formal system as well as in their daily lives by their so-called "masters". Now it is quite frightening to witness how some well-to-do Hongkongers boastfully declare, "We employ so many Filipino maids, we are their boss!", adopting a kind of "You should've been grateful we deign to employ you, how dare you rise up against us?!" slave-master attitude to berate those who have absolutely nothing to do with the bus hostage tragedy. It should have been clear that the Filipino maids are in fact victims of their own useless government. They are here precisely because of their government's inability to provide a basic livelihood for its citizens, forcing thousands upon thousands of Filipino women to leave behind their homes and their own children to come to a foreign land and help us look after our kids. How could these women possibly be the scapegoat for their useless government? Why do some Hongkongers become racist in the midst of our collective sorrow and anger? Similarly, it boggles the mind why the Hong Kong administration chose this moment to announce the freezing of wages for all foreign workers including Filipino maids, thus preventing them from sharing in the fruits of our economic recovery. Is the Hong Kong government trying to take advantage of a political expediency? Can our government hold a public review of the standards and metrics used in determining foreign workers' wages? Exhibiting this sort of behaviour at this particular time gives the impression that the Government would like to punish foreign workers, and does nothing to help dispel the prevailing anti-Philippines mood. A friend quoted from a Lu Zhun saying: "When the brave are angry, they lacerate those who are stronger than themselves; but when the cowardly become incensed, they lash out at those who are even weaker." Are we Hongkongers some kind of cowards who only dare to lash out at the weak?]

要慰死難者在天之靈的方法不是責難無辜的菲傭或菲國人民，我們的焦點要清晰，針對菲國的政府和警方，要求公正的調查，追究事件責任，以及支持傷者及死者遺屬安排日後的生活，這才是對事件中死傷者的實在關懷，長遠而言，我們該更支持菲國人民建設更可靠的政府，更有公義的社會，這樣香港才真正算得上是國際社會的一員，有人道關懷的國際大都會。

[The way to help rest the souls of the poor victims is not to blame the innocent Filipino maids or ordinary Filipino citizens. Our focus has got to be clear, so that we set our sights squarely on the Filipino government and its police force, and demand an objective, fair and thorough investigation, in order that responsibility for the tragedy could be appropriately apportioned; as well as to support the injured and the families of the deceased in preparing for the maintenance of their future livelihoods. This is the kind of care and concrete assistance we can provide to those who suffer gravely in this tragedy. In the long run, we should work towards helping Filipino citizens to build a more reliable government and a more just society for themselves, as only by doing so could Hong Kong rightfully proclaim itself as a proud member of the international community, a world city that respects and promotes human decency.]

* Note: As the translator does not want the relevance of this Shakespearean quotation to Ms. Lee's essay to be misinterpreted, the quotation is deliberately abridged for the purpose of this translated post. The full quotation is available here.

Throwing off baggage...

2010-08-27T17:39:00.011+01:00

"So in addition to the socks and lipsticks, you’re going to throw out the old regrets and resentments, the resignation, the fear of failing or the fear of succeeding; you’re going to let go of the voices that remind you of your so-called limitations. You know those voices. Just when you’re feeling pretty spunky and sure of yourself – just when you’ve created a bold new vision for your life – that voice from the past says, “Not so fast, kiddo, you can’t do that! You don’t have enough time, you don’t have enough energy, you don’t have enough money, and anyway, they’ll never let you!” (p. xix)."

I sooooo need reading that right now, thanks blue!

Other bon mots from the same book that blue quoted (so this post is in essence, an excerpt of her excerpts!):

"Deciding not to decide, or deciding to decide later, is… BS. Not deciding is the number one cause of all the clutter – physical, emotional, and spiritual – in our lives. And if we can’t decide what to throw out of our clothes closets, how in the world are we going to decide what to throw out of our mental closets (p. 9)"

"For me, people who live solely on their laurels and accomplishments from the past are a yawn. I don’t want to hear how wonderful you were in high school or how you used to bicycle twenty miles a day. I want to know: What are you doing with your life today? Looking backward holds no charm for me. What’s done is done. Learn from it and move on.” (p. 102)"

"No one is dispensable. When we allow ourselves to be, we’re all vital to the positive outcome of whatever effort we involve ourselves in. Why don’t we just get it about ourselves? And for the record, other people will never get it about us until we get it about ourselves. Funny how that works. (p. 120)."

"I will not compare myself with others, nor them with me. I will appreciate myself and others for what I and they contribute (p. 123)."

-- this reminds me of a line from Desiderata: "If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself." (btw, I blogged about this prose poem a couple of years ago, describing it as "a crucial source of spiritual sustenance to me at times of need since I first came across it when I was twelve", see here)
(side track: although I don't read self-help books [for years the only book that I read that is "self-help" is Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way, a book I got years and years ago; and only this month did I pick up Danny Gregory's The Creative License], and in fact generally snootily hold my nose up at self-help readers [I'm grateful to blue for helping me see how wrong that was], I am only realising myself now how much I derive "self-help" from reading poetry, including verses from prayers. No wonder my first response to the man-made tragedy in Manila was to search for poetry that might help.)

"If you spend all your energy on reliving the things that didn’t work, what you should or shouldn’t have done, should or shouldn’t have said, you’ll ve no energy for finding new ways to be fulfilled. Let that stuff go. (p. 146)"

"Waiting is a national pastime… Some of us are waiting for them to get it about us. You know, about how good we are. They should recognize us and promote us and celebrate us. They should discover us. But that’s not how it works… People don’t get it about us until we get it about ourselves. Until we step out of the stands and onto the field – even before we’re invited (p. 181)."

"It’s okay not to know. Insecurity – not knowing what the future holds for us – can be good, not bad… We weren’t meant to live tidy, predictable lives with everything neatly laid out in front of us, like all our clothes for the next week… Being comfortable… actually stunts growth… We’re always on our way; never there. it’s supposed to be an adventure. An adventure, by its very nature, is unpredictable; the outcome is unknown (p. 192)."

Two-Toned Rose...

2010-08-25T01:06:00.009+01:00

DSCN0161, originally uploaded by Snowdrops in Spring .

Taken with my new Nikon camera... Coolpix rather than D5000, as sadly I've yet to learn to get properly to grips with the latter, and I don't want my lovely flowers wilting before I could record their moments of beauty.

Btw this rose pot plant is meant to be just red, but this particular bloom exhibited a kind of floral albinoism. If it's not genetically generated, then it might have been because the bud was leaning against the lace curtain on the balcony when it was growing and didn't manage to get to develop as much pigmentation on some of its petals. It's still gorgeous though, and I love how the sunlight is shot through the green leaves in this pic.

.

我知道。。。

2010-08-24T06:30:00.018+01:00

我知道，這個世界不是絕對的好;
我也知道，它有離別，有衰老。
給我一段無瑕的回憶，
給我一顆溫柔的心靈。。。

兒時一張小書籤上的一首小小詩句。書籤雖然早已遺失了，但是詩句至今仍銘記於心。其實心中曾有一個疑問，為什麼世上「有離別」，「有衰老」，那一段記憶竟還是會「無瑕」呢？後來想想，或許正是因為離開了，那段與他或她一起走過的回憶更凝珍貴，因其無可代替。。。

An old English poem expresses a similar sentiment:

Heraclitus --- by William Johnson Cory

They told me, Heraclitus, they told me you were dead,
They brought me bitter news to hear and bitter tears to shed.
I wept, as I remembered, how often you and I
Had tired the sun with talking and sent him down the sky.

And now that thou art lying, my dear old Carian guest,
A handful of grey ashes, long long ago at rest,
Still are thy pleasant voices, thy nightingales, awake;
For Death, he taketh all away, but them he cannot take.

或許這首幾米的詩篇更能體貼失去了他或她的心靈：

看見的，看不見了。
夏風輕輕吹過，在瞬間消失無蹤，
記住的，遺忘了。
只留下一地微微晃動的迷離樹影.....

看不見的，是不是就等於不存在?
也許只是被濃雲遮住，
也許剛巧風沙飛入眼簾，
我看不見你，卻依然感到溫暖。

他們在無意間相遇，
卻為幽黯的生命帶來溫柔美好的光亮。

記住的，是不是永遠不會消失?
我守護如泡沫般脆弱的夢境，
快樂才剛開始，悲傷卻早已潛伏而來。

看不見的，看見了。
夏風輕輕吹過，草叢樹葉翻舞飛揚。
遺忘的，記住了。
烏雲漸漸散去，一道柔和的月光灑落在窗前.....

......送給被世界奪走了愛人的人，不要強迫自己節哀，軟弱是完全理直氣壯的，痛苦到了某一程度，要對人言，儘管那是非常非常的難，但要記着，這個世界，雖然殘酷，但還是有愛你的人。。。

.

The Girl, the Snake, and the Hopscotch...

2010-08-21T03:00:00.078+01:00

Once upon a time, there was a little girl. She was six years old, with shoulder-length hair like most other little girls her age. This was sometimes tied up in two pigtails by her mother using hair-bands threaded with lots of rainbow-coloured beads. She loved how the beads made pleasing, clacking noises as she swung her pigtails around, like when she was skipping on a hopscotch. Occasionally she was rewarded with an elaborate plait created by her mother on those days when she was being an all-round good girl (and when her mother was in a particularly creative mood). But when she was bad and wouldn't stop throwing tantrums, her mother would threaten to bring her to the hairdresser and cut short her hair, just like the buzz cut that her father got from time to time.

One day, the little girl was standing at the entrance of a local school, while her mother chatted leisurely with a teacher. She remembered a scene familiar to this from a few years ago, but promised herself not to cry this time, now that she was a big girl. Instead, she peered curiously through the sparsely-spaced grille of the metal gates, and was reassured by the sight of lots of other children about her age running around in the huge school yard, yelling at the top of their lungs, seemingly without a care in the world. But she also noticed other kids lounging around the periphery who were two or even three times her size, looking not the least bit friendly, which unsettled her greatly. The little girl was a bag of nerves until she spied the three plane-like hopscotch patterns traced out in white chalk on the poured concrete in one corner of the yard -- her favourite playground game! She was ecstatic and went in to join the other kids without a moment's hesitation, spurred on by her sudden epiphany that the school yard was not too different from a playground, after all.

One night, however, the little girl woke up in a clammy, cold sweat. She was having a most horrible nightmare, in which she was chased by a giant snake who just wouldn't leave her alone. Even when she tried to lock herself in the bathroom, it slipped through the crack at the bottom of the door and wouldn't go away. In a flash of blind panic she actually opened her eyes and realised she was looking up at the ceiling from her bunk bed, whereupon she saw a huge spider leisurely scuttling across the far corner of the room, casually oblivious to her plight. The nonchalance of that spider, strolling around as if it owned her bedroom, was too much for her to bear, and she screamed and screamed. Her mother came into her room, sat her up and placed the back of her hand onto her hot and sweaty forehead, and pronounced immediately that she was running a high fever even without the benefit of a thermometer. Her mother then got her an ice-pack and a glass of iced water, which the little girl quickly gulped down without any fuss, grateful for the refreshing coolness which revived her patched throat.

In dribs and drabs, the little girl began to tell her mother about the nightmare she was having just before she woke up. Her mother nodded and listened to the ingenious ways in which the little girl tried to escape her demon, then finally smiled and said, You know, you shouldn't have been afraid of that snake, however big it is. Don't you remember you are a snake yourself? Why should you be afraid? You were born in the Year of the Snake, so maybe that giant snake was only trying to say hello to a long-lost friend?

This advice was so surprising that the little girl actually took it to heart. She had wished her mother would say that she could wield an imaginary axe and chop that serpent's head off before it gets hers, but this was altogether a much more civilised proposition. Over the next twenty-four hours, the little girl drifted in and out of her dreams, in which she tried valiantly to take her mother's advice and overcome her fear and face the snake, who still wouldn't leave her alone. But if she was being honest with herself, she found it far easier to just run away than to confront that horrid-looking viper, even if the only route of escape was to squeeze her body through that tiny air-vent in the bathroom. But miraculously, she managed. She worked out a plan: I would keep running but if the snake had finally caught up with me, I would plead with it not to bite me by proclaiming that I was his relative! I would extend the olive branch of peace and friendship rather than try to wield an axe. After all, we are of the same kin.

The little girl didn't remember the family doctor coming in with his stethoscope and his black leather medicine bag to check up on her, nor did she register her father going out to get prescriptions and making vatfuls of rice porridge to feed both his exhausted wife and his little daughter, who mumbled worryingly in her sleep.

Her parents moved her to a cushioned straw mattress placed on the living room floor, a makeshift bed where the air circulation was better and where her mother would join her in her sleep and would check on her temperature every few hours, including right through the night. The little girl was sleeping fitfully because of her nightmarish encounters with the snake, but she also understood that her mother wasn't getting much sleep either because of her nightmares. When she escaped from the clutches of her dreams and woke up in the middle of the night for the fifth or sixth time, she refrained from waking up her mother, but contented herself with holding onto her mother's back and listening to her rhythmic breathing, until she herself drifted once more into sleep.

Three days later, the little girl woke up and felt something discharged from her ear. Her head felt light and, for the first time in what seemed like a life-time, she did not feel dizzy at all. Instead, she could feel the cotton-wool being torn away from inside her head, could feel her head drinking in the sunlight through the balcony windows as if it were orange juice and her eyes were the straw, and she could also hear clearly the gently insistent ticking of the clock on the far wall. She's survived an ear infection, she was later told. Now be a good girl and get well, she was also told.

Three more days passed, and the little girl was well enough to get back to school. She didn't remember if she had successfully confronted the snake or not in her dreams, as she was always yanked back into wakefulness just when she was about to witness what the snake would make of her argument. But one thing she did know: the snake did pause to listen, and she had survived. And if she could survive an encounter with a most horrible deadly serpent, she could survive anything. She felt this truth quite clearly in her heart and mind: I might not have been able to confront the snake that well in my nightmares, but I am not scared any more and I know that I could talk to any kids in my school with confidence.

What the little girl came to eventually understand, was that perhaps even outwardly intimidating people were only trying to find a long-lost friend, appearances notwithstanding. Her mother had, seemingly without any conscious effort, began to teach her the value of keeping an open mind, and to look for commonality among all living things, even in the most unlikely of places.

With this lesson from her nightmare tucked inside her heart, for the rest of her school days, the little girl lived happily ever after with her school friends and her family.

The End.

Epilogue: With the exception of a brief period in her teenage years, the little girl kept her long hair into adulthood, which she would make into an elaborate French plait on those days when she felt like rewarding herself for behaving like a proper woman, one who could face her fears and be principled in both her words and deeds.

Copyright Snowdrops 2010. All rights reserved.

Note: Gosh, I haven't done any creative writing in ages and the above is absolutely dire!!!! (Well, it was really dire to begin with, but my constant re-phrasings had ameliorated the composition a tiny tiny bit). But at least I got this writing exercise done. It's not a pretty sight but I guess at least it got me back on track. I just received Danny Gregory's The Creative License and am skimming through it, finding it very inspiring and helpful. May blog about it later (although I have to say the above writing exercise is not from Gregory's book per se -- as his book encourages people to doodle and paint, which I couldn't quite do on my blog -- but more from what I remembered of Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way, which I read years ago and am only finally applying some of the lessons now!!)

Little translation game...

2010-08-13T07:55:00.012+01:00

Try translating the below into Chinese:

"I know you believe you understand what you think I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant."

My first attempt:

我知你認為自己聽得明我講啲乜，但其實你有冇諗過你所聽到嘅未必係等於我想表達嘅嘢呢？

Slight amendments to my first attempt:

我知你認為自己聽得明我講啲乜，但其實你有冇諗過你所聽到嘅，同我想表達嘅，未必係同一樣嘢呢？

Hmm, seems like my first attempt is best after all.

Original game proposed by 荒言, re-blogged by Chris here and here.

I have to say I translated the above without looking at any of the others' attempted translations on Chris's second post. I'm rather glad to see that I'm not the only one who felt Cantonese is the easiest way to translate the above English quote, thus avoiding all the clunkiness imposed on the sentence structure by the use of formal Chinese :)

Green... [Chinese Translations and Flickr Galleries Added]

2010-08-03T02:25:00.027+01:00

The dawn was apple-green,
The sky was green wine held up in the sun,
The moon was a golden petal between.

She opened her eyes, and green
They shone, clear like flowers undone
For the first time, now for the first time seen.

--- by D. H. Lawrence.

For more colour musings, please go here.

Didn't have time to write up my own colour musings, but this poem (titled simply as, "Green") sums up succinctly many things that are beautiful to me about the colour green, without reverting to any usual clichés about grass and trees. The poem is so simple, using grade-school English, and yet the imagery of the different subtle colours of green is so effectively painted in my mind's eye that I'm simply felled by its beauty. Love especially that the ideas of "green" as in "fresh", "untainted", "unspoilt", "naive" and "innocent" are all subsumed into the last line. This is just lovely and, having come across this poem, I'm simply lost for words to describe my own idea of green. Maybe I will recover sufficiently another time to attempt it.

Note: This poem is included in the anthology "Penguin's Poems for Life" (2007), selected by Laura Barber. London: Penguin Classics.

Update (8 August 2010): My Chinese translation of the above poem:

《綠》 -- 勞倫斯

曙光泛起蘋果綠，
天色是瓶被陽光穿透的青酒，
月亮是當中的一片金瓣。

她睜開眼睛，而青綠的
它們在發亮，澄明如鮮花盛開
的第一次，此刻給初次看見。

Translation by Snowdrops. All rights reserved.

* * *

Further update (8 August 2010): Another translation of the same poem I found online:

《綠》 -- 勞倫斯

天空一色蘋果綠，
天空是陽光下舉著的綠色美酒，
月亮是其中一片金色的花瓣

她睜開她的眼睛，綠瑩瑩地眼波閃耀，
象未綻的花蕾一般純，
第一次，此刻第一次為人瞥見

裘小龍譯

Comparing my translation with his, I think my second stanza is more faithful to the original wording of the poem (especially as the flower is meant to be "undone" -- i.e. opened -- rather than as an unopened bud as he'd translated it; and he also added the word "pure" to describe said flower even though the word is not actually present in the poem -- although that notion is present in the line, but I prefer to leave the adjective unsaid like Lawrence himself had done in the original poem).

That said, he had translated more faithfully the first stanza of the poem than I did (although again here he added the adjective "beautiful" to "wine" which was not actually present in the poem itself, and he failed to translate "dawn" adequately and to differentiate it from "sky"). Nevertheless I love how he poetically translated the glints of the green eyes in the second stanza so beautifully into Chinese. I wish I had thought of those wordings!

Further Update (16 August 2010):

I have been meaning to blog about these Flickr galleries I have curated and this is the perfect place to showcase all the beautiful imageries of green I have found on Flickr. Many of these are rather apposite to the word imagery created by the lines "澄明如鮮花盛開 / 的第一次，此刻給初次看見。" Hope you'll enjoy them as much as I did!

Composition in White and Green

Composition in Pink and Green

Important artefacts from a relationship by Leanne Shapton...

2010-07-30T11:29:00.008+01:00

A person becomes an intellectual...

2010-07-22T13:20:00.022+01:00

A person becomes an intellectual...

... Not when she/he gets a primary degree;

... Not when she/he gets a Master's;

... Not when she/he gets a PhD;

... And not even when she/he's a fully-employed academic, with more than one PhD.

A person becomes an intellectual...

... as soon as she/he starts asking, Why?

A person becomes a better intellectual...

... as soon as she/he starts also asking, Why Not?

Anyone can become an intellectual...

... So long as she/he is prepared to question,

what is taken-for-granted in our universe and in our lives.

A person is merely an academic...

... when she/he is content to stay within established ways of thinking;

... when she/he is happy to defend established ways of thinking as Truth with a capital T, one that brooks no re-interpretation by anybody;

... and when she/he scorns others for merely raising a foolish question

Such as, Why?

Or Why not, indeed?

.

Summer Haikus...

2010-07-21T09:00:00.002+01:00

水聲潺潺響
一只蜻蜓在中央
一動，也不動

大尾篤燒烤
一班細路Wee Wee嘩
水槍連環發

More summer musings (in less than 20 words) from other bloggers, please go here.

Thoughts on Online Intellectual Exchanges... [updated]

2010-07-19T19:31:00.033+01:00

[Warning: This is destined to be a long, rambling post, written in both English and Chinese. 無他嘅，因為有些諗法係同一些用中文的網友交流時啟發的。又，由於我的中文程度差，所以白話和書面語會撈埋一碟。敬請見諒。Thank you in advance for bearing with me.]

So anyway, this is something I've meant to write about for quite some time. In fact, I think I had some earlier drafts of this post lurking somewhere on my blogger dashboard.

What brings me to write this finally is a recent exchange I had with a fellow blogger (which I would get to later on in the post). Don't get me wrong, it was a pleasant exchange, and the blogger is extremely civilised. But the thoughts and feelings that the exchange prompted had been building up in me for quite some time. So, perhaps it's time I let it out.

Readers would, hopefully, therefore forgive the fact that this post may come across as a bit of a rant (per my usual blogging style), with nary a coherent structure underpinning my rambling thoughts (again, per my usual blogging style). As I mentioned previously on my blog, blogging is a way for me to let off steam, as well as to put down all these higgledy-piggledy thoughts I had in my head as I found them. To find order among such chaos depends entirely on the patience of an indulging reader. And if you happen to be one of these rare souls, I'm eternally grateful.

Okay. Here goes. My basic thesis (if it could be called as such) is that there are very notable differences in online exchange of ideas between those whose cultural backgrounds are based in the West versus those who are based in the East. But here I already run into immediate problems even just stating this simple proposition. Perhaps it's not really to do with one's cultural backgrounds as such, perhaps more a sort of cultural identity that one subscribes to, consciously or unconsciously, which may or may not have a direct relation with where one is brought up (as I suspect, a lot of it is to do with how one is brought up -- and on this score, I may be bringing shame to my Chinese family if I imply that perhaps I hadn't been quite brought up properly. 其實係我自己嘅問題，唔關家教事，一人做事一人當。). And "East" and "West" are such totalising categories anyway -- maybe I should restrict them to just "Hong Kong" and "Irish"?

Anyway, what I want to say is, 有好多我認為是『港式』交流方法我是非常不認同的，甚至覺得頂唔順的。這樣說我是會俾人打，甚至被雷劈。唉，係都無辦法，死就死啦。。。

1. 排輩論級
Over here (Ireland, Europe, the West, what have you), the intellectual ideal is that one would win or lose an argument simply on the strengths of the argument alone, or lack thereof. If there are merits to your arguments, supported by logic and/or evidence or hopefully both, it should not matter if you are an up-start, marginalised outsider; or a well-established, well-connected insider. In this view of intellectual endeavour, expert authority is meant to be the LAST resort, and would be frowned upon if it is the sole criterion determining the quality of an argument, especially when one rely upon it at the expense of searching for logical coherence or for supporting evidence. That's the reason why we have double-blinded peer reviews -- it should not matter WHO says it, but WHAT is said, and whether what is said made sense, theoretically if not empirically.

Yet a curious thing occurred to me when I see ideas being exchanged on some blogs within the Hong Kong/Chinese blogosphere (whether the bloggers are themselves based in HK or overseas). To me it seems that, to many HK/Chinese bloggers, expert authority comes FIRST in any sort of intellectual exchange. People would preface their arguments with (what I'd consider to be irrelevant) details like where they had studied or who they've worked with or been taught by, or how long they have been in a foreign country or working in the field or how often they had come across other experts in that field. Okay, so authority based on hard-won field experience is indeed important and persuasive, but only in the limited sense of supporting one's personal opinions. After all, personal experience is STILL anecdotal evidence where rigorous scientific investigations are concerned, unless the topic is indeed concerned with the lived experience at the personal level itself. Yet it seems quite a lot of bloggers think it appropriate to elevate such anecdotal evidence to the level of 金科玉律. Whilst there is nothing wrong with being interested in personal experiences, after all, we are all just shooting the breeze; what annoys me is those who would choose to privilege certain personal opinions above others, and certain personal opinions over objective empirical evidence, because of that person's seeming expert credentials.

So, when any sort of debates/discussions are being held, there is always a meta-exchange going on in addition to the points being debated, a jockeying of positions in establishing the degree of one's authority on a given subject among the various participants. Not only that, but this exercise in 論級排輩 is done so in a way that is full of false modesty from all involved. Lots of self-deprecating addresses like 小弟、小妹、鄙人、不才、晚輩, etc. are being used, even when one professes oneself as a 老人.

I'm not saying that one shouldn't be modest, not at all. There is a certain decorum to civilised academic exchanges that we could all do well to observe. But for God's sake, could we not lower ourselves in such an artificial manner especially when we are at the same time trying to set out our stalls in demonstrating our so-called expert credentials? If you must engage in credentialing, could you please just say that you're indeed knowledgeable about the subject, or that you are adopting an outsider's viewpoint, and proceed to share your thoughts. Don't pretend to be modest when you're clearly knowledgeable about the subject, and especially don't try to be modest when in the next breath you're busy establishing your credibility on the subject. It's hypocritical and even smacks of schizophrenia (especially if you describe yourself as 不才, but then when you proceed to share your analysis / viewpoints, it's clear you're quite pleased with yourself to have come up with those angles, which in turn suggests that you don't actually subscribe to the idea of yourself as 不才 at all, and so in that case, why pretend?)

False modesty reeks just as bad as self-aggrandizing bravado, it really does. At least to me. (So maybe it's really just my problem).

2. 設法摸你底
A corollary to 論級排輩 is of course trying to get as much information as one could on fellow debaters' backgrounds, because, again, establishing WHO others are is way more important than listening to WHAT they have to say in these types of Hongkong-style intellectual exchanges.

Now, again, please don't get me wrong, there are times when someone is genuinely interested in your academic backgrounds because of what you have already said. Unfortunately, it is far more often the case that one is trying to establish your background to better adjust how receptive he/she is going to be towards your ideas/arguments. As after all, they aren't just prepared to listen to anybody. And hey, if you happen to be considered a heavyweight by dint of the reputation of your school, Congratulations, everything you say would be taken as gospel. The most mundane of your observations would be whole-heartedly embraced by everyone as extremely enlightening.

On the other hand, if you're unfortunate enough to be slaving away at somewhere considered lightweight and 不入流, then I'm sorry, but you may as well just save your breath. Because, you know, you are not considered worthy to even have a debate with -- because some Hongkongers are quite clever in that they will never actively teach someone they don't consider worth their while: "嘿！入錢落你袋，咁我咪好蝕？" They don't believe in arguments for arguments' sake, and debates are not meant as vehicles for trashing out ideas. No no no, they are deathly afraid that they might accidentally "teach" someone if they deign to explain their ideas even just a tiny, tiny bit. And if they do have objections to the "silly" ideas propounded, they would show only their distaste, but not the rationales behind their objections. Because they are too high-minded to bother to explain what must be obvious to everyone.

So, it doesn't matter if they profess they love engaging in debates or discussions, because they would only do so with people they consider their intellectual equals. Somehow, it has never even occurred to these people that they too just might learn something themselves if they expose their ideas to others, even apparently ignorant outsiders and upstarts. You know, the story of the Emperor's new clothes and all that?

這會不會就是所謂的『門檻觀念』呢？那麼我們常引用孔夫子的教學理論:『有教無類, 因材施教』又怎樣呢？

我理想中的交流切磋，像《功夫》電影中，三個表面是裁縫佬、苦力、拿棍搵食的武林中人，互相交手，你拿你的竹竿，你用你的鐵環，你耍你的堂腿。大家從真實切磋惺惺相惜。而不是像《大紅燈籠高高掛》電影中，頌蓮每次入屋，都必須先被提名，然後必恭必敬地，左一腳，右一腳的跨越門檻進來。或許我生來就是老粗吧？我不屑那些例必先喊：「來者何人？」才去鑑別是否與其過招的所謂高人。

懷疑某某是江湖光棍嗎？耍你的招法，把他打個落花流水，給他和大家一個痛快難忘的教訓吧！起碼他有權還手，輸了也是公平。不要只在嘴藐藐，或者只是指手劃腳，這是哪門子的切磋呢？

It appears that some Hongkongers actually believe that there IS such a thing as a foolish question. Over here though, we are taught that there is NO such thing as a stupid question. Maybe that explains why Hong Kong students are (in)famous for being quiet in class and never participate in Q&A sessions in lectures?

I have thus been quite wary about giving out information relating to my academic backgrounds, in spite of the many times I have been accused of having studied certain subjects (one of the earliest examples, see here; and one of the more recent ones, see here) [Oops: I have to clarify these are merely instances when I have been asked about my academic background, not as examples of arrogant bloggers.] Because, you know, people don't consider that your thoughts and ideas are worth any discussion if you don't happen to have earnt an actual PhD in that precise topic. I thus always wonder, as one's PhD could only be on a very circumscribed topic, how Hongkong bloggers could ever manage to exchange any ideas at all on any given subject? Why would anyone bother when we have to go through a cloak-and-dagger ritual to establish who has the most authority on a given subject before we could even begin chatting, every single time? And forget about trying to cross-pollinate ideas across intellectual fields. That's "bastardising" academic knowledge and, you know, not appropriate conduct for a pure specialist (and apparently everyone could only be a specialist if one is to be considered a serious intellectual -- they must have forgotten that in Germany, there are medical generalists as well as medical specialists; and in Ireland and the UK, family doctors are referred to as GPs, "general practitioners"). I therefore seriously wonder if any interdisciplinary research ever gets done in Hongkong, simply because I'm not encouraged by the kind of ideas exchange that I've seen online among many avowedly cerebral Hong Kong bloggers. Many are busy comparing the size of their brains (or more correctly, they were comparing the prestige of their schools / their disciplines, which they take as proxies for the size of their own individual intellects) rather than to actually debate ideas.

All this just reminds me of a time, ages and ages ago, when a Hongkong blogger -- a creative who graduated from Central St. Martins in London -- was being demanded by some commenters to put his portfolio online, and when he didn't, some of them then proceeded to unilaterally 起佢底. These sick people somehow got the idea in their heads that, if the blogger could somehow be shown up as an inferior creative himself, then all his witty and insightful criticisms against the dearth of creativity in Hong Kong could automatically be rendered null and void, because then he would no longer be considered an expert and thus become a fraud by default. Please read the actual exchanges (here and here) between this blogger and the commenters to see what a really, very, deeply sad state of affairs it was (And I'm of course referring to the credential-demanding commenters as the sad sacks rather than the blogger himself.). Unfortunately, much of the intellectual exchanges I observed online among Hongkong bloggers retain echos of this unseemly exercise -- unseemly in that parties to a discussion are more concerned with determining the worth of a person by dint of who s/he is, rather than with weighing up the merits and demerits of the actual arguments being put forward.

Even if people don't accept that a person's background is irrelevant for the sake of determining the quality of one's argument, few would actually consider that there exist also other valid reasons for NOT sharing one's intellectual heritage or academic credentials online. A key one of which is personal privacy of course. Especially if a blogger, like me, has occasionally moaned about her workplace on her blog before. Would someone in my position then want to disclose where she had studied or what her disciplines are so that one could go and search online and find out which department she works for and who her colleagues are? Of course not. Get real. A fleeting taste of power and credibility in an online debate is no incentive for potentially jeopardising one's academic career. So until the day when I'm ready to actually become a public intellectual, I will keep my disciplinary backgrounds under wraps, thank you very much.

3. 猛拋書包，亂掉jargons.
I don't mind people 猛拋書包 actually, in fact, I love it when they do! I love love love bloggers who cite sources in support of their ideas and who further intellectual debates by bringing in facts and theories taken from textbooks and journals, and the more obscure the source the better, as the debate becomes more educational and interesting! This kind of 猛拋書包 could really open our eyes to the wide variety of viewpoints out there on a given subject and I love it for that reason.

What I can't stand though are people who 猛拋書包 in such a way as to merely show off their academic credentials, especially when they proceed to throw in jargons without explaining their relevance to the topic at hand. What's the point of throwing in terms and references if you aren't then going to bother to explain how they support your argument? Are your audience meant to do your work for you and come to their own conclusions themselves? But have you forgotten that it is your argument, and that it is your job to explain and expound, not your audience. Why should we be impressed that a person could throw out a particular term or concept or reference if s/he does not actually use it to support a point of contention?

In fact, more often than not people don't even attempt to try and formulate an argument as such, just throw a few key words here and there and be pleased that they have fulfilled their side of the discussion bargain. As if speaking one more word on the subject to form a semi-complete sentence, not to mention a semi-coherent argument, would have meant that the blogger has unnecessarily taught the undeserved something they should have figured out for themselves.

Oh I get it, it's again because it is only important to establish WHO one is by way of one's academic credentials (evidenced by the few terms one bandied about). Nobody is meant to care WHAT one's arguments actually are, or what logical and empirical grounds actually exist to support such assertions.

I really am such a silly, silly sausage to have cared about the substance of such intellectual exchanges online. Apparently I should have been grateful already to know that I was in the presence of the "greats". And who am I to argue with them, much less challenge?

And as I said, 這篇文章是找死的！Please God help me face the inevitable backlash when it comes. Amen.

Actually, if you do disagree with any of the above, I would be very grateful to hear your views. I'm being absolutely sincere about this. I also understand that I might have caused grave offence in what I wrote above, and if so I sincerely apologise in advance. Again, this is not just fake polite posturing, I'm sorry if I'd hurt anyone's feelings. These are merely my observations, and I would be happy to stand corrected. More likely than not I am just 以小人之心，度君子之腹. Yes, that's probably it indeed. Please be kind enough to forget any nonsense I've written above. It's the mere ramblings of a mad woman.

Further reading (feel free to compare and contrast):
呂大樂與沈旭暉的世代對話﹕3名「80後」學人的反省
http://lichokiu.wordpress.com/2010/02/22/呂大樂與沈旭暉的世代對話﹕3名「80後」學人的反/

"問題周而復始，每隔幾年都有淺白生動的評論，卻未見對症下藥的專業思維和知識。再叫人對話，也無法回應「80後」。礙於時勢、學者迫不得已暫代「大部分人」發聲，聯合學界和公眾，向政府施壓——大抵造成日後的「誤解」，讓人以為教授身分，就是在下放研究知識，不知道原來可能是個人分享。港人治港了，即使跟中央尚在磨合，政府也應重新尊重本土知識，建立知識鏈。如此，公共討論才會出現精細研究和思潮辯論: 研究型學者，研究問題，非研究青年，解決問題，非解決青年；公共型學者，引介理論刺激公眾思考，非以修辭隱藏個人理論框架，造成誤讀。香港不乏健筆，卻欠為本土指路的學術研究。沒有研究、盲目相信任何主觀看法，才是「管治失效」和「暴力」的起源。"

蔡子強：蘇格拉底的遺產
http://commentshk.blogspot.com/2010/07/blog-post_3651.html

拉黑斯被迫重新思考，結果就是在這樣的反覆詰問和對話中，一種本來備受雅典人推崇的美德和它的定義，便暴露出其不足，它未能將戰爭以外其他場合展現勇氣的可能性，以及明辨是非這些知識因素，考慮在內。因此，辯論的結果，就是讓這些統統重新再次被思考。

當然，如果你對真理抱有同樣的渴望、執着和追求時，你會對於蘇格拉底的辯證法，以及相關的反覆詰問，陶醉其中，否則的話，你只會視之為一種奚落，每次詰問，都像一記無情的耳光，讓你顏面何存。而另一方面，社會上大部分的偽真理，亦會被這種辯證法痛擊得落花流水，讓社會出現信仰真空。

結果蘇格拉底這種每事問、「包拗頸」、尋根究底、凡事總愛與人辯論一番的性格，為他惹來橫禍，雅典的保守勢力斥責他褻瀆神靈，還教導青年對抗自己的父親。最後，他被送上人民法庭，罪名是宣揚異端，以詭辯來擊破社會上原本已不辯自明、強而有力的真理，毒害青少年，危害社會的秩序。好辯，就是如此為蘇格拉底換來殺身之禍。

看着台上同學的窘態、台下同學的失望尷尬，我突然有股動力，想教好這批學生。接下來幾個月，每次比賽前，都會進行地獄式特訓：一星期最少三晚，時間由晚上八時至午夜十二時。那時我在清水灣電視城上班，學校卻在屯門！但每次見同學待在課室裏，開着空調，等我回來，便不好意思吃晚飯，邊咬麵包邊講課。比賽有輸有贏，但我看着同學由木頭一般坐着聽我訓話，到爭相舉手發問，後來更大膽（哈！）得打斷我的說話、反駁我的論點；我知道，咬麵包是值得的。

懂與不懂 (read the article and the comments)
http://fishandhappiness.blogspot.com/2010/07/blog-post_19.html?showComment=1279597991268#comment-c7543296409252696191

一個哲學讀壞了人的例子 (read the article and comments)
http://fishandhappiness.blogspot.com/2010/07/blog-post_16.html

一個為思想而痛苦的農民

他曾向我表示，由於文化水平的限制，他無法使他的思想系統化，因此渴望能夠上大學。我不無理由地判斷，他的那種偏執症和自大症未必是病理性的，因而知識視野的拓寬可能會把它們治愈。更重要的是，他的事例向我們提示，在社會底層生活著一些執著於精神事物並且具備相當才能的青年，他們在其生活的環境中完全得不到理解，社會有責任為他們開闢獲得理解的渠道。我設想，有一天，在中國社會科學院的講壇上，他們中的佼佼者為何不能坐在哈貝馬斯曾經坐過的位置上，向職業學者們報告自己業餘思考的心得呢？如果有那一天，我一定破例改變一次晚起的習慣，做一個準時出席的聽眾。

Leung Man-Tao: We are All Sloganeers... [Translated Article]

2010-07-18T06:37:00.011+01:00

[This is a translated article by me. Original article in Chinese by Leung Man-Tao published in the Apple Daily on 18th July, 2010. Version available from the Commentshk blog here] [Emphasis added in bold-type by me.]

A while ago, I helped a website make a podcast of a series of chat shows about the World Cup finals, with Mr. Yik Chung-Tin (易中天) invited as a guest for one of the sessions. Mr. Yik is an interesting guy in that he doesn't pay any attention to the latest hot gossip among the popular masses, and on the show he raised the question of why so many are interested in the World Cup. I wasn't sure if he was joking or otherwise, but he actually asked me during the show, "Oh so China didn't make it to South Africa? Why didn't China play in the World Cup?" Aside from this slightly cringeworthy ill-informed quip, the discussion we had was extremely civil and civilised, concentrating mainly on history, and touching on sportsmanship and the idea that there are noble rules of engagement even when it comes to competition. Later, when I browsed online, I discovered that the show had been dubbed, "Yik Chung-Tin Talked With Leung Man-Tao To Protest The Nation's World-Cup Fever." "Protest"? Had our conversation really come to that? On second thought, never mind, it was only a way for websites to garner eyeballs online. I understand.

The next day, I was browsing an online forum that I occasionally visit, and found an even more sensationalist headline: "Why Yik Chung-Tin Trashed Leung-Man-Tao As A Fake Football Fan." When I clicked on the article, I learnt that, incredibly, Mr. Yik Chung-Tin, who didn't even know if China had made it through to the World Cup finals or not, was apparently having a heated debate with me about the style of Brazilian football. Even as a person who readily admits to having a poor memory, I could easily recognise that this non-existent dialogue was pure fabrication.

Although China didn't qualify for the South African tournament, this didn't stop members of the Chinese press from filling the World Cup with their own saliva, turning Nelson Mandela stadium into their personal playground. Click on any respectable-looking website, and one would find lots and lots of attention-grabbing headlines, such as "Evil Star Lurks in the Uruguay Team, Even 梅西 [footballer name] Has To Look Up to Him". Apparently "Evil Star" denotes anyone who had ever scored a goal, and "Look Up" is a verb that appears in the top-ten list of most used phrases, so that one would be left with the impression that there is a bunch of footballers with nothing better to do than to sit around all day looking up to each other. Crazy.

Within this ocean of words sloshing around the Chinese online media, every single news item and every single piece of commentary are busily screaming "Look at Me! Look at Me Quick!" Sometimes this craving for attention even gets a bit schizophrenic, as when a loud declaration that "The German War Machine Can't Be Vanquished" the day before could swiftly be replaced with "The Strength of the German Team Is Clearly Faked" the next. It is already exhausting to watch more than thirty days of football non-stop, but these sloganeers are afraid that that would not be taxing enough, and so they added kilos of artificial flavours to their headlines to ensure that our minds stay constantly at their most excitable and most on edge.

Chinese people are smart. Only a couple of years ago I was complaining about how everyone wants to be an author, that no-one is willing to be a reader these days. Almost everybody is shouting loudly, but nobody would, nor indeed could, listen to what others are saying. Very quickly though, we found a genius solution to this problem: Forget about trying to say something, just concentrate on shouting. You don 't need to know the content of what I'm saying (probably because I don't know myself what I'm saying), you only need to hear that I've shouted (because all I ever wanted is for someone to hear me shout).

For instance, Twitter and other microblogs started off as a way for a group of friends to exchange daily gossips and share their fleeting thoughts and feelings with each other. In the hands of the Iranians, microblogging began to show its promise for instantaneous news dissemination and became a vehicle for grassroot revolution. But it's left to us Chinese to finally exploit the medium's full potential -- turning it into an online version of Pop Idol. What used to be just a tool for communication and exchange amongst ordinary folks, became a new platform for "microblog stars" when the service providers dreamt up their "celebrity verification" function, nominating a list of microbloggers whom they deemed to be worth our rapt attention. The original purpose of the microblog was for people to record what they want to say succinctly in less than 140 characters; now the goal is for people to compete against each other for any degree of online attention they can grab.

I only got one microblog account, which I left unused for ages (even though Sina and other service providers just went ahead with opening accounts in my name without my permission, and some even automatically created a few entries on my behalf). Personally I don't like speaking so fast, nor reacting so quickly. However I discovered that there are plenty of people who can readily adapt to such speed and frequency in communication, and they always have something to say, from dawn to dust. Gradually, some people become used to the rules of the game, and begin writing their microblog-posts (or "tweets") as if they are writing news headlines -- the more shocking, the more sensationalist, the more controversial, the better. This way they could attract more fans and increase their degree of online celebrity, and thus having their taste of fifteen minutes of fame.

But is fame really that great? Is it really worthwhile to have that much online attention? Call me old-fashioned, but I believe that it is one thing to be given attention by others, it is another thing entirely to use the attention others have given you. I really admire some of my friends who have the ability to use their microblogs to really disseminate important news far and wide, or who could write pithy observations that really get people thinking using the shortest of lines. But I have also met some celebrities, with whom I had taken part in televised debates, and they would often announce beforehand what their positions would be. Let's say it was: "Chinese would not allow the arrogant Yanks to conduct military exercise in the Yellow Sea." When the programme started, the person would indeed proclaim that, "China would never allow American troops to mess around in the Yellow Sea." Fair enough. But then what? We would all be waiting for the person to further expound on his thesis, keen for him to share with us his unique analysis. But actually, nothing more would come. That was it. He's finished what he had to say. And so I finally understood -- he was not here to engage in debates on international affairs, he was here to tweet. What he had was not a viewpoint, but a headline slogan. If this debate session were to be conducted online, I'd imagine it could well be tweeted as, "XXX Tells the Yanks: Come and I Shall Destroy You."

春意盎然的小小收成。。。

2010-07-17T09:52:00.001+01:00

From this:

And this:

To this:

Basket of baby rocket leaves grown from seeds :) 真是親手種的一籃菜呀！就算未食，每次見到都好開心！

當紫色遇上綠色。。。

2010-07-17T09:44:00.006+01:00

Fingernail Polish: Lilac Gloss from Urban Outfitters
Toenail Polish: Turquoise Matt from Urban Outfitters (not shown! too much of a scaredy cat after all :P)

Have not had a chance to paint my nails for ages and ages. In fact, I hardly paint my nails ever. It's one of the few pleasures of being female that I don't particularly get, in complete contrast to my mother, who sticks religiously to her appointments at her local nail bar. And so my hands have almost always been bare, with no adornments whatsoever. Doing one's nails seem like such a complete indulgence, a past-time befitting only well-to-do ladies-who-lunch who have plenty of time on their hands (literally), and thus is not something that I -- busy intellectual woman with no need for such frivolous things -- should have the time or inclination to do.

Or at least that was my reverse snobbery excuse. The truth is that my nails don't take too well to conventional pinkish nail colours (with the exception of French manicures, but then this is something I really don't have the time for, and is a strict indulgence for me only on special occasions), and I abhor anything dark, as well as anything red/orangey. Somehow these colours just make my fingers look really short, which is the last thing you'd want your nail polish to do to your hands.

But then I came across these lovely colours in Urban Outfitters and I just could. not. resist. I'm so glad I gave in to my impulse. I now finally understood where I had gone wrong before -- instead of looking at anything pinky or peachy, or any shades that reminds one of Lady MacBeth, both of which made my fingers and thus my whole hand look horrible, but in different ways; I should instead have been trying out purple-y lilac-y tones, which I had honestly never put on until now.

The actual colour of this fingernail polish is slightly more vibrant and just a smidge more purple than could be captured in the above picture, but basically I found that what suits my nails (i.e. what compliments my skin) are cool shades (bluey purple-y colours) in pastelly/light tones, rather than warm shades (pinky red colours) in jewel/dark tones. Now I'm absolutely LOVING these -- every time I type I can't help admiring my new lovely lavender nails :D

The turquoise for my toe nails was also a bold try, and I'm glad it worked out really well. I would have preferred if the shade had come in gloss rather than matt, but I'm not complaining :D Especially when I'm wearing my peep-toe sandals and am no longer ashamed of only using clear nail varnish!

And yes, I have different nail colours for my hands and feet. They are dramatically different colours but they are of the same pastelly tone, and purple and green are such lovely complimentary shades (think lavender and sage). I really like that my nails don't match but still look good together somehow. But would this be considered a serious fashion crime, on a par with white socks in black brogues? You tell me :P (I got complimented on them over here, but what do the Irish know about fashion anyway eh? Even John Rocha came from Hong Kong).

How I came to be killed on microblog [Translated blog-post]

2010-07-12T05:38:00.069+01:00

[This is a translated article. For the original blog-post in Chinese by Kursk, please click here]

On July 10th, 2010, my microblog account was killed off by the service provider. To me this was not unexpected, but what surprised me was the fact that it took them this long.

I registered with the Sina microblogging site (the mainland Chinese answer to Twitter) since it first became operational. Later I came to have my online identity verified as a Hong Kong blogger. This verification could be described as a sort of special treatment -- once your online identity has been verified, there is less chance of your account being deleted unilaterally.

During my days of microblogging, there were times when my posts got deleted because they touched on topics that are considered politically sensitive. My strategy was to try to push the boundaries as much as possible, like playing a game with the online editors of the microblog service in testing the limits of their political tolerance as far as possible.

About a fortnight before June 4th (the anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre), most of my boundary-pushing posts didn't escape the fate of deletion. Then I received a private message from an online editor, asking for my views to see if there is a way of arriving at some form of mutual resolution.

As the authority for deletion rests with them, I realised that there was not much point to continue posting the way I did, and so I decreased my frequency of blogging such boundary-pushing posts. Later I got in touch with one of the Sina online editors through MSN, and I understood more from him their policy of managing politically sensitive posts, while he also learnt more about the thinking of Hong Kong-based users from me (especially in relation to June the 4th, as well as our general political beliefs and ideologies). At the end I told him that many Hong Kong users will continue to blog about politically-sensitive topics, even when knowing full well that these posts will be taken down.

According to these online editors, there are dedicated Sina editors specially tasked with monitoring politically-sensitive posts, with the authority to delete individual posts or entire accounts as they see fit. I asked them if they would be overwhelmed with too many politically-sensitive posts to be able to deal effectively with all of them, and he replied in the negative, saying that they have plenty of resources at their disposal, both technological and human, to deal with all the online traffic. Moreover, they are not the only ones participating in Internet policing, as the relevant government departments are also involved. As regards 'boundary-pushing' posts, they have many years of experience in dealing with those.

If they are not seen to be policing the micro-blogosphere effectively, their company could easily follow in the footsteps of those who had had their entire operations shut down by the authorities (such as 飯否, 校內網, blogbus).

Finally, when June the 4th arrived, there was indeed an online battle waged between microbloggers and online editors lasting over ten hours (for details please see my previous "Epilogue from the First Microblogging Battle" blogpost). Lots and lots of posts got deleted, lots of accounts were also deleted, and even emoticons (a.k.a. 'smilies') were prohibited from being shown. As a result of this battle, I arrived at several -- not absolutely proven, it must be said -- conclusions:

1. Politically-sensitive words are automatically filtered.
2. Some users who are recognised as keen "boundary-pushers" (those who are savvy enough to not use actual politically-sensitive words, but make use of metaphors and other subtle references), will be specially monitored to see if they are indeed making politically sensitive posts.
3. When your posts have been continuously filtered a number of times, there will be a period when all your posts are being pre-moderated before they could be published.
4. Once your filtered posts reach a certain number, your account will be purged.
5. If the account belongs to a specially verified blogger (i.e. those with usernames ending in "V", such as those of media personalities, stars, academics, celebrities and well-known bloggers, etc.), the chance of account deletion is very small. The most that would happen is for posts to be withheld and remain unpublished.

As mine was a verified account, I thought the chance of it being deleted was quite small, especially as the politically-sensitive month of June was already past. Thus it was a total surprise for me to wake up one morning and discover, completely out of the blue and without any prior indication, notification or consultation, that my account was deleted. Over on Douban net, at least they would tell you how many chances you have remaining for rules infraction before they would permanently delete your account. Not so for Sina. I made some enquiries, and the response I got was that official scrutiny was getting much tighter these days, so much so that a rival microblogging site (搜狐微博) had their entire service shut down by the authorities, and so they have to be extra vigilant. As I had previously blogged too many politically-sensitive posts, word came from on high that my account had got to go.

I reflected at length, just what had I been posting lately that could conceivably lead to my account being purged?

After some deliberation, I think it might have to do with the following. There was this photo I posted about two weeks ago that depicted Tiananmen Square the day before the June 4th massacre (see below picture), which didn't attract that much attention and had never been deleted. And then on the first anniversary of the Xinjiang riots, I asked simply on my microblog, "Does anyone remember what day it is?" Perhaps the post that raised the most ire of the authorities is the one where I had subtly indicated that a Tibetan Buddhist leader has recently opened a Twitter account to disseminate news in Chinese.

My verified Sina account being killed off is thus probably due to a combination of the following factors:

1. Probably because I don't have any modicum of fame to speak of (other bloggers and media personalities shouldn't have to worry too much as long as they have a certain level of renown);

2. Probably because I managed to blog three boundary-pushing posts (as mentioned above) within the space of one month that escaped the initial notice of the online editors, and so somebody got blamed and then my account got the boot (so if you no longer blog about June the 4th or ethnic issues you should be fine);

3. Probably because I re-blogged a picture showing a group of protesters wearing V-for-Vendetta masks facing off a line of police, which in turn got re-blogged many times by many others (so you should be safe if you don't post images depicting acts of popular uprising that attract a lot of eyeballs on the Internet).

As the saying goes, you get what comes with the territory (出得嚟行，預咗要還。). Having opened my microblog account for well over half a year, in the process getting to know many kindred spirits online, and having escaped so many previous "content harmonization" Internet purges before, I count myself lucky to have survived this long. As I've often said before, Pity the poor editors. I guess this time the online editors and the relevant authorities have finally rid themselves of a nuisance.

I have since opened another account (http://t.sina.com.cn/kursk2, please feel free to add me). The former Kursk who communicated with the online editors got purged. This time I wouldn't be so kind. At worst they would kill off my account again, and I would just re-open another account again. I am not scared of being invited to tea with the authorities anyway -- let them try and catch me in Wanchai and extradite me to the mainland if they got any balls.

Something funny just happened also: I was using my new account to announce the fact that I had been killed off and have now reincarnated, and even this new post got deleted. Now I am really pissed off: Dear oh dear editor, aren't you just getting a tad paranoid?

Having said all that, I'm sure someone would come along and comment on the fact that the online editors themselves are only doing their jobs, that I shouldn't insist on being such a party pooper. I don't agree with this view at all, not when every day there are bloggers in mainland China who got fired from their jobs, who got sent down to the countryside, who got invited to tea with the authorities and who got arrested for simply following their conscience and disseminating news online. Here we have the freedom to say what we want, are we to shut up just so that the Internet police can have an easier job? If we were to do that, how could we in good conscience face those mainland bloggers who got jailed by the authorities?

And perhaps someone would say, Look at you lot of good-for-nothing idealistic Hongkongers, what right have you to comment on the affairs of mainland China? To this I would say, we have plenty of fellow travellers in mainland China on the Internet, and we also have plenty of fellow travellers in mainland China in real life. The voices of these people are not yet entirely extinguished online. Those who are oppressed to within an inch of their lives by corrupt officials, police authorities, city-planners, and property conglomerates, as well as those who sympathise with such oppressed -- these people are calling out every day, and this government is hell-bent on silencing their voices. We live on a patch of Chinese soil that happens to be free, so that it is easier for us to hear their voices, and so we have an even greater duty to help them spread and broadcast their words.

Today I was murdered, tomorrow it could be you.

- - -

Original article by Kursk, 10th July, 2010. Translation by Snowdrops, 12th July, 2010.

[Again, for the original blog-post in Chinese by Kursk, as well as the photographs mentioned, please click here]

Further reading:

一個容不下微博的國度 (from 森之星球)

"這就像從前的誅九族，你們活在這種社會裡面，即使你再“無辜”，都一定會備受牽連。而這種“無辜”，卻是每一個無辜者自身所縱容出來的。"

--http://www.moohey.com/archives/2948

.

從這邊到那邊。。。

2010-07-10T02:15:00.055+01:00

不經不覺
我們走過了
十三年的日子

問題不是時日怎麼過
我們多是度年如日
問題是我們怎樣能
從這邊過到那邊

現實的，和理想的
隔着一道深淵
縱有條列訂的橋道
但沒有真正的棟樑
我們怎可渡過？

後來我們發現
不但通過去的橋道給拉長了
且橋道本身越來越窄迫了
且橋道的入口給三番四次改動了
且原來出口處也給挪移了
那個理想的那一端
給逐漸與惡夢的另一端交合了...

甚至乎，我們被游說到
其實惡夢才是理想
理想才是惡夢
這真像個惡夢呀！

橋道尾的曙光
我們何時能見？

在發惡夢的我們
被迫赤着腳丫上路
踩上了玻璃碎片也不哼半聲...

有些人是不敢
有些人是啞了
有些人開始享受這自虐...

有些人是踏着其他人走過來的
這些名副其實的上流
輕鬆地培育其高高在上的『品位』
給壓下來的人
因在他人腳下
不被看見
便不存在了...

他們有些在發聲，在呼嚎
但因他們的存在被否決了
他們的聲音也給黑洞吸去了...

而大多數的人
是被夾在中間的
不幸這些中間人
也多是協助踐踏的中介人
他們大多不知不覺
也有很多不情願的
但他們都不敢造次
生怕自己也成為了
被他人踐踏的對象...

這個正是
不公平社會的悲哀
路見不平
不能拔刀相助
只能慨嘆
世界就是不公平的
不去理會
世界有很多地方較我們的平等
他們只會
拿更不平等，更敗絮其中的地方
跟自己比較
好告訴自己
社會的不公
是理所當然的

是的
不公就是理想
不平乃是當然
這真像個惡夢！

也有很多是有良知的
對社會有承擔，有抱負的
對陌生人是寬厚的
對被壓下來的那一群人
他們抱同理心推想
也有可能是自己的
父親母親、兒女子侄、弟兄姊妹
他們所以熱心公益，慷慨慈善
制度雖然不公
但他們處於有利的位置

但也正因他們處於
相對有利的位置
他們很害怕很害怕
任何真正制度的改變
他們很努力很努力
鑽營自己的生活
雖然他們心中有個理想的那邊
可是他們更信任現實的這一邊...

（縱然現實是殘酷的...）

（但其實誰不是害怕的...）

從這邊到那邊
問題原來不在於
橋道的闊窄
不在於橋道的長短
不在於出入口的位置
也不在於箇中的迂迴曲折

問題其實在於
在不同位置的我們
是向着同一個方向走路嗎？

理想中的那邊
還存在嗎？

告訴我
從這邊到那邊
我們可真的一起走過嗎？

Copyright Snowdrops 2010. All rights reserved.

Further reading:

發展路上殺人的推土機 (from Little Oslo)
http://www.littleoslo.com/cnt/home/?p=3547

"動魄驚心，慘不忍睹，有人說是強拆，有人道是工程糾紛，說到底一個人就這樣死掉了。微博上有人留言謂在中國的發展是由坦克和推土機開出路來的，可圈可點的一句話。"

Warning: Blog-post contains extremely disturbing, graphic images.

啟蒙一課II (from 森之星球)
http://www.moohey.com/archives/2940

"人大了，我越發地更深入地去對許多事情關心了起來，更深地感受到這句話所延伸出來的意義。當我們忽略一些當前對自身利益無關的事情的時候，我們會否終將有一天會因為這些事情傷害到自己。"

從倒下的那刻開始 (from 森之星球)

"打從那天女神像倒下，自由民主什麼什麼的一切都幻滅在這土地上。於是我們只好開始習慣，一直習慣，習慣地活在這片沒有這些的土地上，讓自己去好好適應它。要生存，的確需要那麼一點法則，妥協的法則，起碼讓自己好好過。過多一天，便是一天。當我們都覺得自己適應了，其實沒有它們生活也還是過得去，心底里那一點兒奢望就開始完全殆盡了。是這樣麼？

興許有人不敢興趣去談六四，但總有別的事情會迫使你忍氣吞聲，當地震把人們變成災民以前，當奶粉把嬰兒變成結石嬰兒之前，他們也沒有想過會有如此冤屈。別看這些事離你我很遠，我總相信這個國家會有無數的災難在前頭等著你和我每一個人。"

廿一年前，廿一年後 (Precious photos included, from 森之星球)

"廿一年前，有一堆熱血的大學生為了國家能有更好的未來，即使嗅到了血腥的滋味仍不肯退讓，餓著卻吃不下一口骯髒的飯。

廿一年後，有大學生因為金錢上支撐不到讓她去香港看明星演出的舞台劇而暗自落淚兩小時。"

記住，有千萬個理由 (from 森之星球)

"封建的本質，社會的名義，資本的經濟。這便是對共和國的概括。

本質，決定了在上邊的人仍然抱著真命天子的姿態。只有皇上天子，才不允許賤民說他的不是。亦只有皇帝的姿態，才不能讓賤民有所求。更遑論與其“談判”。

君要臣死，不能不死，何況是手無寸鐵的蟻民，殺你談何容易。

封建的本質，社會的名義，資本的經濟。這樣混交的社會，想正常都難。"

錢，越來越多。良心，越來越少。

中國人只要吃飯嗎？

中國人，不能只要吃飯！

奴才要聽主子的話，美其名曰：忠心。

心存懷疑，也不敢異議。亦不敢抗爭。

可是現在不是奴隸制，他們也不承認那是封建制。

那麼，是奴性大發主動忠心嗎？

是被恐怖的高壓嚇怕了，苟且地活於物質的進步之上。

日子仍在過，事情還未完。

爭取的爭取，呼喚的呼喚。

打壓的，也在繼續打壓。

請準備好，這是一場持久戰。

Further viewing:

原地 ¦ 踏步

2010-07-08T03:08:00.019+01:00

多少歲月
我在原地踏步
時間啲答啲答的流走
我卻一上一落的踏步

多少人
衝呀衝，趕呀趕
向着目標遠發
人生每一個地標
他們像獵奇般搜查去

我也欣賞地標
但卻因為欣賞
所以停下來了...

當他人絕塵而去

我卻閑在

綠草原野

青蔥大地

悠悠踏步...

我得承認我的慢
是種極度浪費的奢華
把生命的青春賭上了
一朵鮮花、一個地方、一點回憶、一個希望
不也是種浪漫嗎？

是的

我靜靜在原地

輕輕的踏步

眼睛離不開了

這一花一草...

Copyright Snowdrops 2010. All rights reserved.

註：這詩是寫於二零一零年六月廿三日，但因筆者不希望這首詩的意旨被誤會與當時的香港政治熱門話題有關，所以押後發表至今。詩的靈感完全源於『原地踏步』這個四字詞語本身的詩意，跟香港目前的政治發展無關，因此希望讀者不要以為此詩是用作什麼明喻或隱喻。

Oh. My. God.

2010-07-06T18:58:00.006+01:00

This is HILARIOUS!

http://gonzolabs.org/dance/

The 2010 “Dance Your Ph.D.” Contest

The dreaded question. “So, what’s your Ph.D. research about?” You take a deep breath and launch into the explanation. People’s eyes begin to glaze over…

At times like these, don’t you wish you could just turn to the nearest computer and show people an online video of your Ph.D. thesis interpreted in dance form?

Now you can. And while you’re at it, you can win $1000, achieve immortal geek fame on the Internet, and be recognized by Science for your effort.

How to enter:
1. Turn your Ph.D. thesis into a dance.
2. Get the dance on video.
3. Put the video online.

"Immortal geek fame on the Internet"? Eternal shame and damnation more like! (Well, at least to a total dance klutz comme moi...)

Okay, to be honest, I am really really really intrigued. Could there be any way in which my thesis could be interpreted in dance form? Hmmm, what a fascinating idea! Probably need the help of dance professionals (I'm thinking, Mad Dog :P!!)

Could I just show this video (IF I'm doing one) and have it as my viva presentation? Or I could do a live dance in front of my two examiners! What fun!

A Summer Day...

2010-07-04T05:04:00.031+01:00

In a fit of madness,
We abandoned the chance to watch that all-important match
Between the Germans and the Argentinians,
And opted instead to don our very own runners
Going rock-a-climbing
One beautiful, summery day.

There were just the five of us in the room
Looking up the three-storey blue-grey monstrosity with awe.
Everyone else had gone to the pubs.
The friendly trainer smiled at us,
And helped us put on our basic harnesses,
As we pretended to be sportive and, yes, committed.

There were different levels, grades and routes:
Some with fewer grips; others had a protruding cliff.
We'd done the baby climb last time,
And came to better our chances at this second try.
Flexing sinews and muscles in surmounting a wall
Is better than banging our heads against the proverbial wall.

When you go and grab that grip and make a start,
Much of your previous strategizings' been blown apart,
You have your fingers, your wrists, your arms and your legs --
Sheer brute strength to hang off the side of a cliff.
But you need also to engage your brain and think on your feet,
And most important -- that simple will to live.

I went up past the red line, easily enough
I was only just getting warmed up.
Next I started losing track
Of my right and left and where my foot could find a tread.
There was an unfortunate two way dialogue going on
Between my confusion and that bloody wall.

But then all my family started
Shouting up loudly at me and commanded:
"Right foot on pink. No. THAT pink!"
"Grab that green piece on your left. That's the one! YES!!! "
As well as all the "Well done!"s and assorted encouragements.
And suddenly, that overhang, I could actually heave myself past it.

But unbelievably, the worst was still to come
Even though I had only a smooth stretch in front.
I felt my arms and wrists being completely overcome
With exhaustion, and my will was soon undone.
Yet far, far down below, the trainer piped up,
"Go on, you could do it! Just try standing straight up!"

"No," I said, "I'd have to come down."
But everyone shouted, "NO! YOU CAN'T GIVE UP!!!"
"You only have a few more to reach the top.
Don't give up now! Give it one more shot!"
I looked very briefly down, and then looked up.
Yes, just one more, I tried and stood straight up...

...And grabbed that pink piece, which looked out-of-reach before.
Now that my grip was steady, I helped myself right up
And summoned the last of my strengths, and climbed a little more.
And rather miraculously, I was able to reach the top!
I settled back and smilingly, looked down,
There were hearty cheers all around.

The descent downwards was very sweet,
Now that I know I could pick myself up from defeat.

It was certainly a much more personal victory
Than the Germans winning four-nil over their Argentinian nemesis.
All of us surmounted our rocks with flying colours
And all of us are smiling -- even with very, very sore fingers.

And did I tell you?
It was a really beautiful, summery afternoon.

Copyright Snowdrops 2010. All rights reserved.

Some things...

2010-07-03T03:32:00.021+01:00

Some things in life are very small --
A glance, a murmur,
An involuntary shake.
They are often hard to discern,
Though they could somehow still be felt.

Some things in life are very big --
A war, a revolution,
A mighty call-to-arms.
These are huge events, so big
They could easily sweep us all away.

Some things in life are not so small --
A career, a home, our health, or someone,
We would call our own.
These are immense and significant,
Though only to us and our loved ones.

Some things in life are not so big --
A flower with bumblebees, a fallen twig,
A brook that burbles and teems with fish.
These are oh-so-quiet and mundane,
We hardly pay any heed, until...

They could no longer, anywhere, be seen or felt...

Copyright Snowdrops 2010. All rights reserved.

If I were...

2010-07-03T01:31:00.007+01:00

If I were to ignore all the slights and poison darts,
If I were to survive the innuendo with a dignified stance;
Then I'd have to first get in front of a crowd and scream,
Scream and scream about the injustices that are unseen.

If I were to abide by the treachery of false friends,
If I were to unceremoniously and unscrupulously be screwed;
Then I'd have to be entirely frank with all and sundry,
Before I'd let my name in muck be dragged through.

If I were to refrain from making the tiniest noise,
If I were to be denied a fair hearing of my voice;
Then you'd have to physically kill me,
Before I'd allow your lies to do me in.

If I were to measure out my life in coffee spoons,
If I were to be out to the pastures, unjustly put;
Before I'd allow you to pin me in your injurious vice,
I will clear my name and kick up a right royal fuss.

Just watch.

Copyright Snowdrops 2010. All rights reserved.

David versus Goliath...

2010-06-28T20:04:00.005+01:00

Just want to pay my tribute here to Lu from Taiwan. Man, you played a beautiful, beautiful game against Andy Roddick, and sent the no. 5 seed packing from the Wimbledon tournament. Whilst watching you I too was induced to cry out "Ga Yau!" like your fellow countrymen and women. Love the different answers you found for Roddick's fabled serves. Even a non-sports-fan like me feel compelled to salute you. RESPECT!!!!!

On poets, poetry, and philistines... [updated]

2010-06-28T17:12:00.075+01:00

Excerpted from "詩的申辯" by 梁文道.

"幾個月前，我以一首詩結束在北京大學的一場演講。儘管那首詩不短，但同學們還是很有耐心地默默聽完。我還發現，隨著自己不由自主地漸漸投入，台下的空氣也逐步繃了起來，緊張到最後一句讀完，整個空間好像才釋然地舒了一口氣。後來大家都說，這首詩真好。當然，那是楊牧的《有人問我公理和正義的問題》。

[...]

不，任何真誠的詩以及正直的詩人都一定是抗世的。因為我們所在的這個語言世界是這麼地空洞和扭曲，把屠殺說成事件，把蝸居說成豪宅，更深深地從根處斬斷了語言與事物之間最源初最神秘的命名關係，而且還使我們習慣它的虛妄，以為這才是常態。不用憤怒，你只要認真對待語言，詩自然就是一種反抗了。"

楊牧的《有人問我公理和正義的問題》can be found here: http://www.wretch.cc/blog/snail1207/31075723

As I myself have previously written, poets aren't just artsy fartsy narcissists with castrated manhoods. I really appreciated 梁文道 mentioning gutsy contemporary Chinese poets like 楊牧 and 陳智德 in his essay cited above. There are also plenty of war poets in the English canon like Wilfred Owen and Rudyard Kipling, the existence of whom flatly contradicts Daisy Wong from Lancashire Road's false dichotomy between poetry and heroism (Owen and Kipling had diametrically-opposed takes on war and imperialism, but they both wrote inspiring poetry on the subject of war and country and believed in the power of poetry to effect change in society), a false dichotomy that was proclaimed, with her usual self-aggrandising bravado, in her most recent blog-post entitled "別纏住我的裙腳":

"要是你問我，hey Daisy，究竟「詩人」實際上是幹什麼的？Honestly，I don't know。我只能答你，詩人是寫詩的。Well，okay，我知這個答案有點反智，但對於「詩人」，我實在已盡了最大的努力。[...] 男人寫情詩，有女人覺得浪漫，我覺得太沒出息。我喜歡做大事的男人，比我叻很多很多的男人，有本事看穿我的刁鑽，駕馭我的刁蠻，這樣的男人才有趣。男人老狗寫什麼情詩？溫溫吞吞，婆婆媽媽，浪費青春。我Daisy最瞧不起那些纏住我裙腳的男人，我一腳就伸開這些廢人!"

So according to Wong above, a man who writes love poems cannot by definition be the kind of man who could carry the weight of the world on his shoulders, who could ever effect any real change in society, or who could ever amount to any greatness.

Ha! As if! She must have never heard of W.B. Yeats then. Not only is Yeats famous for his love poems to Maud Gonne (e.g. "He wishes for the cloths of Heaven", "No Second Troy"), but he is also at the same time famous for his poetry which mocked the rich and powerful in society, championing the cause of the poor at a time when it was deeply unpopular to do so ("September 1913"); and as a committed nationalist, his poetry also provided intellectual succour for the Irish resistance against British rule (e.g. "Easter, 1916").

Oh, and don't give me the crap that Yeats's the exception that proves her rule -- there are plenty of poets, apart from Wilfred Owen and Rudyard Kipling as already mentioned, who wrote genuinely heroic poetry -- heroic in the sense that they are unflinching in laying bare the social injustices and the human folly of their times -- such as Siegfried Sassoon, Walt Whitman, Seamus Heaney, Thomas Hardy, and so on and so forth. And, if my poor Chinese serves me, aren't there plenty of heroic poetry in the Chinese canon also? Even an old romantic like Li Bai wrote about the "Nefarious War"?

And, at the most basic level, as Leung himself has noted in his essay, poetry gives due respect to the fundamental relation between language and reality. Poetry speaks truth to power like no other medium, and beauty itself, by its mere existence, is already an affront to brutality. To indulge in the beauty of language, even in (or especially in) poetry dedicated to love, and especially in the times of war and social upheaval, demands both courage and a special kind of wisdom, a kind of wisdom that says, "We shall not let the ugliness of this world numb us to the existence of beauty; we shall not allow rationality to annihilate fancy; we shall not let hatred triumph over love."* To describe romantic poets as 廢人 and a waste of space, as Daisy Wong had done, really says far more about her lack of reflexivity and appreciation of the arts and humanities than it does about the poets themselves.

Funny how Wong always professes her Anglophilia and snobbishly boasts about her tastes in all things refined and enlightened, and yet seems to not even have gotten a GCSE level's grasp of English literature, or perhaps just literature in general -- a more laughable philistine and fraud I'd never seen**.

Perhaps let me conclude this post with a declaration by a group of Southern Chinese poets who travelled to Hong Kong in 1947 (一九四七年詩人節宣言／黃藥眠), taken from 《香港文學散步 (增訂版)》(p. 174, 2009, 3rd reprint) (Note: every single Chinese word below was slowly inputted by me, word by painstaking word as unfortunately I'm not trained in any Chinese inputting methods).

The declaration may be a tad melodramatic in places, and the politics it expressed may be out of step with the times (the optimistic sentiments expressed between the lines regarding communism being able to serve the public good are certainly misplaced, although their reading of the causes underpinning the social injustices they observed were accurate), but remember this was 1947, when China was in the throes of the civil war after World War II, and in any case, the central message about life itself being an expression of poetry is not outdated even more than two thousand years later:

列名在本文上的，是曾經致力過，或現在醉心於詩歌事業，也有已終止寫詩而新的工作仍不忘情於廣義的詩的幾個人。以這種種關係，在紀念偉大詩人屈原沉江殉國二千二百二十四周年的時候，對於當前饑餓、流血以及一切不公平的事實和詩的連結的問題，公開發表一個共同的意見。

我們認為：一切悲劇的發生，根源於最多數的生產者勞而無獲，最少數的浪費者坐享其成，最多數人的辛勞的果實被掠奪，受盡千辛萬苦，求生不得，被迫起而作自衛的反抗。而最少數人掌握着統治的極權，視勞役眾人為天賦權利，不惜採取高壓手段，以屠殺、放逐、監禁種種野蠻的行為，加之於勞動人民身上，甚至出賣祖國、出賣最多數人的勞動成果，以博取外力的援助，來延長它殘暴的統治。這是歷史的不幸，這飢餓的時代，血的時代，比起屈原的時代還要慘苦，更為黑暗。但又不同屈原的時代。那百姓起來點燈，不准洲官放火的信號上升了。這是悲劇時代裡的福音。由於最多數勞動人民愛國的忠心，和戰鬥的神勇，已經取得勝利的保證。

無論在純粹的詩歌事業，或是廣義的詩的工作，我們自問是學習屈原，繼承他的優良的精神的。他生長在那襤褸陰濕的國土上，憂天下之憂，而行吟澤畔，顏色憔悴。我們以他的憂天下之心為我們的心。只是二千多年以前的屈原，沒法看見二千多年以後的事實，而我們已經聽見看見福音的實現，那未來在召喚我們。今天，我們有比屈原更慘的遭遇：被放逐、被侮蔑***、行吟海濱，有國難投。但心神是爽朗的。在這方生未死之間，那勞動人民的戰鬥是一個英雄的榜樣，堅定我們抗死求生的決心。殺身死諫是對最少數人的忠貞，是絕路，唯有對最多數人的事業的獻身，才能絕處逢生。

這是大的震撼，大的澎湃的時代。屈原的詩章，教給我們以「生命的本身就是詩」的道理。我們的詩，必要記錄這大的震撼的主題，大的澎湃的音節，「言區」歌這巨大的前進的潮流。這潮流豈是暴力的鞭笞可以阻斷？

我們順着這潮流，跟着最多數人的步伐前進。我們是歸屬於最多數裏的，那代表着光明、進步，和健康的最多數。"

-- 謹此宣言
黃藥眠等人

How ironic that this quote from 1947: "而最少數人掌握着統治的極權，視勞役眾人為天賦權利，不惜採取高壓手段，以屠殺、放逐、監禁種種野蠻的行為，加之於勞動人民身上，甚至出賣祖國、出賣最多數人的勞動成果，以博取外力的援助，來延長它殘暴的統治。這是歷史的不幸，這飢餓的時代，血的時代，比起屈原的時代還要慘苦，更為黑暗。" still pretty much applies to "modern China". To those who are infected with HIV/AIDS because they had to sell their blood due to their poverty, to those whose children suffer from cancer due to contaminated foodstuffs and who were brutally silenced when they dared raise their case, to those who are driven to the end of their tethers through inhuman hours and work pace demanded from their factory bosses, it is tragic and unjust that this line dated from a war-torn China in 1947: "這飢餓的時代，血的時代，比起屈原的時代還要慘苦，更為黑暗。" still resonates to this day.

Throughout the centuries thus, across both East and West, a simple fact remains: poetry continues to speak truth to power. Always has, always will.

* Readers interested in understanding the kind of wisdom it takes to indulge in fanciful verses in times of war and social upheaval, beyond what my plaintive plea above could ever hope to encapsulate, should read (or re-read) "1984" by George Orwell.

** Once upon a time I thought Wong was somewhat genuine -- not "genuine" as in whether she is a "she" or a group of bloggers or what have you, I really couldn't care less -- but in the sense that she could appreciate how intellectuals could easily be found amongst the so-called grassroot classes (even though she blogged about it as if she's just discovered a whole new continent), but given her latest offering, she's reverted right back to the stereotype of the bourgeoisie. But I guess she has form in this -- given how she self-styled herself as a "Bo-Bo" ("bourgeois bohemian") whilst being totally oblivious to the fact that her very lifestyle contradicts David Brooks' thesis about NOT indulging in acts of conspicuous consumption and respecting 1960's liberal values. Pity she's turning out to be just a phoney, though I'm still willing to be surprised...

*** For the life of me I can't find a way of inputting this particular word, it kind of have connotations of "輕鄙" and "輕挑", can somebody help? (Update 12 July: Thanks to LCL for his kind assistance in inputting this Chinese word).

(Btw, for my previous almighty rant in defense of poets and poetry, see here)

Further listening:

For a completely anti-utilitarian take on poetry (something I'd imagine the Daisy Wongs of this world could not abide), the below is brilliant (thanks to Lu for sharing):

Excerpted lyrics:

別理我愛胡說就胡說
你就不懂詩是什麼
超聲波曼陀羅
兩個東西放在一起有什麼沒什麼
我怎麼知道
我還沒有試過

管他的好結果壞結果
我只負責清心直說
是詩歌是胡說
一開始的時候聽來大概也差不多
所~以別煩我

管他的好結果壞結果
我只負責想到就說
是詩歌是胡說
偉大夢想最初聽來大概也差不多
你~就讓我說

Quick half-yearly photo stock-take...

2010-06-18T20:44:00.015+01:00

Apple Cardamom Jasmine Tea with Honey

Recipe:

Clean apple peels (from about 4/5 pre-washed apples)

1.5 pint of water

2-3 Cardamom Pods

2-3 Jasmine teabags

Clear honey (to taste)

Bring water and apple peels to boil in a pan.

Add cardamom pods and teabags.

Simmer for 15-20 minutes with lid on,

and another 15-20 minutes with lid off, until

it's been reduced down to two-thirds of its original volume (i.e. a pint).

Strain liquid through nylon sieve/muslin. Add honey to taste.

Can be enjoyed hot or cold. Once the liquid cools, store in lidded jar/bottle in fridge.

A really lovely, refreshing summer drink!

And this beautiful creation was brought about because I was trying to

not waste all those apple peels I got from making the below!

Apple-Berry Almond Tart

(much more successful than previously attempted)

l-r:

Re-potted Ranuculus shoots (after they were grown successfully from garden trug).

First bloom of Calla Lily from my re-potted old plant.

f-b:

New Camilla plant. (Re-potted, doing well.)

Lemon-scented Conifer (Finished re-potting from last time, doing poorly).

2 x Gooseberries (Finished re-potting from last time, doing okay).

First leaves from Cally Lilly (left in situ - only outer pot changed).

Chinese lanterns (left in situ, doing just okay).

Ranuculus shoots (successfully grown from last time, left in situ).

Ranuculus shoots (successfully grown from last time, left in situ, only outer pot changed).

New Red Currant (first successful fruits!)

Like rubies in a sea of green.

Basil (re-growing well).

Chilli (re-growing well).

New Lavender (Mustard Strain)

f-b:

Ranuculus shoots (successfully grown from last time, left in situ).

No such luck though for the lily of the valley bulbs that were sowed at the same time.

New Rocket shoots successfully grown in garden trug

(after re-potting away the ranuculus shoots grown previously in trug).

New Chrysanthemums (re-potted using old kitchen colander and settling in beautifully).

Okay I just realised...

2010-06-01T05:36:00.009+01:00

...how seriously wrong my last poem sounded when people may mistake the name of my friend's late pup Villy as, well, Willy. What was meant and expressed as a sad poem took on a whole laughable yet sinister quality and became a tasteless knob joke, which is sickening when I wrote it in order to commemorate the life of a hapless little puppy.

(So yes I've taken down the poem, just when I thought I had cleaned it up about right. Sigh... What price an innocent mind?).

(Actually, after further deliberations and minor amendments, the relevant post is reinstated on Wednesday, 2nd June, 2010).

RIP Little Villy...

2010-05-31T13:48:00.025+01:00

Your "grandma"* (who wouldn't be so crass as to call herself your owner)
Is a very very dear friend,
Who was thrilled with your and your siblings' arrival,
In the wee hours of a Sunday morning, one chilly weekend.

'Tis the first time your mother had given birth,
A gorgeous black King Charles' Spaniel.
Your dad is of a similar pedigree,
Though his coat is a rather handsome tan.

You were one of a litter of four,
Wee little mites who were all so alike.
'Cept you had a nasty gash on top of your head, you poor thing,
And you weighed so little -- oh how we feared you wouldn't pull through.

But you did. You little trooper.
The vet did her best to fix you and bandage your head.
But you were the one who fought -- your weight just a third of your brother's.
And for that you were christened Villy, sounding like Afrikaan for strength.

Your newly-anointed "grandma" stayed home from her office,
To help nurse you with an ickle bottle designed for lil' puppies,
While your brothers and sister scrambled for your mother's breasts.
You were snugly wrapped in your own sweet little blanket.

Very tentatively, you put on weight.
Your grandma breathed a sigh of relief.
You were brought in for checks by the vet,
And she was saying how great you were doing, really.

Your pictures and videos were put on Facebook and texted,
Your grandma showing you and your siblings off with pride.
Her very first attempt at breeding,
And you were all looking bushy-tailed and bright.

I met up with your grandma on Friday,
And she was full of praise for you, Little Villy.
You had finally opened your eyes a few days prior,
And she managed to get you to feed -- just a little -- from your mother.

I was to finally make your acquaintance in person this weekend.
But sadly, you decided to go away before then...

Your grandma said, you were suddenly very weak on Saturday.
And by Sunday, you were gone -- around the same time you came...

You were a brave little soldier though, your grandma said.
She is calmer now, knowing you're happy and are no longer threatened by death...

She was grateful for your company, and that you managed
To see a little of this world, and more importantly,
You saw your siblings, your mother, and indeed your honorary "grandma"
Before you quietly took your leave.

So rest in peace Little Villy, you were truly
A ray of sunshine lent us all too briefly...

Copyright Snowdrops 2010. All rights reserved.

*My friend calls the new puppies to whom one of her pet "girls" (she has two King Charles Spaniels who are sisters) had given birth as her "grandkids".

Version cleaned up in the wee hours of Tuesday, 1st June, 2010.
Post temporarily taken down on Tuesday, 1st June, 2010. Re-posted on Wednesday, 2nd June, 2010 with very slight word changes. (Why I did this, see "Okay I just realised...").

Starry Field...

2010-04-15T02:01:00.008+01:00

Starry Field..., originally uploaded by Snowdrops in Spring.

Composition in blue and green.

A Note...

2010-04-14T02:17:00.005+01:00

Life is the only way
to get covered in leaves,
catch your breath on the sand,
rise on wings;

to be a dog,
or stroke its warm fur;

to tell pain
from everything it’s not;

to squeeze inside events,
dawdle in views,
to seek the least of all possible mistakes.

An extraordinary chance
to remember for a moment
a conversation held
with the lamp switched off;

and if only once
to stumble upon a stone,
end up soaked in one downpour or another,

mislay your keys in the grass;
and to follow a spark on the wind with your eyes;
and to keep on not knowing
something important.

— Wislawa Szymborska (from here )

Now all I can do is wait...

2010-04-12T22:37:00.013+01:00

... And water regularly. And remember to take these back in when it gets frosty again (which is still a distinct possibility given the volatility of Irish weather especially this year).

L-R (Back row): Chinese Lanterns (obtained before Christmas, in a very poor state as it was winter, with dead branches and two dried-up lanterns in a pot with very poor soil; nevertheless, kept indoors and kept watering and new leaves began emerging since early March; trimmed and re-potted and could finally be left outside this past weekend); Japanese Peony (obtained before Christmas, also in a poor state, just a stub really, no branch or leaves to speak of; nevertheless, kept indoors and kept watering and the stub slowly grew and then branch out and then new leaves emerging since February; re-potted and left outside this past weekend); Calamondins (old plant, a house-warming gift from mum, used to thrive but suffered a near-death experience last winter, after two years of flowering and yielding beautiful fruit; kept indoors and kept watering and now new branches and leaves are finally emerging, but it is clear the old branches are dead; trimmed, re-potted and left outside this past weekend); Calla Lilies (old plant, grown from bulbs from scratch, among my oldest and most loyal of plants so far who haven't given up on me yet; came back to life spectacularly last summer; and have started showing green shoots since March; a pot that I am very thankful for, but alas, I ran out of potting mix to re-pot it this past weekend!); French Lavender (old plant, obtained as a lovely fully-grown pot plant from The Bloom Festival two summers ago; had been thriving for two summers, but like quite a few of my old plants, I'm afraid last winter was just way too harsh for it and I'm really, really afraid that the frost and snow had killed it; I couldn't bring it indoors though to nurse it back to health as the pot is just way too heavy for me to lift; still need to weed it and will keep watering and monitoring its health); Green Gooseberry x 2 (obtained before Christmas, had only barren, spiky branches in two container pots with poor soil; kept indoors and kept watering, and have been growing new leaves as well as new spikes since January, thus the very first plant among the new ones I acquired before Christmas to show signs of life and in fact have been thriving since, despite the poor soil; I still haven't re-potted them yet because, as mentioned, I ran out of potting mix last weekend -- I used up not only my existing bag, which had half of the compost mix left, but also a whole new bag I bought just before Christmas and it's still not enough!)

L-R (Front row): Ranuculus Asiaticus (aka Persian Buttercup) (from bulbs -- that resemble tiny black bunches of bananas, rather like star anise actually -- obtained from Marks and Spencer); Ranuculus Asiaticus (again from bulbs available from M&S); Ranuculus Asiaticus (again from bulbs available from M&S -- there are 25 in the packet you see, and you're supposed to leave 10cm in between the bulbs so I was running out of soil fast, and there are still 3 of these left in the bag I haven't got around to put to bed yet. And yes I know I'm not supposed to use a gardening trug -- a freebie given to me by my local florist -- as a planter, but it's the one water-proof container -- it's lined with plastic -- I have that has a relatively large surface area relative to its depth, which is ideal for sowing); Tulips (from bulbs obtained before Christmas, I should have been putting these to bed before Christmas so I'm a few months late in sowing them -- in fact, I wasn't sure I could still sow them if not for the green shoots that have been showing on some of the bulbs -- hope they may actually survive despite my tardiness in planting, although it is a faint hope indeed); Ranuculus Asiaticus (yes, even more of these, I told you I had a lot. Although these are meant to be spring flowers, the M&S pack says that sowing time is up to May, and hopefully these spring-planted bulbs will flower in late summer as this site says they should); Cupressa Wilma (aka Lemon Scented Golden Conifer) (obtained from before Christmas, the healthiest of the plants I got on arrival, and have been doing very well since; attempted to re-pot this past weekend but it is during the re-potting of this plant that I ran out of soil).

Finally, there is a little cream pot at the very front of the picture. I don't know what is in it as it looked like some sort of weed (now why did I think that it must be a weed?) that just took hold in some left-over soil in the pot over the winter months, and now showing some lovely green leaves, and I didn't have the heart to take it out. Live and let live I guess is my gardening philosophy, so long as it doesn't start crossing over to the other plants!

L-R: Lily of the Valley (newly potted with rhizomes -- i.e. root stems -- obtained from M&S after Christmas); Lily of the Valley (growing from a sickly bulb with a tiny stub since before Christmas, have been showing leaves since March, and re-potted just this past weekend -- Christ! I only realise that all parts of the the plant are highly poisonous from Wikipedia just now. Thankfully I haven't been dead yet from handling the plant); Coriander (old plant, grown from seeds more than a year ago, have been sickly and re-growing very, very slowly after a looonnng winter); Unknown House Plant (old plant, gift from my mum, with me since I first moved into the apartment, it used to thrive, but perhaps my previous words jinxed its growth, now it's still surviving, but only just, having suffered a near-death experience last winter, and it is currently still a pale imitation of its former glorious self). These either require shade (the lily of the valley), or are just too weak and require nursing (the other ones), and so are all kept inside the house.

Close-up of the Chinese Lanterns. (I guess it would be a long time before I can see these leaves grow into a proper plant and eventually flowering and showing fruit.)

My gorgeous pair of gardening tools -- sturdy and well-constructed as well as beautiful -- from V&A Museum.

Another shot of my balcony -- I have lots of left-over pots, I just don't have enough soil. And I always thought that I would run out of pots before I run out of potting mix!

Other house plants not shown:

1 x Cactus (doing well for three years)

2 x Pink sunflowers (sickly but recovering)

1 x Orchids (two blooms left, will need to rest soon)

1 x Chilli (sickly but recovering)

1 x Basil (sickly but recovering)

4 x Bamboos (doing well for three years)

There are other plants I'm meant to grow as well, having already acquired packets of their seeds / bulbs / sets (e.g. the "salad mix" package from Marks and Sparks, which included tomatoes, onions, radishes, and salad leaves, but I'm only really interested in just tomatoes and the salad leaves), but I think I need to stop here or else I'd turn into a full-time gardener.

10 things to do when I'm depressed...

2010-04-12T12:07:00.022+01:00

These are things I actually do, not things I necessarily should do. And these are NOT to be taken as some sort of advice. Just thought I'd share...

10. Think things through.

By this I mean deciding if the thing that's been bugging me is something that I can or cannot change, following the advice of the Serenity Prayer: "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference."

9. Talk to someone.

If the thing that's been bugging me is something that I cannot change (usually to do with other people's attitudes or behaviours), and being far from a naturally serene person, the best way of helping me accept (or at the very least, tolerate) the situation is to have a bitch-and-moan session with a dear friend (if personal, like things to do with family), or a bunch of friends (if work, so that everyone can join in with their tales of work woes to make us all feel better), or even colleagues (if to do with the state of the world, so that we can all pitch in with our pet pipe-dreams of putting to world to rights again).

I don't talk to members of my family* though. We only really communicate and let others have a piece of our mind when we row. We are very Chinese that way.

*(Oops, to clarify, I should say that the "members of my family" here refers only to the adult members of my family - and not my little sister and little brother. The saving grace is, we are all learning to let go of our grudges now as we all get older.)

8. Rant about it on my blog.

Of course, there are only so much griping one can do with friends. Or there may be things that I can't quite put to words yet verbally and need to write them down instead, and/or I don't feel able to share that level of bitterness and bile among people dear to me, however supportive they are (or may seem). So ranting on my blog becomes a way for me to let off steam, to release all those pent-up words that I had wanted to say but wouldn't dare in person. It is for this reason that I do not let anyone -- least of all friends and family -- know about the existence of this blog. If I felt that someone who knows me is reading this blog, I would be forced to hide or delete it.

It is also for this reason that my blog could be quite a depressing read at times. I don't usually blog when I'm happy. That's the sad truth (sad in the sense that otherwise my blog could have been an enjoyable read rather than the one long rant fest that it usually is). But my blog is also a reflection of me. For better or for worse. And so here it still is.

7. Take a shower or a bath. And the full-on beauty regime for serious cases.

My Chinese zodiac, according to my mum, says that my "five forces" (obviously not Michael Porter's) is lacking in water, and that my base sign is wood. Thus I always enjoy being with or near or in water (one of the reasons I love Hong Kong, and the reason I like rainy days). And taking a shower really revives me. I very rarely take a bath though, for obvious environmental reasons, but if I'm really, really depressed, a bath will do me a world of good.

And if things are really, really shitty, I go the whole hog in female grooming and pampering. Out comes the deep moisturising face mask that I use once in a blue moon (literally!), in the bath goes the natual sea salt and the dead sea seaweed wrap thing that I finally found an occasion and could justify the time to use, in addition to all the cleansing, tweezing, and shaving that form the normal part of female grooming regimen.

The ultimate pampering for me however isn't a manicure or a pedicure or even a full-body massage, but a hair cut that included wash and blow dry -- sounds rather boring and mundane, but I know a good hair salon here, where the guy gives a thorough head massage as part of the hair-washing routine, and it is a truly, head-meltingly, relaxing experience. And nothing says "I'm over it" like a short haircut. (Well, short-er. I can't stand short hairstyles as I loathe to give up the ability to tie a pony-tail on bad-hair days.)

Given my affinity with water, it's rather weird then that I never learnt how to swim, despite having taken numerous lessons since I was a little kid (including countless courses I undertook during my teenage years and when I was an undergrad, courses which I didn't quite get to finish, to my own disappointment but to the relief of the swimming instructors). I just don't have the stamina to keep moving my limbs to keep going to reach the other side.

I enjoy just floating where I am, thank you very much. Yes I am lazy that way. (But then I don't get in the water to earn an Olympic medal, I am in the water to relax, so I decided that floating rather than swimming suits me just fine).

6. Take care of my plants.

When I was living with my parents, and when my younger siblings were babies or ickle toddlers, I enjoyed baby-sitting them because being with them always made me feel good and really helped relieve stress (and this did not mean just playing with them, but proper baby-sitting that included the whole nine yards -- getting them to finish their bottle, getting them to sleep, feeding them and changing their diapers -- there was a little song-and-leg-jiggle routine I used to do to my little sister and brother when they were babies to get them to cooperate while doing the dirty business, and they loved it and would laugh, so diaper time was actually rather like play time in my family).

Basically, taking care of someone else other than myself helps relieve the stress and tension that I feel when I am not able to take care of myself. Being able to take care of other people (make them feel a little less discomfort if not actually helping them to solve their problems) makes me feel better about my ability to handle issues of my own.

Now I found that gardening is rather like baby-sitting in the kind of stress-relief and feel-good effects it gives me. In addition to watering them and re-potting them (the latter is rather like changing nappies in the kind of mess it entails), I do "plant massage" to stimulate their growth. (By this I mean rubbing the new leaves in the direction of their growth in a bid to encourage them to keep growing in that direction -- and don't laugh, but I know this trick works ever since I was a four-year-old and kept rubbing the end of one branch from a pot of lace fern so that it eventually grew long enough and reached across the balcony and into our living quarters, away from sunlight!) And watching things grow to their full potential is always extremely satisfying.

Don't worry, I don't sing or talk to my plants. Yet. But I do admit to playing them classical music. But I convince myself that I am playing the music for myself rather than for them. The point is, both (the music and the gardening) relax and calm me when I am in distress.

5. Clean my apartment.

Sometimes, when work gets too much, I always fantasize about giving up my academic job and becoming a cleaner instead. As I get older, I discover myself envying people with manual jobs because they don't have to think. All I would need to do then is to move a mop from left to right, whilst humming a little half-forgotten tune. And at the end of a hard day's work, the floor will be clean. That, to me, seriously sounds like bliss.

Of course, back in the real world, I still think for a living. Instead of embarking on a whole career change, and all the stress that goes with it, I clean when I am feeling down. When there are too many ideas or when my thoughts are stuck in a rut, I go and do my dishes, do a laundry load, dust and hoover the flat. And mop.

It's a good work-out. I sweat, therefore I had toiled. And I have a clean apartment to show for at the end of my efforts. Guaranteed. No ifs or buts. That always makes me feel good. Even if my thoughts are still in a rut, at least I could show to myself that I could still do something. That I am NOT totally useless. Thank god.

4. Take stock.

Another way to help me believe in myself again and believing in my own capacity to change is to take stock of how far I've come. Flipping through my past work, looking at old photograph albums, reading old letters, listening to old tapes and CDs, re-reading my books, re-reading my old poems and diary entries, help me find my way back to who I am.

More often than not, I would then re-express my commitment to myself in the form of poetry again. Verse and scansion help turn what is mawkish and mundane into something less embarrassing, if not, well, poetic, at least to my mind. Of course, most of my poetry are mawkish and mundane for precisely that reason. But my awkward lines give aid and comfort to my awkward soul. And that is all I ask of my poems.

3. Go for a walk.

I could go stir crazy if I just stay at home all day. A bit of fresh air does me good. Especially the kind of clear, refreshing air that we are blessed with here in Ireland. Sometimes when I'm indoors for a week or more (possible, when I stay home to work to a paper deadline), my body is craving the sun like it craves water. Sometimes, all it takes to lift my dreary mood is for me to stand or sit outside and absorb the sun.

But if I'm really feeling down, going for a walk has multiple benefits. It exposes me to fresh air, sun rays (if available, otherwise rain would do me good also, see Point 7 above), gets me to work up a sweat (see Point 5) without being in any way strenuous (see Point 7 again), allow me headspace to think through my issues (see Point 1) but to do so with a pleasant change of scenery, so that I could begin to look on the thing that's been bugging me as well as myself with a fresh pair of eyes, and it gets me close to nature, which always helps (see Point 6).

Listening to birdsongs, feeling the sun on my arms, breathing in cool, fresh air, I feel grateful and happy to be alive. Even if the part of life that I happen to be going through at that particular moment sucks. But overall, I am thankful to be here.

2. Talk to someone. Again.

When all the above fails and I'm still in a funk, there is nothing for it but to seek some help. This time from the professionals. I had sought student counselling when I was an undergrad, when family issues got way too much for me to handle on my own (and beyond the capacity of my best friend to help, but I am eternally grateful for her empathetic ear when I needed it the most). Having someone who would listen and help you analyse your situation and your thinking about said situation helps. At the end of the day I was still left with the responsibility to face my issues, but I had a better sense of things that I could and could not do to improve the situation, things that I need to let go if only for my own sake, and knowing that the locus of control is still within me -- that I could decide how I react as well as act. Knowing this made me feel less powerless. Which helps.

1. Let time pass.

By this I mean both "This too shall pass", and "It takes time." Even if one has professional help, it takes time for the healing to happen. It can't be rushed. And one could make it worse by expecting things to happen within a set time-frame. Take things one day at a time, and keep at it. That's all we could and reasonably hope to do.

Remembering "this too shall pass" also helps. No matter how bad the situation is, and no matter how bad (how useless, how weak, how ignorant, how powerless) I think I am, IT WILL PASS. Nothing stays the same forever, and nobody stays completely unchanged as they grow older. I tell myself that if I could survive this with as much dignity intact as possible, then I am changing for the better. Albeit only very slightly. What doesn't kill me makes me stronger, even if my strength lies solely in the fact of me not letting that thing to kill me. Yet. And so long as I am, I win.

Let time pass. It's one of the kindest things one can do for oneself.

(This post is inspired by a series of blog-posts written by 荒言. I have disabled the link in case the blogger feels his privacy is being intruded upon by my linking to his post here).

(Again, the above is written with the caveat that they only work - so far - for me. As the saying goes, different strokes for different folks, and we all have - and need - different ways of re-newing ourselves, including clinical help. The point is, we have all been depressed at some point in our lives, and there is no shame about admitting that. And if we cannot help ourselves, we seek help, and give ourselves time. There is no shame in doing that, either.)

(And this being a rather long post, as well as being a 10-point list, I know the temptation of any reader is to just skim the headings and maybe a few lines and decided that they have "read" it, know what I'm on about, and dismiss this as just another "self-evident" post. Well, maybe it is, but perhaps not in the way you think it is. I implore people to read the whole thing through from beginning to end before judging. Or don't read it at all. That's all. And obviously there is no way I could control how people read this, but at least I have done my bit of imploring. Thank you for reading.)

For every girl and for every boy...

2010-04-07T01:27:00.006+01:00

Feminism: Not just for girls. (Source: Robot Heart)

Update: Definition of Feminism

Apple berry almond tart...

2010-04-06T21:06:00.002+01:00

Given how bloody freezing this Easter weekend had been, as well as the fact that I had a pot of strawberry preserve and a jar of flaked almonds I had been meaning to use up, yesterday I finally took time to bake the above apple berry almond tart (this is something I've wanted to make ever since I came across the recipe last November, which can be found here: Dan Lepard's apple berry almond tart recipe).

Despite the fact that I don't have a fluted tart tin and ceramic baking beans (I used a slightly smaller circular ceramic oven-proof dish instead, which miraculously managed to fit inside the baking tin) and the fact that I'm hopeless in rolling dough out evenly in the first place anyway -- which contributed to the haphazard blind-baking of the pastry case, leading to the final tart not being able to be lifted out of the baking tin -- I am rather proud of how the tart had turned out :D It doesn't look that different from the photo in Dan Lepard's article AND it tasted absolutely De-Lish! (Even if I do say so myself, ha!)

Easter Greetings and Flickr Galleries...

2010-03-31T20:46:00.007+01:00

As Easter is fast approaching, I just want to wish you all a lovely long weekend :) Stay warm and dry wherever you are, and hope the weekend brings you lots of fun as well as a bit of respite.

I would like to leave you with some beautiful images I have curated from my kind Flickr contacts that are quite apposite for this time of the year. Please click on the links below to access these Flickr galleries directly.

Colours. Nature. Swoon.

Words of Wisdom

Photos that made me smile.

Happy Easter :D

Christ I spoke too soon!

2010-03-30T07:06:00.003+01:00

About the springy good weather that is. Can't believe it is actually SNOWING outside now!!!!

Weather Update at 18:38: (I guess I should have paid more attention to weather news!!)
Irish Times: Winter Weather Expected to Return (Monday 29th March)
"After the clement and spring-like conditions of recent weeks Met Éireann forecaster Siobhán Ryan has warned people in all areas to expect a "shock to the system" as temperatures plummet from double figures to just three degrees."

Irish Times: Snow Likely Today in Many Parts (Tuesday 30th March)
"With just one day left in the month March is set to follow January and February as months with below-average temperatures making it one of the coldest first quarters of the year on record."

Celebrating the beauty of Nature...

2010-03-29T01:59:00.019+01:00

Our Spring this year was long overdue but finally, after much dreariness, it arrived with a bang, with much-missed birdsongs and much-welcomed sunshine and daffodils.

The beautiful weather also finally got me motivated to start on my spring cleaning this weekend (I had been meaning to do it at the beginning of March rather than at the end, but it was far too cold and miserable earlier this month). Chief tasks included the sowing of seeds and bulbs I got before and after Christmas (in addition to the usual herb seeds, I shall also attempt to grow salad leaves and tomatoes this year), the re-potting of the new plants that I got -- Lily of the Valley, two Gooseberry Invictus, Chinese Lantern and Japanese Pink Peony -- as well as re-potting my existing herbs (chillies and basil, both of these have been a little sickly) and my trusty calla lilies (these have been showing lovely green leaves by themselves despite my almost complete lack of attention over the winter months, reaffirming themselves as my truly most loyal plants).

I finally got myself enough new pots and planters for my greenery (though it baffles me why planters very seldom come with drainage holes these days, requiring the use of plasticky planter pots or my scrounging around for pebbles), but as always with gardening, I tend to dream up new things I "desperately need" each time I set down to work, and at the present time that translates to a good pair of gardening gloves. I would LOVE a good pair of gardening gloves like these gorgeous pink ones in support of Breakthrough Breast Cancer.

Will be posting pictures of how my old and new plants get on later on once I got them all nicely tucked in their little pots. In the meantime though, you have all got to watch this, the below video is absolutely inspiring:

If any of you have read Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, you would remember the Fibonacci sequence being a key to solving one of the murder puzzles. Here, rather than cheapening the mathematical sequence as a mere plot device in a third-rate popular novel, the glory of the Fibonacci sequence is properly presented in this short movie as one of the central keys underpinning nature's designs (along with the Golden Ratio and the Golden Angle, the mathematical theories behind which are clearly and helpfully explained on the film's website complete with even more elegant graphics!).

This short puts me in mind of one of my favourite places in the world, Barcelona, a city famed for its Gaudi architecture, which is in turn inspired by the beautiful geometry of nature. I remember being strangely moved by the amateurish-but-painstaking, Blue Peter-like quality of the hand-made exhibits showcasing nature's influence on Gaudi's work in the museum located at the Sagrada Familia, the huge Roman Catholic cathedral that is a big tourist trap and remains to this date a huge construction site (it is to the city's credit that, despite bureaucratic wrangling, financial troubles, and differences of architectural opinions, it perseveres, for more than a hundred years since the cathedral first started, to complete Gaudi's masterpiece, and aim to have the Sagrada Familia completed by 2026, the 100th anniversary of Gaudi's death).

(Below are some photos I've taken of Gaudi's architecture from a trip a good few years back, including the Sagrada Familia, Parc Guell, and Casa Mila. My favourite photo was of course this one I took at Parc Guell).

It is therefore no surprise to me that it is a Spanish artist, Cristobal Vila, who is behind the above mesmerizing video, as the inspiration is all around him in the modernist Spanish architecture exemplified by Gaudi's work. The music in the video is Wim Mertens’ “Often A Bird”, a very springy tune in its own right, and melds perfectly with the beautiful visualisations realised by Vila at his Eterea Studio. This short film is released earlier this month (13th March 2010). I can't wait to see what else he would be coming up with next :)

You go tell them bro!

2010-03-28T06:44:00.015+01:00

Click on the image or go directly here to open it as a properly sized file. [Warning: file contains extremely foul language]

Reading the above is sweet, sweet catharsis. You cannot believe how many postgrads (yes, you read right, they are postgrads! They also have years if not decades of professional experience -- it amazes me how they could get anything done without their secretaries) STILL manage to get these basic things wrong. (Okay, not that they would use txtspk in their assignments*, but quite a number of them are still confused over the use of apostrophes and forgetting to put a bloody space AFTER commas! I mean, seriously, how hard can it be to notice these basic basic punctuation rules if you pay any attention at all when reading any sort of half-decent writing??)

I just wish I could use similarly foul language when correcting my students' papers over this kind of careless and indeed feckless mistakes. But of course I am always polite and proper (but BOY am I seething inside over having to point out their sloppy grammar yet not being allowed to sneer).

*Though perhaps in certain work environments we can't even expect this minimum level of literacy, as evident from this recent rant by a Hong Kong-based IHT journalist on her blog.

Btw**: Can anyone please tell me how can I get back past comments on my previous posts? For some bizarre reason comments made before this year have all disappeared - or more correctly, the number of old comments are still shown but the actual comments themselves have gone AWOL. I tried the Comments settings on Blogger and though it promises that the comments can always be re-shown by choosing the "show comments" option even if you hid them before, that unfortunately isn't the case here and I don't know how else to make the comments appear again. Please help.

**And yes I do realise the irony of using txtspk for the "by the way" expression in the context of my own rant above. My defence is two-fold: as an expression "by the way" is meant only as a quick lead-in to something else, and thus shortening the expression further is excusable; more importantly, at least I didn't type out the rest of my message in text-speak! (And AWOL is a well-recognised acronym as opposed to lazy txtspk per se)

家的感覺‧‧‧‧‧‧

2010-03-26T23:21:00.012Z

家的感覺‧‧‧‧‧‧

當倦了，那個回去休息的避難所。
當離開了，那個朝思暮想的烏托邦。
在那裏，有笑聲，有喊吃飯的呼叫；
也偶有哭鬧，有爭吵; 但都是會過去的。
在這裏，痛苦總是會過去的。

縱然牆上沒有美麗的花紋，
天花也沒掛着精美的吊燈；
可是一堆用心排好的書冊，
和放在那方便角落的小琴，
即使不過是一個小小的地方，
卻的而且確是個人間的天堂。

在這裏，喜歡怎樣來就怎樣來吧！
不用客客氣氣，自己招呼自己吧！
鬆開那惱人的高跟鞋，
掛起那沉重的大皮褸，
煮沸開水，開點輕音樂，呼呼地吹着熱茶，
看看窗外的雲淡風輕，
照顧着露台的青青小株，
哪兒比得上這裡更完美?

畢竟，這個是我私人的地方。
謝絕一切的探訪，我終於可
放放心心、安安穩穩的做我‧‧‧‧‧‧

Copyright Snowdrops 2010. All rights reserved.

* * * * *

Further Viewing:

RTHK on Internet "Hong Kong Connection" 鏗鏘集《買樓進行曲》(27 December 2009)

Excerpted from the programme blurb:

買樓 ? 不買樓 ?

擁有一個安樂窩，對不少人來說是基本需要。

買樓一個決定，如同骨牌一樣，跟工作選擇、理想追求、甚至如何規劃人生，環環緊扣。這幾位年輕人如何為著一個「家」而規劃自己的人生路 ?

學英文由"有種"開始...

2010-03-25T22:51:00.007Z

Just thought I'd share how you'd praise somebody as 有種 in English :)

Over on LCL's blog about Sergey Brin, I commented earlier:

"I have to admit I'm having a mad crush on Sergey Brin. He has heart, brains, real guts (and by extension, balls), youth, looks, AND money. And in that order. Too bad he's already taken."

In Cantonese Chinese, the above could be translated as:

「我得承認我家陣對謝爾蓋‧布林極度迷戀。佢有心，有腦，有膽（亦即有種），有青春，有樣，仲有錢。仲係以呢個次序。最衰係已經有埋家室。」

Other words for "balls" (i.e. in the sense of being "ballsy" enough to do XYZ rather than simply to denote testicles) include (to be prefaced by the verb "to have"): "gonads" (quaint term so as not to scare the kids)/"cojones" (Spanish, adopted in colloquial English on both sides of the Atlantic, though perhaps more so in the States).

And while we're on the subject of adjectives deriving from male genitalia, "ballsy" is not to be confused with "cocky". The former is a positive attribute; while the latter is best applied to someone who shall fit the epithet of a "prick" or a "dickhead" or a "jerk".

千祈千祈米亂嚟用咗"nuts"或"bollocks"呀, 雖然兩個字都可翻譯成『睪丸』, 但係意思就變晒了！(Although of course one could also describe Brin as being nuts to abandon the mainland Chinese market, but then you would be berating him for being crazy rather than praising him for having the balls to stand up to the CCP. Bollocks, on the other hand, mean something else altogether. The Americans never EVER understand how this most versatile of English swearword is to be properly used, with the result that they almost always end up having the Irish and the Brits laughing in their faces whenever they try to sound cool and say bollocks with an American accent. Best leave proper swearing to the grown-ups, kiddos.)

Okay, I have talked enough bollocks. (Seriously, I don't know what came over me. Consider this my humble contribution to public service translation).

其實呢，我係想講，原來廣東話同英文嘅俚語好多時都有異曲同工之處的。

我的八十年代中文...

2010-03-20T07:37:00.004Z

想寫這一篇文章很久了。

或許是因為我的生世吧(註一)，我只有小學程度的中文。雖然那是我最喜愛的科目，也(曾經)是我成績最好的一科。但畢竟那是差不多二十年前的事了‧‧‧

也因為那是差不多二十年前的事，所以我的中文用詞（尤其是會話方面）一直停留在八十年代中，彷如一隻被琥珀覆蓋了的蒼蠅一樣。愛爾蘭的華人不多，尤其是當我們初來埗到時（我以前也提過，在這裏讀書時我經常是全校裡唯一一個華人／外籍人）；加上那時期的我其實並不喜歡跟本地的中國人來往（無論他們是土生的還是後來的）(註二)，而後來交上了的華人朋友也是來自台灣或新加坡，用英語溝通，所以我的中文仍然保持在小學那時般：說得好聽一點是純品，而其實正確點說是「老土」。

直到互聯網的關係(註三)，我在幾年前開始接觸到香港人（無論是在港的還是海外的）寫的中文網誌，令我有機會見識到近代的中文措詞。不論是流行術語（所謂「潮語」）還是句子格式，令我大開眼界之餘，也益發感到自己的落伍‧‧‧

較直接點說，我真的覺得自己跟現代的中文脫節了。很多很多以前我熟悉的用詞用句，現在均被取替了。我所說的不只是日常會話，而是書面上的用詞也改變了。容許我在這兒舉一些例：

「男生／女生」
這個不應該是「男孩子／女孩子」嗎？或者用「男子／女子」也可以。口語上叫「男仔／女仔」。從那時開始香港人一貫地使用「男生／女生」這個台式詞語呢？尤其是當我們又不是在指男女學生？

「得着」
從那時起香港人摒棄了「收穫」，而將之改成了「得着」呢？為什麼？好端端的一個名詞被一個貌似動詞的東西給取代了，除了悲哀之外，我真的看不出有什麼「得着」‧‧‧

「自我感覺良好」
這是我最受不了的句子！真的！它給我帶出的訊息是：講者有點兒自戀！（哈哈！）就算沒有這個意味，我也不明白，為何以前的人不需用這樣笨拙的句子也能表達他們的意思呢？

其實應該有更多的，但一時再想不起其他，留待遲些兒再補充吧。

每次我看到以上的詞句，心中是很不是味兒的。但沒有辦法呀，差不多所有人也採用了這些新詞彙。只有小學中文程度的我，除了在這兒發一點「勞騷」之外，還可以做什麼呢？畢竟，文字是除着時代轉變的，我們多是被牽着走的羊群‧‧‧

我只知道，我是不會和別人用中文發生口角或進行筆戰的了，即使我學懂了中文輸入法也好。因為我實實在在失去了用中文和別人議論的本錢。從來，懂得用中文鬧我的人，就只有我的父母。假若被他人用中文罵我的話，我想我的反應會和小學生沒兩樣‧‧‧

註一: 我也知道，我那低劣的中文能力不能完全歸咎於生世。君不見在外地出生的華人也有很多具極強中文能力之仕，只可惜我不能與他們看齊。
註二: 這個嘛，說來真的一疋布咁長。還是留待下一次有機會才寫了‧‧‧
註三: 當然，在這之前我也有間中看看香港的電視（租帶或後來的衛星電視）和雜誌，但也只是片面的接觸，不像現在能夠在互聯網上較細心閱讀別人的文字。

後記：這篇文章是我用了九牛二虎之力才寫得出在網誌上的。寫得不好的話，敬請見諒，也請多多指教。

A sick joke for Hong Kong home-owners...

2010-03-18T18:06:00.015Z

In my previous couple of posts about first-time home-buying, I stated my tips and advice with the caveat that I don't know much about the property market in Hong Kong, if at all.

Here in Ireland, the key thing that one would check in terms of the lease documents is the remaining lease period (unless yours is a free-hold property, but this is quite rare especially for apartment properties): you would stay away from anything that has a remaining lease term of less than 90 years, if you still wish your property to be re-sellable within your own life-time.

Over in Hong Kong, it seems that one not only needs to look at one's own individual lease documents, but one also needs to factor in something which is frankly unfathomable - to what extent the HK government might, in future, decide on giving you a compulsory purchase order to facilitate some fat-cat property developer.

Choice quotes from Alice's most recent article on this over on the Asian Sentinel (Please also spend time to read her informative article on this piece of unfair legislation in her earlier blog-post):

The government-property cartel coalition has bulldozed through an unjust piece of legislation lowering the forced sale threshold from 90 percent to 80 percent of units of an old building facing demolition and redevelopment...

A secondary school student with an inquisitive mind asked Carrie Lam, Secretary for Development, a hard-hitting question at a radio forum: is there any guarantee that there won’t be future demands from developers to further lower the threshold to 70 percent, 60 percent, 50 percent?

When property prices have breached the HK$10,000-a-square-foot mark and young people’s dream of owning a home are in danger of becoming a permanent dream, and you can still hear the developer titans say they are against reviving the Home Ownership Scheme, which the government stupidly put an end to in 2002 to prop up the property market and which might be the only way out for the home-starved low- to middle-income class, you know that the WEALTHY AND THE HAVES of this society have become stone-hearted and obdurately pitiless towards the HAVE-NOTS.

Thus, it seems, not only are the majority of Hong Kong citizens of the post-70's, 80's, and 90's generations resigned to the fact that, if they are lucky enough to be able to afford a mortgage, it would be for a property for a hugely-inflated price that allows the post-war baby-boomers to indulge shamelessly in their lavish lifestyles; but even more tragically, even when they manage to get on the property ladder and even when they manage to pay off the mortgage, there is no guarantee that the property that they have acquired through decades of blood, sweat and tears would indeed be their own asset to pass on to the next generation (which is totally unlike the situation in the UK - over in Britain, the Conservatives are able to harp on about property rights on behalf of property-owning middle-classes and cry foul over any increases on the inheritance tax; over in Hong Kong, there seems to be no such thing as middle-class Conservatives, only the super-rich have any say over government policy. It seems even the "haves" in Hong Kong are doing their damnedest to harm their own self-interest - what a perverse capitalist system HK is turning out to be when middle-class interests are being usurped by monopolistic corporate interests because the latter are the real master behind the puppet administration).

This gross infringement of individual property rights is a very sick joke indeed, how ironic that it would come into force on 1st April, 2010.

Further reading:
劉健威×歐陽應霽惜食→地產商治港？(http://www.siuding.com/2010/01/blog-post_19.html)
Missed Opportunity (http://dilloncommunications.com/blog/?p=1676)
[轉貼] 曹仁超被訪有關香港房地產 (http://plainfaceangel.blogspot.com/2010/03/blog-post_05.html)

Further listening:

More pointers for first-time home-owners...

2010-03-16T17:01:00.017Z

Following my previous post about the importance of sorting out the financing and legal aspects of home purchasing, this is the second in what has turned out to be a series of blog-posts about becoming a first time home owner. My own concluding comment in my previous post reminded me of the need to speak about furniture budgets as well before going onto the actual interior design tips. So please bear with me for one more post on the so-called boring stuff (but actually I promise you it gets more interesting as the post goes on)...

In this particular post I want to talk about the importance of home budgeting. It is a topic that doesn't just require a head for figures but more importantly, durable shoe leather and a thickness of skin when it comes to negotiating prices. So without further ado:

1. Set up a spreadsheet of your home budget and decide on your dream, big-ticket items for each room in the flat/house.

In all likelihood, if you've been doing your homework on apartment prices, mortgage plans and associated financial products, like I said any serious first-time home buyers should in my last post, then you would already have stored different financing option configurations into some form of a spreadsheet, so that you can compare at a glance that, given different levels of deposits you can afford to pay, and the different mortgage options available, what price levels of housing you can afford (and what it will mean in terms of your monthly outgoings once you do take on a mortgage). This ensures that you can keep a clear head and that you won't be easily swayed by the pitches of both mortgage brokers/bank managers/most importantly, estate agents (or what you'd call "realtors" in the States)/home-owners who want to sell you their property.

The home budget here is an extension of the above. You add a new spreadsheet for each of the key rooms/areas in the apartment/house, viz. kitchen, bathroom, main bedroom, living room, dining room, study/second bedroom, etc. Then enumerate the key items that you will likely NEED to get for each room/area (i.e. unlikely to be included with the property's sale price and/or unlikely to get a hand-me-down from your family and friends, or those you are simply unwilling to use second hand).

So for instance, for the main bedroom, I listed a double bed (queen/king size depending on price) as the big-ticket item for me to buy, and listed "good" built-in wardrobes (I have quite definite ideas about its storage capacity as well as its look) as something that MUST COME WITH my ideal apartment, whilst items like chests, night-stands, curtains, dressing table, etc. are items that are negotiable (i.e. I will get if both price and style are right, otherwise I will make do).

Similarly, for the living room, I listed an armchair - specifically, a wing-back armchair - as my big-ticket dream item around which I built the rest of my living room furniture budget around, above even that of the sofa, which I was willing to get cheap; in fact, bookshelves / bookcase come before the sofa, and BEFORE the TV, the specific make of which I don't mind as long as it is HD-ready and does NOT overwhelm the room with its size. In fact, beautiful wall-paper/paint (again I have quite specific ideas about my requirements there, more on these later) comes ABOVE the telly in terms of my interiors priority, although I understand this would not be the case for the vast majority of people.

And so on and so forth. You get the idea. For each room/area of your flat, list the items you need to get in terms of priority, with the first item being the DREAM item that you've always, always, hankered after. The big-ticket item is the ONE thing that always comes to mind when you day-dream about your ideal flat, whether that is leisurely reading a book in a wing-back armchair besides floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, or lazing over a book and a cuppa in a big beautiful bed on a Sunday morning, etc. etc. If you want to create a dream home, you must hold on to these images in your head and remember what's the most important bits that you need to get to make those dream sequences come true.

One rule of deciding on whether something is really a big-ticket item (to curb all our innate greediness to want to get all our dream things in one go!): ask yourself, would I be happy to spend hours in the room if there is not a stick of other furniture around EXCEPT for my designated dream item? That is the key for me to determine that I cherish a proper armchair way more than having bookshelves, even though the latter comes quite close to my heart also. I can pile my books on the floor and I can spend ages in my living room just in my armchair with nothing else around, and I know I will be happy. That is the litmus test.

Remember: you're buying a home FOR YOURSELF. Not for anyone else, and not because it is fashionable. Go for the items you truly want, rather than because it may look respectable to others. Spend all your money on a baby grand piano if that's what would set your heart aflutter day after day, but don't waste money on a baby grand even if you have loads of cash to spare if you're only buying it for ostentatious display of your so-called taste. Your lack of taste will still show through in your home décor if you spend your money mimicking other people's tastes rather than get something that you would truly enjoy. Yes, even if that something happens to be a mah-jongg set - it would be more honest and your home would be genuinely characterful if you invest in having the space and various accoutrements for a delightful mah-jongg game if that's what you and your friends enjoy, than investing in a baby grand and letting it gather dust because you got a tin-ear for piano music. Nothing would be more tragic - for both that baby grand and yourself.

2. Hit. The. Shops. (With notepad and pens and your camera-phone)
Now that you have figured out what your big-ticket items are for each room, as well as having a realistic idea of the kinds of furniture you'd need to get, go out and hit the shops. WITH notepad, pens and camera-phone in tow.

Trawl through all the different furniture stores for the big-ticket items first. Note the style, and GO AND TRY THEM OUT. There is no alternative to just sitting on different sofas and seeing how you feel about having it foam-filled versus feather-filled; there is no alternative to actually deciding if you are okay with a double or a queen-size or a king-sized bed than going to see for yourself. Images on a screen are NO substitute to seeing and trying out the real thing.

More importantly, note the prices AND dimensions AND delivery costs AND storage costs (if applicable). Ask the shop assistants when they would usually have their sales in the year (in Ireland, there's always pre-Christmas sale, but the REAL sales happen in January and February, which are much better value than the summer sales, so if you can try to time your apartment purchase to the sales time-frames you will save a bundle, or else factor in the extra costs - whether in terms of normal prices or storage costs - into your budget).

After you've checked out the price and style ranges of the big-ticket items for EACH of the rooms/areas of the apartment, then check out the price and style ranges for your second tier items on your list, and work your way down until you have an idea of what each of the item in your To-Get List for each of the room would cost in addition to what styles/functions (if electronic appliances) are available.

ALWAYS record these into your spreadsheets for each room after hitting the shops, because pretty soon your head will be overwhelmed by all the different pricing and models available and it would all be a muddle if you don't get it down. It goes without saying then that, in addition to taking your cameraphone, notepad and pen, the easiest is to always ask the sales assistants if they have any brochures/literature/catalogues/handouts on their items. There is no need to bring a tape-measure with you, as 99% of shops will measure the item for you if they don't already have the measurements, but of course there's no harm bringing one along either.

As you do the above, not only will you begin to develop your preferences for what would suit you as you try out the different options available in the shops. More importantly, you will gradually begin to get a general sense of what each room will cost for you to furnish, and can begin to mentally calculate your trade-offs options for the furnishing in each room. That is, you have a real sense of being able to answer for yourself, if I were to get this brand-new desk for my study rather than using an old desk, it will mean that I would likely have to give up on getting a nice chest of drawers for my bedroom, is that what I am prepared to give up?

Doing Steps 1 and 2 would prevent us from spending all our money on second-bests and any impulse-buying we're prone to do as we encounter all the amazing styles and ranges on offer. It also helps us clear our minds of any idle but impractical fantasies we may have about particular furnishing styles, so that you could discover, for example, that perhaps the all white minimalist look is all good in theory but not something you could feel truly comfortable in, or that the idea of of a dressing-table is all very romantic but is not something you'd likely have the space in order to do the piece justice and show it off properly, etc. etc.

3. Supplement the above with desk research.
Of course, in this day and age one doesn't just rely on one's shoe leather for everything. There is the Internet which could and does save us a lot of legwork. There is also tons of interiors magazines with lots of tips and advice about different colour schemes, how-to-bring-a-room together, the latest interiors design trends and styles and so on and so forth. Of course, there are also lots and lots of really informative blogs as well, like the ones I have already recommended to MBBB in a previous comment reply.

The magazines and the blogs are great for giving you inspiration, especially if you start this process with vague ideas about your likes and dislikes when it comes to home furnishings, and/or simply don't know how a given room of a given size might be furnished that makes it liveable as well as practicable. Small apartments and small houses - over 90% of what any one of us could afford as a first-time buyer - pose interior design challenges that particularly require careful planning, which could only happen when one is fully briefed on the furnishing options available out there.

Being inspired is one thing, but deciding what would suit you and a particular flat is another. It is therefore important to keep meticulous track of items that inspire you and sort them by mutating styles. Here, I don't mean so much about keeping note of the general prices and dimensions of the key pieces as mentioned above (we could spend forever just inputting to the spreadsheet then!), but to clip and store images that conform to your ideal home in a systematic, easily-traceable way.

In my computer, I have a folder called "Ideal home images", in which are organised sub-folders for each of the rooms/areas of the apartment ("bedroom", "kitchen", etc.). These room-based folders are for me to store room-based images that inspired me when I come across them on web-sites or blogs. And then I also have a collection of folders that are item-based, e.g. Chairs and Sofas and other Seating, in which I kept all the images clipped from websites of particular furniture items (as opposed to entire room views) that fall under that category (the reason why this is such a broad category is that, as I discovered when I start collecting my images for my mental mood board, there are creations that fall between the stools so to speak, e.g. when a chaise longue became the half-way house between a chair and a sofa, or when a dining chair could work just as well as a desk chair, so I stopped considering what type of seating the particular piece is meant to be for but concentrate instead on identifying its visual form). I arranged these item-based images not by name or date or website address, but by their visual style, so that as I scroll down the folder I can see all the clipped images of all kinds of chairs I have come across that range from the upholstered, country styles to the shiny, leather, modernist look.

In this way, I begin to develop a sense of what is best-in-class for my taste. So that, when I see a particular piece, not only could I place it as belonging to one or other of established interiors design styles, or a particular synthesis or mutation of these, but I also begin to develop a sense of how good that piece is given the design tradition(s) from which it derived its design feature(s); and more importantly, to what extent its design expression is suited to my own preferences, now that I have a sense and a vocabulary of the different design styles out there.

For example, for the wing-back armchair, whilst I know I am automatically looking at country styles given the nature of the piece itself, but through desk research above, I began to appreciate subtle differences between English versus French country styles (to reduce it to a brief and blunt statement: the former is plainer, sturdier, more "honest"; the latter is prettier, more ornate and slender, more feminine). More importantly, I know which of these I personally prefer, having seen enough of these different styles being expressed in different forms.

So when I finally see a piece that fulfils my ideal type of a wing-back armchair (as pictured below, from that most English of retailers, Laura Ashley), and it being my big-ticket item, I had the confidence that I knew I was getting the right piece for me, even though I hesitated over the price and the particular fabric (I waited until the January sale to get it and deliberated for weeks over the final fabric choice!)

Laura Ashley armchair stuffed with hand-made cushions, originally uploaded by Snowdrops in Spring.

So that's another 3 pointers for first-time home-owners, and I haven't yet quite gotten to the meat of the interiors tips yet. I hope the above however are interesting thoughts even if they might just sound like total common sense. I will stop here and pick up this subject again another time!

因為今天是母親節*... [updated with English version]

2010-03-14T00:01:00.038Z

俗語有云,
鬼唔知阿媽係女人.
但我哋有無諗過,
其實阿媽都係人.

女權運動
係人權運動嘅一種.
千祈唔好當咗
做剪陽嘅活動.

世界已經夠混亂和不公,
吓吓開戰為土地為石油為原教宗
無謂再無啦啦整韃喇
為咗性別嚟玩對壘攪抗爭.

我哋個個一生出嚟
唔係港女就係港男.
冇乜特別為婚姻狀況年齡性別
去抬高自己踩低別人

我哋個個都係阿媽
十月懷胎嘅精品
做好自己
做對自己有意義嘅事
擴闊視野, 有信心
唔怕人哋嘅目光
就已經係一份
好好嘅母親節禮物

千祈唔好當咗自己或別人
係一舊叉燒或貨物.

--Copyright Snowdrops 2010. Creative Commons 3.0 License (Share with Attribution, No Commercial Use and No Derivative Works).

Because Today is Mother's Day...

Any fool knows
Your mother is a woman.
But have we ever considered
Our mothers are also human?

Women's rights
Are just a type of human rights.
Don't ever mistake feminism
As some kind of vengeful Bobbitism.

The world's already full of chaos and injustice,
Wars started cos of land, oil, and religious fundamentalists
Why would you want to add to the mess
By picking fights over something as innocuous as one's sex?

Every single one of us was born
As either a Kong girl or Kong boy
There's really not much point
In feeling superior over marital status, age or sex.

Every single one of us is an apple
In our mothers' loving eyes
Do yourself proud
Go after your dream
Believe in yourself
And ignore others' stares.
Being happy in who you are,
Is already the best present for our mothers.

And please remember: never treat yourself or others
As a piece of roast pork or worse, a mere consumer product.

-- Copyright Snowdrops 2010. Creative Commons 3.0 License (Share with Attribution, No Commercial Use and No Derivative Works).

*Today's Mother's Day in Ireland and the UK. Feel free to circulate this with attribution when Mother's Day in Hong Kong rolls around in May.

Some small pointers for first-time buyers...

2010-03-11T22:01:00.010Z

In response to the promise I made to Myblahblahblah a couple of weeks ago about doing a post on my experience of interior decorating, I've finally managed to get around to typing this up (although various paragraphs have been storing in my heads since, in addition to the bookmarking of sites).

Sincere apologies MBBB for the delay -- it is absolutely inexcusable that "a couple of days" became "a couple of weeks"! Very sorry. (But today's been a marathon blogging day for me! 3 posts in one day when I normally manage about a post a week if I'm lucky. This is a first.)

Anyway, I meant to say that this is actually quite a timely post because my brother just bought a place with his girlfriend :) The sale went through late last month but as usual with these things, it's been months of activities (if not years of passive planning) before it came to fruition. So MBBB I'm really happy to hear that you've been keeping your eye out for apartments now even though the price levels aren't right yet. The months and months that I've spent trawling through interiors sites, furniture and homeware stores and show apartments and indeed negotiating with various banks and mortgage brokers really paid off when I was finally in a position to act.

I'm going to sum up my tips in an easy list form. Obviously the tips listed here are not meant to be exhaustive and the important caveat is that they are all just based on my own personal experience, hard-won though that was. If others have different ideas please do share them in the comments as I would love to be able to pass them onto my brother also :)

But allow me to first share a couple of non-décor related advice. I know it's probably of no relevance to you MBBB as you probably are well-versed on the financial and legal side of things, but I thought I'd include them here as well because getting the financial and legal things well sorted means you're more than two-thirds of the way to happy home ownership. (And because I know how easy it is to ignore the financial and the legal issues and just concentrate on the fun side of interior design, but that would be a BIG mistake indeed for a first-time buyer.).

So please note that the "you" used in the sentences below refers to a general "you" rather than you specifically, MBBB :)

1. Do take your time and don't feel under pressure to act.

The mantra is that "if it's meant to be it will happen." This sounds rather counter-intuitive and seems self-defeating but please do hear me out. Obviously you do all your due diligence and pre-sale prep as much as you can (more on this later), but at the end of the day an apartment sale is a transaction between two parties and you have as much right as the other party to walk out on the deal if things aren't right and vice versa. Don't feel induced into buying something whether because of a perceived time pressure or because of perceived limitation of your options given your budget. You are going to have to literally live in the place and it is important that things felt right. But don't feel disheartened either if a deal falls through -- it's happened to me and I made the decision to pull out as it was becoming clear that it was getting nowhere and it was one of the best decisions I've ever made in my life.

2. Get a good conveyancing lawyer.

I'm not sure of course about the buying situation in Hong Kong but I assume you have a system quite similar to the British like we have here in Ireland for the buying and selling of properties. I'm not sure about the lawyerly profession in Hong Kong either of course, but there might be cowboys operating who specialise in preying on first-time buyers. Be clear about the level of access you can have with your appointed lawyer (if committing your business to a law firm), don't be fobbed off with just the legal secretaries, and a good firm would have checklists in place for both clients to ask of the other party, the property, and of themselves as clients, and could provide you with time-frames for the processing of different steps as well a briefing you on what those steps are. Be clear about your own list of demands (more on this later) and make sure that the lawyer dealing with your case are informed of these as s/he would be the one helping you scan through the lease documents and other agreements. Don't be afraid to fuss, which is the Achilles' heel for a lot of first-time buyers. Ask questions when you don't understand the legalese and don't be afraid to push for explanations if things have been stalling (I'm not sure about Hong Kong but it generally takes about 8 weeks for sale to be completed here, I imagine Hong Kong being the highly-efficient city it is this time-frame would be completely laughable, but it is the reality here and a lot of times it may go on even longer than that, and you have to not to be afraid to hassle your solicitor to get him to hassle the other solicitor representing the other side). They are supposed to be providing you with a professional service and they would act like professionals as you're paying for engaging them on a professional level.

3. Go around the banks and building societies and/or get a mortgage broker to do some legwork on your behalf.

I know this point sounds prosaic especially to smart Hongkongers who are well up on all the various banking products, etc. etc. If you're a stereotypical Hongkonger then you don't need me telling you this (or indeed any of the above, come to think of it). So again I'm not sure how much this would translate to Hong Kong. But my basic point is that, for a lot of first-time buyers, they might not realise that it's not just about getting a mortgage (which in turn means getting the best rate for the term that you desire given the deposit that you can afford). There are also associated financial products like household insurance and life assurance, and whilst I don't know anything about the mortgage products in Hong Kong, it's really worth doing one's own homework on these. A mortgage broker comes in really handy also who could help you cover some of the legwork (although you have to know with whom he's affiliated with and to what extent his coverage of these banks' products are representative of all the products on offer). And a good one (and I was blessed with one such mortgage broker) would be very helpful to sort out and keep track of all your mortgage application documentation and being able to follow up directly with the loan officer on your behalf.

Most importantly, having your mortgage pre-approved and knowing exactly what financing options you have available to you is a BIG bargaining chip when it comes to choosing the right place for you. At the very least, it affords you a level of comfort knowing exactly what your own parameters for price negotiations are.

So as you can see obviously now, over here in Ireland, unless you're extremely financially secure, one rarely just goes out and buy an apartment at the drop of a hat as a first-time buyer, but I'm not sure of course if this scenario is the same in Hong Kong. That said, people do sometimes pay down an initial deposit (aka "booking deposit") to secure an apartment quickly to get it off the market, but this deposit is refundable within a cooling-off period minus a small charge to the estate agent (if applicable). Again, not sure if this is the same in Hong Kong.

The key thing is that, doing one's homework on the financing and legal sides makes it easy for one to decide to pay down a deposit when one finally finds a place that feels just right. Indeed, knowing your financial options inside out makes it easy to decide on a furniture budget, which is one of the first key things that you've got to decide anyway before choosing what style of furnishing may best suit a particular flat and indeed your personal style.

Okay, finally, let me get on to the fun tips of interior design and home décor :) Methinks I should actually write these now actually in a separate post as I don't want the above serious tone about the serious bits of home-buying to hang over me while we're on the fun subject of interior design. Especially this post being quite long-winded as it is! Sorry!

So onto the next post! (I may not get to finish it and post this by tonight - I'll see how far I can get it written up - but be sure it's on its way!).

The Art of Sandwich-Making...

2010-03-11T17:52:00.001Z

As Paddy's Day draws near, I am away from the office on leave (but also work from home at the same time). It's been an interesting experiment of deciding what my "working lunch" would be these couple of days. It seems my appetite is miraculously whetted by the idea of a humble sandwich and a cuppa even though I do have other alternatives, and this is despite the fact that I often dream of having a hot lunch and a proper sit-down meal when I do have to work in the office.

So the below is going to be way underwhelming and definitely embarrassing (pour moi) to any readers from Hong Kong who are used to taking pictures of mouth-watering delicious food even for what they consider to be a very mundane work lunch. I guess you have to work here to appreciate how happy I was to discover that I could get freshly-made egg salad in a chilled carton from the local supermarket to take home as a sandwich spread. Gosh, I almost jumped with joy when I saw this (sad though I know how this sounds!)!

You see, ever since I stepped out into the working world, in my first corporate job where we were located out in the sticks, we either get pub lunches or invariably, it would be a sandwich, whether you make it yourself or if you queue and get it from a nearby sandwich shop. We always had pub lunches on a Friday, but during the week it depended if there were other guys around or else my boss and I just got ourselves a sandwich. It was thus that I had experimented my way through different sandwich filling combinations at the local sandwich shop, and thus come to the infallible conclusion based on cast-iron evidence that the best sandwich filling consists of: butter, egg salad (also known as egg mayonnaise, a heavenly blend of crushed boiled egg, mayonnaise, and maybe herbs and tiny tomato chunks), ham and cheese.

I can NEVER understand why people would go for a BLT (bacon, lettuce and tomato) sandwich on sliced white bread (rather than say, using baps). The sliced tomatos are a good idea in theory only, as in less than two minutes the bread would have become soggy from the leaked moisture from both the tomato and the lettuce, and nothing is worse than a soggy sandwich. The bacon strips then invariably become too chewy and hard to manage when covered with soggy bread. The whole thing is a grotesque exercise in unfulfilled expectations. (And if you do use baps, yes, they contain moisture better so the whole thing is at least not falling apart in your hands, but jeez, they just end up like diapers absorbing all the liquid, is that what you want for your lunch?)

Also, here in the shops the sandwich makers will always ask you if you prefer butter or mayonnaise on your sarnies. The beauty of having egg salad (aka egg mayonnaise) is that you could have both without making the whole thing disgusting. You can butter your bread, spread egg mayo on them, and the egg mayo adds a softness to your sandwich that is heavenly when combined with sliced ham and cheese (as the latter on their own are just way too dry), but done so without the risk of sogginess posed by incorporating tomato slices.

Of course, one may say ham and cheese sandwiches are boring (and indeed all sandwiches are BORING in big capital letters). Ha! That is only because they don't know how to do them properly. A classic sandwich done properly is a thing of beauty. And thus I am really glad my lunch today consists of the following:

Ingredients: Egg salad from Superquinn; Sliced Leerdammer cheese from Marks and Spencer; Crumbed cooked ham (100% Irish and traceable from farm to fork); and Flora.

Closer look at the divine egg salad (the quality of a sandwich shop can be determined by the quality of their egg mayonnaise. This tub from Superquinn doesn't disappoint at all).

This was finished off with a kiwi, just to get one of my five-a-day's.

I felt really good about the fact I could recreate my idea of a perfect sandwich in the comfort of my own home, now that I don't have to make egg salad from scratch. I really should make sandwiches more often.

Okay, I should really not faff around anymore taking pictures of my boring lunch and just go straight back to work :P

Excerpted from Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex...

2010-03-11T17:19:00.005Z

DSC_0185, originally uploaded by Snowdrops in Spring.

Thanks to the kind comment by Alice on my last post, it's got me thinking that there is indeed a serious lack of education about women's rights (or perhaps any kind of civic rights) in Hong Kong. She made the brilliant suggestion that Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex should be required reading for all secondary school girls in Hong Kong.

The only thing I would add is that it should be required reading for all boys and girls, as there are much within it which would lend itself to opening the eyes of hitherto unenlightened men. And indeed, it would be futile if only women are enlightened rather than men when it is the latter who hold the cards. (Even in Brazil, guys are familiar with de Beauvoir's works, as shown by the comment on my Flickr photo above, which was uploaded quite some time ago. So why not Hong Kong?)

So I have taken the book down from my bookshelf again (and yes, in the photo below, that is indeed a McDull calendar I got from Hong Kong last summer :D And I think the quote on the engraved stone is rather apposite for the current post!)

I thought perhaps I could quote some passages from the book which may be of interest to both men and women, especially if people are put off by the 2-inch-thick veritable brick of a book. (Somebody should include excerpts from this book as required essay reading for the secondary school syllabus!).

Anyway, the below are among my favourite passages:

At the beginning of the nineteenth century woman was more shamefully exploited than were male workers. Labour at home constituted what the English called the "sweating system"; in spite of constant toil, the working-woman did not earn enough to satisfy her needs... It is understandable that they made haste to get out into the factories; besides, it was not long before nothing was left to do outside the workshops except needlework, laundering, and housework -- all slave's work, earning famine wages... The employers often preferred them [women] to men. "They do better for less pay." This cynical formula lights up the drama of feminine labour. For it is through labour that woman has conquered her dignity as a human being; but it was a remarkably hard-won and protracted conquest (de Beauvoir, 1949[1997]: 144, emphasis added).

But a woman hardly has means for sounding her own heart... For a great many women the roads to transcendance are blocked: because they do nothing, they fail to make themselves anything. They wonder indefinitely what they could have become, which sets them to asking about what they are. It is a vain question. If man fails to discover that secret essence of femininity, it simply because it doesn't exist. Kept on the fringe of the world, woman cannot be objectively defined through this world, and her mystery conceals nothing but emptiness (de Beauvoir, 1949[1997]: 288, original emphases).

Furthermore, like all oppressed, woman deliberately dissembles her objective actuality; the slave, the servant, the indigent, all who depend on the caprices of a master, have learned to turn towards him a changeless smile or an enigmatic impassivity; their real sentiments, their actual behaviour, are carefully hidden. And moreover woman is taught from adolescence to lie to men, to scheme, to be wily. In speaking to them she wears an artificial expression on her face; she is cautious, hypocritical, play-acting (de Beauvoir, 1949[1997]: 288, emphases added).

But the Feminine Mystery as recongized in mythical thought is a more profound matter. In fact, it is immediately implied in the mythology of the absolute Other... In the same way it is true that, beyond the secrecy created by their dissembling, there is mystery in the Black, the Yellow, in so far as they are considered absolutely as the inessential Other. It should be noted that the American citizen, who profoundly baffles the average European, is not, however, considered as being "mysterious": one states more modestly that one does not understand him. And similarly woman does not always "understand" man, but there is no such thing as a masculine mystery. The point is that rich America, and the male, are on the Master side and that Mystery belongs to the slave (de Beauvoir, 1949[1997]: 288-289, emphasis added).

Man would have nothing to lose, quite the contrary, if he gave up disguising woman as a symbol. When dreams are official community affairs, clichés, they are poor and monotonous indeed beside the living reality; for the true dreamer, for the poet, woman is a more generous fount than is any down-at-heel marvel. The times that have most sincerely treasured women are not the period of feudal chivalry nor yet the gallant nineteenth century. They are the times -- like the eighteenth century -- when men have regarded women as fellow creatures; then it is that women seem truly romantic, as the reading of Liaisons dangereuses, Le Rouge et le noir, Farewell to Arms, is sufficient to show. The heroines of Laclos, Stendhal and Hemingway are without mystery, and they are not the less engaging for that. To recognise in woman a human being is not to impoverish man's experiences; this would lose none of its diversity, its richness, or its intensity if it were to occur between two subjectivities. To discard the myths [of and about women] is not to destroy all dramatic relations between the sexes, it is not to deny the significance authentically revealed to men through feminine reality; it is not to do away with poetry, love, adventure, happiness, dreaming. It is simply to ask that behaviour, sentiment, passion be founded upon the truth (de Beauvoir, 1949[1997]: 290-291, emphases added).

I hope the above quotations would also clarify for those who happen to labour under a misapprehension that feminism is about "doing without men", that nothing could be farther from the truth. I hope you can all see that now.

Thanks again to Alice for her kind suggestion, I actually really enjoyed re-reading some of the above passages. We can do it boys and girls!

Arrrghh.... why did I have to go and watch that??!!?? [Updated]

2010-03-07T21:17:00.032Z

I didn't know why I searched on the Youtube that Tuesday's Report from ~~RTHK~~ TVB in spite of my Internet curfew... Anyway I was weak and I did and I now wish I could gorge my eyes out, so desperate was the show that even as a mere spectator I feel compelled to engage in self-harm just to block out the memory of having watched that crap.

The whole thing is so cringeworthy I actually had goosebumps watching, and that soundtrack, oh my fcukin' god, DIRE would be extremely kind as an adjective. Oh and not to mention the obvious bias when all the women being interviewed have to report their age whilst the only man asked for his view didn't bother having his age reported alongside his profession.

Please get this straight people - the women featured on this show in no way speak on behalf of all women, married or single. So they dated a bunch of bottom-feeding losers who used them to cheat on their wives and/or who cheated on them by using other desperate needy women, but please don't insult our intelligence that they've somehow turned this into a self-empowering "experience" by becoming even more desperate and needy. GET A GRIP WOMAN. You can have a life without trying to constantly attach yourself to a man. Think about it. The market ideology doesn't and SHOULDN'T be applied to relationships. If you see yourself as a product that must be sold, then no wonder you attract numbskulls who only see women as property and status symbols. Don't kid yourself that you'll find yourself a decent partner rather than being treated as the doormat that you've become when you don't even have an iota of self-respect* to begin with. And please do yourself a favour and don't generalise the wankers you've ever met as being the epitome of the entire male of the species.

Christalmighty, it's as if women's lib has COMPLETELY passed the Hongkongers by. Once upon a time (pre-1997) Hong Kong women were among the most liberated among Asian countries and that fact was actually celebrated as an indicator of the progressiveness of Hong Kong society (I distinctly remember watching an RTHK documentary about it). Nowadays Hong Kong society prides itself on adopting highly denigrating "popular slang" from such beacons** of gender equality as mainland China and Japan. What depths could we not plumb given another 10 years, perhaps by then Hong Kong women would faint from being overcome with gratitude and their parents weep with tears of sheer joy if a rich and powerful man so happen to deign to choose them as one of his harem of many concubines/wives?

Oh but hang on a second, hasn't this already happened?

But then what could one expect eh, when the city was handed back to a motherland where girl babies are regularly drowned for their lack of societal value. STILL. IN THIS DAY AND AGE. Accordingly, I guess it is entirely reasonable** to expect Hong Kong women to prostrate themselves in humble humility for being allowed to live past the age of one, not to mention being given the same educational and labour opportunities as their male counterparts (I mean, how dare they compete on the same level as men?**). In this vein it is entirely politically-correct to say that it's these women's own fault for not realising that they exist to serve the needs of men and that without a man in their lives, they are absolutely nothing. Nada. Zilch.** And it is good that the Hong Kong women featured in this ~~RTHK~~ TVB show finally saw the error of their ways now, even though it was a bit too late for them.** I mean, gosh, the majority of Kong girls just don't have a friggin' clue how lucky they are, right? They should learn to know their place sharpish if they don't want to be left forever on the shelf like the demonstrably failed women profiled here.**

I'm just soooooo glad I don't live in Hong Kong since I came of age***. Married or single it makes no difference - women are getting a really shitty deal the way HK society is going.

*Not to be confused with the arrogance of youth.
**In case you have a sarcasm detection failure, these words are being stated here with COMPLETE AND UTTER disdain.
***And here I thought Mad Men was meant to be about an earlier time in America. I'm glad I can enjoy the world of Mad Men from a distance afforded by the women's lib movement, a right I didn't realise would perhaps need to be treated as a luxury if one were in Hong Kong, if this ~~RTHK~~ TVB show is anything to go by. But perhaps it really was just an off-day for the RTHK team for producing that tripe ("documentary" could scarcely be applied to this particular output of theirs if one were being honest). I do sincerely hope this is the case even though it is also sad to see the state of RTHK documentary programming sinking to such lows.

Thanks to Nicole and SC for kindly pointing out that Tuesday's Report is actually produced by TVB. Well in that case, it figures. Sad still to think that their news production department seems to have been taken over by their drama department. I mean, ferchrissakes, did they not realise that nobody wants to watch their cliched serials any more, so why would they think applying the same cliches from their soaps to their documentary shows would help? Journalistic ethics aside, it doesn't even make sense from a business point of view, or is TVB so confident about their dumbed-down audience that they think any guff would do?

[Update: Tuesday, 9 March, 2010]

Meanwhile, elsewhere, over in America, Kathryn Bigelow, the ex-wife of James Cameron*, became the first female director to win the Academy Award for Best Director since the Oscars were first held some eighty-odd years ago.

Being true to her art, she never let her gender get in the way of her directing a macho war movie. And being the class act that she is, she blithely ignored all the Hollywood gleeful gossipy portrayal of the Oscar competition for Best Director, in which her ex-husband also happened to be a fellow nominee, as being a showdown between the exes.

Does she care what Cameron thinks? No. It's obvious she's moved on ages ago. But in her acceptance speech, she thanked him along other fellow nominees for being an inspiring director. Nothing more, nothing less. She did not let self-pity get the better of her since her divorce. And if she once harboured deep bile against Cameron, she did not let it show. Just the way it should be.

And does she let the fact that she is single and a woman get in the way of her fulfilling her dream? Why would one even ask such a silly question these days? It's finally become a non-issue. Again, just the way it should be.

Moral of the story (especially to pre-enlightened Hong Kong women existing still in the 21st century): Don't become a trophy wife. Go get that trophy yourself gurl!!!!

*I just realised also that it was remiss of me to describe Kathryn Bigelow first and foremost in terms of her ex-husband, rather than as a renowned and respected director in her own right. Sincere apologies. (In my humble defense, I was trying to draw a stark contrast between the divorced women featured on the TVB show, who are clearly still smarting from being dumped by their ex-husbands/ex-boyfriends, versus those who never let their marital status and past relationships become an issue that constrain them from leading a fulfilling life, as in the case of Bigelow). Of course, from now on, no-one would ever dream of referring to Kathryn Bigelow as "the ex-wife of James Cameron" anymore. And what a great thing that is :)

[A further update]

In addition to the Ming Pao article that SC kindly linked to in the comments, I also stumbled upon an informative blog-post by the Duke of Aberdeen on the etymology of the term "中女". Oh, no wonder the market connotations have been bought wholesale in the gender war, when the term itself originated from the meat market of Hong Kong prostitution. In that case, as the Ming Pao author noted, love does not come into the equation at all.

Okay, I have wasted enough of my time on this topic. If I realised it was a TVB production earlier, I wouldn't have bothered catching it on Youtube, thinking it was some ground-breaking documentary (in fact, justifying to myself that I needed to watch it despite my Internet curfew!). Note to self: beware of the source!

I've been meaning to write...

2010-02-27T02:44:00.013Z

from loveyourchaos

... So I finally did.

Sorry folks for being missing-in-action in the last while. I took a mini-sabbatical from blogging because of work deadlines (as I'm sure you could surmise from my last little poem). I hope you all enjoyed your CNY celebrations and are well re-charged over the hols to tackle the challenges presented by the new Year of the Tiger.

For my part, I'm really happy to say that I managed to beat my writer's block where my research is concerned (I sorely need a mad rave-dancing smiley here!) :D For a long while there I was drowning in both my own materials as well as those of others, and then for another long while there I had my models and frameworks worked out, but couldn't find the enthusiasm to properly write them down; or I had them written as individual papers but had no enthusiasm to re-write them as proper chapters (and of course, all along I have been bogged down in teaching, in course management, in other people's grant applications, in my own students' research projects, in academic committee work, and reviewing other people's applications, etc. etc., so that I had precious little headspace for finishing my own work.)

But last week, I handed in something that I am genuinely quite proud of. Though it's not the end of it yet and there are still more I need to get done, I'm glad I'm having my full sails up and getting a good head wind.

How did I manage to break through the block? Having a great, genuinely supportive mentor helps, reading this also helps (in particular, Neil Gaiman's top 3 rules:

1 Write.

2 Put one word after another. Find the right word, put it down.

3 Finish what you're writing. Whatever you have to do to finish it, finish it.)

At the end of the day, it really is as simple as that. I intend to keep up my good work, thank you very much.

I do realise that I also have other writing obligations that I still need to attend to, especially where blogging is concerned (like I still need to finish my post regarding the 20 publications that most influenced me in the Noughties! And a whole bunch of other things I have wanted to blog in the last while, like the interiors decor tips post I just promised Myblahblahblah, and like the few JDIFF films that I manage to catch this couple of weeks). But I discover that feeling guilty about lack of blogging is far more pleasant than feeling guilty over lack of progress re: finishing my thesis.

So sincere apologies dear blog-friends, but I'd probably have even more periodic absences from my blog as well as your blogs in the near future. (I do admit I read your blogs surreptitiously though, as all of your blogs are just so darned great that I can't stay away, even if I could not bring myself to comment - because doing so will drag me into reading people's replies as well...) So please do keep up your wonderful blogging folks, you've provided me with a source of inspiration and comfort in your blogposts, even if I don't manage to comment to show my appreciation.