I like pop music. I like the way it makes me feel.

鏡頭錯過了

一街的樹木披披，遮著慵懶的空氣；棕色栗色的落葉，默默的托著散落的金光，待走過時，才覺出一絲似有還無的涼風。不遠處，一只灰綠的舊梳化靜靜的翻側在路口，馬路對過一隻淺栗色、頭頂深棕毛的暹羅貓徐徐橫過。一切是這麼安閒，亂中有序，這就是秋。

I’ve been living in another world. Had I paid attention I would have noticed my favorite season, the most beautiful season, is in town, and all around.

AROHA

結果後段回歸到團結溫情的大道上。魔鬼病倒了人性化了、打鬥被辭那些煽情都出了；該告白的人告了白、道理也講了、誤會終變成領悟、家庭也和睦收場… 但是依然buy，因為頭幾集已buy-in咗。好有心的一部作品，當中的批判和道理很多時在人與人之間說不出、說不清的。



雖知道套劇要講的都完了，而且女王的神秘身世還是不要揭破才好（這方面原劇的編者處理得很聰明），但我仍然很想看特別篇《墮天使》及《惡魔降臨》啊！！有誰可以hook me up呢？

《女王》幾問

很多人寫《女王的教室》，今天讀到little islo的從《女王的教室》中醒來，有「全班同學杯葛」的劇情預告，成為弄斷駱駝背的最後一根稻草。無法，上YouTube看，剛剛到第6集。

剌激出很多問題，例如：

1. 精英制還是「一個都不能少」（或布殊美版的"No child left behind"）？是一個值得不止學生、老師、家長和政策制定者思考的問題。怎樣教育下一輩、用甚麼基制分配教育資源、應不應放棄追不上的學生…這一切關乎於一個社會對本身資源分配和發展前景的共識。想得不清不楚，或是只從個人的權利出發，便會流於另一位女教師那樣有心無力。
2. 面對專權，積極還是消極？如果我是和美，早就以消極對抗的手法應付阿久津了— 罰做粗活？無問題。換了是我便每個禮拜測驗之前出聲抗議，自動當選「班代表」，有了人「墊底」，同學不怕被罰，女王的制度便告崩潰。當然她可以改變遊戲規則，例如增加「班代表」名額，或像後來更毒辣的，將班分組，行集體問責制，教大家互相監察。但重點是我想我會「用制度抵制制度」（天海祐希演技巧妙到一個程度，你不再會想為何看不到她呼吸，為甚麼她和她的陰影會無處不在，漸漸轉而把她看成一個制度、一種現實。）以退為進，passive aggression，我想這是很中國、很東方的反抗手法（另一種是悲情勸諫吧？）。奇怪《女王的教室》裡沒有加入這種在現實生活中畫諷刺漫畫、寫隱晦文章、玩政治不合作遊戲的人物。創作人反而用和美這「過份」積極、不肯放棄的角色帶動故事。看下去，相信會看到這種不酸澀、不諷刺的積極態度的所能帶出的溫度和力量。
3. 低頭還是不低頭？互相猜忌監察只有一個結果 — 每個人的權利都被剝奪了。相反，如果有足夠人不玩這遊戲，引發網絡效應，專制便不能實行。可惜總是有人因為各種原因而屈服（我也不敢肯定自已不會），大伙於是落入prisona's dilemma人人自危的局面。這是人類千古的難題。
   
4. 受娛樂了還是受啟發了？日本一直以來的島國恐懼（i.e., 不可能自給自足）和近幾代享受慣、不能吃苦等等憂慮，其實是全球性的。地球村嘛。我認：我也是好食懶飛、自私自利的人，對反省陌生。這些所謂啟發，抱歉也淺薄得很。或者到頭來，我只不過在隔著螢幕、安全的重溫學生時代的種種：友情、背叛、競爭、無助、理想、幻滅… 畢竟人性的不公在我們軟弱無力又被迫與同齡人圈在一起「學習」的時期最為深切；而小同學仔那些未經啄磨、赤裸裸的人心，在記憶中更為殘酷貼身。
   

感想就到這裡了。繼續睇。

分裂對話

我訝異說：「你怎麼到現在還拎著這顆天真探求的心呢？那麼幼稚，那麼不切實際，不難為情麼？」

你直澄澄的望著我，直到看出我的寒窘來 。我別過頭去，知道你在想：「你這樣甘心的在失望和諷刺中腐死，也好意思麼？」

Famine

By Sinead O'Connor

OK, I want to talk about Ireland
Specifically I want to talk about the famine
About the fact that there never really was one
There was no famine
See Irish people were only allowed to eat potatoes
All of the other food
Meat fish vegetables
Were shipped out of the country under armed guard
To England while the Irish people starved
And then on the middle of all this
They gave us money not to teach our children Irish
And so we lost our history
And this is what I think is still hurting me
See we're like a child that's been battered
Has to drive itself out of it's head because it's frightened
Still feels all the painful feelings
But they lose contact with the memory
And this leads to massive self - destruction
Alcoholism, drug adiction
All desperate attempts at running
And in it's worst form
Becomes actual killing
And if there ever is gonna be healing
There has to be remembering
And then grieving
So that there then can be forgiving
There has to be knowledge and understanding
All the lonely people
Where do they all come from
An American army regulation Says you mustn't kill more than 10% of a nation
'Cos to do so causes permanent psychological damage
It's not permanent but they didn't know that
Anyway during the supposed famine
We lost a lot more than 10% of our nation
Through deaths on land or on ships of emigration
But what finally broke us was not starvation
But it's use in the controlling of our education
Schools go on about Black 47
On and on about The terrible famine
But what they don't say is in truth
There really never was one
(Excuse me)
All the lonely people
(I'm sorry, excuse me)
Where do they all come from
(that I can tell you in one word)
All the lonely people
Where do they all belong
So let's take a look shall we
The highest statistics of child abuse in the EEC
And we say we're a Christian country
But we've lost contact with our history
See we used to worship God as a mother
We're sufferin from post traumatic stress disorder
Look at all our old men in the pubs
Look at all our young people on drugs
We used to worship God as a mother
Now look at what we're doing to each other
We've even made killers of ourselves
The most child - like trusting people in the Universe
And this is what's wrong with us
Our history books the parent figures lied to us
I see the Irish
As a race like a child
That got itself basned in the face
And if there ever is gonna be healing
There has to be remembering
And then grieving
So that there then can be forgiving
There has to be knowledge and understanding
All the lonely people
Where do they all come from
All the lonely people
Where do they all come from

He who hides and those who forget

Are those who have lost contact with their own history inherently obedient?

We'll see.

September 1, 2006, New York Times
Where’s Mao? Chinese Revise History Books
By JOSEPH KAHN

BEIJING, Aug. 31 — When high school students in Shanghai crack their history textbooks this fall they may be in for a surprise. The new standard world history text drops wars, dynasties and Communist revolutions in favor of colorful tutorials on economics, technology, social customs and globalization.

Socialism has been reduced to a single, short chapter in the senior high school history course. Chinese Communism before the economic reform that began in 1979 is covered in a sentence. The text mentions Mao only once — in a chapter on etiquette.

Nearly overnight the country’s most prosperous schools have shelved the Marxist template that had dominated standard history texts since the 1950’s. The changes passed high-level scrutiny, the authors say, and are part of a broader effort to promote a more stable, less violent view of Chinese history that serves today’s economic and political goals.

Supporters say the overhaul enlivens mandatory history courses for junior and senior high school students and better prepares them for life in the real world. The old textbooks, not unlike the ruling Communist Party, changed relatively little in the last quarter-century of market-oriented economic reforms. They were glaringly out of sync with realities students face outside the classroom. But critics say the textbooks trade one political agenda for another.

They do not so much rewrite history as diminish it. The one-party state, having largely abandoned its official ideology, prefers people to think more about the future than the past.

The new text focuses on ideas and buzzwords that dominate the state-run media and official discourse: economic growth, innovation, foreign trade, political stability, respect for diverse cultures and social harmony.

J. P. Morgan, Bill Gates, the New York Stock Exchange, the space shuttle and Japan’s bullet train are all highlighted. There is a lesson on how neckties became fashionable.

The French and Bolshevik Revolutions, once seen as turning points in world history, now get far less attention. Mao, the Long March, colonial oppression of China and the Rape of Nanjing are taught only in a compressed history curriculum in junior high.

“Our traditional version of history was focused on ideology and national identity,” said Zhu Xueqin, a historian at Shanghai University. “The new history is less ideological, and that suits the political goals of today.”

The changes are at least initially limited to Shanghai. That elite urban region has leeway to alter its curriculum and textbooks, and in the past it has introduced advances that the central government has instructed the rest of the country to follow.

But the textbooks have provoked a lively debate among historians ahead of their full-scale introduction in Shanghai in the fall term. Several Shanghai schools began using the texts experimentally in the last school year.

Many scholars said they did not regret leaving behind the Marxist perspective in history courses. It is still taught in required classes on politics. But some criticized what they saw as an effort to minimize history altogether. Chinese and world history in junior high have been compressed into two years from three, while the single year in senior high devoted to history now focuses on cultures, ideas and civilizations.

“The junior high textbook castrates history, while the senior high school textbook eliminates it entirely,” one Shanghai history teacher wrote in an online discussion. The teacher asked to remain anonymous because he was criticizing the education authorities.

Zhou Chunsheng, a professor at Shanghai Normal University and one of the lead authors of the new textbook series, said his purpose was to rescue history from its traditional emphasis on leaders and wars and to make people and societies the central theme.

“History does not belong to emperors or generals,” Mr. Zhou said in an interview. “It belongs to the people. It may take some time for others to accept this, naturally, but a similar process has long been under way in Europe and the United States.”

Mr. Zhou said the new textbooks followed the ideas of the French historian Fernand Braudel. Mr. Braudel advocated including culture, religion, social customs, economics and ideology into a new “total history.” That approach has been popular in many Western countries for more than half a century.

Mr. Braudel elevated history above the ideology of any nation. China has steadily moved away from its ruling ideology of Communism, but the Shanghai textbooks are the first to try examining it as a phenomenon rather than preaching it as the truth.

Socialism is still referred to as having a “glorious future.” But the concept is reduced to one of 52 chapters in the senior high school text. Revolutionary socialism gets less emphasis than the Industrial Revolution and the information revolution.

Students now study Mao — still officially revered as the founding father of modern China but no longer regularly promoted as an influence on policy — only in junior high. In the senior high school text, he is mentioned fleetingly as part of a lesson on the custom of lowering flags to half-staff at state funerals, like Mao’s in 1976.

Deng Xiaoping, who began China’s market-oriented reforms, appears in the junior and senior high school versions, with emphasis on his economic vision.

Gerald A. Postiglione, an associate professor of education at the University of Hong Kong, said mainland Chinese education authorities had searched for ways to make the school curriculum more relevant.

“The emphasis is on producing innovative thinking and preparing students for a global discourse,” he said. “It is natural that they would ask whether a history textbook that talks so much about Chinese suffering during the colonial era is really creating the kind of sophisticated talent they want for today’s Shanghai.”

That does not mean history and politics have been disentangled. Early this year a prominent Chinese historian, Yuan Weishi, wrote an essay that criticized Chinese textbooks for whitewashing the savagery of the Boxer Rebellion, the violent movement against foreigners in China at the beginning of the 20th century. He called for a more balanced analysis of what provoked foreign interventions at the time.

In response, the popular newspaper supplement Freezing Point, which carried his essay, was temporarily shut down and its editors were fired. When it reopened, Freezing Point ran an essay that rebuked Mr. Yuan, a warning that many historical topics remained too delicate to discuss in the popular media.

The Shanghai textbook revisions do not address many domestic and foreign concerns about the biased way Chinese schools teach recent history. Like the old textbooks, for example, the new ones play down historic errors or atrocities like the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution and the army crackdown on peaceful pro-democracy demonstrators in 1989.

The junior high school textbook still uses boilerplate idioms to condemn Japan’s invasion of China in the 1930’s and includes little about Tokyo’s peaceful, democratic postwar development. It will do little to assuage Japanese concerns that Chinese imbibe hatred of Japan from a young age.

Yet over all, the reduction in time spent studying history and the inclusion of new topics, like culture and technology, mean that the content of the core Chinese history course has contracted sharply.

The new textbook leaves out some milestones of ancient history. Shanghai students will no longer learn that Qin Shihuang, who unified the country and became China’s first emperor, ordered a campaign to burn books and kill scholars, to wipe out intellectual resistance to his rule. The text bypasses well-known rebellions and coups that shook or toppled the Zhou, Sui, Tang and Ming dynasties.

It does not mention the resistance by Han Chinese, the country’s dominant ethnic group, to Kublai Khan’s invasion and the founding of the Mongol-controlled Yuan dynasty. Wen Tianxiang, a Han Chinese prime minister who became the country’s most transcendent symbol of loyalty and patriotism when he refused to serve the Mongol invaders, is also left out.

Some of those historic facts and personalities have been replaced with references to old customs and fashions, prompting some critics to say that history teaching has lost focus.

“Would you rather students remember the design of ancient robes, or that the Qin dynasty unified China in 221 B.C.?” one high school teacher quipped in an online forum for history experts.

Others speculated that the Shanghai textbooks reflected the political viewpoints of China’s top leaders, including Jiang Zemin, the former president and Communist Party chief, and his successor, Hu Jintao.

Mr. Jiang’s “Three Represents” slogan aimed to broaden the Communist Party’s mandate and dilute its traditional emphasis on class struggle. Mr. Hu coined the phrase “harmonious society,” which analysts say aims to persuade people to build a stable, prosperous, unified China under one-party rule.

The new textbooks de-emphasize dynastic change, peasant struggle, ethnic rivalry and war, some critics say, because the leadership does not want people thinking that such things matter a great deal. Officials prefer to create the impression that Chinese through the ages cared more about innovation, technology and trade relationships with the outside world.

Mr. Zhou, the Shanghai scholar who helped write the textbooks, says the new history does present a more harmonious image of China’s past. But he says the alterations “do not come from someone’s political slogan,” but rather reflect a sea change in thinking about what students need to know.

“The government has a big role in approving textbooks,” he said. “But the goal of our work is not politics. It is to make the study of history more mainstream and prepare our students for a new era.”

去年八月在陽朔

唔知今年興咩呢？

言猶未盡

那天說港女，沒有把意思說完整。反覆思想，究竟我想講的是甚麼？

都說港女並不泛指香港女性，而是專指有某幾種劣質特徵的香港女性。綜合各方面對港女的指控，撇除粗言穢語、強詞歪理、惡意中傷等，我聽到的是這些：

1. 虛榮拜金，消費至上。尤愛盲追名牌和炫耀
2. 自以為是、蠻不講理、辯駁時毫無邏輯可言
3. 以我為尊。一切以方便自已為先、漠視他人（「自己大晒，人地錯晒」）
4. 會用任何方式搵男人著數或從中得到方便及利益，甚至不惜以性作交換。例如出街食飯 、 shopping 、 睇戲要男方畀錢 ，認為這是男性的責任
5. 表面上追求「男女平等」，實際上輸打贏要
6. 缺乏常識 、只懂追明星 、世界觀狹窄
7. 無個人修養。經常高聲說話 、粗言穢語 、發姣 、寸 、吸煙 ……
8. 崇洋，崇日
9. 減肥而導致營養不良，髮型衣著倒模一樣
10. 盲批港男

反過來，綜合港女反數港男的各項劣處，撇除無數投訴港男收入低及不肯為女的消費付賬的「指控」（其實這些指控只証實了港女以上1, 4, 5項缺點），有以下這些：

1. 口邊只會講女人、打機同波。
2. 唔講道理
3. 無主見、無負任感
4. 揀女仔剩識睇樣同身材，膚淺。拍拖只想要sex。
5. 低學歷、無內涵、無文化
6. 無上進心，固步自封。成日怨天怨地，又唔識進修upgrade下自己。
7. 性格不濟：自閉、幼稚、懶、唔成熟、滿口粗言穢語
8. 媚外
9. 奀挑鬼命、身形矮小、「白皮豬」
10. 唔識欣賞港女、配唔起港女

將這些互數的指控調了一調，每一項立刻1.對1.、2.對2.的對應起來（除了5.）。這說明了甚麼？

港男港女這樣看對方不順眼，其實是天作之合！

還有，以上這些其實都不是甚麼港男港女的特點，而是……


香港人的陰暗面，香港人的劣根性！！


這個社會一直以來崇尚物質主義，並不是甚麼新聞。拜金久了，大家漸漸變得自私自利，只知盲目追求外國的物質生活和潮流，而缺乏對知識、修養和內涵的追求；並深信「隔離飯香」，缺少對自已人的包容和尊重……這些，也不是甚麼新鮮的見解。好喇，賴完社會的錯，我們還永遠有民生政策可賴：誰叫我們一直不能當家也作 不得主？誰叫我們的教育制度是求學只求分數的填鴨式？你怎能怪我們只懂蠻不講理、互相謾罵，沒有獨立思維和邏輯思考的能力？

其實這些劣徵不止體現在找對象是年輕一輩身上。巴士呀叔就是個好例子— 有誰比他更強詞奪理？高聲說話 、粗言穢語等更不用說。舉另一個人人愛罵的例子：香港傳媒。香港傳媒在報導新聞以外，不是追捧明星富商，就是介紹消費減肥等消息。為甚麼？因為這些是香港 人都愛讀的東西呀。搵錢消費再搵錢再消費，是我們這堪稱「世上最自由的經濟社會」裡，最強勢的生活模式。

我對上一篇寫亦舒，本意是想借亦舒筆下的女主角，帶出一些美好的香港女性形象。可是越寫卻越不對路，發覺亦舒裡的人物也有崇洋媚外、虛榮拜金、假男女平等之名之嫌，最後寫出來竟像諷刺。

我們會不會都一直受這些意識影響而不自知？每個人都想自己好；追求社會上人人推崇的東西真的是人之常情。不過有時細細推敲這些意識對我們的影響，當過了火位，就很容易變成劣性。

在經濟起飛、本土意識崛起的八九十年代成長的港男港女，有香港人的優點（香港人的優點是甚麼？有誰可以講幾句公道話？），同時也有很多港人的缺點，就是以上列的那些。可是這些港人的缺點卻令他們不能忍受甚至鄙視另一性別（換句話說，就是港男港女港味太重，重到互相頂唔順），以至有指依家港人和外地人結婚比和本地通婚的更多，套句本地話：都幾噢嘴。

（不過身為港女，睇到一些港女的行徑，都覺得好過份，唔抵爭。）
（重有這裡面有誤用濫用「男女平等」觀念的問題，不過那是另一題目了。）


當然香港唔係人人都咁醜陋，香港人更不是時時都咁醜陋，但似乎香港人衰起上嚟，不外乎都係衰呢一啲。

咁點樣先可以共建和諧社會呢？這裡引一引懲戒男打油詩嘅結語，非常之正面動人：

一天遇著好男仔 長相可能稍滑稽
就算佢係冇家底 卻願為你捱騾仔
誠意跟你做人世 同心上路執手攜
做人感恩圖回饋 冇話邊個要蝕底
也許未來是個謎 禍福與共何足畏
互相撫慰復鼓勵 如此豈不更可貴

港女· 衣莎貝

【明報專訊】最近一兩年，本地網絡世界非常成功地塑造了一個劣品的「港女」形象﹕虛榮、拜金、蠻橫無理、自以為是、缺乏常識、世界觀狹窄、表面上追求「男女平等」但實際上輸打贏要……

我哋真係淪落至此？

細細個睇亦舒睇到嘅香港女性形象係：經濟獨立、感情理性、時尚同有型。她有學位，也有一點學識（中學讀英國文學，外修意大利語，中文當然是「有限公司」）。知情識禮，獨立媚行但給人留面子。是有自我中心、冷眼看繁世的玫瑰時期，但那只是少女成長的過渡；大學畢業了，每一朵玫瑰依然長成卓越能幹的衣莎貝，辦事能力不讓鬚眉。閒時也去海運裡的哉絲，但只是為了那裡的質料好；不上班的時候，整天仍只穿牛仔褲和芝士布裙。鮑蒂昔裡的臉，襯著天然（當然！）的鬈髮。

至於外出吃飯嘛，還是由男的付鈔。亦舒的理由是：女生白天扛起半邊天，晚上還要花費不少心機和金錢（注意：自己錢）去打扮赴會。男人一身輕的來，自然應負責付賬（公平？）。

當年我暗暗將這段文字記在腦裡，一心為長大後的花樣年華作預習 — 雖然至今無幾多次實踐過這種男女吃飯的分工，但我仍以為亦舒筆下的衣莎貝或多或少代表了香港的女性。

... 究竟中間出咗咩錯呢？我地嘅自我形像同現實中人地睇我地相差咁遠。

唔通我地已經通通變咗做衣莎貝，不過衣莎貝只不過係美化咗嘅港女？

網上有不少港女護衛者轉而投訴港男嘅質素。是港男拉港女沉淪，定係大家「摟住一齊死？」

網上討論：刁民公園, 傳遞訊息@HKwebs

伸廷閲讀：港女殺她死（轉載明報）, 失去平衡的21世紀女性,
港女打油詩, 港女說港男


... 或者係時候港男港女一齊反思。

Best advice I've ever heard

Investment tycoon Warren Buffet is the world's second-richest person, behind only Bill Gates. In an interview, his grand-daughter said she never relied on her family's fortune and had been financially independent as an artist since college. Rather than wealth, she inherited from her grandmother, Susan Buffet, the following 5 principles of life:

1. Show up
2. Tell the truth
3. Pay attention
4. Do your best
5. Don't get attached to the outcome

I have never seen more simple, succinct and universal advice on life. And I can think of few situations in life in which these principles do not apply. The principles help a person form a powerful – and very American – attitude. This attitude promotes proaction, reduces obstacles and increases competitiveness of any effort, regardless of the outcome. Before wisdom so simple and true, my elaboration seems wordy and inarticulate.

Among the other principles, "Tell the truth" almost belongs to its own category. The other principles can be seen as best practices of how one should act in situations, while "tell the truth" is more of a moral preference. Why is telling the truth so important? When we take away the principle about truth, do the principles still stand?




I don't no.1 enough and often screw up because I don't no.3. No.5 is what I am learning and appreciating at the moment.

artless comic strip

Instead of the butterfly

We killed a caterpillar today. It was found wrapped inside the boiled corn.

The tip of the corn was shaved. We cut it off and chomped the rest.

We felt sorry for caterpillar. But the corn was sweet.

紋身

經過一個外國女子，頸後鬢下赫然露出上下兩個中文字：無悔 ——白膚藍字，工正湛然。只見她從行人天橋的窄梯上一蹤一跳，脫然下去了。

情緒

人需要不同的情緒— 有時憤怒、有時冗奮、有時委婉、有時內省— 方能從不同角色程度看待生活，讓態度能有所調節和平衡。有如一內在的劇場，一人分飾幾角，從多個角度提示自我：或許該換一換態度看事情了。

所以情緒是極好的提示，卻不可賴以作指引。

今天我不由情理無可挽回的低落。

can't stop

you know something's seriously wrong when you turn your laptop upside down and brownie crumbs fall out.

when lights are low and orange: seduction

Tango. 11:30pm.

Shoes. All you see are her shoes.

Open toes. A small patch of orange leather, boomerang shape, over her feet. A small patch of black leather, boomerang to the other direction, around her ankles. Front and back symmetrical, clad delicately around her feet, beautiful as can be imagined. Long straight stem of a heel. Tall glass stems, supporting those legs. Those fluorescent white shapes glowing from the shadow a black dress. Morphing deities that we now all worship.

They are seeking, fishing for something. The music is loitering, hasn’t really started yet. It’s excruciating to watch. Them fishing. The tip and the heel hover over the floor, not touching. But swirl, hesitate, change course midway. Feeling a mood, not finding. Retrieving, not forgoing. Draw a half circle, another that way, and search again.

We cringe a little, all of us who just a moment ago contracted foot fetishes. None of us feels comfortable. Not inside. We know what this is: Foreplay. Two pairs of legs, liquid on dry land, feeling for an opening. Pouring over the dance floor, thick as mercury. We really shouldn’t be watching. We know. You are either one of the two, or you are intruding.

Finally the music gets to a point. A guy begins singing. The legs wake up to the song and become more decisive. We are relieved, taking a moment to look at the body above the legs. She’s an elegant woman in that indeterminable age sometimes called prime. Her face, no doubt as elegant as the way she moves, is not clear; her black dress, fitly on her body, is fused into her partner’s dark suit. Invariably we come back to her legs. Her legs and her shoes.

If all innovations in the world are a result of scarcity and competition, then all creative arts are products of eros. Ordinary people, insufferably lifeless one moment, become artists the next moment as Aphrodite graces their foreheads with her touch. Woken to life, these inspired souls spend their lives inventing new ways to captivate their desires. They would keep creating, never resting, until they consummate their love, or die from exhaustion trying.

If I didn’t have the now rare chance to feel attractive today, I wouldn’t be inspired to write this much right now.

I wouldn’t see those mesmerizing, fishing shoes of two feet, agonizing, teasing out that never-coming turn of music when they can finally, dance.

2 special reports on China

China Rises (New York Times)

The Tank Man (PBS Frontline)

十八相送

在聽這歌。體內流淌着羅曼蒂克，旁人見到的不可理喻。

作曲：Edmond Tsang
填詞：黃偉文
編曲：青山大樂隊
主唱：何韻詩

長橋行過　截停夜車　突然又想　一起坐船
航程完結　蕩回岸邊　又尋藉口　拖多半天
話長路短　走到那邊　又不想告別　再送遠點
在站前路邊　應該卻步了　還要坐進咖啡店

請准我護送　多十餘步　終點再三推遠
再會已講了十遍　都未疲倦　只嫌夜晚太短
回家這路線　好像情話　轉完還在轉
肯不兜圈　一早到了　何以　和你始終　兜兜轉

明明完了　別離在即　突然又想　不需要完
如何留你　尚能望天　密雲夜空　等出雨點
經過士多　走過戲院　又不想告別　再送遠點
在大門入口　告別難避免
才說漏了背包　又原路　巡十遍
幾多個藉口　也仍然未夠　終點也是終點

請准我護送　多十餘步　分手再三推遠
再會已講了十遍　都未疲倦　仍在對方面前
回家這路線　好像情話　轉完還在轉
如果一早想我走　不拖不欠
何事我　護送間　你又會　紅著臉

拖這樣遠　都未情願　親口說改天見
你大概知約會這　曖昧同伴　甜蜜卻不自然
回家這路線　只是緣份　某條延續線
兜多幾圈　終於會斷
這雙愛侶　差一點　卻未算

Thank you "Thank You for Smoking"!

Saw Thank You for Smoking last Friday. OMG. The movie must have like 40 punchlines – and they were all funny! Clever jabs were delivered so fast that after awhile we in the audience learnt to limit our laughs so not to miss the next punch! Thank You is one of those rare movies in which the bad guy is the protagonist, but he’s so likable that you can’t help but root for him. (The lead, played by Aaron Eckhard, was the embodiment of the devil in human form.) The dialog is intelligent, witty, powerful and to-the-point. They don’t beat a punchline to death like your usual funny movie; they hit and then they are gone: to the next “argument”! For awhile now I haven’t seen a movie that is so poignant (while not shoving its poignancy at you) and so entertaining at the same time. It jabs at every side: the tobacco company, its spokesmen, the press, the senator, social activists, poster victims, parents, America, the Great State of Vermont, even the movie industry. I mean, how brilliant is that? Everyone go and see the movie. I mean EVERYONE! I am so getting the DVD.

That's it

I am boycotting Yahoo. Deleting all my accounts with them. Never looking at any of their ads again.

Having a different opinion in itself is not a crime. Expressing one's own idea is not a crime. --If you don't like it so much, plug your ears.

We will take care of our own ears. Thank you very much.

藝妓回憶錄

剛看完《藝妓回憶錄》，有以下感想：

1. 前半段覺得OK呀，叙事流暢呀。多少有點情味。到後來就完全不行：誰想看一堆四五十的 男人競投貞操？我們之中有幾人會代入藝妓那相妒相賤、感情不完全的心態？獨個兒在家看書，感染一下那浪漫化了的人工經營的唯美世界，還可。 "Gulity pleasure"嘛。放大到銀幕由真人表演，只覺別扭。把西方人對東方的幻想還原到一個當女人是觀賞物、身體是貨品的歷史空間，連愛情也是扭曲變態的， 只覺不忍看。
   
2. 演員的問題不是口音。兩個日本演員，Pumpkin和Mother就很入戲。Nobu-san也不錯。（Chairman 本身就是不討好的角色，做得再好也沒用）。章子怡鞏俐等的問題是唸白的節奏。太著重音準，變得過份在意的唸每隻字。其實我們平常說話，無論用甚麼語言，都有側重有省略。太小心眼，反讓人著急，很想替說話的人說完那句話。
3. 有時日本演員會漏出一隻半字日語，是屬於那背景空間的，就覺得順耳。伏聽。那英文劇本其實也寫得不賴。但用來講這異國故事，只覺突兀。
   
4. 老實說，章子怡今次做得並不好。戰前戰後，滄海桑田了吧？還是同一副純真無助的眼神，從英雄到十面埋伏到這齣。看過伏虎藏龍的人，應該會同意章子怡絕對不止 這層次。是本人自我定型，還是導演為掀出結局而安排？不知道。我反而喜歡做Pumpkin的女演員，戰前戰後判若兩人，但是你理解她的改變，你感受到她的 人、她的感覺。Sayuri卻好像一直只在推展橋段，我就是感覺不到她的人。
5. 戲不好看，我特別留意那幕千夫所指的「中國女演員章子怡被日本男人壓著」的戲……無喎。風頭太大剪了？反而有「中國女演員章子怡被不知名美國演員壓著」的戲。日本男人不行，美國佬就OK？乜為之「做戲」呀？甚麼邏輯。
6. 喂，那幕在天涯海角撒毛帕的戲，佢點上去架？想像她落手落腳爬上峭壁的樣子，乜詩意都無喇。還有還有，京都好像在內陸，她是特地搭車搭船去扔毛帕？做作啲喎。






7. 鞏俐演惡毒善忌的Hatsumomo也可說入木三分。但是為乜她由頭到尾都是披頭散髮的？配合她的每場怨婦般的神情，不似當紅藝妓，反像個癲婆，怎搞？我看藝妓的相片，沒有一個是散髮的。估計鞏俐的造型，多少是受了英雄裡張曼玉飛雪的影響，而飛雪（多別扭的名字），想是受了林青霞當年白髮魔女的影響。一個放在 林青霞張曼玉鞏俐身上也恐怖的造型，女仕們，請避之則吉。

8. 原來京都祗園跟上海舊時的長三書寓等在形式和格局上也很相似。只是我們的沒有藝妓學校，也只彈琴，好像不跳舞（中國傳統上都不興作跳舞）。日本就是這樣，特重形式化制度化，形成藝妓這一獨特的藝術行業，值得保傳尊重。不過，論書論戲，我還是覺得《海上花》好看得多。
9. P.S.: 跟兩位媽媽說起我對這齣戲的感想，她們異口用聲說那個年代的感情確是如此，只是我以現代的角度看，不了解罷了。
   

「韓白之爭」的二三事

1. 韓寒的特色是用爽快幽默的文字說出大家都想說，但講不出的話。
2. 寫作的人，到頭來，如能說出心裏那幾句，反反覆覆的真實的話，就已經很好了。
3. 韓寒好比馬克吐溫。諷剌裏儘有幽默, 温而不損。自負, 也自嘲。極有自知與知人之明。最重要的是, 跟馬克吐溫一樣，他是人如其文，文如其人，無分彼此。
4. 這兩天裡斷斷續續看完他的博。很少這樣想一人的文字。比如一樣好吃的東西，昨天吃了，今天又想。
5. 韓寒寫博，就像卜戴倫寫歌:「和他的呼吸化為一氣」（”become identical with his breath”）（艾倫金斯堡說卜戴倫是 “a column of air” ， 不就是咱們說的「氣」麼？）照韓寒自己的說法就是: “… 在短短的半小时内，出现了一篇《你的敏锐总是直指我的软肋》，大家在高兴的讨论“高处不胜寒”。不可能，我高晓松堪称才子，写这么一篇文章也要将近三天， 写完后必须修养一个月。他韩寒第二天要比赛，7点要起，我高晓松有熊的力量，对方怎么有豹的速度…” 多生動，多刻薄！:)
6. 「韓白」一役，勾出個重要的題目，就是，需要講真說話時你敢不敢説，懂不懂說，能否直指其要害?
7. 「韓白之爭」真是比（他媽的）電視連續劇還好看，意想不到的人物過界跳進來，毫不相干的大小事兒都拉扯了出來：又有髒話，又有紅衛兵，更有學術腐敗，「親朋相衛」，老少兩代的觀念沖突…… 真箇是高潮迭起— 而且高下立見。本來，underdog據理力爭的故事不是我們盤古以來就愛聽的麼 ？韓寒一個人，一個博，見招拆招。好比《棋王》裡的梁家輝，在漫天胡叱亂喝聲中，穩住頭腦，以一「博」十。難得的是雖然他有點囉嗦，也有點得理 不饒人，卻始終持平講理。對就是對錯就是錯，掩眼法也只是騙術而己。
8. 一 個人博客，通常要經過一段時間要建立一個個人的博客 persona。因為博裡公開與私人的介點和社會上的很不同，網友之間的表達意見的方式也與生活中迴 異。那個平衡點需要忖摸和適應。在「韓白之爭」裡我們見証了兩個博「受不住熱氣」，關閉了。其實也反映了一些博客水土不服，適應不良，沒有完全過渡過來。
9. 當然這一切裡最吸引的，還是那條隱隱然，似有還無的感情線。熱鬧完了，但韓寒一句：「最后，有个人，女人，在朝阳区某地的二楼，看着报纸，笑了。」仍不時浮現腦海，揮之不去。
10. 韓寒這人是應當寫作的，你們「谁也别挡着他」。

Cotton Tree

The tree outside the window is blossoming. It started with a few bulbs - it seems longer - but only a few days ago. Those budding bulbs looked so hard and small, you’d expect them to be indifferent to the imperious climate, resistant to the luring rain. They were white, small and satin-seeming; I thought it was a cotton tree (木棉). But a day later they all changed, adding in number, growing in size, and it became clear that they were going to be full-crown flowers. Every time I looked out the window they had changed– a coup that staged its moves covertly and uniformly – and I reminded myself to write about it, about its white promise with a tint of yellow– or was it pale yellow I saw? But I forgot every time, and again they changed. Within a few hours there was no doubt: the bulbs were going to be yellow flowers, lemony yellow. With the discovery I relished the lost moments- very little mystery is left, is there? Well, until you catch yourself looking out the window again, you never know.

唔係係話？

無意中搵到周星星歷套電影嘅劇本同經典對白。嘩原來佢啲戲咁鬼多台詞嘅，睇嘅時候又唔覺噃。同大家分享下：

剧本 | 老康之家
ungoo抵死粤语网站 (經典對白)

凌凌漆：啱，系侏罗纪。暴龙究竟系鬼鬼崇崇走嚟走去嗰条定还是“哈—哈”嗰条呢？
司令：系“哈—哈”嗰条。
凌凌漆：咦，嗰条好冇人性，专追啲细蚊仔嚟咬个噃？
司令：唔会，肯定中国呢条唔会。

勁鐘意廣東話，正爆。

A fine piece of writing...

Bloc Party is an autonomous unit of un-extraordinary kids reared on pop culture between the years of 1976 and the present day. Like many such kids, between them they eventually concluded that their own attempts to imitate what had informed them could be construed as a worthy variation on the many forms that preceded. They do everything that's required to conform to the currently received ideas of what a band is: ostensibly to play instruments at the same time, but also have a title for the work created.

Kele picked up a guitar when his hands enabled him to do so and his brain gave him the inclination. Russell had already done as much beforehand when they met in 1998. In the fine print of music papers and in telephone conversations they enabled meetings with Gordon and Matt who also had ideas of some relevance to bring to the collective effort. In this sense a band was created.

Henceforth should follow a list of auteurs and musicians that figured in the formative minds of the four as they went about their work. But to do as much seems churlish in an already self-referential world. Suffice to say there would be no band without the efforts of guitar bands formed in British and American towns in the 70s, 80s and 90s, aswell as visionary writers and artists of various kinds whose work has informed the world and culture itself as it stands. The precise names are as good as any you can come up with, in fact probably much, much better.

... and a pretty decent band too. Check them out: Bloc Party

Snow bunny, queen of the foot of the mountain

The body is resilient. It can be pushed and pushed, take a rest, and be back on going again. The drive up and down the mountain was interjected by dose-offs, but when we were there, from 9-5, we were awake; we were on, we were alive. The grumpiness from waking up so early for a workout melted like the mountain fog meeting the noon sun— it evaporated into the fuel for one goal. One simple goal: find the way up the slope and snowboard your way down. I had rarely used my body so much and so fully. It took only a few seconds to go down the wimpy slope that I practiced on. It took 5-10 minutes for me to go back up, get geared, and summon up the courage to go down again. Once I had made the trip though, once I had reached the flat foot of the hill where there’s no action, there was only one urge in me: go back up. Sure I spent a lot of time contemplating, theorizing about snowboarding when I was on the upper part of a usually pretty tamed slope. But only in coming down the sport really happened. I would have no control over the steepness, the curves, the bumps and the people. And I would not know what I was doing most of the time. And that would be exactly the point. That fear, followed by a rush, was what got me going and going.

Man, we went two days in a week. Snow fell the whole night before Wednesday and we enjoyed a thick, feathery layer of snow in our first lesson. A nice, forgiving cushion for a beginner like me. Still the snow didn’t help much when Sam tricked me to take the lift to the top of the mountain. I had to slide all the way back down. It took me like an hour to come down; it was no fun. What made it worse was that the mountain kept curving right. I didn’t get a chance to really do anything when I couldn’t even counter the natural way of the slope. All I could do was to squat up on the board a bit, get way too scared, fall back, and then redo the same thing over and over again. It was putting real strain on my lower legs; my left calf cramped two times during the slide. One time I got up and saw a creek with running water underneath— had I slid one foot to the right I would have fallen into it. Nonetheless after the Long Slide I went on practicing a couple of hours, and I only quit when a bad stop cramped and immobilized both of my calves. (I would spend the whole day next day walking like a crumbly old man, or the Hunchback of Notre Dame.)

I was hooked. I was on steriod; it was called Endorphin. I never knew sports was so fun—you have a goal, you face challenges, you master some techniques, and you go again. I was mountain high.

I love giving myself to the mountain. I love throwing my body out and let it fall. Although I did spend a lot of time ramping up to it, every time I fell I realized: “This is not too bad. I can totally get up and get going again!” When I skateboarded, everything else in the world shrank. Nothing was bigger than the mountain. No self, no worries, no trivialities. It was just me and the slope before me. I love this feeling of giving myself to a goal and forgetting the worldly cares— they are not significant anymore. After my first day we had to go to the Mall as we thought we had lost our cellphones. We were in dirty skid clothes, wide-eyed and wild looking, probably a bit smelly too. We were completely out of place amongst those holiday shoppers and teenagers who were so eager to be seen and to become something. Normally we get a little distressed by the grotesque commercialism of “da Mool”, but not that day. We’ve got PERSPECTIVE today. We knew there was only one thing that mattered javascript:void(0)
Publish Post(snowboarding down the mountain), and all else is only frizz and fluff. Yeah, frizz & fluff. Insignificant.

Today the snow was icier. It hurt more to fall. I had 4-5 pretty bad falls. I scratched my chin in one of them. I kind of look like a “flower-face cat” now…