Everyday is a day that has one less day in front and one more day behind. If one is twenty, there are 10,957 days for him to hope for a coming better one. If one is thirty, there are only 7,305 days. If one is forty, there are
still 3,652 days. If one is fifty, there aren't any! All kinds of medical and surgical people, caretakers and even undertakers are waiting out there, even eagerly. Of course there could be exceptions. But one just can't take it for granted, especially in such an unbalanced civilized jungle.
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Clothes you just find them in your closet. Food you just buy it in the market. Water you just get it in the streams on the way. But fitness is something you can't fetch casually, you have to work very hard for a very long time to keep it at hand.
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Don't set your time for something you call venture. Whenever you are able, comfortable, prepared, and confident to go, simply load your backpack and hit the trail without saying any big words. Or Satan will make it really hard for you to test your shaky faith in God.
Even if it's a real venture it's only a joint-venture. No big deal after all, itsn't it?
*****************************
When you do walk like a horse, you should walk like a pack horse bearing panniers with considerable loading. This may help build your physical stamina, retain calcium and phosphorus in your bones, regulate your heart rate and lower your blood pressure. What advantages! Worth walking for?
When you are thinking about walking like a horse, do at the same time consider feeding also like a horse. That means more fibre and less carbs, and no crabs of course.
*****************************
I can't imagine staying downtown during the weekend loitering among well-fed, well-groomed, and well-clad people, and then finding myself being seated in a cafe, or a chah-chahn-teng stuffing greasy things down the gut.
*****************************
Some people simply appear in the wilderness strange enough to them once or twice a year, and they are not at all prepared or trained for the trails and even their own steps. They simply join a couple of friends and hit the wild in order not to be left home being fed with boredom.
*****************************
I paid weekly visit to my old sick uncle in the home for the elderly. There I saw a gentleman only at the age of around 50, with every single hair on his head still in shiny black. He can walk around freely, yet he is always sitting in his comfortable chair doing nothing but watching TV.
Yet a friend of mine told me that he knew a Marathon runner who is already in his 80's. This old pack of mere skin and bone is still running!
*****************************
I've just heard it from the news that a highly developed, very peaceful paradise known as Norway has just lost many innocent lives to a terrorist who seemed to have killed for certain 'religious cause' that he thought justified his massacre. This is a very wealthy country the size of China's Yunnan Provicnce with a small population of only 5 million, of which 80% are Christians. Even this well educated killer described himself as a "cultural Christian", and he claimed that he and his brethren would "be the plum tree for Europe and for Christianity".
So you see, Christianity isn't necessarily always successful in nurturing good brethren. Quite so often Satan has the upper hand. Where there might be God's omnipresence, it is certain that Satan has come first.
And I also remember the tragic stories of Northern Ireland. Brethen of both sides had Christ in their mind when they killed each other.
And I also know that the Sicilian Mafia coexists with the Catholic Church perfectly well, and they do bad things and kill people all year round, but during the same time they go to the church to confess in front of a Father as well, only when they are not busy, of course.
2012/11/24
2009/01/24
An email to a friend – on "choosing not to be Chinese upon next reincarnation"
Old C.,
I simply do not know how to begin with the topic you re-opened, as I think actually we have been discussing the same in many aspects on and off for quite some time.
I haven't read that author's book. But I've just found something on his blog. I must say I quite agree to many of his opinions. But he might have gone too far. He is completely lost in his Western Shangri-La. He seems to have found some poisonous soil, yet he doesn't know how to neutralize it. What he has put forward is no reasonable solution.
Re-examining the Chinese culture should no longer be a "let's do it now" thing, of course we should keep on doing it, while reflecting deep inside ourselves; what we should do right away is change it, repair it, bit by bit, by changing and repairing our very selves in the first place. But this means personal sacrifice for those who are well educated, like the author himself, for education is the only means.
Only the well educated could help renew the education system. This will not succeed if they are not willing to sacrifice their own interest. Only their sacrifice would count, setting an example to all others including those of the greediest and corruptest classes, not that of Ah Q, not that of the peasants, and not that of the poorly educated.
But this just has to be a mankind dilemma, when there is a well developed Western world, which includes that tiny part called Norway where that author's wife is from, for them to turn to. Many highly educated simply can freely choose, painfully though it might look, not to be Chinese anymore, though partially and not racially, in this very present life. There is no need to wait till their next life.
One could be reborn a pig if the reincarnation thing is real. How risky! Who knows?
I think this author must have once been in love with China not as his motherland, but more or less as if it were his mother. He must be very proud of her. But one day he found this was no good mother, it was actually a mean, dirty, hypocritic and stupid woman, his love for her turned into anger, hatred, shame and disdain.
A country is not an individual, not a woman, not a guy. You encounter a certain ordinary good man somewhere sometime, later he might transform into a very bad thug and end up in prison, and later still he could renew himself to become an old nice fellow. All changes happen in one single lifetime.
A civilization, or just a country, as a whole cannot enjoy such dramatic changes, not to mention during a certain individual's lifetime.
If Barack Obama was born a couple of decades earlier and ran for the top office, there would be no way for him to succeed. Even he did he would be dead long before he could take the messed up oath.
So, born a Chinese and not a bad one, you can be angry, can feel shameful, can go hysterical, can swear your voice broken, can go to Norway, but it just doesn't help much. You just should be patient and calm, and do something positive and constructive with a sense of humour.
Even so pathetic a Chinese people has produced so good an individual as that author himself! How couldn't he see any hope?
If the U.S. were a non-Christian country, Barack Obama wouldn't have stood a chance. Yet you don't dream that you invited the crusaders to invade the ancient Empire of Ming back in history.
Jesus Christ saved the Western civilization. Christianity has evolved dramatically during a course of 2 thousand years. Yet not many Christians today know how to deal with their brothers created by the same God.
I would say, being Chinese, I seek to be as good, as creative, as reflective, as courageous, as righteous a person as I can during this present life, and leave the next life, if some day I would commence believing there is one, to the Hindu reincarnation mechanism.
And when it comes to the choice between Chinese and non-Chinese, or human and non-human, or swine and non-swine, I would like to consult Buddha if He lets me see Him without kneeling down and kowtowing.
I simply do not know how to begin with the topic you re-opened, as I think actually we have been discussing the same in many aspects on and off for quite some time.
I haven't read that author's book. But I've just found something on his blog. I must say I quite agree to many of his opinions. But he might have gone too far. He is completely lost in his Western Shangri-La. He seems to have found some poisonous soil, yet he doesn't know how to neutralize it. What he has put forward is no reasonable solution.
Re-examining the Chinese culture should no longer be a "let's do it now" thing, of course we should keep on doing it, while reflecting deep inside ourselves; what we should do right away is change it, repair it, bit by bit, by changing and repairing our very selves in the first place. But this means personal sacrifice for those who are well educated, like the author himself, for education is the only means.
Only the well educated could help renew the education system. This will not succeed if they are not willing to sacrifice their own interest. Only their sacrifice would count, setting an example to all others including those of the greediest and corruptest classes, not that of Ah Q, not that of the peasants, and not that of the poorly educated.
But this just has to be a mankind dilemma, when there is a well developed Western world, which includes that tiny part called Norway where that author's wife is from, for them to turn to. Many highly educated simply can freely choose, painfully though it might look, not to be Chinese anymore, though partially and not racially, in this very present life. There is no need to wait till their next life.
One could be reborn a pig if the reincarnation thing is real. How risky! Who knows?
I think this author must have once been in love with China not as his motherland, but more or less as if it were his mother. He must be very proud of her. But one day he found this was no good mother, it was actually a mean, dirty, hypocritic and stupid woman, his love for her turned into anger, hatred, shame and disdain.
A country is not an individual, not a woman, not a guy. You encounter a certain ordinary good man somewhere sometime, later he might transform into a very bad thug and end up in prison, and later still he could renew himself to become an old nice fellow. All changes happen in one single lifetime.
A civilization, or just a country, as a whole cannot enjoy such dramatic changes, not to mention during a certain individual's lifetime.
If Barack Obama was born a couple of decades earlier and ran for the top office, there would be no way for him to succeed. Even he did he would be dead long before he could take the messed up oath.
So, born a Chinese and not a bad one, you can be angry, can feel shameful, can go hysterical, can swear your voice broken, can go to Norway, but it just doesn't help much. You just should be patient and calm, and do something positive and constructive with a sense of humour.
Even so pathetic a Chinese people has produced so good an individual as that author himself! How couldn't he see any hope?
If the U.S. were a non-Christian country, Barack Obama wouldn't have stood a chance. Yet you don't dream that you invited the crusaders to invade the ancient Empire of Ming back in history.
Jesus Christ saved the Western civilization. Christianity has evolved dramatically during a course of 2 thousand years. Yet not many Christians today know how to deal with their brothers created by the same God.
I would say, being Chinese, I seek to be as good, as creative, as reflective, as courageous, as righteous a person as I can during this present life, and leave the next life, if some day I would commence believing there is one, to the Hindu reincarnation mechanism.
And when it comes to the choice between Chinese and non-Chinese, or human and non-human, or swine and non-swine, I would like to consult Buddha if He lets me see Him without kneeling down and kowtowing.
2008/12/20
An email to a friend – to barely chat a bit when dizzily busy
Old C.,
You just always remember that old Frisbee thrower in Tian'anmen Square. He could still be living happily in his late nineties, or even as a centenarian, flying that simple yet patented plaything.
30 whole years down the road of reforms, China has since changed a huge lot. The economic growth is unprecedented, more than fiftyfold in terms of GDP per capita. Now many have enough to eat, not guaranteed free from being poisoned though; and many have got really rich, thanks to their insatiability and corruptibility. Yet education at large has hardly had its quantum leap from quantitative change to qualitative change. Those who belong to the elite still need to stand still in front the TV camera to attend to a sort of advice with something really basic every time they meet with the leaders from the top.
When it comes to TV programmes about China, there is no shortage of them. While you were with the RTHK, I have just watched one produced by a U.K. station. It tells the stories of three Englishmen doing business in the Middle Kingdom. They couldn't beat their upstart Asian enemy at home, so they wisely venture to go to the Far East to join them. How can one catch a tiger cub without entering a tiger lair?
One even brings along his juvenile son who would actively urge this some what arrogant father to enjoy a piece of donkey penis his ever smoking Chinese business partner treats him. I think this must be a plot to make the documentary more watchable, and not a genuine part of the story. He simply buys a granite quarry to make sure every single piece of his kitchen worktop selling in the U.K. meets his British standard.
Another Englishman closes his cushion factory at home and invades the Middle Kingdom, which also doesn't have a king, without the assistance of the Royal Navy. With the help of his translator-partner's sister's father-in-law to build the factory, now he makes cushions in Zhejiang by the millions. It's impossible even just to imagine the scale of production at home in the U.K. He goes to New York to sell his products before the completion of his factory. Just a single one of the deals makes him smile with a 3 million US dollars' worth. He would be fully contented, seated in his office bearing his position, which is "Mamaging Director". The title for this foreign businessman must be so unique that it has to be spelt that way.
That 70-year-old Mad-off of Wall Street was really mad! His greed must be too strong that it had prevented him from judging soberly how many billions he needed to take and how he should have it taken. As some obese people wouldn't hesitate to eat to anticipate an early death, many fortune thirsty people would like to take the risk of being jailed, for no more than a couple of years in the U.S., a price affordable for many of the kind. Does it on a much smaller scale in China without a protective party membership one might be rewarded the capital punishment.This sort of fraud can't possibly go on without bursting for too long. This Mad-off guy should have calculated that he had enough time to prepare for his disappearance on Wall Street and reappearance somewhere in the world where the Federal Supreme Court can't even effect an extradition. The investigators might have been keeping an eye on him for quite some time, just like the case of that "Son of Taiwan" on the other side of the Pacific. Greedy people make big money easily, yet they could be very stupid. Ironically many believe in these stupid con men and worship them before they know they have been swindled.
You just always remember that old Frisbee thrower in Tian'anmen Square. He could still be living happily in his late nineties, or even as a centenarian, flying that simple yet patented plaything.
30 whole years down the road of reforms, China has since changed a huge lot. The economic growth is unprecedented, more than fiftyfold in terms of GDP per capita. Now many have enough to eat, not guaranteed free from being poisoned though; and many have got really rich, thanks to their insatiability and corruptibility. Yet education at large has hardly had its quantum leap from quantitative change to qualitative change. Those who belong to the elite still need to stand still in front the TV camera to attend to a sort of advice with something really basic every time they meet with the leaders from the top.
When it comes to TV programmes about China, there is no shortage of them. While you were with the RTHK, I have just watched one produced by a U.K. station. It tells the stories of three Englishmen doing business in the Middle Kingdom. They couldn't beat their upstart Asian enemy at home, so they wisely venture to go to the Far East to join them. How can one catch a tiger cub without entering a tiger lair?
One even brings along his juvenile son who would actively urge this some what arrogant father to enjoy a piece of donkey penis his ever smoking Chinese business partner treats him. I think this must be a plot to make the documentary more watchable, and not a genuine part of the story. He simply buys a granite quarry to make sure every single piece of his kitchen worktop selling in the U.K. meets his British standard.
Another Englishman closes his cushion factory at home and invades the Middle Kingdom, which also doesn't have a king, without the assistance of the Royal Navy. With the help of his translator-partner's sister's father-in-law to build the factory, now he makes cushions in Zhejiang by the millions. It's impossible even just to imagine the scale of production at home in the U.K. He goes to New York to sell his products before the completion of his factory. Just a single one of the deals makes him smile with a 3 million US dollars' worth. He would be fully contented, seated in his office bearing his position, which is "Mamaging Director". The title for this foreign businessman must be so unique that it has to be spelt that way.
That 70-year-old Mad-off of Wall Street was really mad! His greed must be too strong that it had prevented him from judging soberly how many billions he needed to take and how he should have it taken. As some obese people wouldn't hesitate to eat to anticipate an early death, many fortune thirsty people would like to take the risk of being jailed, for no more than a couple of years in the U.S., a price affordable for many of the kind. Does it on a much smaller scale in China without a protective party membership one might be rewarded the capital punishment.This sort of fraud can't possibly go on without bursting for too long. This Mad-off guy should have calculated that he had enough time to prepare for his disappearance on Wall Street and reappearance somewhere in the world where the Federal Supreme Court can't even effect an extradition. The investigators might have been keeping an eye on him for quite some time, just like the case of that "Son of Taiwan" on the other side of the Pacific. Greedy people make big money easily, yet they could be very stupid. Ironically many believe in these stupid con men and worship them before they know they have been swindled.
2008/08/30
An email to a friend - about Topping the Gold Medal List
M.C.,
Your mail has just arrived in the right time when I am going to write something for my stupid blog.
I thought you had been flown into the Bird's Nest to enjoy two full weeks of Olympic spiritual intoxication.
Just watching on TV the technically flawless and spectacular performances in the opening ceremony could have thrown you into ecstasies, couldn't it?
It looks like you are still very much intoxicated, much more than those teen gymnastic angels who won all those gold medals for adding to the glory of the glorious ancient nation.
I hope that you would turn sober and less sentimental when you wake up a couple of days later.
And you should work out a bit to keep fitter in order to glorify the ancient nation yourself, and not leave the heavy burden to the Party, the government, and also the athletes which include all those very young gymnastic angels, who have been trained like hell since they were tiny little girls, and also the drop-out hurdler Liu Xiang who let many of his irrational worshippers extremely down.
Our nation's being able to top the list of gold medals is of course good, so good that it should have been achieved decades earlier, but certainly not good enough to convince some of the Westerners that China is worth their respect and recognition that the Party is so eager to earn.
And some Westerners still have an impregnable sense of superiority that can hardly be updated, certainly not by counting of gold medals or something like that.
You show them purposely you can achieve something, you do it in vain. What you get in return could be deeper hatred and contempt instead of recognition. This could be racism, and not confined to racism.
The Olympic achievements are great. They are worth more than 300 billion yuan. Beijing is now a modern metropolis. Yet in many remote provincial rural areas there are still utterly poor young children and teenagers deprived of decent education. And there are still towns and villages that could easily be liquefied by an earthquake.
Of course we want the rest of the world to learn more about us, even though we haven't sufficiently learnt about the rest of the world yet, despite that we have sent students by the million to the Western world to study and copy.
But what exactly are we? Do we really know ourselves well in the first place? Have we learnt about our ancient civilization, our culture and history adequately for telling the rest of the world what made us as we are?
I am afraid not, simply because education and academic studies are still subject to strict ideology control in the Mainland.
Just how we should talk about the Great Helmsman Chairman Mao and the Cultural Revolution is rather tricky.
How we should talk about the KMT-CCP civil war and the Mainland-Taiwan status-quo is even trickier. The mainlanders can only be free to talk about the issues in the Party's viewpoint.
To talk about the 1989 Tian'anmen Square Incident could be the trickiest, even in this tiny little free region of China.
These are some of the topics that may interest the ordinary Westerners, who really care about China, more than the 4 ancient inventions do.
By the way, I would like to talk about the invitation of the governor of Tokyo 東京都知事 to the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony.
Beijing broad-mindedly invited Ishihara Shintaro 石原慎太郎 to the opening ceremony.
Ishihara is a writer turned right-wing politician who would spare no efforts to intentionally agitate the Chinese government and people. He hates the Chinese and the Koreans with his whole heart. He denies that the Japanese committed the Nanjing massacre. He says the Chinese fabricated the story. And he says if the U.S. goes to war with China, the U.S. will lose because the Americans value human lives and the Chinese do not.
This is definitely not a friend of China and the Chinese people. Yet China did the right thing inviting this man to the ceremony.
Having seen in the massive group dance the purposely chosen Han character 和, which may mean harmony or peace, and is also the name of the Japanese domninant ethnic people (大和民族 Yamato minzoku), to which he belongs, Ishihara so far has not say things really bad of the Chinese, at least not openly. He even praised the student volunteers he encountered.
Now Tokyo is bidding to host the 2016 Olympics, so Ishihara must have known it all too well that he should better conceal his deep-rooted hatred and contempt in order to sound friendly.
I can't speculate where Ishihara's hatred comes from. But his contempt is rather comprehensible. We demand an official apology for what the Japanese committed in Nanjing, we have a rough number of the victims slaughtered. But as of the Cultural Revolution and the Tian'anmen Incident, our government seems to have kept no account at all. This is more than enough for the Japanese contempt to be based on.
Of course it's good that China has won so many Olympic gold medals this time.
But when you are at the top, challengers converge to engage you, and you simply have to train harder still to face new challenges. A more hellish training life will be awaiting the gifted athletes if they are determined to stay at the top of the list. Even a nation with such a huge population base of 1.3 billion strong could not have much of the upper hand.
Excelling in international athletic games and sports competitions is only one of the many aspects in terms of indicating the quality and well-being of a nation's citizens, just like excelling personally in an athletic or sports performance is only one of the many aspects in terms of indicating the quality of the person's life. Those who run really fast might not even necessarily be really healthy, or happy.
Our beloved nation has occupied the top place of the golden Olympics now. Yet the nation is yet to claim its people are among the strongest and healthiest.
It takes only a few years to train an Olympic gold medalist, but it takes decades to educate an ordinary person.
Your mail has just arrived in the right time when I am going to write something for my stupid blog.
I thought you had been flown into the Bird's Nest to enjoy two full weeks of Olympic spiritual intoxication.
Just watching on TV the technically flawless and spectacular performances in the opening ceremony could have thrown you into ecstasies, couldn't it?
It looks like you are still very much intoxicated, much more than those teen gymnastic angels who won all those gold medals for adding to the glory of the glorious ancient nation.
I hope that you would turn sober and less sentimental when you wake up a couple of days later.
And you should work out a bit to keep fitter in order to glorify the ancient nation yourself, and not leave the heavy burden to the Party, the government, and also the athletes which include all those very young gymnastic angels, who have been trained like hell since they were tiny little girls, and also the drop-out hurdler Liu Xiang who let many of his irrational worshippers extremely down.
Our nation's being able to top the list of gold medals is of course good, so good that it should have been achieved decades earlier, but certainly not good enough to convince some of the Westerners that China is worth their respect and recognition that the Party is so eager to earn.
And some Westerners still have an impregnable sense of superiority that can hardly be updated, certainly not by counting of gold medals or something like that.
You show them purposely you can achieve something, you do it in vain. What you get in return could be deeper hatred and contempt instead of recognition. This could be racism, and not confined to racism.
The Olympic achievements are great. They are worth more than 300 billion yuan. Beijing is now a modern metropolis. Yet in many remote provincial rural areas there are still utterly poor young children and teenagers deprived of decent education. And there are still towns and villages that could easily be liquefied by an earthquake.
Of course we want the rest of the world to learn more about us, even though we haven't sufficiently learnt about the rest of the world yet, despite that we have sent students by the million to the Western world to study and copy.
But what exactly are we? Do we really know ourselves well in the first place? Have we learnt about our ancient civilization, our culture and history adequately for telling the rest of the world what made us as we are?
I am afraid not, simply because education and academic studies are still subject to strict ideology control in the Mainland.
Just how we should talk about the Great Helmsman Chairman Mao and the Cultural Revolution is rather tricky.
How we should talk about the KMT-CCP civil war and the Mainland-Taiwan status-quo is even trickier. The mainlanders can only be free to talk about the issues in the Party's viewpoint.
To talk about the 1989 Tian'anmen Square Incident could be the trickiest, even in this tiny little free region of China.
These are some of the topics that may interest the ordinary Westerners, who really care about China, more than the 4 ancient inventions do.
By the way, I would like to talk about the invitation of the governor of Tokyo 東京都知事 to the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony.
Beijing broad-mindedly invited Ishihara Shintaro 石原慎太郎 to the opening ceremony.
Ishihara is a writer turned right-wing politician who would spare no efforts to intentionally agitate the Chinese government and people. He hates the Chinese and the Koreans with his whole heart. He denies that the Japanese committed the Nanjing massacre. He says the Chinese fabricated the story. And he says if the U.S. goes to war with China, the U.S. will lose because the Americans value human lives and the Chinese do not.
This is definitely not a friend of China and the Chinese people. Yet China did the right thing inviting this man to the ceremony.
Having seen in the massive group dance the purposely chosen Han character 和, which may mean harmony or peace, and is also the name of the Japanese domninant ethnic people (大和民族 Yamato minzoku), to which he belongs, Ishihara so far has not say things really bad of the Chinese, at least not openly. He even praised the student volunteers he encountered.
Now Tokyo is bidding to host the 2016 Olympics, so Ishihara must have known it all too well that he should better conceal his deep-rooted hatred and contempt in order to sound friendly.
I can't speculate where Ishihara's hatred comes from. But his contempt is rather comprehensible. We demand an official apology for what the Japanese committed in Nanjing, we have a rough number of the victims slaughtered. But as of the Cultural Revolution and the Tian'anmen Incident, our government seems to have kept no account at all. This is more than enough for the Japanese contempt to be based on.
Of course it's good that China has won so many Olympic gold medals this time.
But when you are at the top, challengers converge to engage you, and you simply have to train harder still to face new challenges. A more hellish training life will be awaiting the gifted athletes if they are determined to stay at the top of the list. Even a nation with such a huge population base of 1.3 billion strong could not have much of the upper hand.
Excelling in international athletic games and sports competitions is only one of the many aspects in terms of indicating the quality and well-being of a nation's citizens, just like excelling personally in an athletic or sports performance is only one of the many aspects in terms of indicating the quality of the person's life. Those who run really fast might not even necessarily be really healthy, or happy.
Our beloved nation has occupied the top place of the golden Olympics now. Yet the nation is yet to claim its people are among the strongest and healthiest.
It takes only a few years to train an Olympic gold medalist, but it takes decades to educate an ordinary person.
2008/02/15
An email to a friend - on snowstorm & naughty-photo scandal
M.C.,
At last you have emerged when the RAT is greeting a chilly spring!
Wish you an auspicious RAT Year (RAT for Rising And Thriving)!
So you would like to talk about our motherland.
The recent snowstorm that struck South China was indeed a natural disaster. Fortunately the devastation did not extend too far. It will look minor compared to an ice age, which is anticipated, and recured from time to time in the planetary history. The prehistoric humans got through the last mega winter which lasted for an aeon and ended some 10 thousand years ago.
The next ice age could make its presence known all on a sudden. Even the top climatologists might have missed all the subtle clues that have suggested it has already been coming. Some say the anticipated super icy era is already overdue. Some say that global warming may delay the onset of the coming ice age, while others say the same may do just the opposite.
Some scientists suggest that the implications of global warming are still far from being fully understood. They need to do much more on research.
I would speculate that even if the experts manage to predict the onset of the future ice age, and get well prepared, most individuals of the human species could be wiped out of the surface of the earth.
If the human-inflicted global warming is true, and it does lead to a climatic catastrophe, no scientists, except for those who have an absolute religious faith, can tell who are to survive and who are not.
Mother Nature, if not identical to God Himself, must answer to God. And God did destroy Sodom and Gomorrah for certain sins no worse than those committed by modern humans.
Celebrating the Chinese New Year without God by my side, I barely survived a few chilly days and nights in the wilderness. In the last night of my stay it dropped from 10 degrees to just 6 with roaring gale that would blow for 21 hours on end from over the mountain ridge. I moved camp into a forest in the middle of the night in order to make sure my tent won't collapse. I had to plug up my ears with some 4-ply tissue to make the angry unremitting gusts sound less disturbing, so that I could get some sleep.
Mine was then the only camp remaining in the whole valley. It happened that I retained enough spirits to compose a peom on site for the camping.
In such cold days city boys like you would rather stay home watching TV, with a pitying heart, witnessing indirectly tens of thousands of migrant workers desperately waiting in vain for their train home, being exposed to chilling precipitation. They might be suffering from homesickness, they were safe after all.
There must be many unnoticed casualties and damages in the remote and backward areas where TV reporters could have no access at all. The agony that these poor people suffered could have been forgotten even before it was mentioned.
Where poor people still dare to stay poor, Mother Nature will always inflict righteous punishment without mercy!
And you just didn't let that "obscene photo incident" pass you by, why?
All right, as for that red hot scandal, I'd rather keep my eyes and ears away from that sort of pictures and stories. If I receive a hyperlink to those websites, I will delete it right away without clicking for the call of my curiosity and instinctive urges.
I am glad that I have known almost nothing about the celebrities in the show biz, not to mention local Canto-stars and all those innocent naughty girls taking part happily.
And I am lucky that I also do not know that glorious big boy for the least bit. I don't even know what this guy looks like, hence my humble brain can be free from being the least haunted.
I guess this must be a dude sexually irresistible to girls. And this could be a being certain girls are meant for.
And I am luckier still that I have no children, so I don't need to spend time in helping a teen daughter to rebuild the image of her icon, or talking a young son into not admiring or envying that victorious young man.
Such could be impossible tasks of the time in this part of the planet.
Although bees do it, and birds do it, successful ultimate intimacies with many young women is always a major constitutive part of many men's masculine pride. This phenomenon has an important place in human genetics and evolution, and also social economy.
According to the scenario told by my nephews in our Chinese New Year gathering, I think those naughty girls were just having normal sexual fun with a man they considered good enough and worthwhile, so good and worthwhile that they trusted him for all that much!
If they have suffered the unexpected foul consequence caused by certain rotten photo-stealing thieves, they have paid their price in terms of devaluation of vanity, only to a certain extent though.
If they have had even greater fun with the scandal's getting hot and spreading far, they could already be ahead of an emerging trend in this very conservative part of the world in which sexual hypocrisy is rampant, while the female body is still very much a traditional commodity in certain aspects, even in many ordinary blessed marriages.
I wonder if you get what I mean.
At last you have emerged when the RAT is greeting a chilly spring!
Wish you an auspicious RAT Year (RAT for Rising And Thriving)!
So you would like to talk about our motherland.
The recent snowstorm that struck South China was indeed a natural disaster. Fortunately the devastation did not extend too far. It will look minor compared to an ice age, which is anticipated, and recured from time to time in the planetary history. The prehistoric humans got through the last mega winter which lasted for an aeon and ended some 10 thousand years ago.
The next ice age could make its presence known all on a sudden. Even the top climatologists might have missed all the subtle clues that have suggested it has already been coming. Some say the anticipated super icy era is already overdue. Some say that global warming may delay the onset of the coming ice age, while others say the same may do just the opposite.
Some scientists suggest that the implications of global warming are still far from being fully understood. They need to do much more on research.
I would speculate that even if the experts manage to predict the onset of the future ice age, and get well prepared, most individuals of the human species could be wiped out of the surface of the earth.
If the human-inflicted global warming is true, and it does lead to a climatic catastrophe, no scientists, except for those who have an absolute religious faith, can tell who are to survive and who are not.
Mother Nature, if not identical to God Himself, must answer to God. And God did destroy Sodom and Gomorrah for certain sins no worse than those committed by modern humans.
Celebrating the Chinese New Year without God by my side, I barely survived a few chilly days and nights in the wilderness. In the last night of my stay it dropped from 10 degrees to just 6 with roaring gale that would blow for 21 hours on end from over the mountain ridge. I moved camp into a forest in the middle of the night in order to make sure my tent won't collapse. I had to plug up my ears with some 4-ply tissue to make the angry unremitting gusts sound less disturbing, so that I could get some sleep.
Mine was then the only camp remaining in the whole valley. It happened that I retained enough spirits to compose a peom on site for the camping.
In such cold days city boys like you would rather stay home watching TV, with a pitying heart, witnessing indirectly tens of thousands of migrant workers desperately waiting in vain for their train home, being exposed to chilling precipitation. They might be suffering from homesickness, they were safe after all.
There must be many unnoticed casualties and damages in the remote and backward areas where TV reporters could have no access at all. The agony that these poor people suffered could have been forgotten even before it was mentioned.
Where poor people still dare to stay poor, Mother Nature will always inflict righteous punishment without mercy!
And you just didn't let that "obscene photo incident" pass you by, why?
All right, as for that red hot scandal, I'd rather keep my eyes and ears away from that sort of pictures and stories. If I receive a hyperlink to those websites, I will delete it right away without clicking for the call of my curiosity and instinctive urges.
I am glad that I have known almost nothing about the celebrities in the show biz, not to mention local Canto-stars and all those innocent naughty girls taking part happily.
And I am lucky that I also do not know that glorious big boy for the least bit. I don't even know what this guy looks like, hence my humble brain can be free from being the least haunted.
I guess this must be a dude sexually irresistible to girls. And this could be a being certain girls are meant for.
And I am luckier still that I have no children, so I don't need to spend time in helping a teen daughter to rebuild the image of her icon, or talking a young son into not admiring or envying that victorious young man.
Such could be impossible tasks of the time in this part of the planet.
Although bees do it, and birds do it, successful ultimate intimacies with many young women is always a major constitutive part of many men's masculine pride. This phenomenon has an important place in human genetics and evolution, and also social economy.
According to the scenario told by my nephews in our Chinese New Year gathering, I think those naughty girls were just having normal sexual fun with a man they considered good enough and worthwhile, so good and worthwhile that they trusted him for all that much!
If they have suffered the unexpected foul consequence caused by certain rotten photo-stealing thieves, they have paid their price in terms of devaluation of vanity, only to a certain extent though.
If they have had even greater fun with the scandal's getting hot and spreading far, they could already be ahead of an emerging trend in this very conservative part of the world in which sexual hypocrisy is rampant, while the female body is still very much a traditional commodity in certain aspects, even in many ordinary blessed marriages.
I wonder if you get what I mean.
2007/11/03
An Email to a Friend - Even More on Food Chains
Old C.,
I quite agree with the elaboration you have just made.
Factually the what eats what chain is so intricate that some natural scientists would rather switch to the term "food web".
The body size factor is normally true in most predations, where size means brute force. And brute force works in many cases.
In some cases such as the lion preying on the buffalo, individuals of the lion pride cooperate with each other tacitly and strategically to bring down a buffalo much larger in body size.
In the case of scavenging, just like the vulture cleaning up the carcass of a large mammal, the larger the carcass, the better the feast for the scavenger bird.
When it comes to the ecosystem, besides its extreme complicatedness, it runs on an always changing delicate equilibrium. The equilibrium shifts from time to time favouring different life forms in different times, owing to the evolutionary reality and climate changes, etc.
In an equilibrium every living species adapts to the overall environment or merely its confined micro-environment, thus has its own place.
Some species dominate in different ecosystems, propagate well despite the eco-differences, and appear just everywhere, like us humans and the cockroach which eats just anything; some barely survive to hang on with their slim reproduction in confined habitats, like the giant panda and the orang-utang. Now we know that we humans have been evolving really fast, and the giant panda has been so sluggish that it is more or less a living fossil in the evolutionary perspectives.
We humans have been able to dominate on almost all inhabitable lands on earth, not because we possess the ultimate adaptability. We simply don't need to be adaptive in the original sense of the adjective. In most cases we alter the environments by irreversibly damaging the ecosystems to create the living conditions we want culturally, but not necessarily we need biologically.
In nature, adaptability of a species to an existing or a changing environment means capability of surviving and reproducing in a way that sustains. The adaptive species then has its place. Adaptability is an evolutionary outcome. The mechanism of evolution is based simply on genetic mutations. Genetic mutation is a simple trial and error process. Every now and then a species would produce offspring not adaptive to the existing and slowly changing environment. Such offspring would become a dead-end of diversification. In the same time a species would also produce offspring adaptive to an abrupt environmental change taking place or having just taken place, like an ice age. In such case the original species would die out, leaving the diversified offspring to live on. This is the story of evolution. And this is the history of most existing live forms. Keep producing adaptive offspring according to the change of food sources is one key of evolving.
Sometimes there would be mega natural disasters, like the eruption of a super volcano which took place some 73,500 years ago in Sumatra. The eruption of Mt. Toba wiped out many species directly, and still more species indirectly by bringing about huge global climate change scientists would call "volcanic winter" for years on end, thus breaking many food chains.
Some scientists believe that this eruption also helped select about only 2,000 ancestral individuals of Homo sapiens, to propagate to dominate every corner of the earth some 70 millennia later.
This hominid, like the chimpanzee, ate just anything, he could be more infamous than any other species for eating his own kind. Could this be one of the keys for him to survive that volcanic winter that lasted several years?
The panda eats almost nothing but bamboo. Yet it doesn't "know" bamboo would secure its survival for generations to come, it simply instinctively sits there and chews bamboo leaves and shoots all day, just like the wildebeest does the grass in the Serengeti. Now we know that animals feeding on a narrow food source are more likely to go hungry. The ancestral panda just didn't know its way. Mother Nature showed it the path. The panda used to be carnivorous long, long ago. Later it adapted to an omnivorous life. Now it feeds 99% on bamboo. Its intestines show that it should still be a carnivore. Yet only its diversified descendant that ate only bamboo survived.
Mother Nature has always been pointing to the wrong directions. A species which goes into a dead-end will have no way out.
The living species on earth, even to re-include those which have been wiped out of the earth surface by us humans, are just of only a tiny little number compared to all those once roamed the earth.
You said "in nature every species has to choose its best way to survive".
I reckon that no species can "choose its best way to survive", not even us humans with a big thinking brain.
Mother Nature has written down the Way as AGTC codes in our genes that would translate into instincts. We listen to the calls of our instincts. We don't choose which way to go, we instinctively obey the orders given by Mother Nature.
Our instincts tell us to take in food, so we do, and eat ourselves to get sick.
Our instincts tell us to accumulate, so we do, and get obsessed in possession.
Our instincts tell us to reproduce, so we do, and have propagated to crowd the earth.
Our instincts tell us to make shelter, so we do, and build large cities that damage the lands and pollute the waters.
Our instincts tell us to avoid wasting energy, so we do, and avoid doing physical exercise, which is a key to maintaining good health.
Our instincts tell us to stay comfortable, so we do, and don't start a family which could make the prime of our life miserable.
If we are really to choose our best way to survive, the first step we should take is to contemplate how far we should go along with our instincts
I quite agree with the elaboration you have just made.
Factually the what eats what chain is so intricate that some natural scientists would rather switch to the term "food web".
The body size factor is normally true in most predations, where size means brute force. And brute force works in many cases.
In some cases such as the lion preying on the buffalo, individuals of the lion pride cooperate with each other tacitly and strategically to bring down a buffalo much larger in body size.
In the case of scavenging, just like the vulture cleaning up the carcass of a large mammal, the larger the carcass, the better the feast for the scavenger bird.
When it comes to the ecosystem, besides its extreme complicatedness, it runs on an always changing delicate equilibrium. The equilibrium shifts from time to time favouring different life forms in different times, owing to the evolutionary reality and climate changes, etc.
In an equilibrium every living species adapts to the overall environment or merely its confined micro-environment, thus has its own place.
Some species dominate in different ecosystems, propagate well despite the eco-differences, and appear just everywhere, like us humans and the cockroach which eats just anything; some barely survive to hang on with their slim reproduction in confined habitats, like the giant panda and the orang-utang. Now we know that we humans have been evolving really fast, and the giant panda has been so sluggish that it is more or less a living fossil in the evolutionary perspectives.
We humans have been able to dominate on almost all inhabitable lands on earth, not because we possess the ultimate adaptability. We simply don't need to be adaptive in the original sense of the adjective. In most cases we alter the environments by irreversibly damaging the ecosystems to create the living conditions we want culturally, but not necessarily we need biologically.
In nature, adaptability of a species to an existing or a changing environment means capability of surviving and reproducing in a way that sustains. The adaptive species then has its place. Adaptability is an evolutionary outcome. The mechanism of evolution is based simply on genetic mutations. Genetic mutation is a simple trial and error process. Every now and then a species would produce offspring not adaptive to the existing and slowly changing environment. Such offspring would become a dead-end of diversification. In the same time a species would also produce offspring adaptive to an abrupt environmental change taking place or having just taken place, like an ice age. In such case the original species would die out, leaving the diversified offspring to live on. This is the story of evolution. And this is the history of most existing live forms. Keep producing adaptive offspring according to the change of food sources is one key of evolving.
Sometimes there would be mega natural disasters, like the eruption of a super volcano which took place some 73,500 years ago in Sumatra. The eruption of Mt. Toba wiped out many species directly, and still more species indirectly by bringing about huge global climate change scientists would call "volcanic winter" for years on end, thus breaking many food chains.
Some scientists believe that this eruption also helped select about only 2,000 ancestral individuals of Homo sapiens, to propagate to dominate every corner of the earth some 70 millennia later.
This hominid, like the chimpanzee, ate just anything, he could be more infamous than any other species for eating his own kind. Could this be one of the keys for him to survive that volcanic winter that lasted several years?
The panda eats almost nothing but bamboo. Yet it doesn't "know" bamboo would secure its survival for generations to come, it simply instinctively sits there and chews bamboo leaves and shoots all day, just like the wildebeest does the grass in the Serengeti. Now we know that animals feeding on a narrow food source are more likely to go hungry. The ancestral panda just didn't know its way. Mother Nature showed it the path. The panda used to be carnivorous long, long ago. Later it adapted to an omnivorous life. Now it feeds 99% on bamboo. Its intestines show that it should still be a carnivore. Yet only its diversified descendant that ate only bamboo survived.
Mother Nature has always been pointing to the wrong directions. A species which goes into a dead-end will have no way out.
The living species on earth, even to re-include those which have been wiped out of the earth surface by us humans, are just of only a tiny little number compared to all those once roamed the earth.
You said "in nature every species has to choose its best way to survive".
I reckon that no species can "choose its best way to survive", not even us humans with a big thinking brain.
Mother Nature has written down the Way as AGTC codes in our genes that would translate into instincts. We listen to the calls of our instincts. We don't choose which way to go, we instinctively obey the orders given by Mother Nature.
Our instincts tell us to take in food, so we do, and eat ourselves to get sick.
Our instincts tell us to accumulate, so we do, and get obsessed in possession.
Our instincts tell us to reproduce, so we do, and have propagated to crowd the earth.
Our instincts tell us to make shelter, so we do, and build large cities that damage the lands and pollute the waters.
Our instincts tell us to avoid wasting energy, so we do, and avoid doing physical exercise, which is a key to maintaining good health.
Our instincts tell us to stay comfortable, so we do, and don't start a family which could make the prime of our life miserable.
If we are really to choose our best way to survive, the first step we should take is to contemplate how far we should go along with our instincts
2007/11/01
An email to a friend – more on food chains
Old C.,
I find it fun to talk a bit more about the food chains.
Your previous mail states that a species "eats" (you quoted) "rationally" (you quoted) another species to which it is superior.
I am not going to argue about the food chain or food web mechanism. It's part of nature's undeniable truth, and it's really too intricate.
I just have something to say about the term "superior" you used without placing it between quotation marks.
Put aside the human egoistic and arrogant perspectives, the eater and the eaten relation doesn't necessarily tell the superior species from the inferior. It is arbitrary to say that the cat is superior to the rat simply because the former preys on the latter.
The crocodile, the python and the anaconda, which are reptiles, normally prey on quite a few kinds of mammals. Given the chances, they would devour the intelligent primates, and also the pig. The primates and the pig are on the top ranks of Class Mammalia, which are definitely superior to members of Class Reptilia, according to taxonomy without dispute.
According to some researches on animal cognition, the pig is actually among the most intelligent animals, even more intelligent than the domesticated dog and cat.
It seems, in such case, neither the predators are superior species, nor is their prey weaker.
I find it fun to talk a bit more about the food chains.
Your previous mail states that a species "eats" (you quoted) "rationally" (you quoted) another species to which it is superior.
I am not going to argue about the food chain or food web mechanism. It's part of nature's undeniable truth, and it's really too intricate.
I just have something to say about the term "superior" you used without placing it between quotation marks.
Put aside the human egoistic and arrogant perspectives, the eater and the eaten relation doesn't necessarily tell the superior species from the inferior. It is arbitrary to say that the cat is superior to the rat simply because the former preys on the latter.
The crocodile, the python and the anaconda, which are reptiles, normally prey on quite a few kinds of mammals. Given the chances, they would devour the intelligent primates, and also the pig. The primates and the pig are on the top ranks of Class Mammalia, which are definitely superior to members of Class Reptilia, according to taxonomy without dispute.
According to some researches on animal cognition, the pig is actually among the most intelligent animals, even more intelligent than the domesticated dog and cat.
It seems, in such case, neither the predators are superior species, nor is their prey weaker.
2007/10/27
An email to a friend – on respect for other life forms
Old C.,
Your giving up abruptly your hobby of killing butterflies to make specimens reflected that you had begun to love such small creatures which do not have a big brain. You might even have begun to respect life itself.
Non-religious respect for other life forms comes only after the respect for other fellow humans, especially those who are disadvantaged, less educated or less capable.
The butterfly and all other animals are still seen as lesser life forms in the Chinese, as well as many other traditional values, and also in certain religions. In a scientific perspective this is by no means true, despite most creatures have definitely less genes than us humans. Yet our empathy and sympathy for our fellow humans may extend not only to cover those highly intelligent domesticated animals, but also other creatures of the wild including your beloved butterfly. Such extended empathy and sympathy emerge only after our human life has in the first place become easier and peaceful.
If you are still surviving in the jungle or on the savannah, being a potential prey to all kinds of fierce predators, and you are hungry, your empathy and sympathy for even a badly injured fawn can hardly show.
Hong Kong has long been an international city since the early days of the British rule. Sublimated Western values, those from the Anglo-Saxon world in particular, have since infiltrated into the traditional Chinese culture, directly and indirectly modifying it by means of all forms of media, say, publications, radios, TV programmes, movies, etc.
You may not be the least surprised that dog meat is still a delicacy in Mainland China. Yet here in Hong Kong one could get jailed for just inflicting cruelty on his own cute chowchow, not to mention killing a mongrel for the Cantonese cuisine. It is now common sense here the dog is not a source of animal protein.
Although you were taught no more than a bit of Confucius and science in the school, these definitely were not all you had for your overall education. Some knowledge and values of yours must be self-taught, judging from the fact that, unlike many other schoolboys, you were more inquisitive, and eager to learn just anything, during those school days.
When it comes to children's instinctive behaviours, I would like to add a few lines to your remarks.
There is a difference between the sexes. Boys are boys, and girls are girls. Boys normally like guns and swords more than girls do. The average boys are more aggressive, less empathetic and sympathetic. And more boys want to be a hero than girls. So boys just like to eliminate enemies, or simply kill something, including the hungry fish in the sea and your beloved butterflies in the air, when there are no enemies around.
Your giving up abruptly your hobby of killing butterflies to make specimens reflected that you had begun to love such small creatures which do not have a big brain. You might even have begun to respect life itself.
Non-religious respect for other life forms comes only after the respect for other fellow humans, especially those who are disadvantaged, less educated or less capable.
The butterfly and all other animals are still seen as lesser life forms in the Chinese, as well as many other traditional values, and also in certain religions. In a scientific perspective this is by no means true, despite most creatures have definitely less genes than us humans. Yet our empathy and sympathy for our fellow humans may extend not only to cover those highly intelligent domesticated animals, but also other creatures of the wild including your beloved butterfly. Such extended empathy and sympathy emerge only after our human life has in the first place become easier and peaceful.
If you are still surviving in the jungle or on the savannah, being a potential prey to all kinds of fierce predators, and you are hungry, your empathy and sympathy for even a badly injured fawn can hardly show.
Hong Kong has long been an international city since the early days of the British rule. Sublimated Western values, those from the Anglo-Saxon world in particular, have since infiltrated into the traditional Chinese culture, directly and indirectly modifying it by means of all forms of media, say, publications, radios, TV programmes, movies, etc.
You may not be the least surprised that dog meat is still a delicacy in Mainland China. Yet here in Hong Kong one could get jailed for just inflicting cruelty on his own cute chowchow, not to mention killing a mongrel for the Cantonese cuisine. It is now common sense here the dog is not a source of animal protein.
Although you were taught no more than a bit of Confucius and science in the school, these definitely were not all you had for your overall education. Some knowledge and values of yours must be self-taught, judging from the fact that, unlike many other schoolboys, you were more inquisitive, and eager to learn just anything, during those school days.
When it comes to children's instinctive behaviours, I would like to add a few lines to your remarks.
There is a difference between the sexes. Boys are boys, and girls are girls. Boys normally like guns and swords more than girls do. The average boys are more aggressive, less empathetic and sympathetic. And more boys want to be a hero than girls. So boys just like to eliminate enemies, or simply kill something, including the hungry fish in the sea and your beloved butterflies in the air, when there are no enemies around.
2007/10/23
An Email to a friend – on “respect”
Old C.,
You might have named the right word, which is, of course, "respect".
While social discriminations of some kinds are still rampant in this society, how could people who believe they are superior respect those they think inferior? Many local born residents and early immigrants still despise those uneducated new immigrants from the mainland.
The sense and value of respect for any other individual may take centuries of good education to establish.
What that desperate mother needed most was immediate mental support from the relevant professionals, say, competent psychiatrists and social workers. These are the "first-aid" that could have prevented the fatal tragedy from happening. That poor mother definitely got none of these adequately. How could she enjoy the "respect" you mentioned, which would only come after a good universal education has been provided for the population?
It could quite be out of the question looking back to the poor old days without taking into consideration the social context.
Back then poor families like ours belonged to the majority. Given a small shanty on the hillside without running water and always threatened by fire and rain, inadequate food with low nutritive value, and minimal clothing for barely getting through the cold seasons, an utterly poor family could struggle through all those difficult days, with incentives and hope.
Now our society has evolved to a state that the majority are no longer living in poverty. Most who have got wealthy are even struggling harder still to get even wealthier.
Yet the poor are still around and have since become the minority, living in a society in which wealth is almost the only index of individual capability, money is the totem for many, and being poor is always equal to being incapable, or even worthless. Such a social atmosphere brings about frustrations and despair.
Although one may not be as poor as the poorest in the poor old days, and the hardships of everyday life could be eased a bit by means of social welfare, the mental stress arises is much more unbearable than decades ago.
A recently withdrawn TV advertisement placed by a bank targeting the middle class even says that the upbringing of a child costs almost four million dollars. Being exposed to such a kind of opinion believed romantically by many who are well-off, I wonder what damage could be done to the self-esteem of an unemployed uneducated mother of two with a disabled husband.
You might have named the right word, which is, of course, "respect".
While social discriminations of some kinds are still rampant in this society, how could people who believe they are superior respect those they think inferior? Many local born residents and early immigrants still despise those uneducated new immigrants from the mainland.
The sense and value of respect for any other individual may take centuries of good education to establish.
What that desperate mother needed most was immediate mental support from the relevant professionals, say, competent psychiatrists and social workers. These are the "first-aid" that could have prevented the fatal tragedy from happening. That poor mother definitely got none of these adequately. How could she enjoy the "respect" you mentioned, which would only come after a good universal education has been provided for the population?
It could quite be out of the question looking back to the poor old days without taking into consideration the social context.
Back then poor families like ours belonged to the majority. Given a small shanty on the hillside without running water and always threatened by fire and rain, inadequate food with low nutritive value, and minimal clothing for barely getting through the cold seasons, an utterly poor family could struggle through all those difficult days, with incentives and hope.
Now our society has evolved to a state that the majority are no longer living in poverty. Most who have got wealthy are even struggling harder still to get even wealthier.
Yet the poor are still around and have since become the minority, living in a society in which wealth is almost the only index of individual capability, money is the totem for many, and being poor is always equal to being incapable, or even worthless. Such a social atmosphere brings about frustrations and despair.
Although one may not be as poor as the poorest in the poor old days, and the hardships of everyday life could be eased a bit by means of social welfare, the mental stress arises is much more unbearable than decades ago.
A recently withdrawn TV advertisement placed by a bank targeting the middle class even says that the upbringing of a child costs almost four million dollars. Being exposed to such a kind of opinion believed romantically by many who are well-off, I wonder what damage could be done to the self-esteem of an unemployed uneducated mother of two with a disabled husband.
2007/10/17
An email to a friend – on the poor
Hello, H.L.,
Frankly I don't know you are poor, not to mention how poor you are! Quite to the contrary, I always think that you are rich, perhaps not so rich as most Chinese Canadians.
Not having brought a portable computer with you doesn't necessarily mean that poor, does it?
I anticipated that you don't have much difficulty receiving this mail in Tibet, provided you don't go too far away from wherever you can buy something like an authentic American hamburger!
If I go to India once a year for a month or two, then tour round another part of the world during the same year, and visit Tibet still in the very year, without even bothering about fixing the date of return, just like you do, I will surely go bankrupt in no time.
You can meet with really poor people in Tibet if you wish. Simply venture away from the temples and lamas and you will find yourself talking to them, only if you speak Tibetan of course, for these poor nomads living on one of the harshest lands on earth may not have a single word of the Han or English language.
Some 2,500 kilometres southeast of Tibet here are the richest parts of China, yet most of the inhabitants are by no means rich according to global standards.
Hong Kong has a decent GDP per capita as a developed economy, and an ugly Gini Index worse than many developing countries.
A couple of days ago a mother of two suffering from mental illness committed a jumping suicide, which killed also her innocent children, leaving behind her hospitalized husband. Such a tragedy is definitely due at least partly to shortage of social resources allocated to the poor and the helpless.
Hong Kong has roughly only 2.5 psychiatrists for every 100,000 people, compared to 11 in the U.K.
If one needs to see a doctor in a public hospital or clinic, GP or psychiatrist alike, he/she will have no more than a couple of minutes for just answering a few questions the doctor would choose to ask. Consultation in the true sense hardly exists.
A junior doctor practising in a public hospital here in the SAR is paid at least 30% more than his/her counterpart in the U.K., despite the fact that the U.K. GDP per capita is always higher.
On last Sunday early afternoon I came across a poor and hardworking mainlander at a remote wavy bay here in the SAR.
When I was exploring a small beach along a rocky shore, I saw a man picking something on the rocks in the shallows. I was curious, so I went closer. It was a man with a typical Southern peasant look. He was skinny with a small build. He turned away and walked into the deeper water as he saw me.
I left my camera on the beach and got on the rocks to approach him. I asked him what he was collecting. He responded by showing me a small rock snail he had just picked.
He then climbed on the rocks to talk to me as the surf was pounding a bit hard. He was wearing a pair of shoes moulded in plastic in the way some slippers are made. This suggested that he definitely came from the mainland waters, illegally of course. His clothes were all but totally wet. Hanging from his waist was a deep nylon net half full of small rock snails. He held the collection up to show me. Round his waist twisted another nylon net.
He carefully put off his hat already soaked with seawater. Between his hair and the hat he had kept a tightly wrapped plastic bag. When it was unwrapped I saw a pack of cigarettes, a lighter and something else. He wanted to treat me to a cigarette, but I told him I don't smoke.
I could barely understand his dialect. When he tried to light a cigarette the lighter failed because his fingers had wetted the flint. If my campsite was not so far away I could have given him my spare lighter, even though I thought I was not supposed to encourage smoking.
I asked him where he came from. He pointed to the open sea and named a place I don't know. I know there are the waters where illegal border crossing by speedboat is convenient.
He told me he could sell the snails for 10 Yuan per kilo. He expected to collect 5 or 6 kilos in that afternoon. A boat would come to fetch him before sunset. I thought there must be several of them picking separately in different locations. I asked if the snails were good for food or fishing bait, but I didn't get what he said for the answer.
On leaving the beach I reminded him that he had to be very careful as the surf could pound really hard on the rocks all of a sudden, and with the head bumping against the rocks one could be badly injured or even pass out. I could only wish him good luck and bringing home safely 10 kilos of pickings or more.
I can imagine that while this poor mainlander was doing his dangerous collecting of snails, many very wealthy ones were arriving at Hong Kong International Airport no more than 10 kilometres to the north, for flights to Paris or Zurich, to do their collecting of the most expensive bags and watches in the world.
Frankly I don't know you are poor, not to mention how poor you are! Quite to the contrary, I always think that you are rich, perhaps not so rich as most Chinese Canadians.
Not having brought a portable computer with you doesn't necessarily mean that poor, does it?
I anticipated that you don't have much difficulty receiving this mail in Tibet, provided you don't go too far away from wherever you can buy something like an authentic American hamburger!
If I go to India once a year for a month or two, then tour round another part of the world during the same year, and visit Tibet still in the very year, without even bothering about fixing the date of return, just like you do, I will surely go bankrupt in no time.
You can meet with really poor people in Tibet if you wish. Simply venture away from the temples and lamas and you will find yourself talking to them, only if you speak Tibetan of course, for these poor nomads living on one of the harshest lands on earth may not have a single word of the Han or English language.
Some 2,500 kilometres southeast of Tibet here are the richest parts of China, yet most of the inhabitants are by no means rich according to global standards.
Hong Kong has a decent GDP per capita as a developed economy, and an ugly Gini Index worse than many developing countries.
A couple of days ago a mother of two suffering from mental illness committed a jumping suicide, which killed also her innocent children, leaving behind her hospitalized husband. Such a tragedy is definitely due at least partly to shortage of social resources allocated to the poor and the helpless.
Hong Kong has roughly only 2.5 psychiatrists for every 100,000 people, compared to 11 in the U.K.
If one needs to see a doctor in a public hospital or clinic, GP or psychiatrist alike, he/she will have no more than a couple of minutes for just answering a few questions the doctor would choose to ask. Consultation in the true sense hardly exists.
A junior doctor practising in a public hospital here in the SAR is paid at least 30% more than his/her counterpart in the U.K., despite the fact that the U.K. GDP per capita is always higher.
On last Sunday early afternoon I came across a poor and hardworking mainlander at a remote wavy bay here in the SAR.
When I was exploring a small beach along a rocky shore, I saw a man picking something on the rocks in the shallows. I was curious, so I went closer. It was a man with a typical Southern peasant look. He was skinny with a small build. He turned away and walked into the deeper water as he saw me.
I left my camera on the beach and got on the rocks to approach him. I asked him what he was collecting. He responded by showing me a small rock snail he had just picked.
He then climbed on the rocks to talk to me as the surf was pounding a bit hard. He was wearing a pair of shoes moulded in plastic in the way some slippers are made. This suggested that he definitely came from the mainland waters, illegally of course. His clothes were all but totally wet. Hanging from his waist was a deep nylon net half full of small rock snails. He held the collection up to show me. Round his waist twisted another nylon net.
He carefully put off his hat already soaked with seawater. Between his hair and the hat he had kept a tightly wrapped plastic bag. When it was unwrapped I saw a pack of cigarettes, a lighter and something else. He wanted to treat me to a cigarette, but I told him I don't smoke.
I could barely understand his dialect. When he tried to light a cigarette the lighter failed because his fingers had wetted the flint. If my campsite was not so far away I could have given him my spare lighter, even though I thought I was not supposed to encourage smoking.
I asked him where he came from. He pointed to the open sea and named a place I don't know. I know there are the waters where illegal border crossing by speedboat is convenient.
He told me he could sell the snails for 10 Yuan per kilo. He expected to collect 5 or 6 kilos in that afternoon. A boat would come to fetch him before sunset. I thought there must be several of them picking separately in different locations. I asked if the snails were good for food or fishing bait, but I didn't get what he said for the answer.
On leaving the beach I reminded him that he had to be very careful as the surf could pound really hard on the rocks all of a sudden, and with the head bumping against the rocks one could be badly injured or even pass out. I could only wish him good luck and bringing home safely 10 kilos of pickings or more.
I can imagine that while this poor mainlander was doing his dangerous collecting of snails, many very wealthy ones were arriving at Hong Kong International Airport no more than 10 kilometres to the north, for flights to Paris or Zurich, to do their collecting of the most expensive bags and watches in the world.
2007/10/09
An email to a friend - on Confusianism to be a religion
Old C.,
When it comes to Confucianism we could talk about it for years on end.
As you find it difficult to "write" your characters into your computer, I decide to use English as a means of chatting as we usually do.
I think a religion must accommodate the followers with at least one mighty god or deity less mighty. Confucianism doesn't fall into such category. Confucius himself even never talked about divine beings (子不語怪力亂神), he might have doubted the existence of such and have no means of disproval and no intention to disprove it, so he might know there was no point in discussing about the same. Confucius must have a very clear and rational mind that a teacher is supposed to always possess.
"論語" has never been something like a gospel. It will never become one in the future. To my humble opinion declaring Confucianism a religion is pointless and is destined to be in vain. Yet even if such application does succeed in being endorsed by the local authorities, it will do no harm to the philosophy itself and most people, except for some of its followers who are a bit too superstitious. These followers, of which some could be highly educated, would burn incense and make contributions in a bribing nature, wishing only to receive blessing from Confucius as if he is a god, so as to excel in examinations to become a "狀元", or something like that!
Perhaps those worshippers of Confucius just want to enjoy the status of a religion as the Hong Kong Taoists do. There are quite a few schools run by the religious Taoists in the SAR. Yet that of the religious Taoism 道教 is a very different story. I don't see the possibility of Confucianism's running a similar course.
The ancient followers of religious Taoism, which might have originated from a wizardry, were smart enough to declare 老子, the founder of philosophical Taoism 道家, as their ultimate ancestral founder and respectfully dubbed him 太上老君. That's why most people confuse 道教 with 道家.
In the long, long course of time the religious Taoists accumulated many 仙 for their everyday worshipping, so they can enjoy a true religion of their own.
Confucius' teachings per se and Confucianism in the broad sense have never initiated such course or process. If some of the worshippers want to do it now they should find their predecessors had already missed their golden era in history. Now they certainly cannot create a god-like being out of Confucius or any of his followers, or any who would claim to be his follower.
Now Confucius is going global fast. Once Confucius has become really famous globally, Confucianism and Confucius himself will be subject to intensive studies, exposed to both eastern and western modern thinking.
When it comes to Confucianism we could talk about it for years on end.
As you find it difficult to "write" your characters into your computer, I decide to use English as a means of chatting as we usually do.
I think a religion must accommodate the followers with at least one mighty god or deity less mighty. Confucianism doesn't fall into such category. Confucius himself even never talked about divine beings (子不語怪力亂神), he might have doubted the existence of such and have no means of disproval and no intention to disprove it, so he might know there was no point in discussing about the same. Confucius must have a very clear and rational mind that a teacher is supposed to always possess.
"論語" has never been something like a gospel. It will never become one in the future. To my humble opinion declaring Confucianism a religion is pointless and is destined to be in vain. Yet even if such application does succeed in being endorsed by the local authorities, it will do no harm to the philosophy itself and most people, except for some of its followers who are a bit too superstitious. These followers, of which some could be highly educated, would burn incense and make contributions in a bribing nature, wishing only to receive blessing from Confucius as if he is a god, so as to excel in examinations to become a "狀元", or something like that!
Perhaps those worshippers of Confucius just want to enjoy the status of a religion as the Hong Kong Taoists do. There are quite a few schools run by the religious Taoists in the SAR. Yet that of the religious Taoism 道教 is a very different story. I don't see the possibility of Confucianism's running a similar course.
The ancient followers of religious Taoism, which might have originated from a wizardry, were smart enough to declare 老子, the founder of philosophical Taoism 道家, as their ultimate ancestral founder and respectfully dubbed him 太上老君. That's why most people confuse 道教 with 道家.
In the long, long course of time the religious Taoists accumulated many 仙 for their everyday worshipping, so they can enjoy a true religion of their own.
Confucius' teachings per se and Confucianism in the broad sense have never initiated such course or process. If some of the worshippers want to do it now they should find their predecessors had already missed their golden era in history. Now they certainly cannot create a god-like being out of Confucius or any of his followers, or any who would claim to be his follower.
Now Confucius is going global fast. Once Confucius has become really famous globally, Confucianism and Confucius himself will be subject to intensive studies, exposed to both eastern and western modern thinking.
An email to the Transport Complaints Unit, HK SAR Govt.
Dear Miss Wong,
Thank you very much for your kind attention and prompt reply.
It's absolutely all right to disclose my identity. Please do.
I actually tried to file this complaint direct on the NWFB's website at the same time. Yet their "postmaster" returned my message 2 days later, notifying that it was a delivery failure.
How could one fail to do so on their very official website?!
The other day I saw a dozen people, young and old, waiting patiently at the terminus for over half an hour, without the least intention to complain, as the scheduled interval is just 15 minutes.
Those could be the nicest people in the world, I must say!
I happened to find the person in charge that day. He just attempted to ignore me first in a very bad manner. As I didn't go away, he then aggressively asked me in retort at what time the bus was supposed to depart, even in a worse manner. I pointed at the schedule and named the exact time, then he was silenced.
The bus company just knows their passengers!
Thank you very much for your kind attention and prompt reply.
It's absolutely all right to disclose my identity. Please do.
I actually tried to file this complaint direct on the NWFB's website at the same time. Yet their "postmaster" returned my message 2 days later, notifying that it was a delivery failure.
How could one fail to do so on their very official website?!
The other day I saw a dozen people, young and old, waiting patiently at the terminus for over half an hour, without the least intention to complain, as the scheduled interval is just 15 minutes.
Those could be the nicest people in the world, I must say!
I happened to find the person in charge that day. He just attempted to ignore me first in a very bad manner. As I didn't go away, he then aggressively asked me in retort at what time the bus was supposed to depart, even in a worse manner. I pointed at the schedule and named the exact time, then he was silenced.
The bus company just knows their passengers!
2007/09/23
AN EMAIL TO A FRIEND - on getting known by many
Hello, CF,
Thank you very much for your praise.
I never tried to submit my manuscripts to magazines or publishing companies, like the famous and rich UK female writer once did, to be part of the litter piled up on the desks of the editors, waiting to be thrown away.
I don't know that magazine you mentioned, or any other magazine of serious literature in Hong Kong.
Even in the Western worlds such as the UK writing people who want their works to turn into books are always much more than the market can support, not to mention this tiny little part of the globe once dubbed "cultural desert".
Many want to be famous, or just to be a writer, or simply an author of a single book. When you get famous, you get other things you want, coming with all those you don't of course.
That famous UK female writer first got printed on an unlikely narrow chance, and then she became famous when the American children discovered her. Her works do not fall into the category of literature that could find very few readers compared to the enormous world of children.
Putting excerpts from my novels on my blog could be a means of getting known by many. If my stuff is readable and good enough for the visitors, I soon will be in any corner of the world where there are Chinese readers, except the mainland which is under strict ideology control of course. Then hitting the printing press with a whole piece of work could become possible.
Getting famous is the last thing I want. I would like my works published anonymously. Yet I am no longer young and time is not on my side.
I have no way to cheer up my entrepreneur spirit for lack of big cash, although I am not starving yet for the time being, as long as I still possess a certain means of surviving that you know!
Now I have created my blog. Other than the chances to get my works to the printing press, my stuff could speak for itself and well back me up in case I need to apply for the post of a humble editor in a decent Chinese magazine. Would you agree?
Thank you very much for your praise.
I never tried to submit my manuscripts to magazines or publishing companies, like the famous and rich UK female writer once did, to be part of the litter piled up on the desks of the editors, waiting to be thrown away.
I don't know that magazine you mentioned, or any other magazine of serious literature in Hong Kong.
Even in the Western worlds such as the UK writing people who want their works to turn into books are always much more than the market can support, not to mention this tiny little part of the globe once dubbed "cultural desert".
Many want to be famous, or just to be a writer, or simply an author of a single book. When you get famous, you get other things you want, coming with all those you don't of course.
That famous UK female writer first got printed on an unlikely narrow chance, and then she became famous when the American children discovered her. Her works do not fall into the category of literature that could find very few readers compared to the enormous world of children.
Putting excerpts from my novels on my blog could be a means of getting known by many. If my stuff is readable and good enough for the visitors, I soon will be in any corner of the world where there are Chinese readers, except the mainland which is under strict ideology control of course. Then hitting the printing press with a whole piece of work could become possible.
Getting famous is the last thing I want. I would like my works published anonymously. Yet I am no longer young and time is not on my side.
I have no way to cheer up my entrepreneur spirit for lack of big cash, although I am not starving yet for the time being, as long as I still possess a certain means of surviving that you know!
Now I have created my blog. Other than the chances to get my works to the printing press, my stuff could speak for itself and well back me up in case I need to apply for the post of a humble editor in a decent Chinese magazine. Would you agree?
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