逝者如斯又一年

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蟋蟀在堂,歲聿其莫。今我不樂,日月其除。
無已大康,職思其居。好樂無荒,良士瞿瞿。

             --《詩.唐風.蟋蟀》

古時一年將盡,便有蜡祭。據《郊特牲》及鄭玄注所言,蜡日共祭八神,大家一歲辛勞過後,此日便假祭神之名來飲酒燕樂,「一國之人皆若狂」(《雜記》所載子貢語)。尚秉和在《歷代社會風俗事物考》中談及慶祝節日的意義時說:「蓋無論士農工商,終歲勤動,無娛樂之時,則精神不活潑,古之人於是假事以為娛樂......古人用意,乃假時節以為娛樂,非娛樂之義在時節也。」古人乘蜡祭之便飲酒狂歡,道理就如現代人慶祝耶誕一樣,醉翁之意,嘻,從來就不在酒。一張一弛,才是文武之道,且莫跟我瞎扯什麼「節日是消費主義的商品」--不消費,難道要我把錢帶進棺材?說到底,年尾狂歡就是一種特價發售的快活,儘管是賣剩的次貨,但畢竟也是快活,討了便宜還是要感感恩才對。

歲晚收爐,無謂喋喋不休,倒不如贈讀者(特別是那幾位患了抑鬱症的朋友)一首歌作結:人有悲歡離合,月有陰晴圓缺,相濡以沫,不如相忘於江湖。



我們相逢 一再相逢
我們失散 失散西東
我們又再聚首 暖在心頭如酒
然後分離 不在左右

各自上路各奔波
投進生活漩渦
夜裡再見 哎也也
原來逝去年月多
  逝去年月多

-《祖與占》「生活的漩渦」(雷競璇博士節譯)


節譯歌詞,原見makuranososhi《相遇又分離,人生不稀奇》

最緊要正字,錯字未必關你事

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這個多禮拜首領放大假,那末抨擊《最緊要正字》此等艱鉅任務便只好由不才來做了。

上星期看了《最緊要正字》,那位歐陽博士云麻雀的麻不應寫作蔴,但我立即生疑,在我印像之中,蔴一向都只是俗字,何以會變成錯字呢?

如:清‧黃六鴻《福惠全書‧保甲部‧防救失火》:「蔴搭一枝,火鉤一杆」蔴搭又通作麻搭,是一種舊時救火器。

另《辭海》:「蔴,麻俗字,今市肆,凡芝麻、麻油等麻字,多作蔴。」

而《彙音寶鑑》收麻蔴二字,《增廣字學舉隅》同樣有收麻蔴二字,可見麻蔴二字相通

而現今的《商務標準漢語字典》亦把蔴作麻的俗字,不知為何中大那位歐陽博士把俗字當成了錯字?

這就好比把屎、呌、鷄字等字當成錯字,一定要用正寫如、叫、雞,那末簡體字很多都由俗字而來,何以中大那幫講師仔又要如此落力在節目中推銷簡體字呢?真令人大惑不解耶。

另外今晚的《最緊要正字》,何博士似乎很喜歡或者一定要人將抨擊讀作烹(paang1)擊,而讀平(ping4)擊好像是錯的(不信大家可找找何博士以前為港台宣傳正音的節目如何說)

何博士舉了說文曰撣也,廣韻為普耕切,似乎這樣切就可讀作烹字無誤,但我們再追問下去,這樣用今音反切,就有點問題了。

其實說文除了撣也,後面還有从手平聲。何博士為何略此不提呢?雖然說文標作普耕切,但讓我們來看看耕韻是否在今粵語中一定讀作an的呢?

耕在今粵戲中屬撐棚韻

撐棚韻中的上平聲字太致可分作以下這幾個韻部分佈:

撑、更、坑 庚韻
耕、罌 耕韻
梗攝
框 陽韻
宕攝

但另有些梗攝字則歸入英明韻,如:

聲 清韻
星 青韻
兵、平 庚韻
梗攝

好啦,看到這裏,似乎抨讀烹還是合理,但我在舉一些耕韻的字便會明白

如:嫇、鸚、櫻、莖、怦、綪、丁、凈、儜、嬣、拼、湞、俓,這些全都是耕韻的字,全部在今粵語中都讀ing收音。

其實依《廣韻》庚耕清可同用

我就以耕韻中的代表字耕考察一下唐詩及宋詩中的押韻情況,首先以唐詩為例:

張九齡《巡屬縣道中作》:
……
矧逢陽節獻,默聽時禽鳴。
跡與素心別,感從幽思盈。
流芳日不待,夙志蹇無成。
知命且何欲,所圖唯退耕。
華簪極身泰,衰鬢慚木榮。
苟得不可遂,吾其謝世嬰。
我只截取後面,可見耕字與鳴、盈、成、榮、嬰同為韻(庚、清、耕互用)

又朱仲晦《答王無功問故園》:
……
竹從去年移,梅是今年榮。
渠水經夏響,石苔終歲青。
院果早晚熟,林花先後明。
語罷相嘆息,浩然起深情。
歸哉且五斗,餉子東皋耕。
榮、青、明、情、耕互相為韻(庚、青、清、耕互用)

李頎《奉送漪叔遊潁川兼謁淮陽太守》:
罷吏今何適,辭家方獨行。
嵩陽入歸夢,潁水半前程。
聞道淮陽守,東南臥理清。
郡齋觀政日,人馬望鄉情。
疊嶺雪初霽,寒砧霜後鳴。
臨川嗟拜手,寂寞事躬耕。
行、程、清、情、鳴、耕

趙冬曦《陪張燕公行郡竹籬》:
良臣乃國寶,麾守去承明。
外戶人無閉,浮江獸已行。
隨來晉盜逸,民化蜀風清。
郛郭從彝典,州閭荷德聲。
小人投天涯,流落巴丘城。
所賴中和作,優游鑿與耕。
明、行、清、聲、城、耕

王維《贈房盧氏琯》:
……
浮人日已歸,但坐事農耕。
桑榆鬱相望,邑里多雞鳴。
秋山一何淨,蒼翠臨寒城。
視事兼偃臥,對書不簪纓。
蕭條人吏疏,鳥雀下空庭。
鄙夫心所尚,晚節異平生。
將從海岳居,守靜解天刑。
或可累安邑,茅茨君試營。
耕、鳴、城、纓、庭、生、刑

李白《獻從叔當塗宰陽冰》:
……
宰邑艱難時,浮雲空古城。
居人若薙草,掃地無纖莖。
惠澤及飛走,農夫盡歸耕。
廣漢水萬里,長流玉琴聲。
雅頌播吳越,還如泰階平。
……
城、莖、耕、聲、平

李白《贈閭丘宿松》:
……
掃地物莽然,秋來百草生。
飛鳥還舊巢,遷人返躬耕。
何慚宓子賤,不減陶淵明。
吾知千載後,卻掩二賢名。
生、耕、明、名

韋應物《山耕叟》:
蕭蕭垂白髮,默默詎知情。
獨放寒林燒,多尋虎跡行。
暮歸何處宿,來此空山耕。
情、行、耕

杜甫《羌村‧三首之三》:
……
苦辭酒味薄,黍地無人耕。
兵革既未息,兒童盡東征。
請為父老歌,艱難愧深情。
歌罷仰天歎,四座淚縱橫。
耕、征、情、橫

杜甫《戲作俳諧體遣悶,二首之二》:
畬田費火聲,亦作畬田費火耕

另宋詩方面:

笵成大《次韻溫伯謀歸》:
官路驅馳易折肱,官曹隨處是愁城。
隨風片葉鄉心動,過雨千峰病眼明。
一臠何須嘗世味,寸田久已廢吾耕。
羨君早作歸歟計,屈指從今幾合并。
城、明、耕、并

陸游《觀村童戲溪上》:
曉從北郭過西城,十里沙堤似席平。
澹日向人供帽影,微風傍馬助鞭聲。
歡情寂寂隨年減,俗事紛紛逐日生。
到處每求佳水竹,晚途牢落念歸耕。
城、平、聲、減、生、耕

陸游《新晴》:
雨斷歸雲急,沙乾步屧輕。
風花嬌作態,野水細無聲。
社酒家家醉,春蕪處處耕。
今朝公事少,一笑賦新晴。
輕、聲、耕、晴

蘇軾《贈葛葦》
竹椽茅屋半摧傾,肯向蜂窠寄此生。
長恐波頭卷室去,欲將船尾載君行。
小詩試擬孟東野,大草閑臨張伯英。
消遣百年須底物,故應憐我不歸耕。
生、行、英、耕

蘇軾《留別蹇道士拱辰》
……
笑指北山雲,訶我不歸耕。
仙人漢陰馬,微服方地行。
咫尺不往見,煩子通姓名。
願持空手去,獨控橫江鯨。
耕、行、名、鯨

黃庭堅《次韻師厚五月十六日視田悼李彥深(彥深去年五月十三日與之遊西郊)》
……
念昔讀書客,遠人遺世情。
南畝道觀餉,西郊留勸耕。
共遊如昨日,笑語絕平生。
此士今已矣,賓延無老成。
猶倚謝安石,深心撫嫠惸。
情、耕、生、成、惸

而另外宋詞庚耕清青蒸登互相為韻,同為平水韻第十一部平聲。

以抨字為例,王子容的《滿庭芳‧壽京尹》:「臺袞籌邊,京師蒙福,兩淮談笑塵清。正銗筩無訟,桴鼓亦稀鳴。閱武分弓角射,催春事、親勸農耕。何須付,尋花問柳,小隊出郊坰。 功名。今已就,九重近天,好去辭榮。算人間極貴,何似長生。刺占梅山日月,觀二妙,玉紋抨。休辭醉,洛陽花信,香到露華亭。」,其中抨字便與耕、清、鳴、坰、名、榮、生、亭等字入韻。

我想唐宋詩詞引這麼多也應該夠了。

另以下是據簡宗悟《唐代賦體雜文研究》一文中對庚、耕、清、青等諸韻的互用的歸納所作的引用:

以盧照鄰《對蜀父老問》為例,內文中的庭字、平字、行字便互相為韻(庚青合用)

《悲人生》的名爭生營行精清明生(庚耕清同用)

《悲才難》的精冥爭明精(青庚耕清合用)

《粵若》的成驚名傾橫輕 (耕庚清同用)

又例如韓愈《進學解》的精明成(庚耕清同用),明行陵 (庚耕蒸同用)

《送窮文》的聽聲嚶頸明 (庚耕清青合用),耕名從靈 (耕青鍾合用)

岑參《招北客文》的砰溟 (耕青合用)

柳宗元《哀溺文并序》的生榮盈氓更 (庚耕清同用)

另外,中大自己本身的粵語審音配詞字庫,似乎都收ping1為正讀,反而將paang1收為異讀。

雖然我在這並不是想說抨擊一定要非讀平擊不可,但我想指出的是也並非一定要讀烹擊,所以希望何博士不要以一本廣韻走天下,強迫所有人一定要跟他的粵語正音。我想大家去借本何博士教人卜卦的書仔比何博士教人正音的書仔的準確度,應該會更高吧?

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ps.不知何解兩篇佳文離奇失蹤了,是新春秋有鬼,還是巧合兩位作者一齊刪了?此可真零六年最後一樁新春秋懸案矣。

Fraud under the skin of education – Associate Degree in Hong Kong

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六成副學士指課程貨不對辦 (2006-12-28 06:05:00)

【明報專訊】每年公開試放榜前後,各大提供副學位課程院校的招生廣告、課程資料鋪天蓋地。不過,有調查指六成受訪的副學位學生指出,部分招生資料名不副實,

入讀後才發覺課程銜接和學歷認受均存在問題。

關注副學位大聯盟在上月至本月中,透過問卷和網上調查,訪問了 1348名聲稱來自逾 10間院校的副學位學生,絕大部分就讀自資副學士課程。 63%的學生認為現時就讀的課程,與報讀前所獲取的資訊存有差距。當中七成人認為升學學位較少,逾一半人認為課程的學歷認受性不足、學生資助較差和就業前 景不明。

教協轟招生章程誤導

聯盟成員之一教協副會長馮偉華批評,部分院校為招徠學生,課程章程內容誤導:「例如籠統地說升讀學位比率有五六成,但卻沒有註明這個比率是包含自資學位、與海外合辦的學位課程。」

他提醒同學在報讀前,應做足資料蒐集,仔細留意章程內運用的字眼,例如可詢問院校該課程去年有多少學生升讀受政府資助的學位課程。

他又指出,現時副學士學生為了負擔每年 4至 5萬元的高昂學費,都會向政府申請借貸,但院校把學費的三分之一交予政府,用以攤還興建校舍的費用,他認為「同學借政府錢,卻替院校供樓」的方法不可取,建議政府豁免大專院校建校貸款,把全數學費用回學生和教學上。

「同學借政府錢替院校供樓」

教統局發言人指,政府已對副學士作出了重大承擔,包括提供免息貸款、透過批地計劃以象徵式地價批撥土地予院校,以及津貼資助教育機構在開辦初期的學術評審費用,並指政府有必要善用公帑,以更好地利用有限的資源。

If my declining memory does not fail me, I remember ages ago, my dearest friend Magliabecchi alias 倉海君, related to me of teenager school leavers with eager hearts to further their studies, feeling discontent with the Associate Degree Progam offered by Lingnam University when after two years’ time, the cruelty of truth eventually became known to these grievous souls that their future prospect was never as promising as pictured, if not promised, by the prospectus. Many of them were unable to get enrolled in the undergraduate programme offered by the same university, despite of the fact that they had already attained the threshold entrance requirement set out by the university. To my surprise, same subject again became 28th December 2006 Mingpao’s story-headline and a statistic revealed that nearly 60% of the students complained that the actual course content has turned out different from what was represented in the prospectus, let alone their qualifications are not widely recognised.

In a situation as such, there is very little these students could do, other than seeking remedies by means of Contract Law. Apart from their limited financial resource to bring a civil action against a government-funded tertiary institution, their cause of action does not take them any further than claiming a small sum of damages. Any 1st year law student, after reading the reported fact, may conjecture there is an action on misrepresentation. A contract may become voidable on the ground of misrepresentation if an offeree (student) to the contract is induced to enter into an agreement with the offeror (teritary institution) on reliance of a representation made by the offeror, which he knows to be untrue or whose genuinity. he cares little about. However the first hurdle that the claimant, students in our situation, has to jump over, is to prove this representation has materially affected him in his decision-making for the application of the associate degree course. According to Anson’s Law of Contract (27th ed) by J.Beatson Q.C., it is said that “the representation need not be the sole or decisive inducement provided it did in fact materially affect the other party’s intention to enter into the agreement.” The action would fail if either the student would make his application anyway or he knows the representation untrue or the said representation does not carry any weight with his decision-making.

The last but also the highest hurdle for the student to overcome, is to show before the court that the present situation is reversible, or the positions of both the offeror and offeree could be restored back to the state as if no contract has ever been made. Any prudent defence advocate would stand up on his hindlegs and raise the defence of restitutio in integrum aloud in court, confronted with such a situation as the above. Unless the trial judge is bold as well as brutal, if not innovative, enough to order a 250lbs heavy-weighted boxer battering with violence the student’s head to a state so that he would entirely forget all the knowledge he has acquired through his associate degree education. But I believe no ordinary man could survive a deadly battery as such. Or perhaps in a more civilised manner, it might be suggested that a brainwashing machine be used to sweep off discriminately the claimant’s knowledge and memory in relation to his associate degree, other than that I do not see how restitution could be achieved, or the contract be rescinded.

The last resort is, of course, suing the teritary institution in question for a simple breach of contract. But in the first place, the claimant has to convince the court that all those alluring words inside the prospectus such as‘a brighter prospect’, ‘universal recognition’, ‘continuation of undergraduate education’ etc are intended to be part of the contract. If there is no meeting of minds or consensus ad idem between the students and the teritary institution, there is hardly any contract terms, let alone breach of contract. And even if those words become part of the contract terms, it is still necessary for the court to distinguish them from condition to warranty. The difference is simply a breach of condition will render the whole contract be rescinded, and a mere breach of warranty only entitles the claimant to receive damages. The test illustrated in Hong Kong Fir Shipping v Kawasaki [1962] 2 QB 26, to the best of my knowledge, is still good law and it is said in the judgment that if the breach is so severe that it would deprive the plaintiff from what he has originally contracted to enjoy, it would be a breach of condition; otherwise it would only be a breach of warranty. In the Hong Kong Fir Shipping case, although the ship hired was defective, it could still be operated by the plaintiff therefore it was ruled by the English Court that the breach was only a breach of warranty. Applying the same principle to our hypothetical situation, the students did in truth receive their education and graduate with an Associate Degree, however worthless it might be, and they would only be awarded with damages at most. If what the teritary institution taught at school was totally different from what had been mentioned in the prospectus, the students might be able to argue that was a breach of condition.

宗教研究與研究宗教

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舒先生盛意拳拳,多番催促我上來寫點東西。實在沒法拖,唯有獻醜,談談本人的「本科」。雖然研究宗教的文章不少,其中更有不少佳作,對於基督教歷史、信仰或者聖經故事都有很好的理解。可是到底這些算不算是「宗教研究」,或者「宗教學」呢?老實說,作為一個宗教研究方法論的研究者,我認為這些還未能算是「宗教研究」,只能算是「研究宗教」。

「宗教研究」和「研究宗教」的最基本分別就是方法上的問題。我們去研究宗教可以用很多不同的方法,比如是神學的、哲學的、心理學的、社會學的,這些也是最普遍的研究宗教的方法。然而這些方法都是把「宗教現象」看成是和「炒賣現象」、「自殺現象」等等是在同一個「世俗」的層次,只是不同的「現象」,那就可以去追問「一個現象包含了甚麼本質令它成為宗教現象」的問題,然後再把「宗教現象」定義為拜神拜物的現象,那就成了。於是,研究宗教的歷史可以用歷史的方法去追源溯本,談及中世紀基督教內權力鬥爭、歷史耶穌存在不存在、舊約哪些東西是抄襲巴比倫神話;社會學家研究宗教現象可以用市場、資本等概念入手。這些方法的特徵就是把「宗教」看成是一個社會現象、文化現象甚麼的去研究,而不是把宗教作為宗教去研究和理解。因此我說,那些都是研究宗教,但不算是「宗教研究」。你都不把宗教當作是宗教去研究,只是把宗教當作甚麼去研究,那當然就是「研究宗教」而已。

那宗教研究應該如何把宗教看成是「宗教」去研究呢?我認為首先就應該去理解到底甚麼才是宗教。宗教真的就只是一種「現象」嗎?如果基督徒去崇拜是一個宗教現象,那拉登的手下劫了飛機去撞世貿算不算是宗教現象?那基督徒帶頭反對同性戀婚姻合法化又是不是宗教現象?那洪秀全的太平天國叛亂又算不算宗教現象?毛澤東的崇拜又算不算是宗教現象?如果這些都算的話,那崇拜金錢、崇拜李嘉誠因而去賺錢的也可算是宗教現象吧?要把宗教當成是一種現象,那就要談上「甚麼是宗教」,然後針對這個定義去成立一套方法去研究。如果基督徒去崇拜只是因為這樣可以發揮一個社會網路的功能,那基督徒去崇拜和上麻雀館找幾個朋友搓麻雀有甚麼分別?

在我看來,宗教不可能是一種現象。它就像是一種成份,滲入社會上不同的現象之中。我不可能否認去崇拜是一個社會現象,然而其中的宗教成份卻不可能被社會功能抹煞。我們不能談完社會功能,就把宗教成份擱起來不談。也許宗教研究還應該相反的,擱起社會功能不談,而去問問那些宗教成份是甚麼,如何主導這個現象。

因此我們就必須問︰這點宗教成份是甚麼來的?此處,我借用由奧托(Rudolf Otto)到伊利亞德(Mircea Eliade)這一脈「宗教現象學」對宗教的理解。宗教之為宗教,在於它有一種神聖性,令人敬畏的感覺。這種「神聖性」在人類面前出現時,人類會忽然察覺自己的渺小、有限。在面對神聖時,人類會理解自己的凡俗,轉而追求和這種神聖的合一。因此,宗教就是一個神聖和凡俗由對立、對話到統一的過程。不少基督教的所謂「見證」也可以反映這個框架,一個人突然發覺自己「罪孽深重」,「看見」神聖在他身上「作工」,進而信教,上教堂。我不是說基督教的神是真或假,那不是我們人類可能理解的東西。我只是要指出「宗教成份」就是這種神聖性。而人類對於這種神聖性作何理解和回應,就構成了世俗的宗教行為。

進一步來說,基督徒去崇拜,或多或少會理解到他們的上主,追求一個「基督徒」的生活。拉登的手下劫機就死,就是他們認為這就是符合神的要求。這種宗教成份會滲入人的生活,原始人被宗教成份滲入得很深,於是他們的行為無論行住坐臥無一不具有宗教的意涵。而有些人沒有那種感覺和經驗,沒有被宗教成份滲入,就似乎沒有宗教行為。所以,宗教研究就不是研究宗教現象或者歷史,而是透過現象或者歷史理解背後的宗教成份和意義。

因此,宗教研究並不是要理解雅各的生平,或者考證雅各是不是有十二個兒子。而是應該進一步去理解舊約對雅各生平的論述具有怎樣的宗教意義,希望向以色列人說甚麼。討論十字軍東征也不是要考慮神聖羅馬帝國和伊斯蘭帝國的關係或者權力鬥爭,而是研究十字軍東征背後有多少的宗教成份,如何影響戰爭,進而對宗教成份在現象中發生的作用作分析。

廁所奇遇記下

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丙戍年 庚子月 十一月初五 丁亥日 每日胎神占方 : 倉庫床外西北 五行 : 屋上土 閉執位 沖蛇(辛已)煞西 彭祖百忌:丁不剃頭頭必生瘡 亥不嫁娶不利新郎 吉神宜趨 : 月德合 王日 宜 : 納采 訂盟 祭祀 沐浴 冠笄 合帳 裁衣 修造 動土 拆卸 移徙 入宅 安門 開倉 築堤 開廁 栽種 納畜 補垣 塞穴 凶神宜忌:遊禍 血支 重日 朱雀 忌:嫁娶 祈福 開光 掘井 安葬 行喪

我經過一條長長的走廊,燈光昏昏暗暗,走廊上滲著慘白的光華,旁邊商店綠色的霓虹燈管閃閃爍爍,拆卸、移徙,行了十七步,向右轉四十五度半,兩吋半的距離,看見那藍色的公仔,我開了門。

戊辰時 沖狗 煞南 時沖戊戍 司命 右弼 鳳輂 宜:作灶 祭祀 祈福 齋醮 酬神 修造 赴任 見貴 求財 出行 嫁娶 進人口 移徙 安葬 出恭。步行了七步,一步、兩步、三步、四步、五步、六步、七步,左轉三十七度,一九八五年的尿兜,拉開一九八七年levis的褲鍊,撒下了一泡一九五零年的尿。

轉身,步行五步半,來到一九九三年的雲石洗手盤前,按下一九七六年的水龍頭,流出二零零八年的水,我洗手。

離開,零點五秒的距離,按下那一八六零年的手抦,開門,三十七小時五十三分四十二秒後,我要你愛上了我己已時 沖豬 煞東 時沖己亥 日破 忌:日時相沖 諸事不宜

西元二零零六年十二月二十四日二十一點十四分那瞬間的冬天,不太冷。

ps. 與舒爾賽合寫

兩個聖嬰

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看來新春秋有不少來自詹明信 (Fredric Jameson) 教會之會友,那就讓我在此聖誕前夕伸延詹明信以靈知術語顛覆基要神學之精神吧。

The Virgin of the Rocks

一如丹布朗所提出,達文西乃籍著《The Virgin of the Rocks》中的兩個聖嬰暗示在早期基督教時施洗約翰與耶穌有著同等超然地位 — 古猶太厄賽派 (Essenes) 之聖者,這一點 Discovery Channel 已在本年五月播放之《 Da Vinci's Lost Code》提及,然而這說法並不如節目所指與《最後晚餐》般暗藏「靈知」符碼。泛靈知派與基督教同樣的視施洗約翰為基督之預備道路者,一貫新約福音書淡化施洗約翰之立場,這一點亦可視為界定基督教並泛靈知派脫離猶太教厄賽派的分野線,在靈知派經典《媲斯諦斯蘇菲亞》中則有施洗約翰為以利亞先知轉世之神秘描述,然而亦未見被視與基督同等。經過十字軍澈底之血洗,新約以外的早期基督教經典已難以幸存到達文西之時代,歸納達文西畫中的符碼,相信達文西手上所參考的經典該是由伊拉克一帶曼底安派 (Mandaean) 引入之《施洗約翰之書》。曼底安派早已在耶穌時代已脫離基督教教系,兩千年來一直無間地流傳著以施洗約翰為主心的原始教導,在《施洗約翰之書》有著大量篇幅描述抹大拉瑪利亞的背景及聖職,相比起已知的靈知派經典就只有《腓力福音》中提及她為耶穌伴侶這麼一句而已。像「靈知奧秘教會」 (Ecclesia Gonsitca Mysteriorum) 就表示了不相信耶穌和抹大拉瑪利亞已婚並有子女之說,可見達文西畫中之符碼與靈知派並非直接掛鉤。

The Two Jesus-Children

上世紀初奧地利人 Rudolf Steiner (靈智學 Anthroposophy 始創人) 以十五世紀米蘭畫家 Ambrogio da Bergognone 作品《The Two Jesus-Children》為基礎提出了另外一種兩個聖嬰說 — 從《馬太福音》和《路加福音》的差異意味著兩個不同的耶穌。Rudolf Steiner 指出兩書之差異如下:

《馬太福音》《路加福音》
所羅門家譜 拿單家譜
王族後裔祭司後裔
42 代77 代
約瑟之父為雅各約瑟之父為希里
雙親住在伯利恆雙親住在拿撒勒
在馬槽出生在約瑟家出生
出生後往埃及逃避希律王出生後平安地回到拿撒勒

兩個不同身份的彌賽亞之說亦可見於 1947 年發現之《死海古卷》,當中之《大馬士革文獻》提及將會有分別為亞倫(祭司)的彌賽亞和以色列(王族)的彌賽亞,兩人同時並存去管轄萬有;在猶太秘學之重典《光輝之書》同樣有分別為「約瑟之子」和「大衛之子」兩個彌賽亞的記載,此說且廣為猶太教所認受,這是因為兩個彌賽亞之說化解了希伯來聖經中彌賽亞之預言間之矛盾 — 受苦彌賽亞與作王彌賽亞不能為同一人。

另一有關兩個聖嬰之流傳為耶穌與使徒多馬為雙生兒之說,在多馬派基督教之經典《多馬福音》《多馬行傳》《抗衡者多馬之書》使徒多馬均自稱為「耶穌之雙生胞兄弟」,此說廣泛流傳於近東敘利亞等地教會,亦可見於當時橫跨東西亞之摩尼教 (Manicheanism) 中。而在《多馬行傳》使徒多馬被復活之基督以三貨幣賣往印度去,在一印度皇族之婚宴中,復活之基督突然現國王前,國王此時竟誤認基督為先前所見的多馬,這一點可見基督與多馬的樣貌該是相像的。因著耶穌為童貞馬利亞聖靈感孕而生之說在羅馬教廷中被視為無誤之真理,這樣又豈能容許有邏輯性衝突的耶穌多馬為雙生兒之說共存呢?

最「靈知」的說法則是靈與肉的兩個耶穌之說,靈與肉的兩個耶穌乃在《馬太福音》3 章耶穌在約但河受施洗約翰所洗之時結合,而屬靈的耶穌則在《馬太福音》 27:46 耶穌在十架上大喊「Eloi,Eloi,為什麼離棄我」之際離開肉身的耶穌,此說之詳述可見於1945年在埃及發現之《拿戈瑪第古本》中的《彼得啟示錄》。從《彼得啟示錄》內容可見,泛靈知派在描寫耶穌釘十架的元素和其意義遠比基督教「救贖觀」的「代贖」複雜得多,這樣帶出了神學界多年來對「耶穌幻形說」(Docetism,耶穌肉體純粹是幻象) 的理解全屬以訛傳訛的字面測義,「靈知派主張耶穌幻形說」也是沒有根據的推敲而已。其節錄及中譯如下:
正當主話畢,
我(彼得)看見祂被那些人綑綁起來。
我說:「主啊,我所見的是什麼呢?
那被他們抓拿的,
和抓緊我的,都是你嗎?
那站在樹上欣然歡笑的又是誰?
手腳被他們綁起的是另一個人嗎?」

救主對我說:「那你看見在樹上欣然歡笑的,
是活著的耶穌;
而手腳被釘貫穿住的是祂的肉身,
是十架之辱的代替品,
那按著祂形像而生來的,
看看他和我吧。」
......
我又看見一位長得很像祂和那在樹上欣然歡笑的祂,
走近我們。
此人被聖靈充滿,
祂就是救主。
......
祂接著說:「你要堅定!
可知你是唯一從啟示中得悉這奧秘的 ......
站在祂附近的是救主,
那首先的在其中,
被他們綑綁又釋放了,
並欣然地站著眺望那些在內訌的施暴者。
祂笑對這些人的無知,
明白他們生來就瞎了眼。
那受苦者必到來,
因那身體只是代替品;
然而他們釋放的卻是我無形的身體。
我是睿智的靈,
並溢滿光芒。
那你看見走近我們的是我們睿智的豐盛之光 (Pleroma)
祂使那無暇之光與我的聖靈結合起來。」

最為有趣的是,不少回教徒很喜愛引用此經文去引證《古蘭經》記載耶穌沒有死在十架(而是被調包了!),更傳言祂被救回就前往印度(這樣就與多馬派之傳說接合...... )

以下找來另外同為兩個耶穌之作品:

The Two Jesus in the Temple
"The Two Jesus in the Temple", St. George, Rhazuns, Grisons

The Two Jesus-Children
"The Two Jesus-Children", Gemaldegalerie Stuttgart


《卜算子二首》

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《卜算子‧試》

寂寞挑燈寒,夜讀無人伴,幾近天明猶未眠,鑒影清輝滿。
聖誕氣祥和,玩樂今宵短,眾友狂歡我獨行,咖啡唇邊暖 。


《卜算子‧感情》

月影了無痕,風起清霜滿。碧海波瀾盪漾時,漣漪華輝拌。
昔日影皆雙,今夕孤影短。冷月淒迷夜夜心,但憶君懷暖。

冬至

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昨晚很多地方交通阻塞,小巴司機粗口連連遂作:

萬乘千車赴一程
港九處處盡媽聲
百姓同奔團圓路
歲歲此刻賀繁榮

春秋廁格

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「昔人謝家即墨侯,朝濡暮染富春秋。今人賞過舒爾賽﹐日疴夜拉爛廁蓋。」(*1)哈哈﹐舒兄從此便決定走脫星路線嗎? 相信自舒兄淫詞一文﹐已趕走了不少看客﹐不過既乃公眾留言之所﹐自然也自由公眾定奪何文該看該捨﹐然而奇怪的是﹐又只有些看不過眼的文章才最反應熱烈﹐人就是如此自相矛盾的動物。不過順帶提醒舒兄去廁所還請小心﹐一有不慎﹐可能淹糞溺尿﹐正式為臭萬年。「晉侯如廁,陷而卒。」《左傳‧成公十年》人的行為實在頗為費解﹐在餐飲業你可聽見些聽所未聽﹐聞所未聞的怪事﹐就如好像聽過些在酒店執房的人說﹐現今的內地人在酒店住﹐污煙瘴氣也不在話下﹐有些人甚至用書檯旁的垃圾桶大便﹐執那些房真係執到要喊咁濟。又在外國聽過一個做過經理的大廚說﹐曾某次於早上見個客走入廁所﹐良久方離去﹐便順道查看一下﹐結果發覺那客人把糞塗滿四週牆壁﹐是報仇還是神經失常就不知了。看了個港大心理系學生對新春秋的評價(*2)﹐雖然是二﹑三百人的其中一個(粗略估計)﹐我抽了他出來因為我覺得他能代表一個普通人的意見﹐也覺無可口非﹐質素參差亦在所難免﹐自己也寫不出驚天動地的萬言書傳世﹐也未能博古通今說文論字﹐要質素如一就不如個個絕筆﹐一個人自彈自唱﹐不過如此做又難免不見比任何個人blog有優勝之處。正所謂有容乃大﹐望的也正是海納百川﹐當中自然工業廢料也滾進來﹐包容和排斥就由中間的系統自動kick in﹐不過自然生態之中﹐鵲巢鳩佔也是常事﹐有些毒藤就是頑強的生命著﹐有些譬如Rhubarb等植物﹐一遇對水土﹐便根深蒂固(講植物﹐蒂不是比柢更貼切?)﹐野火燒不盡﹐春風吹又生。哈﹐舒兄當街疴屎﹐我實在沒此膽量﹐對其中深義也不作評﹐我此文頂多也只能算隨褲放屁﹐多此一舉﹐無中生有﹐就當湊湊熱鬧。

*1:"即墨侯"亦墨硯也。
*2:其人自稱兔子﹐我想他原來的概念是來自PS2的一隻game: Whiplash﹐又或是一套Donny Darko 既戲﹐不過在中國文化中﹐兔子是指同性戀者﹐在此寫寫﹐不知也許為他原來文意﹐對他所寫也不作評﹐一切也由這位人兄自行定奪何當安身。

廁所奇遇記

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進入那間黑暗的洗手間,微弱的光搖擺,蒼蠅不停止旋。

看起來沒人,我突然看見了9M,跟他你好說了,他告訴我:「陳水扁之所以連任,據乃木板太郎所著醫龍的霧島軍司言:『就因是凡人,所以能得到大多數凡人的支持,最終令精英階級落敗,嬴出大選。』」

看見我不反應,他接著說:「夏目漱石的吾輩是貓中老貓有言:『世人褒貶,因時因地而不同,像我的眼珠一樣變化多端。我的眼珠不過忽大忽小,而人間的評說卻在顛倒黑白,顛倒黑白也無妨,因為事物本來就有兩面和兩頭。只要抓住兩頭,對同一事物翻手為雲,覆手為雨,這是人類通權達變的拿手好戲。』他抨擊社會,也見地非凡:『……說不定整個社會便是瘋人的群體。瘋人們聚在一起,互相殘殺,互相爭吵,互相叫罵,互相角逐。莫非所謂社會,便是全體瘋子的集合體,像細胞之於生物一樣沉沉浮浮、浮浮沉沉地過活下去?說不定其中有些人略辨是非,通情達理,反而成為障礙,才創造了瘋人院,把那些人送了進去,不叫他們再見天日。如此說來,被幽禁在瘋人院裡的才是正常人,而留在瘋人院牆外的倒是些瘋子了。說不定當瘋人孤立時,到處都把他們看成瘋子;但是,當他們成為一個群體,有了力量之後,便成為健全的人了。大瘋子濫用金錢與權勢,役使眾多的小瘋子,逞其淫威,還要被誇為傑出的人物,這種事是不鮮其例的,真是把人搞糊塗了。』」

我對他支吾了一句 :「這事不好說,不好說。」

我沒有理會他,經過第一道門,第二門、第三門、第四門,然後站立在第五個門前面

推門,和進來

脫光了褲子,然後拉屎

我發現拉屎是一件非常樂趣事,那就是當你的大糞落入水中,在馬桶的水飛濺可能輕微然後飛濺您的屁股,那種感覺,在炎熱夏季,它令我無法表達涼快,而且有達到巨大成就宜人的感覺。當糞便落入水中,攤開許多斷斷續續的漣漪,像美國轟炸伊拉克。屎和水飛濺激起聲音,並且聲音聽起來節奏性,使得這個寧靜的衛生間,頻譜起著調子美妙音樂運動,你自然人神往陶醉在這首歌的境況。

我比較更多喜歡便秘的感覺,反而快速地不喜歡胃流程的感覺(有腹瀉),由於胃流程的步幅快速地是迅速來,和並且去太快速,其中,感覺比便秘慢慢榨取,更難獲得的感覺,那麼更多想要獲得,人那麼是這。當所有的東西都釋放出來,可以放心,如果每天傾倒的包袱在地上。身體似乎是輕的幾磅,很輕鬆自在。

當我出神,我突然看見某人寫了一首詩在門,非常有意思,詩寫道:「清風吹屁股,大月照膀胱」下二個句子是:「板斜尿流急,坑深矢落遲」,非常詩意十分。

我左邊好像有兩個人談論,在這熱的天氣裡,他們似乎非常對什麼感興趣是熱,他們的當中一個,說:「我聽見了對最短的解釋是:『《說文解字》:“溫也。从火埶聲。如列切”』」

此外,另一個接著說:「我聽到的最長的解釋是:『黑格爾說:“熱是物質在它的無形性及其液化性之中的自我復完;是其抽象的同質性對分殊的特定性之一種勝利;它底作為否定之否定的抽象的純粹自存的連續性在此從事活動。”」

我對此表示既不贊成或反對,因為我不知道這。

突然,我的耳朵附近匿名說:「您的文章不知道所謂和缺乏地不知道什麼你自己曾說。」

我使怔住不動,仔細觀看,沒有任何人,然後回答隨便說:「好說好說」

最後,終於抹了屎大糞,我記得兩徐志摩的詩句:「我揮一揮衣袖,不帶走一片雲彩。」

離開,途經第四扇門,第三門、二門

看到,的士夠格:「我看見左格 有兩個黃伯 四隻腳粗壯雪白 靜默沒對白 雙手正緊握 這次看真無打格
wa ha ha ha ha ha ha wo ho disco dancing wa ha ha ha ha ha ha 最怕你打我主意
wa ha ha ha ha ha ha wo ho disco dancing wa ha ha ha ha ha ha 慾望在對視 你到了(我去錯)公眾舞池」

然後,大便嘩啦嘩啦地擠出大海……

早晨的天籟

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我打從莊士敦道走過

汕頭街上聽不見汕頭話
廈門街上看不到廈門人
我聽著皇后大道東

我打從莊士敦道走過

太源街上
X店賣的包子
市建局貼的牌子
我聽著紅旗下的蛋

我打從莊士敦道走過

拐入春園街
踱       踱
 踱    
      踱  

      我    踱
           
          踱

 踱 踱

  踱

踱        踱
           踱

早晨的天籟
八時十五分

香港的悲哀

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今晨看過免費紙標題,說政府干預團體,使他們不能買到鐘樓的外殼碎片。然後政府更籲抗議人士勿有遐想,不要妄想能買到,因為已經一早送去堆填區云云。房屋及規劃地政局常任秘書長劉吳惠蘭更答得妙,其言到:「事實好,殘酷o既都好啦,我o既理解就係,嗰個拆咗o既鐘樓,已經送左咗去堆填區,亦都可能已經同啲建築廢料混埋一齊,根本還完唔到o架啦,希望唔好有任何遐想,再去討論可唔可以攞返去重整。」(此段引自am730),似乎政府擺明一副「吹咩」的姿態,拆就拆果然強政勵治,還要漏夜拆,再急急運去堆填區,要你連屍骸也找不到,真未見過政府的效率如此出奇地快。

其實我原本思疑政府這麼趕要拆天星碼頭,背後有一大陰謀也。其實這個陰謀論也不是沒有人提過,不過我卻覺得其可信度頗高。我覺得政府清拆天星碼頭只是其中一樣,它最終的目的是要清洗我們殖民地事代的記憶,今日一個天星,可能他日便是大會堂,皇后像廣場。

試想想,當年鄧小平保證五十年不變,我勸你最好不要信,當然毛澤東也不是說要大鳴大放嗎?最後還不是一個陽謀?回歸後甚麼都變,港督府即時要易名為禮賓府,甚至連學制也要與大陸看齊。雖說三三四與外國普遍的學制接軌,但還不是數學被列為core subject,這不是與大陸的高中一樣嗎?可能有朝一日坐滿賓賓的皇后像廣場,維多利亞皇后換了毛主席,然後一眾賓賓圍著毛像彈吉他,唱唱歌,更可能遲下連皇后大道,彌敦道,羅便臣道,文咸街,英皇道,砵甸乍街,這些全都可能要改作人民南路,解放北路,革命東路之類的街道名。

所以老共講的不要信,特區政府講的更要不信,政府口口聲聲說沒有人反對清拆,連何志平這壽頭也站出來話沒有人反對清拆,然則在鐘樓下那班抗議的人難道不稱作人?又另外網上又有人舉出例證說當年政府口口聲聲說是搬遷而非清拆,現在卻變成了搬遷又清拆,政府的信用由此可見一班。

不過最好笑的便是網上有傳言說政府拆天星碼頭是破了匯豐銀行的金磚不倒風水局,不過這個說笑還可以,千萬不要當真,因為我們只要一看,香港的風水龍脈並非在花園道,而且甚麼下的水勢更非直瀉匯豐。如果真的要這樣說,那末,香港近幾年不停的填海,拉直了海岸線也可以說是破壞了香港的命脈矣。(難怪香港這幾年的運勢這麼差囉)

講起教育改革,今晨搭車看見現代還是英皇教育賣廣告,最後一句口號是考試之必需品。似乎中國人對考試真的近乎著迷,自唐科舉以來都有成千幾年歷史(雖然中國歷史教科書常教科舉始于隋代,但更確切的講法是始于唐),不過我倒有個疑問,如果三三四後,現在香港的補習社會否面臨轉型的壓力呢?雖然將來依然有公開考試,但亦有主要的部份以校內的校本評核(SBA)為主,互相之間作一水平參照(standard reference),所以報習社也許要隨著教改而轉型了。不過補習社只是不斷強迫學生吸收大量資訊,而不給學生思考和分析的機會。 但似乎據布魯納的「發現學習法」(Discovery method)中有六大要素,其中一點很重要,便是要教師以學生為主體,鼓勵學生用個人智慧去思考及分析問題,當然這可能只是老生常談,但這正正是現在考試制度下搞到學生只懂盲目地接受,生吞活剝,不加消化,也造就補習社行業的興旺,難怪連補習天王都話:「這是香港教育制度的問題,即使一個學生知識豐富,但考試失敗就注定一生失敗。」

我認同的歷史感(轉載文章兩篇)

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《保護歷史文化不是一時的抗爭》,chungpui

關於天星,本來有很多話想說,但還是這一句,現在畢業論文要緊,滿腹牢騷還是先乖乖把論文完成。

但有一些事,我還是不吐不快,也很希望有心人替我宣傳一下。

保護香港的歷史文化,抗議和絕食好比垂危病人彌留之際給他做電擊。而病人生病的主因不是政府亂拆,而是香港普羅大眾平日壓根兒不重視香港歷史,也不關心文物保育,頂多只有這裏的一些人嗟歎,那邊又有一些人呻吟一下。然後,該上班的上班,該玩樂的玩樂。

天星一役,把那些嗟歎的聲音聚集了一起,終於扭結成一股民間力量。但我們是否只看到這裏要拆、那裏要拆?還是我們看到背後更深層的問題,即香港的歷史一直被忽略和埋沒?我們能否把天星的激動轉化成長遠的、積極的力量,使香港的文化和歷史不會在瀕危一刻才受關注,而是能在平日健康成長,生根發芽?

香港的一百六十多年歷史,是一個大寶藏。但太多的人事傳奇,連香港人都不知道。你說可笑嗎?我說是可恥。

香港六七十年代曾有一本《香港史地研究》的期刊,但出不到幾期就完蛋了。

香港有一個「香港歷史學會」,但其實只是香港中學歷史科老師的組織,和香港歷史毫無關係。

研究香港史最積極的本地團體是皇家亞洲學會香港分會,但這個會幾乎只以英語為溝通語言,與廣大香港市民絕緣。

香港史的著作,英文遠多於中文,廣大市民之間又有幾個會特地走到swindon買香港歷史的書?

上列最後兩項事實還反映了,在香港佔絕對少數的英語社群竟然比香港主流社會更關注香港歷史。

由此,我作出以下倡議,呼籲有心人思考以下行動的可能性:

一. 成立一個香港歷史文化的專門網站及論壇,形式可參考著名的「香港地方」(見:http://www.hk-place.com ),讓更多人認識和討論香港的史地文化。

二. 創辦一本香港歷史文化研究的中文專門雜誌,形式可參考為澳門歷史研究立下汗馬功的《文化雜誌》(見:http://www.icm.gov.mo/rc/PreindexC.asp )雜誌也許可以由香港歷史博物館或相關機構主導出版,目的是提供一個發表香港史地文化研究成果的平台。

三. 成立民間研究香港史地文化的興趣組織,以中文為主要語言,形式可參考皇家亞洲學會香港分會(見:http://www.royalasiaticsociety.org.hk/ ),負責組織香港史地文化的公眾教育活動。

四. 鼓勵香港的大學/大專成立專門的香港史地文化研究中心,培養香港史地文化研究的專門人材。其中以中大、浸大、珠海較有可能。

很對不起,我人在北京,很多香港著名的討論區或網站都上不了。如果有人認同上述倡議的話,還望能代為轉傳,先謝了。本文作者放棄本文版權,歡迎隨便轉載。

(以下是Y.T.的評論)


Some Preliminary Reflections,Y.T

The author of this article offered some very good reflections and suggestions, on a subject, which has drawn almost all the attention on this Forum of late. The subject is of particular interest to this place; and eager souls, or activists, have offered no less readily their version of things to the reader. I said their version, because we do not hear, for instance, how those policemen involved in the clearing of the protest viewed the incident, even though their voices, being not reported on the major newspapers either, should no less be deemed rarely heard of.

A number of propositions recur in most of the comments, propositions which many commentators would readily take for given; I mean: that HK people want a sense of history; that the preservation of cultural artifacts is the hallmark of a modern metropolitan; that the want of historical sense is a product of colonial rule and education; that the recent Star Ferry Incident reveals perfectly the want of de-colonialization in this place; etc.

Such recounting of the incident, as well here as in the major essays on the Mingpao Forum Page, fits it readily into a colonial/post-colonial discourse. But how much such a discourse helps illuminate the incident, except that it might echo readily the sort of language which many readers here are used to speaking, I cannot quite tell. Let me start my reflections with a few questions.

HK, this little city, had experienced no less upheaval in the first two-thirds of the twentieth century, than any other part of the world, with people coming and going, settling and enterprising, making revolutions and making money, broadcasting traditional Chinese tales and importing Beatles and suchlike; they who had suffered so much in the wars of 1937-1945, or the political movements and purges early under the People's Republic, had come to HK with a sense of history, I dare say, no less strong, if not indeed stronger, than most of them involved in the Star Ferry incident of late; and they who had grown up in this little city, who had, from their childhood forth, listened to Tian Kong Xiao Shuo and watched the various kinds of TV programs, much reflective of local life and culture (but connected in most cases with the historical experience of the Southern China cultural sphere), had likewise a strong sense of history, a sense which did not express itself on textbooks, but in the way these souls related their experience to the past, to little things in the collective memory.

When I look back to the 30s, or 40s, or 50s and 60s, I do not find a widespread want of historical sense; but, quite the contrary, a strong sense of continuity, both spatial (connected with the Mainland) and temporal (connected with events in the past). Tradition was alive and well; artistic creation flourishing; and cultural evolution not viewed as antagonistic to social development, even if that development entailed demolitions. People were deeply historical; but their sense of history was not concentrated on one or two artifacts; nor did they protest so much against the demolition of this or that (partly, you might say, because they were under colonial rule; but more significantly they, finding their tradition alive and well, were not afraid to see one old building replaced by a new one, continuity being not thereby destroyed). When a tradition is living, demolition and innovation are rarely deemed a threat to it.

If what I pointed to is partly right, then, reader, I would you reflect, whether a strong sense of history must needs lead to a strong urge to preserve tangible things. If what is to be preserved, respected, or even revived, is a set of memories accompanying a way of living, a set of images and values, allusions and judgments, the sustaining of which being at the heart of any talk of cultural continuity; if this be so, then why, I would wonder, are we today no less ready to mark this or that old-fashioned, trying to distance ourselves therefrom, if not even to ridicule it tacitly, while, in another place, finding ourselves so enthusiastically embracing an old (indeed, one might say, old-fashioned) artifact?

Words fail to express my deep nostalgia for an era, when even a newsreporter for sports news (he having recently published a book entitled "The Ball is Round") would endeavor to pronounce every word as correctly as he could, imposing on himself a standard, which today not very many students would. I have mentioned Tian Kong Xiao Shuo; who today would look back to that wonderful achievement, to that wonderful era of cultural prosperity, with the express aim of emulating it? If culture it is, that we want to preserve, then culture, we should say, is not just touristically a collection of artifacts, to be kept, catalogued, and made an object of study. One can preserve all the artifacts, while, knowingly or not, killing the very soul of a culture; and the soul is always the most intangible (and fragile) part.

Many commentators have an inexplicable desire to take colonial rule as the root cause of all evils observable today, including, as their prime example, the want of a sense of history in this little city. Yet, if they permit the phrase "sense of history" to cover more than the sheer desire to preserve artifacts, these commentators, I am quite sure, would easily detect what they said wanting in the many generations who had dwelled here, up until, perhaps, the 80s.

On the whole, I gather that users of the phrase "sense of history" have looked too particularly at one quarter of life, at one set of things, and, so looking, appealed too quickly to a well-developed discourse (colonial/post-colonial), which happens to be a very fashionable set of labels today among cultural studies people. If we may confidently say, that there must be such British civil servants, as would give not a single thought to preserving cultural artifacts, we probably should be somewhat more meticulous, before saying straightway, that the seeming unwillingness of HK AOs to do the same must be the fruit of colonial indoctrination.

These are preliminary reflections, unworthy yet of an independent essay; though, still, I should like to register them here, perhaps trying them out on a few interested souls.

執首領口水尾

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看了倉海君一文,等我又來個執人口水尾,雖然我沒看那集最緊要正字,但根據倉海君首領的講法,執牛耳當然不是「古人會盟時,由主盟者執牛耳」。我舉多幾個例證如下:
清阮元‧十三經注絮‧左傳哀公十七年‧疏:「是盟小國執牛耳。尸猶主也。小國主盟,故使執牛耳也。」又「執牛耳是小國尸盟者也。若以歃血,則大國在先」,另有定公八年:「為盟主,不知盟禮,當令小國執牛耳△(阮挍:「當今小國執牛耳」,宋本、監本、毛本「今」作「令」,是也。),而自使其臣執之」。另外根據《三國志集解》引沈欽韓等人的說法,古代執牛耳者不一定是實力最強大的盟主,而有可能是小國的大夫「尸盟」。
除了倉海君所舉之《春秋左傳正義》、楊伯峻《春秋左傳注》、吳靜安《春秋左氏傳舊注疏證續》等。另據日人竹添光泓之《左傳會箋》中定公八年箋曰:「司割耳取血之事,是卑者之職。故凡諸侯盟,必使小國執牛耳而大國涖之……襄二十七年、哀十七年,皆是以小國執牛耳,後人不察,猶以執牛耳為主盟之稱,誤也。盟法詳隱元年」竹添光泓為清末時人,但同為清末時的黃以周的《儆季雜著》禮三‧執牛耳中卻言:「尸盟執牛耳,盟主之事也,小國不與事。」,不知黃以周語出何故?
我認為尸盟應通司盟,蓋倉海君引杜注曰尸為:「主辦具」,而據周禮‧秋官‧司寇曰司盟為:「司盟掌盟載之法,凡邦國有疑會同,則掌其盟約之載,及其禮儀。」,其司職頗類近,而據辭海的解釋:「司盟者即尸盟者」。而司盟在周禮中附屬于司寇下,其級別為下士,而司寇則在大多諸侯國中均設有此職,為司空、司馬及司徒之下,為卿或士大夫,由此亦可證尸盟原本並非甚麼的盟主。又春秋時楚國有莫敖一職,有總領政事、軍事,有率兵出征,主持會盟等大權,不過自莊公四年後便不常設,可見尸盟(執牛耳)不一定由盟主所做。
然後人可能由于混淆了,以為執牛耳為盟主之事,及後引伸為在某方面居領導地位。
如:
明‧黃宗羲《姜山啟彭山詩稿序》:「太倉(張溥)之執牛耳,海內無不受其牢籠。」
明‧張煌言《複盧牧舟司馬若騰書》:「倘老祖台肯執耳齊盟,則元老臨戎,軍聲克振。」
清‧陳田《明詩紀事戊籤‧楊慎》:「前後七子執盟騷壇,海內附和,翕翕成風。」
清‧孔尚任‧桃花扇‧第四齣:「論文采,天仙吏,謫人間。好教執牛耳,主騷壇。」
因此執牛耳解作在某方面有領導地位只可以算是一種約定俗成的用法。當然我們也無需刻意去糾正,但也希望有關單位多用點心機查書。
而有錯當然要認,蓋之前我的一篇正字的話語霸權,言查遍《粵中見聞》、《粵會賦》、《南越筆記》、《廣東新語》、甚至《廣州府志》、《番禺縣志》,《南海縣志》又或者詹憲慈的《廣州語本字》都查不出騎呢怪為奇離怪(或作虫另)的出處,怎不知早前上網無聊click click下,發覺孔仲南的《廣東俗語考‧釋形體》的腰下有一註云:「……乖拐一聲之轉。青蛙曰騎籬。以腰長也。」不知中大是否典出于此?然我知白宛如的廣州方言詞典中亦有收騎呢一詞,不過查過公共圖書館並沒有此書可借,然中大卻有,可惜本人並非甚麼大學生,只能暫表存疑了。不過此解與倉海君之佝僂亦相通,蓋都為腰長而駝背之形為醜。雖然在此仍有疑問,因為上古或中古虞韻或侯韻之詞在今粵語中與騎呢二字並不接近,不過我又想不出更接近之字。不過另一可證的便是如茄字上古中古皆為麻韻,a字韻尾,在今粵劇中屬爹爺韻,工尺譜中為合,下平聲,如蛇斜邪爺耶茄騎等字,而此堆字在上古及中古均多屬歌或麻部(只有騎字例外),而歌、麻、侯等,依高本漢的上古擬音,其韻尾都為a,則二者有否旁轉,叶韻之可能?還請高明指證之。
不過近來首領罵得最緊要正字多,豬耳菜確有益於首領,蓋豬耳菜有兩種講法(或可能還有其他說法,本人不得而知),如鴨舌草,《江蘇藥材志》載又名香頭草、豬耳菜、鴨嘴菜、馬皮瓜,味苦、性涼。又另外車前子,葉子像豬耳朵,所以又叫它大耳菜或豬耳菜,味甘,性微寒。吃返幾株豬耳菜,可下火也。

題選堂先生詩後

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逃愁乃誦選翁詩 ,宛聽鈞天奏咸池
萬古中流自在意 ,江湖寥闊立多時

首領不執牛耳

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今集《最緊要正字》提前了一天播放,反正我已差不多變了「視評人」,索性一不做二不休吧。(事實上,我雖然有好幾個有趣題目可以寫,但現在我的時間只容許我匆匆寫下這篇視評,希望聖誕節可以把其餘腹稿寫出來吧)

(牛耳麵)

本集只是教大家讀一些歷史人物的名字和解釋幾個成語,既不講什麼妖音,又不碰口語本字那些高難度問題,所以內容尚算正路,希望他們不要再胡來就好了。但節目中黃念欣博士提及「執牛耳」時,雖引了《左傳.哀公十七年》的杜預注:「執牛耳,尸盟者」,但卻說:「古人會盟時,由主盟者執牛耳,所以後來便用『執牛耳』指某範疇中居領導地位的人」(大意如此),似乎沒弄清杜注的意思。坦白說,今天我已對這節目不抱期望,當然不會苛責他們犯上這個連孫詒讓,甚至春秋時代人自己也會犯上的錯誤。


據盟禮,牛耳根本不是由盟主(即主盟者、領袖)執的。這古禮一向都受到誤解,後來便積非成是,把「執牛耳」解作「居領導地位」了。節目當然不必「糾正」這種約定俗成的誤用,但基於求真的學術態度,多花五六秒解釋一下也是責任吧?要搞清楚杜預的注(「執牛耳,尸盟者」),有兩個方向:

一.以杜注解杜注,當然,前提是你要知道杜預在其他地方說過什麼,這不能單靠辭典。
1.《左傳.襄公二十七年》:「非歸其尸盟也」(杜預注:「尸,主也。」);「且諸侯盟,小國固必有者」。(杜預注:「小國主辦具。」)

2.《左傳.定公八年》:「衞人請執牛耳」(杜預注:「盟禮:尊者涖牛耳,主次盟者。」留意,「涖」是「臨視」,不是「執」。)

可見杜預所謂「尸盟」,指負責準備好盟具(是「主辦具」,不是「主盟」),例如執牛耳等;這不是盟主(尊者)做的,而是由小國辦的,所以把「尸盟者」當作盟主或領袖,就好比把「管理員」看成「管理階層」一樣,都是美麗的誤會。

二.讀不明白杜注,何不查一查孔穎達《正義》?《左傳.定公八年.正義》說得最清楚:
盟用牛耳,卑者執之,尊者涖之。

孔疏這句話不是信口開河,而是把《左傳》上述幾個年份的內容比較、綜合而得到的結論,我這兒不詳細論證了。有興趣的讀者,可自己根據以上年份,翻查《春秋左傳正義》、楊伯峻《春秋左傳注》、吳靜安《春秋左氏傳舊注疏證續》等。

總結一句,古人會盟,按盟禮該由小國執牛耳,但可能是杜注說得不夠明白,後人便把執牛耳的尸盟者當成盟主,再引申為領袖,所以按照「正字」的嚴格標準,即使我們可繼續約定俗成地把執牛耳解作領袖,也應該正確認識它的歷史淵源,對嗎?

說了一晚牛耳,太悶了,還是吃吃豬耳菜更痛快。

拯救任盈盈?

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首領倉生:

請問小標題"拯救任盈盈"有何含意?

病榻消寒雜記

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舊同事離職 ,我要接管其職務, 由於一直不是我跟進, 起初當然有不少阻滯。我亦奇怪為何沒有適當的支援。最莫名其妙是,有日上級召我訓話 , 心想為何如此, 一定有人篤背炙。佛書有一中箭之喻 ,說愚人中箭 ,去見庸醫, 庸醫不但不拔箭敷藥 ,反而詳問射者為誰 ,箭有多長等廢話 。結果人當然死掉了。那麼究竟我得罪了誰, 是誰放我暗箭 ,我亦不想深究 ,但誰最有機我心知肚明 。返工已經勞累 ,再要我日日用懷疑眼光打量同事加重心理負擔 ,真是比庸醫更笨 ,我玩不起這個游戲 。結果我只是據理力爭, 而且許下改進的承諾 。當然 ,經一塹長一智 ,害人之心不可有 ,防人之心不可無, 零設防是萬萬不能的 ,在人心千面的大世界中, 我們其實沒有很多資本 ,去回復古人結刎頸之交玉帛相見的遺風了, 所以帶眼觀人很重要 。但最重要是懂得反省 ,少說話多辦事, 加上一點機智 ,那就自然穩坐釣魚船了。此是「微波偶搖人, 小立待其定」也。 如是者一陣 ,我抖擻精神 ,加快進度 ,不過, 環境好像沒有配合我,做做做做做 ,別人還是當透明 ,我沒有得到預期的肯定與回報 。是失望, 但程度又未至於打沉我。化冷為熱, 用那句說話作鞭策才是最最實際的。 如何應付 ? 抵死啜核的廣州話有兩個字 : 吹咩?

很想喫火鍋, 中式西式日式, 甜的咸的皆可。 現在淡水魚恢復進港 ,希望可以喫到脆肉鯇魚啊 。想想新春秋也很像一鍋大雜燴 ,有激辛的 ,也有勁咸的 ,味道而且不賴。

冬夜無俚, 取馮定遠鈍吟集一讀 。覺得裡面格調甚"俗麗 ",不知趙秋谷何解推尊得那麼厲害。

贈舒兄玉照三幅

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本來只想開個玩笑﹐點知看多兩眼﹐真係好異常惡心﹐明天還是該delete的﹐否則真係想唔趕客都唔得。

12/17 2:20am: 對於想看的人﹐抱歉﹐還是delete了﹐因為每次經過也覺異常惡心﹐要看的在google打入ugly woman便有一大堆同類相片。也不是為了各人﹐還是為了自己不要再虐待自己的眼精。

鷓鴣天-趕客淫詞

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今日行街見奶溝,唔知條女要幾兜?
當佢擰轉令人嘔,唯有匆匆嘆戇鳩。
搓袋袋,勃龜頭,閒來無事玩賓周,
呀嬌下面當真窄,一插丫丫水猛流。





無聊寫于公司。

千千闋歌------參加好友畢業典禮有感

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這闋歌詞已是7年前的舊作了!當年好友大學畢業,我卻仍在一所院校修業。當時還沒有部落格這玩意兒,只在email與好友分享。很多朋友對「當某天我於街中吃」的歌詞為之爆笑,有人說那很「寫實」也很傳神,因為他喜歡吃。其實那想表達一個人很落魄,雖然也很無厘頭。「表妹」除了實指,也代表當時一套叫表妹吉祥的劇集。近日不少朋友結婚甚至產子,明年又不少親友學士甚至碩士畢業,我卻還未有寸進。本曲調寄千千闋歌,送給大家:

前程無限 人盡笑聲聲燦爛
 窮途原是我 又再於Festival Walk獨行
緣何垂淚 仍獨個Food Court中吃飯
 何時能共唱 復寄心聲於歌內彈
當某天我於街中吃
 想起他朝歡聚在老蘭
那個看透我夢想是平淡
 時局認真 真正艱 紛擾我千串夢幻
惟願你真心的臂彎 伴我走過患難
 奔波中心灰意淡 望著表妹哭笑再一番
一天想 想到歸去但已晏

新不如舊

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前陣子不少市民都到將要關閉的中環天星碼頭拍照留念,鐘樓前也整天都擠滿了人,晚上下班途經時,更見碼頭被閃光燈的鎂光點綴得猶如白晝,差點還以為有明星在拍攝外景。現在人們對鐘樓的熱情已好像被放進冰箱的水般冷卻下來,每天下班總往從前熙來攘往的碼頭望一望,不太習慣現在它那冰冷凄清的面貌。我並不是對那座由比利時送贈的鐘樓特別緬懷,只是不能適應越來越陌生的香港,小時常到的地方已消失殆盡:荔園遊樂場,Peter Pan玩具店已被時間淹滅;兒時在電視機上看到一張張熟識的面孔,張國榮、黃霑、羅文……亦已赴黃泉。

不知打從什麼時候,我已改變了晚上看電視劇集的習慣,總覺得現在的劇集沒有八九十年代的那般吸引,所以每當辦公室裏其他同僚如火如荼地談論晚上黃金時段劇集如何精彩時,我總答不上嘴。有時不禁會質疑自己是否已與時代脫了節,甚至會希望時鐘上的長短針會自動的向後轉動,返回十五六年前,因為我總不能擺脫「今不如昔」的偏見。新的電視劇集我看不慣,即使是一些名字較陌生的新進作家的書,我也看不上眼。中文科幻小說,我仍只愛看倪匡、張系國,文藝小說我獨愛張愛玲(曾經也愛林燕妮)、白先勇,武俠小說更加只會不停地重覆翻看金庸、古龍的作品。

現代流行什麼跨媒體,衍生了一個叫陶傑的名字,說句老實話,我對此人沒半點好感,但亦不妨利用他來印證我「新不如舊」的主題。他的文字刻薄有餘,卻沒有錢鍾書那份機智和博雅;至於說到「香江第一才子」,不是已經有位「業精六藝,才備九能」的饒宗頤嗎?當然,陶傑跟學者是一字扯不上關係的,他最擅長的,只是不停地謾罵揶揄,自恃曾放洋留學,滿嘴刻薄地「以夷非華」而已。費滋傑羅(Fitzgerald)亦非議二三十年代美國社會扭曲的價值觀,卻不曾誹謗美國的文化;而E.M.Forster在其小說Howard's End,甚至以同性戀為題材的Maurice中諷剌的,正是英國人那份因自傲而變得自欺的人性及洋溢在中上階層那股叫人討厭的階級觀念。所以我真不明白英國人有什麼地方(除了司法制度外)值得陶君那麼趨之若鶩?時至今日,居住在諾曼第以北那孤島上的居民,仍給我一種沉溺於昔日光輝的感覺:當我在倫敦塔遊覽,聽到Edward Elgar的 Pomp & Circumstance March No. 1那歌頌勝利的樂章奏起時,感到的只是英國人對日不落帝國最後餘暉的悲涼眷戀。也許陶君妄想倣效Swift 和Voltaire那樣以文字去鞭策人性,惜東施效顰,既乏兩位大家幽默的筆觸及醒世的智慧,就只能隨街販賣他那廉價的尖酸刻薄。

每次坐渡海輪,都不免對兩岸的建築物多加留意,發現越來越多不知名且高聳得叫人窒息的建築物矗立着(特別是西九龍一帶)。在我的記憶裏似乎永遠都沒有它們的份兒,因為它們太沒特色,太沒生命,像失去靈魂的軀殼,跟士丹頓街一帶的舊建築群相比,令人慨歎過份公式化和缺乏創意之餘,更令我想起那像寶鼎般坐鎮在山頂的老襯亭、大坑的虎豹別墅、灣仔軒尼詩道的舊茶居和當舖的那份親切感。目睹過去美好的一切都如沙子般從指縫間漏走,我們除了無可奈何送上幾段輓歌外,又能夠怎樣?

再講天星

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尋日睇新聞, 見到d人真係有做野, 走去阻止d人拆天星, 有種, 不過都已經郁左手, 個鐘都拆左, 再保護對我黎講都無左意義. 電視見到果個古物唔知咩委員會個主席就把幾火, 聽距講野真係想搵屎淋距. 政府賴古咨, 古咨又賴唔記得, 賴委員, 委員又話同政府反映左, 真係想係每個人個lor柚度伸一腳. 有人提議話將成個天星搬走, 呢樣野又係無意義, 美利樓係要係中環見證番以前殖民地既權力地圖學先有意義, 而家搬左去赤柱, 真跡都變hyperreality. 天星要同大會堂同埋果一帶中環連埋黎講先有意義, 唔係同世界之窗有咩分別, 火都黎埋.

電話騙案

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讀過倉生的<<啼笑皆非>>一文,想起幾星期前遇到的電話驚魂。
話說某日下午,在辦公室發呆之際,忽地傳來電話響聲...
我:喂
女:你好,請問是伍估良嗎?
我:是
女:你好,我們是broadway網站打來的,通知你得獎,你會得到兩張冬季嘉年華入場券,以及楂兜健身十四天免費試玩証
我:你是什麼網站,網址是什麼
女:broadway,霞,百老滙咯
我:成個網址係咩話
女:broadway.com
(即時鍵入broadway.com,發覺不對路)
我:是百老匯電影....定係咩呢
女:broadway網站,你兩三年前參加過抽獎的
(心諗:混吉的...兩三年前又會而家先黎通知得獎啦)
女:而家同你核對個人資料,英文名N-G G-U L-E-U-N-G,身份證頭三位數字係123,係咪
(心諗:點解...你會有我的個人資料??)
女:你可以去旺角百老滙隔離的渣兜健身攞獎品,有無問題?
我:唔需要啦,係咁

聽聞渣兜健身經常用拿渣招招覽會員,包括為顧客手機叉電時偷走顧客電話簿內之電話,坊間有受害者接到"請問係咪un豬呀,我地係渣兜健身打來的"...而以前我也不時收到渣兜的電話,說有朋友推薦我,連打幾十次電話迫人去取證,不知所謂。但似乎情況越來越嚴重,他們己買起有英文名及身份證前三個字的database,作到天花龍鳳乜都得﹗

各位小心小心...

可憐的狗,可憐的芻狗!

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芻狗,就是用茅草織成的狗。供祭祀用,儀式完成了就丟棄或燒掉不再用。Recruit就是本港一份求職刊物,行內人管它叫「R」(念成「AR-lo」),我卻稱它「阿Cruit」。當然,香港還有別的求職刊物。可是每當要找工作,家人就很緊張我記得要拿Recruit,大概一位電台節目主持人曾執掌Recruit,她特別記得Recruit吧。我很怕看這些刊物,因為總讓我想到各種失敗的痛苦經驗。所以每次找到了工作就不再看,一次我還巴不得在一份Recruit的"Recruit"一字上打了一個大交叉。

人們說「騎牛找馬」,但多少人是在騎「狗」找馬。但是是不是也像我找到了工作以後就把這些刊物棄之如同芻狗?我想是不,因為每當地鐵站和便利店派這些刊物很快就搶拿一空。騎「狗」找馬喔!狗馬永遠亨通,我卻巴不得這些刊物永遠遠離我!或許最最可憐的要算是我!

倉海君的要求,把本文再重寫了一遍(雖不是「最原版」,是修訂再修訂)。原文的題目還是「阿Cruit,你是可憐的芻狗!」,後來覺得不僅求職刊物就像用了就丟的「芻狗」,求職者也像可憐的狗就改了。或許我本來是想抒發某些不滿吧,不造成「誹謗」,哪怕我燒了一份Recruit也不會對該刊物造成影響和威脅。

劉知幾,唉!禍害不淺

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書史通的劉知幾提出史學家應具備三才,史才,史學,史識,對於從史料的範圍,史料的採輯,史料的鑑別,史料的區分,至編纂的次序,史事的判斷,人物的評論,篇幅的剪裁,文字的修飾等,都有創造性的理論突破。可惜如此之結果,仍不能避免歷史紀錄成為一任人梳妝的妓女,一幅任人塗鴉的素壁。蓋因史學家之三才,令浩如煙海的真實紀錄不斷散佚,以致乎歷史的記述幾近於集體的創作,所有的史學論文實和一堆談論高達宇宙世紀歷史的沒差里幾。
簡單例子,中國行軍多有軍簿軍監,對戰事及將軍都有全面的書面記述,一來用之論功,二來可用以彈劾。然歷史遺下的不過九牛一毛,冰山一角,更多的內容跑去了說書演義之中,推說是中國史風異於西方終究是一方便之說,究其所以,還是史料的採輯鑑別惹的禍,不要就扔,遺害人間則勿錄於後世,是以鄭和西行之官方紀錄盡遭焚燬,多本名篇屢屢被禁以致失傳,幸者能於敦煌日本發現,不幸者就難逃沒埋歷史洪濤之厄運。
故可說三才非一史學家之本,而在收集所有史料令其傳之萬世,方為正道。時移世易,新學迭起,史學家應保後學能持有與其相同之條件,開創新風,勿以一家之言,斷萬世之智。
不錯,撓了這麼大個圈,我就是要非難那些拆盡廣州騎樓,重修上下九路,拆去中環天星卻說會保留有價值組件建在新建築中的傢伙。如此論調和雕飾歷史的史學家們又何異矣?抺去我們應記省的,保留其想要的再粉刷一翻,如此,香港成了某人想要的香港,廣州變成一人之廣州,豈不是荒天下之大謬,國破家亡之悲耶?

九牛一毛的微不足道
是的,是那麼一點配件
沒被寵幸甄選
留下
那你應該看見
從未有消失
身邊,路旁
在在自覺失去比得還多時
一切已遲,已遲
空望到
追悔無益的思憶

Stereotyping on female adjectives

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This essay is a discussion of the stereotyping of female adjectives and why some adjectives are stereotypes of female characteristics.

In the first section I discuss what art stereotype is and how words are being stereotyped. In the second section I analysis the article that I found from the SELF magazine by pointing out the stereotyped adjectives that are used to describe Evangeline Lilly. In the final section I express my points of view on the issue of being “beautiful” under the affect of today’s’ culture and media.

Section One
WHAT IS ART STEREOTYPE?
Stereotyping occurs when, on the basis of some members of a class having a characteristic or belonging to another class, other members are assumed to have that characteristic or belong to that other class. (Goatly 2000:55)

For example, because many women are housewives, we might assume all women are housewives. Or, because most construction workers belong to the male group, we might assume all construction workers are males.

HOW WORDS ARE BEING STEREOTYPED?
Stereotypes can be based on race, ethnicity, gender, nationality, religious belief, social class, physical characteristic, cultural and historical background. In this essay, I will only focus on the stereotyping of gender.

The word gender is used to describe your sex, male or female, and the roles assigned you by society as a result of your sex. Academically, some particular adjectives are usually used to describe the gender of being male or female. We call those particular adjectives ‘stereotyped adjectives on gender’. The formation of those ‘stereotyped adjectives on gender’ can be based on facial appearances, body shapes, biological features, personalities, gender roles in the society according to the cultural and historical background.

ANY EXAMPLES?
Different ‘stereotyped adjectives’ are used to describe different genders. The two tables shown below are adjectives that are specifically used for men and women (Just for reference)

Table 1 Adjectives used with Men (in a given meaning)
1. blokeish, blokish (behaves in the way people traditionally think ordinary men behave when they
are together)2. blond (who is blonde has pale or yellow hair) (It can also be used with women)3. burly (large and strong)4. camp (behaving and dressing in a way that some people think is typical of a homosexual)5. chivalrous (behaves in a polite, kind, generous, and honourable way)6. cissy, sissy (considered not to exhibit or be characteristic of stereotypical masculinity)7. dapper (dressed in a fashionable and tidy way)8. debonair (fashionable and well dressed and behaves in an attractively confident way)9. effeminate (behaves, looks, or sounds like a woman or girl)10. effete (looking or behaving like a woman)11. galant (polite and kind towards women, especially when in public)12. handsome (attractive; good looking)13.henpecked (always being told what to do by his wife)14. hulking (very big and often awkward)15. hunky (attractive and strong-looking)16. husky (big and strong)17. impotent (unable to perform sexual intercourse)18. limp-wristed (homosexual, effeminate)19. macho (stereotypically masculine: having or showing characteristics conventionally regarded
as male)20. queer (homosexual)21. portly (rather fat = stout)22. potent (capable of sexual intercourse)23. rugged (good-looking and has strong features which are often not perfect)24. slobbish (a lazy, untidy and often rude person)25. stocky (whose body is wide across the shoulders and chest and who is short)26. suave (very polite, charming and usually attractive, often in a way that is slightly false)(It can also be used with women)27. tame (docile: habitually inclined to submit to the wishes of others) (It can also be used with women)28. urbane (confident, comfortable and polite in social situations = suave) (It can also be used with women)29. virile (full of sexual strength and energy in a way that is considered attractive)30. virtuo(u)s (behaves in a moral and correct way) (It can also be used with women)
1. Amazonian (notably tall, physically strong, or strong-willed)2. battered (hurt by being repeatedly hit)3. beautiful (referring to good looks)3. blonde (who is blonde has pale or yellow hair)(It can also be used with men)4. blowsy, blowzy (fat and looks untidy)5. bonny (attractive: pleasing to look at)6. bosomy (having large breasts)7. brassy (too loud, confident, or brightly dressed)8. braw (beautiful, especially because big and strong) (It can also be used with men)9. brazen (behaving in an immoral way without being embarrassed or ashamed)10. broody (wanting pregnancy)11. bubbly (lively and cheerful and talks a lot)12. buxom (healthy-looking and slightly fat, with large breasts)13. chesty, busty (having large breasts)14. coy (being or pretending to be shy, modest, childish or lacking in confidence)15. curvaceous (having an attractively curved body shape)16. curvy (=curvaceous)17. demure (quiet and rather shy, usually in a way that you like and find appealing, and behave
very correctly)18. distraught (extremely worried, anxious or upset)19. dowdy (wears dull or unfashionable clothes)21. elegant (very beautiful and graceful)22. expectant (pregnant)23. flat-chested (has small breasts)24. flighty (not responsible and likely to change activities, jobs, lovers, etc. frequently)25. foxy (physically attractive, sexy)26. frowsy (not very clean or tidy and smells bad)27. frumpy=frumpish (unattractive)28. girlish (behaves in a silly way)30. leggy (long-legged)31. luscious (very sexually attractive)32. lush (voluptuously sensual in appearance or behavior)33. matronly (fairly fat and no longer young, used to avoid saying this directly)34. mountainous (very large in amount or size – in a figurative sense) (It can also be used with men)35. mousy (quiet and unattractive)

Table 2 Adjectives used with Women in 90-100 per cent cases (in a given meaning)
1. Amazonian (notably tall, physically strong, or strong-willed)2. battered (hurt by being repeatedly hit)3. beautiful (referring to good looks)3. blonde (who is blonde has pale or yellow hair)(It can also be used with men)4. blowsy, blowzy (fat and looks untidy)5. bonny (attractive: pleasing to look at)6. bosomy (having large breasts)7. brassy (too loud, confident, or brightly dressed)8. braw (beautiful, especially because big and strong) (It can also be used with men)9. brazen (behaving in an immoral way without being embarrassed or ashamed)10. broody (wanting pregnancy)11. bubbly (lively and cheerful and talks a lot)12. buxom (healthy-looking and slightly fat, with large breasts)13. chesty, busty (having large breasts)14. coy (being or pretending to be shy, modest, childish or lacking in confidence)15. curvaceous (having an attractively curved body shape)16. curvy (=curvaceous)17. demure (quiet and rather shy, usually in a way that you like and find appealing, and behave very correctly)18. distraught (extremely worried, anxious or upset)19. dowdy (wears dull or unfashionable clothes)21. elegant (very beautiful and graceful)22. expectant (pregnant)23. flat-chested (has small breasts)24. flighty (not responsible and likely to change activities, jobs, lovers, etc. frequently)25. foxy (physically attractive, sexy)26. frowsy (not very clean or tidy and smells bad)27. frumpy=frumpish (unattractive)28. girlish (behaves in a silly way)30. leggy (long-legged)31. luscious (very sexually attractive)32. lush (voluptuously sensual in appearance or behavior)33. matronly (fairly fat and no longer young, used to avoid saying this directly)34. mountainous (very large in amount or size – in a figurative sense) (It can also be used with men)35. mousy (quiet and unattractive)36. mumsy (with an old-fashioned appearance, like that of a traditional mother)37. nubile (marriageable or sexually attractive)38. petite (of small and dainty build)39. plain (not beautiful)40. pneumatic (having large breasts)
41. po-faced (having an unfriendly disapproving expression on your face) (It can also be used with
men)42. pregnant (has a baby or babies developing in her body)43. pretty (pleasant to look at, or attractive or charming in a delicate way); of a boy looks attractive
in a way that is typical of a girl44. randy (sexually excited and eager to have sex) (It can also be used with men)45. ravishing (very beautiful)46 sassy (behaves in a way that is intended to be attractive to men)47. sensual (interested in or making you think of physical pleasure, especially sexual pleasure)48. sexless (frigid)49. shapely (has an attractive shape)50. sluttish (sexually promiscuous)51. svelte (thin and graceful) (It can also be used with men)52. sylphlike (attractively thin and delicate)53. sultry (makes other people feel strong sexual attraction to you)54. tarty (vulgar, gaudy; promiscuous)55. topless (not wearing any clothes on the upper part of her body, so that her breasts are bare)56. vivacious (attractively energetic and enthusiastic) (It can also be used with men)57. voluptuous (has large breasts and a soft curved body) 58. well-endowed (has large breasts)59. whorish (meaning characteristic of the behavior stereotypically ascribed to prostitutes)60. willowy (graceful and thin) (It can also be used with men)

(Source: http://www.tech-nology.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-1745.html)

Referring to these two tables, we can find there are some adjectives that we frequently use in our daily life when describing males and females. For example, we use macho, chivalrous, suave or urbane to describe males’ temperament; and burly, handsome, hunky, camp or stocky to describe males physically and sexually. On the other hand, we usually use girlish, elegant, demure, coy or whorish to describe females’ temperamental; and beautiful, bosomy, foxy, leggy, pretty or luscious to describe females physically and sexually.
Section Two
ANALYSIS OF THE TEXT
I chose this article mainly because Evangeline Lilly was the second-hottest woman in America last year. This article was found in the SELF magazine published in November, 2006. In this article, Evangeline Lilly uses some adjectives to describe herself which, I think, are useful in analyzing the ‘stereotyped adjectives’ for females. The article is shown below.




The ‘stereotyped adjectives’ are analyzed in the following:

Lines 7-8
“Although her change in tax bracket has eased her financial strain, she still proudly considers herself ‘a cheap-ass lady’.

Referring to the beginning of the article, we know that Lilly is now a very wealthy person as the article reported that she is earning $80,000 per episode. According to the sentence above, she is now in the tax bracket. So, we know that Lilly is now very wealthy because only people who earn a lot of money can go into the tax bracket. In a society, wealthy people are regarded as the ‘higher-class’ people. Therefore, Lilly should be a ‘higher-class’ lady in a society. But, Lilly still considers herself as ‘a cheap-ass lady’ which means that she still considers herself as a ‘lower-class’ lady.

But why didn’t she just use ‘a lower-class lady’ instead of ‘a cheap-ass lady’.

It is because ‘cheap-ass’ is a stereotyped adjective used in America based on its culture. We can break the words ‘cheap’ and ‘ass’ into two separate words.

‘Ass’ is an American slang. It has the same meaning as bottom, bum or ‘your behind’. The word ‘ass’ is a stereotyped word referring to women in western culture as the females’ ‘asses’ arouse men’s sexual desire (except for gay men) because the sexual activities take place at that part of women’s bodies. Also, when a baby is born, it comes all the way from the mother’s belly through her vagina (which is at the same part of the body as the bottom). As we all know, only women can give birth and men cannot. Therefore, the word ‘ass’ usually makes people think of females and not males.

‘Cheap’ is the other word used to describe females, but we can also used to describe males. The word ‘cheap’ has two ambiguous meanings here. The first explanation is that ‘cheap’ is used to describe people that sell their bodies to earn money, such as, prostitutes and pimps. However, prostitutes are usually more than pimps in one society. So, the first explanation of ‘cheap’ usually refers to females. The second explanation is that ‘cheap’ is used to describe people that are not willing to spend money. Mostly, people that are not willing to spend money would be the lower-class. For this explanation, the gender it refers to can be neutral because art lower-class can both be males and females.

According to this article, it seems that ‘cheap’ refers to the second explanation rather than the first one and is used to describe a female—Lilly is not willing to spend money, even though she earns a lot of money. That is why she considers herself a ‘lower-class’ (‘cheap-ass’) lady. Also, she wanted to express that she is just as common as anybody else in society and nothing really special at all because ‘lower-class’ people are common and all around.

Lines 12-14
“A funny thing happened when Lilly went from student to sex symbol (Maxim Magazine named her the second-hottest woman in America last year.)”

Referring to the above sentence, Lilly is described as the second-hottest woman in America. The word ‘sex symbol’ also has its significance here. According to Wikipedia, “A sex symbol is a famous and/or notable person, male or female, who is found sexually attractive by the general audience.” We know that Lilly got famous because of her sexual attraction for the audience according to this article.

‘Hot’ is also an American slang. It has the same meaning as ‘sexy’. ‘Hot’ is usually used to describe females and is rarely used to describe males because sexy ladies will always make men have sexual desire and when men have sexual desire, they feel very hot. That is why sexy ladies are said to be “hot”, because they produce sexual attraction for men and make the men feel hot.

Lines 15-16
“I was being presented in a light that was way too sexy for me, and I was really uncomfortable with it and ashamed of it.”

According to the sentence above, Lilly thinks that she was described too ‘sexy’ and doesn’t like it very much. As mentioned before, she was the second-hottest woman in America last year, so, she must be very sexually attractive to people, especially men. From the pictures provided in the article, we can see that she has big breasts, a curvy body shape and a pretty appearance. These are the factors that make people think she is ‘sexy’. ‘Sexy’ is always regarded as the physical attraction but not mental attraction and that is why ‘sexy’ is usually used to describe females rather than males because most females innately have the curvy body shapes to attract men.

Lines 17-18
“Because I get so much attention for being sexual and beautiful, I try to downplay that side of myself all the time.”

From the sentence above, Lilly used two adjective to describe herself. One is ‘sexual’ and the other one is ‘beautiful’.

The adjective ‘sexual’ is very neutral because it can refer to both males and females. Both males and females can make people think of sex and arouse their sexual desires as ‘sexual’ is a physical attraction. For example, muscular or strong men can arouse women’s sexual desires and sexy or bosomy women can arouse men’s sexual desires. Therefore, the adjective ‘sexual’ is not stereotyped for males or females.

The adjective ‘beautiful’ is usually used to describe females and rarely used to describe males. ‘Beautiful’ is a facial attraction and it is always used to describe women. You rarely say that a man is very ‘beautiful’, you would use ‘handsome’ instead. So, the adjective ‘beautiful’ is stereotyped for describing females.

Lines 19-20
“And when I try not to look sexy, I just feel like a less sexual person.”

According to the sentence above, Lilly thinks that when she tries not to look ‘sexy’, she feels that she is a less ‘sexual’ person.

Just like the adjective ‘hot’, ‘sexy’ is usually used to describe females and rarely used to describe males. As mentioned before, it is a stereotyped adjective for females. In here, Lilly points out the relationship between ‘sexy’ and ‘sexual’. As she mentioned that the less ‘sexy’ she tries to be, the less ‘sexual’ she feels. So, it proves that a ‘sexy’ body (especially females’ bodies) arouses people’s ‘sexual’ desires (especially to men).

Lines 32-33
“During the first season of Lost, Lilly was determined to ‘look skinnier and less boxy’.”

From this sentence, we know that Lilly desires to look ‘skinner’ and ‘less boxy’.

In the pasted culture, women liked to possess ‘baby-fat’ or ‘health-looking’ body shapes because they thought they were beautiful looking that way. But for the culture now, women like to look ‘skinner’ because they think that they are beautiful in this way. Although the women now prefer ‘skinner’, the word ‘skinny’ is not particularly used to describe females. The adjective ‘skinny’ is quite neutral to males and females. It can also be used to describe men. So, this is not a stereotyped adjective.

As I mentioned before, women with beautiful curvy body shapes are regarded as ‘sexy’. That is why Lilly wants to look ‘less boxy’. It might be good if a man looks ‘boxy’ because that might mean that he is very muscular. But it is not good for a woman. Therefore, the adjective ‘boxy’ may be a stereotyped adjective for the description of males.

Section Three
AFTER THOUGHT
After looking through this article, I would like to express my opinions on the issue of being “good-looking”.

As mentioned in the article, Lilly determined to “look skinnier and less boxy”. So, why does Lilly want to look “skinnier”? Why not “healthier”? It is because in the today’s culture, people think “skinny” is a symbol of “good-looking”.

WHO GIVES US THIS THOUGHT?
The media “labels” and “stereotypes” what “good-looking” is. They tell us “skinny” makes us look “better”. They also point out that a lot of “sexy” and “pretty” movie stars are also “skinny”. So, that makes people think “skinny” is the way to make them look “good” subconsciously.

However, the media are not always correct. People should not believe the media all the time. Every individual is unique and they do not need to look the same as anyone else who is regarded as “good-looking”. You are “good-looking” the way you are and not because you resemble somebody else.

STAY AWAKE AND KEEP YOUR MIND OPEN

We should know that when the media tells you “skinny” make you look “good”, it is because they want to earn money from you. The media includes magazines, advertisements, televisions, etc. So, “Skinny” makes you look “good” is their selling point because people buy their products and spend money on keeping themselves “skinny” if they think they are not “skinny” enough.

Therefore, do not believe the media blindly. Stay awake and be yourself!!

(1933 words)

REFERENCES:
GOATLY, A (2000) Critical Reading and Writing Routledge: London and New York
MCNATT, E (2006) Self Magazine Condé Nast Publications: New York

WEB SOURCES:
3rd November, 2006 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_symbol>
3rd November, 2006 <http://www.teach-nology.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-1745.html>

The Functions and Variaties of Reward and Punishment in Contemporary Stories for chidren's literature

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For the study of children literature, reward and punishment are often found in contemporary children stories. Every reward and punishment that happens in the children stories must have their significances. Therefore, in this essay, I will focus on the functions and varieties of reward and punishment in contemporary children stories by using three contemporary children stories as the examples. I divided this essay into three parts. In the first part, I will explain the concepts of reward and punishment used in contemporary children stories for the study of children literature nowadays. In the second part, I will take a look at the varieties of reward and punishment in contemporary children stories by looking at reward and punishment used in three contemporary children stories and their purposes. In the third part, I will talk about the functions of reward and punishment in contemporary children stories.

PART ONE
The concepts of reward and punishment used in contemporary children stories for the study of children literature nowadays:
According to the American Heritage Dictionary, there are some basic concepts of reward: (a) something is given or received in recompense for worthy behavior or in retribution for evil acts. (b) A satisfying return or result; profit. (c) Money offered or given for some special service, such as the return of a lost article or the capture of a criminal.
In the study of children’s Literature, there are some advanced concepts of reward apart from the basic concepts above. Sometimes, positive psychological changes can be a reward, too, for example, a very bad child turning into a very nice child after going through some experiences. OR, someone who thinks life is very boring and meaningless, but after experiencing something, he/she thinks life is worth living. OR, someone who used to be very shy and timid, but after experiencing something, he/she became very confident and brave.
According to Webster’s Dictionary, there are two concepts of punishment: (a) the act of punishing (b) a penalty (as a fine or imprisonment) inflicted on an offender through the judicial and especially criminal process.
In children’s literature, the concepts of punishment are mainly the same as the basic concepts above. They refer to the examples: Some bad people who commit evil deeds and ultimately get punished for it. OR, someone who mistreated the others and got a very bad consequence.

PART TWO
The varieties of reward and punishment in contemporary children stories and their purposes: (Take three contemporary children stories as the examples)
In order to give a more concrete idea on the varieties of reward and punishment in contemporary children stories, I will take three contemporary children stories as the examples: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis, The Hobbit by John Ronald Reuel Tolkien. I will elaborate the reward and punishment found in the stories and explain their purposes.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

In the following, there are the rewards and punishments found in the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and we will see the purposes of their usages. For the reward, I divided them into true reward and false reward.

True Reward
- Charlie can own Mr. Wonka’s chocolate factory and run the business at the end of the story.
Purpose: As we all know Charlie comes from a very poor
family. Although his family loves him, they do not spoil him (maybe they are not able to do so). So, he turns out as a very nice child. Therefore, the purpose of using this reward in this story is to tell children that if they stay as good children, they will get their rewards finally.
- Charlie and his family moved into Mr Wonka’s chocolate factory and live there instead of living in a decrepit house.
Purpose: As mentioned above, Charlie comes from a very poor
family and they are all living in a very decrepit house. So, it is a very big reward for them to move into such a big and wonderful factory (Although at first they did not believe it is true and they were not willing to move, they moved finally). In most of the children stories, poor but good people always get very good endings. Therefore, the purpose of using this reward is to tell children that even thought they are poor, it does not matter, as long as they are good enough, they can get the rewards in the end.

False Reward
- The four children (Augustus Gloop, Veruca Salt, Violet Beauregarde and Mike Teavee) got the golden tickets for having a tour in Mr. Wonka’s chocolate factory.
Purpose: Although they all got the golden tickets to go into
Mr. Wonka’s chocolate factory and have a tour, it is not really their rewards. It is because Mr. Wonka knows that they are spoiled and disobedient children, he uses this chance to punish all of them. Therefore, the purpose of using the false reward is to tell children that if they are not good enough, they need to think hard if they deserve the rewards or not, otherwise the rewards would finally not be good to them.

Punishment
- The four children got punished violently: Augustus Gloop got sucked up in the chocolate pipe, Veruca Salt was thrown down to the trash by the squirrels, Violet Beauregarde was turned to a blueberry and Mike Teavee was “TVed”.
Purpose: As we can see that the four children are all brats
and they are very disobedient. So, they all got punished by Mr. Wonka. The purpose of this punishment is to tell the children that not to be bad and disobedient children, otherwise, they will finally get punished, too.
- The four parents are punished psychologically after their children receive their punishments. Veruca Salt’s father even gets punished physically: He and his daughter were both thrown down to the trash by the squirrels.
Purpose: As we all know that the four parents are very
wealthy and they spoil their children a lot: Augustus Gloop’s mother lets him eat whatever he wants and buys him a lot of food; Veruca Salt’s father buys her whatever she wants and all she needs to do is request or order her father to do something and he will do it; Violet Beauregarde’s mother lets her to do whatever she wants and is always very proud of her daughter; and Mike Teavee’s father always lets him see TV and imitate the violent people in TV. However, after their children are punished, they are so frightened and seem like a little bit regretful. Mike Teavee’s parents even want to thrown the TV away. Therefore, the purpose of using this punishment is to tell the parents not to spoil their children and don’t give everything they want every time, otherwise they would turn out to be bad children and would be punished. On the other hand, the purpose of this punishment also wants to tell the children that if your parents are spoiling them, it is not a good thing because they will finally have bad results.

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

In the following, there are the rewards and punishments found in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and we will see the purposes of their usages. For the reward, I also divided them into true reward and false reward.

True Reward
- The four children won the victory in the battle with the White Witch.
Purpose: After fighting with the White Witch, the four kids
finally won the battle. In most of the children stories, good people always win and evil people always lose at the end of the stories. Therefore, the purpose of using this reward is to tell the children that good people deserve victory and evil people deserve lose. And if the children are good, they will win finally; if they are bad, they will lose ultimately.
- They became the royalties of the Narnia: Peter became King Peter the Magnificent, Susan became Queen Susan the Gentle, Edmund became King Edmund the Just and Lucy became Queen Lucy the Valiant. They ran Narnia for years.
Purpose: After killing the White Witch, everything became
better. Aslan assigned the four kids as the Kings and Queens of Narnia and ran Narnia for years until they get back to the wardrobe. Therefore, the purpose of using this reward is to tell the children to stay good and be just all the time, once they defeat the evil, they will finally get the greatest rewards they have never thought of. Also, things would turn good later on.


False Reward
- Edmund was given Turkish Delight by the White Witch.
Purpose: When the White Witch was trying to approach
Edmund, she always gave him some Turkish Delight in order to make him do something to her (e.g. bring his siblings to her so that she can kill all of them). Therefore, the purpose of using this false reward is to tell children that whenever some strangers ask you to do something, they need to think very deeply even thought the strangers reward them for the things that they want most. It also tells the children never to believe and work for the bad and evil people even though those people give them a lot of benefits, otherwise, the bad and evil people will just finally harm you or your family and friends because the evil people always work on their own purposes.
- The White Witch thought that she won the victory for the negotiations with Aslan about Edmund. But actually, she did not win.
Purpose: In the story, Aslan is killed by the White Witch
because of Edmund, but she had never thought that Aslan would rose from the dead the very next day. So, she did not win the victory actually because Aslan did not really die. The purpose of using this false reward is to tell the children that the evil people might get reward or win sometimes, but the final victory will never belongs to them. That might only be a false appearance.

Punishment
- The White Witch lost in the battle and died at the end of the story.
Purpose: After fight with the four children, the White Witch
lost and died finally. Therefore, again, the purpose of this punishment is to tell the children that good people always win and evil people always lose and even die. The final victory always belongs to the good people.
- Edmund was mistreated by the White Witch
Purpose: After Edmund brought his siblings to Narnia and the
White Witch heard that Aslan was coming to Narnia, she mistreated Edmund. Therefore, the purpose of this punishment is to tell the children that evil people will also treat the people that work for them very badly whenever they are angry and annoyed. It makes no difference how much you did for them, they will treat you so bad when they think the people work for them have no use anymore.

The Hobbit

In the following, are the rewards and punishments found in The Hobbit and we will see the purposes of their usages. However, no false reward is found in this story.

True Reward
- After taking the adventure, Bilbo Baggins thinks that he has been very brave and his life became more meaningful. It is a psychological change.
Purpose: After coming back from the adventurous journey,
Bilbo Baggins thinks that life is more meaningful and exciting. Therefore, the purpose of this reward is to tell the children that after they experienced something special in their lives (e.g. taking adventures), they would think lives are different and they can see something that they have never seen before. They would become more experienced, mature and brave.
- The dwarves won the victory and have the lands and the gold back.
Purpose: The dwarves’ lands and gold had been snatching by
the evil dragon Smaug for ages. However, they finally killed the evil dragon and got all their lands and gold back. Therefore, again, the purpose of using this reward is to tell the children that the evil side will always be defeated by the positive sides and the properties always belongs to their owners. Snatching is a disgusting attitude.

Punishment
- Gollum lose the magic ring and so, he couldn’t eat other creatures and people.
Purpose: As Gollum always used his magic ring to eat other
creatures and people (e.g. he attempted to eat Bilbo Baggins, but he failed). So, losing the ring is a punishment to it for eating other creatures and people. Therefore, the purpose of this punishment is to tell the children that do not do something that would harm other people or people around you, otherwise, they would get punish and lose the things or people that they treasure most.

- The evil and marauding dragon Smaug was killed.
Purpose: As the evil dragon always snatched the dwarves’
properties, it got killed at the end. Therefore, again, the purpose of using this punishment is to tell the children that evil people will always get the bad endings and they deserve punishments. Also, it also wants to tell the children that snatching is a very nasty attitude.

PART THREE
The functions of reward and punishment in contemporary children stories:

Lastly, we are going to focus on the functions of reward and punishment in contemporary children stories. The most important functions of the reward and punishment in the children stories are the didactic purposes (something that you want to teach the children after reading or listening to the stories). After seeing those rewards and punishments of the three contemporary children stories in part two, we can summarize those theories running in the children stories. Children stories’ writers always achieve their didactic purposes by pointing out those theories running in their stories. The theories and the didactic purposes are shown below:
(1) Good people are always rewarded and have good results.
(e.g. living very happily, have great achievements, have victories, etc.)
Bad people are always punished and have bad results.
(e.g. die at the end, encounter failures, lose in the battle, etc.)
Didactic Purpose: Always be a good child and good result would
come to you.
(2) Obedient children will be rewarded and have achievements in the end.
Disobedient children will be punished and have failures in the end.
Didactic Purpose: Be obedient to your parents and teachers
and you will get the reward, otherwise, you will just be punished.
(3) Poor but good children will be rewarded and succeed.
Rich but bad children will be punished and fail.
Didactic Purpose: Do not feel bad even though you are very
poor right now, stay good and you will get the reward finally.
(4) Never believe strangers or receive benefits from them.
Didactic Purpose: If you believe strangers and listen to them,
they will harm you or your family and friends.
(5) Never work for the evil people and make friends with them.
Didactic Purpose: If you work for the evil people and make
friends with them, you will not have a good result because they approach you just for their own purposes and they ask you to work for them just for their benefits. So, when they think you are useless, they will harm you or treat you very badly.
(6) Do not be greedy and snatch people’s things.
Didactic Purpose: If you are greedy and snatch people’s things,
you will build up a lot of enemies and they will defeat you and you will be punished. Besides, snatching is a very disgusting attitude, you should not do it.
By integrating the theories that run in children stories and the didactic purposes that the authors want to achieve by using reward and punishment in their stories above, we can see that the line between good and bad is very clear and it does not have a category in between the line. So, we can conclude that the purposes of most children stories are to teach children to be good, obedient and generous children. Besides, they teach us never to become evil people or make friends with evil people. Also, never trust the evil people and work for them. The main moral children stories attempt to convey to children is TO BE A GOOD PERSON.
Although we are living in a sometimes very cruel world and we adults all know that good people do not always get rewarded and bad people do not always get punished, we still want to give hope to children and do not want them to see the cruelty and unfairness of this world as they are so pure and are so new to this world. They are also our hopes for the future, so we would like to teach them to be good people and hope that they can change the world one day and everyone can live very peacefully in the future of the world. That’s why children stories are so important and why every child should learn from them as children.

Primary Reference List:
Dahl, R. (2005) Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. London : George Allen & Unwin.
Lewis, C.S. (2005) The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. London : Harper Collins.
Tolkien, J., R.R. (2001) The Hobbit. London : CollinsEducational.
Secondary Reference List:
Coveney, Peter. Poor monkey: the child in literature, London: Rockliff, 1957.

Glazer, J.I. (1997). Introduction to Children’s Literature. New Jersey: Prentice Hall.

Kibria, Nazli. (2002). Raising children with ethnicity, Becoming Asian American: second-generation Chinese and Korean American identities. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Green, W.H. (1995). The hobbit: A journey into Maturity. New York: Twayne Publishers.

American Heritage Dictionary, <http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/reward> Retrieved on November 25, 2006.

Webster’s Dictionary, <http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/punishment> Retrieved on November 25, 2006.

Eric Raymond’s argument on the hacker movement as a gift culture and my comments

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My chosen question: (1) Eric Raymond’s characterization of the hacker
movement as a gift culture has been very influential. What is his argument and how persuaded are you by it?
In today' s societies, we can see there are many hackers who exist in our new digital world. When people hear the word ‘hacker’, they often have different feelings towards it. A majority of people consider hackers as people who are highly annoying and always snooping into other people’s computers. They also think that hackers always perform malicious or illegal tasks by using computers. Only a small group of people consider hackers as people that are highly computer literate, especially in terms of programming. Based on these ambiguous understandings of hackers among two groups of people, arguments are formed and these two sides of people both have their standpoints.
Therefore, in this essay, I will talk about hackers and the characterizations of their movements pointed out by Eric Raymond. Also, I will also explain how the hacker movement is related to the open source movement and the gift culture. I will also express my personal points of views towards Eric Raymond’s arguments upon the hacker movement.
I divided this essay into three parts. In the first part, I will introduce what hackers are and take a look at Eric Raymond’s points of views towards hackers and the characterizations of their movement. In the second part, I will talk about the hacker movement and how it is related to the open source movement. I will also take a look at the gift culture with reference to the characterization of the hacker movement. In the final part, I will explain how persuasive Eric Raymond’s arguments are upon the hacker movement on me by two concepts: collectives versus capitalism and intrinsic value versus instrumental value.
PART ONE
People always talk about hackers. However, how many of them know what hackers are? Even though some of them know what hackers are, would they misunderstand the meaning of hackers?
In this part, I will introduce what hackers are and who Eric Raymond is. Also, we will take a look at Eric Raymond’s characterizations of the hacker movement based on the hacker culture.
What hackers are?
According to Manuel DeLanda (2002), in his book “Open-Source: A Movement in Search of a Philosophy”, he gave some definitions to the term ‘hacker’. He said, “The term hacker refers not to the cyber-vandals on which the media has focused so much attention (the correct term for those who illegally break into private networks is cracker) but to anyone who writes his or her own software. The term does imply (although I doubt it is part of its "meaning") that the software writer in question does not have a Computer Science degree, that is, it typically refers to self-taught craftsmen. Thus, the term carries the connotation that a software writer enjoys the creation of programs (as opposed to being motivated by professional duty or economic rewards) and that he or she has a strong respect for the values of craftsmanship (elegant solutions to a problem are admired in and of themselves).” (Manuel DeLanda 2002)
In addition, according to the lecture note (Chapter 2) written by Professor Metter Hjort, she says that “hackers put emphases on three things. The first thing is creativity as a value. The second thing is the values of craftsmanship. The third thing is beauty, which means elegance, for example, as something worth affirming in its own right. She also says that hackers distribute their software for free and the software are programmed in a mode that allows, not only for the free appropriation and use of the programs, but also for the modifications and further developments of the programs by the users.” (Lecture Note: Chapter 2)
Moreover, according to a book called “Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution” (1984), Steven Levy also pointed out that “hackers are some people who create and modify computer software and computer hardware, including computer programming, administration, and security-related items.” (Steven Levy 1984) He also indicated that hackers have different definitions based on different areas:
In computer programming
“Hackers are software designers and programmers who build elegant, beautiful programs and systems. Hackers can also be programmers who hack or reach goals by employing a series of modifications to exploits or extend existing codes or resources.” (Steven Levy 1984)
In computer security
“Hackers are people who specialize in work with the security mechanisms for computer and network systems. While including those who endeavor to strengthen such mechanisms, it more often is used, especially in the mass media, to refer to those who seek access despite them.” (Steven Levy 1984)
In other technical fields
“Hackers are extended to mean people who make things work beyond perceived limits through their own technical skill, such as hardware hackers, or reality hackers.” (Steven Levy 1984)
In hacker culture
“Hackers are people who have attained certain social statuses and are recognized among members of the culture for commitment to the culture's values and a certain amount of technical knowledge.” (Steven Levy 1984)
Brief introduction of Eric Raymond
There is a person called Eric Raymond who pointed out the characterizations of the hacker movement. But before looking at his personal points of views on the hacker movement, we will take a look at the background of this person first.
Eric Steven Raymond was born in December 4, 1957, in Boston, Massachusetts. He is a hacker, an author, a commentator and also a supporter of the Libertarian Party.
As a hacker
As a hacker, he began his involvement in the hacker culture in 1976. In the late 1980s, he contributed to his first free software project. He also has some minor contributions included, Emacs editing modes and portions of libraries, like, GNU ncurses, giflib/libungif, and libpng. Since then, his primary contributions to the open source software have been maintaining the fetchmail email client and gpsd. He has also written a number of How-to documents that are now included in the Linux Documentation Project corpus.
As a author
As an author, he has written a book called “The Cathedral and the Bazaar” and “Jargon File” (the printed version also known as “The New Hacker’s Dictionary”). After 1997, he became a person in the open source movement as his original reputation within hacker culture was established in the “Jargon File”. So, he is one of the most recognized characters nowadays.
As a commentator
As a commentator, he writes political and technical opinion pieces through his website. He also has expressed his views on politics, race and the Iraq war through his web log since the spring of 2002.
As a supporter of the Libertarian Party
As a supporter of the Libertarian Party, he has strong interests in science fiction and firearms. He supported the 2003 invasion of Iraq. He is also an opponent of the Government.
Eric Raymond’s characterizations of the hacker movement based on the hacker culture
After looking at the background of Eric Raymond, we are now going to look at his characterizations of the hacker movement based on the hacker culture. However, before looking at Eric Raymond’s characterizations of the hacker movement, I will briefly make a description of the hacker culture to first.
Hacker culture
According to a book called “Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution” (1984) written by Steven Levy, it says, “The hacker culture is the voluntary subculture established between and around hackers. There are multiple independent and parallel hacker subcultures, often unaware or only partially aware of each others' existence.” (Steven Levy 1984)
Some common important traits among the hacker subcultures are shown below:
(1) “They place a high value on freedom of inquiry and have hostility to secrecy.” (Steven Levy 1984)
(2) “They consider information-sharing as both an ideal and a practical strategy.” (Steven Levy 1984)
(3) “They emphasize on rationality.” (Steven Levy 1984)
(4) “They have distaste for authority.” (Steven Levy 1984)
(5) “They uphold the right to take a copy of source code from one software package and start to independently develop a new package.” (Steven Levy 1984)
After looking at the description of the hacker culture, we are now going to look at Eric Raymond’s characterizations of the hacker movement.
Eric Raymond’s characterizations of the hacker movement
According to Eric Raymond’s book called “How to Become a Hacker” (2001), he uses many words to describe hackers. He said, “Hackers built the Internet. Hackers made the Unix operating system what it is today. Hackers run Usenet. Hackers make the World Wide Web work. Hackers solve problems and build things, and they believe in freedom and voluntary mutual help.” (Eric Raymond 2001)
Besides, he also showed how he hated authoritarians and why hackers should oppose them, he said, “Authoritarians thrive on censorship and secrecy. And they distrust voluntary cooperation and information-sharing — they only like ‘cooperation’ that they control.” (Eric Raymond 2001)
He pointed out there are five characterizations of the hacker movement. They are listed one by one in the following:
(1) Writing open-source software
Hackers always write some programs that other hackers think are fun or useful and they give the program sources away to the whole hacker culture to use. They also regarded these kinds of programs as “open-source software”.
In the hacker culture, hackers admire people who write large, capable programs that meet a widespread need and give them away, so that everyone can use them.
(2) Helping to test and debug open-source software
Hackers also serve who stand and debug open-source software. They think that it is inevitable for them to spend most of their software development time in the debugging phase.
“There are many hackers that are good beta-testers. They know how to describe symptoms of the open-source software clearly and localize the problems well. They can also tolerate bugs in a quickie release. Besides, they are also willing to apply a few simple diagnostic routines.” (Eric Raymond 2001)
(3) Publishing useful information
Hackers also collect and filter useful and interesting information in to web pages or documents like Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) lists, academic journals and papers, daily news, etc., and make those generally available.
(4) Helping to keep the infrastructure working
“As the hacker culture is run by volunteers, a few hackers will do some necessary but unglamorous work that need to be done to keep them going; for instance, administering mailing lists, moderating newsgroups, maintaining large software archive sites, developing RFCs and other technical standards.” (Eric Raymond 2001)
“For those hackers who do this sort of thing well get a lot of respect as everybody knows these jobs are very time consuming and not as much fun as playing with code.” (Eric Raymond 2001)
(5) Serving the hacker culture itself
Hackers serve and propagate the culture itself, for example, writing an accurate primer on how to become a hacker. Although the hacker culture doesn’t have leaders, it does have culture heroes, tribal elders, historians and spokespeople. However, hackers distrust blatant ego in their tribal elders, so they have hatred of certain people who visibly reached for those kinds of fame.
PART TWO
Hacker movement as the Open Source movement
In today’s new digital media, there are so many open source software on the Internet. Do we actually know what open source software is?
Actually, open source software can also be regarded as free software. This kind of software can be used, copied, studied, modified and redistributed without restriction. They are the opposite of the proprietary software. Therefore, the source code of the open source software is published and made available to the public, so that people can copy, modify and redistribute it without paying royalties or fees.
In the last few years, the hacker movement is also regarded as the open source movement as the hackers had incredible success in the production of reliable and robust software.
The principles of the open source movement can be applied to different fields and areas in the society as the participants in such an open source culture are able to modify those products and redistribute them back into the community or other organizations. The applications of the open source movement’s principles are shown in the following aspects:
Government
There are some usages of the open source for the government:
(1) Open source government
It refers to the usage of the open source software technologies in both traditional and non-traditional government organizations and operations, such as, voting and email.
(2) Open source politics
“It is a term used to describe a political process by using Internet technologies, such as blogs and email, to provide for a rapid feedback mechanism between political organizations and their supporters.” (Steven Levy 1984)
(3) Open source governance
“It is similar to the open source politics. However, it applies more to the democratic process and promotes the freedom of information.” (Steven Levy 1984)
Media
There are some usages of the open source for the media:
(1) Open source journalism
“It is referred to the standard journalistic techniques of news gathering and fact checking. It is now commonly used to describe forms of innovative publishing of online journalism rather than the sourcing of new stories by a professional journalist.” (Steven Levy 1984)
(2) Web logs
“They are websites where entries are made in journal style and displayed in a reverse chronological order. They often provide commentary or news on a particular subject, for instance, food, politics or local news, etc. Some are also function as personal online diaries.” (Steven Levy 1984)
Web logs usually combine text, images and links to other blogs, web pages and other media related to their topics.
(3) Message boards
They are also know as discuss boards or forums. People with similar interests can get together and post messages for the community to read and respond to them.
Message boards are used to create conversations among their users where information can be shared freely and quickly.
(4) Open document
“It is an open document file format for saving and exchanging editable office documents, such as, text documents including memos, reports and books.” (Steven Levy 1984)
Education
There are some usages of the open source for the education:
(1) Open source curriculum
They are educational resources and the digital source can be freely used, distributed and modified, mostly by the classroom educators. They invite feedback and participation in a community of education to create courses or units of study.
(2) Open source e-books
They are some online electronic books that are free for all people on the Internet. They are mostly academic books or some useful books for the acquiring of certain knowledge. They are generally typed versions of some books that are published for selling or placed in the library. They are available anytime and allow people to read them or download them for free.
(3) Open source research papers
They are some papers written by some researchers or professional people, such as, professors, government officials, investigators, etc. on some surveys or researchers. People can download them online for free.
Innovation communities
Innovation communities are regarded as open source communities. In these communities, “the business people provide negotiated products or services at no cost to the group. The business people benefit by gaining reputations in the community, experience and improved products.” (Steven Levy 1984)
Copyright, parents and trademarks
Richard Matthew Stallman once stated in his book “The Free Software Definition” that “the term “Intellectual Property” is designed to confuse people and it is used to prevent intelligent discussions on the specifics of copyright, patent and trademark laws respectively. He also made arguments on these three laws individually.” (Richard Matthew Stallman 2005)
Characterizations of the hacker movement as a gift culture
Gift culture does not adapt to scarcity but to abundance. It happens in a society that does not have crucial material scarcity problems with survival goods. Gift culture can be seen among original cultures by living in eco zones with mild climates and abundant food. It can also be seen in certain classes of our society, especially in the business issues and among the wealthy people.
Gift culture is very similar to gift economy. There are some common features between gift culture and gift economy. For example, in the gift economy, people share their food in a hunter-gather society. While in the gift culture, hackers also share their software freely.
In gift culture, social status is decided not by what you control but by what you give away. The characterizations of the hacker movement are also regarded as the gift culture. For instance, one of the characterizations of the hacker movement is to gain status and reputation in this culture not by controlling other people, nor by having things that other people want, instead, they gain status and reputation rather by giving things away, especially by giving your time, creativity and the results of your skill away.
There are some free software that are always available for sharing on the Internet and they are considered as the gift culture. Some examples are shown below:
(1) Operating systems: GNU/Linux, BSD, Darwin, and the Windows clone ReactOS
Logo of BSD Unix
Logo of Linux
Logo of GCC compiler

(2) GCC compilers, GDB debugger and C libraries.
(3)
Logo of SambaServers BIND name server, Sendmail mail transport, Apache web serve, and Samba file server.
Logo of the sendmail
(4)
Logo of MySQLRelational database systems: MySQL and PostgreSQL.
PART THREE
How persuasive are Eric Raymond’s arguments upon the hacker movement on me
Finally, I will express my opinions on Eric Raymond’s arguments. For me, I think Eric Raymond’s arguments upon the hacker movement are very persuasive. The reasons will be explained in the following:
Collectivism VS Capitalism
As I think the characterizations of the hacker movement can be applied to collectivism and I personally hate capitalism. According to Wikipedia, it said, “Collectivism is a term used to describe any moral, political, or social outlook, that stresses human interdependence and the importance of a collective, rather than the importance of separate individuals. Collectivists focus on community and society, and seek to give priority to group goals over individual goals.” (Wikipedia)
As the characterizations of the hacker movement are always focus on the free sharing of the software, we can see that the hacker culture are mostly like emphasize on a community or a society rather than a separate individual. Hackers think the whole community’s benefits are more important than individual’s benefits. So, they share the software with asking for money or other benefits. I appreciate the attitude that they always give away things without asking anything in return.
Maybe I am a student, so, I especially appreciate that the hackers put some academic books, useful journals or research papers or books that offer you certain kinds of knowledge or skill into the open source e-books or open source materials. I am sure there are many scholarly students who are so poor that they cannot afford to buy the academic books for their study. I always think that knowledge in the books are all wisdom. So, I just want to ask a question: can wisdom be bought? I don’t think so. Wisdom should be costless. I am sure everyone has the ability to acquire wisdom but no one can buy it! Also, under the wisdom, everyone is equal to get it no matter you are poor or wealthy. That’s why I hate capitalism because so many capitalists use “wisdom” to help them make money from people. Maybe some people might say copyright is what matters, to avoid sharing of the electronic materials on the Internet. But I still think it is an excuse for some capitalists to make money. Honestly, if people think that the books are very useful or worth buying, you will absolutely buy it even though they have seen the typed version online, especially for the wealthy people. If people think that the books are not worth buying, they will not buy them anyways. Some people might say that people can borrow some books that they want in the library. But what if a large numbers of people want the same book at the same time? Maybe they are a group of people that are working on the same project or research. Do you think the library can fulfill all their needs? This is one of the merits of the free online electronic resources, because no matter how many people need that book or material, it can fulfill their needs. They can see the materials that they want all at the same time!
Intrinsic value VS the instrumental value
I think the characterizations of the hacker movement are mainly based on intrinsic value. According to the lecture notes (Chapter 2) of the appreciating art written by Professor Paisley Livingston, it says that, “intrinsic value is referred to someone who does something ‘for its own sake’ or with no external reward. And the instrumental value is referred to someone who does something only in order to get some external payoff or reward.” (Paisley Livingston: Chapter 2)
As we mentioned before, the hackers just give things away without asking for benefits or money. So, what they are doing is only for their own sake or because of the whole community with no external reward paid back. So, they are very similar to some artists or poets. In the past, poets compose their poems because of their own sake and not for money. They made their poems only for the intrinsic value. But for some today’s poets, they compose poems because they want to make money by selling them to people. They made poems for the instrumental value.
I appreciate the hackers’ attitudes because they are always for the intrinsic value. They make their own software and share with people without asking for the cost or external reward (I think reputation can merely be a reward, it can only be a consequence.) Unlike some capitalists, they make some software and make copyrights of them. If people want to use their software, they need to pay for them. All the things the capitalists are doing are just for the instrumental value because they make software only due to the payoffs and benefits.

Reference List:

Dreyfus, Suelette (1997). Underground: Tales of Hacking, Madness and Obsession on the Electronic Frontier. Mandarin.

Eric S. Raymond (1998), A Brief history of hackerdom.

Eric S. Raymond (2001), How to Become a Hacker. Thyrsus Enterprises

Levy, Steven (1984). Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution. Doubleday.

Lewis Hyde(1983), The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property.

Metter Hjort(2006), Lecture Note (Chapter 2)

Paisley Livingston(2006), Lecture Note (Chapter 2)

Perens, Bruce. Open Sources: Voices from the Open Source Revolution. O'Reilly Media. 1999.

Raymond, Eric S. The Cathedral and the Bazaar. ed 3.0. 2000.

Sterling, Bruce (1992). The Hacker Crackdown. Bantam.

Stallman, Richard M. The Free Software Definition. Free Software Foundation. 2005.

Verton, Dan (2002). The Hacker Diaries : Confessions of Teenage Hackers. McGraw-Hill Osborne Media.
Various (1999). Open Sources: Voices from the Open Source Revolution. O'Reilly Media.

Williams, Sam (2002). Free as in Freedom: Richard Stallman's Crusade for Free Software. O'Reilly Media.