世界在破晓的瞬间前埋葬于深渊的黑暗

Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Link about religion and mocking

http://www.mediawatchwatch.org.uk/?p=669



===============================================================
I thought this news article was quite interesting, hence I posted the link above and pasted the
report below.....
===============================================================



Islam mockery back on Carnival menu

Good news from Germany, where last year’s Motoons furore put a dampener on the carnival season. Several floats were cancelled in 2006 because they were deemed insensitive at a time of heightened Muslim sensitivity. This year, however, mockery and ridicule are not being restricted to non-Islamic religions, making the whole affair much more inclusive.

One of the most provocative float designers of the Dusseldörf Carnival is Jacques Tilly, whose Muslim women piece below was cancelled last year:

burka float

Tilly says one of today’s floats will be “right on the edge”, but refuses to give details to avoid censorship.

In 2005 Tilly offended Catholics with his depiction of the conservative Cardinal Joachim Meisner burning a woman at the stake. The puppet of the woman featured the words “I’ve had an abortion”.

The wonderful thing about offending the religious is the self-calibrating nature of the activity: the degree of offence taken is directly proportional to how much the offended person deserves it. Hooray for Jacques Tilly and the Dusseldörf Carnival!

UPDATE: (20 Feb)
burka float
The “right on the edge” float proved a bit disappointing. It carried two identical figures of a raging murderous mullah, the first labelled “cliche” and the second “reality”. The general secretary of the National Council of Muslims in Germany was quite offended but, encouragingly, not too offended.

This hasn’t got anything to do with humour […] The message it gives me is: ‘We love our prejudices, we’ll stand up for them, even if they are flagrantly untrue.’
As a born-and-bred Rhinelander, I wouldn’t get too upset about it. I’m sure most of the revellers don’t want to spread anti-Islam cynicism.

He almost gets it, which is progress, of sorts. The constant drip-drip of ridicule may be having a positive effect. Keep it up!

死亡是一朵被恐慌压扁的玫瑰


死亡是一朵被恐慌压扁的玫瑰
玫瑰于情人唇边是爱恨混淆的利齿
利齿播种于边界收割了透明的围墙
围墙摆在盒子里外了潘多拉和希望
希望在夕阳照射下投出影子的影子
影子坐在咖啡厅哲学着生命的虚无



虚无在盒子边界里透明了压扁的影子
影子和潘多拉被播种于恐慌的希望
希望是咖啡厅外一朵爱恨的围墙
围墙于是坐在夕阳照射下的利齿
利齿的影子摆在情人唇边收割着玫瑰
玫瑰混淆了哲学生命投出死亡

Tuesday, February 27, 2007


Icy Mailbox

Monday, February 26, 2007

Tan Wah Pheow Quote 11

"Just because the world does not revolve around you does not mean that it is against you."

Bad Weather in the Midwest...

Sunday, February 25, 2007


Frozen Shrub!!!

寂寞的人聚向西方

1.

这座用尘埃堆积的岛屿
无法记起风吹的方向
如同抛锚停泊的船只
依然随波逐流,尽管
我们以为高楼大厦的砖头
见证了尘埃的硬化。因此
寂寞的人聚向西方相信
被夕阳拉长的影子有一天
能够与远方的巨人并肩
作战也可避免,如同免税
海港旁筑起虚拟的神话

2.

因为喧闹思想淹没了发言
权力的手抚慰着那些态度
激烈和温柔的改革者,脱下
印着口号的理想回家吃晚饭
就如同天真的女孩在墙上涂鸦
分不清是抽象的巨龙,还是
无心插柳的画蛇添足。然而
或许只是搞错历史次序的恐龙
穿着芭蕾舞鞋在市区广场
偏偏起舞,构成了妨碍的罪行

3.

我们误以为东方有位巨人
或许是视差模糊了焦点的距离
就如同在时光隧道倒退五千年的恐龙
也无法回到朱罗纪的草原,尽管
芭蕾舞鞋如何穿梭都显得格格不入
或者整个问题的重点在于
一双遗落的鞋子怎么样也找不到
主人。如此滑稽的一幅画面若是
把它想象成卡通就合情合理
或许若干年后那位小女孩长大
成人就把卡通和曾经的天真联想
一起。手牵着手的那些大厦高楼
风中摇曳。岛屿在地图上形状成
一个箭头指示标的位置,没有方向
指南针都不知所措,因此寂寞的人
必须效仿夸父不断追赶,尽管
忽左忽右的不是太阳。因此
寂寞的人都聚向西方

Saturday, February 24, 2007

失眠的夜

因为恐慌
所以绵羊都纷纷跑出
我的意识
变成狼

有一位预言家
从恶梦惊醒
在自己的汗水中
看到世界末日

我却在清醒时
透过泪水
走进了冷酷意境

如果我睡去
死神是否会把我带走
或者会穿梭时空
来到世界末日

Friday, February 23, 2007

水手挽歌

(I wrote this poem 8 years ago when my granduncle tragically committed suicide. He was a sailor and was struggling with depression in the last days of his life...)

终于
你回到了她的怀抱
你的灵魂
一点点 一滴滴
散进她温柔的浪涛


曾经
她是任性的情人
她的哭闹
是风雨 是波涛
是生命必须承受的煎熬


漂泊的方向
是你叫做故乡的异乡
你用汗水哭泣
二十岁的脸孔
刻着四十岁的风霜
只为了男人的责任
和尊严


偶尔停泊
发现孩子又换了脸孔
他们对你的印象
是厨房里的香料
和异国的邮集
还有童话梦中的巨人


漂泊
有时比停留来得骄傲
你历经无数的摧残
却无法面对冷眼旁观
看见孩子们的脸
已经不会再改变了
已经不再相信
梦中的童话


于是
你决定归去
带着酒精
和你的安眠药
只因你听说
冰冷的海水
温暖的死亡
也许比寂寞还要可靠

The Difference Between Science and Faith



Sunday, February 18, 2007

Happy Chinese New Year!!!


Oink Oink Oink!!!

Saturday, February 17, 2007

咖啡厅里的爱情故事

Another old poem from my old archives... One of my first love poems and one of my favorite love poems... it was written at an age when I was less cynical about love, and when I thought that love is a simple thing...


透过玻璃的阳光
弥漫着清淡的沉默
你的咖啡杯里
隐藏了不言不语的山盟海誓
浓浓地飘散于我的幻想期待


清澈透明的柠檬茶
沉淀着暧昧的微酸
我拒绝刻意加糖
只因酸甜之后是苦涩
却徘徊在你毫无反应的矛盾


柠檬茶里的倒影有我
我的眼睛有你
你的眼睛在聆听
音乐盒传出的通俗爱情歌曲
对于暗恋者
尴尬永远是残酷的刀刃

Friday, February 16, 2007

游子

This poem must be at least 10 years old. Time really flies....


牵挂
是看见依依不舍的秋叶
告别苍老的大树
在四季不变的国度

是看见飘浮的白云
被捉摸不定的风吹赶
仿佛一群无奈的绵羊
任由牧人放逐于辽阔的草原

轻轻掠过的候鸟
带着你童年的回忆
不知能否
将你超载的思念与牵挂
越过茫茫的海洋
归去

Thursday, February 15, 2007


Branch trying to escape from snow......

Wednesday, February 14, 2007


I HATE SNOW!!!

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

A bit late, but better than never....

没有延续的开头

This is the first paragraph of a story I was going to write. However, I just never got around to it, due to a combination of reasons: i.e. graduate school have sucked the life out of me and I have no time, the feeling wasn't there any more, and I suspect it will just develop into a yucky mushy love story....


这个故事的结局将定格在一幅画面上,就如同某个摄影师无意间按下了相机快门而捕捉在胶卷上的画面。因为意外而产生的某种刹那间美感。或许是悲伤的玫瑰凋零时某种凄然的美。或许是春天的花蕊盛开时带着希望的美。我们毋须在此猜测这幅画面是否描绘着幸福的结局、或者散发让人感伤的情怀。也不须揣测被定格的画面是否会继续播放下去,就如同每次在爱情电影碰到暧昧结局时总希望剧情可以延续,好让我们能够拥有圆满的感觉。反正故事的结局就是定格在某幅画面。然而,故事的开始因此模糊不清。

静坐

Something I wrote a few years ago... one of my better poems, I think...


我用一杯热茶的
时间,让这座城市
缓缓走过,咖啡厅内侧
玻璃窗把我静坐于熙攘
人群之中。虚影实体
呼吸互相交错,分不清
思绪出走的方向,就算
空间诡异对调。我在
这里,也在世界外。世界在
外头,也在我这里。反覆
听着街上行人舞出一支
悲伤的摇滚乐曲。歌词
流浪于耳机,思绪如同
茶杯升起的热气羽化
骑劫周围空气中某种
无法理喻的东西。某种
闭上双眼还能看见的
黑暗。一切历历在目

Lost Sheep

Monday, February 12, 2007

Conversation On Religion

This is a series of email correspondence with a friend (who is a Catholic) on the issues of religion. It started when I sent out an email with a damning link on religious fundamentalism and inferring from that video link as to why I did not have a religion. This friend (let's call her X) sort of disagreed with some of my arguments and this set off further email correspondences regarding the topic of religion. I present the emails as they are below, and nothing has been edited with the exception of spellings, grammatical errors and any information that might divulge the identity of my friend.

==========================================================================

This is a link to a video clip online. I think it is damn scary.

http://onegoodmove.org/1gm/1gmarchive/2007/01/gods_friends_ar.html

I have always told my friends that I have the greatest contempt for religion. Not that I can disprove the existence of god, or that I think that faith is necessarily a bad thing. Maybe I should qualify myself by saying that my contempt for religions is limited to those religions that would deny empirical evidence just because it goes against their dogma. Human beings as a civilization progress because we improve on our ideas, not because we try to fit new findings onto old ideas.

I have also argued a lot of times with my Christian friends that if I choose to live my life as righteous as I hope to do so, by being good to my fellow man, and by treating everybody with due respect, does that not make me, to a certain extent, a Christian. But often I am rebuffed by them, as they claim I can never be a Christian because I do not treat things written in the bible as the gospel truth. I think Christianity as a religion has its flaws, and it also has its merits, just like any other religion, ideology or concepts. However, it is sad that the majority of the religious right focuses on these flawed and outdated teachings rather than that is truly of merit. To quote Mohandas Gandhi: "I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."

Of course, I used Christianity as an example here. The above comments could apply to any other religion.

Sincerely,

Wah Pheow

==================================================================

Hi Wah Pheow,

Unfortunately, we didn't meet up before you left.:) I didn't get a call from you so I assumed you were busy.

Anyway, about your comment that Christians do not see you as a true Christian until you fully and unquestionably believe everything the Bible says, I would just like to clarify that since you do not believe in Christianity as the true religion, you cannot be considered a Christian, just like you cannot be a Muslim or a Hindu or a Taoist if you do not believe in their religious teachings.

However, in Catholicism, we believe that Heaven (ie Salvation) is meant for everyone, including non-Catholics (or non-Christians - whichever way you see it). We do not believe that just because you are not a Christian, you cannot go to heaven. Conversely, being a Catholic (or Christian) does not necessarily guarantee you Salvation.

Catholics believe that believing in Christ is not a "mian si jin pai" because we also believe in free will. If you believe in Christ and expect Him to give you priority first class passage into Heaven REGARDLESS of your decisions, deeds and will, then free will is rubbish. How can there be free will if whatever you do has no consequences?

There is however, a more stringent denomination of Christians who believe that passage to Heaven depends on BOTH deeds and belief in Christ. However, Catholics believe that Jesus came for everyone, not just Christians. Furthermore, God is Love - and where there is love, there is God. So how can other religions that preach love and kindness not be of God? However, the analogy is that just as different people see different things if they look through glass panels of different shades, our belief is that other loving religions are just looking at God through a different coloured panel from us. As such, whether or not anyone goes to Heaven is ultimately between them and God and not for anyone of us to pre-judge.

Then you would ask why do Catholics even bother to try and spread their faith if just about anyone can go to Heaven? The reason is that we would like everyone to share a loving relationship with Christ even before they die because we believe that that's a good thing for everyone, and of course, we believe that though people of other religions may also go to Heaven, Catholicism is the true religion (of course it has to be for us, since otherwise we won't be calling ourselves Catholics, but would be calling ourselves an animist or pantheist or something). Nevertheless, I as a Catholic would not belittle anyone else's religion or chance to go to Heaven.

Catholics believe that deeds are as important as beliefs. Since you mentioned you are doing good deeds and leading a "Christ-like" life, I believe you are well on your way to Heaven, and most likely ahead of me in the race.

Glad you shared your thoughts with us!:)

X

===================================================================

Hi,

Sorry for not replying earlier. Have been tied up with work during the
week...

I think you have misunderstood what I am trying to say, or maybe the phrasing of my words were not good enough. I never said I was or wanted to be a Christian. What I meant to say was that if I did all the good deeds that a certain religion preaches without subscribing to certain beliefs which I cannot bring myself to believe, does that not make me to a certain extent similar to a follower of that religion. Okay, my bad, mea culpa.

But really the point of my previous email was that most religions and religious followers do not really follow what their religion preaches. I think you've got that point more or less covered as well with your description of your faith. However, this led me to think: do we really need religion in order for one to do good, to be kind, to love your fellow men (or women)?

There are essentially two questions I would like to post to you: (1) what is the source of your moral sense of right and wrong, or to put it simply, where do you get instructions for your moral behavior? (2) If there were no heaven, will you (or any other person with a religion belief, not necessarily catholic or Christianity) still try to do as much good as possible, to be kind and to love your fellow men (or women) as much as possible?

Let me try to second guess your answer to my first question. I would suspect that you would say something like the bible or the teaching of Jesus (which is essentially found in the bible). But have you really read the bible in its full entirety? There are stories of bloodshed, instructions for genocide, incest etc. One reason why I do not have a religion was when I read the bible and Koran in their entirety when I was much younger, and decided that I did not see the love, peace and goodwill that so many Christians or Muslims extol. Now you may say that "but you are nitpicking the parts that are bad! There are parts in both books that extol good virtues as well". Yes, I concede that, but if this were the argument that you take, aren't most religious people nitpicking their moral values from these ancient text? Why can't we be secular and have moral values that does not tie itself in with a supernatural being or some ancient outdated text? I have my secular moral values as well, and I see no reason why we need to postulate a god in order to be good. (and I an assuming that you are one of the more 'progressive thinking' Catholics.... remember that there are a lot of religious people out there who take the Koran/bible verbatim as "truth".... where do you think terrorists like Al Qaeda and Timothy McVeigh (Oklahoma bomber) get their justification from???)

This brings me to the second question. I will not try to second guess you here, but I will tell you my answer. As an agnostic leaning towards atheist, I believe that when I die, my life will be well and truly over and there is no heaven for me to go to. But despite of this, I will still try to my best to be good to my fellow men (or women), to try and do good as much as I can, to be kind to others and try to live a moral and just live to the best I can. You see, I have long decided that if going to heaven was going to be a 'reward' for being good, then one isn't being 'good' intrinsically, but rather out of either a fear of punishment from a supernatural being, or out of desire for a greater reward. Consider this hypothetical question: what if 'god' or the supernatural being that created the universe (if there is one) turned out to be an asshole like... Darth Vader? What if the only way to get to eternal bliss is to kill as many as your fellow men as possible, and if you are kind, good and altruistic, you will burn in hell fire for eternity? Now will you go out there to kill as many people as you can find? I won't, and I suspect you won’t either. Even if I had to burn in hell fire for eternity, I will still try to be good to my fellow men. This is because I get my own moral values by judging what is good or what is bad by my own conscious reasoning and not because someone else tells me so, or some ancient text dictates that to me. I think unlike many animals, human beings are blessed with this thing called "critical thinking", and what a shame if we allow ourselves not to use it.

I am really not trying to be provocative here, but I would just like you to think about the issues I raised. I may have misquoted and misunderstood you or your religious beliefs in many ways, and if that were the case, I apologize for that and please do not hesitate to correct me. I think it is fine for people to have faith, and unlike some atheist, I do not see the need to obliterate or suggest that god does not exist. My stand has always been: we don't know, there is no way we can know, and there is no need to know if god exists. Just try to live your life to the fullest and I am sure that, if god exists, everything will fall into place (this I think you will agree with me). If god did not exist, well, at least one did not lead an unfulfilling life. My gripe has never been with god, but religion, which I find to be unnecessary. Just because there are religions does not mean god exists. Conversely, just because god exists does not mean that there need to be religions.

Well, that's all for now, and Happy Chinese New Year!

sincerely,

Wah Pheow

===================================================================

Hihi,

It's nice that you bother to spell out your thoughts. I totally agree with you that having a religion doesn't mean you will be good - you don't need a religion to be good because you are born with intrinsic moral values. I think it started with what Confucius preached and what Jesus Christ reiterated in his sermons in the gospels: "do not do unto others what you do not want others to do unto you." This in a sense guides us - though not completely - to follow certain code of conduct, i.e., if you don't want others to rob, murder, rap, cheat, steal from you etc, then you should ideally not do it to others.

This don't do what you dislike to other people stricture however, is only part of the picture, as no one is the same. Some people might be masochistic and don't mind being verbally abused (or in whatever form), insulted, lied to etc. But others may be different, and mind these things. That's where 5,000 years of civilization comes in. As society evolves, our understanding of good and bad and what works and what doesn't also evolves. That's how we established culture, laws and regulations and evolved from being pure survivalists (i.e. I only care about how I can live another day) to people who try to be more communal, more welfarist etc. I would say this is how I derive my moral values if there were no God.

Similarly, when you read the Bible you see a lot of war and killings and genocide and brutality (even from God - the Jews always write about how God will smite people), especially in the Old Testament (which is from the Torah). However, in the New Testament, the Gospel and the Epistles of St Paul reveal a religion that's more about love and forgiveness and not about war. This is not a contradiction or an internal clash of faiths.

The Catholic church's explanation about this apparent schism in style and teachings is that while God's eternal truth does not change, people's understanding about God evolves (for the better we most certainly hope). The Jews who wrote the OT were most concerned with their survival and quite ready to defend their faith through war and saw their God, as most early religions that are concerned about survival do, as a giver of triumph - wealth, victory, justice etc – over their circumstances. Hence, this was reflected in their OT writings.

However, after Jesus came, He opened our eyes to what's more important, i.e. love, and even then, He was rejected by many Jews who chose to believe in the God of the OT.

This is the reason why the Catholic church does not, like some Protestant denominations, view the Bible as a completely perfect, flawless piece of writing, nor does it view it as the absolutely true account of all the events in the history of Christianity. In fact, there are some obvious errors in the Bible – e.g., there are two completely different accounts of how Judas died. Although the Bible is divinely-inspired, the Catholic church believes that the Bible is afterall still written by humans, who are not perfect – even the prophets and saints.

Hence, the Catholic church does not believe in literal interpretations of the Bible. However, we believe that the Bible is the most authoritarian piece of writing on how the Church should conduct itself, but it should nevertheless be interpreted within context and according to the subsequent 2,000 years of Church tradition which continually sheds new light on the faith.

Hope this explains the issue about why the Bible isn't all that loving and about how I would get a sense of what is right and what is wrong if there were no God or religion to guide me.:) Nevertheless, I personally (I am totally not speaking for anyone else) find that the Church's teachings provide a good guide for how I should conduct myself because I always forget certain values or am not so sensitive to certain other values (which I initially thought weren't so important).

The second part, about - if there were no Heaven, what would motivate me to do good - well, I would say that whatever good I do does not guarantee me passage into Heaven anyway (since Catholics do not believe baptism is a free express ticket into Heaven, unlike some protestant denominations). Before I became a Catholic, what motivated me to do good, is like you, a desire to not want to live life with regrets because I have one life only. After I became a Catholic, what really motivates me to do good is God's love and forgiveness for me. I admit that initially, when I first joined the religion, there was a fear that I might go to Hell and that drove me to want to do more good deeds to sort of get more brownie points. However, after a while, I realised that this mentality cannot sustain anyone. I realised that I feel bad trying to be good that way and because I did not sincerely want to be good, I ended up feeling burdened because those acts do not come naturally to me and anxious all the time because I keep thinking that God is looking at my behaviour and taking down demerit points. After a while, I was a complete wreck, as I kept thinking I wasn't good enough.

After I became a wreck, I realised from various sermons, masses and confiding in friends that God will forgive me if I truly repented from my previous folly of insincere goodness. And because he loves and forgives me despite my imperfections, I feel inspired to spread this love and forgiveness to others – to those to whom much is given, much should also be expected. Coupled with the fact that I do only have 1 life on this planet and I don't want to let down the One who put me here for a reason - though what only He knows - I am determined to try and live this life to the fullest.

Hope this gives you some idea about what it's like for me as a Catholic.

And hey, I truly agree with you that one should not join a religion just to get a passage to Heaven or to blindly follow what that religion teaches. You cannot consider it true belief if you blindly follow something. You must personally be convinced that it is true. I myself have many points about Catholic church teachings that I do not yet agree with or that I do not understand. But my take is I will slowly try to understand, but I will not blindly follow.

Yes, having a religion does not mean God exists. That's why to Catholics, faith is a gift. It is given to you, as there is not much you can do to unnaturally believe in God if you are naturally disbelieving. So we never try to force people to go to church with us or join the faith - because we would rather people come in knowing fully what to expect, why they are here and what they do or do not believe in. What we do is try as much as possible to explain to others doubts that they have about the faith and also to try and lead a life that would make us worthy of being Christ's followers (a saint once said, that Catholics should spread their faith, and only if necessary, use words).

Happy New Year to you too! Am happy for you that you are living a fulfilling and enriching life now. I couldn't say the same for myself a year ago - was v miserable and lost then. I'm only slowly beginning to pick up, but luckily, it's not too late!


X

===================================================================

Hihi,

I agree with you on most points, with the exception about the understanding of good and evil being "evolved" over just 5000 years. I think it is longer than that and 5000 years ago, human beings are already endowed with an intrinsic moral sense of what is good or bad. If you have the time, you might want to check out Marc Hauser's book "Moral Minds: How Nature Designed Our Universal Sense of Right and Wrong". The thesis of the book is that moral, like language, is an instinct and he goes on to show how it can be
evolved over time.

Anyway, it seems really strange to me how we can both agree on the same behavior, but draw from different basis for that same behavior. Admittedly, I find your whole explanation on the basis of the Catholic faith to be somewhat perfunctory ... isn't it much more simpler to say I will do good regardless of what some ancient text or supernatural being says? But then again, I may be the one who takes Occam's Razor to the extreme. But as long as faith provides a basis for one to do good, and on the condition that one does not use this faith as an argument against empirical reality (i.e. think of all the evolutionary or holocaust deniers) or allow this faith to close your mind to different perspectives in life (i.e. be dogmatic), I think it is a useful thing to have as it allows one to get through life. And that is again my whole gripe against most religions, because they tend to ignore the faith and only concentrate on the dogma, which seems to me to be doing things the wrong way around.

Well, we have all struggled with our own insecurities and fear of the unknown... Glad to hear that you have found a way out of it though.... Hope you can live your life to the fullest as well!

Sincerely,

Wah Pheow

Thursday, February 08, 2007


My Stephen Colbert Tribute: I've got a white friend!!!

Wednesday, February 07, 2007

My Favorite Excerpt From Hitchhiker's Guide To The Universe

"The Babel fish," said The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy quietly, "is small, yellow and leech-like, and probably the oddest thing in the Universe. It feeds on brainwave energy not from its carrier but from those around it. It absorbs all unconscious mental frequencies from this brainwave energy to nourish itself with. It then excretes into the mind of its carrier a telepathic matrix formed by combining the conscious thought frequencies with nerve signals picked up from the speech centres of the brain which has supplied them. The practical upshot of all this is that if you stick a Babel fish in your ear you can instantly understand anything said to you in any form of language. The speech patterns you actually hear decode the brainwave matrix which has been fed into your mind by your Babel fish."

"Now it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anything so mindbogglingly useful could have evolved purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as the final and clinching proof of the non-existence of God."

"The argument goes something like this: 'I refuse to prove that I exist,' says God, 'for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.'"

"'But,' says Man, 'The Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED.'"

"'Oh dear,' says God, 'I hadn't thought of that,' and promptly vanished in a puff of logic." - Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Another Fantastic Eason Lyrics

Okay, I hardly listen to cantonese songs. Even though I am an Eason Chan fan, I have only listened to his Chinese songs despite the fact that all my cantonese friends told me that his cantonese songs are much better. Okay, so I was at his concert in Singapore, and thought one or two of the cantonese songs were not bad, and so before I went back to the States, I bought a compilation of his cantonese songs..... Well, it turns out my friends were correct and from now on I will buy his cantonese albums as well as his Chinese ones.

This is one of my favorite songs inside the compilation .....

=========================================================

十面埋伏


词:黄伟文


闻说你时常在下午来这里寄信件
逢礼拜留连艺术展还是未间断
何以我来回巡逻遍仍然和你擦肩
还仍然在各自宇宙错过了春天

*只差一点点即可以再会面
可惜偏偏刚刚擦过
十面埋伏过孤单感更赤裸

总差一点点先可以再会面
彷佛应该一早见过
但直行直过只差一个眼波将彼此错过
(但直行直过只等一个眼波)*

迟两秒搭上地下铁能与你碰上么?
如提前十步入电梯谁又被错过?
和某某从来未预约为何能见更多?
全城来撞你但最后处处有险阻
repeat *

轨迹改变角度交错寂寞城市又再探戈
天空闪过灿烂花火和你不再为爱奔波

总差一点点先可以再会面
悔不当初轻轻放过
现在惩罚我分手分错了么

分开一千天天天盼再会面
只怕使你先找到我
但直行直过天都帮你去躲躲开不见我


Do not leave your soft drinks out in sub-zero temperatures

Sunday, February 04, 2007

陌生人的背影


这张照片是谁呢?妹妹看着我在国外拍的照片,指着电脑荧光屏问。

哪一张?

就是这张在火车月台上的背影的照片。看起来是某个女孩子的背影。

哦,那只不过是路过的陌生人。我当时只是觉得她站在那里等待的背影非常迷人,所以才忍不住从远处用 zoom lens 拍了一张照片。

所以她本人好看吗?

不知道。后来火车到了,我就自己上车离开。

哦?她不是跟你一起上同样的火车吗?

不是。或许她在等待其他的火车吧。或许她在等待别人跟她一起上火车。或许她只是无聊,独自站在月台吹风罢了。我怎么会知道呢?我跟她的关系只不过是陌生人。我只是刚巧路过,然后刚巧离开罢了。

Thursday, February 01, 2007

Some Thoughts About Religions

I have always told my friends that I have the greatest contempt for religion. Not that I can disprove the existence of god, or that I think that faith is necessarily a bad thing. Maybe I should qualify myself by saying that my contempt for religions are limited to those religion that would deny empirical evidence just because it goes against their dogma. Human beings as a civilization progress because we improve on our ideas, not because we try to fit new findings onto old ideas.
I have also argued a lot of times with my christian friends that if I choose to live my life as righteous as I hope to do so, by being good to my fellow man, and by treating everybody with due respect, does that not make me, to a certain extent, a christian. But often I am rebuffed by them, as they claim I can never be a christian because I do not treat things written in the bible as the gospel truth. I think christianity as a religion has its flaws, and it also has its merits, just like any other religion, ideology or concepts. However, it is sad that the majority of the religious right focuses on these flawed and outdated teachings rather than that is truly of merit. To quote Mohandas Gandhi: "I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."
Of course, I used christianity as an example here. The above comments could apply to any other religion.