剎那間的永恆

主題：剎那間的永恆是否為我終身所追尋的標的抑或是我期待的終點
副標：到底是誰死了？


我們知道相聲在我們傳統民俗當中是一項非常重要的表演藝術，隨著時代的進步，它也慢慢的消失了，也沒有人給它寫祭文，也沒有人給它寫訃聞。

--李國修《那一夜》1985

在1985年，《那一夜》演出時，賴聲川剛從獲得加州柏克萊大學戲劇博士回到台灣。當時的台灣正處在一個經濟起飛，充滿變化的時代。在時間的列車快速前進的同時，也把很多傳統，很多生活中的事物拋下。其中一項正是當時已近凋零的相聲，而《那一夜》，一齣以「相聲」為主題的舞台劇，就是賴聲川為「相聲」所寫的祭文。表演工作坊的網站這麼介紹《那一夜》：「《那一夜》試藉「相聲」這一個正消逝中的藝術形式，來反映台灣現代社會中許多事物和觀念的快速消逝，正是評論家馬叔禮說的『用相聲來寫相聲的祭文』」。網站並蒐錄了當時中央日報的報導：「笑聲的背後，卻孕含著深切的悲傷，對於一切所失去的傳統，以及隨著時間所消逝的一切」。

「用相聲來寫相聲的祭文」，正像是禪宗裡的一個故事裡有三位以笑度化眾生聖人，其中一位聖人先死了，剩下兩個聖人還是像以前那樣的灑脫、快樂，用「笑」送走同伴。更像是王地寶送走了王地寶，越走越遠，越走越遠，看不到了…

那麼相聲祭文的內容要寫什麼呢，一篇好的祭文帶我們回顧死去的「相聲」，一篇不好的祭文會帶我們...(老師在講，你有沒有在聽)，最常聽到關於《那一夜》最後一段的討論就是，「他們死了嗎？」，這其實是個未解決的問題:)，就像是趙自強在問：「是莊周夢到了”伏”蝶，還是”伏”蝶夢到了莊周？」，是你作了一個夢？是舜天嘯作了一個夢？夢醒了嗎？誰又知道哪些是夢哪些不是夢呢？您也死過，您喝了忘魂湯，忘啦。

《那一夜》整篇祭文充滿了「消逝」的意象，一個晚上，舞臺上搬演著近百年左右的戲碼，何嘗不是剎那間的永恆：不知消失到哪去的小姐，找不到的小孩叫小狗，再到明天不定是風是雨抗戰，國父之死，八國聯軍，直隸大地震…相聲一路陪我們走過這許多的無常，帶給我們笑聲和歡樂。時間走過去了，真正的「常」恐怕只有「無常」了，所以當「相聲」送走了義和團，送走了老崔和老田，送走了黃胖子，送走了一個女的，最後「相聲」疲倦不堪，滿身泥濘，燈籠火光微弱，似乎快滅了似的，走過去了，走了，走了…..終於到了是時間送走「相聲」的時候了。而我們，如果不學習把握，隨時也可能會，啵!沒有了

後來呢？
後來我就開始聞到一股焦味…

再然後呢？
後來就有了一千零一夜的故事。

其中一夜好像是這麼說的：
(相聲)在我們傳統藝術當中，象徵我們民族的幽默感，它能代表群眾做社會批判，最直接的達成情緒的宣洩，相聲在台灣的發展曾經家喻戶曉，不過後來一度沒落甚至死亡了。...直到今天有些朋友認為相聲的精神，反而被西餐廳保留了。

(原發表於ptt相聲板)

Howl's Moving Castle

5/6/2006 Sat. We watched "Howl's Moving Castle". Very different from the popular CG style Animations created by American Studios, Hayao Miyazaki's Howl's Moving Castle presents a magical story in a fairytale style. I love many of Hayao Miyazaki's works a lot, for example, the classics: My friend Totoro, Kiki's delivery service. His works is not that straighforward thus evokes some thinking. As already presented in the previous work, Hayao pictured a world without war and pollution. It is a little weird to see the scenario of the movie in a late 1800s european city. But it feels fitted to the fairytale very well. As a strong contrast to the debut of modern technology showed by the steam vehicles and other machines or craft used in the war, "magic" is the power beneath the steel components, for example the moving castle was powered by fire demon Calcifer. And all the other magical thing that machine can do. However, more important is still the heart of human, who should be the lord of all these magic. Sophie was turned into a old lady by magic, but because of her heart, the way she face it shows the heart has power over magic. Another very important feature of Hayao Miyazaki's movies is the music, the music of Howl's Moving Castle was made by 久石讓, who is also the author of the Kikujiro no natsu.

Last, Ying found some funny thing about Howl's Moving Castle: the ten things Howl's Moving Castle teaches us.

Good night and Good luck

Friday night, Ying and I rent a DVD - Good night and Good luck directed by George Cloney. There were too many vocabulary we didn't understand, which made us not able to appreciate the movie very much. I rent this one because I read a piece news on UDN introducing this moive. It was reported that George collateralize his house (for 7.5 million USD) to start the movie. He said otherwise he won't have a good thing to left for human beings when he is 70. I admire such personality.

Japanese Dinner

Because of the MJ games we played for the past semester, we have collected a good amount of fund. So every body went for a dinner in a Japanese restaurant near Westin at buckhead. I believe I was there with Jaey, Lee, and Jaey's elder sister on Christmas 2004. The food was great. I had pork-don.

Interview experience

Our Team is going to recruit a new co-op during the summer. On Friday, a guy came for a on-site interview. My boss asked me join the interview. It was a extraordinary experience one can have I considered. His name is Clement and he is from France. During the interview, Vadim, ZY, and Madhav was there. Cement presented the project he did with he did his co-op in Phillips Research, Netherland. It was using Labview to enhance the infra-red photos in assisting medical usages. We also showed him around. After he finished and while he was waiting for the cab, I talked to him about the european ways (in education, in working). He said people he met there also get flexible working hours. However, they come in early and leave as early as 5 o'clock. Talking about education, he said it is more theoretical there (more practical in US). We also talked about some other things. It is good to talk to people from different countries. He seems to be very enthusiastic about the exploring his experience. He said he eagerly joined the activities he could find here. I need to do the same thing.Anyway, this experience, made me know more about what the people in the other side of the interview table thinks. I took notes on it. For example I think: 1. It is a good to go through the Resume when they ask you to introduce yourself. Not all the interviewer have checked them. Assume they know nothing. Point out those need further explanations 2. How knowledgable you are is a important question. The employer want to know how fast you can pick up the work. 3. Do not care too much about the facial expressions, they may be frowny only because they always do. 4. Ask questions, to the manager. They may try to show they know much. 5. Ask for advice from junior employee (me) for the interview if you get a chance to talk to him. 6. Tell stories.

Kuan's Dinner

in Sunday evening, Kuan invited Ying, Weichun, and me to her house and she cooked a French style dinner for us. She didn't make it on Saturday night to joing Ying's birthday party because she went to a concert. Lily and Fred was there also, we have a great dinner, and we were all talking in English. I did the quater to soda can trick for them. After the dinner, before going home, we went to Ted's house to get the fish's food, and we also visit the new 4 neighbors, that is the Physics 4. It was fun that one department, the "Theory Home" was much cleaner than the "Experiment Home". We all had a good laugh at such contrast.

Martin Nash's Lecture

Martin Nash, the charming cheat, held a Farewell lecture. I was lucky enough to join. To my surprising, there were not much people attended. He was awesome, when you watch him performs, you see an elegant move and Martin have reasons for all of them. "You should do this becuase...", I learned a lot. He was saying, one should add one's own personality to the performing. How to deal with such and such. For example, what to do when you need to mosit your hands.

Ying's Birthday

It was Saturday. I asked our friends to go to the Tofu house together. There were about sixteen people came. By the way, Richard and the other three in "physics 4" moved to Willow Lake today. We have an bigger and bigger neighborhood now, which I consider to be great. After the dinner, they all come to Ying's house to have the cake and games. It was fun. Tzung-lin Wu and Yu played four card to24 game. They are both fast at that. I and Lin-pei was also in the game. Ying got many gifts. I think she is happy. The birthday gift I gave her was two DVDs: Before Sun rise/set. They were the first moving we had together. I remember that time I lived in GLC and we were nother together at that time. I am so glad to have her.

MJ Friday night

After the night market, we went home to settle the goldfishes and went to Yu and JiaHong's house. On our way there, Ying drove and there was such a big raing. I never see this srong rain, the drop of rain was so big, I felt it was going to break my windshield. I joined the second round of the MJ game playing with KJ, TaiMing, Yu. KJ was the winner of night, the the two rounds he played, he won both and accumulating 16 dollars, I won too, yeah, 12 dollars. TaiMing lose today, I think this is first time he lost this much. It was fun to see people's reaction about winning and losing. Of course, all the money end in entering the fund we share :)

Night Market at GT

At Friday night, TASA an Taiwanese undergrad student association held a "Night Margket". To ur disappointment, there were not much food as it is in Taiwan, but there were a lot of games like netting goldfish, dart,...etc. The tickets was .50 each for most of the games. We end winning three gold fishes and several small items. Richard and Tsao Yu was there, they were doing this "Jeopardy" game, which is a riddle game with question in History, Geography,...etc. If you accumulate enough point, you can smash a pie onto one of the girls' faces. They won however Richard, instead of smash it to the girls, he smash the whipped creams to Yu. I was a fun night, we also appreciate the performance of Kong-Fu, diabolo,.... and most of the friends were there. It was great. And it was until this night we realize there are this many Taiwanese in this area.

My first IBM meeting

In the evening of Monday, I went to Allstar at Roswell Mall to join a IBM meeting. This is my first there, and the program for the night is a close-up contest. There were seven magicians, they are all from Georgia and some of they are pretty good. But you can tell some of them seem to be nervous. I talk to many people, it feels good to know a lot of people who like magic. I am planning to go the Martin Nash's lecture on Sunday.

Tsao Yu hurt his eye

After coming back from stone-mountain on Sunday, I went to CRC to play basketball with Taiwanese students. When playing, suddenly, Steve's hand hit Yu's face. The glasses shattered right in front of his eye. It was blood everywhere on his face. We call the emergency and they call the police and ambulance. The guy on ambulance gave Yu a preliminary check and asked us to go to the hospital by ourselves. It turned out to be fine. However, it was very horrible and we all worried very much.

Sunset at Stone Mountain

Sunday.Together with Ying and Weichun, I went to the stone-mountain park around 5 o'clock, we climb up to appreciate the beautiful sunset.

TSA ping-pong festival

TSA held a ping-pong intramural. It was another afternoon full of fun. The climax was the man's final, Tzung-Lin v.s Huang. We adopted two lost rule. Tzung-Lin lost to Huang then went to the "lost" portion. finally they meet in the final. Tzung-Lin won the game and made both of their record to one lost. The final game than held. 11-points. and the one who win two games get the championship. Each of them won one of the first two games. The last one, Huang finally won with close scores. Did I join the games. Yes, I lost all my games except the one with Ying against Tai-Ming and Yi-Han. Ha Ha, thanks to them.

Meet Joe Turner at Norcross Station Cafe

I have read about Joe Turner doing round table at Norcross Station Cafe on IBM Ring9's webpage for a while. Yesterday (Friday), we went there for the first time. I was a big restaurant located at Norcross Downtown. When entering the downtown area of Norcross, I felt very different from the atomosphere of Atlanta City. It was like a small town like Holland. Norcross Station was a train station, but trains, though still passing by, no longer stop. The food there was all traditional american food, that is, all fried! Joe stopped by and did 3 tricks. One is having his ring taken off then jump back to his finger at once. And the other two are card tricks.

Lily's Belly dance presentation.

On Thursday evening, Georgia Tech held a evening show "Dance Tech" presented by various dacing societies within Tech, including Belly dance, Ballroom dance, Indian...etc. Lily has taken belly dance for two semesters. To our surprise, all the dancers are plump but Lily. Besides group dancing, their instructor, still a senior undergrad, presented a one-woman show. She put a long knife on her head, balanced, and do all those acrobatic motions without dropping the knife. It was amazing. Ying likes Jazz hiphop. Her teacher last semester also joined the show. I encourage her to continue involving in this.

Lin Pei's Birthday

In the late evening of Sunday, we have a birthday party for Lin Pei in Richard's house. We had cake together. It was quite relaxing. Ying was sick. Headache. I bought some Theraflu Drinks for her. Hope she get well soon.

Dogwood festival 2006

We went to the Dogwood last year, and I was amazed by a artist's work. The artist's name was Bruce Holwerda, I remember he was selling a work named "walking the dog" last year priced at 300 or so. I thought about this picture very much in the past year. So when yao-sheng told us about the artist is having a booth again. I was very excited. To my surprise. The have that same picture in a cheaper version this year($90). I bought it and am planning to frame it:) He has a similar work this year and I love it too. We see a lot more good art works from many artists. I also like the work of Tardy, and Ying liked John S Gibb, who draw with pencil. One can never imagine a pencil work could be detailed like this. She especially likes the wavelet.

Steven's Party

On Saturday evening, we went to Steven's house. He has a nice house decorated with stuffs he brought back from all places he traveled. He has this hand craft sculpture of a boat made of fish bone from Taiwan. He invited many people, most of them are from asia I guess. There are several elder girls from Taiwan. And oh-my-god, Taiwanese really can drink!

TSA basketball festival

The TSA president Richard held a basketball game on Saturday. There are 3-on-3, 3-point, free-throw games. I played in the team of YoYo, Berry, Ted, and Tony Wu. We won one game against ESL students. Some of the members in the opponent team played the game quite brutally. I was pissed off. I really need to discipline my temper more. Well, I joined the 3-point game as well, my score was 1 out of 10, that's embrassing.....Ying made 2 out f 10 in the girls' free-throw game.