Tuesday, May 26, 2009

偉大的中國人!

在柏楊「醜陋的中國人!」一書(2008年版)中,收錄了一篇(其他人寫的) 「偉大的中國人」,當中提到:
二十多年前,有一個男子,一時想不開,爬到台北市館前街某大飯店的十樓頂上,揚言要自殺。頓時招來了滿坑滿谷看熱鬧的觀眾,警察大人如臨大敵,一面在樓下撒下了安全救護網,一面派人上樓去勸說,新聞記者端起照相機,取好鏡頭,準備獵取那最珍貴的一剎那,那男子卻也作怪,任憑警察老爺說破了嘴,他仍堅持非自殺不可,可又不肯立刻就跳,就這樣一點鐘兩點鐘乾耗著。中國人看熱鬧的耐心是天下第一的,抬頭仰望兩三小時,脖子再痠,也不肯休息片刻。眼看對面火車站前的時鐘已經敲出十一點了,跳的還不肯跳,看的還不肯走,這時候,有一個提著空菜籃的主婦,嘴裡嘟嚷著道:「要跳還不趕快,老娘等著看完了還要去買菜!」

幾十年來,「國家在各方面的發展都得到驕人的成就」(更何況上文說的是台灣,沒有「黨」的領導,自然更差),已進化到這樣,還在外國上報:

粵漢不滿阻塞交通 扮「握手交朋友」走近推落跳橋男子

China bridge jumper 'gets a push'

Friday, May 15, 2009

嚴正聲明

本人特此聲明,本人從無授權曾蔭權代表本人,亦從無直接或間接投票支持曾蔭權,其一切言論並不代表本人立場。

PS.
有人說,鎮壓壓出了繁榮。我只知道,是經濟改革改出了繁榮。是人民,用市場經濟打破了毛澤東的枷鎖,才創造了繁榮。現在有人總結說,繁榮是鎮壓的產物。面對全球經濟危機,我不知道他們是否正在準備介紹鎮壓的經驗,來拯救世界經濟。
-- 《改革歷程》

Thursday, May 07, 2009

Tuesday, May 05, 2009

World Championship Snooker 2009

This year I didn't go to Sheffield to watch the above event, because the tickets were already sold out (or more precisely, I'm not bothered to try the phone lines for the "resale" service. There are always plenty of empty seats in each match.) But the BBC streams everything on the web.

Marco Fu plays Joe Swail in the first round. I was quite worried, but somehow Fu got past this easily. Swail wasn't playing that badly, all he lacks is probably luck. Anyway, Fu's next round opponent was Shaun Murphy. Fu lost 3-13 with a session to spare. When he was trailing 1-7 overnight I wasn't too concerned - I saw him won six straight frames to come back from 9-15 to 15-15 a few years back. Never did I imagine that he could lost 2-6 in the next session this time.
He just played very, very badly. It is interesting that players can have complete different performance from day to day.

As for the other players, I'm glad to see Ronnie O'Sullivan crashed out, particularly when he was "potted out", not "bored out" as some may claim for his other losses before. The fact that he has "motivation" difficulties (which is probably genuine, we have students like this) is his own problem, and it doesn't automatically mean that the whole sport is dying.

I managed to see the very last part of Stephen Hendry's 147 live. I have to say, though, that the pockets are incredibly huge and takes almost anything in.

John Higgins eventually won the title. He really is an all-round player, not as exciting to watch as many young players but fully deserves the title.