前几天做一个关于医学教育的研讨会，与会者当中有一位来自广西医学院的教授，名叫冷静，是一位女士。

午餐时，她告诉我她爷爷叫冷自然，姐姐叫冷相宜，最绝的是她爹，叫冷耐寒。

太好玩了。

另外，这几天香港主办世贸部长级会议，闹事者以韩农为主，从开幕前夕直至昨晚闭幕，日日有“节目”（香港人把“活动”叫做“节目”）、晚晚有新招。

从报纸的头版标题就可以看出来了：

第一天：世贸开幕，警民肉搏

第三天：三步一叩首，韩农很温柔

昨天的红字标题就四个字：

湾仔沦陷

上个星期天，我将以前翻的那段顺口溜贴到我们的校友网站上，让大家乐一乐。引来以下这段对话：

姚：
阿季的译法无懈可击，只是略嫌文雅，特别是“身体不好”一句，是不是可以改成”我的什么什么不是一根好枪“一类的，意思也出来了，也顾了押韵。

我连忙改了一下：
Till I got to Beijing, I'd never realized my position was so lowly
Till I got to Dalian, I'd never realized I had married too early
Till I got to Hainan, I'd never realized my you-know-what was not such a great gun
Till I got to Hong Kong, I'd never realized my life of poverty was sealed and done

And, alas,
Till I got to Taiwan, I'd never realized that the Cultural Revolution was still raging, with all the fun

姚：
果不其然，第二版本看了让人神清气爽！人生郁闷为本，段子是乱世中国（也有人说是盛世中国）特定产物，译法不可太过文雅。很象过去的军阀张宗昌写诗，一句“大炮开兮轰他娘”让人痛快淋漓。电视剧《亮剑》大行其道正是这个原因。

这时来了一位“陈博士”，根据内容，估计就是老同学当中的首富、现居德国慕尼黑的那一位，他说：
我说点题外话:
目前中国的国情跟xx所描述得大致相同.顺口流的绝妙之处正是夸张之中蕴含真理.我认为中国目前并没有意识形态的争斗, 安定团结发展经济的党纲似乎只讲金钱物质, 没有精神境界的安慰.人的灵魂没有寄托,也就是没有意识形态,更谈不上斗争. 中国是我所认识的国家中最最金钱万能的国家.
谁在关心自己的灵魂?
谁还在关心人们意识的健康?
有谁能站出来跟金钱万能的假意识形态作斗争?

错觉1:
意识形态并不都是"阶级斗争"的文革意识. 国家和民族一定需要超物质的意识形态来规范自己的行为.传统美德的召回,古典伦理道德品质时间意义上的现代化, 这也许是中国目前精神文明的本质内容.
错觉2:
只有在物质的极大丰富的基础上才能生出精神文明. 典型的马列主义物质决定意识生产力决定生产关系的教条主义!德国是一个没有资产阶级革命的资本主义国家,徳意志的文明来源于教育和修养.是GOETHE和SCHILLER时代的有关美的哲学修养了整整一代新人,塑造了一个现代文明的国家.这正是意识形态救国论的典范. (你们千万别把HITLER与德意志划等号!)
错觉3:
精神的贫困,智慧的孤独,唯我独醒的痛苦并不都是物质匮乏的结果.我更相信有钱人并不都幸福的真知灼见.

照顾好你的意识,教育好你的小孩.

我看到之后回了以下一贴：
精湛，耳东博士！真是醍醐灌顶。扑面而来的是德意志文化的那种“脑筋的认真”和“道德的认真”。

这两者做到了，才能真正对得起自己。这是我个人的体会。最近像发现新大陆似的意识到，一个非常简单而艰巨的入门修为就是：

慎独

这两个字，分量有千钧。

在这个时代生活的我们，脑袋里有不少嗡嗡的杂音：Oh, just relax; loosen up; pamper yourself; 别跟自己过不去；与时俱进吧；云云。

这些话在特定的语境中，都没错。

但在其他语境中，它们就是慎独的障碍。

它们就是北京的乌纱香港的票、大连的模特海南的妞在我们耳边的娓娓细语......

就此打住。只是借着陈博士的话题发挥一下。

未成君子却终日乾乾的xx

今天的会议太有意思了，非写下来不可。为Negroponte教授又做同传又做交传，既荣幸又过瘾。

Nicholas Negroponte是麻省理工学院媒体实验室（Media Lab）的创办人。他是信息数字化（digitization of information）和媒体交集/融合（convergence of media）的理论先驱和实践大师。两个星期前为他在突尼斯翻过一次，印象很深。这次是机缘巧合。

如今他奔走在世界各地，向政府推销他的“一童一电脑”（One Laptop Per Child）计划，并展示这个计划的关键产品：成本一百美元的笔记本电脑。今天是继突尼斯之后首次在亚洲展示。他和另外一位教授详细解释了他们如何将成本压得这么低，一言以蔽之：创新。

一项一项地说，恐怕要写到深夜。举几个例子吧。趁我还记得一些内容。

这种电脑只比课本大一圈，但既有彩显又有标准键盘、手写板，电源来自四节一号充电电池，内置发电机，用曲柄将机械能转化成电能，曲柄效率为1比10，即摇上一分钟可供普通使用10分钟（例如文字处理、上网、电邮收发、画画等），如果只是看书，可以看上半小时到一小时。看书时，将键盘部分折到屏幕后面，就像书一样拿着，而有些键这时就可以用其余四指操纵，翻页、移动光标均可。

最绝的是彩显。它其实是有色彩的黑白屏：用的是廉价的黑白液晶显示器，但在里面夹了一层折射片，黑白就变成彩色的了。将DVD反过来，放在强光下晃一晃就能看到斑斓的彩虹。原理就是这个。太厉害了。成本节约简直令人瞠目，降到了30至40美元。

更绝的是网络功能，每台内置WiFi芯片，同村可以在没有基础设施的条件下联网，只要学校有一个网络接入站即可。有话筒有扬声器，可用作本村范围内的移动电话，进行Skype之类的长途通话更不用说了。如果被盗，拿出该村，机子里的一种软件立即将硬件锁死，变成废机。

不用硬盘，用闪存，省钱，空间为0.5吉兆，内存128MB，成本各为7美元。CPU由AMD提供，260MHz左右，成本不到1美元。操作系统为Linux，免费提供。

整机成本价：100美元。卖给政府后，由政府统一向贫困乡村的儿童提供，最终实现一童一机。他们设想，政府在这个过程中产生的开支，可以从中小学课本经费和全国的普世网络接入（universal access）预算中支取，因为纸质课本可以淘汰了。

中国和印度还在犹豫，巴西、泰国、尼日利亚已经一头扎进去了。一旦承诺了要买，就要开信用证了，不是闹着玩儿的。

Negroponte给教育部的人施加了一点压力：We hope China will be able to deploy this, so we are trying to convince the Chinese Government, but if China is not interested, we'll have to move on, cos there's so much demand out there. 我当时心想，哎呀，您别那么咄咄逼人嘛，于是行使了翻译的“酌情处理权”，把那个“恁要是不稀罕，俺就走人”的意思给“漏”了。

他在正式演讲时提到了他在柬埔寨的经历。几年前他自己掏腰包在Ebay网上买了50台笔记本电脑，送给柬埔寨的一个村庄，让他们发给村里的儿童。孩子拿回家，过了一夜，拿回学校，老师一看，根本都没打开过。一问，原来是家长不许他们碰，怕弄坏了。于是，老师就给写了条儿，让学生带回家，告诉家长，这些电脑是送给他们子女的，就是属于他们的了，尽管用。第二天晚上，家家户户都把电脑打开了，结果最感兴趣的是大人们。

为什么？因为，电脑成了家里最亮的光源！

这几年为数不过来的会议提供翻译服务，学到了不少东西，因为许多会议的内容都是某个行业或专业的精华浓缩。

也听到了不少至理名言。

印象最深的、最具震撼力的一个故事，现转述如下：

This is an old Red Indian tale.

On a starry night, in a mountain valley, a group of young children sit down around a bonfire, waiting eagerly to hear another story from their beloved Grandpa.

"Tonight, let me tell you a story of two wolves." So begins Grandpa.

"Yeah, we love wolf stories," cheer the children.

"You know, there are two wolves inside each one of us."

One of his grandchildren is puzzled, "Really, two wolves, in me? Where are they, Grandpa?"

"They are in your heart. They are in my heart. They are in your papa's heart and your mama's heart. They are in his, and his," Grandpa continues, "One wolf is kindness, patience, generosity, forgiveness. The other wolf is resentment, greed, selfishness, cruelty.

"These two wolves are always fighting, inside each one of us."

"Which one wins in the end, Grandpa?"

Silence.

Then comes Grandpa's reply,

"The one you feed!"

等待
等待

一位老汉，九十五岁了。坐在河沿，叼着烟斗，眯缝着眼看着远方。

这是我在电视系列片《巴蜀古镇》中看到的一幕。就在那一瞬间，我意识到了：

人生是一场长短不一的等待。

等什么？

表面的答案可能有很多。

但深一层的答案似乎跟“人生意义何在”这个问题的答案同样难以捉摸。

隐约之间，我却在这两个问题之间看到了一丝联系：

Maybe, just maybe, we are waiting, with lifelong patience (or impatience), for that very moment...

the moment when all things fall into place and we can MAKE SENSE of what LIFE is all about.

《两只蝴蝶》的歌词，试译如下：
亲爱的你慢慢飞
小心前面带刺的玫瑰
亲爱的你张张嘴
风中花香会让你沉醉
Mavourneen, fly slow
Mind the thorny roses as you go
Mavourneen, open your lips
Savour the wind-borne scent
Intoxicating in just a few sips
亲爱的你跟我飞
穿过丛林去看小溪水
亲爱的来跳个舞
爱的春天不会有天黑
Mavourneen, fly with me
Visit the gurgling brooks through many a tree
Mavourneen, let us dance
In the love-filled spring, darkness as no chance
我和你缠缠绵绵翩翩飞
飞越这红尘永相随
追逐你一生
爱你无情悔
不辜负我的柔情你的美
Flutter as love-birds, you and I
Beyond this mortal world, low and high
Chasing you on my wings that never slack
In the name of love, I never look back
(For I'm as amorous as you are gorgeous)
我和你缠缠绵绵翩翩飞
飞越这红尘永相随
等到秋风起秋叶落成堆
能陪你一起枯萎也无悔
Flutter as love-birds, you and I
Beyond this mortal world, low and high
When leaves fall to oblivion
In the autumn blast
Comes the bliss of withering with you
Breathing our last

Spiritual development.

Two questions, frequently asked.

(1) Why do I have to worry about my next life, my after life? I don't really know who my "predecessor" (previous incarnation) was and it doesn't seem to matter, does it?

(2) Why are we the way we are?

This is how I approach the first question.

I think my life is quite good. According to the theory of transmigration, this is the sum total of what my past lives did. Obviously, my previous incarnations didn't do too bad a job. I'm grateful to them.

Incidentally, could ancestral worship be a veiled form of worshiping one's former incarnations? Just a thought, but an interesting one, I believe.

I know my life can be "better" (however one interprets it), but I don't really strive for a "better" life. Maintaining and enjoying this life I have is more important (call me unambitious). Out of basic human decency and empathy, I would like my next incarnation to enjoy at least the same level of "goodness" that my current life seems to be blessed with. And, hopefully, with a little effort on my part, that being will have a "better" life. After all, that being will be a continuation of "me" and if I'm nice to my family and friends, I have no reason not to be "nice" to the future "me".

As for the second question, I believe it all boils down to "scale". We have five to six senses, out of many senses that we possibly can develop and employ. But for each sense, we have to allocate some resources. Therefore, we need to strike a balance, between maximising the number of senses that we possess to safeguard our survival, security and well-being and minimising the amount of energy we consume in order to mobilise those senses.

In other words, it's almost certain that the senses we KNOW we have are essential to our survival. But are they enough for our spiritual well-being? This is an open-ended question. Through meditation, we seem to be able to sharpen these "normal" senses and develop some extra ones. It's easy to assume that those extra senses are essential to our spiritual well-being, without which we are mere "living" organisms, not enlightened beings.

Imagine - the totality of this cosmos (including all dimensions, spiritual and physical) is projected onto a spectrum. We as average human beings have access only to the middle section of the spectrum (we can sense the vibrations occurring across a certain stretch of frequencies on that spectrum, which are palpable to us). Being aware of vibrations beyond this bracket is not essential to our physical survival. We have those senses so we can sense and avoid danger, and sense and find sustenance. That's why we are the way we are.

I don't want to discuss the "necessity" of spiritual pursuit here, as that's too personal.

Let's say you decide to make a foray into the spiritual realm by taking up a religion and/or following a spiritual master and/or practising meditation. Then you are exposing yourself to the rules of another realm, which presumably are rather different from those governing this reality. In this reality, most of us have from birth a complete set of senses tailor-made for this physical world. But when you embark on a spiritual path, it's unlikely that you are fully equipped with all the senses necessary to steer you clear of lurking perils in that other realm. In this reality, if you lost sight and hearing, you couldn't walk without aid. It would be life-threatening.

Maybe the same applies to the other realm? If that's the case, then it's clear why we have to be very particular about the path we choose to follow.

Your heart is your lodestar, they say. But how do you know your heart is not clouded?

My answer is: Meditation.

How do you know you are on the right path? My answer is: Don't choose a path yet, as long as you still have that question. Just be "watchful". Watch out, in particular, against two things:

Greed
Ego

Religion is attractive to many for two reasons:

(1) It offers an attractive proposition/deal.
(2) It fills a vacuum

By the same token, people go to religion for two reasons: either seeking to change their 'rotten' life (it's a transaction, with tangible benefits expected) or looking for something to eliminate a void in their life (once that void is gone, the believer will go back to being a non-believer, although he/she will never admit it). Or both.

Adopting a religious faith is not as easy as it sounds. One has to be very, very careful, if one is serious about one's spiritual well-being. If you are not serious about it, then why go to religion in the first place? Family heritage? Peer pressure? Fashion? Force of habit?

That's frivolity, if you ask me, and frivolity is an even graver danger, because you render yourself vulnerable to misguiding influences. Because you don't REALLY care.

Meditation should be made very simple. Strip it down to basics only and remember:

惟灭动心，不灭照心
但凝空心，不凝住心

The first line is an antidote for GREED and the second line, for EGO.

Through meditation, questions start to emerge. The right spiritual guide for you is the one who can answer those PARTICULAR questions of yours convincingly. Don't go for the "famed" grand master at the very beginning. If you do, it'll be little more than blind faith. In time, different guides will present themselves to you, when you are ready. As you stay the course, by bearing the two-line "mantra" in mind, your heart, and therefore your vision, will remain unclouded and you can see more and more of the "truth".

听说，在过去一个月里，余秋雨、余华这样的大作家都纷纷建立了自己的博客。掐指一算，咦，跟我建博客的时间差不多。看来有种能量漩涡正在兴风作浪，把许多人吸进去了，我也未能幸免。

那我就随波逐流吧。

这几天，针对精神的修为，有很多想法，正在梳理，成熟了再付诸笔墨。

前几天写的帖子给几位老同学看了之后，其中一位建议如下：

Jim asks:
"各显神通" 可否简单译为"..., each using his own theurgy."?

My reply:
谢谢Jim教我这个单词。原来是 "godly art/skill"之意... 要好好地翻译这句成语，显然应首选这个词。估计汉英辞典的编撰者也没想到这个词，是不是？

... like the legendary Eight Immortals who ferry themselves across the sea by invoking the unique theurgies they each possess -- i.e. people rise up to challenges in their own ways, as if wielding some unique magic power they each have.

这样如何？很罗嗦，但没有背景知识的人听了也能明白。

在今天的领袖人才培训班上，导师说到他当年供职的一家公司，管理混乱，毫无章法，他问他们：

Do you have a budget? They replied: No, but we have hurts.

我一愣，只好在中文句子中将hurts这个英文字照着说出来，同时拼命揣摩他的意思。他顿了一下，接着说：

Of course, for them, budget is the name of a car hire company and so is Hertz.

我赶快补充：“预算”这个词，在英语里是budget，而Budget又是北美和英国的一家租车公司的名字。他的同事听到budget，以为指的是租车公司，便说：我们这里没这家公司，只有Hertz租车公司。

我这么一解释，原话里的幽默荡然无存。但不解释又怎么行呢？我注意了一下，我的听众表情木然，再看一下听得懂英语的其他人，表情亦木然。晚饭时，有人好奇问起我如何处理工作中的一些难点，我就举了这个例子，他们居然根本不记得导师说过这句话，而他们是英语听力最强的几个。看来，这不是听力的问题，而是文化差异的问题。

就像今年早些时候我为仲裁庭做交传时，证人不愿正面回答对方律师的一个问题，是关于他手下的销售人员如何将功能、质量完全一样的产品，换个牌子之后卖出更高价钱的问题。他答道：我是董事长，不管具体的销售，至于销售部门如何推销公司的产品，我想他们自然是八仙过海，各显神通啦！

我当时把最后一部分作了这样的处理：As to how my sales people go about selling our products, I'm sure they each have some tricks up their sleeves.

那一节的证词结束之后，仲裁员之一（一位大名如雷贯耳的资深大律师）对美国律师说：“刚才证人用了一句成语，讲的是中国的一则神话故事，翻译翻得很好，但麻烦他将原文直译给你们听听，我觉得挺有意思的。”于是，我就遵命将“八仙过海，各显神通”当场翻了一下：They are like the Eight Immortals crossing the sea, each using whatever expedient is available to them.

美国律师互相看了一眼，点了点头（nodding knowingly, that is）。仲裁员又说：是呀，那八仙据说住在山东蓬莱，蓬莱我去过，很美。

休息时，速记员把我叫过去，让我把直译的那句成语再说一遍，因为她们当时来不及记。我又说了一遍，她们打好字，看了看，摇摇头， 说：还是不大明白到底是什么意思，还是你原来的译法比较好懂！

那是侥幸凭意译取胜的一例。有时，意译不如直译，尤其是在不知道说这话的人下面要说什么的时候，往往直译更取巧，你听不懂是你的问题，起码我可以避免陷入被动，例如著名的“小葱拌豆腐”事件（我听朋友说的）和“鱼与熊掌不可兼得”事件（我亲耳听到的）。

朋友质疑我的小发明“Ocutrak”（Ocutrak更像商标名，比原先起的Ocutrack好）的实用性，并要求我加以改进。我想了一下，其实眼球（瞳孔）跟踪是在幕后进行的，屏幕上没有可视的光标浮动，选取时可以改为踏板致动，这样脚也可以用上，双手可用来做其他事。要加亮一段文字时，只要踩住踏板，眼睛扫视，完了再放开踏板即可。

小时候很喜欢发明。有段时间在学拉小提琴（爸妈希望自己的儿子将来能成为像盛中国一样，在台上潇洒甩头发的琴手），由于我视唱能力很差，五音不全，全无音乐细胞，最终在外公的干预下，他们悻悻然地放弃了。但我对琴弓的构造产生了浓厚的兴趣，而且根据它的原理，用螺母、螺杆和罐头盒设计出了一种千斤顶。几天后，我在街上发现有辆卡车抛锚了，有人正在换轮胎，我赶紧趴下，看了一眼，顿时感到一瓢凉水从头顶浇下来：原来，这玩意儿已经有人发明过了！

为此我懊恼了好几天，所以至今还记得。

一位好友看完有关我父亲的帖子后，问了我一些问题。我拉拉杂杂写了一些，作为回答。现贴上。

The way I dealt with what happened to my family in the Cultural Revolution was to tell myself that my family, as a cell of the nation, had to go through the journey, together with the nation, towards modernity. It's an arduous journey, largely thanks to the legacy burden accumulated over millennia that arose from (a) a lack of generosity on the part of Nature and (b) the bondage imposed on the individual, as necessitated by the reality of being land-bound.

For me, it was a process of deliverance from bitterness and resentment. The person who helped me get there was none other than my father.

I remember the day he came home from prison.

We were living in a bungalow complex. It was more like a warehouse, divided into a row of rooms. We had a bedroom to ourselves, but shared the living room with a group of sent-down youth, whose bedroom faced ours. According to the villagers, our bedroom door had been taken from an unused coffin. They even showed my mother the holes in the door where coffin nails had been removed. Of course, they would have enjoyed seeing signs of terror in the eyes of this city girl, but they saw none. My mother later told me that she was horrified, but managed to mask her emotion at that point.

Right in front of the living room lay, from east to west, a chain of three grave mounds. We called them "The Three Big Mountains", alluding to Chairman Mao's famous metaphor. Beyond the "mountains" was a river and a bridge. I used to stand atop those mounds, a bamboo pole in hand, mimicking the boatmen punting their vessels in the river. That was my favourite pastime.

One day, I woke up from a siesta and heard his voice in the living room. I was trembling with joy and excitement, but didn't say anything. He was chatting with three villagers, who were obviously also happy to see him back and were curious about his experience, knowing that he had been released "not guilty".

Father was sitting on a low stool, back to the bedroom door. I sneaked up to him and sat down next to him. He turned round, acknowledged me, started stroking my head and carried on chatting with the visitors. I noticed he had a pair of nail clippers in his hand. I picked them up and studied them. They were tiny. On the front of the movable part (the reverse side of the file) was a glazed picture of a hammer, a sickle and Chairman Mao's quotation book. I noticed something unusual: The hammer was in the middle, the quotation book to its left and the sickle to its right. I remember saying to myself at that point - this is incorrect. Chairman Mao's quotation book should be the centrepiece!

That night, mother questioned father about some tiny, round scars on his face. They were faint, but visible. He said they were burns from lit cigarettes. It was part of the torture. He said it wasn't too painful. As far as I know, that was all he said about the torture.

Years later, we moved back to town and my parents were restored to their previous jobs. One evening, father said, "I saw Li Xiangyang in the street today."

Mother's face changed. "Did you go up to him and slap his face?"

"I didn't."

"What a wimp! I would have slapped him and spat in his face!"

Silence. Then father said, "They are also victims. I felt sorry for Li when I saw him."

After Deng Xiaoping returned to power, a campaign was launched to purge "Three Kinds of People". I cannot remember its definition. Li Xiangyang was one of the three kinds, I know, but father was very critical of that campaign. He said, "This is a case of repaying evil with evil. Most of those people were misled and now they are being singled out as fall guys. I think Deng is taking revenge on a huge number of people for the maiming of his eldest son, which was the doing of just a few."

That is why getting over the feeling of hate wasn't very difficult for me. In fact, the word "forgive" doesn't even apply here, because "forgive" necessarily puts "me" in the right and "him" in the wrong. But how do I know who's right and who's wrong? The trauma for me, as a child, stemmed from separation, isolation and despair. Full stop.

今年吃的唯一一只大闸蟹。

说起螃蟹，让我想起两年前跟几个朋友吃饭，我们点了大闸蟹。我边吃边抱怨：脚多、壳硬，吃起来忒麻烦。

身边的好友摇头太息：

人类真残忍，吃了人家不说，还嫌人家长得麻烦。

Having made a sweeping statement about the dietary inclinations of HK people, I must hasten to add that they do have a life-saving magic formula up their sleeves: Cantonese soup.

Some of their soup recipes are more medicinal than alimentary and can be off-putting, taste-wise, not to mention their interesting ingredients.

However, these recipes do work. Traditionally, the housewife/mother would throw the right combination of ingredients (depending on the season and weather conditions) into a tall, pot-bellied earthenware pot in the morning. It will then sit on a low flame simmering for practically the whole day. When husband and kids come home in the late afternoon/early evening, they are on autopilot and make a beeline for that pot.

If it's well made, the first sip would calm you down. Then you feel the energy settle into your lower abdomen and the antsy sensations, in your head and in your body, caused by the stress of the day simply fall off like autumn leaves.

Not surprising, because if you analyse the ingredients, you'll find that most of them are stuff that tonifies the yin energy, which is often in deficit among modern city dwellers.

在不远的将来，鼠标一定会被淘汰。取代它的是什么呢？不知道。

也许，到那时，光标会跟着你的眼球跑。要点击什么，就使劲儿挤一下眼睛，咦，金山词霸就把你要的对应词显示出来了。

这样不好，女士不喜欢，因为这样容易出现鱼尾纹。

还是用瞪眼点击比较好。好像经常瞪眼不会导致类似甲状腺亢进的症状，无后顾之忧。

起个名字吧。

就叫它 ocutrack。

点击也不叫hit或click，而是叫stare。点击率叫stare rate（瞪率）。非常人性化，我们平时看东西是扫视，感兴趣了，眼球就停住，瞳孔放大，瞪也。

People in Hong Kong typically have a low threshold for two things: hot weather and hot food.

Paradoxically, the overuse of air-conditioning only serves to raise the ambient temperature (i.e. creating hotter microclimate) and their penchant for what is termed "heaty" food (which causes symptoms and syndromes of excess) does exactly what spicy food does, i.e. depleting the body's reserve of yin energy which is vital to systemic equilibrium.

遥远的记忆里有两个人，不是时时能想起，但偶尔会闯进脑海。最近却好像挥之不去。想想，觉得应该写下来。

他们俩是爸爸坐牢时的传信人。

一个叫马长国，村里的闲散人员；另一个叫“大嫂”，公社看守所里烧饭的。

马长国之所以闲散，是因为他患有晚期肝癌，做不了庄稼活。他父亲是抗战时期当地有名的双枪将。马长国是独养儿子，上面有个姐姐。我至今记得马长国长得很白净，腆着个肚子（据说是肝腹水造成的），喜欢两臂交叉抱在胸前，右手不停地捋着下巴，下巴上稀疏地长着几根胡须，这几根胡须也就在他捋下巴的同时时常地被顺手拽几下。记得他的文化是高中程度，喜欢看书，经常跟我爸妈聊文学之类的话题。

有段时间，中央号召工人农民学哲学、讲哲学、用哲学，马长国听说了，神情鄙夷地哼了两声：“哲学？哼，哲学？就凭他们？”现在想来，他当年也算是个大snob。

爸入狱后，马长国凭着自己响当当的出身，常常去公社看守所附近转悠，希望能见我爸。从来没有成功过。我知道从村里到公社有七华里地，其间不乏独木桥和陷阱般的沤肥的大坑。他拖着病躯一趟一趟走那段路，一定不容易。后来他跟烧饭的“大嫂”搭上话了。大嫂第一次见到我爸就觉得他不可能是坏人，很同情这个戴着眼睛的白面书生，非常愿意帮忙。这样，她和马长国的地下工作就开始了。爸是抽烟的。妈通常将写好的小纸条塞进烟卷，再跟其它的香烟混在一起，包好，交给马长国。记得写的内容通常都是一些安慰的话，以及我写字有进步了之类的信息，有时也夹带我写的字。爸的回信就是一张小纸片儿，估计是瞅准机会塞给大嫂的。记得有一次的信中说我的字写得很好了，而给他看的是我写了n遍的“主席”二字。

有一次，大嫂传来紧急口信，说我爸有轻生念头。估计他不知该招什么，屈打之后也成不了招，急了。妈立即写了一封信，叫他挺住。这事儿就过去了。

再后来，爸被转到县城监狱进一步审问。途中允许回家看一下。预先没有通知，汽艇就停靠在门前的岸边。从我妈告诉我“你爸被押来了”那一刻起，直到他们乘汽艇离开，我一直没抬头，死命抵抗着抬头看看爸的欲望，只是在练习簿上继续练字。清楚记得爸抱着我的头，眼泪滴在我的头发里，我的眼泪吧嗒吧嗒落在练习簿上，而我反复抄写的却是“兴奋”二字！

汽艇咆哮着箭一般离去时，我冲到门口，从牙缝里蹦出几个字：简直就像反动派警车的声音！

爸出狱并平反后（获“赔偿金”90元，我还记得，因为村里的一个聋子问他拿了多少赔偿金，我爸用手语告诉他的），我听见他跟妈商量了一阵，后来去扯了几匹布送给了大嫂，给马长国的，我记不清了，可能是一台收音机。

回城后不久，听村里来的人说马长国病故了。

国际组织谈判时，若一些国家的立场出现分歧，会议主席一般要求 interested 代表团进行 informal consultation，相互之间coordinate一下，目的是harmonise各自的立场，从而实现意见的convergence，甚至达成一个consensus。

上述的关键词我推敲了一下，觉得不妨翻译成以下的对应词：

会议主席要求感兴趣的/有关的/有利害关系的代表团进行非正式的磋商/碰个头，相互之间协调一下，目的是磨合各自的立场，从而实现意见的交集，甚至达成协商一致。

记得小时候当地村里的人说，如果你吃东西时有条狗一直盯着你，指望你给它施舍一点，你必须在自己吃满第一百口之前，给它一点，否则你就会得“嗝症”（后来经考证，据说就是指食道癌）。我当时就不信，而且猜测这肯定是狗主人编造的。

在狗的注视下进餐的经历相信每人都有过。

那么，在麻雀近距离的逼视下吃东西呢？

最后，我撒了一点面包屑给它，结果引来了一大群它的同类以及它的异类（鸽子）。不过鸽子什么都没吃到，动作不够麻利。

Although I'm at war with British Airways at the moment for their mishandling of my luggage, I still feel compelled to say a few nice words about the captain of our flight.

This picture shows him explaining the technical glitch that had kept our plane grounded for an hour or so. This is what he said:

"Did you hear what I was telling the other passengers? If you didn't, I'm quite happy to repeat it. Well, you see this little part in this plastic bag I'm holding... that's the culprit that caused the problem. There was a tiny leakage from this tiny part in the hydraulic pump. Our engineers identified the problem and went to the depot to get a new one. They've put the new one in now and they are running tests to make sure there's absolutely no more leakage. I'm expecting a call from them any moment now and I reckon you'll be able to board the plane in half an hour to 45 minutes. I do apologise for the delay, as this is our issue. I'm very sorry. I suppose these things do happen now and again."

He went from row to row. The passengers who decided to hang around the boarding gate while waiting were occupying about a dozen rows and the captain repeated the above explanation and apology as many times. In some rows, there were only two people.

This is what I call "transparency" at its extreme. While the whole exercise was rather touching, I thought he probably overdid it, as his first duty was to ready himself for the long flight ahead and this long litany of repeated explanations and apologies would no doubt sap his energy. It could have been left for someone else, like his co-pilot or, better still, a senior member of the ground crew!

Nevertheless, the captain deserved a thumbs-up!