Tuesday, May 01, 2007
台商把錢往敵國送
NO:1151_16番薯仔 於 2004/09/14 12:36 Re:
愛錢、好名、怕死 台灣人僅三種性格
我想有那麼多的台商把錢往敵國送，肉包子打狗，有去無回，一點也都不在乎。
怎麼會是愛錢呢？在敵國的五百枚飛彈的文功武嚇之下，台灣人可視若不見，也沒有全民備戰，而台商也不怕被敵國的人陷害，更不怕在戰時被敵國的野蠻極權政府抓起來當人質。台灣人怎麼會怕死呢？自己有一個民主的國家可求名，台商們不建設自己的故鄉來求名，而要寄人籬下的去接受極權統治，去建設那種充滿敵意的野蠻落後地區，又吃力不討好。怎麼會是好名呢？
台灣的男人，為了要有敵國的包二奶，才一點都不愛錢，一點都不好名，也一點都不怕死呢！
愛錢、好名、怕死 台灣人僅三種性格
我想有那麼多的台商把錢往敵國送，肉包子打狗，有去無回，一點也都不在乎。
怎麼會是愛錢呢？在敵國的五百枚飛彈的文功武嚇之下，台灣人可視若不見，也沒有全民備戰，而台商也不怕被敵國的人陷害，更不怕在戰時被敵國的野蠻極權政府抓起來當人質。台灣人怎麼會怕死呢？自己有一個民主的國家可求名，台商們不建設自己的故鄉來求名，而要寄人籬下的去接受極權統治，去建設那種充滿敵意的野蠻落後地區，又吃力不討好。怎麼會是好名呢？
台灣的男人，為了要有敵國的包二奶，才一點都不愛錢，一點都不好名，也一點都不怕死呢！
CHINA 與 CHINESE 的意思是一樣的
蘭陽醒獅團 於 2004/09/13 14:07
CHINA 與 CHINESE 的意思是一樣的
CHINA 與 CHINESE的意義是不是一樣？
這並不是哲學邏輯的辨證，而是給人的觀感，是一種品牌的認同與爭奪。曾經在英國的益智節目的關鍵時刻，出了一個超高難度的題目：“AIR CHINA 與 CHINA AIRLINE 的差別在哪裡？”
這題目難倒了博學的英國選手。AIR CHINA是中國航空，而CHINA AIRLINE則是台灣的華航，但是所謂的“中華航空”是懂漢文的人自己的認為，其他語文世界的認知卻是一樣的 ----- 中國航空。
Are you Chinese？
外國人的意思是“你是中國人嗎？”可不會認為“你是中華人？”然後後面主動加上“括號台灣”。
名字的原始需求本身在與差別與得到他人的認同，如果硬要使用一個讓別人也讓自己混淆的，那就不是一個好的名字與品牌。
能知道“AIR CHINA 與 CHINA AIRLINE“的分別，就算是在台灣，至少80%的人霧煞煞。
講到親水公園，很多人會直覺想到宜蘭冬山河，但其實台灣後來有20多座的親水公園，在北投、台東關山、二重疏洪道、彰濱、烏山頭等...，數不可數，我們最大的疑問是，如果你拼不過冬山河的名氣，為何要與之混淆？而被掩蓋？如果你的建設與名氣將贏過冬山河，卻為何要與之一樣？
在現代社會，名字的本身要有品牌的經營概念，品牌就是一種資產，微軟甚至付錢給一家名字相似的公司，要求其改名，以免消費者迷惑。
但為何台灣要緊緊抱著CHINESE，然後在島內自我互相安慰說：「沒關係，以後全世界人就會知道差別了，CHINESE是中華而不是中國的意思。」-------這是不是阿Q的活生生實例呢？
一堆取名親水公園，是由於各縣市政府沒有品牌的認知，對於這些公園會有怎樣的特色展現，實在無法產生樂觀，因為連名字都沒有特色，更遑論內質？
台灣以一個國家之實卻拿著CHINESE品牌，那就是一個大問題了，競爭力與品牌認同都有深遠影響，換算成損失的金額是天文數字，令人無法想像。
CHINA 與 CHINESE 的意思是一樣的
CHINA 與 CHINESE的意義是不是一樣？
這並不是哲學邏輯的辨證，而是給人的觀感，是一種品牌的認同與爭奪。曾經在英國的益智節目的關鍵時刻，出了一個超高難度的題目：“AIR CHINA 與 CHINA AIRLINE 的差別在哪裡？”
這題目難倒了博學的英國選手。AIR CHINA是中國航空，而CHINA AIRLINE則是台灣的華航，但是所謂的“中華航空”是懂漢文的人自己的認為，其他語文世界的認知卻是一樣的 ----- 中國航空。
Are you Chinese？
外國人的意思是“你是中國人嗎？”可不會認為“你是中華人？”然後後面主動加上“括號台灣”。
名字的原始需求本身在與差別與得到他人的認同，如果硬要使用一個讓別人也讓自己混淆的，那就不是一個好的名字與品牌。
能知道“AIR CHINA 與 CHINA AIRLINE“的分別，就算是在台灣，至少80%的人霧煞煞。
講到親水公園，很多人會直覺想到宜蘭冬山河，但其實台灣後來有20多座的親水公園，在北投、台東關山、二重疏洪道、彰濱、烏山頭等...，數不可數，我們最大的疑問是，如果你拼不過冬山河的名氣，為何要與之混淆？而被掩蓋？如果你的建設與名氣將贏過冬山河，卻為何要與之一樣？
在現代社會，名字的本身要有品牌的經營概念，品牌就是一種資產，微軟甚至付錢給一家名字相似的公司，要求其改名，以免消費者迷惑。
但為何台灣要緊緊抱著CHINESE，然後在島內自我互相安慰說：「沒關係，以後全世界人就會知道差別了，CHINESE是中華而不是中國的意思。」-------這是不是阿Q的活生生實例呢？
一堆取名親水公園，是由於各縣市政府沒有品牌的認知，對於這些公園會有怎樣的特色展現，實在無法產生樂觀，因為連名字都沒有特色，更遑論內質？
台灣以一個國家之實卻拿著CHINESE品牌，那就是一個大問題了，競爭力與品牌認同都有深遠影響，換算成損失的金額是天文數字，令人無法想像。
荷蘭政府統治台灣
NO:989_201番薯仔 於 2004/09/07 03:38 Re:2008
北京奧運台灣還要用Chinese Taipei這個名？
我個人認為2008年的奧運會，我們仍然必須參加。最好用TAIWAN為隊名，不能用TAIWAN，就用TAIPEI，不能用TAIPEI，用TAIPEI CHINESE，真的沒辦法才用 CHINESE TAIPEI。不管用甚麼名，最好我們的選手們能穿著印TAIWAN的運動衫及運動褲。我們也可學學巴西的女運動員，穿著在屁股面印上巴西的短運動褲的作法，而在運動褲背面印上TAIWAN。陳詩欣及朱木炎跟古巴及墨西哥的選手們做決賽的時候，我人剛好在捷克。
捷克的電視播報記者成頭到尾，都以TCHAJWAN〔台灣〕及 TCHAJWANSKY〔台灣〕來報導我們的的代表隊。沒有半句 CHINA〔捷克語發音是七那〕或 TAIPEI。因此，不管我們用甚麼名子，全世界大部份的國家，還是叫我們作TAIWAN。就是只有我們自己及敵國不敢叫！
本人也在此聲明在先：本人將不回應在敵國，在香港，及在世界各地，受僱於敵國的極權政府的特務們的無理取鬧及對台灣人的侮辱。你們有種的話，就到天安門廣場，舉牌大罵『江澤民跟胡錦濤是王八蛋』。不必在此說甚麼『以作中國人為榮』，或『台灣是中國的一部份』之類的統戰的話。照你們的野蠻邏輯，台灣人應該是荷蘭人，台灣也應該是荷蘭的一部份，因為在台灣的第一個政府是荷蘭政府。
荷蘭政府統治台灣的時間也要比清朝正式承認台灣為清朝的領土的時間長。還是回去叫你們的極權主子多唸唸台灣史，再來這裏丟臉吧！
北京奧運台灣還要用Chinese Taipei這個名？
我個人認為2008年的奧運會，我們仍然必須參加。最好用TAIWAN為隊名，不能用TAIWAN，就用TAIPEI，不能用TAIPEI，用TAIPEI CHINESE，真的沒辦法才用 CHINESE TAIPEI。不管用甚麼名，最好我們的選手們能穿著印TAIWAN的運動衫及運動褲。我們也可學學巴西的女運動員，穿著在屁股面印上巴西的短運動褲的作法，而在運動褲背面印上TAIWAN。陳詩欣及朱木炎跟古巴及墨西哥的選手們做決賽的時候，我人剛好在捷克。
捷克的電視播報記者成頭到尾，都以TCHAJWAN〔台灣〕及 TCHAJWANSKY〔台灣〕來報導我們的的代表隊。沒有半句 CHINA〔捷克語發音是七那〕或 TAIPEI。因此，不管我們用甚麼名子，全世界大部份的國家，還是叫我們作TAIWAN。就是只有我們自己及敵國不敢叫！
本人也在此聲明在先：本人將不回應在敵國，在香港，及在世界各地，受僱於敵國的極權政府的特務們的無理取鬧及對台灣人的侮辱。你們有種的話，就到天安門廣場，舉牌大罵『江澤民跟胡錦濤是王八蛋』。不必在此說甚麼『以作中國人為榮』，或『台灣是中國的一部份』之類的統戰的話。照你們的野蠻邏輯，台灣人應該是荷蘭人，台灣也應該是荷蘭的一部份，因為在台灣的第一個政府是荷蘭政府。
荷蘭政府統治台灣的時間也要比清朝正式承認台灣為清朝的領土的時間長。還是回去叫你們的極權主子多唸唸台灣史，再來這裏丟臉吧！
台灣也來辦一個
NO:989_168借殼 於 2004/08/25 22:18 Re:2008北京奧運台灣還要用Chinese Taipei這個名？
2008如果不參加北京奧運來個異想天開的在2008北京奧運同時,台灣也來辦一個,運動會獎金大放送,搞死老共
100公尺短跑冠軍獎金台幣一億,亞軍5000萬台幣,銅牌3000萬,第4名2000萬游泳項目也來幾個,花個幾億元,氣死阿共仔不是很好,
搞不好到時,一大堆要參加奧運的好手為拿獎金跑到台灣比賽不去中國參賽.而且在台灣我們高興叫什麼就叫什麼,中國管不著
2008如果不參加北京奧運來個異想天開的在2008北京奧運同時,台灣也來辦一個,運動會獎金大放送,搞死老共
100公尺短跑冠軍獎金台幣一億,亞軍5000萬台幣,銅牌3000萬,第4名2000萬游泳項目也來幾個,花個幾億元,氣死阿共仔不是很好,
搞不好到時,一大堆要參加奧運的好手為拿獎金跑到台灣比賽不去中國參賽.而且在台灣我們高興叫什麼就叫什麼,中國管不著
大陸的行文習慣
作者: 震澤 (---.roylok01.mi.comcast.net)日期: 04-16-05 01:38
四月號《科學人》有篇中研院研究員李國偉教授寫的書評〈站在巨人肩上的近視眼〉，評的是「大塊文化」出版的一部套書《站在巨人肩上》，其中收集了哥白尼、伽利略、克普勒、牛頓及愛因斯坦等人的著作。由於幾位譯者都是大陸人，因此李教授說「大陸的行文習慣、人名與專有名詞的譯法，都與台灣有看得出的差異。
我希望編輯工作能夠切實做好，讓我們的讀者可以順暢地閱讀下去。」他並挑了個例子：「像是譯文『牛頓對萊布尼茲惡意攻擊，經常上綱上線到上帝觀與宇宙觀』，『上綱上線』這種濃烈共產黨的口吻頗令人倒胃口，也弄不清『綱』跟『線』是瞎米碗糕。」無獨有偶，該期也有篇筆者的投書，針對的是三月號的書評〈讓黑暗女郎回歸榮耀〉，評的是之前在本版討論過的佛蘭克林傳記《DNA光環背後的奇女子》。投書裡有一段話是這麼寫的：「…威爾金斯給華生看了一張佛蘭克林拍攝的DNA晶體攝影相片，而帶給華生解開DNA構造的靈感。許多人因此上綱上線，說華生偷了佛蘭克林的研究成果，才得出發現…」。
為此，編輯問我要不要改掉「上綱上線」這個引起李教授反感的用詞。我考慮了一陣子，決定保留，但請編輯加上括號。由於發生這段曲折，不免讓我思考：為什麼同樣一個新詞，有人欣然接受，有人卻心存抗拒？我想只要是經常寫作的人，都曉得語言及文字是很敏感的東西（不然，古往今來也沒那麼多文字獄了）。此外，人對新名詞總有抗拒的心理。好比當年流行的「蓋」、「馬子」、「條子」等名詞，我可是自鳴清高，一向不用的；但隨著年紀漸長，看多了一些流行用語的消長，也就沒那麼堅持。如今國內的報章雜誌裡，閩南話國語、日本用語以及年輕一輩的電腦手機語言等，氾濫程度比起以往只有過之；我雖然更是用不來，但也看著猜著有趣，不像年輕時那麼反感。至於「上綱上線」這個用法，我已經說不上來自己是什麼時候學會的；匪情報導？反共文學？傷痕文學？大陸電影？顯然是多到已經麻木了。我上Google查了一下，所有中文網頁裡，共有38,000頁提到這個詞；若是限定繁體中文，則是6,300頁（出處仍以對岸網站居多），顯然是相當普及。
我還在維基百科找到一頁說明，有興趣的人可以參考。http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%B8%8A%E7%BA%B2%E4%B8%8A%E7%BA%BF
我想我們不必知道共產黨的指導綱領及路線是什麼，也可以體認「凡事不能就事論事，而非要訴諸最高指導原則」的荒謬。「無限上綱」則是這個名詞另一個傳神的衍生。大陸人用的許多名詞，初次接觸並不讓人喜歡，好比「水平」、「前沿」，甚至「科普」，但看久了也不那麼刺眼（我不能接受的有「進化」一詞）；再怎麼說，十幾億人使用的語言，形勢還是比人強。李教授最後刻意寫道：「弄不清『綱』跟『線』是瞎米碗糕。」我想不懂閩南語的人，更是不會曉得「瞎米碗糕」是什麼東西。雖然是有意的反諷，似乎有點小家子器了。
四月號《科學人》有篇中研院研究員李國偉教授寫的書評〈站在巨人肩上的近視眼〉，評的是「大塊文化」出版的一部套書《站在巨人肩上》，其中收集了哥白尼、伽利略、克普勒、牛頓及愛因斯坦等人的著作。由於幾位譯者都是大陸人，因此李教授說「大陸的行文習慣、人名與專有名詞的譯法，都與台灣有看得出的差異。
我希望編輯工作能夠切實做好，讓我們的讀者可以順暢地閱讀下去。」他並挑了個例子：「像是譯文『牛頓對萊布尼茲惡意攻擊，經常上綱上線到上帝觀與宇宙觀』，『上綱上線』這種濃烈共產黨的口吻頗令人倒胃口，也弄不清『綱』跟『線』是瞎米碗糕。」無獨有偶，該期也有篇筆者的投書，針對的是三月號的書評〈讓黑暗女郎回歸榮耀〉，評的是之前在本版討論過的佛蘭克林傳記《DNA光環背後的奇女子》。投書裡有一段話是這麼寫的：「…威爾金斯給華生看了一張佛蘭克林拍攝的DNA晶體攝影相片，而帶給華生解開DNA構造的靈感。許多人因此上綱上線，說華生偷了佛蘭克林的研究成果，才得出發現…」。
為此，編輯問我要不要改掉「上綱上線」這個引起李教授反感的用詞。我考慮了一陣子，決定保留，但請編輯加上括號。由於發生這段曲折，不免讓我思考：為什麼同樣一個新詞，有人欣然接受，有人卻心存抗拒？我想只要是經常寫作的人，都曉得語言及文字是很敏感的東西（不然，古往今來也沒那麼多文字獄了）。此外，人對新名詞總有抗拒的心理。好比當年流行的「蓋」、「馬子」、「條子」等名詞，我可是自鳴清高，一向不用的；但隨著年紀漸長，看多了一些流行用語的消長，也就沒那麼堅持。如今國內的報章雜誌裡，閩南話國語、日本用語以及年輕一輩的電腦手機語言等，氾濫程度比起以往只有過之；我雖然更是用不來，但也看著猜著有趣，不像年輕時那麼反感。至於「上綱上線」這個用法，我已經說不上來自己是什麼時候學會的；匪情報導？反共文學？傷痕文學？大陸電影？顯然是多到已經麻木了。我上Google查了一下，所有中文網頁裡，共有38,000頁提到這個詞；若是限定繁體中文，則是6,300頁（出處仍以對岸網站居多），顯然是相當普及。
我還在維基百科找到一頁說明，有興趣的人可以參考。http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%B8%8A%E7%BA%B2%E4%B8%8A%E7%BA%BF
我想我們不必知道共產黨的指導綱領及路線是什麼，也可以體認「凡事不能就事論事，而非要訴諸最高指導原則」的荒謬。「無限上綱」則是這個名詞另一個傳神的衍生。大陸人用的許多名詞，初次接觸並不讓人喜歡，好比「水平」、「前沿」，甚至「科普」，但看久了也不那麼刺眼（我不能接受的有「進化」一詞）；再怎麼說，十幾億人使用的語言，形勢還是比人強。李教授最後刻意寫道：「弄不清『綱』跟『線』是瞎米碗糕。」我想不懂閩南語的人，更是不會曉得「瞎米碗糕」是什麼東西。雖然是有意的反諷，似乎有點小家子器了。
解放軍廟
這兒有一座全國獨一無二的‘解放軍廟’，廟裡供奉著28軍27名烈士。1949年9月17日，中國人民解放軍第10兵團司令員葉飛率領的28軍84師 251團的官兵分乘6艘木帆船從福建省平潭來到崇武鎮的西沙灣，准備參加解放金門的戰役。這是當年一位被28軍官兵從敵機轟炸下救出的小姑娘所立。當時住在她家的27名解放軍戰士以後全部戰死在金門。姑娘如今已是67歲的老嫗。我和她一同攀上山崗，遠眺金門。
這個小女孩當時只有13歲，名叫曾恨。在此之前她叫曾阿興，她的母親叫李面。李面與丈夫僑居新加坡，生有三子一女。女孩起名曾阿興，是希望小女孩能為家族帶來興旺。然而，老天無眼，曾恨的兄弟在日寇侵占新加坡時全死了，這對李面一家來說是一個極大的打擊。她為女兒曾阿興改名曾恨以示對戰爭的憎。
母親為了躲避戰爭，決定帶著12歲的曾恨返回故鄉崇武。李面認為故鄉雖窮，但故鄉人情卻是溫暖。來到崇武後，李面再次為曾恨改名，仍叫曾阿興。她希望這次真的不再有怨恨，家族從此興旺發達。在依然硝煙彌漫的西沙灣，李面再又一次為女兒改名，她說：“囡仔，今天起，你仍叫曾恨。”說完，母女兩人抱頭痛哭。 當地的群眾按當地的風俗在沙塚邊蓋了一間12平方米的小屋子，屋子裡安放著烈士的牌位，上書“廿七君靈位”。崇武民風古樸，素有奉祀為民捐軀的英雄的習俗。明朝時，戚繼光曾率部在泉州海域與倭寇激戰，眾多將士陣亡。一部分陣亡的將士也葬在西沙灣的海灘旁，村民建了一座面向大海的“和寮宮”，以祭奠奉祀些英靈。供奉“廿七君靈位”的小屋子便建在“和寮宮”附近。
第二天早上，李面便帶著曾恨來上香。後來便是曾恨帶著子女、孫子來。除了分娩坐月子，哪怕刮風下雨，曾恨堅持天天祭拜恩人，年年香火不斷。每年除夕，曾恨都要和母親到西沙灣為這些死難烈士守歲。 曾恨總覺得那方小小的“廿七君靈位”無法滿足她對解放軍的懷念。她把母親給她的梳妝盒改成一個小小的神龕；她用泥土塑了一尊解放軍像，用筆給泥像畫上五官和紅五星、領章；她用寫著“中國人民解放軍”的紙條貼在泥像的胸前。曾恨對解放軍的懷念、對死難烈士的哀思有了一個真實的形像寄托。不知從哪天起，祭奠奉祀“廿七君”的人漸漸多了起來。除夕夜守在此處的也不止曾恨一家人。
崇武鎮12個村都有人到“廿七君靈位”前燒香上供品。曾恨許下心願，建一座像“和寮宮”一樣的廟，她要把27位烈士供起來讓人們瞻仰。 文革期間，“和寮宮”和“廿七君靈位”以及曾恨捏的解放軍泥像與“四舊”一起，被掃除一空。曾恨也被告知：不得再去墳上燒香上供品了，因為解放軍是不信神、不信迷信的。但是曾恨仍舊我行我素，只是時間上稍作調整，把祭奉時間改在不易被人覺察的凌晨或深夜。
“文革”過後，曾恨又可以公開地祭奉解放軍烈士了。燒香點燭焚紙錢時，海風把紙灰吹得到處飄揚。曾恨要為死難烈士建廟的決心更堅定了。在她心中，這些不知姓名和住址的解放軍戰士就像神一樣，是她生命中的支柱。
幾十年過去了，為了建廟做小本生意的曾恨省吃儉用地積攢了四五萬元。有了錢後，她到鎮上的有關部門詢問有關建廟事宜。在得到允許後，她丟下生意不做了。她把母親生前留下的金鏈、金手鐲賣掉，把房契抵押掉，四處寫欠條借錢，但還只是杯水車薪。她對村支書說：“解放軍是共產黨的軍隊，為了解放我們受苦的人，解放軍犧牲了，現在我要按這裡的風俗像建“和寮宮”一樣建成一座廟。你們是共產黨員，帶頭捐一點吧。只用了半年多的時間，曾恨在只有6萬人口的崇武鎮募到60多萬元的捐款。
1993年，解放軍廟緊挨著“和寮宮”動工了，
1996年秋天，廟建成了，無和尚、沒尼姑，無佛無神，在通常用來擺放神明的地方端端正正地擺放著27尊解放軍塑像以及當年他們所乘的木帆船的模型。曾恨住在廟裡，她每天早早地起床，在供桌前擺上清茶、供品，然後燒一柱香，默禱“國泰民安，風調雨順”。 曾恨常呆在廟細細地擦拭雕像、香案。她總是一邊忙著一邊與這些雕像說話，她總覺得這些解放軍烈士會聽到自己的聲音。曾恨為他們准備了很多東西，如：小汽車、摩托車、飛機、艦艇和手提電話等紙扎祭品和玩具，曾恨說，她要讓這些解放軍生前沒享用過的現在都能享用。
1997年，崇武人民又捐資建了烈士紀念碑。老將軍葉飛聽女兒葉藝華講述老百姓自發修建解放軍廟的消息後，激動不已，當即揮毫題寫碑銘：“為了人民，死得光榮”。紀念碑於1997年11月完工。
1998年初，崇武鎮又開始擴建烈士紀念館，完成解放軍廟的配套工程。
27位烈士所在部隊已改了番號，1997年，時任團長來到這裡悼念先烈，代表部隊為解放軍廟贈送匾額，上書“戰士英烈，惠女虔誠？？天下第一廟”。1999年，老戰士侯茂森也來此懷念戰友。附近的駐軍官兵和中小學校的師生更是經常到這裡接受先烈事跡的熏陶和愛國主義教育。 占地400多平方米的解放軍廟香火不斷，廟前的楹聯：“丹心照日月，碧血寫春秋”、“官兵勇戰壯成仁，同志於今稱大人。塑像奉香豈迷信，翻身群眾敬功臣。”廟宇上空回蕩的總是《我是一個兵》、《說句心裡話》等和《我的老班長》等軍隊歌曲.
這個小女孩當時只有13歲，名叫曾恨。在此之前她叫曾阿興，她的母親叫李面。李面與丈夫僑居新加坡，生有三子一女。女孩起名曾阿興，是希望小女孩能為家族帶來興旺。然而，老天無眼，曾恨的兄弟在日寇侵占新加坡時全死了，這對李面一家來說是一個極大的打擊。她為女兒曾阿興改名曾恨以示對戰爭的憎。
母親為了躲避戰爭，決定帶著12歲的曾恨返回故鄉崇武。李面認為故鄉雖窮，但故鄉人情卻是溫暖。來到崇武後，李面再次為曾恨改名，仍叫曾阿興。她希望這次真的不再有怨恨，家族從此興旺發達。在依然硝煙彌漫的西沙灣，李面再又一次為女兒改名，她說：“囡仔，今天起，你仍叫曾恨。”說完，母女兩人抱頭痛哭。 當地的群眾按當地的風俗在沙塚邊蓋了一間12平方米的小屋子，屋子裡安放著烈士的牌位，上書“廿七君靈位”。崇武民風古樸，素有奉祀為民捐軀的英雄的習俗。明朝時，戚繼光曾率部在泉州海域與倭寇激戰，眾多將士陣亡。一部分陣亡的將士也葬在西沙灣的海灘旁，村民建了一座面向大海的“和寮宮”，以祭奠奉祀些英靈。供奉“廿七君靈位”的小屋子便建在“和寮宮”附近。
第二天早上，李面便帶著曾恨來上香。後來便是曾恨帶著子女、孫子來。除了分娩坐月子，哪怕刮風下雨，曾恨堅持天天祭拜恩人，年年香火不斷。每年除夕，曾恨都要和母親到西沙灣為這些死難烈士守歲。 曾恨總覺得那方小小的“廿七君靈位”無法滿足她對解放軍的懷念。她把母親給她的梳妝盒改成一個小小的神龕；她用泥土塑了一尊解放軍像，用筆給泥像畫上五官和紅五星、領章；她用寫著“中國人民解放軍”的紙條貼在泥像的胸前。曾恨對解放軍的懷念、對死難烈士的哀思有了一個真實的形像寄托。不知從哪天起，祭奠奉祀“廿七君”的人漸漸多了起來。除夕夜守在此處的也不止曾恨一家人。
崇武鎮12個村都有人到“廿七君靈位”前燒香上供品。曾恨許下心願，建一座像“和寮宮”一樣的廟，她要把27位烈士供起來讓人們瞻仰。 文革期間，“和寮宮”和“廿七君靈位”以及曾恨捏的解放軍泥像與“四舊”一起，被掃除一空。曾恨也被告知：不得再去墳上燒香上供品了，因為解放軍是不信神、不信迷信的。但是曾恨仍舊我行我素，只是時間上稍作調整，把祭奉時間改在不易被人覺察的凌晨或深夜。
“文革”過後，曾恨又可以公開地祭奉解放軍烈士了。燒香點燭焚紙錢時，海風把紙灰吹得到處飄揚。曾恨要為死難烈士建廟的決心更堅定了。在她心中，這些不知姓名和住址的解放軍戰士就像神一樣，是她生命中的支柱。
幾十年過去了，為了建廟做小本生意的曾恨省吃儉用地積攢了四五萬元。有了錢後，她到鎮上的有關部門詢問有關建廟事宜。在得到允許後，她丟下生意不做了。她把母親生前留下的金鏈、金手鐲賣掉，把房契抵押掉，四處寫欠條借錢，但還只是杯水車薪。她對村支書說：“解放軍是共產黨的軍隊，為了解放我們受苦的人，解放軍犧牲了，現在我要按這裡的風俗像建“和寮宮”一樣建成一座廟。你們是共產黨員，帶頭捐一點吧。只用了半年多的時間，曾恨在只有6萬人口的崇武鎮募到60多萬元的捐款。
1993年，解放軍廟緊挨著“和寮宮”動工了，
1996年秋天，廟建成了，無和尚、沒尼姑，無佛無神，在通常用來擺放神明的地方端端正正地擺放著27尊解放軍塑像以及當年他們所乘的木帆船的模型。曾恨住在廟裡，她每天早早地起床，在供桌前擺上清茶、供品，然後燒一柱香，默禱“國泰民安，風調雨順”。 曾恨常呆在廟細細地擦拭雕像、香案。她總是一邊忙著一邊與這些雕像說話，她總覺得這些解放軍烈士會聽到自己的聲音。曾恨為他們准備了很多東西，如：小汽車、摩托車、飛機、艦艇和手提電話等紙扎祭品和玩具，曾恨說，她要讓這些解放軍生前沒享用過的現在都能享用。
1997年，崇武人民又捐資建了烈士紀念碑。老將軍葉飛聽女兒葉藝華講述老百姓自發修建解放軍廟的消息後，激動不已，當即揮毫題寫碑銘：“為了人民，死得光榮”。紀念碑於1997年11月完工。
1998年初，崇武鎮又開始擴建烈士紀念館，完成解放軍廟的配套工程。
27位烈士所在部隊已改了番號，1997年，時任團長來到這裡悼念先烈，代表部隊為解放軍廟贈送匾額，上書“戰士英烈，惠女虔誠？？天下第一廟”。1999年，老戰士侯茂森也來此懷念戰友。附近的駐軍官兵和中小學校的師生更是經常到這裡接受先烈事跡的熏陶和愛國主義教育。 占地400多平方米的解放軍廟香火不斷，廟前的楹聯：“丹心照日月，碧血寫春秋”、“官兵勇戰壯成仁，同志於今稱大人。塑像奉香豈迷信，翻身群眾敬功臣。”廟宇上空回蕩的總是《我是一個兵》、《說句心裡話》等和《我的老班長》等軍隊歌曲.
China Shakes the World
China Shakes the World
Jack Belden
I emerged from the guerrila ares of Anyang in a disturbed and confused frame of mind.Many of the things that I had and seen in that dark medieval world just would not fit into the usual Westerner's conception of war, revolution or even life itself.The fact that a woman should laugh just after her husband hand been murdered on a lonely hillside somehow seemed inexplicable.
Was there a connection between that woman's laugh and the Chinese revolution?I soon came to think so.
For it was a curious fact that as I began to mull over in my mind all that I had learned during the land reform and the people's war, I discovered that the Communists' drive for power was touched at almost every point by women, by the feelings, by their relationship to men, by their scoial status, by their symbol as an object of property, religion and sex.Because of this discovery, I decided that I would make use of the fiest available opportunity to talk with a Chinese farm woman about her life, her innermost thoughts, her secret feelings.
This I knew would be difficult, for Chinese farm women will not usually talk alone with men, especially foreigners, yet an opportunity of this kind was offered me sooner than I expected.Having said goo-by to Mr. Chen and Liu Ming-chi, I made my wary back across the North China Plain and after several days' journey come to Li- Chia-Chuang, a small village of about three hundred people in central Hopei. (河北)
Here I found my farther progress halted by the flood waters of the Grand Canal which KouMinTang troops had broken open to block the advance of Communist armies in the area. Not wishing to wander out across the flood waters and offer myself as a target for potshots from either side, I decided to sit down in the village for the moment and await developments.During this period, I tried to persuade several farm women to talk to me about themsevles, but they were never willing.After some difficulty, I managed to win the confidence of a peasant girl name Kin Hua, whose husband was away in Chiang Kai Shek's areas, and gradually I persuaded her to tell me the story of her life.
I found it so interesting that I postponed my departure from the villagea another week and talked with her every day for eight, nine and ten hours a day.I will try to tell her story here just as she told it to me in a flood of bitter tears, angry imprecations and emotional outbursts of despair, frustration and hope.
I am condending her words but nevertheless I shall tell her story at some length because I think it reveals more clearly than a dozen speeches by Mao Tze Tung just what are some of the techniques of the Chinese Communist party and why they were able to win so many people to their cause.
At the time I mei Kin Hua - which translates into English as Gold Flower - she had just turned twenty-one.She was a rather attractive girl, with a pleasant face, embellished by a tiny mouth, an upturned nose and a pair of somber brown eyses.Thin and wiry, she appeared more dainty than the average North China farm woman.She had the slender wrists and ankles that Frenchmen so much admire.
Her feet were not bound and her hair was bobbed.We sat and talked in her home - a clay-hut afffair of four rooms running in a square around a court-yard - and this is the story she told me.
She had been born in a village ten miles away where conditions were primitive, food scarce, comforts unknown, and she had worked hard ever since she could remember.When she was fifteen, during the middle of the Japanese invasion, she fell in love with a boy named Li Pao, the primary schoolmate of her elder brother.
He was, to hear her tell it, a distinctly good-looking boy of seventeen years, with a slender, trim body, odd, restful eyes, and a queer deep voice that had the ring of an old bell. It was the voice that got under Gold Flower;s reserve: it was so different from the coarse peasant tones to which she was accustomed. Whenever he came to see her brother, Gold Flower would drop whatever she was doing and go and listern to their conversation.
As she heard Lipao talking, his eyes earnest with youthful enthusiasum, his whole body bent forward intent on what he was saying, talking of such grand and to her, unheared of things as freedom, democracy and the future of China, her heart yearned over hime.He was so noble! She wanted to tell him so, but her brother was always present and she never had the opportunity. So she just sat near him, sent him secret smiles and followed his every movement with her eyes.
He soon became aware of her interest, and noce, when her brother left the room for a moment, he leaned over close to Gold Flower and said: "I have learned something from your eyes. I know you heart."
Ashamed, ye delighted, Gold Flower was so excited she could make no reply. Later, she longed to have a secret conversation with him. But how?It is necessary for a North China village girl to give the appearance, if not of disdain for men, at least of disinterest in them, since decorum and dignity rank abve love as the virtues most highly prized in China, and girls stay behind the wall of their homes until they were married and ever after that.
Although there are thousands of authentic instances of Chinese men selling their women into wifery, concubinage or whoredom, there is scarcely any record of a girl indulging a romance with a boy with the consent and knowledge of her parents; and the descent for a girl breaking this rule is very swift, since anyone finding her alone with a boy could accuse her of selling her maidenhood.
So hypocritial is Chinese society that while farmers may commit adultery with their tenant's wives without fear of punishment and while every village has and tolerates at least one "BROKEN SHOE", a young boy and girl, no mater how innocent their intentions, may neither talk alone together, hold hands nor much less kiss.
Under these circumstances, it must be accounted an act of courage, infatuation, or insanity that Gold Flower, another time, when her brother left the room for a moment, leaned over and whipered in Li Pao's ear:" My family will be away tomorrow, will you come?"The next day, he obtained leave from school, and by nine o'clock was at her gate.
She blushed as he entered, and she gave a little affected laugh to keep herself in countenance.Then - so a stray visitor or her family returning would think no one was at time - she led hime to her room and immediately closed and bolted the door.Gold Flower had thought only to have a secret talk with a boy whose intellectual attainments she admired.But her companion mistook her unconventional behavior and the bolted door for an invitation of another sort, and he tried to make love to her.At first shocked, then excited, the frightened, Gold Flower, rebuffed him, half-succumbed to him, the angrily told him to leave.
But when he rose to go, Gold Flower's heart was thrown into turmoil. At one moment she was afraid of not being loved, at another thought that Li Pao wanter her virginity as a kind of medal of conquest tortured her. Had she been sure of his affections, or had she ever had another experience with a man, perhaps she would have let him go, but to lose friendship of such a boy seemed to her at the moment the worst possible disaster.
Her passion carried her to the point of falling at Li Pao's feet and throwing her arms around his knees. She pleaded with him not to try to make love to her - for she would be tetrothed to another man - while at the same time she begged him not to desert her for she was lonely."Be my friend, my elder brother, my lover - in everything but that be my lover," she had cried. Moved by her word and her attitude of humility, the boy overcame his annoyance at being thwarted and agreed to her conditions.In this way, a romance - childish, but forbidden by Chinese village code - had begun. And so it continued, for when her family returned Gold Flower still contrived wasy to meet her lover.
Every night when the others were in bed - her three brothers, father and mother, all together on one KANG - Gold Flower would tiptoe out her dooe and softly let back the latch on the front gate. Soon there would be a creaking at the gate and then a shadowy form would flit swiftly across the courtyard and Gold Flower's door would open and then shut again.
During these nightly meeting in Gold Flower's room, the couple poured out much talk from their hearts, but they did not make love, never kissed, only held hands, looked deeply into one another's eyes and swore eternal friendship.
Because her actions were so contrary to village morality, Gold Flower when she first paused to think about her conduct, felt stunned with remorse. But one day when her girl friends gathered in her room to sew flowered shoes she began to feel differently.
The girls played the game: "what kind of a man would like to marry?" and Glod Flower, her cheeks faintly red, relied:" I should like to marry someone like my neighbor Li Pao; he is so handsome and tender."
Then teased to distraction by her friends, and in terror lest her secret be dicovered, she shrugged her shoulders and said with an air of worldly wisdom:" What is the use of talking about what kind of a man we would like to marry, when we have no choice in the matter?' "Yes," her friends had answered. "How stupid it all this! Our parents arrange everything for us. Like us not we'll get an ugly husband."The girls wished they had been born in England, France or America, where they heard women married men they loved.
They had vague feelings the they are living in a "black society", and since in their hearts they were rebels against this scoiety, every one of them thought it all right to have a secret lover.
These conversations gave Gold Flower pleasure, for they clothed her affair with Li Pao in a moral garment of which it had hitherto been barren. She even began to revel in her defiance of scoiety and sought proofs that her adventure was making a better woman of her. Sometimes she would take her small mirror from under her pillow and look happily at her own face. Never had it seemed more beautiful. " I have a lover! a lover!" she would say, delighting in the idea like a child with a new toy.
The days following passed with new sweetness. The first time Li Pao told her he love her she nearly feel fainting in his arms with ecstasy. Then, because he asked for nothing in exchange for his love, she began to think generosity, nobility of soul and humanity existed only in this young student.
Li Pao taught her how to write a few simple characters. Thenceforth, when she wanted to see him, she wrote the character "come" on a scrap of paper and put it in the hollow of a tree by the village pond.Li Pao came to find it and put there another note saying "yes" or "no," or "tonight" or "tomorrow" or "my room" or "your room" for these were nearly all the characters she could read.Brief as were these note, Gold Flower guarded them like a treasure, hiding them in a corner of her KANG beneath the reed matting, and taking them out every once in a while and tracing the characters Li Pao had written over again with her finger.In fact, the whole art of writing seemed to Gold Flower some powerful black magic.
The word "come" often had for her semblance of a holy and potent incantation, for she only had to write and suddenly - proof! - in answer to her sorcery, Li Pao would be in her room.In other ways, too, the whole horizon of her thoughts and life lifted/ Entirley absorbed, before Li Pao's coming, with that mass of work which is the lot of Chinese farm girl, Gold Flower had never thought about passion and love affairs, save in relation to the gossip she had heard in the mouths of other women.
But now these stories began to seem almost as real to her as her own life, and she began to adopt the tricks of every romance of which she had ever heard.
Because it was traditional with the heroines of her remembered stories to sew garments for their lovers, Gold Flower began to make Li Pao a jacket. Her month notice this and became suspicious. Gold Flower put her off saying:"His mother has no time to sew, I'll just throw this together carelessly and help her out."
To herself, however, she said:"I must show my love through my work," and she began to make a jacket of which any big city tailor might well have been proud.
Instead of the usual five buttonholes, she made thirteen, and around each hole she embroidered a flower. Such buttonholes are known to young boys and girls in this part of China as "the thirteen precious jewels." and Gold Flower was very happy in her work, believing she was having a romance in the best tradition.
Because she had grown very sentimental, she ran with the jacket to Li Pao and insisted that he try it on.All the while she danced around him crying: " Do you like it? Oh, tell me, do you like it?"Her enthusiasm was so captivating and her sentiment so infectious that Li Pao had answered just as her heart had wished."I love it because it was made by my own true love's hands."
As was the custom, he tried to give Gold Flower money to buy thread to make herself a pair of flowered shoes. At first, she refused, saying, "I don't want anything from you, but your love." But when her refusal saddened him, she took the money, but she never bought anything for herself and spent every dollar to buy cloth, thread and needles to make garments for Li Pao.Gold Flower often thought this was the happiest time of her life - a honeymoon she might have called it had she known the word or been aware of the custom.
She would have liked to shout her love for Li Pao to the whole village, and though this was impossible, she longed for some friend in whom she could confide. But not only was this denied her, but she had to redouble her caution to prevent the affair from becoming known.By degrees a vague uneasiness took possession of her. She was no longer, as formerly, completely carefree. She began to wonder if she ought not to yield to Li Pao, or whether, since she could not completely satisfy his love, cease to see him any more.Her refusal to give herself to him had at first proceeded from strength, but now she found herself wondering if it was not weakness that prevented her from fully consummating their love.
Then she asked herself what would become of her - if her parents would betroth her, and to whom? But Li Pao's face always rose before her and she could not picture any other hushand. Yet there always rang in her mind that thought: "If you should be betrothed! If youshould be betrothed!" At night she could not sleep; she tossed and turned and beat her pillow. Thinking that, after all, it would be worse to give herself to someone she did not know than to Li Pao, whom she loved, she promised herself to throw herself in Li Pao's arms the next time he came, but when he did come, she could not do it and remained silent.I the autumn of 1942, Gold Flower was betrothed to a man named Chang,……………….
Jack Belden
I emerged from the guerrila ares of Anyang in a disturbed and confused frame of mind.Many of the things that I had and seen in that dark medieval world just would not fit into the usual Westerner's conception of war, revolution or even life itself.The fact that a woman should laugh just after her husband hand been murdered on a lonely hillside somehow seemed inexplicable.
Was there a connection between that woman's laugh and the Chinese revolution?I soon came to think so.
For it was a curious fact that as I began to mull over in my mind all that I had learned during the land reform and the people's war, I discovered that the Communists' drive for power was touched at almost every point by women, by the feelings, by their relationship to men, by their scoial status, by their symbol as an object of property, religion and sex.Because of this discovery, I decided that I would make use of the fiest available opportunity to talk with a Chinese farm woman about her life, her innermost thoughts, her secret feelings.
This I knew would be difficult, for Chinese farm women will not usually talk alone with men, especially foreigners, yet an opportunity of this kind was offered me sooner than I expected.Having said goo-by to Mr. Chen and Liu Ming-chi, I made my wary back across the North China Plain and after several days' journey come to Li- Chia-Chuang, a small village of about three hundred people in central Hopei. (河北)
Here I found my farther progress halted by the flood waters of the Grand Canal which KouMinTang troops had broken open to block the advance of Communist armies in the area. Not wishing to wander out across the flood waters and offer myself as a target for potshots from either side, I decided to sit down in the village for the moment and await developments.During this period, I tried to persuade several farm women to talk to me about themsevles, but they were never willing.After some difficulty, I managed to win the confidence of a peasant girl name Kin Hua, whose husband was away in Chiang Kai Shek's areas, and gradually I persuaded her to tell me the story of her life.
I found it so interesting that I postponed my departure from the villagea another week and talked with her every day for eight, nine and ten hours a day.I will try to tell her story here just as she told it to me in a flood of bitter tears, angry imprecations and emotional outbursts of despair, frustration and hope.
I am condending her words but nevertheless I shall tell her story at some length because I think it reveals more clearly than a dozen speeches by Mao Tze Tung just what are some of the techniques of the Chinese Communist party and why they were able to win so many people to their cause.
At the time I mei Kin Hua - which translates into English as Gold Flower - she had just turned twenty-one.She was a rather attractive girl, with a pleasant face, embellished by a tiny mouth, an upturned nose and a pair of somber brown eyses.Thin and wiry, she appeared more dainty than the average North China farm woman.She had the slender wrists and ankles that Frenchmen so much admire.
Her feet were not bound and her hair was bobbed.We sat and talked in her home - a clay-hut afffair of four rooms running in a square around a court-yard - and this is the story she told me.
She had been born in a village ten miles away where conditions were primitive, food scarce, comforts unknown, and she had worked hard ever since she could remember.When she was fifteen, during the middle of the Japanese invasion, she fell in love with a boy named Li Pao, the primary schoolmate of her elder brother.
He was, to hear her tell it, a distinctly good-looking boy of seventeen years, with a slender, trim body, odd, restful eyes, and a queer deep voice that had the ring of an old bell. It was the voice that got under Gold Flower;s reserve: it was so different from the coarse peasant tones to which she was accustomed. Whenever he came to see her brother, Gold Flower would drop whatever she was doing and go and listern to their conversation.
As she heard Lipao talking, his eyes earnest with youthful enthusiasum, his whole body bent forward intent on what he was saying, talking of such grand and to her, unheared of things as freedom, democracy and the future of China, her heart yearned over hime.He was so noble! She wanted to tell him so, but her brother was always present and she never had the opportunity. So she just sat near him, sent him secret smiles and followed his every movement with her eyes.
He soon became aware of her interest, and noce, when her brother left the room for a moment, he leaned over close to Gold Flower and said: "I have learned something from your eyes. I know you heart."
Ashamed, ye delighted, Gold Flower was so excited she could make no reply. Later, she longed to have a secret conversation with him. But how?It is necessary for a North China village girl to give the appearance, if not of disdain for men, at least of disinterest in them, since decorum and dignity rank abve love as the virtues most highly prized in China, and girls stay behind the wall of their homes until they were married and ever after that.
Although there are thousands of authentic instances of Chinese men selling their women into wifery, concubinage or whoredom, there is scarcely any record of a girl indulging a romance with a boy with the consent and knowledge of her parents; and the descent for a girl breaking this rule is very swift, since anyone finding her alone with a boy could accuse her of selling her maidenhood.
So hypocritial is Chinese society that while farmers may commit adultery with their tenant's wives without fear of punishment and while every village has and tolerates at least one "BROKEN SHOE", a young boy and girl, no mater how innocent their intentions, may neither talk alone together, hold hands nor much less kiss.
Under these circumstances, it must be accounted an act of courage, infatuation, or insanity that Gold Flower, another time, when her brother left the room for a moment, leaned over and whipered in Li Pao's ear:" My family will be away tomorrow, will you come?"The next day, he obtained leave from school, and by nine o'clock was at her gate.
She blushed as he entered, and she gave a little affected laugh to keep herself in countenance.Then - so a stray visitor or her family returning would think no one was at time - she led hime to her room and immediately closed and bolted the door.Gold Flower had thought only to have a secret talk with a boy whose intellectual attainments she admired.But her companion mistook her unconventional behavior and the bolted door for an invitation of another sort, and he tried to make love to her.At first shocked, then excited, the frightened, Gold Flower, rebuffed him, half-succumbed to him, the angrily told him to leave.
But when he rose to go, Gold Flower's heart was thrown into turmoil. At one moment she was afraid of not being loved, at another thought that Li Pao wanter her virginity as a kind of medal of conquest tortured her. Had she been sure of his affections, or had she ever had another experience with a man, perhaps she would have let him go, but to lose friendship of such a boy seemed to her at the moment the worst possible disaster.
Her passion carried her to the point of falling at Li Pao's feet and throwing her arms around his knees. She pleaded with him not to try to make love to her - for she would be tetrothed to another man - while at the same time she begged him not to desert her for she was lonely."Be my friend, my elder brother, my lover - in everything but that be my lover," she had cried. Moved by her word and her attitude of humility, the boy overcame his annoyance at being thwarted and agreed to her conditions.In this way, a romance - childish, but forbidden by Chinese village code - had begun. And so it continued, for when her family returned Gold Flower still contrived wasy to meet her lover.
Every night when the others were in bed - her three brothers, father and mother, all together on one KANG - Gold Flower would tiptoe out her dooe and softly let back the latch on the front gate. Soon there would be a creaking at the gate and then a shadowy form would flit swiftly across the courtyard and Gold Flower's door would open and then shut again.
During these nightly meeting in Gold Flower's room, the couple poured out much talk from their hearts, but they did not make love, never kissed, only held hands, looked deeply into one another's eyes and swore eternal friendship.
Because her actions were so contrary to village morality, Gold Flower when she first paused to think about her conduct, felt stunned with remorse. But one day when her girl friends gathered in her room to sew flowered shoes she began to feel differently.
The girls played the game: "what kind of a man would like to marry?" and Glod Flower, her cheeks faintly red, relied:" I should like to marry someone like my neighbor Li Pao; he is so handsome and tender."
Then teased to distraction by her friends, and in terror lest her secret be dicovered, she shrugged her shoulders and said with an air of worldly wisdom:" What is the use of talking about what kind of a man we would like to marry, when we have no choice in the matter?' "Yes," her friends had answered. "How stupid it all this! Our parents arrange everything for us. Like us not we'll get an ugly husband."The girls wished they had been born in England, France or America, where they heard women married men they loved.
They had vague feelings the they are living in a "black society", and since in their hearts they were rebels against this scoiety, every one of them thought it all right to have a secret lover.
These conversations gave Gold Flower pleasure, for they clothed her affair with Li Pao in a moral garment of which it had hitherto been barren. She even began to revel in her defiance of scoiety and sought proofs that her adventure was making a better woman of her. Sometimes she would take her small mirror from under her pillow and look happily at her own face. Never had it seemed more beautiful. " I have a lover! a lover!" she would say, delighting in the idea like a child with a new toy.
The days following passed with new sweetness. The first time Li Pao told her he love her she nearly feel fainting in his arms with ecstasy. Then, because he asked for nothing in exchange for his love, she began to think generosity, nobility of soul and humanity existed only in this young student.
Li Pao taught her how to write a few simple characters. Thenceforth, when she wanted to see him, she wrote the character "come" on a scrap of paper and put it in the hollow of a tree by the village pond.Li Pao came to find it and put there another note saying "yes" or "no," or "tonight" or "tomorrow" or "my room" or "your room" for these were nearly all the characters she could read.Brief as were these note, Gold Flower guarded them like a treasure, hiding them in a corner of her KANG beneath the reed matting, and taking them out every once in a while and tracing the characters Li Pao had written over again with her finger.In fact, the whole art of writing seemed to Gold Flower some powerful black magic.
The word "come" often had for her semblance of a holy and potent incantation, for she only had to write and suddenly - proof! - in answer to her sorcery, Li Pao would be in her room.In other ways, too, the whole horizon of her thoughts and life lifted/ Entirley absorbed, before Li Pao's coming, with that mass of work which is the lot of Chinese farm girl, Gold Flower had never thought about passion and love affairs, save in relation to the gossip she had heard in the mouths of other women.
But now these stories began to seem almost as real to her as her own life, and she began to adopt the tricks of every romance of which she had ever heard.
Because it was traditional with the heroines of her remembered stories to sew garments for their lovers, Gold Flower began to make Li Pao a jacket. Her month notice this and became suspicious. Gold Flower put her off saying:"His mother has no time to sew, I'll just throw this together carelessly and help her out."
To herself, however, she said:"I must show my love through my work," and she began to make a jacket of which any big city tailor might well have been proud.
Instead of the usual five buttonholes, she made thirteen, and around each hole she embroidered a flower. Such buttonholes are known to young boys and girls in this part of China as "the thirteen precious jewels." and Gold Flower was very happy in her work, believing she was having a romance in the best tradition.
Because she had grown very sentimental, she ran with the jacket to Li Pao and insisted that he try it on.All the while she danced around him crying: " Do you like it? Oh, tell me, do you like it?"Her enthusiasm was so captivating and her sentiment so infectious that Li Pao had answered just as her heart had wished."I love it because it was made by my own true love's hands."
As was the custom, he tried to give Gold Flower money to buy thread to make herself a pair of flowered shoes. At first, she refused, saying, "I don't want anything from you, but your love." But when her refusal saddened him, she took the money, but she never bought anything for herself and spent every dollar to buy cloth, thread and needles to make garments for Li Pao.Gold Flower often thought this was the happiest time of her life - a honeymoon she might have called it had she known the word or been aware of the custom.
She would have liked to shout her love for Li Pao to the whole village, and though this was impossible, she longed for some friend in whom she could confide. But not only was this denied her, but she had to redouble her caution to prevent the affair from becoming known.By degrees a vague uneasiness took possession of her. She was no longer, as formerly, completely carefree. She began to wonder if she ought not to yield to Li Pao, or whether, since she could not completely satisfy his love, cease to see him any more.Her refusal to give herself to him had at first proceeded from strength, but now she found herself wondering if it was not weakness that prevented her from fully consummating their love.
Then she asked herself what would become of her - if her parents would betroth her, and to whom? But Li Pao's face always rose before her and she could not picture any other hushand. Yet there always rang in her mind that thought: "If you should be betrothed! If youshould be betrothed!" At night she could not sleep; she tossed and turned and beat her pillow. Thinking that, after all, it would be worse to give herself to someone she did not know than to Li Pao, whom she loved, she promised herself to throw herself in Li Pao's arms the next time he came, but when he did come, she could not do it and remained silent.I the autumn of 1942, Gold Flower was betrothed to a man named Chang,……………….
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)