Reunion-2010

Here are some photos of the reunion, 2010 in Hawaii. Hope you recognize everyone of us & try to match the ladies to the gentlemen. Time flies & these photos of the reunion will become more precious when time goes by.

Soccer and Life

The curtain of the World cup soccer event was finally closed. Here are some of my observations.

Spain deserves the win & championship this time. The way it plays is concise & precise with mix of good defense & effective offense. Their goals mostly look pretty & satisfying. The way they pass & control balls are marvelous. You always see some moving triangles (formation) rolling around the field. Some players even perform some ballet style kicking. It is just amazing to watch the mix of moving triangle & occasional long passing to penetrate defense & create opportunities for goals. 

Asians are underdogs historically in the world cup soccer. This year only Japan (Asian teams) got into the round of 16. South Koreans are tough but without style. North Koreans got zapped 7:0 by Portugal. It was just too brutal to watch. Japanese seem to copy German playing style & do very well this time. It was lost to Paraguay by sudden-death 12-yard kicks. Ironically, Paraguay lost to Spain similarly by missing a 12-yard kick. The fate treats all countries equally after all.

Conspicuously, the Chinese team is completely missing. They didn’t even make to the qualifying matches. It is a shame that the world factory with 1.3 billion people can’t come up with some decent soccer team. I said it sometime ago that one way to boost the morale in China & reduce the grudging emotion toward Japanese is to beat Japanese in soccer games. After that, the next best thing is to beat them also in baseball matches. Chinese government is good in playing pingpong politics. But it is really 小兒科, good for American only. I envision a breakthrough of Chinese-Japanese relation if the Chinese beat Japanese in both Soccer & Baseball. Many Chinese people have inferiority complex in dealing with Japanese due to the frustrations & failure in getting an upper hand in many human endeavors. In near future, it seems not very positive on the soccer front. We heard all bunches of scandals related to soccer in China, 打假球, gambling, embezzlement etc. These soccer players make a lot of money & we haven’t found any star player worth mentioning. It looks pretty misery right now. As to Taiwan, it is also a shame. Holland has 16 million people & produces a good soccer team. Taiwan has 23 million people & a dud in the world stage soccer. The only consolation I can think of is that India looks even worse with its 1.2 billion people & a mute in the sporting world.

France & Italy, two good old European teams failed miserably this time. They lacked of team work & organization are in shamble. Great countries seem produce mediocre teams, perhaps too much freedom or lack of discipline is the cause.

Brazil & Argentine, two good old Latin teams also failed miserably in the field. They were vociferous, loud mouth & lack of respect to other people. They were outplayed by their European opponents handsomely & sure they deserved it.

Netherlands almost pulled out a miracle but failed in some subtle ‘kick’ or ‘臨門一脚’. Their striker Robben failed several times in doing it. It seemed he just delayed a second in his fatal strikes. Opposite to this, the Spanish final strike by Andres Iniesta was timely & accurately done at the right place & right moment. The following link is the reference: (18:00-end)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=587aK8t6noM

Due to copyright issue, the above link on YouTube is not available.

I understand the Dutch’s agony as they got so close. Dutch couch removed the medal (hung around the neck) immediately after the ceremony in front of the TV camera. It was a vivid drama. He was protesting the unfair officiating as most Dutch felt that way. Statistically, there are more arguments or bickering in soccer matches than football or other sports.

Flopping is rampant in the games. Many players seemed to use this to eat up time when they are ahead. You saw some guy held his leg in pain & needed stretcher to carry him out. But as soon as he was outside the field, he sprung up like a tiger, amazing. This kind of tactics is shameful but most players seem don’t feel that way. This gives people a sense of ‘雖勝不武’.

12-yard kick to determine the outcome is never a satisfactory solution, nobody likes it. Soccer has too many obscure rules that restrict scoring. This makes low scoring a norm & very often leads to boredom. I think this is one reason that American don’t like the game. Soccer rules favor the defense & discourages the offense. But the excitement of the game rests on the scoring. The only makeup of this is the last resort, a show case of 12-yard kicks. But this kind of kicks favors the kicker & put goal keeper in a misery situation. Nine out of ten, the ball is indefensible. It takes enormous skill of goal keeper to beat the kickers. Nobody likes this kind of solution. If you win, you feels god is on your side or lucky. If you lose, you just think it is not fair because the outcome can be either way.

The game between Germany & England is interesting. When the score was 2:1, English striker kicked a ball hitting the upper beam of the goal & bounced back to the ground inside the goal. But the referee didn’t or couldn’t see the ball from the low angle. The event happened so fast, it was hard to see the dropping point of the ball. However, the replay by TV camera showed clearly since it was mounted from the above. It is so obvious & you can understand the frustration of the English team. I do think high tech can help referee in this respect. FIFA is behind the time as most tennis tournament already use electronic eyes in helping umpires in the calls.

German team played very well most of games but the one with Spain, they looked so much different. It seemed they played too cautiously & Spain took advantages of it. I found that the match between German & Argentine was a classic one. It shows their skill & play style vividly in the following link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVym58Szeug

Due to copyright issue, the above link on YouTube is not available.

During the game between Uraguay & Ghana, a Uraguay player used hand purposely to block the ball out of goal. The penalty was stiff, he got red card & couldn’t play the next game & also a 12-yard penalty kick was awarded to Ghana. Unfortunately Ghana’s star player, Asamoah Gyan, missed the goal by hitting the upper beam. Otherwise, Ghana got in the round of 8 since it occurred at the final moment of the match. Subsequently, Ghana was beaten during a battery of 12-yard kicks. Gyan did the 12-yard kick flawlessly but it didn’t matter. In life, you have to do the right thing at the right time & this is just the example. I really feel sorry for Asamoah Gyan since he is going to feel bad for the rest of his life. As to African people, that is the frustration, 失 落 感 & 無 力 感, since Ghana team is the only hope for African people. Ironically, Uraguay subsequently beaten by Spain in a similar manner by missing a free kick in hitting the ball on the upper beam of the goal. Fate intervenes, spooky? Karma? Or just God treats everybody equally.

Diego Forlan of Uraguey is a fantastic player. His chest-high kick with ball hitting ground & get into the goal is marvelous. His ‘飛 燕 轉 身’ kick has a quality of ballet dance. When Forlan was on the ball, Uruguay seemed like a team with a chance. When he wasn't involved, its prospects were far more bleak. He has been awarded the Golden Ball as the World Cup's best player. He was also voted the most outstanding player of the tournament by accredited media after leading his team to the semifinals.

Vuvuzelas, a stadium horn was allowed to use during games. It was noisy & really served no purpose. I found it rather annoyed. I try to picture what will happen if they are allowed in tennis matches. One consolation, Maria Sharapova's shriek will be completely drown out.

Octopus prediction

Octopus, Paul the Oracle, made a big news as it successfully predicted all games of German team & the final of the event. From the theory of probability, it is a remarkable record, one out of 256 chances to be specific for 8 correct tries out of 8 games. How can you explain this? Although the octopus is the only invertebrate that has been conclusively shown to use tools. But it only has one brain & 8 arms. The only plausible explanation is that there must be some one or a team behind the whole show. It is highly possible that a team of soccer experts did the prediction based on the existing gathered data. With some aid of computer, it did a best job in prediction. Then using some high tech device to control the behavior of this Octopus (Paul, the Oracle) to pick the winner of the game. It is not uncommon for those sea world arena or aquarium to train animals to perform some tricks. Using remote devices, they can control or change the behavior of an octopus by some training or conditioning. Of course we don’t know the details of the trick, however, it is not hard to figure out a way to change the smell of the cage or mussels that attracts the octopus. Anyway, it was pretty clever & fun to pull out the stunt like this & made a big headline in the world. Paul, the Oracle (章大仙) was more famous than Obama at least in two weeks time span during the soccer matches. At this time, good & heartwarming news is hard to come by. The octopus prediction is sure one of the most memorable event in the year of 2010. Here was how it picked up the Spanish tank

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9lZ2IJocqo

Chopin & Schumann

Both Chopin & Schumann were born in 1810 & so this year, 2010, is their two hundredth anniversary of birth, a bicentennial celebration. It is proper & fitting to say something about them.

Chopin is popular in his piano music. Sometime he is called 鋼琴詩人. In fact he composed no symphonies, operas & very little orchestral work. His virtuoso is in the piano works. He is considered the most non-German of all great composers. Chopin had an interesting encounter with George Sand. 桑女士 , a woman frequently wore man’s clothes & indeed intended to act like a man. She wrote many novels quite popular at her time. Chopin was under her spell until he died. The fortunate things coming out of this perhaps was some of his brilliant piano works dedicated to her. Chopin’s famous music form, etude, is unique. The etude (練習曲) is a piano work written for students. However some of them are very good & romantic. Chopin Etude op.10 no.3, Tristesse (Sadness, 離別曲) is one of them. The title’ Tristesse’ was added later by publisher because of Chopin’s nostalgic mood to his homeland. His another romantic piano piece is Andante Spianato in G, Opus 22. I never heard this one in Taiwan. I heard it the first time on radio several years ago. This is one of his most romantic piano works. There are several movies from Hollywood for Chopin. “A Song to Remember” (中文 title: 一曲難忘, 1945) is one of them. I have seen VHS video released for this movie, but can’t find it on DVD, not in Netflix either. I did find some video clips from YouTube.

Chopin Met Liszt in Paris, a clip from ‘A Song to Remember’
www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aDnNJ6aEWc&feature=related

A clip from ‘A Song to Remember’, a performance staged by George Sand & Franz Liszt. It was supposed to be played by Liszt. Instead Chopin played in the dark, a surprise to the audiences.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BM-KQc2lJdM

Chopin: Etude op.10 no.3, Tristesse (Sadness, 離別曲), played by Kempf
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TR-i4r1BtM

Chopin: Andante Spianato played by Rubinstein
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l39ZIkyvOJ0

Schumann is considered to be the most romantic of the Romantics. We often heard some of his tunes in the school, for example, the happy peasant 快樂的農夫, tramarel(夢幻曲) etc. He is unique among most composers that he also wrote music critic, encouraged & supported the late comers. His writings about music (in high quality) appeared mostly in the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik ("The New Journal for Music"), a publication that he jointly founded. His romantic encounter with Clara Wick was well known. His most popular works include Symphony #1(Spring), #3(Rhenish), Carnaval, many songs, piano work Traumerei, Fantasy in C, concerto in A minor etc.

As a person, Schumann is much more controlled & dedicated to what he wants & what he think is right. He pursued Clara with zeal & dedication is far more respected than the weak & meek behavior of Chopin’s dealing with George Sand. Schumann was also quick in recognition of a genius & gave the approval. Instead Chopin seemed in failure to recognize the merit of Schumann’s work ‘Carnaval’. Hollywood likes romantic story. The movie ‘Sound of Love’ (1947) is for Robert & Clara Schumann. Same as ‘A Song to Remember’, I couldn’t find it in Netflix. However, I did find it in YouTube. Some of the music mentioned above can be found in the following links:

Happy Peasant (快樂的農夫), a tune we heard in the elementary school
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKmpQjjQOBA&feature=related

The beginning of the movie 'Song of Love'
Ironically, the opening theme is the piano concerto #1 of Franz Liszt, not Schumann.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OP_iU-lcZ5Y&feature=related

Widmung (Dedication) from ‘Song of Love’
Here we listen to two versions of Widmung, the original one from Schumann & arranged version by Liszt. It seemed Clara didn’t like the Liszt version at all.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3eOggcKLqk

Waltz by Brahms (for the introduction to the next link ‘Brahms & Clara’)
This waltz is one of the most romantic works by Brahms.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJcoaIeH3GI&feature=related

Brahms & Clara from ‘Song of Love’
The melody of Brahms’s waltz showed up at 1:54 & Brahms proposed to marry Clara. However, the fate intervened at 4:18. Widmung, the song Schumann dedicated to Clara showed up. Brahms realized that was the end of the affair, an affair to remember. This is the most romantic & poetic moment of the movie. (By the way, from 6:35 to 9:06 is the famous Piano Concerto in A Minor by Schumann. 6:35-7:27 is 1st movement, 7:28-9:06 is 3rd movement.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vm-Zh0R6nMY&feature=related

Traumerei & the end of the movie 'Song of Love'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V35e5MNjLJI&feature=related

The above links of 'Song of Love' are not available due to the copyright issue on YouTube.

Horowitz plays Schumann Traumerei (夢幻曲) in Moscow
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qq7ncjhSqtk&feature=related

Widmung (Dedication, Liszt’s version) played by Lang Lang
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBdffJHZ2LM

PS: Year from 1809 to 1813 was a fantastic period of Romantic Music. Here is the chronicle (the magnificent six were all born within this period):
1809: Felix Mendelssohn (date: 2/3), 抒情聖手
1810: Frederic Chopin (3/1), 鋼琴詩人
1810: Robert Schumann (6/8), music composer & critic, 嚴肅而又浪漫的作曲家
1811: Franz Liszt (10/22), 鋼琴鬼才
1813: Richard Wagner (5/22), 樂劇之王
1813: Giuseppe Verdi (10/9), 歌劇之王

For some reason, it skipped 1812. Perhaps the year was reserved for Napoleon Bonaparte. He was not born in that year, however, he invaded Russia, an important historical event.

1949

“1949 by 龍應台” is a book for the unknown people get crossfire between wars. It is the most neglected part of the human history. If you read books about the modern history, you always have a kind of feeling that something must be or must have been missing. So a prudent reader searches more information from different sources in order to verify the facts. If you try to find more information about the common people in the history book, you will be very disappointed. Most of the story about the common people instead can be found in novels or magazines. But the stories in novels or magazines are not rigorous in verifying facts. To most Chinese, the modern history (1945-2010) is a giant jigsaw puzzle. You don’t trust the history books written by both sides of the regime. Here I think 龍’s book is valuable in documenting many stories of the common people before they pass away or fade away from the history. When you finish reading this book, you inevitably will have this feeling that wars are hell, terrible, disastrous & better to avoid them at all cost.

PS: 龍 應 台 is a woman. Her ‘野火集’ had a lot of influences to the society in Taiwan. If we rate the most influential women from Taiwan in the pass 60 years, we may come up with the list like this: (note: we are talking about INFLUENTIAL only, not GREAT, not PRETTY, not INTELLIGENT, not ...)

王錦雲 (釋證嚴) (Most influential in the time span: 1966-2010). Religion & Philanthropy
瓊 瑤 (1960-1980) Novel
鄧 麗 君 (1970-1990) Music
龍 應 台 (1990-2010) History & current affairs

Of course, this is subjective. I think everyone should have his/her list.

現 代 桃 花 源 & Choice of Life Style

If you have a chance to visit Philadelphia and Gettysburg, you will follow state highway 340 & go west. Don’t miss one little town called Intercourse. It is an Amish town. In case you haven’t heard of Amish people, Amish is a branch of Anabaptist. Because of their religious belief, they don’t serve in government & arm forces. They were persecuted & kicked out from Europe. They came to America & settled in Pennsylvania & eventually spread among mid-west states. I passed Intercourse twenty-five years ago. I visited the town for the whole day & very impressed what I have seen. It is a unique community and it is so much difference from the outside world. You wonder why & how it can exist in a modern society & keep its life style. Amish people don’t use AC electricity, radio, telephone, car, no bicycle either. But kids use scooter (toy type). They use horse & buggy for transportation. It is almost but not a complete independent society. For example, it depends on outside hospital for emergency & it has to buy gasoline from outside for its tractors. They can use gasoline but not ac electricity. Ironically, dc battery is ok. I can understand their logic. If they allow ac electricity in their house, the authority can’t control the use of radio, TV & a lot of communication gadgets. But if battery is ok, sure they can use transistor radio. In fact, if battery is ok, you can hook up a dc-ac converter to get 120v ac. There are a lot of contradictory & idiosyncrasies in this kind of society. It is like the society in China. The coexistence of communism & capitalism creates a lot of jokes. In fact, there is some similarity between these two societies. It boils down to the choice of life style. In both cases, they are state imposed. We, in this modern time, do select our life style individually (not by state). For example, some people choose not to use FaceBook, iPhone, cellular phone, tv etc. Some choose not to eat meat, beef, pork etc. This leads to the next question: Is religion also a choice of life style?

The Amish society can not survive without the protection of the modern government. The reason they got kicked out from Europe is that they couldn’t defend themselves. They don’t fight for other people & don’t fight for themselves either. We heard a lot of jokes about Quakers & some people resent the double standard they use. For example, in autobiography of Ben Franklin, he described a group of Quakers was on board of a war ship. When the ship encountered a British ship, they all got scared & moved to the lower deck. After the fighting was over, they came out and criticized the whole thing should be resolved in a peaceful manner without firing cannons. The religious belief can be so strong that you forget the obvious logic. Another example is that Jewish people don’t fight on certain days of the year. So the Roman picked the day & conquered them. This might be the reason why Jewish people don’t have their own country for so long. I doubt they still follow that good old habit. Otherwise the Moslem can easily wipe them out.

The western Europeans seem very open & tolerant these days. Perhaps Amish people can move back to where they came from. But they are content here in the US. If you wander around in Pennsylvania next time & somehow you enter some place looks like a 現 代 桃 花 源, it must be an Amish town. Don’t panic, you just look around & enjoy yourself. I guarantee you will get out safely & will not get lost next time either.

Law of Nature (自然律)

When we study the science, we encounter all kinds of Law. Sometime they surface with terms like Hypothesis, Postulate, Theory, Principle, Rule etc. In math we learn Axiom, Theorem, Lemma, Corollary and many others. In general, the definition of the terms is more rigorous in math. But in our daily life, the definition of Law has been abused often especially in the last 40 years. Have you heard about Murphy’s Law, Moore’s Law & Pareto’s Principle? Or Peter Principle, Parkinson’s Law, Count to Three Principle? If we examine these laws or principles closely, we find that they are far from laws. They are qualified at best as Adages, Rule or Guidelines. They can’t be proved rigorously & you can always find exceptions to the laws. They can’t even be qualified as hypotheses or postulates. They are just Rule of Thumbs. Let’s examine some of them. But before we dig in, let’s examine the definition of the terms & do some translations.

Theory: the principle on which a particular subject is based, 學說 (理論)
Theorem: a rule, especially in mathematics, that can be proved to be true, 定理
Corollary: an idea, or fact that results directly from a theory, 結論 (必然的結果)
Lemma: a proven statement used as a stepping-stone toward the proof of another statement, 引理 (輔助定理)
Law: a scientific rule that somebody has stated to explain a natural process, 定律
Principle: a law or a theory that something is based on, 原理 (法則,原則)
Hypothesis: an idea or explanation of something that is based on a few known facts but that has not yet been proved to be true or correct, 假說
Postulate: a statement that is accepted as true, that forms the basis of a theory, 假定 (假設)
Rule: a statement of what is possible according to a particular system, 規則
Rule of Thumb: 經驗法則
Guideline: rules or instructions that are given on how to do something, especially something difficult, 準則 (指導方針)
Adage: a well-known phrase expressing a general truth about people or the world, 格言 (諺語)

Murphy’s Law
"Anything that can go wrong will go wrong." Is this really true? No is the answer. It is almost true that given enough time & enough tries, it will happen. It is like saying, “I buy lotto & I will hit it eventually” or “I walk outside very often & eventually I will be killed by a thunder." So Murphy is not a law, it is just a Rule or Adage.

Moore’s Law
"The number of transistors that can be placed inexpensively on an integrated circuit has doubled approximately every two years." This one has been modified to 18 months instead of 2 years. Actually, the original one was one year, not two years. Now we know how accurate this one predicts. It is not a law, it can best be qualified as empirical formula.

Parkinson's law
"Work will always take as long as the time available for it." This one tries to explain or describes some human behavior. In many cases, it is true. But alas, it is not always true. Some difficult task can not be finished if there is not enough time allocated. This one can be used as a guideline for any project. This is especially true for annual tax return. Why? There are so many procrastinators that try to meet the deadline. You give them the deadline, so they just try to meet it. But it is also true that thousands of people sent their return well before 4/15 every year. Why? They just try to get the refund as soon as possible.

Pareto’s Principle
"The Pareto principle also known as the 80-20 rule, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes." It is equivalent to state, 20% of the effects come from 80% of the causes. Here the cause & effect are independent, they don’t need to add up to 100%. For example, 15% of people pay 90% of the tax in California. The interesting part of this so-called principle is the number 80 & 20, why not 30 & 70? Anyway, this is another way to explain some human behavior. You can hardly find any natural phenomena fit in this scheme. This one is best qualified as a rule applied to the area of human activities, but it is far from a Principle. The corollary of this rule is that 64 % of the effects come from 4% of the causes. Is it true or is it a fantasy?

Peter Principle
"In a hierarchy, members are promoted so long as they work competently." Sooner or later they are promoted to a position at which they are no longer competent, and there they remain, being unable to earn further promotions. The corollary: "In time, every post tends to be occupied by an employee who is incompetent to carry out his duties" or "Work is accomplished by those employees who are not competent." No wonder our world is a mess since the world is functioned in an incompetent way. This is another rule to explain the structure of our society or our economic system. Is it a principle? I don't think so. At best it is qualified as a low end of Principle. But it is not in the same league as Uncertainly Principle.

Most of these laws are from the management circle of business world. They are not thinking rigorously, rather very loosely. Like “Invisible hand (冥冥中有一隻不可目見之手)” & "Greed, for lack of a better word, is good", they lead to the chaos in the world of finance, economy, wall street & business world. It destroys so many lives & creates some monster banks too big to fail. The taxpayers end up holding the bag.

PS0: Count-to-Three Principle: If you don't know at least three ways to abuse a tool, you don't know how to use it.

PS1: 說, 論 & 經: 這三個字,堂而皇之. But they have been abused badly too. We have many examples (some of them are not qualified as called):
粒子說,波動說,波粒說,原子說,孔子說,聽說,細說,好說,胡說,佛說,併吞說,媽媽說,總統說,道聽途說
群論,民約論,人口論,國富論,资本論,重商論,相對論,量子論,君王論,進化論,演化論,唯心論,唯物論,海杈論,不服從論,边際效用論,天体運行論, 血液循環論
人論,典論,違心論,股市崩盤論,小金投資論,大乘起信論,命理預言論,興趣無用論,正統無視論,高談闊論
佛經,聖經,拜撲經,可蘭經,道德經,詩經,樂經,易經,水經,山海經,三字經,媽媽經,罗織經,月經,日經,神經

春神

春天是欣欣向榮的季節,大家都歌頌它的來临. 記得我們小學常唱的一首歌,”春神來了”. 多年以後,我們仍記得這個曲子. 其歌詞清新可喜,又富進取情調. 歌詞如下:

春神來了怎知道？
梅花黃鶯報告。
梅花開頭先含笑，
黃鶯接著唱新調，
歡迎春神試身手，
快把世界來改造。

多年来,一直以為是中國的曲子. 後來長大慢慢才知道這是一首德國名謠. 雖然原歌詞主要以歌頌鳥為主,但仍然充 滿春天的氣息. 原歌詞如下:

Alle Vögel sind schon da,
alle Vögel, alle!
Welch ein Singen, Musiziern,
Pfeifen, Zwitschern, Tireliern!
Frühling will nun einmarschiern,
kommt mit Sang und Schalle.

Wie sie alle lustig sind,
flink und froh sich regen!
Amsel, Drossel, Fink und Star
und die ganze Vogelschar
wünschen dir ein frohes Jahr,
lauter Heil und Segen.

Was sie uns verkünden nun,
nehmen wir zu Herzen:
Wir auch wollen lustig sein,
lustig wie die Vögelein,
hier und dort, feldaus, feldein,
singen, springen, scherzen.

其英譯文如下:

All the birds are already here,
All the birds, all!
What singing, music playing,
Whistling, chirping, trills!
Spring wants to arrive now,
It comes with song and sounds.

How cheerful they all are,
They move, nimble and gay!
Blackbird, thrush, chaffinch and starling,
And a whole cloud of birds
Wish you a happy new year,
Higher holiness and blessing.

What they announce to us now
Go straight to our hearts:
We want to be cheerful too,
Cheerful like the little birds,
Here and there, out and in the fields,
We want to sing, to jump, to joke.

You can listen to the song in the following youtube link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHC-Io6q3zg