北師附小第18屆畢業同學的部落格: 2014/3/1

北師附小甜美的回憶:遠山蒼蒼, 綠水泱泱, 小鳥兒歌聲亮----;還記得附小幼稚園、瑠公圳、安東街、安東市場、3路公車總站、76巷、96巷、107巷、師大宿舍、岳廬新村、華僑新村、和平東路二段、成功新村、台北師專、裝甲新村、臥龍街、通化街、坡心、六張犛、15路公車總站嗎?您玩過騎馬打仗、鬥刀鬥劍、擠油渣、跳房、跳橡皮筋、打彈珠、丟尪仔標、玩圓牌、飛竹蜻蜓、抽籤、養蠶寶寶、丟小石片擦水而過、木頭人、官兵捉強盜、玩陀螺? 吃枝仔冰、烤香腸、小雞蛋糕、甜不辣、烤番薯、爆米花、白雪公主泡泡糖、涼煙糖、棒棒糖...!北師附小永遠是我們最甜美的樂兒園.

2014年3月30日

Both Sides Now (Live, 1970)

On the antlers of a dilemma–The Economist (英國經濟學人)

Banyan:

On the antlers of a dilemma

The ambitions of Ma Ying-jeou, Taiwan’s president, collide with popular suspicion of China

Mar 29th 2014 | From the print edition

THE fresh-faced good looks have been lined and drawn by the cares of office. His immaculate English is forsaken for the dignity of immaculate Mandarin. Patient replies to questions come wearily, as if said many times before. Yet, six years into his presidency, Ma Ying-jeou’s hair remains as lush and jet-black as any Chinese Politburo member’s. And, speaking in the presidential palace in Taipei, he remains as unwilling as any leader in Beijing to admit to any fundamental flaws in strategy.

Perhaps Mr Ma draws inspiration from his portrait of Sun Yat-sen, founder of his ruling party, the Kuomintang (KMT), and, in 1912, of the Republic of China to which Taiwan’s government still owes its name. Sun is revered as a nationalist hero not just by the KMT but, across the Taiwan Strait, by the Chinese Communist Party too. Mr Ma may also hope to be feted on both sides of the strait—in his case as a leader responsible for a historic rapprochement. For now, however, reconciliation between Taiwan and China remains distant. And Mr Ma, once the KMT’s most popular politician, is taunted by opponents as the “9% president”, a reference to his approval ratings in opinion polls last autumn.

Improving relations with China has been the central theme of his administration, after the tensions of eight years of rule by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which leans towards declaring formal independence from the mainland. Mr Ma can boast of 21 agreements signed with China. He reels off the numbers of two fast-integrating economies: a tenfold increase in six years in mainland tourists to Taiwan, to 2.85m in 2013; cross-strait flights from none at all to 118 every day; two-way trade, including with Hong Kong, up to $160 billion a year.

China’s strategy to reabsorb Taiwan is plain. As the island’s economy becomes more intertwined with that of the vast mainland, China thinks, resistance to unification will wane. Then Taiwan becomes an “autonomous” part of China—like Hong Kong, though allowed its own army. Taiwan will return to the motherland without resort to the missiles and increasingly powerful armed forces ranged against it. But as Mr Ma sees it, cross-strait “rapprochement” is a first line of defence against Chinese aggression, since “a unilateral move by the mainland to change the status quo by non-peaceful means would come at a dear price”. Politics in Taiwan is framed as a debate about independence or unification but is really about preserving the status quo.

The next step in rapprochement with China would be a meeting between political leaders. In February in Nanjing, once the capital of a KMT government of all China, ministers from China and Taiwan held their first formal meeting since 1949. Mr Ma hoped to meet China’s president, Xi Jinping, in Beijing this November, at the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) summit. To accommodate Hong Kong and Taiwan, APEC’s members are not “countries” but “economies”. So Mr Xi and Mr Ma could meet as “economic leaders”, sidestepping the tricky protocol that usually dogs relations, with China viewing Taiwan as a mere province. The Chinese demurred. But Mr Ma thinks a meeting somewhere is “not outside the realm of possibility”.

This backdrop explains why a protest movement against a services-trade agreement with the mainland is more than a little local difficulty for Mr Ma. Students occupying parliament have resorted to undemocratic means, and many of the arguments they and the DPP make about the trade agreement are specious. But they have tapped a vein of popular mistrust of Mr Ma and of economic integration with the mainland. A split persists between native Taiwanese, on the island for generations, and mainlanders, like Mr Ma, whose families came over as the KMT lost the civil war in the 1940s. Protesters portray Mr Ma as either a mainland stooge or as clueless and out of touch. In the occupied parliament, student caricatures give him antlers, a reference to a slip he once made when he appeared to suggest that the deer-antlers used in Chinese medicine were in fact hair from the animal’s ears.

Mr Ma says public opinion supports a “Ma-Xi” summit. Joseph Wu of the DPP, however, claims such a meeting would actually damage the KMT in the next presidential election, due in 2016; rather, he says, Mr Ma is trying to leave a personal legacy. The DPP’s lead in the polls alarms not just the Chinese government but also America, which could do without another flare-up in a dangerous region. The stronger China grows, the more Taiwan’s security depends on commitments from America. It switched diplomatic recognition to Beijing in 1979, but Congress then passed a law obliging it to help Taiwan defend itself.

All political lives end…

Mr Ma says relations with America are better than they have ever been at least since 1979 and perhaps before. Others are doubtful. In all the talk of America’s “pivot” to Asia, its promises to Taiwan are rarely mentioned. Many in Taiwan paid attention when John Mearsheimer, an American academic, suggested in the National Interest, a policy journal, that there is “a reasonable chance American policymakers will eventually conclude that it makes good strategic sense to abandon Taiwan and to allow China to coerce it into accepting unification.” For some, abandonment is a fact of life and unification a matter of time. “No one is on our side strategically, diplomatically, politically; we have to count on China’s goodwill,” an academic in Taipei argues.

Mr Ma has tried to steer what seems a sensible middle course between such defeatism and the adventurism of those in the DPP who would like to confront and challenge China. But he sounds weary with the effort, and Taiwan’s people seem weary of him. Their pragmatism and the DPP’s internecine strife may yet see them elect another KMT president in 2016. But if Mr Ma hoped to leave office with cross-strait relations stabilised, and with his own role as an historic peacemaker recognised on both sides and around the world, he seems likely to be disappointed.

^{Economist.com/blogs/banyan (英國經濟學人)}

2014年3月11日

我們在彩蝶宴相聚

終於，皇天不負苦心人，電腦當機遺失的1-8 阿美請吃尾牙宴的全部相片及現場影片，我好不容易救回來了！再等幾天整理，再次給全體老童學觀賞！
Gary 敬筆/3月4日於台北

『我們在彩蝶宴相聚』,2014年元月八日,老童學阿美尾請吃牙宴,又是個童學們相聚的歡樂時光.

歲至年末，阿美姐姐一番盛情，請我們甲班同學，參加尾牙盛宴，不僅菜餚豐富，而且節目精彩! 李永廉從杭州趕來，見了老同學甚為歡欣! 不免多喝兩杯，也不斷勸進同學們再乾一杯...! 我因腰痛尚未復原，一直安靜坐在台下，可是最後唱起(玫瑰，玫瑰，我愛你)動感十足，阿美邀我一起上台同歡....! 我也沒有客氣的必要，於是一展所長，聞歌起舞! 奇怪，小學時男女同學互不講話，如今50年後，卻毫不拘束，暢所欲言...! 李永廉誇下海口，要把張棣、楊豪、葉傳銘(牛蛙)、童興馼、王漢成等等老童學通通找回來! 那豈不是太好了嗎? 期待那日再相逢!!!

裴涓言敬筆

謝謝阿美! 1/8晚站在台上的致詞, 真是讓我佩服不已, 感謝一缸子人,不用看稿, 細心的講述獅子會員名單, 代表的單位; 曾幾何時那麼靦腆的阿美, 如此大方、權威的站在數百人面前, 毫不闕場, 真是女中豪傑.
再次感謝阿美的大方, 慷慨每年招待我們, 讓我們能很感性的聚會.Thanks and regards.

--- Carol Yang(楊櫻姿)

陳之藩在春風裡的寂寞的畫廊中有一段 :「他也喜歡此地，但他走的原因是因為這裏寂寞。」校長低下了頭。「寂寞！」我心里想：「好像這個世界上還有地方不寂寞呢！」永遠不朽的，只有風聲、水聲，與無涯的寂寞而已!
誠如渙言姐所言期待那日再相逢, 李永廉把老同學通通找回來,再來次歡欣精彩不寂寞的聚會. Regards..!

-- Tony Wang(王鵬東)