Monday, July 30, 2007

AX選賽紀事(一)



在吉隆坡的某家港式茶餐廳裡,我對先前吃了太多點心而感到有些悔意。再多幾分鐘,就要進行攝影了,如果吃得太飽,小腹難免有些微脹,會影響攝影效果。

這一次,我參加的是國內某個網站所舉辦的選男賽事,說起來能入圍也是無心插柳。之前雖然知道這項賽事,卻沒有去報名參加,而是隨後經人推薦,當時想想參加也無妨,於是就答應加入了這項賽事。

我焦急地看看鐘錶,已經沒有太多時間了,同行共餐的友人卻依然悠閑地問我“需要這麼急嗎﹖”我是個急性子,況且與攝影師預約的時間已經到了,所以飛快地趕到拍攝地點,而友人也無可奈何地跟隨我的腳步,送我直到相館門口。

相館裡頭有點幽暗,大廳裡擺放着一個祭壇,上面有象頭歡喜天迦尼薩(गणेश)的偶像,還有其他的泰國仙人(ฤาษี) 和吉祥天女(लक्ष्मी)等印度諸天的彫像和畫像,圍繞這祭壇上方的,是一排排令人覺得刺眼昏沉的LED彩色小燈炮。

當我到達的時候,攝影已經正在進行着了。幾個參賽者已經到了,有的正在化妝,有的則準備更衣。和在相館的幾個工作人員自我介紹之後,也填妥了一些文件,接着是等待化妝的時候了。

在等待的時候,看的一些參賽者也和我一樣等待着上妝和攝影。由於攝影檔期是分批進行的,當天我見到的參賽者只有四﹑五個,而他們都比我年輕,看來我是最年長的參賽者了。

之後,按照工作人員的指示,換上了他們提供的衣服。那是件緊身T襯衫,再加上一件同樣緊牛仔短褲。換衣服之後,是時候上妝了。

化妝師是個眼睛特別大的女生,而負責髮型的是個戴眼鏡的男生。之前有些被上妝和整髮型的經驗,所以這一次也不會說特別不習慣。

上好了妝和整好髮型之後,其中一個工作人員讓我抽取參賽號碼,我所得到的是八號。過不了多久,就輪到我拍攝了。

拍攝的現場正播放着一些最新的英語流行歌曲,讓人似乎墮入了夜店舞廳裡。由於音樂的聲量太大了,偶爾會聽不清楚攝影師的指示,而攝影師在這幾天也應該是忙得不可開交了,因此脾氣有些不好是在所難免的。

“頭轉過去﹗”“手放在地上﹗”“叫你眼睛看去右邊,不是頭轉去右邊﹗”

第一場的攝影總算完畢了,接着我去換上了另一套衣服,準備下一場的攝影。那一套衣服原來是件緊得不得了的背心,還有一件短褲。更尷尬的是,工作人員還說,最好在攝影的時候不要穿內褲,只穿短褲和背心就行了,幸好最後我還是能穿上自己的內褲。

那件背心緊得不得了,我也是費了好多精力方能穿上,由於太緊了,覺得有些不自在,在一旁的工作人員卻笑說我看起來像是個體操選手。

另一個參賽者也換好了背心,在大廳的沙發上坐着歇息。互相問候自我介紹了之後問對方的參賽號碼,長得陽光帥氣的他說自己的編號是三號,而我的是八號。

“ 那麼我們兩個加在一起就是三八了,” 他笑着說,滿臉稚氣的樣子。

“你們有健身嗎﹖”其中一個工作人員問。

接二連三的參賽者都搖頭否認,接着問到我的時候,一個參賽者就大聲說着,“他看就知道有健身啦﹗”我只得尷尬傻笑。

之後,輪到第二場的攝影了,穿着那緊身背心攝影確實覺得怪異,擺的姿勢也顯得有些不自然,不過最後終於完成了,這個時候也將近傍晚七點了。

編號第三的參賽者善意地載我乘搭輕快鐵返家,而時間尚早,我先轉去時代廣場的博得思看了點書才轉換巴士回家。

就這樣隔了好幾天,當局終於把那天的照片放在網站上了。之前還擔心他們會把一些拍得不太好的照片放在網上,結果個人資料上有些錯誤,而且真的有幾張照片確實拍得有欠理想,當然我也承認自己也不是最佳的參賽者,因此我頓時成了一些留言取笑譏刺的對象了。

當然,我不過是六趣凡夫,忿怒死樹伐不儘,心裡嗔恨難免,思樹忍辱根也不堅穩,對這些無禮謾罵也或多或少會心生惱怒,可是最後還是告訴自己不必去理會這些話語。

這不過是這場賽事的第一關,接下來能不能順利通過下一關,就要看造化了。

不管怎樣,這次的賽事就作為借鑒,至少下一次如果機緣允許得以參加其他類似競賽的話會有些經驗了吧。

To Read List: An Update

This is an updated version of the previous to read list.

Finished reading:

Lloyd Spence and Andrzej Krauze. Introducing The Enlightenment

Shelton Woods. Vietnam: An Illustrated History

Newly added books in the list:

New Icon For Him, SS2007 Special Edition

Keith Weller Taylor, The Birth of Vietnam

Luca Invernizzi Tettoni, Chami Jotisalikorn, Phuthorn Bhumadhon and Virginia McKeen Di Crocco, Classic Thai: Design - Interiors - Architecture

Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialism and Human Emotions

Jean-Claude Arragon, Improve Your French

Again the same old ranting, too many books, too little time.

Sunday, July 29, 2007

Freda



我目視你容顏,
莊嚴華麗,燦爛珍寶是你的記號
然而這卻是你傲慢的根基
你那邪惡虛榮填充你浮沉的心

Tu es si coquette, tu es si arrogante...
Tu crois que tu es bonne...
Tu crois que tu es belle...


霧滴瀰漫,那十字路口何其陰森黑暗
毫無光明
那守護門欄的,處於兩界之處
是和你一般冷酷嗎﹖

我呼喊天地,諸天無有回聲
沒有耳朵聆聽
也沒有眼睛目視
我那被絕望憂愁紮營的心

那蠟燭殘光
焚燃着你殘餘的驕傲
也燃燒着我的信仰
昏暗地照着我的幽恨

我哀傷無語,詞彙不能敘說我的恨
昏夜沉靜,混沌沉寂
悲語如劍,直刺我心
鮮血如雨,濺滿大地

我心已死
宛如無底山谷,宛如深淵邪林
我的悲語是我的詛咒
詛咒你的冷漠虛偽

Inosan Bondye va gade ou...
Li fre, li Freda...


誰為無辜﹖
你的邪淫如我淚水般盈滿
那身居至高寶座的
是否能聽見我的哀號與咒聲﹖

我撿起那破碎心靈殘片
終有一日
那復仇天使會目視我的怨恨
我將會看見他持烈火劍
刺入你的心坎

那個時候
我會期待着見證
你的虛榮蒙昧的雙眼
因為你的痛楚而淚流,毫無停止
你那奢華的胴體
沾染那仇恨之劍的血跡。

Sunday, July 22, 2007

Cthuvian Language

I just found an interesting Cthuvian-English dictionary at http://home.earthlink.net/~cyberangelz/CTHUVIAN.htm

"Cthuvian" is supposedly an a priori language created by H.P Lovecraft for his Cthulhu mythos, Lovecraft himself provided some fragments of the language, notably the "blasphemous" incantation "ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!"

There is a discussion on the Cthuvian language on the Yog-Sothoth forum as well.

Sogdian Primer

Norweigian linguist Prods Oktor Skjærvø generously provide us an excellent introduction of Sogdian online.

Sogdian is an Eastern Iranian language spoken in Sogdiana, many precious Manichean, Buddhist and Nestorian Christian corpus are written in this language.

The Sogdian Primer provided by Prods Oktor Skjærvø extensively covers major grammatical aspect of the language, the main script used in the primer is Manichean, but in the beginning of the lesson, comparison with Christian and Sogdian 1 scripts is provided.

The Sogdian Primer can be downloaded in pdf file at http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~iranian/Sogdian/index.html

Saturday, July 21, 2007

My Little Cthulhu


.... with six victims sold separately.

Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!

克拉肯


Cthulhu © Paul Carrick

丁尼生(Alfred Tennyson, 1809-1892)是英國名詩人,《克拉肯》是他年輕時的作品。現在正在創作一篇小說,當中會引用到這首詩,想取現成的中文譯本,卻完全找不到中文版本的,於是只好自己 動手翻譯了。如果讀者有更好的建議,歡迎留言更正﹕
克拉肯

滔天雷霆,深淵汪洋
他古老﹑無夢﹑無擾地睡着
克拉肯睡着,微弱的日光遁逃
黑影環繞兩側
浪濤着千年萬丈海綿
黯淡光芒深處
那多重的玄秘洞穴和密室
無數巨型水螅
巨大的手臂拂去那沉睡的綠海
他在彼處沉睡了無盡歲月,也依然會沉睡下去
在他的睡梦中巩固着巨型海虫
直到末日火焰焚燃深淵之處
凡夫和天使才能目睹
他怒吼狂叫,昇起水面而死去

原文﹕

The Kraken

Below the thunders of the upper deep;
Far, far beneath in the abysmal sea,
His ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep
The Kraken sleepeth: faintest sunlights flee
About his shadowy sides: above him swell
Huge sponges of millennial growth and height;
And far away into the sickly light,
From many a wondrous grot and secret cell
Unnumbered and enormous polypi
Winnow with giant arms the slumbering green.
There hath he lain for ages and will lie
Battening upon huge seaworms in his sleep,
Until the latter fire shall heat the deep;
Then once by man and angels to be seen,
In roaring he shall rise and on the surface die.

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

To Read List

My reading plan for the next few weeks:

Men's Health (Malaysia Edition), July 2007

Marc Ferro,
The Use and Abuse of History

柯哲輝,論戰中的基督﹕奧古斯丁的神學簡介
(Quah Cheok Hooi, Christ in Dispute: The Christological Motif in Augustine's Theological Debates)

Lloyd Spence and Andrzej Krauze, Introducing The Enlightenment

Shelton Woods, Vietnam: An Illustrated History

Mai Ngọc Chừ and Võ Thị Thu Nguyệt, Vietnamese for Everyone: Mastering Vietnamese Through English

Too much to read but too little time. Sigh.

Monday, July 16, 2007

Theodicy and Mani

Those who seek not after a god can go the road of favor,
Those who pray to a goddess have grown poor and destitute,
Indeed, in my youth I tried to find out the will of my god,
With prayer and supplication I besought my goddess.
I bore a yoke of profitless servitude,
My god decreed for me poverty instead of wealth
A cripple rises above me, a fool is ahead me,
Rogues are in the ascendant, I am demoted.


- The Babylonian Theodicy, Babylon, circa 1400 BCE

To whom can I speak today?
Hearts are rapacious
And there is no man's heart in which one can trust.
To whom can I speak today?
There are no just persons
And the land is left over to the doers of wrong.

- Dispute of a Man with His Ba, Egypt, 12th Dynasty

During these few weeks, Just like Augustine of Hippo, I think a lot on the problems of the existence of Evil. Why bad things happened to good people? Why we have to suffer?

Is it because God wills it? How would an all-loving God conceives Evil? Is it because the world is marred by the sin of our first forefather? Is it because there's an omnimalevolent Devil? Is it because of good and evil are purely the work of our mind, and suffering is merely māyā, an illusion caused by our own ignorance, our avidyā?

Like Augustine, I look for Manicheanism for answer, unlike Augustine, I am deeply moved by the real answers given by the prophet Mani, instead of the superficial explanations received by the church father.

Not so long ago, I bought a copy of Christ in Dispute (論戰中的基督), an apologetic book on Augustinian christology by Quah Cheok Hooi (柯哲輝), published by Bridge Communication (文橋傳播中心)a local Chinese Christian publisher with strong fundamentalist leaning.

The first section of the book is devoted into Augustine's assault to Manicheanism, but what C.H. Quah and Augustine himself know about Manicheanism is best to say, skin-deep. Quah's knowledge on Manicheanism, just like almost all of the Christian apologists, are based on second-hand or even third-hand information. Quah's information on Augustinian attack on Manicheanism are best, repetition of previous Christian authors.

Manicheanism is such a beautiful religion, but unfortunately, the campaigns against this religion are so successsful that it is deeply misunderstsood, even the word "manichean" is enough to evoke pejorative meaning.

While searching for information on the Persian prophet's religion of light, I was thrilled when I found the blog of François Favre, an eminent French scholar on Manicheanism. Monsieur Favre's blog generously provide us a library of thought provoking articles and extracts on various topics regarding Manicheanism and gnosticism in general. Almost all of the articles are in French, but a few have been translated into other languages.

Monsieur Favre wrote in his blog, that "plus que jamais, en cette époque incertaine qui est la nôtre, leur (i.e. Mani's) enseignement révolutionnaire mérite d'être entendu".

Truly, in this age chaos, Mani's message is worth to be listend. Mani teaches us that in the beginning, there are two principles: Light and Darkness. Darkness is absent of Light, it is a substance of its own. Then Light and Darkness mingle with each other. Evil and suffering exist not because of some "fruit eating incidents", but because the world is created imperfectly. That does not mean we do not have our own responsibility. Our purpose is to seperate these two. Mani teahces us love, and even though the world is created imperfectly, it contains the substances of Light.

In the year 1215, Bái Yùchán (白玉蟾),a Taoist priest correctly told his students that Manicheans teach that the earth, the mountains, the rivers, the plants, the fire and the water are the manifestation of Vairocana (毗盧舍那), a Manichean borrowing from the Buddhist term to describe the Pillar of Glory.

Therefore, this is an imperfect world, full of suffering, and our own Light is Jesus Patibilis, the sufferng Christ. And we, are responsible to free our own suffering, and back to the realm of Light. Not only the world, but our flesh, our body, even though it is thane result of the mating of the archons, but we can transform it into a state of health and peacefulness, as indicated in Middle Persian, Sogdian and Chinese Manichean texts.

And yes, there's Evil and there's suffering. The world is created this way, because Evil exists since eternity. But our world is a mixture of both Good and Evil, while we always have to endure the Evil and suffering, let us not forget that there's Light here, and beyond this world, the kingdom of the Father of Greatness lies waiting.

This say, I am not fully converted to Manicheanism, but I am deeply symphatic to its teaching. Who knows, one day I might ot might not become a Manichean?