即使是只為了王建民出賽才看洋基的比賽，但事實上洋基隊陣中我最欣賞的球員是隊長基特。除去王建民之外，其次我所欣賞的則是捕手波沙達和三壘手A-Rod。
Although now I watch the Yankees' games only because Chien-Ming Wang will pitch for them, actually the Yankees player I like the most is the captain Derek Jeter. Besides Wang, the next players I like are the catcher Jorge Posada and the third-base A-Rod.
今天洋基又敗給藍鳥。賽前洋基才開過全隊會議，但還是沒有立即的效果。不過基特在會議後接受記者訪問時說的一段話我覺得很值得摘錄下來。
Today, the Yankees lost their game to the Blue Jays. They had a extended pre-game meeting, but it does not seem to help immediately. Yet, the words Jeter said to the reporters after the meeting deserve to be quoted.
(談到輸球)「你應該覺得困擾。」基特說：「它應該是讓你感覺不愉快的事。你永遠不應該接受它。當你開始接受失敗，你就開始有麻煩了。」
(Concerning losing) "It should bother you," Jeter said. "It should be something that doesn't make you feel good. You never accept it. When you start accepting losing, that's when you're in trouble."
2007年5月29日 星期二
2007年5月21日 星期一
廢除繁體中文？ Abandon traditional Chinese characters?
昨天收到姐姐轉寄來，說聯合國要廢除繁體中文的網路謠言。轉寄來的信裡要求大家去一個網頁連署抗議。我去年就聽過這是個謠言。但趁這機會或許我應該把我對中國文字的想法分享一下。
Yesterday I received the forwarded internet rumor from my sister saying that the traditional Chinese characters will be abandoned by UN since 2008, and the email calls for people to cosign the statements of protestation on a web page. I already knew that this is a rumor last year. But this time it motivates me to write down what I thought about the traditional Chinese characters.
其實台灣官方已經不用「繁體中文」這個字眼，而改稱為「正體中文」了。雖然其中或許有些政治意義，但基本上我是很贊成這樣的稱呼的。
Actually officially in Taiwan, we do not use the term ``traditional Chinese characters'' anymore. (The Chinese version of this term should be more properly translated into English as the ``complicated Chinese characters'', in contrast with the ``simplified'' ones.) We call it the ``formal Chinese characters'' now. Although there must be some political issues in there, I basically agree with the idea to call them this way.
根據一般公認的歷史，中國文字的初次統一是在秦代。秦始皇要求全國「書同文、語同音、車同軌」。我相信語同音的政策並沒有貫徹，甚至根本沒有推行。以現代觀點來看，這些政策就是在一個統一的國家裡對某些重要「媒介」做標準化。
According to the generally accepted history of China, the first effort to unify the characters was in the Chin dynasty. Chin Shih Huang (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qin_Shi_Huang) requested that over the country people should use the same characters for writing, should speak in the same pronunciation, and should use cars (wagons or carriages) with the same distance between a pair of wheels. I think the policy of unifying the pronunciation was not carried through, if ever really tried to carry out. Anyway, from the modern point of view, this is a series of efforts to standardize some of the important `media' over a unified country.
然而秦代統一文字的方法，實在並非只是制訂一套固定數目的標準字集。根據漢代學者的記載，可以很清楚的了解到：秦人雖然對已經被使用的文字做了整理和刪併，提出了主要使用的官方文字，但更重要的是，他們是根據有系統、有原則的方法去整理這些文字。這些方法和原則，也就是周代以前即存在的「六書」。
However, the way that Chin people unified the characters is not simply to define a set of a fixed number of standard characters. According to the works of Han dynasty scholars, we can clearly see that, although Chin people did clean up, delete and combined characters from those that were in use here or there, and designed a set of official characters, more importantly, they did so with systematic methods. The principles of these methods were based on the so-call ``six categories of characters'' that existed as early as the Chou dynasty, or even earlier. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_character_classification)
訂定原則比訂定字集要來得重要的多，影響也的確深遠得多。秦代時所用的字集，後代有許多許多的增益。雖然從「標準字集」的觀點，這些增益是對標準字集的反叛；但實際上，增修的方法都是已經充分為學界及官方所承襲的正統方法。也就是說，新字主要都是根據六書，尤其是後四書的「形聲、會意、轉注、假借」等原則來產生的。即使是知識水準不必高的普普大眾，只要根據簡單的規則，都可以約略猜測生字所可能代表的意義。或許實際上這種臆測所能取得的文字意義的精確度，並不明顯地低於文字本身所承載的精確性，所以這樣的文字系統的運作方式，在中國的社會裡，幾千年來是相當成功的。
It is much more important to set up the rules than to set up the characters set, and the influence of the rules is indeed much more profound. There were many additions and modifications made over the Chin characters set over the centuries. From the viewpoint of a ``standard characters set'', these modifications are all rebellions. Yet in fact, the ways the characters set is enriched are all formal methods adopted by the academic circle and the governments. In other words, the additions are based on the six principles of characters classification, especially the principles of ``phono-semantic combination, indicative combination, derivation and borrowing.'' Even lay-people, having learned some simple rules, can roughly guess the meanings carried by an unfamiliar character. Perhaps, the accuracy of such conjectures is not much worse than the degree of precision carried by the characters themselves, and thus the characters system had been functioning successfully in Chinese society for more than two thousand years.
換一個角度來做結，可以說中國文字的演變，是依據一套堅實的規則自然演化的，所以才會獲得成功。光從中國的文字史，或許還不易看出這種規則的力量之強大。我們不妨看看日本人如何學習使用漢文字。日文中的漢字，一般都有音讀和訓讀兩類發音。音讀可能有一或少數種，而訓讀則可能有一或多種。常被舉出的例子像是「生」字。當它的文意不同時，有非常多的破音。另外，唐代當時日本的語言中修辭的豐富程度遠低於中文，因此一些抽象的字在日語中簡併度相當高。例如 yasu 一音可能對應「安、康、靖」等字，而 hide 一音可能對應「英、秀」等等， yoshi 可能是「吉、良、佳」等等， akira 可能是「光、明、朗、亮」等等。仔細分析日文中漢字的使用情形，可以發現當時自中國引進漢字到日本的留學生，不只是學寫了一套字，更充分掌握了把中文字運用到另一套口語語言的方法。這也表示，在唐代當時，中國學者對於自己的文字系統的精髓是瞭若指掌的。中文裡面的「溪、河、江」不就是不同方言裡的名詞嗎？收入同一個文字系統之後，不同方言使用者卻都可以理解這些字的意義。以這種「豐富詞彙」的鎔爐方式，以包容的方法來達到「語同音」，而不是禁止所有方言只准許講一種話。這種方式的確是使所有接近漢文化圈的不同文化漸漸以一起豐富的方式同化。再看日本的例子，藉由音讀，日本人學會了唐音(至少是近似的)，而藉由訓讀，其實漢字也得到了更豐富的內容。
To summarize in a different way of saying, the changes of the Chinese characters are natural revolution processes based on a solid set of rules. That is why it was very successful. It is not as easy to learn the power of these rules just by observing the history of characters in China. It may be instructive to look at how Japanese people learned to use `kanji' (which means Han characters). The pronunciations of each kanji in the Japanese language can usually be divided into `ondoku' and `kundoku'. There may be one or a few ondoku and one or several or even many kundoku for one kanji. The most cited example may be the kanji 生. According to its meaning in the context, there are many different ways of pronouncing it. Meanwhile, since the rhetoric part of the Japanese language at the Tang dynasty ages was not as rich as the Chinese language, many of the rhetoric characters in Chinese became degenerate in Japanese pronunciation. For example, `yasu' which means peace or happiness in Japanese corresponds to kanji 安 or 康 or 靖, etc.; `hide' which means elegance corresponds to 英 or 秀, etc.; `yoshi' which means good corresponds to kanji 吉 or 良 or 佳, etc.; `akira' which means brightness corresponds to kanji 光 or 明 or 朗 or 亮, etc. Analyzing the way kanji is used in Japanese, it is easy to see that those Japanese overseas students in China at that time not only learned a huge character-set from China, they also learned very well the ways to apply the rules to a different spoken language. This also implies that the Chinese scholars at that time knew very well the essence of their characters system. In Chinese, the characters 溪 and 河 and 江 which all means river were originally the noun corresponding to the same thing in different dialects. By putting them into the written language with the character construction rules, people speaking different dialects can all understand what the written symbols originated from other dialects correspond to. Enriching the `written vocabulary' in this way, the goal of unifying the pronunciation was gradually achieved by including pronunciations from all different cultures into the same language instead of forbidding to speak dialects. Actually, the cultures of those societies near the Han cultural circle (including the Han culture itself) were enriched together, and adoption happened naturally between these cultures. Coming back to the example of Japanese culture, by using ondoku, Japanese people learned, at least approximately, the Tang pronunciations of Chinese language; by using kundoku, the kanji or Chinese characters gained wider application.
中文字的一個重要特色是一個字攜帶一個意涵。再加上中文的文法很自由，即使把一句話裡的各要素順序調換，往往也不會嚴重影響理解，這使得中文是現今世上仍廣為使用的文字之中，最適合做為「世界語」的文字。意即，如果所有人都學習中文字，即使他們用自己語言的文法去組織寫下的句子，只要經過適當調適，講不同語言的人都應可看懂別人所寫的文句的意思。就好像過去日本人可以用中文字寫官方文書一樣。同時這也是為何很多西方書籍的中譯本唸起來好像是把西方語句硬翻，而我們只是覺得翻得很糟、很不順口，卻往往還是照樣能看懂。如果中文字演變和運用的法則可以得到正確的保存和宣揚，不僅原先在漢文化圈的領導地位依然存在，更可能在世界上扮演積極的溝通媒介的角色。中文原先有非常堅實的優點，主要原因就是根據了一套優異的運用規則。從今天的術語來說，中文字過去的沿革是根據一套「演化式規則」。然而中國共產黨政權推行簡體字的手法，是無視於這種活的規則的優越性，而用蠻力的方法去摧毀舊中文字的系統。我個人並不是反對把中文字做一定程度的簡化。事實上簡字自然會出現在我們的文化中。隨時間過去，約定俗成的力量，會使得那些在既有規則中仍能自圓的改變留存在中文字系統中。這樣得來的簡字，的確會在不影響中文字的威力之下，改善中文字的易用程度。我個人覺得，中國推行簡體字的手法，不需要我們用政治觀點或其它論點去批判。中國人自己把自己家裡珍貴的寶物毀掉，他們所損失的，遠遠超過別人的批評所可能帶來的損害。
One of the characteristics of Chinese characters is that one character carries a complete meaning on its own. Combining with the fact that the grammar rules of Chinese written language are very loose, one can often permute the elements in a sentence without influencing the comprehension of that sentence much. This makes written Chinese language the best candidate of a ``world language'' among all actively used written languages nowadays. That is, if everybody learns Chinese characters, and he writes down the sentences he speaks in Chinese characters according to the grammar of his own language, other people could still easily understand what he writes after some adjustment. This is exactly how Japanese people were able to write official documents totally in Chinese in the old time. This is also why many Chinese translations of writings in western languages read very influent because they look like a direct conversion of sentences of western languages into Chinese, but very often we can still fully understand what they are saying. If the rules of evolution and application of Chinese characters can be preserved and even promoted properly, not only that it can retain its superiority in the Han cultural circle, but it can also play a positive role as the communication media in the whole world. This is just because of the superior rules adopted by the Chinese written language system. With the modern terminology, we can say that the past changes in Chinese characters followed a set of ``generic rules.'' However, the Chinese Communists ignored the superiority of these lively rules and destroyed the Chinese characters system with brutal force. Personally, I am not against the suggestions of simplifying the existing characters set to some extent. In fact, simplified characters spontaneously emerged from time to time. As time passes by, those simplifications that are reasonably compatible with the rules will remain in the actively used characters set through the mechanism of convention. Such simplifications will shorten the learning curve and will make the characters set more user-friendly without sacrificing the power of the rules behind the system. Personally, I think we do not have to criticize the manner in which the simplified characters set was introduced from a political point of view. It is a bloody truth that, by destroying the treasurable they had at hand, the Chinese people have lost far more than the damage of any criticism could possibly do to them.
台灣人由於受到國民黨的統治，有四五十年的時間裡，大部分的人被洗腦，因而把維護漢文化視為己任。我想絕對沒有人可以反駁：至少在中國改革開放、台灣自我本位意識抬頭的年代之前，台灣是世界上唯一積極保存漢文化的地區。其它的政治問題姑且不在此扯出來談。如果中國到現在還不積極去追上腳步、恢復自己的文化資產，還要來打壓台灣使用的文字，那真是在文化上徹底的自絕了。這樣，誰會是漢文化衰敗的大罪人呢？我想是不言自明的問題。然而不能諱言的，台灣現在也面臨同樣的問題。即使強調台灣文化的本體性，也不能蠻橫地忽略：台灣文化的提升，原本就有相當大的成分是依靠與漢文化的同化。台灣語言的本土性，與使用漢文字，是不相違背，也無法分割的。更重要的是，那就是台灣先民的遺跡，是台灣歷史真實的一部分。這也和我們是否願意接受現在的中國政權和中國意識無關。甚至可以說，現在台灣的文化，是比現在的中國的文化還要純正的漢文化。保留我們歷史上累積的漢文化的長處，應該是對台灣歷史負責、對台灣文化的優越性有益的作為，而不必被視為是對現在的中國靠攏。重要的是台灣如何自我提升，並幫助全世界一起提升。
Being governed by KMT after the World War II, for at least forty to fifty years, most of the Taiwanese people were brain-washed to take as their responsibility to preserve Han culture. I think it un-debatable that, at least before China evolved to be more open, and before Taiwanese people became aware of the identity of Taiwan, Taiwan was the only region in the world in which Han culture was actively preserved. Let us forget about other political problems at the moment. If China does not try to catch up in recovering their cultural assets, and moreover it tries to suppress the characters used in Taiwan, then China is absolutely hopeless in terms of its own culture. In that case, it goes without saying who is to be blamed for the corrosion of Han culture. However, I also would not scruple to say that Taiwan is facing a similar problem now. Even if we are emphasizing on the identity of Taiwanese culture, we cannot arbitrarily ignore the fact that the advances of Taiwanese culture, in a large part, were due to the assimilation with Han culture. The localization of Taiwanese language does not go against the employment of Chinese characters, and Chinese characters are not separable from Taiwanese language now. More importantly, it is a part of the real history of Taiwan, it is a part of the remnants of Taiwanese ancestors, to use the Chinese characters. This is nothing to do with whether or not we are in favor of the present Chinese government or Chinese consciousness. We can even say that the present Taiwan culture is a more genuine Han culture than the present `China' culture. It is beneficial to the superiority of Taiwanese culture and is an act to be honest to the Taiwanese history, to preserve the good part of Han culture accumulate in our culture. We do not have to take it as leaning towards the side of the present China government. The important thing is to improve ourselves and to help the world to improve.
Yesterday I received the forwarded internet rumor from my sister saying that the traditional Chinese characters will be abandoned by UN since 2008, and the email calls for people to cosign the statements of protestation on a web page. I already knew that this is a rumor last year. But this time it motivates me to write down what I thought about the traditional Chinese characters.
其實台灣官方已經不用「繁體中文」這個字眼，而改稱為「正體中文」了。雖然其中或許有些政治意義，但基本上我是很贊成這樣的稱呼的。
Actually officially in Taiwan, we do not use the term ``traditional Chinese characters'' anymore. (The Chinese version of this term should be more properly translated into English as the ``complicated Chinese characters'', in contrast with the ``simplified'' ones.) We call it the ``formal Chinese characters'' now. Although there must be some political issues in there, I basically agree with the idea to call them this way.
根據一般公認的歷史，中國文字的初次統一是在秦代。秦始皇要求全國「書同文、語同音、車同軌」。我相信語同音的政策並沒有貫徹，甚至根本沒有推行。以現代觀點來看，這些政策就是在一個統一的國家裡對某些重要「媒介」做標準化。
According to the generally accepted history of China, the first effort to unify the characters was in the Chin dynasty. Chin Shih Huang (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qin_Shi_Huang) requested that over the country people should use the same characters for writing, should speak in the same pronunciation, and should use cars (wagons or carriages) with the same distance between a pair of wheels. I think the policy of unifying the pronunciation was not carried through, if ever really tried to carry out. Anyway, from the modern point of view, this is a series of efforts to standardize some of the important `media' over a unified country.
然而秦代統一文字的方法，實在並非只是制訂一套固定數目的標準字集。根據漢代學者的記載，可以很清楚的了解到：秦人雖然對已經被使用的文字做了整理和刪併，提出了主要使用的官方文字，但更重要的是，他們是根據有系統、有原則的方法去整理這些文字。這些方法和原則，也就是周代以前即存在的「六書」。
However, the way that Chin people unified the characters is not simply to define a set of a fixed number of standard characters. According to the works of Han dynasty scholars, we can clearly see that, although Chin people did clean up, delete and combined characters from those that were in use here or there, and designed a set of official characters, more importantly, they did so with systematic methods. The principles of these methods were based on the so-call ``six categories of characters'' that existed as early as the Chou dynasty, or even earlier. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_character_classification)
訂定原則比訂定字集要來得重要的多，影響也的確深遠得多。秦代時所用的字集，後代有許多許多的增益。雖然從「標準字集」的觀點，這些增益是對標準字集的反叛；但實際上，增修的方法都是已經充分為學界及官方所承襲的正統方法。也就是說，新字主要都是根據六書，尤其是後四書的「形聲、會意、轉注、假借」等原則來產生的。即使是知識水準不必高的普普大眾，只要根據簡單的規則，都可以約略猜測生字所可能代表的意義。或許實際上這種臆測所能取得的文字意義的精確度，並不明顯地低於文字本身所承載的精確性，所以這樣的文字系統的運作方式，在中國的社會裡，幾千年來是相當成功的。
It is much more important to set up the rules than to set up the characters set, and the influence of the rules is indeed much more profound. There were many additions and modifications made over the Chin characters set over the centuries. From the viewpoint of a ``standard characters set'', these modifications are all rebellions. Yet in fact, the ways the characters set is enriched are all formal methods adopted by the academic circle and the governments. In other words, the additions are based on the six principles of characters classification, especially the principles of ``phono-semantic combination, indicative combination, derivation and borrowing.'' Even lay-people, having learned some simple rules, can roughly guess the meanings carried by an unfamiliar character. Perhaps, the accuracy of such conjectures is not much worse than the degree of precision carried by the characters themselves, and thus the characters system had been functioning successfully in Chinese society for more than two thousand years.
換一個角度來做結，可以說中國文字的演變，是依據一套堅實的規則自然演化的，所以才會獲得成功。光從中國的文字史，或許還不易看出這種規則的力量之強大。我們不妨看看日本人如何學習使用漢文字。日文中的漢字，一般都有音讀和訓讀兩類發音。音讀可能有一或少數種，而訓讀則可能有一或多種。常被舉出的例子像是「生」字。當它的文意不同時，有非常多的破音。另外，唐代當時日本的語言中修辭的豐富程度遠低於中文，因此一些抽象的字在日語中簡併度相當高。例如 yasu 一音可能對應「安、康、靖」等字，而 hide 一音可能對應「英、秀」等等， yoshi 可能是「吉、良、佳」等等， akira 可能是「光、明、朗、亮」等等。仔細分析日文中漢字的使用情形，可以發現當時自中國引進漢字到日本的留學生，不只是學寫了一套字，更充分掌握了把中文字運用到另一套口語語言的方法。這也表示，在唐代當時，中國學者對於自己的文字系統的精髓是瞭若指掌的。中文裡面的「溪、河、江」不就是不同方言裡的名詞嗎？收入同一個文字系統之後，不同方言使用者卻都可以理解這些字的意義。以這種「豐富詞彙」的鎔爐方式，以包容的方法來達到「語同音」，而不是禁止所有方言只准許講一種話。這種方式的確是使所有接近漢文化圈的不同文化漸漸以一起豐富的方式同化。再看日本的例子，藉由音讀，日本人學會了唐音(至少是近似的)，而藉由訓讀，其實漢字也得到了更豐富的內容。
To summarize in a different way of saying, the changes of the Chinese characters are natural revolution processes based on a solid set of rules. That is why it was very successful. It is not as easy to learn the power of these rules just by observing the history of characters in China. It may be instructive to look at how Japanese people learned to use `kanji' (which means Han characters). The pronunciations of each kanji in the Japanese language can usually be divided into `ondoku' and `kundoku'. There may be one or a few ondoku and one or several or even many kundoku for one kanji. The most cited example may be the kanji 生. According to its meaning in the context, there are many different ways of pronouncing it. Meanwhile, since the rhetoric part of the Japanese language at the Tang dynasty ages was not as rich as the Chinese language, many of the rhetoric characters in Chinese became degenerate in Japanese pronunciation. For example, `yasu' which means peace or happiness in Japanese corresponds to kanji 安 or 康 or 靖, etc.; `hide' which means elegance corresponds to 英 or 秀, etc.; `yoshi' which means good corresponds to kanji 吉 or 良 or 佳, etc.; `akira' which means brightness corresponds to kanji 光 or 明 or 朗 or 亮, etc. Analyzing the way kanji is used in Japanese, it is easy to see that those Japanese overseas students in China at that time not only learned a huge character-set from China, they also learned very well the ways to apply the rules to a different spoken language. This also implies that the Chinese scholars at that time knew very well the essence of their characters system. In Chinese, the characters 溪 and 河 and 江 which all means river were originally the noun corresponding to the same thing in different dialects. By putting them into the written language with the character construction rules, people speaking different dialects can all understand what the written symbols originated from other dialects correspond to. Enriching the `written vocabulary' in this way, the goal of unifying the pronunciation was gradually achieved by including pronunciations from all different cultures into the same language instead of forbidding to speak dialects. Actually, the cultures of those societies near the Han cultural circle (including the Han culture itself) were enriched together, and adoption happened naturally between these cultures. Coming back to the example of Japanese culture, by using ondoku, Japanese people learned, at least approximately, the Tang pronunciations of Chinese language; by using kundoku, the kanji or Chinese characters gained wider application.
中文字的一個重要特色是一個字攜帶一個意涵。再加上中文的文法很自由，即使把一句話裡的各要素順序調換，往往也不會嚴重影響理解，這使得中文是現今世上仍廣為使用的文字之中，最適合做為「世界語」的文字。意即，如果所有人都學習中文字，即使他們用自己語言的文法去組織寫下的句子，只要經過適當調適，講不同語言的人都應可看懂別人所寫的文句的意思。就好像過去日本人可以用中文字寫官方文書一樣。同時這也是為何很多西方書籍的中譯本唸起來好像是把西方語句硬翻，而我們只是覺得翻得很糟、很不順口，卻往往還是照樣能看懂。如果中文字演變和運用的法則可以得到正確的保存和宣揚，不僅原先在漢文化圈的領導地位依然存在，更可能在世界上扮演積極的溝通媒介的角色。中文原先有非常堅實的優點，主要原因就是根據了一套優異的運用規則。從今天的術語來說，中文字過去的沿革是根據一套「演化式規則」。然而中國共產黨政權推行簡體字的手法，是無視於這種活的規則的優越性，而用蠻力的方法去摧毀舊中文字的系統。我個人並不是反對把中文字做一定程度的簡化。事實上簡字自然會出現在我們的文化中。隨時間過去，約定俗成的力量，會使得那些在既有規則中仍能自圓的改變留存在中文字系統中。這樣得來的簡字，的確會在不影響中文字的威力之下，改善中文字的易用程度。我個人覺得，中國推行簡體字的手法，不需要我們用政治觀點或其它論點去批判。中國人自己把自己家裡珍貴的寶物毀掉，他們所損失的，遠遠超過別人的批評所可能帶來的損害。
One of the characteristics of Chinese characters is that one character carries a complete meaning on its own. Combining with the fact that the grammar rules of Chinese written language are very loose, one can often permute the elements in a sentence without influencing the comprehension of that sentence much. This makes written Chinese language the best candidate of a ``world language'' among all actively used written languages nowadays. That is, if everybody learns Chinese characters, and he writes down the sentences he speaks in Chinese characters according to the grammar of his own language, other people could still easily understand what he writes after some adjustment. This is exactly how Japanese people were able to write official documents totally in Chinese in the old time. This is also why many Chinese translations of writings in western languages read very influent because they look like a direct conversion of sentences of western languages into Chinese, but very often we can still fully understand what they are saying. If the rules of evolution and application of Chinese characters can be preserved and even promoted properly, not only that it can retain its superiority in the Han cultural circle, but it can also play a positive role as the communication media in the whole world. This is just because of the superior rules adopted by the Chinese written language system. With the modern terminology, we can say that the past changes in Chinese characters followed a set of ``generic rules.'' However, the Chinese Communists ignored the superiority of these lively rules and destroyed the Chinese characters system with brutal force. Personally, I am not against the suggestions of simplifying the existing characters set to some extent. In fact, simplified characters spontaneously emerged from time to time. As time passes by, those simplifications that are reasonably compatible with the rules will remain in the actively used characters set through the mechanism of convention. Such simplifications will shorten the learning curve and will make the characters set more user-friendly without sacrificing the power of the rules behind the system. Personally, I think we do not have to criticize the manner in which the simplified characters set was introduced from a political point of view. It is a bloody truth that, by destroying the treasurable they had at hand, the Chinese people have lost far more than the damage of any criticism could possibly do to them.
台灣人由於受到國民黨的統治，有四五十年的時間裡，大部分的人被洗腦，因而把維護漢文化視為己任。我想絕對沒有人可以反駁：至少在中國改革開放、台灣自我本位意識抬頭的年代之前，台灣是世界上唯一積極保存漢文化的地區。其它的政治問題姑且不在此扯出來談。如果中國到現在還不積極去追上腳步、恢復自己的文化資產，還要來打壓台灣使用的文字，那真是在文化上徹底的自絕了。這樣，誰會是漢文化衰敗的大罪人呢？我想是不言自明的問題。然而不能諱言的，台灣現在也面臨同樣的問題。即使強調台灣文化的本體性，也不能蠻橫地忽略：台灣文化的提升，原本就有相當大的成分是依靠與漢文化的同化。台灣語言的本土性，與使用漢文字，是不相違背，也無法分割的。更重要的是，那就是台灣先民的遺跡，是台灣歷史真實的一部分。這也和我們是否願意接受現在的中國政權和中國意識無關。甚至可以說，現在台灣的文化，是比現在的中國的文化還要純正的漢文化。保留我們歷史上累積的漢文化的長處，應該是對台灣歷史負責、對台灣文化的優越性有益的作為，而不必被視為是對現在的中國靠攏。重要的是台灣如何自我提升，並幫助全世界一起提升。
Being governed by KMT after the World War II, for at least forty to fifty years, most of the Taiwanese people were brain-washed to take as their responsibility to preserve Han culture. I think it un-debatable that, at least before China evolved to be more open, and before Taiwanese people became aware of the identity of Taiwan, Taiwan was the only region in the world in which Han culture was actively preserved. Let us forget about other political problems at the moment. If China does not try to catch up in recovering their cultural assets, and moreover it tries to suppress the characters used in Taiwan, then China is absolutely hopeless in terms of its own culture. In that case, it goes without saying who is to be blamed for the corrosion of Han culture. However, I also would not scruple to say that Taiwan is facing a similar problem now. Even if we are emphasizing on the identity of Taiwanese culture, we cannot arbitrarily ignore the fact that the advances of Taiwanese culture, in a large part, were due to the assimilation with Han culture. The localization of Taiwanese language does not go against the employment of Chinese characters, and Chinese characters are not separable from Taiwanese language now. More importantly, it is a part of the real history of Taiwan, it is a part of the remnants of Taiwanese ancestors, to use the Chinese characters. This is nothing to do with whether or not we are in favor of the present Chinese government or Chinese consciousness. We can even say that the present Taiwan culture is a more genuine Han culture than the present `China' culture. It is beneficial to the superiority of Taiwanese culture and is an act to be honest to the Taiwanese history, to preserve the good part of Han culture accumulate in our culture. We do not have to take it as leaning towards the side of the present China government. The important thing is to improve ourselves and to help the world to improve.
2007年5月18日 星期五
王建民的上一敗 Wang's lost against the Rangers, May 10.
檢討勝利往往是沒多大用處的。檢討失敗比較能有收穫。前前一場對遊騎兵隊失七分輸球之後，上一場建仔又恢復狀況了。尤其是在五月中還要在不到八度的氣溫下頂著強風投球，可以明顯地看出，建仔的控球比起兩隊所有其它投手都穩定不少。可見他對自我的掌控是讓人可以放心的。連托瑞都說：「我不覺得他的五場球有哪一場是投得不好的。」由此，我覺得托瑞和一些其它專家的看法，可能和我有些許相同之處，尤其是針對最慘的遊騎兵之戰。趕快趁印象深刻，把我的觀察寫一寫。
It is usually not very useful to reflect on a game won. Instead, many insights could be gained by reflecting on the lost games. On May 10, Wang lost the game to the Rangers after giving up 7 earned runs. Happily, he is again stablized in the May 16 game vs the White Sox. Thinking about that he had to pitch at 46 deg.F, in the strong wind, it was obvious that his command and control were better than that of all the other pitchers in that game. I think, win or lose, his self-contral is now much reliable. Even Torre said that he does not think Wang was pitching poorly in any of the 5 games. This comment made me think that maybe Torre and some other experts share the same feeling as I had concerning the May 10 game, the 'worst' game Wang had ever pitched according to the numbers. So I'll just write down what I thought when I still remember it.
建仔的一個優點就是能夠很快在逆境中回穩。對他來說，一局失三分已經算是大局了。但是當天他投了兩個失三分的大局。第二個大局，事實上兩分責失是他下場後被打回來的，所以我們很難去假設如果是他自己投會是什麼結果。最值得檢討的是就是第五局。
One of Wang's good points is that he is calm and he quickly stablizes in troubles. When he was pitching, a three-run inning is already a big inning for the opponents. Yet on May 1o, he allowed two innings with 3 runs. In the 7th inning, 2 of the 3 runs were batted in after he stepped down. Therefore, we are not in the position to judge what whould have happened if he remained in the game at that time. The inning that deserves the most reflection is, of course, the fifth.
很多人都為建仔抱不平說，第五局也不是王建民自己搞砸的。要是阿布瑞尤不要守那麼淺，就不會出現三壘安打；要是 A-Rod 觸殺成功，也許一分都不會掉。的確，阿布瑞尤如果一開始守退後三步，那三壘安打根本不存在；接下來建仔連續再製造了兩個內野滾地球，根本該局已經結束，根本不會出現什麼三壘本壘間夾殺。
Many people felt it unfair for Wang. They think Wang did not screw up the fifth inning by himself. If Abreu was not in such a shallow position when Laird was batting, there may not be that triple; and if A-Rod tag Laird out in front of the home plate, maybe there would not be any run in that inning. Indeed, if Abreu was say three steps farther at the beginning, Laird would have flied out. And afterward, Wang had induced two in-bount ground balls. The inning would have already finished without that action between the third and home.
做為一個台灣球迷，我當然是一心支持建仔。但是反覆思索，我覺得我一點也不責備阿布瑞尤和 A-Rod。為什麼呢？因為其實建仔當天到第五局為止，造成滾地球的次數仍然是一貫地超水準，被打出安打也幾乎都只是強勁滾地。到他退場時，至少滾地/飛球出局比是 16 比 3，比16號的比賽還厲害。所以，阿布瑞尤為什麼要守得深呢？他守得淺，更有助於減低穿出內野的滾球的傷害。因此在第五局的那個當下，我如果是阿布瑞尤，我還是會站在同樣的位置等。
As a Taiwanese fan, of course I support Wang whole-heartedly. But after recalling the situations many many times, I think I put no blame on Abreu and A-Rod at all. Until the fifth inning, Wang was as efficient as before in inducing ground balls. The hits he allowed are mostly strong ground balls that penetrated into the outer field. Even when he stepped down, the ground-out/fly-out ratio is still 16/3, even better than the number on May 16. In that case, why should Abreu go deep into the field? Standing in a shallow positon would help reducing the damage caused by the penetrating ground balls. Therefore, if I were Abreu at that moment, I would no doubt stand in the same position as he did.
至於 A-Rod 的夾殺失敗，是個很接近的判決。但我們姑且不要把它當誤判來討論。我想技術上最大的重點是 A-Rod 為什麼決定自己追 Laird 而不是傳到本壘？一個明星內野手怎麼可能不知道：夾殺時最好是由前面的壘的守備者來追跑者這個道理？但是大家稍微回想就會發現， A-Rod 想回傳本壘的時候，本壘只有一個守備者，就是建仔。當我看到 A-Rod 舉起球，停了一下，又決定自己去追 Laird 時，我感受到的不是 A-Rod 沒處理好，而是感受到 A-Rod 對建仔的愛護。他寧可拼到自己下巴都撞破，也不想讓 Laird 去衝撞建仔。我個人充分相信當時 A-Rod 想到的比球評、觀眾都還多。從這個小動作，我覺得建仔已經充分贏得隊友的信賴和珍惜，即使是像 A-Rod 這樣高身價的大明星。
As to the missed tagging by A-Rod, actually it was a very close call. But to reflect the situation, let us not take it as a misjudge in the first place. I think the most important techincal problem to think about is why A-Rod decided to chase Laird by himself instead of passing the ball to the home plate. Is it possible that an all-star inner-fielder does not know it better to have the defender at the plate ahead to chase the runner? However, if one recalls the situation one can find that at that moment Posada had already avoided the path and there was only Wang at the home plate. When A-Rod raised his arm and paused for a short moment and then decided to chase Laird by himself, what I have sensed in not that A-Rod screwed up the action. Instead, I immediately felt that A-Rod was protecting Wang. He would rather run so hard that he had the scrape on his chin, than to let Laird collide with Wang at home. Personally, I strongly belive that A-Rod had thought more than the commentators and the audience did at that moment. From that delicate move, I felt that Wang has already gained the most natural and thus spontaneous love from his teamates, including A-Rod who is such a highly-paid superstar.
即使是把每一球都投得完美，也不能保證有好結果。只要球要進好球帶，總會有人可能打到。但是建仔能夠有今天的穩定表現，除了個人優異的運動員氣質和個性，以及苦練的成績之外，能夠有效地獲得隊友的支持和向心力，絕對是不可忽視的因素。那天第五局掉的三分，與其視為是建仔在本季趕業績時的一個挫折，毋寧視為是建仔與隊友的細膩互動的一個小插曲。沒有人能不敗的，但若敗是敗在隊友太保護自己以至於做了一些不太好的判斷，也許對建仔未來的路，其實正面的價值仍然是很高的。
Even if a pitcher can pitch every pitch perfectly, it is not automatic that the result will be perfect. As long as you have to pitch into the strike zone, someone will be able to slam the ball sometimes. However, besides his own excellent characteristics as an athlet and his hard works, Wang can perform so efficiently and stably now also because that he had efficiently won the support from his teamates so that the chemistry is very good when he pitches. As to the three runs earned in the fifth on that day, instead of thinking of them as a frustration on the road of Wang's re-establishment in this season, I would rather think of them as a heart-warming incident grown out of the delicate interactions between Wang and his teamates. No one can be invincible. But if Wang lost the game because of the minor mistakes his teamates commited out of their over-protection on him, it is not necessarily a bad thing for the future of Wang.
It is usually not very useful to reflect on a game won. Instead, many insights could be gained by reflecting on the lost games. On May 10, Wang lost the game to the Rangers after giving up 7 earned runs. Happily, he is again stablized in the May 16 game vs the White Sox. Thinking about that he had to pitch at 46 deg.F, in the strong wind, it was obvious that his command and control were better than that of all the other pitchers in that game. I think, win or lose, his self-contral is now much reliable. Even Torre said that he does not think Wang was pitching poorly in any of the 5 games. This comment made me think that maybe Torre and some other experts share the same feeling as I had concerning the May 10 game, the 'worst' game Wang had ever pitched according to the numbers. So I'll just write down what I thought when I still remember it.
建仔的一個優點就是能夠很快在逆境中回穩。對他來說，一局失三分已經算是大局了。但是當天他投了兩個失三分的大局。第二個大局，事實上兩分責失是他下場後被打回來的，所以我們很難去假設如果是他自己投會是什麼結果。最值得檢討的是就是第五局。
One of Wang's good points is that he is calm and he quickly stablizes in troubles. When he was pitching, a three-run inning is already a big inning for the opponents. Yet on May 1o, he allowed two innings with 3 runs. In the 7th inning, 2 of the 3 runs were batted in after he stepped down. Therefore, we are not in the position to judge what whould have happened if he remained in the game at that time. The inning that deserves the most reflection is, of course, the fifth.
很多人都為建仔抱不平說，第五局也不是王建民自己搞砸的。要是阿布瑞尤不要守那麼淺，就不會出現三壘安打；要是 A-Rod 觸殺成功，也許一分都不會掉。的確，阿布瑞尤如果一開始守退後三步，那三壘安打根本不存在；接下來建仔連續再製造了兩個內野滾地球，根本該局已經結束，根本不會出現什麼三壘本壘間夾殺。
Many people felt it unfair for Wang. They think Wang did not screw up the fifth inning by himself. If Abreu was not in such a shallow position when Laird was batting, there may not be that triple; and if A-Rod tag Laird out in front of the home plate, maybe there would not be any run in that inning. Indeed, if Abreu was say three steps farther at the beginning, Laird would have flied out. And afterward, Wang had induced two in-bount ground balls. The inning would have already finished without that action between the third and home.
做為一個台灣球迷，我當然是一心支持建仔。但是反覆思索，我覺得我一點也不責備阿布瑞尤和 A-Rod。為什麼呢？因為其實建仔當天到第五局為止，造成滾地球的次數仍然是一貫地超水準，被打出安打也幾乎都只是強勁滾地。到他退場時，至少滾地/飛球出局比是 16 比 3，比16號的比賽還厲害。所以，阿布瑞尤為什麼要守得深呢？他守得淺，更有助於減低穿出內野的滾球的傷害。因此在第五局的那個當下，我如果是阿布瑞尤，我還是會站在同樣的位置等。
As a Taiwanese fan, of course I support Wang whole-heartedly. But after recalling the situations many many times, I think I put no blame on Abreu and A-Rod at all. Until the fifth inning, Wang was as efficient as before in inducing ground balls. The hits he allowed are mostly strong ground balls that penetrated into the outer field. Even when he stepped down, the ground-out/fly-out ratio is still 16/3, even better than the number on May 16. In that case, why should Abreu go deep into the field? Standing in a shallow positon would help reducing the damage caused by the penetrating ground balls. Therefore, if I were Abreu at that moment, I would no doubt stand in the same position as he did.
至於 A-Rod 的夾殺失敗，是個很接近的判決。但我們姑且不要把它當誤判來討論。我想技術上最大的重點是 A-Rod 為什麼決定自己追 Laird 而不是傳到本壘？一個明星內野手怎麼可能不知道：夾殺時最好是由前面的壘的守備者來追跑者這個道理？但是大家稍微回想就會發現， A-Rod 想回傳本壘的時候，本壘只有一個守備者，就是建仔。當我看到 A-Rod 舉起球，停了一下，又決定自己去追 Laird 時，我感受到的不是 A-Rod 沒處理好，而是感受到 A-Rod 對建仔的愛護。他寧可拼到自己下巴都撞破，也不想讓 Laird 去衝撞建仔。我個人充分相信當時 A-Rod 想到的比球評、觀眾都還多。從這個小動作，我覺得建仔已經充分贏得隊友的信賴和珍惜，即使是像 A-Rod 這樣高身價的大明星。
As to the missed tagging by A-Rod, actually it was a very close call. But to reflect the situation, let us not take it as a misjudge in the first place. I think the most important techincal problem to think about is why A-Rod decided to chase Laird by himself instead of passing the ball to the home plate. Is it possible that an all-star inner-fielder does not know it better to have the defender at the plate ahead to chase the runner? However, if one recalls the situation one can find that at that moment Posada had already avoided the path and there was only Wang at the home plate. When A-Rod raised his arm and paused for a short moment and then decided to chase Laird by himself, what I have sensed in not that A-Rod screwed up the action. Instead, I immediately felt that A-Rod was protecting Wang. He would rather run so hard that he had the scrape on his chin, than to let Laird collide with Wang at home. Personally, I strongly belive that A-Rod had thought more than the commentators and the audience did at that moment. From that delicate move, I felt that Wang has already gained the most natural and thus spontaneous love from his teamates, including A-Rod who is such a highly-paid superstar.
即使是把每一球都投得完美，也不能保證有好結果。只要球要進好球帶，總會有人可能打到。但是建仔能夠有今天的穩定表現，除了個人優異的運動員氣質和個性，以及苦練的成績之外，能夠有效地獲得隊友的支持和向心力，絕對是不可忽視的因素。那天第五局掉的三分，與其視為是建仔在本季趕業績時的一個挫折，毋寧視為是建仔與隊友的細膩互動的一個小插曲。沒有人能不敗的，但若敗是敗在隊友太保護自己以至於做了一些不太好的判斷，也許對建仔未來的路，其實正面的價值仍然是很高的。
Even if a pitcher can pitch every pitch perfectly, it is not automatic that the result will be perfect. As long as you have to pitch into the strike zone, someone will be able to slam the ball sometimes. However, besides his own excellent characteristics as an athlet and his hard works, Wang can perform so efficiently and stably now also because that he had efficiently won the support from his teamates so that the chemistry is very good when he pitches. As to the three runs earned in the fifth on that day, instead of thinking of them as a frustration on the road of Wang's re-establishment in this season, I would rather think of them as a heart-warming incident grown out of the delicate interactions between Wang and his teamates. No one can be invincible. But if Wang lost the game because of the minor mistakes his teamates commited out of their over-protection on him, it is not necessarily a bad thing for the future of Wang.
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