Was sagst du? 樣樣都德

Before dinner on 30th April, I went for a wander in the streets of Chinatown near the restaurant while waiting for my friends. Friday evenings are busy times for restaurants, and that evening was no exception with quite long queues in front of several places, including a Shanghaiese dumpling eatery, a restaurant serving local specialties from Suzhou, Hangzhou and surrounds (which are all near Shanghai) as well as a restaurant serving dumplings and cuisine from the provinces near the seaboard south of the Yangtze River (which also covers Shanghai). Most of those in the queues, very interestingly, were Westerners, and that had me wondering what all the rave about Shanghaiese cuisine was. When I asked my friends at the dinner table, one of them joked that it was brought about by the Shanghai Expo fever, while another said that the Shanghaiese dumpling eatery was famous for its large servings at one of the cheapest prices in town. For A$ 10 (HK$ 70, 7 euros or US$ 9), there would be enough...

The Hong Kong government has proposed new guidelines for floor numberings of new buildings. Apart from the omission of 4, 13 and numbers ending with a 4, other forms of omissions or aliasing will not be allowed. 香港對樓宇層樓編號有新 規管 ，不容許不合理的大幅跳層，但刪去4、13和尾數是4字的樓層還是可以的。 These guidelines may not make sense to most of non-Chinese readers, unless you happen to know that 4 is a homophone with death in Chinese, and 13 is supposed to be an unlucky number for Christians even though most Westerners don’t really care about it. Skipping certain floor numbers may make people feel better but doesn’t change the reality. Those living on the so-called 5th floor of a building which has omitted the 4th floor numbering are still living on the actual 4th storey of the building, although the residents can probably take comfort that they are not living on the death floor. 4字是中國人的忌諱，13雖說是對西人（或信耶穌的）不吉，但平常西人都甚少理會。跳樓層這個做法其實自欺欺人，沒有4樓的大廈，住在所謂的5樓其實即是第4樓，祇是聽覺上和心理上好過一點，但根本沒改變過住在樓宇本身的第4樓這個現實。 Superstitions such as the abov...

用普通話拼音輸入法，輸入字詞的漢語拼音後便可選擇想打的字詞，由於鍵盤沒有Ü這個鍵，所以用V代表之，例如「女」字就以NV輸入。 為求與時並進，新版未來的普通話拼音輸入法將更貼近現代生活，例如輸入LV便會顯示「手袋、皮帶、手錶」等選項，相信會特別深受富裕階層歡迎。 * * * 某權威地下化學學會，決定將年度化學獎頒予發明提煉「餿水油」和「地溝油」（港稱「坑渠油」）的一眾無名化學家。該會發表讚揚辭，指出： 「隨着社會經濟發達，居民和各行各業產生的污水日多，對環境影響甚大，創新的治理方法是大勢所趨的。從廢水中提煉食用油，既可減少污水的排放量和毒性，亦體現現代循環再用的理念，而此行業的規模日益壯大，為各高校化學系畢業生提供大量就業機會，對減輕大學生的失業問題乃至對整個社會的穩定性作出重大貢獻！」 該獎頒禮將會在全國所有食肆現場轉播。 參考閱讀 * * * 香港某報專欄報導，某富貴議員最近外出吃飯有個既不尋常又不開心的經驗。 話說該議員某日想光顧其家附近一家新開張又人氣甚旺的小店試菜，點了80元菜，豈料結賬時發現錢包祇剩下一張廿元鈔票和一張信用卡！ 剛巧他的手機無電，不能打電話給家人朋友借錢應急，小店又不收信用卡，情急下該議員哀求店主容許他賒賬，並保證以後多多光顧便是，但東主不賣他的賬，着他留下來洗碗碟三小時補償。 該議員本時威風八面，罰他洗碗他當然心有不甘，更何況是三小時！他便跟店主理論，店主也不是省油的燈，你一言我一語的吵起來，最後店主還斥喝：「我發工錢給員工，都是拿你的標準，你欠我60元，幫我洗碗三個鐘頭是天公地道，還有甚麼話好說，快去幹活！」 該議員拿他沒法，祇得忍聲吞氣，把西服脫下換過工作服，走進廚房，一杯一碟地洗起來。 很快這三小時差不多完全捱過去了，再加上該議員有飲食業經驗，很久以前也在廚房打滾過，再多的碗碟也給他洗得一乾二淨，總算鬆一口氣。這時店主昂首闊步走進廚房巡視，議員一見到他便問：「活幹好了，可以走了吧？」店主瞟了他一眼後，哼了一聲，便走到廚房的一角，拿了地拖遞給他說：「沒這麼便宜，剛才公佈最新行業調查，飲食業清潔員工的平均時薪跌至19元多，你還沒有做夠時間，那你就替我把地面拖乾淨才能走！」 參考閱讀 其他娛人節新聞： 腦殘來港 、 萬人迷棄英投澳 （英文）、 澳洲一夜變共和 （英文）、 有味報紙及其他 （英文） 祝節日愉快！

The once-in-a-century storm at the start of March in Melbourne has almost ushered the end of summer, but fortunately the fond memories of summer have not been totally blown away. 三月初墨爾本的一場世紀狂風暴雨，差點把夏天打得落慌而逃，幸好夏日的回憶仍未被風雨徹底吹散和沖洗。 These memories are not confined to only this summer, but also include my reminiscences of the bygone days in Europe. 這些回憶不止於這個夏天，還包括我藉此緬懷歐洲零零星星的片段。 Not long after I came back from Hong Kong in early January, my family and I went for strawberry picking in the Mornington Peninsula just south of Melbourne. While there was a strawberry field just a stone’s throw away back in where I lived in Munich, this strawberry field in Mornington was a good 77 km from home in Melbourne! It was a fair drive, and we decided to break it up by stopping over in the seaside town of Dromana for lunch and the fresh breeze by its beach. 一月初剛從香港回來不久，我和一家人一同到墨爾本以南的摩寧頓半島（Mornington Peninsula）採紅草莓。從前在德國慕尼黑，紅草莓田近在咫尺，但摩寧頓半島的紅草莓園，離家足足77公里，去一趟採紅草莓就有如郊遊，而且因為車程長，我們中途也得在一個海濱小鎮Dromana稍事休息，吃頓中午飯和在海灘...

This morning after hanging out the laundry, I discovered a newly woven spider web, anchored on a pine shrub on one side and small bushes on another side. That was actually quite a large span, and the web itself was also quite large with a diameter of about 30 cm. It wasn’t too hard to spot the web under bright sunlight. 今天早上在後花園晾衣服後，驀然發現一個新的蜘蛛網。這個網一端繫在松樹，一端繫在較矮的花叢，展開來頗大，直徑有30厘米左右，在耀眼的陽光反射下顯而易見。 What made the web noteworthy was not its size – I’ve in fact seen larger ones, and won’t be surprised if they were spun by the same spider – but how effective it was. After 3 hours or so, 20 or 30 small flying insects have already fallen prey and were trapped by this web. I was quite stunned with the success of this web. Its size obviously helped, although there were also big gaps in between threads to allow so many other small insects to fly through. But it wouldn’t be a big surprise that those unsuspecting insects wound eventually get caught when they have flown enough times. The spider obviou...

Not long after I arrived at work yesterday, the departmental secretary led the electrical engineer of the institute into my office. The engineer asked if I had placed a job order for him through the phone. I was caught totally surprised, as I have neither made a phone call nor any job that required his attention. He insisted that it was someone called Geoffrey Kong who left a message on his phone, but my colleague told him that there were four people called Geoffrey or Jeffery in the whole department and asked him if he had the right Geoffrey/Jeffery. He was sure that the surname was indeed Kong. All I could tell him was that I had not made the job request at all. The stalemate went on for a couple of minutes, but just as the engineer was about to leave, someone told him that a light bulb needed to be changed in an office which belonged to another Jeffery. Happily for the engineer, his trip to my department wasn’t a total waste of time after all. 昨天剛上班，部門秘書帶着電器技工找我，那技工問我是不是有工作請求。我給他弄糊塗...

February is the peak of summer in southern Australia and the best time to enjoy what summer has to offer. We scientists only know it too well, so every year we go to this seaside town of Lorne, about 150 km from Melbourne, for the annual conference on protein science. 二月正值澳洲的盛暑，是享受夏日最佳時機，我們做研究的也深明此道理，所以每年這個時候都會在離墨爾本150公里的海濱小鎮Lorne開一年一度的蛋白質科學會議。 Lorne has certainly received a facelift during my six years of absence from that place. Thankfully the laid back atmosphere and the lure of the sea still abound. In the mornings the beach is just an au naturel mix of golden sand, roaring waves and refreshing smells of the sea, spared of people save the odd few talking a stroll or walking their dogs. But come the afternoons and the beach will be invaded en masse by sunbathers, swimmers and surfers taking advantage of this natural playground. 和Lorne這個地方闊別六年了，Lorne的面貌光鮮了不少，可幸那種海濱悠閑的氣氛和大海的氣息依然不變，早上的海灘，金黃的沙、澎湃的浪濤和清新的海洋氣味依舊，寬廣的海灘，祇是三數漫步者和攜犬者的天下，到了下午，海灘便給弄潮兒進駐，遊泳的、曬太陽的和玩衝浪的都有。 The beach is a popular ...