Engengine

Poets sing odes to it, philosophers contemplate over it, novelists dramatize it, holleywood massproduces it, businessmen make big bucks out of it. . 　　

Men and women talk it, even make it. They are dying for it, or they are reborn for it. They thrill at it, they groan for it. It flies them high on the zenith of the world, or throw them down into the abyss of despair. 　　

If you have a chance to see how a horse looks when he sees a mare, you will be awed by the power of 'love': he stands on his hind feets, throwing his front legs and head high into the sky, eyes reddened and bright, all the his hairs flying, and the whole world can hear his love  sonorous love song to his lover. 　　

(Un)fortunately, the human love goes beyond it. Scientists say ,at least, that human is the only animal who hugs and kisses when in love. 　　

Human love should be like the river of life. Love keeps man and women alive. The river of life runs dry without it. The pain of love is the pain of being alive: it is our perpetual wound. 　　

Love means the body, the soul, the life, the entire being. We feel love as we feel the warmth of our blood, we breathe love as we breathe air, we hold it in ourselves as we hold our thoughts. Nothing more exists for us. 　　

Love defies logic and reasoning. I wonder whether people who are sensible about love are capable of it. But it gives us a reason for leading a life in the world. I really can't see the difference between the human race and the animal kingdom were it not for love: love is the only answer to the problem of human existence. 　　

As someone says somewhere, love is the irresistible desire to be desired irresistibly. Only those who are driven crazy and desperate by love are entitled for tasting its sweetness. 　　

Love is a paradox. Love renders one the sweetest sweetness, but the most bitter bitterness as well. Love makes a tranquil heart beat wildly, it can also set a restless heart at peace. Love makes the wildest spirit tame, and the tamest spirit wild. 　　

Love englightens the fool, but blinds the wise. 　　

Love is much like a wild rose, beautiful and calm, but willing to draw blood in its defense. 　　

Love is much like a fire. The only difference is whether you intend to see its flames dancing in your hearth, or to see your house burned down by it. But a life without love can only see a heap of ashes with the fire deadand the light extinguished. 　　

I just wonder whether love is the grand gift god grants us, or is it the juju He pastes on human souls???

The enormous sky over our head has been an inexhaustible source of astrological prophecy, romantic imagination, celestial reverence, legendary myths and unending mystery. Astrologists, the precursors of modern astronomers, were believed to possess the supernatural powers of getting the apocalyptical messages from the location and movements of the constellations. The most recent evidence was that, Nostradamus, possibly the best known astrologist in the world, has successfully foretold, as far back as 400 years ago, the terrorist air raid in New York city. Of course, as always, his equivocal and always ominous prophecy can only be explicated to us on an ex post hoc basis. The modern version of this ancient practice is simplified and accessible to general populace: one’s destiny and disposition are determined by “his or her” constellation, which can be effortlessly inferred by one’s date of birth. In Chinese folklore, the Milky Way epitomizes the insurmountable gap intervened by heavenly powers to separate two loving hearts while the pale and cool glows of moon has inspired endless poetic imaginations since antiquity.

　　Modern science has unveiled the mysteries of the universe and freed man from irrational worship of the lifeless heaven. The galaxies and constellations proved to be nothing but the residue of a accidental big bang. When Galileo pointed his newly invented telescope to the moon, our closest neighbor, he found something frustrating and anticlimactic to the imaginative poets: it is merely “full of inequalities, uneven, full of hollows and protuberances, just like the surface of the Earth itself.” Had the two lovers across the Milky Way known that what is lying between them were not onrushing flood but clouds of stars, they would not have to wait, with burning yearnings and longings, for another 360 days to have their long-awaited and romantic meeting: They could meet everyday and take baths together in the ‘Silvery River’, if they like.

　　However, modern science of astronomy and astrophysics is quite beyond the ken of the general laymen, who instead still cherish a ceaseless curiosity to the celestial bodies in the night sky. Each eclipses of the sun or the moon would allure millions of pairs of eyes thrown up at the sky. Whenever a comet orbits close to the earth, there would be a panic buying of astronomical telescopes. It is an astronomer’s lifelong dream to witness the rare occurrence of the planets in a special configuration, such as in the shape of a line or of a cross.

　　I can hardly be ranked as an idolater of the stars, be they in the heavens or in our secular world. But last year when they said that they would be a star shower at midnight, I couldn’t help being seduced by its beautiful name:
　　“ A star shower, huh?”
　　“You would be remorseful if you miss it,” so I was told, “you will have to live one more hundred years to see it again.”
　　So the cold midnight saw us two folded in blankets at the top of our building, drinking glasses of wine to keep warm, waiting for the astronomical spectacle to come. By the hour when the stars had been anticipated to shower, we looked long up in the sky.
　　“You must stare at the sky long,” my friend told me in a knowledgeable way, “as the star shower will disappear in a split of second.”
　　“Are you sure it comes at one o’clock,” my neck began to ache and sore, but I could only see the stars twinkling mockingly at us.
　　“Scientists won’t make mistakes. Be patient, men.”
　　My patience was running out and at two clock, we went back to sleep.
　　The reason my friend gave me for the absence of the star shower was “ the moonlight was too bright”.

　　That is why I did not show excessive enthusiasm when I was told there would be another Leonid meteor shower this November. “Sometimes scientists also make mistakes.” I was still browsing the net when there were hordes of university students marching to the playground to get ready for their observation.
　　I was just about to go to sleep when there burst out sudden shrieks of ecstasy downstairs.
　　“Why?! Does it really come? They say it comes around 1.” I asked myself while pulling on the clothes and dashing downstairs. After all, watching star showers is for me an unfulfilled dream.
　　There were already hundreds of students gathering there. Some guys were really well equipped and well prepared: they took their beddings with them so that they might look into the sky while still lying in bed, saving themselves from the neck-soaring syndrome I experienced last year. Some also had telescopes in hand. Fortunately, the moon was still not in sight now.

　　As this was only the initial stage of star shower, there were one or two stars occasionally fleeting across the night sky. Each would invariably evoked loud shouts of joys. As most of them vanished in a split of second, those who missed them would turn to their partner and inquired:
　　“Where, where?”
　　“There, there.”
　　By the time the latter saw in the direction where the star was, it had gone. Only then did both of them feel their folly and they looked at each other, smiling.
　　Nowhere have I felt a more harmonious relationship between man and nature than on this playground. The parent of the meteor shower was in fact a comet, the most inauspicious star in ancient astronomy. The presence of so many spectators on this playground seemed to be ridiculing the obsolescence of this old superstition. Instead, the rare astronomical spectacle was expected and embraced with enthusiasm.
　　There burst out one after another wave of ecstatic shrieks when the stars began to ‘shower’ in bulks, in different directions, leaving behind them long and beautiful trails. At this moment, it occurred to me that I should make a wish. They say the wish made at this moment is most likely to come true. I stared at one star fleeting across the sky, crossed my hands before my chest, in a very prayerful way, and made the wish before its beautiful and greenish trail vanished. Why should I tell my wish to you? They say it won’t be effectual if it is uttered.
　　Should I feel joyous or lamentable if my life was just like the star shower’s, colorful, beautiful, spectacular, but fleetingly brief, winning shouts of joys for me even though I became extinguished into nothingness immediately? So I asked myself on my way back room while the multitude on the playground is still thrilling behind.

最近突然发现自己是个很怀旧的人。以前写过一些东西，发在榕树下。今天去找，已经渺无踪迹。有些还存在自己的电脑里。只是现在已经没有哪种激情，或者才情写出来了。

Mountaineering is an art. There are different approaches to climbing different mountains. In some tourist destinations, I can see many people march into the mountains in such a haste as if they are going to the market for a dealing. For these people, mountain climbing is of course not an art. It can hardly even be a pleasure. It is a sort of race: they have only one goal in mind and the sole thing they care for is the destination, the top of the mountain. They don’t cease to feel gentle breeze in the mountain, or to listen to the singing flows of the streams, to communicate with gracious being.

　　Some mountains are to be ascended alone, while some others, preferably with companions. Some calls for elaborate preparations, apparels while some others are to be ascended when you are nearly naked. You climb some mountains to view the spectacular sunrise, while for some others, you wish there would be no sunlight at all. You go to some mountains to see a specific species, while you go to some other mountains just to see a rare bamboo. Some mountains are to be climbed in the broad daytime, while others are to be ascended in the dim moonlight.

　　North born and north bred, I rarely take the mountain at the back of my campus as a real mountain. It is even exaggerating to call it a hill: it is only about 300 meters in altitude. A hump of earth it is, actually. However, it is one of the best known tourist resorts in this city. That is why I sniffed at the idea when one of my fellows proposed an ascent of the ‘mountain’ in the first week of our arrival here.

　　Then came the last weekend, he came into my room again:
　　-It’s the local custom to climb the mountain today. You will be remorseful if you…
　　-What makes today special, then?
　　-It’s the Senior’s Day, the Double Ninth Day, as they call in the Chinese Lunar Calendar.
　　-Gosh, really? Let’s go, then.

　　It was six o’clock in the afternoon. And it turned out to be my least planned ascent: I only changed into my sports shoes and took a bottle of mineral water with me. There were four of us.

　　 We started out. It was so different from the image of a stereotypical mountain I had conjured up in my mind: it was too artificial. It does not even have the natural and zigzag paths one usually expects to take in the mountains. Actually, there is a highway broad enough to allow two cars to go abreast which leads from the foot to the top of the hill. Of course, some ingredients of the mountain are still there: On both sides, there are trees having grown for dozens or even hundreds of years. There is also no short of trickles of spring water or brooks.

　　The city is still hot in this season. Most of the tourists were in their summer shorts. It was already dark and the tourists were starting their ascent in twos and threes. Apparently, their trip was better planned than ours. Some of them have balloons of all shapes while others have ornamental bracelets of all fluorescent colors. They were, of course, also armed with food, drinks, cameras and playing cards.

　　At first, I just took it as a sort of exercise as there seemed nothing appealing. I even took the chance to give some calls back home all along the way, without noticing the views on both sides. As our ascent proceeded, I felt something fascinating and touching in this little mountain. Quite unlike other mountains, this one does not have much to see: no temples, no Buddha, no rare species, no floral attractions. But there were a lot to feel. The fresh air went straight into the heart and tranquilized it. The greenery had the smell of a peaceful music. Gentle breeze caressed the leaves and our faces. The moon was clear and bright, hanging at the top of the tree and splashing its light through their dense leaves upon the ground. You felt that you were just bathed in the milk-like moonlight.

　　We took a break on a piece of meadows. There were already dozens of them scattering around. Young fathers and daughters, newly-weds, lovers, university students. They were chasing, singing, playing cards, relaxed and released. Had it not been for the lights from the buildings in the distance, one would feel s/he were right in another dimension of the world. What had seemed to be of the utmost importance in the daytime was thrown out of the mind. There were no struggle for fame and reputation; there were no competition and transaction. One was no longer afflicted with the status and wealth. One was free from the burdens and worries in their work and study. And even the evils were veiled in the beautiful guise of the night. At this time, at this hour, one was integrated with the nature. One was enjoying the offerings that the nature bestows on us. Everyone was joyous. Everyone seems to be the spoiled baby of the nature.

　　And joys were infectious. We were actually so joyous that it was too late when we realized that we were making a detour. There were a shortcut to its top but we took another path, which took us an additional hour to go atop. The climax, of course, is always climactic. The tourists were at the peak of their joys. Everyone poked his/her head beyond the protective makeshift railings to have a good view of the city. They pointed in the direction where their dwellings were. They identified the landmarks of the city outlined and shaped by lights by them. The lovers, they seized the moments to experience the peak of love. The hugs and kisses in this altitude not only witnessed their love, but seemed to perpetuate it as well.

　　My fellows were still arguing whether the additional detour was worthwhile when we were on our downhill . But I felt far more content than expected. I had all the elements that make a good outdoor trip. Actually, I had privately hoped the trip would last longer.

　　At the foot of the mountain, throngs of tourists were still swarming into the mountain: they seemed to know better when to start their ascent. When I was back, it was already midnight. all exhausted. After I consulted the tourist directory, I realized that we had walked 20 kilometers in this 300-meter-high “hump of earth”.

　　Tomorrow would be another day for the more earthly things: going shopping, visiting friends, smiling at your colleague and bowing at your boss: one is back to the world when s/he is back from his or her trip.