麥田守望者

You learn something new everyday

I only realized a few days ago that《麥田守望者》 is actually the Chinese translation of "The Catcher In The Rye". The phrase 麥田守望者 has popped up here and there ever since I started hanging out in Chinese cyberland. For some reasons I always thought it was a song, maybe by 王菲.

Of course the revelation came because of the recent pass away of J. D. Salinger, the author of “The Catcher in the Rye”. I’m only slightly above average in term of reading diligence and far from being well read, as famous as “The Catcher in the Rye” it remains in the “to be conquered” category for me. However, I did enjoy reading the two short stories in J. D. Salinger’s ‘Nine Stories” during my first year in America. Like many new immigrants who are in their teen, the high school experience can be described as culturally shocking at best. My English class was one of the few bright spots in a day because I got the chance to expose to material that I never knew before, such as the reading of "A Perfect Day for Bananafish" and "For Esmé - with Love & Squalor". By the way, although I love the stories, it was years later before I found out they were written by Salinger

A Perfect Day for Bananafish



"A Perfect Day for Bananafish" is about the encounter between a disoriented, confused man and a young innocent girl on a beach when he was vacationing with his wife. The man appeared very bewildered and his conversation to the girl was often inexplicable. For instance he told the girl about a certain unusual species of fish called Bananafish. After their chance meeting the man went back to his hotel, seeing his wife sound sleeping in her bed he pointed a gun to his temple and shot himself.

The part of “A Perfect Day for Bananafish” that stays in my mind the most is the girl’s repeatedly saying “See More Glass, See More Glass”. At first I thought she meant she was seeing glasses in the beach water. Turn out she was actually referring to the protagonist because his name is Seymour Glass, one of the Glass family members that recurrently appeared in many Salinger’s work.

Because of the story title, I would imagine Bananafish here would mean suicide. However, there is no clear explanation what the motive is except we can infer that Seymour Glass is suffering from some severe mental anguish through his behavior. It is the kind of story that is open to different interpretations. Since “A Perfect Day for Bananafish” is the first in the short stories collection "Nine Stories" I like to draw my own interpretation through another story in the collection - "For Esmé - with Love & Squalor"

For Esmé - with Love & Squalor



Unlike “A Perfect Day for Bananafish”, the narrative of “For Esmé - with Love & Squalor” is the protagonist, an unnamed Army Sergeant, himself instead of the omnipresent author. He recounted the meetings he had with a young girl named Esmé at three different points of his life: First the present when he was sending his blessing to her (for her upcoming wedding if I remember correctly) in writing, then he flashbacked to their first encounter many years ago just before he was sent into combat, and finally on the verge of nervous breakdown during the midst of battle, he received a letter from Esmé just at the nick of time, which helped him to endure the trauma of war and eventually brought the narrative back to the present.

It is through this story I first came to know the word Squalor because it was with Love and Squalor that the protagonist was sending his blessing to Esmé, thus the story’s title.

Squalor – n. A filthy and wretched condition

Normally squalor is not something you would like to send someone your love with. However, in this case there is just something really endearing in it because of all the difficult time they have gone through. Next time if you want to send your regard to someone you have long history with, you may want to keep the word Squalor in mind.

Suna no Utsuwa (砂の器)

Back in secondary school, at the beginning of each term we were given a reading list that we were required to write a book report for every month. One year the list included Seicho Matsumoto (松本清張), thus marked my introduction to the great Japanese detective novelist. Admittedly my first with Seicho Matsumoto was all in the name of a school grade and it failed to leave a very favorable impression in me. For his stories usually involved mundane events of unexciting characters, it lacked the colourful heroes that you would find in Sherlock Holmes or 衛斯理. Little did I know that that is precisely his works's claim to fame.



“Suna no Utsuwa” (砂之器) reportedly was one of the three most famous works by Seicho Matsumoto (松本清張), whose place in Japanese’s literature was assured for introducing ‘socialism’ into the detective story genre. In that regard I think “Suna no Utsuwa” succeeded. However, in term of the intriguing clues and clever revelation that mystery-novel buffs have come to expect, I am afraid the book is a disappointment. Not that the hero, Inspector Imanishi, is not a meticulous investigator. On the contrary he is very methodical when it comes to his trade. However, the evidences he collected, and they are in abundance, are so far-fetched and relied on conjectures and coincidence that you will need to be Spider-man in order to leap over the gaps from one to another. For instance, one of the most important clues he has are the blood-stained shredded cloths he painstakingly collected along a train track three months after the crime. Let’s suspend our disbelief that he can collect the said (untainted) evidence after such a long period of time has elapsed, the fact that it was left behind by a girl he has never met in person, whose sole description he has is that she bears a resemblance to the legendary actress Mariko Okada (岡田茉莉子) (Incidentally, I’ve met Ms. Okada in person last year when she and her director husband Yoshishige Yoshida (吉田喜重) were invited to a local university for a revival film series of their movies and she had something interesting to say about fellow legend Setsuko Hara (原節子) but that is a different story) , and the subsequent death of the said person means there is no solid link that the evidence found is indeed left by the girl in question. Furthermore he never managed to establish a connection between the girl and the suspect. With facts as disparate as these it will require an extreme stretch of imagination in order to connect the dots.

The book ends abruptly with the police closing in to arrest the suspect. There is no confession from the accused or reenactment of the actual crime. It could argue that because the Seicho Matsumoto wanted to show his sympathy for the suspect since he himself is also a victim of circumstance. However, the better explanation could be that the murder is solved not so much by the hero’s investigation but because that is what the author told the reader so and we just have to take it as a leap of faith. The truth is even if all the evidences collected were laid on the table, the case still wouldn’t build under cross examination unless the author himself testifies in the courtroom.

I don’t want to give the impression that I am knocking the book because as a criticism of the deep seeded discrimination within a rigid and hidebound society, as a depiction of the struggle in a culture where one’s success isn’t so much decided by talent and hard work but by pedigree, as a social commentary on the value clash between the old and the new in the post-war Japan, “Suna no Utsuwa” is not without its merit and should be judged by its own standard. It is just that the morality part of the story doesn’t integrate with the detective mystery framework as sound as it could have.

"Suna no Utsuwa" the novel was published in 1961. Over the years it has been adapted to TV multiple times but just once, in 1975, it was made into a feature length movie. "Suna no Utsuwa" the movie was directed by Yoshitaro Nomura (野村芳太郎), who was critically acclaimed in his native country but relatively obscure outside of Japan. Thus even though his version of Suna no Utsuwa was considered locally a masterpiece in Japanese cinema, it has not been in circulation in U.S. after its initial release. Thus it was to my surprise a library in a neighboring town actually carries a DVD copy of the movie.



From the spec of the DVD, the original aspect ratio of the movie is supposed to be 1:61:1 but it obviously has been modified for the DVD:


Notice that the bar waitress being interrogated has been completely edited out of the frame.


The DVD seems to be manufactured in Hong Kong and that might explain the spotty translation for the Chinese subtitle. For instance, when Inspector Imanishi investigates the background of the murder victim, the subtitle has changed the name of an old acquaintance of the victim from Kirihara (桐原) to Kahara (華原).




By the way, the actor who played Mr. Kirihara is the very prolific character actor Chishû Ryû (笠智衆), who has appeared in almost every major Japanese movie during the sound era up to his death but he is most famous for the part of the father (later widower) in Yasujiro Ozu's (小津安二郎) Tōkyō Monogatari (東京物語).

Playing the movie's hero Inspector Imanishi is international superstar Tetsuro Tanba (丹波哲郎). Perhaps most famous in US for the role of Tiger Tanaka in the James Bond franchise “You Only Live Twice”, the young Tamba could be a dead ringer for 陳豪.



Around the same time of “Suna no Utsuwa”, Tetsuro Tamba also starred in the Shaws Brothers epic adaptation of 《水滸傳》 as 盧俊義. The Chinese Wiki has it that Tetsuro Tamba is ethnically Chinese and descended from 漢靈帝. Curiously such information is missing in any other language of Wiki that I am aware of. Chances are this tidbit is just an urban legend and should be taken with a grain of salt. In "Suna no Utsuwa" Tetsuro Tamba ditched his tough guy persona to play a more low key, dedicated workhouse (notice how the director has Inspector Imanishi constantly sweats throughout his exhasutive inquiry) who is ultimately unrewarded and underappreciated, a common theme in Matsumoto’s novels.



Another discrepancy is when Detective Imanishi investigate the hotel the murder victim has stayed, the hotel hostess clearly said that the victim has visited Toba (鳥羽) but the Chinese translation said Chiba (千葉)

DVD quality aside, one thing “Suna no Utsuwa” the movie improved over on the book is tightening up many of the (implausible) loose ends in the story. For instance, it has added the confrontation scene below between Reiko, the aforementioned girl, and Detective Yoshimura, assistance to inspector Imanishi. By having an actual personal contact between the pursuer and the pursued, it gives something tangible to the investigation.



Reiko is actually a composite of two characters in the book. By combining them into one character, the movies has shortened the degree of separation between the suspect and Inspector Imanishi, further improve the credibility of the investigation. Reiko was played by Yoko Shimada (島田陽子), famous in US as the female lead in the US-Japanese collaboration of the TV mini-series "Shogun". Detective Yoshimura in the movie is a much bigger part compared with the book. It was played by Kensaku Morita (森田健作), who might be remembered in Hong Kong for the 70s Japanese series おれは男だ! (女校男生).



Kensaku Morita is one of the rare examples of showbiz-celebrity-turn-politicians in Japan. Today he serves as the governor of Chiba, the Prefecture my sister is living in.

What truly distinguish “Suna no Utsuwa” the movie is its extended flashback sequence that details the history of the suspect. Intertwined throughout the performance of a piano concerto, this mostly silent forty minutes passage serves to explain how the murderer comes to the where he is now. With its melancholic and broody melody, the movement is written to tug your heartstrings and it is also the major reason for the movie’s popularity. Titled Shukumei (宿命, or Destiny), the piece has a character of its own and provides the murderer an opportunity to present his side of the story, which was otherwise denied to him in the book.



Completed with a tearful farewell, the sequence took the extreme measure to ensure that no dry eyes have been left in the audience



Probably because the mystery aspect of the book is weak, the script writer has removed the ubiquitous mystery clichés of a red herring in the form of a fellow artist from the book; instead much of the drama are invested in background of the suspect (When there is just one suspect, there is really no whodunit). I have mixed feeling about the elimination of this character. While it does weed out some of the unnecessarily and unconvincing diversions in the book, it also removed a subtle point Seicho Matsumoto made: in the book both the suspect and the red herring hailed from the poor region of the country, a fact both are trying to hide. Both are young artists set out to conquer the status quo of the established norm, both have to make sacrifice of personal happiness along the way. In a sense both are escaping a ‘destiny’ that is handed to them by birth. By wiping out this character the movie has shifted the focus of the injustice to the under-privileged in the society to solely the prejudice against a disease. While it doesn’t exactly alter the theme, it does become lesser than the whole.

浮生三影

中天飛渡我重來. There could never be a more apt inscription. Dorothy this one is for you




觀音堂, 澳門 circa 1984

My sister had this picture of her taken when she returned to Macau during her secondary school days. Not until she flipped through some old family photo albums one day did she realize that she actually had her picture taken at the exact same spot over ten years before


觀音堂, 澳門 1972

Ever since then that spot has occupied a special place in her heart. Some twenty years later, she took another picture at the same spot again when she took her two kids to Macau for Christmas vacation


觀音堂, 澳門 2009

Instruction to record video in Colour Accent mode in G11

Someone has emailed me in YouTube on how to record video in Colour Accent mode with Canon G11. Since I only have the G11 to do video recording, I will have to demontrate that by photo

1) Set the Mode Dial to Movie mode


2) It will go to whichever recording mode you last used when you power on the camera at this point. Mine is the standard mode


3) Notice that all objects appear in their natural colour in standard mode


4) Turn the function dial to Colour Accent mode, all the objects will appear in black and white except those in the pre-selected accented colour. In my case the pre-selected accented colour is white


5) Notice that there is an eyedropper on the LCD display, next to the DISP text. That means you activate the eyedropper tool by pressing the DISP button below the function dial


6) A white square will appear in the LCD after you activate the eyedropper tool. The eyedropper is a tool to select the colour you want to accent


7) You select the colour to accent by placing the white square to the colour within the LCD image and then press the left side of the function dial. Here I select the colour blue to accent. Notice colour box in the status bar inside the LCD screen has changed from white to blue




8) Exit out of the Eyedropper tool by pressing the DISP button again and now you can record video in B&W except those in colour blue


Hope this help

Fain In Spain, Stay Mainly In...El final

So we have come to the end of the journey and there are still some pictures I would like to share. They don't belong to a specific itinerary and so I would just lump them together.

Food. I have always been a conservative eater. Epicurean experiment is just not my forte and likely even less so when I am on my own but I had made a conscious decision to be adventurous during this trip. So I am proud to report that I hadn’t had one single meal of Chinese food or sushi during my entire stay, just once I had committed the offense of fast food and that was only because I need to gulp down a meal within fifteen minutes to meet my schedule.



My first stab at Spanish gourmet took me over ninety minutes of roaming back and forth to make up my mind. Fortunately thanks to their grand tradition of siesta Spaniards tend to have late supper, it is not unusual to have dinner at ten or even eleven at night. It was with great trepidation that I stepped into the above restaurant but that small step for me is a giant leap for mankind, I hope!





No waiters can speak English and there is no English menu but I managed to get myself some cold salmon



I have no trouble resisting the sinful temptation of booze, water is always my choice of drink but unlike America where it usually is free (probably because they are tap water), bottled water is served in Spain and they come with a charge.

It was a late supper once again the second night but it had to do with the late arrival for the Flamenco show. This time I just picked a restaurant from the guide book



This restaurant has a bar section and a dining section. The bar section is right at the entrance but you need to pass through the kitchen in order to get to the dinning section. How many restauranteurs in Hong Kong have the gut to let their patrons see what their kitchen is like before being seated?



I want to have something light because of the late hour. Besides, escargot (snails) is what the guide book recommends



Proof that it is the restaurant's speciality, even their register is in the shape of a snail



Next is probably my favorite of the entire trip. Even though it located in the tourist area (Barri Gòtic) and it does come with an English menu (a sign of catering to visitors), all its diners are actually native when I was there



Keeping the spirit of variety, I went with duck confit (油封鴨) after a night of fish and a night of escargot.



In true European neighborhood restaurant fashion, there is only just one waiter. In equally European dining fashion, I spent a whole hour to devour that duck leg of mine but it certainly was tasty. I wouldn't mind being a repeat customer



Originally I planned to go out with bang for my final meal in Spain but I was turned away by the fancy restaurant of my choice because I didn’t have a reservation, so I had to settle with this down-to-earth bistro, well at least it doesn’t look terribly touristy to me. However, what really sold me with this restaurant was their flat screen TV showing the ATP World Tour Final match between Rafael Nadal (who else?) and Robin Soderling.



I know the Spanish words for soup (sopa) and fish (pescado), so I was expecting something like fish chowder when I ordered from their Spanish menu. It turned out to be crab (not crab meat) soup. That is not a problem; the problem is that it seemed I am supposed to eat with fork and knife (I had noticed that Europeans even eat pizza with forks and knives, a rare sight in US). The women next to my table gave me this shocked look when she saw me eating the crab with the only way I know how – with my hands



After a relatively elaborate soup, the main course, sirloin steak, seemed a little anti-climatic



Both Madrid and Barcelona are haven for street performers



He is having the puppet play the violin for him. I think that is a pretty cool trick. By the way, there was a street performer playing erhu (二胡). Another sign of Yellow Fever?




I cannot believe how many people actually buy that she was suspended in the air when I show them this picture




如有雷同實屬巧合


The Sant Jordi Film Award of Barcelona is one of the few film festivals that gave its nod to Wong Kar-Wai's 2046. Here is another evidence that the movie has an audience in Spain


Toy figure from the 70s Japanese cartoon series 'おしえて' (飄零燕), how retro! Dig out the treasure underneath your bed, you might find something that worths a fortune on eBay


Bollywood is taking over the world


A subway resident that is not unique to Boston only


Table tennis is actually being played in the public park. I don't think I have ever seen that in US. The kids aren't shy by the way, they waved to me when they saw me filming them



Coffee in Spain is not as strong as what I found in Paris. Also when you ask for milk, they actually give you warm milk, unlike in US where it is usually refrigerated

AFTERWORD

As I have alluded to at the beginning, this trip is part personal because it was, to a certain extent, motivated by the sudden passing of a net acquaitance, whose (unrealized) dream is to visit Barcelona. Although we have never met in person, I hope by bringing his wish into fruition is somehow validating his legacy, for one person’s unfulfilled goal is another person’s inspiration

Fain in Spain, Stay Mainly In... Biking

Barcelona is very biker-friendly city; there are designated biker lanes for most of the major roads in the city. Even for those without, bikers often received priority over car drivers



Bicing, a bike renting chain store, is available all over the city. What's more it is semi-automated. The instruction is in Spanish and Catalan only but from observation, it seems the chain provides a Octopus(八達通)-like pass that allows bikers to load/unloaded rental bike wherever they want.



Bike parks are also available for the socialists who prefer not to slave to big corporate but you will need to have you own lock.



After two pleasantly warm but cloudy days, my third and final day in Barcelona was blessed with some sunny weather



I decided to rent a bike to take advantage of the sun and the biker-friendliness of the city. However, as my part of the anti-globalization effort, I bypassed the big corporate Bicing and rented instead from a small business, which charged me only six Euros for two hours, beating the price in my guide book.





And the six Euros rental fee came with a lock too!



For the city-slickers who found biking in downtown too daunting or GPS-challenged, you won't go wrong by taking the beach route along the Waterfront.



Besides, you'll get the chance to visit Port Olímpic, built specifically for the 92 Barcelona Olympic Games



But if you prefer to see something more lighthearted, Sand art could be your thing




Did the pigeon mistake the sandcastle as its birdhouse?




三匹の猿, the Japanese proverb for "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil"

The gambler in me take up the challenge of the city and do a little people watching with my bike. One thing I noticed is that in Spain you often see post-middle age couples holding hands in public. Of course in Hong Kong being affectionate has long been a sole privilege for the young but even in America it actually is not as common as you might expect