網誌
2008年2月25日 上午2點43分43秒A TRUE STORY OF GHOSTS
A TRUE STORY OF GHOSTS
In dedication to my new friends
Mai, Sally
Jazzie, Yaqun, Shan, 迟, Rebecarebecu, Khaingsu
and all my friends.
Ten years before, I was acquainted with a young girl, named V. , who was
teaching music in a local elementary school. After a certain time, I knew she
was a good player of Dan Tranh, a vietnamese 16-chord zither, so I had
talked with her about this subject a lot. She was very sincere, nice and gentle,
and we became close friends and she invited me to drop by her home and
see her, when I had time and opportunities.
One evening, as I wandered around and got tired, I realized that I was passing
close to her house, and I decided to come to visit her. But as the house was
located in a complex quarter with several crossing alleys, I had some
difficulty in finding it. Then I heard a voice calling my name "Here, Mr. Ly!"...
It was my friend, who was standing at the threshold of a small house some
30m away, smiling at me.
I told her jokingly as we're entering past the doorstep, "Your sixth sense is
excellent!"
She smiled with her nice smile, "It's no instinct! I do know you come."
I smiled back, and said with a clear doubt, "How's that?"
She answered, "I was playing on my zither, then one cord was broken and
I knew someone close to me was coming!"
I have heard about these cases when an musical instrument got its string
broken as someone was eavesdropping to it, or when some close people was
coming. So as we talked about this subject, I came to tell her about a poem
of the Chinese poet Li Pai describing a boat passing between two cliffs. It was
moving with a speed so great that the cries of the monkey on the two riverbanks
were just heard of within a second then passed out away.
I said, "When someone tried to play this poem on his flute, the tone was so
high that the flute was broken in two!"
V. replied, "Yes, but mostly, that is the melodies which can have such impacts.
You surely know about those old legendary musical melodies which could bring
forth birds... or bring about rains and storms..."
She looked at me, "Have you ever heard about the melodies which can bring
back the dead... I mean ghosts... the melodies that the ghosts loved and would
come to hear? I HAVE! I witnessed it with my eyes!"
So that late evening, in her cozy room, V. told me about the strange night, when
she witnessed some ghosts coming to listen to a kind of mysterious music.
Here is her story...
"When I was a student, I boarded a little house in a city of the Central Part
to attend my university classes. I was fond of playing Zither so I got a lot of
acquaintances among people like me. I knew a number of new things from
these people about techniques, anecdotes and legends of our traditional music
and instruments. Then I heard of that strange and mysterious woman who was
a master of 16-chord Zither and the famous monochord of Dan Bau of ours.
Rumors had it that her house was haunted, and every time she played her
monochord, she would draw the ghosts come to her house.
I tried to get in contact with her. It was not easy. But after a certain time, I got
her invitation to come to her home. I went there right away. Her house was
located in a deserted area, surrounded by thick bamboos. It had a gloomy look.
But when I entered her room, it was clean, cozy and nice. After some weeks,
when I got close enough to her, I asked her about all the rumor on the mystery
of her music... about the ghosts coming to hear her playing the Monocord.
She hesitated at first, then she told me that this house twenty years ago
belonged to a music teacher living alone and her mother was her best student.
When the lady died, she left her house to her favorite student. Then her mother
taught her that music and had told her not to play it in this very house, in the
nights of full moon, for there were ghosts who would come to listen to it.
She said pensively, "You know my dear, I have played this music several times,
not much, but not so few. I sensed that there were some invisible people coming
in here. Maybe you wont believe me, but among those who came listening,
there's a person, a woman, who always came alone, and I can sense that was
her, without any doubt. It seems I have some relation with that woman. Every time
she comes, I play my best for her, and I don't know why, I cry every time she
is here..."
I listened all that with much curiosity, a little sadness and a little fear... but I was
young and curious, as well as obstinate... ( V. smiled)... so I held on asking her
to play that music, and let me come to hear with "her" ghosts.
She said, "Ok, young girl, if you are not scared, come over here at Tuesday
next week, it's the 15th night of lunar year, and let's see if there's something
happen."
When the awaited night came at last, I went to the lady's home since nightfall,
bringing with me some food and cakes to share with her. She thanked me,
ate with me, and we had some talks with each other.
Then as midnight was drawing near, she lead me into her own sitting-room,
where she would play her music. She closed all the doors and windows, pulled
down the curtains. Then she lighted two big candles, burned some aloe wood
in the incense-burner, and put out all lights except these two candles. Then we
both sat there waiting, no one spoke a word.
When the wall clock finished knocking its twelve hours, she began to play her
monochord. It was superb. As it went further and further, the tune become more
and more sorrowful, yet very sweet. At a certain point I was lost in the sounds
of the music when I suddenly felt something happened.
I looked. The curtain was trembling, then slightly pushed aside, as if someone
was passing through it. I sensed very clearly that THERE WAS SOMEONE in
the room... as clearly as we can sense the presence of somebody, though we
dont see them, when they are close to us in the dark. Then I sensed that someone
was sitting down by my side, and I had a feeling of chill running across my spine.
I looked at my lady friend. Her face was as white as a paper as she went on playing
her music.
Everything was perfectly silent, except for the music. At times I thought I heard
some strange sounds as the sobbing sounds. As if someone was weeping from
a far distance...
Then the melodies come to an end. When the final sounds was still vibrating in
the air, I heard a long sigh, a long heavy sigh, sad and desolate, which made
all my hair stand on end! Then the curtain was trembling, and pushed aside.
Someone was leaving the room. I looked at my lady friend again. Tears were
running down her cheeks.
She seemed extremely exhausted. I wanted to stay with her that night. But she
thanked me and said she wanted to stay alone. So I went back home on my bike.
Then I was graduated, and I left the town. I had come two times to see her and
say good bye, but she was not in. I never saw her back again."
V. had told me this story. She is a real person, and this story is true.
If ever she read these words, may her know that I have been often thinking of her...
2008年2月22日 下午5點42分45秒THE JADE HEART
THE JADE HEART
There is an old legend in my country about a great love that was crystallized
into a heart of jade. One of our most talented musical composer wrote a song
for it.
This story is put in as a greetings to my new friends Mai, Sally, Hustuft, MEEH,
Ephyoe, Yaqun, Shan, ♥♥ βŜАŃŤ ♥♥, Bianca, Nicole, Carine, Kris, Lavinia,
LoVeLy_LaDy, Celia, Dianita, Jazzie and my old friend Matavee.
Once upon a time...
"There was once a night,
when all the musical instruments were chanting their melodies,
and the flowers forgetting their withering time
when the white clouds were flowing in search of their kins
and the human heart was sobbing in its closed place of luxurious rooms."
(song)
A beautiful Princess heard from her palace a distant voice singing a sweet
song. The voice was so nice, sweet yet so lonely that she took compassion,
then became fond of it.
"There was once a night, listening to that song,
she lovingly gave away her fragrant fan,
sending her kiss to be blown with the wind to the one
whose voice was hovering over the waves of the river..."
From then on, every night, she was impatiently waiting to hear that voice
singing to her the complaint of a love in life...
"It sounds then it fades out, Strange Singer, your complaint that I am
listening to now!
I love you, singing somewhere on the cold river in the dark!
Who loves me, sitting here in the sad palace, at this late hour in the night?"
Then she was sick, lovesick with the stranger who sang outside of her walls.
"Missing you, with my secret feelings buried in pain,
my eyelashes fade away, my hair languish like streams of tears
and my lips lose their vivid freshness..."
Her father, that powerful Prime Minister of the Court, gave orders to find
the man and bring him over.
Then the princess saw the man, a poor and ugly fisherman, named Truong Chi,
and all her dreams crumbled. The fisherman was drawn away.
But that poor man, once he saw the lovely princess, who was the very image
of the girl we would all love, at any time within our life through centuries,
seeing her, with all her charm, her loveliness, her gentleness of a young heart,
he fell in love with her - with a profound love beyond all consideration.
"There was once a night, on a solitary boat ,
a man with a love that was denied and hindered by life,
when would ever his sorrow and bitterness be over?"
Then one night, when the full moon was at its most radiant brightness, the man
let his boat sunk into the river. His heart, with all of its warmth and sincerity
of a profound love, was crystallized into a precious stone - a jade.
A jewelry artisan got that jade and sculptured it into a beautiful tea cup.
By a curious turn of circumstances or destiny, the precious cup was sold
to His Highness Prime Minister, who gave it to his cherished daughter.
"How many years have passed!...
How many pains have got faded!"
One night, a maid brought forth that cup to the Princess.
"Here was the tray with the glass of Truong Chi's heart!
For a tea party in that merry home of the princess...
Just as it was poured in with water, an image was seen
the image of a fisherman on his boat rowing round the glass!
and there was heard from some distance a sad voice
singing that old complaint of an impossible love."
and the Princess cried.
"Oh you, what a worsening of love! I have formerly betrayed you !
Let me repay you now with my tears as my last greetings to you!"
Her teardrops were falling into the cup, and it was broken into pieces...
"Thinking of you who exist no more,
Raising that glass to my lips
and sending my love to that far away sky of yours
I had let my tears fall onto your melancholic love song."
From generation to generation, this story has been told at bedtimes,
and has become a legend which brews so many songs, many theatrical plays
among our people.
"Oh love! It has been paid! Someone has been loved by somone,
Tears have been presented as a gift! The jade heart has been broken!
Its pieces have been transformed into a song lulling my softened heart!"
Almost all people in my country know that story - The legend of Truong Chi's
heart of jade.
It is not a complaint as it can look. It's a praise to the worth of true love.
-----------
2008年2月22日 下午1點26分29秒JOKES
JOKES
To Little Tink Angel
J@ckelyn, nody, Hugs, doubleH
and all my friends. Relax!
------
STUMBLED!
Late last year, two German young lady friends of mine came to see me
in my city.
We took a lazy stroll through some quiet streets of Saigon, then they started
to chat in their mother tongue while looking at the shoes of a woman who was
just passing by.
In order to take part in the conversation, I asked in our common English,
"Are you talking about that woman's horrible ugly shoes?"
"No," replied one. "We were just saying that they're exactly the same as mine."
I just bought an apartment and began repainting it.
I had applied the second coat of sunny yellow to the bathroom when a friend
dropped in. Proudly, I showed him over the rooms, commenting,
"I have to paint the bathroom first."
"I can see why," said my friend, "I'd paint it too, if it were that color."
My lady friend complained to me that her neighbors were practicing bird calls
with whistles. She said she had told them to keep the noise down, but to no avail.
So she was going to report to the police.
A deputy was sent to her house the next day. He located the source of the noise.
It was a bird.
AND SMART STEPS
As we kids always made a mess at everything in the house, my mother had to
work hard cleaning and cleaning. My father, who according to his habitude,
never did housework to help her, but he resented that. So one afternoon as she just
cleaned the floor and was cleaning other things, we returned home from school
and came charging into the kitchen to eat, my father said,
"Now, if anyone spills anything on the floor, they have to wipe it up and then
spend an hour in their room."
Without hesitation, my Mom deliberately poured some of her coffee on the floor,
wiped it up, and headed straight upstairs. We didn't see her again for an hour.
My sister-in-law admitted to being a less than fastidious housekeeper.
My brother was not so happy about that, but he got no chance to say it out.
One evening he returned home from work, walked into the kitchen and said,
"You know, dear, I can write my name in the dust on the mantel."
My sister-in-law turned to him and sweetly replied, "Well, darling, that's why
I married an University graduate."
AND FUNNY STEPS
It was Christmas and the judge was in a benevolent mood as he question
the prisoner. "What are you charged with?" he asked.
"Doing my Christmas shopping early," replied the defendant.
"That's no offense,"said the judge. "How early were you doing this shopping?"
"Before the store opened," countered the prisoner.
A woman drove a mini-van filled with a dozen screaming kids through the
parking lot, looking for a space.
Obviously frazzled, she coasted through a stop sign.
"Hey, lady, have you forgotten how to stop?" yell an irate man.
She rolled down her window and said, "What make you think these kids
are all mine?"
2008年2月18日 上午5點44分54秒Maya
MAYA
In dedication to
my new friends:
Lady Mai and her friend Sally
Lady DoubleH
Lady Hustuft
Lady ♥♥ βŜАŃŤ ♥♥
and my Indian Sister Megha and her friend Cali
I just read a story about the relativity of time, an old story from India,
that great cradle of our world's and Asian cultures. I like it and I want
to tell it, summarized, to you, all my net friends.
On one of those hot afternoons, the ascetic Narada is sitting in meditation
in the solitude of the forest, when Vishnu comes in the voice of the wind
which passes by and makes all the leaves quivered.
The God of Preservation of the Universe ( one of the Indian Trinity -
Brahma, Vishnu and Siva) asks him what he is looking for to be meditating
with such an endeavor in this deserted forest, and Narada replies
he wants nothing except to know the secret of MAYA - the illusory world
of the senses...
Vishnu tells him, "So be it, but go and fetch me some water."
The ascetic goes, and reaches the first hamlet. He calls out. A young girl
opens a door. Her voice is so sweet, it seems as if a golden noose
slips round his neck. Yet the occupants treat him as a member of the family
whom they have been long awaiting to return. He has been always one
of them. He has forgotten the water. He will marry the girl, and they all
expect him to marry her.
He has also married the earth, the warm rice-fields, the rising sun, the twilight
over the palm roofs, even the pink flame of the little dung fires in the night.
He knows all the people, from the acrobats to the usurer in the town with
their little common temple with infantile gods. He experiments all the pain,
sorrow and joy of living, the happiness in the time of prosperity and the
compassion for the smile of the thin children in the years of famine.
When his father-in-law dies, he becomes the head of the family.
One night during the twelfth year, the periodic floods drown the livestock
and carry away the houses. Narada flees through the avalanche of mud,
leading two of his children and carrying the third, and supporting his wife.
Then the child he is carrying slips from his shoulder. He lets go of the two
other and of his wife to pick it up again. These three are carried away in
their turn. Then as he is upright gain, he gets felled by an uprooted tree.
In the darkness filled with the roar of the sticky flood, he is flung onto
a rock by the torrent.
When he regains consciousness, he is surrounded by nothing but a sea
of mud through which there drift the corpses of trees full of monkeys.
He weeps in the fading wind. "My children, my children..."
"My child", echoes the voice of the wind become suddenly grave,
"where is the water? I have been waiting more than half an hour."
2008年2月11日 下午4點55分50秒The man who shot Liberty Valance
The man who shot Liberty Valance
I just came across an old country song "The man who shot Liberty Valance",
then another - "Sutter's Mill"... all about the West Journey in the USA's history.
It's the time when people rushed to that wild unsettled land of the West
for a promise land and prosperity.
It reminds me of a film that I viewed, long ago, and which i liked very much.
I'll try to tell it summarily, as i can, for you, friends of mine, and You.
Just for some moment of relax.
That was the old-timed famous film "The man who shot Liberty Valance"
by Director John Ford, starring , if I remember well, James Stewart,
John Wayne, Lee Marvin and the pretty Vera Mills. She was the lovely girl
that the two heroes of the story loved and cherished in their own way.
One was the young lawyer who came to try establishing a new order of law
and justice in that small town of Shinbone -... Ransom Stoddard.
The other was the taciturn cowboy Tom Doniphon, living there, but
moved away often herding the cattle to far meadows.
Ransom and Tom loved that gentle girl Hallie, but Ransom had more
opportunities. He boarded her house, taught her law and other things.
He was nice, young and handsome, while Tom was stoic, taciturn and harsh.
At that time, there reigned in the town the familiar law of the West - the law
of the guns. Ransom was confronted with the most dreadful man of the town,
the vile gunslinger Liberty Valance. He had been beaten once by Liberty,
then saved by Tom, who brought him to the town. He tried to put Liberty in jail
by law, and the latter tried to beat him down by his mastery of the gun.
... "When Liberty Valance rode to town
The womenfolk would hide,
When Liberty Valance walked around
The men would step aside
Cause the point of a gun was the only law
That Liberty understood
When it came to shooting straight and fast
He was mighty good!..."
(Song)
There was only a man whom Liberty would fear, that was Tom, but he was
almost gone away all the time.
So when it came to the showdown, that was just before the election between
the two representatives to the state senate. One side was the cattlemen
- they hired Valance - who feared a new law would confirm the right of
propriety and so would end the state of free land for herding their cattles,
and the other side were the townspeople who want to be protected by law,
supporting Ransom. The balance weighed down for the townsmen. Liberty
challenged Ransom for a gun duel, and he had to accept.
I loved this scene. It was the familiar amazing image of Western films,
the deserted streets, the dead silence of the town as everybody stayed
inside their closed houses, the two men facing each other in the afternoon
sun, and the sound of the wind whistling ...
Two gunshots were heard. Everybody rushed out. Liberty lied dead on
the ground. Ransom was cheered up as the hero who saved the entire town
from its threat. He was elected, became a senator and married Hallie.
I remember the scene when Tom heard the news that Liberty Valance
has finally been put down. While the crowd was noisily celebrating the death
of the wicked Valance, he looked angry, went out of his home, stroke a match,
lighted a cigarette, then went onto the main deserted street, and walked off
into the night. Some days after, he burned down the house he had built up
in order to marry Hallie and left the town.
Some twenty years later, I don't remember exactly, at the news of Tom's
death, the Senator Ransom and his wife came back from Washington
to attend the poor funeral of their old friend. And then Ransom told to his wife
and others the truth about that fateful afternoon, when he faced Valance,
gun in hand, in that mortal duel which decided everything for the town,
as for him and his girl at the time.
He told them he didn't fire a single shoot, he couldn't draw his gun as fast as
Liberty Valance and was not good to such a degree that could kill Valance.
Now that the real hero was dead, he couldn't keep any more the secrecy
of the whole story. Another man, not him, had shot down Valance, had saved
him and the town as well. And every body knew who was that man, especially
Hallie.
It was an excellent film, but it was somehow sad.