some say hi

     我一直喜欢香港，觉得它既有西方开明的社会制度，又有我所熟悉的东方文化；它是繁华、便捷的都市，同时又青山绿水，风光秀丽；虽略欠文化积淀，但基本上香港拥有了许多我所向往的城市特质。

    我第一次去香港是参加一个奖学金的最终轮面试。当时香港留给我的第一印象是建筑都又高又窄，颤巍巍的仿佛要倒下来一样；还有就是电扶梯的速度奇快无比，和整个城市一样匆忙急行。彼时的我高中刚毕业，土到连面试要穿正装都不知道。还记得自己坐在中环某标志性建筑的会议室里，发现所有来自香港的候选人都说着无比纯正的英语，每一个都在英国或美国念中学。面对这些之前只在小说书里念到过的“从小送去英国寄宿”的好人家的孩子，心中不是没有闪过嫉妒和不忿的。不过十八岁的孩子本能地知道自己年轻、有长长的未来等在那里，所以即使在惨痛的面试之后依然有心情游览城市。我和一个来自马来西亚的候选人一起去太平山顶看夜景。一月的香港白天十分暖和，而晚上的山顶却有凉风。我略觉得冷，马来西亚女孩却说她非常享受这微凉的感觉，因为那是她在她所生活的地方完全无法体会的。这个世界的大，我们自己的小，那一刻我感受得分外明显。站在太平山顶看维多利亚港的霓虹斑斓，说实话并不比外滩的夜景更惊艳，然而当时的自己有一种挫败之后心服口服却又毫不甘心的野心，于是回忆中那一夜维港的灯火便带着一种冷静的魅惑。

    两年后第二次去香港，是去香港科技大学做一学期的交换生。港科大在九龙半岛，独占清水湾的一块风水宝地，背山面海，远于红尘。记得我到科大的第一天，站在宿舍楼的门前，看着面前碧蓝的海，心中绝望地念到--“我不要回复旦了”。

    在科大我第一次开始用英文学习所有课程。一开始内心相当惴惴，但后来发觉香港本地的学生，除了那些念国际学校或名牌英文中学的，其实英语水平也相当麻麻；而且他们非常会得贯穿东西混用的香港精神，句子最后总是lalala的，于是明明每个单词都是英文，听着却像是在说广东话。

   科大的师资明显优于国内的大学，教授们绝大多数是在西方国家拿过PhD的。听说香港的大学教授待遇格外地好，工资水平是全球领先的，而且大学会分配宽敞的宿舍--譬如在科大，位置最好的面海的楼，听说都是教授的宿舍。从教育、城市基础设施等方面来说，香港的生活水平真的比内地高许多，甚至比不少西方国家都要优越。我有时诧异，以香港极低的税率，政府是如何做到这一切的（尤其每当我站在纽约无比肮脏的地铁站内时）。是其商业之发达、吸引投资之多大大抵消了低税率的问题？还是主要因为香港无需向北京缴税？此中关键，我并不甚清楚。
  

有一首打油诗是这么说的： 春天不是读书天，夏日炎炎正好眠，秋有蚊虫冬有雪，要想读书待明年。

对于懒散的人来说，一年四季的确都不是读书的好日子。譬如我有时出门上课，发觉天气很差，就想“这么烂的天气应该窝在家里”，看到天气好得万里晴空，就会想“这么好的天气应该出去玩”，总之并没有哪一日是适合念书的。

想家也是一样的。

秋天有中秋节，当然心里更切切念着的是肉白膏黄的大闸蟹。纽约其实很容易买到月饼，可是偏要想念上海街头的排着队买新鲜烘好的鲜肉月饼的场景。看着一般的月光，吹着一般的凉风，暮地发现空气里没有桂花香，觉得秋天真是叫人思念的季节啊。

冬天是神经最脆弱的季节。冷风一吹，翻柜子找大衣的当口，总会想起在上中念书的日子。每个秋末冬初上海总会有个气温骤降的星期，刚进校的几年妈妈都会大老远地赶过来，送厚衣服、加一层垫被、换一条厚的盖被。刚刚加了垫被的那个晚上会觉得床格外松软暖和，躺在上面充满幸福感。到了真正的大冬天每个人都是两条垫被两条盖被，还要在上面再盖衣服，被窝外的冷把被窝里的暖对照地分外明显。上海的冬天潮冷难捱，因而格外地可以被宠爱。

春夏更是想家的日子。春天总是很短，盼啊盼啊总是不来，可是突然有一天天气热得让人一下子记起了上一个夏天（漫漫冬日很容易让我觉得就要这么冷一辈子了）。然而这种记忆力很容易矫枉过正，从六岁到二十六岁的夏天可能都会涌过来。小时候住在复旦后门，楼前面有条河，夏天会有船运西瓜过来，那些人就在桥脚下摆摊子，满世界乌泱泱的都是西瓜。午睡醒过来，并不把席子收起来，就坐在草席的上面，吊扇的底下，挖半个西瓜吃。  大学毕业的那个夏天，南区宿舍前的晚樱开得格外地盛。我其实并不太喜欢那个深粉，觉得略微俗艳。不过风吹过来细碎的花瓣落得满地都是，让人对说不上多么留恋的校园也着实留恋了起来。

就这样，晚春的风一吹，觉得这真不是该离家的日子。

最近在听王若琳。这个女生唱歌好听到不可思议，技巧完美多变，感情丰富细腻。尤其是非录音室出品的演唱，感染力特别强。听她唱vincent觉得要掉眼泪。
看到一个视频，大概是台湾某个金曲奖，她在上面唱歌，镜头扫到台下的蔡依林，在跟着音乐轻轻摇晃。
如果我是蔡依林,我当时一定在想 “靠，我还唱什么歌唱什么歌唱什么歌”。

New York Times

ZHONGLOU, China — When an underground fire killed 35 men at the bottom of a coal shaft last year, the telltale signs of another Chinese mining disaster were everywhere: Black smoke billowed into the sky, dozens of rescuers searched nine hours for survivors, and sobbing relatives besieged the mine’s iron gate.

But though the owner and local government officials took few steps to prevent the tragedy, they succeeded, almost completely, in concealing it.

For nearly three months, not a word leaked from the heart of China’s coal belt about the July 14 explosion that racked the illegal mine, a 1,000-foot wormhole in Hebei Province, about 100 miles west of Beijing.

The mine owner paid off grieving families and cremated the miners’ bodies, even when relatives wanted to bury them. Local officials pretended to investigate, then issued a false report. Journalists were bribed to stay silent. The mine shaft was sealed with truckloads of dirt.

“It was so dark and evil in that place,” said the wife of one miner who missed his shift that day and so was spared. “No one dared report the accident because the owner was so powerful.”

Indeed, the Lijiawa mine tragedy might still be an official non-event, but one brave soul reported the cover-up in September on an Internet chat site. The central government in Beijing stepped in, firing 25 local officials and putting 22 of them under criminal investigation. The results of the inquiry are expected this month.

Such a wide-ranging cover-up might seem unusual in the Internet age, but it remains disturbingly common here. From mine disasters to chemical spills, the 2003 SARS epidemic to the past year’s scandal over tainted milk powder, Chinese bureaucrats habitually hide safety lapses for fear of being held accountable by the ruling Communist Party or exposing their own illicit ties to companies involved.

Under China’s authoritarian system, superiors reward subordinates for strict compliance with targets set from above, like reducing mine disasters. Should one occur, the incentive to hide it is often stronger than the reward for handling it well. A disaster on a bureaucrat’s watch is almost surely a blot on his career. A scandal buried quietly, under truckloads of dirt, may never be discovered.

China’s lack of a free press, independent trade unions, citizen watchdog groups and other checks on official power makes cover-ups more possible, even though the Internet now makes it harder to suppress information completely.

Work-safety officials in Beijing complain that even more than in other industries, death tolls from accidents at coal mines are often ratcheted down or not reported at all. That is because of the risky profits to be made — by businessmen and corrupt local officials — exploiting dangerous coal seams with temporary, unskilled workers in thousands of illegal mines.

Just two weeks after the Lijiawa disaster, for example, officials in neighboring Shanxi Province announced that 11 people had been killed in a natural landslide. After another Internet-lodged complaint, investigators discovered that 41 villagers had been buried under a torrent of rocks and waste from an iron mine.

Even if underreported, the official death rate for China’s coal mines is astronomically high. On average, nine coal miners a day died in China last year — a rate 40 times that of the United States, according to the State Administration of Work Safety. Small mines, legal and illegal, accounted for three-fourths of the deaths but only a third of the production.

To be sure, the mines are much safer than just six years ago. Huang Yi, the deputy administrator of the work safety agency, said stricter scrutiny, regulations and the closing of 12,000 mines had cut the death rate by three-fourths since 2002. “There are some illegal coal mines that still operate because they are protected by local officials,” Mr. Huang said, but “fewer and fewer.”

Hu Xingdou, an economics professor at the Beijing Institute of Technology, argues that Beijing’s top-down approach can only do so much to make local officials more accountable.

“We don’t have the grass-roots democracy; we don’t have independent labor unions; we don’t have checks and balances; we don’t have any system of official accountability,” he said.

Work-safety officials are trying to fill the gap with hot lines, a Web site link, and even rewards to informants. But in a country that relies on coal for most of its electricity, powerful financial incentives lie behind unsafe mines.

China Labor Bulletin, a Hong Kong-based nongovernment group that advocates workers’ rights, estimates that even a small Chinese coal mine producing just 30,000 tons a year of coal can make up to $900,000 a year in profit. In 2005, the central government ordered officials to divest themselves of their holdings in mines that they supervised. But Professor Hu said, “Many officials still own shares.”

Here in Yu County, where roads divide towering pyramids of coal and the poor rake the ravaged land in search of loose chunks, local officials were widely assumed to be in league with mine operators. According to one local government official, nearly half of the county’s 200 mines operated illegally last year. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the subject is politically delicate.

“Everyone in Yu County thinks this accident was very typical,” he said. “If Mao was still in power, these local officials would be executed.”

The Lijiawa mine’s single shaft was no secret. Even though its owners lacked all six required licenses, it operated on state property in full view of a state-owned mine for more than three years, the official said.

Zhou Xinghai helped recruit migrant workers from hundreds of miles away to work the seams. The $600 monthly salary was high for migrant labor, but so were the risks.

In May, he said, miners were dismayed to discover that 59 mules had died from unventilated mine gas. Some oxygen cylinders were on hand in case of emergencies, he said, “but we didn’t know how to use them.”

Before the August Olympics, Beijing officials ordered all nearby mines shut down to reduce pollution. But Lijiawa continued its three shifts a day.

When five tons of explosives stored illegally in the mine caught fire in July, workers were trapped hundreds of feet underground with only a megaphone to summon help. Many suffocated trying to crawl out of the tunnel, Mr. Zhou said. Only three or four survived.

Mr. Zhou said the mine owner, Li Chengkui, enlisted him to deal with the victims’ families. He wanted the relatives split up so they would not “kick up a row,” Mr. Zhou said.

Over the next few days, Mr. Li or his managers struck deals with the families: 800,000 yuan, or about $120,000, if the miner was local; half that much if the miner was a migrant worker. The relatively high sums reflected the owners’ eagerness to suppress complaints. Locals were given more because they could cause more trouble, Mr. Zhou said.

The widow of the miner Yang Youbiao said she was hustled from the mine to a local hotel, then to another county and finally to a third county. There, she picked up her husband’s ashes even though she had wanted to bury his body. She asked that her name not be published for fear of retribution.

“They just gave us the ashes and told us to go,” she said, quietly weeping. “I don’t even know if the ashes belong to my husband.”

Zhou Jianghua’s brother survived the explosion, but suffered severe brain damage from lack of oxygen. At 37, he is now a semi-invalid, said Mr. Zhou, who is no relation to Zhou Xinghai. He said his family was offered 200,000 yuan, about $29,000, if they agreed not to sue the mine owner or speak to reporters, but an agreement was never reached.

In September, an Internet posting pleaded for justice. The writer said he had repeatedly reported the accident to the authorities.

“No feedback for over 70 days!!!!” he wrote. Instead, callers threatened him.

Hebei’s governor finally disclosed the accident in October. The Beijing news media subsequently reported that 25 officials had been fired, that an official report had been faked and that dozens of journalists had taken bribes. Now the central government is busily trying to make an example of Yu County by shutting down illegal mines. A new cast of officials is in charge.

But Yang Youbiao’s widow says she does not believe culpable officials will be punished.

“They can find ways to avoid it,” she said.” There won’t be any end to this kind of tragedy.” Huang Yuanxi contributed reporting from Beijing, and Zhang Jing contributed research from Yu County.

昨天去Stuyvesant High School做志愿者，学校开家长会，需要会讲国语的人给一些英文不好的家长当翻译。

Stuyvesant是纽约最好的三所公立“special high school"之一，优势是理工科，offer的课程包括 "introduction to plasma physics"之类的，听着非常吓人。录取完全取决于一个考试的成绩，好像全纽约有八所公立高中参与这个考试；感觉就像我们当时四校联考似的。 去之前我把那里想像成一个环境很好的精英高中，小孩子一个个看上去都很sharp, 家长也很decent ，所以心里有些诧异怎么会有很多家长需要翻译。（我什么时候变得那么势力了。）

后来发觉现实和想像有不小出入。整个学校就是一幢巨大的楼，里面有些乱糟糟的，暖气开得大，闷热非常。看到许多许多的亚裔学生和家长，不少家长看来是第一代移民。我接待的家长是一个从福建移民过来的中年女子，打扮很朴素，英文不好，态度小心谦卑。她说儿子成绩仿佛退步了，上个学期有excellent ,这个学期都只是satisfactory了，不知道怎么回事。遇到老师却只会问“我儿子有没有按时交作业？他上课有没有听？” 老师给了认真或敷衍的答案之后，她也不再追究了，也不和老师多交流。 那里仿佛有不少向她这样的成年后移民过来的家长，他们抱怨完全搞不懂美国高中的体制。她跟我说“他们这里也没有班级的概念，不然我可以问问他的同学他到底学得怎么样。”又说“他以前在初中下课后总是会留下来帮老师做事情，现在，你看，他完全不帮老师了。” 呵呵，完全是我们中国中学生家长的心态。又说“我叫他来跟我一起开家长会，他说' I don't care.'" 无奈但是又不带太多责备地笑笑。 她问我哥大的学费，听了以后吓了一大跳，说已经开始担心儿子大学的学费。真是可怜天下父母心。

我认识不少ABC,但从来没有近距离接触过这样境况一般的移民家庭的家长。这是第一次隐约感受到他们的不易，以及那些ABC孩子身上带着的矛盾。有时觉得自己是异乡人，心底深处牵扯着的总是大洋对面的土地和人们，无奈之时会羡慕那些土生土长的孩子们。然而昨天我想，那些"第二代"们在整个成长过程中一定也会常常面临认知危机。他们的成长环境和父母的成长环境是如此不同，他们面对的大社会和家中的小社会价值取向有很大的差别，其他的孩子能从长辈处获得的指导和引领他们想必会有所缺乏。家长们也是不易的，比如这个妈妈，跟我说，“我之前（对美国的教育体系）什么也不懂。后来就从其他小姐妹那里听一些，学一些，是怎么回事，该做些什么。”总有些束手无策的感觉。

我一方面觉得孩子应该从小就看世界，一方面又非常希望孩子在父母生长的文化环境中成长。所谓血脉相承，语言风土文化是生命最细腻本初的沉淀，因而希望自己血液中的乡土因子也流淌在孩子的身上。此外，或者我对上中的感情太深，总觉得孩子就该在一个这么干净漂亮的校园成长，但是比我念的上中更开放更自由。听着那位妈妈抱怨美国的老师懒、不负责任，想起以前那些对学生全情投入的老师，便觉得以后如果有小孩决不能念美国的公立中学。。。

这么想着想着就觉得生孩子太麻烦了。爸妈真伟大啊。