I got my F3HP in spring 2011 and I shot these photos on it with a Kodak Golden 200 which expired in year 2006. The roll turns out amazingly not bad.

Via Flickr:
with a kodak golden 200 expired in year 2006

对于彭老师的离去，我不感到十分的震惊，大约在暑假我告诉她即将出国的时候（我们暑假是否有组织探望的活动？我竟记得不十分真切。），就隐隐预想到那或将是见她的最后一面。而当彭老师去世的消息真正传来时，我又许久未能接受，过后又倍感无尽的悲恸，禁不住潸然泪下。念及何韵忻同学在彭老师病重的那几日还积极在QQ群中组织大家探望，未曾料到几日后就传来噩耗，未免又一阵唏嘘，那些围坐在彭老师家中畅谈理想的场景，大概真的要一去不返了。

本以为这么多年下来，我早已淡忘作为她学生时的那些记忆，然而今日暮然回首，一切皆历历在目。就如昨日发生的一般，彭老师把我领进坐落于十六中二楼的初一（1）班的教室，宣布军训注意事项。然后就是她立于讲台之上，用指点江山的气势说道：“与天斗，与地斗，其乐无穷。”经历过文革当过红卫兵的她将此奉为真理，我们亦由此获得了无比的自信。“要注意一下”，这句短语贯穿了我们三年的初中生活，让容易骄傲的我们，胜不骄败不馁，让我们学会时刻省视自己，提醒自己。

那些片段，那些我们记录的“彭彭语录”，竟好像被压缩于胶片和音轨上，又被塞进电影放映机里头，手柄摇动起来，一幕一幕就穿过我的脑袋。

不，它们比电影真实得太多。

大概天时地利人和都让我们赶上了，那届初三（1）班终究创造了辉煌，我猜想彭老师对此是感到欣慰的。她在我们中考之前的那些时日掷地有声地喊道：“你们只要一天没踏出十六中的门，就还是十六中的人”，帮助我们抛开杂念，全力应考。

尽管彭老师在带领我们的三年中，身体是每况愈下，但谁也无法理解究竟是怎样的一种信念支撑着她，走完了全程。她真的用生命浇注了我们，我们是她的骄傲，她更是我们的骄傲。

大概彭老师最后的精力终于为我们燃尽了，及至我高中去中山医探访她时，她的身体竟已如枯藤一般衰竭，体重不足60斤（没有记错的话？），所幸她仍能认出我们每一个人。后来的几年中她的病情缓和少许，每次探望时她总是无比的乐观，如从前一般健谈。

彭玉英老师教书育人数十年，桃李满天下，她最早的学生竟已是我们伯伯一辈，想来在最后的日子里喜欢热闹的她也不会感到孤单。

关于彭老师有太多太多可以讲述，但及至我下笔之时却又顿感千头万绪无从谈起。如今我却无法亲自去送她，只盼此文能将我的哀思寄予她。

彭老师，愿您安息。

——马航

2011年2月4日于加国

部分转载同学们的状态及签名：

李政和 : 愿彭玉英老师安息…

钟小明 : 我不愿面对彭彭的离去

黄加浩，许喆骐，池建彬 : (哭)

关欣钊，郭建安，马航 : 。

黄雨婷 : 不想知道这消息啊。。。

黄加浩 : 彭彭我以前细个唔识事我知错啦

黎嘉明 : 愿彭老师安息…在世界的那头一路走好…

唐路 : 一支蜡烛灭了，但她永远燃烧在我心里

许喆骐 : 我记得彭老师以前常常说,明日复明日,明日何时多…虽然她的明日用完了,但我们还有,她会看到的.

马航 : 这么多年，我记忆中的彭玉英老师的容貌竟没有太多的变化。她的身影甚至于有些模糊了，但她的一些话语将永存我的心中。我愿写一篇作文怀念她，却许久未能落笔。

胡乔宪 : 昔人已乘黄鹤去,恰似春水不回头。记忆中的彭彭开始模糊，但她的声音，她的那些话语，还是刹那间涌现。愿您安息。

潘莹 : May peace always be with you.

陈汐: 您的身影，在我们成长的岁月中烙下了深深的印记。生命是如此脆弱，学会珍惜，这是您如今给我们上的最后一课。彭彭，谢谢您，亦愿您走好。我难过，可，也许我应该用微笑来面对。

梁汉麟 : 彭老師…….接受5到…..明明前幾日先一大班人探完距…..默哀

李海恩 : 心情比较沉重。。。

林欣颖 : …愿您在天国安息…

When I was young, time went second by second, minute by minute, hour by hour. It sounds like a sophisticate to begin a paragraph by saying ‘when I was young’. But now time flies year by year and I am just numb about that, until I suddenly find I have passed 20 years. How many 20 years is one gonna have?

I don’t plan to recall what I have done in the past 20 years. Memory is just the contrary to time. When I search in my mind and display those fragments about the early years, the scenes slide in a fast forward way and they even become blank every time I try to grab something from the earlier points. But the scenes gradually slow down as I continue to play the tape of my memory.

I find myself has fallen into a kind of self-compulsion. I tend to force myself to forget everything about the past. As a result I had no idea when the professor was talking about Fourier Transformation last semester, though I’d just learnt it several months earlier in China. I once read a book about memory and it said that human tend to forget the unpleasant things for self-protective reasons.

The bad news is I cannot even recall some happy experience. Am I a pessimist? Oh no. What are the first 20 years of a pessimist to be like? I really did not want to define myself as a pessimist and denied those happy moments I shared with my dear ones. I started to print photos I took and sent some of them to my friends.

I asked my roommates in ZJU to check mail box. One of them told me that a girl said she missed me so much. Omg I’ve almost forgot how she looks like.

But then I was able to uncover the whole thing. There was such a time that I asked her out every night…to study! Oh what a stupid idea! But I was able to sit very properly and finished all my homework. And on our way back I was saying exaggerated words for myself. What was she feeling like? I don’t know.

I tend to talk a lot about girls with my male friends but in fact waste no thoughts on girls’ ideas. Even about that girl, I was instigated by my roommates. They said she is the prettiest girl in our class although I actually did not see any girl in that class as pretty (I heard about that several really beautiful girls switched into that class after I changed my major).

I forget what we talked on the way back now.

Why were we walking back?

Oh, I remember now. She didn’t know how to ride a bicycle and I didn’t have a back seat on mine.

Whether she spoke something or not?

Oh, it seems she did talk about her father!

No! She was saying that I was like her farther. What a poor description! No wonder I forget the whole thing. But there must be something about those nights still remaining in my mind.

The shining stars, the ringing bells from bikes of the passers-by, a mixture of  the fragrance from the flowers together with the mugginess after the military training, or a certain kind of impulse when we first gained a feeling of freedom.

Oh, how could I forget those beautiful summer nights! I have not even seen a girl riding on a back seat of a bicycle here.

Was there once a girl lying on the grassland next to me by the Qizhen lake talking about her dream? Did I promise a girl to present a bouquet at the end of drama performance but I just sit quietly watching her helpless face on the stage? Was there a midnight by the West Lake I bought a girl roses after an old woman chatter endlessly to sell them? Was there a girl that grabbed my oranges every day and taught me to take off the skin rather than cut them? Was there a mid-autumn night when a girl had crabs and beers with me in an empty classroom?  

Whether I played beautiful piano songs for them? Whether I held one of them on my back to watch fireworks? Whether I sang karaoke with them all night long? Whether I was forced to pay them a big meal after I got awards?

Now I doubt whether I’ve actually done those things. Were the girls separated ones or were they the same girl? What if they were just made up by me?  I no longer believe in what is in my memory, but why I still clearly remember what one ordered in the restaurant and what another’s favorite song was.

Oh, they all exist, in the most beautiful time of my life!

I suddenly realize how romantic the life in ZJU was. Students are protected not to be exposed to society too early and  they can enjoy a 4 year long freedom, which is a best gift in their life. And I cannot complain any more about why I never win girls’ favour. It is me who have never treasured those memories.

I just somehow miss some very things of the past so much – A restaurant where I had dinner with weisuo and a corner in high school where we got a good look of the sister who raised national flag and other pretty girls; A small canteen where we stood up and called linda ‘big boss’; The football court where huangwenzhi shot the football towards dead angle of a goal and fucked the security staff off, and where a black guy said to manwu ‘你踢得很好’.

‘I’ll feel too lonely to finish a meal by myself’, I remembered a girl once told me those words in fengwei canteen of ZJU.

(end)

written on Jan 6, 2011

Time flies and somehow I am thousands miles away from that piece of land. In fact I don’t know how many thousands it is from here to my home, but now I would chat with my family at least once a week, which is much more than I did when I was in ZJU. I am not supposed to have strong feeling of distance. Is that true?

The courses here are well-designed (in fact as I mentioned before everything is well-designed here). So one has no need to specially look for a gap in this perfect system of academy (maybe the system of whole Canadian society?) and curse for that (which was once our favorite entertainment in ZJU). The only thing you could wish yourself to do is following the right track and going straight along.

That reminds me of the English lesson in my primary school. “Excuse me, how can I get to XXX station?” “Go straight along this street and turn around at the XXX corner. You will see XXX in front of you.”

So, excuse me, how can I get to the end?

Go straight along this track we have designed for you and don’t turn around! You will see glory in front of you!

Who’s glory? What a woeful thing! There is someone arranging the life for you! You do think your life is unique. But you don’t know your life is just an instance of a template. There are lots of other templates in this land where I am stepping on. 

People in North America are always full of confidence. They used to believe in God but now they only believe in theirselves. I don’t know who gives them fatuous confidence and they just think they are the unexcelled ones in the world.

But who ensures you a glory for yourselves? You don’t know the template-like citizens are the easiest to govern.

Life on my dear motherland is much more excited. One will be faced with all kinds of absurd things. That’s because around you, everything is developing, which gives you extra energy every single day. That’s so-called developing country.

Life in Canada is more foreseeable and steady. It is good for physical health. It is good for those inside the main culture as well. But for an outsider, if you stay here long, colors of your life will be fading away, until one day when you see your children enjoying the night party with their friends, you suddenly recognize the fact that you have no common topics with your own children.

Who will then understand you? Where has your own life gone?

You will even fail to recognize who you used to be.

(end)

SFU is good because here I am no longer worried about a seat for selfstudy. Study places are everywhere in the academic buildings, and in library there are even specific areas for quite study or silent study (although I can’t tell the difference between these two).  I can stay in the library till almost 12pm (I supposed it to be 24 hours open before I came here), and some safe guards will soon come and shout ‘library is closed’. What a fantastic idea to warn students by shouting!

In ZJU, the situation is very weird. A piece of sad song ‘梁祝’ or ‘song from secret garden’  will disturb your mood for going on studying. Except those have great endurance, one must leave on time. But you will find that it is only 10pm or so if you look at your watch. I always wonder why the library will be closed so early for a top university.

In ZJU seats for study are always in short supply. During the exam week, it is not a strange thing that you get up at 6am and rush to the classrooms only to find that all the seats have been occupied. Wars are on show every day between those who have occupied seats and those still hunting for a seat. In these wars, a boy is no more a gentleman and a girl can discard all her femininity. Boy friends are the backups for the girls. People around are paparazzi who are always ready to report these events on the school BBS. (OH! Why there is not a formal BBS for SFU?) And those seats are just crowded together and you may be disturbed by others from time to time if you don’t wear ear plugs.

Well, in SFU, every study area is well designed. The seats are enclosed by covers, and soft sofas are offered for group study. It is just like other things in Vancouver, or in Canada, they are well designed and efficient and reasonable existence. In China, there always exist absurd designs. As in ZJU, there are lots of empty classrooms and even empty lands leaving unused, but at the same time the seats are not sufficient. Also in my hometown Guangzhou while forests of skyscrapers over hundreds meters and the world’s tallest towers stand in the city, the poor citizens or outlanders are still struggling for a shelter.

However, I found that happiness cannot be easily defined as absolute fairness and satisfaction. In ZJU, one can be cursing those occupying seats for a whole day and at the same time still feel very happy during this process. In SFU where all facilities with efficiency have been maximized, few will have interest to use them.

Happiness is not enjoying what others design for you but witnessing magnificence from which you gain motivation to chase the fully satisfaction of your own.

(end)

I am really not good at express my sorrow.

My fellow, how eager am I to compose a dirge for you.

Lonely lonely are you.

Lonely lonely is me.

Lonely lonely are those who get away from home to pursue dreams.

We are all on the way.

Life is vulnerable. God can take it away just as I end up a thread.

All of a sudden it just comes into my mind that every time when Binay takes leave he would like to say take care rather than see you.

Take care my friend. Take good care of yourself or how can we meet again?

Around you were two mid-age women and a young boy speaking Cantonese loudly. This was not a strange scene in Vancouver especially in the area of Richmond where is the habitation of Chinese. If you were not attentive enough, you would just regard them exactly as the same family speaking loudly on the streets of Canton or Hong Kong. But gradually you sniffed something unusual. The language they spoke were the exactly the same as that in your hometown, somehow except for the nameless anxiety lied between their words.

Yes, they are the immigrators. Or more precisely, they are the disadvantaged groups brought here by their husband or father. I want to give the description of such group of people. The adult males are for certain not in Vancouver. The males have their domestic business to continue while their wives and the next generation are left here and somewhat becoming a guaranty for their immigration. The brand new life is always easier for the young but not their mothers. That’s quite unfair for the housewives indeed.

Try to imagine that you have stable job and peaceful life in China and one day you have to quit your career to a totally strange place, a place where all around you are still Chinese faces and Mandarin or Cantonese. The sign of the stores are in English but still with a Cantonese translation and you still go to the Chinese-style market to buy your food. Nevertheless, you sense that your life lacks of a kind of nutrition. All those around you are the housewives having the same experience. Your task and theirs are to take good care of your children.

And how about your own life? What’s your dream?

Yes, you are educated. You are not the housewives. You do have a dream. You once thought you had enough of the bad environment and food of China and had dreamt of the glorious life aboard, the better education for your children. But what’s the fact? What did you gain? What have you lost forever?

You are not aware that your life is limited to the Chinese circle in Richmond. You are not aware that your life is limited by some big bosses behind the curtain. In China, you notice that your life is also limited, but those who limits your life are visible to you. You protest to the Chinese government and get no feedbacks. You wait and then get angry. You have friends around to express the discontent of the government and your life together. You always have the enthusiasm to persist and try to get back your rights, although the outcome is probably a tragedy. But here in Vancouver, you find everything is well-scheduled. You complain to the government and always get the satisfying answer. People think that you should be content. So you tell yourself that you are content and that you should believe your life here is flashing. However, you still sense that you are deprived of something. The white are polite to you. But they won’t allow you to enter their own circle. The Chinese language newspapers you read every day in your big house are all about selling apartments, evening parties or advocating immigration to Vancouver. You easily fulfill the dream of having a real big house! But that single house with all the following housework can easily bury your initial dream. All those around you are dressed in an extravagant way and they all look very fresh. You drive your BMW in the weekend and shop whatever you want and go fishing or do sports.

Of course you do not notice that your life here is getting wizened.

Not long ago you have once dreamt that you will go outside your home country and try something to change this world a little bit. But before you do that, life here has changed you a great deal. In front of you, a black hole is waiting to swallow your initial dream.

You just heard that in western country even a dustman is living proudly, so you stupid guy also seem proud of your life. You are proud only because you feel you should be. But you never know and never care about how and by whom this nation is run. Gradually you laugh at your initial dream: “Change the world a little bit? Go to hell! Why would I have such fxxking dream?”

You can easily find a job here and live comfortably and honorably. Feel boring and have no goal to achieve? No problem. Go to the church and find a goal and a belief and a lord for yourself. And now you have pursuit. And you get married. You have one or more children. They receive good education and you need not to worry about your aged life. This nation provides all for you. 

The entire whole thing is perfect like a wonderland until one day when you get aged; you will suddenly find that, you are only a poor parasite on a big nation machine. What  fade away and vanish is the great confidence when you speak Cantonese and when you laugh loudly, together with a sense of belonging and identification.

I recall once I wrote down this sentence: never will some honorable thoughts occur on one who is away from his roots.

(end)

So today’s topic is as the caption shows. It is a self-evident truth on the land of wonder, which was once my faith. For example, if I make an appointment with 猥瑣, 關 or 廣X to meet at 12 sharp, that means I will get off at half past 12 only to find I’m still the first. 12 sharp? Don’t take it seriously. It’s common sense of us. Now you lose.

A ’common sense’ can define a group of people. What the caption says is such one ‘common sense’ of a large group of people on the land of wonder. If you always take it seriously, you have no way to go on that piece of land. You are told when the deadline for assignment is? Don’t be silly. The deadline is the day you submit. You are told you have failed your final? Again don’t be silly. You do fail only when you surrender. You are told your thesis must be original?  And again don’t be silly. All right, you do belive that the professors themselves graduated with their original thesis. What should you do? Bargain to your boss. Find a reasonable reason? No, go with our ‘common sense’.

Now, it is not doubt that the citizens from land of wonder are most flexible and smart and educated in the world. The foreign guys are so straight and stubborn and uncivilized.

How regretful that I have obviously lost my invaluable trait, and find myself becoming so straight and stubborn and uncivilized. And I heard that several citizens from land of wonder are going to win the Nobell Prize of this year. What the hell is Nobell? I think our advanced wise guys of the great land of wonder are able to monopolize all prizes on the earth.

It seems that the first step was the Olympics. And then, actually what the hell is the Nobell? What the hell is the Word Cup?

Not to mean it, or I am to lose.

(end)

2005, when some friends of mine got interested in writing diary online through a fresh thing ‘blog’, I was lucky enough to register one in MSN community where I started my blog life. I even did not know how to register a MSN IM account. Indeed my deskmate did the whole thing for me.  To be more detailed, my online life truly dates back to 2002 or so when someone in my middle school class set up a bbs. It is hard to imagine now how the bbs survived with only dozens of guys posting rubbish on it every week. But I cannot deny that it did enlighten us in those early days like Prometheus bringing fire to humankind. I cannot recall exactly when the MSN space changed into live space cuz I moved to blogcn very soon leaving a few stupid words in my spz. The main reason I forsook spz was that it ran at an intolerably low speed and it only offered a few ugly themes. So I began writing on blogcn. I recorded some interesting events and posted some small articles and later on some short or long stories. Also at the same time I was in my high school years and the school bbs had become my main battle field on web. It was truly a fabulous experience and I did gain a lot from that. But one may soon get tired if he is always doing the same type of things especially when he thought he was already ‘experienced’. I did so as I got into university. Meanwhile the blogcn company got into a mess and I moved back to spz.

What’s more, the web 2.0 era was coming then, bringing the brand-new online SNS. On that piece of land where I lived, xiaonei which later changed to renren got popular among college students at a incredible speed. Here comes the key point of this whole article.  Among those immersed on SNS, I should say a large percentage of them become or pretend to become enthusiastic about politics of the nation.  OK. Maybe it is our government’s fault to make a strict policy on public views, or maybe it is just a trick to focus all our attentions to that. Whatever the truth of the whole thing should be, the construction of our great land of wonder has been finished! The whole generation is energetic to find some ‘disharmony’ outside the ‘GFW’ and is ready for any time to challenge the bottom line of ‘being blocked’. A war breaks out between ‘pitizens’ (my interpretation of  “P民(们)”) and administrators. Mop, tianya and baidutieba are their battle fields. Renren is certainly well-designed for our generation. Ok, although those administrators are far from the big boss behind the scenes, pitizens are still very fond of this kind of amusement. Well, the situation become more like western countries as the politics has become an amusement. Now, welcome to this land, where the holy shit happens! Don’t forget to register on renren, which is an online great land for our generation.

Renren, what a fxxking ‘shanzhai’ version gathering facebook, myspace and twitter together! And not so amazingly, I enjoy fooling around on it too. To be honest, all the time I do not really consider renren to be so bad. Moreover, I have met lots of friends thanks to it. But at last, I find myself not writing many pieces of words during the crazy time on renren. So I am in some sense losing my voice while some one is still advocating their assumption for the future politics of our nation? All right, in the end of the story, things are back to rationality as we get old and lose enthusiasm or as we are ready to plan our own future of utility and efficiency or, quite possibly, as some of us really gain the power to shape our land of wonder. And I come back to rationality now, after I was shipped from that land of wonder (as I mentioned in previous article). That type of fever of my generation accompanied with the cultural deposits from the ancient time is what I see as existence of wonder.

Maybe many others of our generation are not interested in politics. No problem! Still welcome to renren. You may not write something but you must be interested to share something. From entertainment news to stereotype of your friend’s love affair, <you are not alone>. And soon, you will find life has become some strange matter of utility and efficiency on renren. You may enjoy sharing blogs and pics and videos. What? You want to write some words about your daily life? Don’t be silly. Who cares? If you do not include a stunk in your caption, no one will even click into it.  That kind of situation does exist from then till now, although later on I found that none of my foreign friends do so on facebook. What if you don’t enjoy ‘sharing’? Sorry, you have to do because all those around you are busy working on it, even if they do not indeed have a glance at what is being shared.

On the land of wonder, we become somewhat cynical in the process of tracing utility, but here on other side of the ocean we have already lived in a standardized and utilitarian sociaty. How adorable those pitizens who still fight on my motherland and keep the enthusiasm to share political views! Here where I live now and where the freedom and democracy seem to be maximized, no one would share that kind of things on their own blogs as well. At least, the local guys will not. So I have found facebook far more boring than renren.

Renren, which I regard as a representative of flattering to the centralized government and which keeps unblocked since I first knew it, will long live on that stretch of land. And the incoming generation will without doubt carry on fighting there, maybe in a more absurd way. Everyone is bound to have an experience of wandering from place to place at his young age. No matter I am in China and renren or in Canada and wordpress, I will carry on this adventure. Here, with the fresh soils of open source, is exactly where I will go on my blogging life.

What a big time I have witnessed. And at the end, sincere gratitude to weisuo who is always there and others who have fought together online.

And this article is dedicated to my motherland on her birthday.

(end)