About a Comment by a Traditional Vietnamese Historian

大越史記引霍光論呂嘉不當

《大越史記》外紀卷之二，錄黎文休論呂嘉，謂其諫哀王嬰齊不爾，「則 (當) 用伊、霍故事」。黎公順口言之，或忘呂嘉實霍光以前人。夫南越之亡、呂嘉之殺，漢武正當盛年，霍光雖已弱冠，距其受帝之託、執漢之柄，尚有三、四十年也。

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In the Vietnamese classic history book Đại Việt sử ký toàn thư, there's a quote of 14th century historian Lê Văn Hưu's comment on Lữ Gia, the last chancellor of Nam Việt state:

If he found his petition unheeded, he should have given up his place. Otherwise, he should have followed the example of Yi Yin and Huo Guang, to depose King Ai in favour of another son of King Minh, but sparing King Ai's life. Instead, he chose to commit regicide and ultimately led to the downfall of both the Nam Việt state and himself.

There's one error in the comment, though. Huo Guang was quoted as if he existed earlier than Lữ Gia, but in fact Huo's several decades younger. Huo's deposition of Liu He (Marquis of Haihun), which was partly the basis of the quote, was about four decades later than Lữ Gia's assassination of King Ai of Nam Việt.

The South Korean General Uses Warp

Among all those usually militaristic North Korean songs, "The General Uses Warp" (장군님 축지법 쓰신다) seems to be the most lampooned on, both because the anime-style music, as well as the reality-warping lyrics. Of course, almost no-one is mentioned by name, so you can theoretically insert anybody as the "Leader" (수령, which actually refers to Kim Il-Sung) or the succeeding "General" (장군, actually refers to Kim Jong-Il).

Still, two of the lampoons, I think, stand out of the others. The first one is actually commercially distributed, and features another lampoon on J.S. Bach, my favourite composer. I will talk about that in a later post.

Today's video is created by a South Korean, using the song to fit it on one of their former leaders, Chun Doo-hwan (전두환). He's the president of South Korea between 1980 and 1988, roughly equal to the period of Ronald Reagan in the U.S. and Margaret Thatcher in the U.K. As a general himself, he's known for his continuation of military dictatorship, though probably not as bad as his northern counterpart, whose economy was failing because the USSR was also falling apart.

The film extracted for the video was mostly news montages of President Chun embarking visits to other countries. Surprisingly I found them fitting very well to the music, with the combined effect of suggesting he had completed these visits by warping space-time (even though he'd still utilize planes and limos to reduce shock among the world, as apparently suggested). This seems an even better propaganda video than the original North Korean one, as neither Kim Il-Sung nor Kim Jong-Il appeared personally in the original video.

The video can be seen below:

On a further note, the black-and-white person at about 2:00 was Park Chung-hee (박정희), the famous yet assassinated president, as well as the father of the recently deposed lady president, Park Geun-hye (박근혜). Presumbly the elder Park was included here to fill the role of the Leader (수령).

Uningestible Liquid

Yesterday after lunch I had a walk. When passing a Chinese herbal tea shop, I noticed that the box containing juice from dry-fried Cannabis sativa had a layer of pale liquid on top of it. I immediately believed that there were either so few people buying drinks there, or the shopkeeper didn't bother to clean it, that the pale layer rendered the liquid uningestible.

Two things came up in my mind:

1. Sometimes the competition is so severe that being disadvantaged quickly becomes a vicious circle.
2. One should be highly aware of their business image, especially those that can make first impression.

I suspect the shop would close soon.

Just for Reference

Saw a strange looking white car on way to work. Possibly a Google Map camera vehicle.

Patrickov on X26

London applies a flat fare - £1.50 - for all its buses and trams. That price means about $16 in Hong Kong, an amount which is usually reserved to the longest running routes.

However, this price is actually much more agreeable if I am getting away from Heathrow Airport, as Heathrow Express, TfL Rail (who took over from Heathrow Connect yesterday) and the Tube all charge more than that (indeed the Heathrow Express charges over £20, triple of a similar distance HK Airport Express trip, and the trains for the HEx are worse both in terms of train conditions and speed). Most importantly, I am going to nowhere other than Croydon, which means the longest London Buses route is my no-brainer. And surprisingly, I found the £1.50 gets me more than the £20 trip I made in my previous visit.

I got my Oyster topped up and arrived at the bus station. Too bad the timetable appears nowhere other than on the signpost of stop 19 itself. I actually checked my phone to know an X26 was just 5 minutes from pulling up.

The route received double deckers since around this time last year, so effectively I am celebrating the first anniversary of its buses' tenures (1 month late). As expected, a 2-axled Volvo B9TL pulled up, humming a noise familiar back in Hong Kong (although not in Riviera Gardens), and off we go. Most went to the upper deck, but me with a luggage couldn't afford taking my eyes off the luggage rack. Only another Asian woman and a fair teenage girl (to be fair, most British girls are fair at that age) had the same situation, as well as a lady who had to use the Priority Seats, which most, but not all, able-bodied avoid. London bus passengers have more sense than Hong Kong ones, as they do occupy these seats if really no one is around.

A sunny May Sunday afternoon proved to be the best time riding X26. The temperature is high enough for a Hongkonger like me, but not as high as Hong Kong, such that the no A/C bus I was on sufficed. Breezes came in whenever the bus is moving, and since this is Outer London pollution was not actually an issue here. Passenger traffic and vehicle traffic were also agreeable. I only had to share my seat for a third of my trip, and the bus almost always waited at the stops - I suspect weekday trips would be plagued by congestions that there would be no time to spare.

The X26 is effectively a town-hopper, jumping between various Zone 5 or 6 towns. As it's Sunday, shopping or leisure trips seemed to make up the majority of patronage, and the first numerically significant swarm of passengers did not show up until Kingston. Most still went upstairs, and I believed that the biggest benefit of the double-decker was that it could provide about the same capacity as the previously run single deckers, but with a shorter body. There were places where the bus had to negotiate between parked and opposite flowing traffic, and a shorter body certainly helped.

I was astonished by the number of small hills and parks we had to negotiate. All these gave the trip a relaxed feeling, and I genuinely enjoyed my hour-and-a-half ride - it really didn't feel this long. I had an urge to jump off at every stop, if not for my luggage and the fact that the bus runs every half-hour (meaning I couldn't afford waiting for the next bus several times). There were a few places that particularly attracted my interest:

• The first is Kingsmeadow, home for AFC Wimbledon, until they go back to Plough Lane that is. Still, Chelsea, the next owner, already put their signs at the gates.
• The second was a few Korean signs I found near New Malden. Apparently there's a Korean society in that town.
• Last but not least, a Chinese restaurant in Cheam had its English name as "Beijing Garden", but its Chinese inscription actually said Mong Kok (旺角), the Hong Kong district where I currently work, and at least 100 times more crowded than the street it's on.

Croydon Flyover was the only place where the bus actually ran like an express, and it marked the start of anything unpleasant. The developers might want to make the place feel modern, but turned out the buildings were strange and uninteresting. More importantly, Sundays render most of them unoccupied, and those dwelling in the street look like they would prey on anyone having the slightest look of wealth. I now understand why a particular Croydon resident had advised against my visit, but I like the way I find it out.

The bus eventually stopped outside Delta Point. It's a featureless bus stand that seemed not fitting to the grand trip the bus had been through, but after all, that's just some place where the driver would check his vehicle and prepare his next trip.

Crossings

人生路上，我們不斷與世上的人萍水相逢。 有些人很快會從我們的腦海中消失；另一些人即使只是與自己同行十數分鐘，仍難以忘懷。 可惜的是，不論這些人在我們的心中存在多久，見面的時間也就僅此而已。

Route 32

Route 32:  Shek Wai Kok -- MTR Olympic Station

Location:  Tsuen Wan, Kwai Chung and West Kowloon
Length of Journey:  8.0 miles, 45 minutes

Following one Diamond Geezer's footsteps, I decided to take a full trip on a bus with the number equaling my age, every birthday.  Unlike DG though, I am not as free in terms of taking a birthday break, so I chose the closet Sunday, which in this year was conveniently placed right before "the day".

I chose to take a Southbound trip.  To be honest it'd probably be more interesting the other way round, but I was to have my gym session on that day, and I didn't want to soak myself in sweat by walking from the gym to Olympic Station.

To my surprise, the bus station in Shek Wai Kok was rather well populated, despite the route's relatively poor service.  Departures of the 32 were separated exactly 25 minutes from each other, instead of the more frequent 20, or the more clock-faced 30.  The departure I took was the only one of the day setting off 20 minutes after its predecessor instead of 25, but it looked like this shorter interval didn't cause less people waiting.

The bus departed dead on time, with about 20 passengers on board.  It whizzed through the first few stops without many boarding, understandable as this section was through settlements where residents are descended from "real natives", such that they don't have to pay astronomical prices for housing, and are thus wealthy enough to have private transport.

Only on the arrival of Cheung Shan Estate that the bus got its second significant batch of boarders.  It's on the wrong side of the Shatin-bound motorway, so we had to double back.  It's not the case when this route first entered service about a year before I was born, but poor town planning (as Hong Kong has always been suffering from) led to this peculiar layout.

The next estate is Lei Muk Shue, where my late grandma lived.  Buses of the 32 never enter its bus terminus (aside from a few abnormalities, I believe), despite the latter's relocation nearer to the main road 10 years ago.  I believed if it was brought into the bus station its ridership would improve, as it's a somewhat faster alternative than the 36B, which connects Lei Muk Shue to South Kowloon.  My theory soon found support as the 32 bus entered a more densely populated area, and people supposedly waiting for the 36B switched over swiftly.  At Shek Lei Terminus, where all Upper Kwai Chung services call, even a few waiting for a 35A (which was the most frequent Kowloon-bound service) changed.  I couldn't stop imagining the 32's potential.

I often found people (including myself, no less) accusing the 32 for its "slow routing", but this problem wasn't quite obvious on Sundays.  The 335-hp-engined Dennis Trident climbed the slopes of the nine-decade-old Castle Peak Road rather easily (Ok it's just half-full, but still), and its Kowloon section was sparsely serviced by other buses -- the other service, numbered 42, was only slightly more frequent.

The 32 passed through two more pre-WWII buildings.  After passing Sham Shui Po Police Station, we met a red minibus which rudely cut to the roadside whenever someone asked to board.  It was gone by the time we reached Lui Seng Chun (since converted to a Chinese medicine clinic), but then a 265B bus "volunteered to lead our way" to Mong Kok Market complex, where a 13D bus showed us how a franchised bus driver could be as rude as one driving a red minibus.

An elderly on board suggested jumping off a stop early to avoid "a longer walk from the terminus".  A man, probably her husband, protested in vain, but I felt he knew more as there was actually one more stop between their drop off point and the final destination, and the intermediate stop seemed to suit them better.

The bus finally stopped in front of the control centre of Olympic Station Bus Terminus, above which sits the HSBC Kowloon HQ.  I felt the place slightly more crowded than it should be on Sundays, and I soon found out that it's (still) a HSBC memorial banknote collection day, while the pedestrian bridge to the MTR station proper was infested with Putonghua-speaking "collectors".