Important Notice to Classmates (1)-2016
Dear
classmates:
How
are you? It’s been some time since I last talked to you. Though I say ‘hi' to you once or twice a day regularly, people may not regard the greeting or
appreciate it as intimate as usual, ordinary e-mail.
To
some of you, I am known not only by name but personally. Unfortunately, I have a feeling that we are
like ‘strangers’ sometimes when we
meet each other online. One of the reasons
could be that we have not seen each other for a long time, nor did I ever
attend a so-called reunion before. People might change as does time or
occupation.
A
few days ago, I received an eccentric message from a classmate, saying “Happy Birthday, and Happy New year” to
me. I was confused about what this person is up to, or what it amounts to. A
certain kind of ridicule? Or a sorry joke? Because it is too late to say ‘Happy New Year’ for Solar New Year now,
or too early for Chinese lunar New Year. It must be “crocodile tears”, which literally
mean “insincere sorrow or concern, or
sympathy”. For crocodiles are usually shedding tears to show pity for the animal they just ate. In Taiwanese, such a
behavior is called “狂神” (pronounced as ‘kong sin’,
meaning ‘nuts’) with men or “38”, or "練嬈” (pronounced as ‘lien hiao’,
meaning ‘flirting’) for ladies.
Whatever it may be, it is weird, bad-mannered, let alone ‘inappropriate’.
In
addition, around two weeks ago during holiday seasons, I sent to classmates an
electronic greeting card with my sincerest wishes. The number of recipients was
as many as 65. But in return I received just
less than FIVE people’s greetings. How could some people possibly claim that they
know something about ‘social etiquette’
or good manners? We people are always emphasizing the importance of 禮尚往來, aren’t we?
People,
in this world needs interaction with others, friend or foe, from time to time
for a better life. I have been doing my
best to better interaction among classmates but it seems that good intention of
mine has gone to waste, and always has been passed by or deliberately ignored. It
really hurts me! Despite my
well-intended attempt to please everyone of you, someone turns a cold shoulder
on me. Except some few classmates, I
seldom hear from the majority of people, say, for over 2 moths, three months or
even more than half a year.
Something
we must agree upon is that we never like to talk to “inactive or non-responsive people”. Assuming them to be existing or living, I keep sending e-mail, only to get no
response in the least. This surely discourages and disheartens me in a sense.
Not
so pleasing as it seems to be, sending e-mail to classmates with postings every
day is my routine and favorite job. I am
sure most of them enjoy reading them, especially some articles of my own
writing. Very few classmates gave me
feedback, or comments, though. Sometimes,
if I am talking their language, or they can see eye to eye with my viewpoints,
some good words might be uttered from their mouths, and make me really
appreciative, but at other times they say nothing or bother to say anything. If they disagree with me, I have to suffer at times from some harsh reprimand or criticism from them. A Taiwanese proverb is true of this
philosophy:「有功無賞，打破要賠」(No reward for achievements while compensation for any loss or
damage is demanded.) Indeed, it is a tougher job than anyone can imagine. In
Chinese, it is 吃力不討好。
In
accepting e-mail messages from me, each one is also free to leave me any time if and when he/she
decides to unsubscribe. But in the
meantime, I, myself have decided not to send e-mail to some who remain not
responsive, or showing little or no attention to interaction.
If
you do not receive e-mail from me any longer, I am afraid that you might be one of them. And from now on, I make up my mind to have
more names deleted from my contact list.
Those who do not / will not respond or even acknowledge the receipt of the
mail I am sending for as long as 30 (thirty) days,
shall cease to be included in my list of contact any more. Because a person not
responding to a mail for this long period may well be thought to be inactive, physically incapable,
or “deceased” presumably. Please forgive me
for using this loaded word. But, as a matter of fact, I have no idea whether
these ‘people” are still alive, bed-ridden, reluctant, unable or unwilling to answer. Let me declare even if they ARE my grandpa or
grandma, I am not obligated to kiss their asses!
In April,
2015, I created a Blogger-台大外文系1963部落格, in which you can find all the postings categorized,
differentiated and arranged in the order of nature and chronology. If you missed out one posting, you can easily redeem
or recover it by looking over the contents. And people indifferent to the
common or routine greeting may get on any time to the Blogger, which is open to
the public. No one will know if you ever
get access to the Blogger or how often you have visited it. How convenient it is to visit our Blogger at will, and without saying hi to the owner of this Blogger! However, there are two scenarios, hereby to be considered and expected:
1) Suppose I survive
some ones of you, my postings including all my own writings will continue. The
energy and effort needed for my postings shall persist. Someone might question what
I would do if the number of people receiving my e-mail is lessened to zero. No. 1, I believe such a thing is least likely
to happen. No. 2, I will hang on to the very last even with the only surviving classmate until I am no more. Besides, one smart recipient is even
more valuable than a bunch of idiots, I suppose!
2) Provided that I am
survived by all of you (and it is very likely) my postings have to be
discontinued unless someone else will take my place. For I feel that my health is declining physically or physiologically nowadays. None know when I will breathe my
last. Were it to happen, our
Blogger would remain what it is and may gradually be forgotten, becoming part of history,
perhaps. In fact, we found no other bloggers created by our contemporary, our
predecessors or descendants, graduated from Dept. of Foreign Language &
Literature at Taida could be as competitive as ours,
with chosen level of contents. Accordingly, we have every reason to be proud
of our unique Blogger for it is faithfully, honestly, and constantly attended
to and managed. It is specifically dedicated
to good, fittest postings bilingual, and best selected Power Points. It surely is
something we all take pride in! But
then, some day it will become a milestone of our class, 1963. And the last
survivor of this class, I am sure, will be more than happy and proud to show to
all his/her offspring every posting with exquisite taste in the Blogger.
Finally,
nothing is further from my intention than to offend anyone of you. Nevertheless, should you find anything
mentioned above offensive to you, it must be a certain kind of misunderstanding,
and hopefully, it could be clarified in some way. Thank you for your patience with which to finish reading
this lengthy notice, and have a nice day!
Justin
Lai (賴正雄)
01/13/2016
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