On Apr 29, 1:06=A0pm, "ltl...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
" <ltl...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> 1. Takng a thousand lives in a summer
>
> "Some people are scared of s****s. Some cannot stand spiders. I hate
> flies. Not the small and agile run-of-the-mill houseflies, but those
> big, old, fat, plump and juicy black gadflies, who clumsily bump into
> things with a loud and annoying thump. As fate would have it, those
> are exactly the kind of flies which every day kept me company, and
> formed an inseparable part of my life in Tibet.
>
> My room is on the second floor of the house, with big windows facing
> south. When the weather is fine, the whole room is sunny and warm
> from
> morning to mid afternoon, just the way flies love it. I have never
> quite figured out how exactly the big flies got into the room. Most
> likely they squeezed in through cracks in the old windows. But I
> never
> wanted to find out, out of fear of stumbling upon a mausoleum filled
> with mummified flies. So every morning I woke up to the sound of
> several big old flies bumping their merry way from one windowpane to
> another.
>
> After the first several days of letting flies get their way, I
> decided, out of sheer species pride, that I could not let a human be
> defeated by flies,no matter how fat these flies are. So I put myself
> together and went to war against the hordes of huge Tibetan flies.
>
> On the matters of tactics, I had to devise proper combatant methods.
> Flyswatters would squash the flies into a disgusting mess. No way. So
> I settled on my own patented approach in five easy steps: 1) Tear a
> piece of toilet paper to the size of a big index card and slowly
> tiptoe towards the target fly. 2) Swiftly but lightly cover the fly
> with the paper and pin it against the windowpane. 3) Quickly twist
> the
> paper into a thin small pouch containing the fly. 4) Tie a loose knot
> on the paper pouch. 5) Dispose of the fly in a manner befitting your
> mood. This toilet paper method was quite effective for the
> slow-reacting Tibetan flies. "Probably they are oxygen-deprived", a
> friend joked.
>
> Catching flies had thus become my favorite way to start a fresh day.
> On average I caught 10 to 12 flies a day, with a record of 26. So in
> the three months of my first stay in this Buddhist land, I must have
> ended the lives of more than one thousand flies."
>
> 2. Unfair competition in business
>
> "A Tibetan friend once asked me to translate when he invited an
> American social development expert to a traditional Tibetan meal. The
> meal was really good (much better than those
> Indian-flavored-Tibetan-meals I had in the US), but a dozen flies
> were
> hovering above the dishes all the time, occasionally landing on both
> the eaters and the food. My friend shouted something to the waitress
> in Tibetan and then whispered to me: "I asked the waitress to wave
> away the flies but she just won't listen. If the American guy asks,
> you can just say that because Tibetans are Buddhists, they won't harm
> even flies. That always works." I nodded. The American gentleman
> didn't say anything about the flies, but he didn't eat much either.
>
> The Han owners of small restaurants often muse as to why they are
> more
> successful in attracting foreigners to their business than their
> Tibetan competitors. Among other things, "Tibetans don't kill flies!
> There are flies everywhere, in the kitchen, on the food, on the
> plates, everywhere. How can picky foreigners stand that? They will
> certainly go to eat in Tibetan restaurants at least once, but after
> that they will come back to my place. " To be fair, I have to point
> out that flies can also be easily found in Han restaurants, but
> customers there can take comfort at the presence of flyswatters, pest
> sprays, electronic pest killers, and various other fly control
> devices.
>
> The most comfortable havens for flies are, naturally, the Buddhist
> monasteries. I once peered into the monks' kitchen in the famous
> Jokhang Monastery. The brim of the big wok where their meals were
> prepared was blackened by swarms of flies, and big, contented mice
> roamed leisurely on the floor. I would not want to offend the monks,
> but I certainly was happy that I didn't have to eat in the monastery.
>
> Actually, there are many Tibetans that do not adhere too closely to
> the no-killing rule when it comes to flies. Once, when I visited a
> Tibetan family, the hostess opened the door for us while still
> holding
> a flyswatter. The hostess, a medical doctor in her 40s, proudly
> announced to both her Han and Tibetan guests: "There are two things I
> absolutely do not allow in my home: mice and flies! If one gets in,
> one will get killed! Ab-so-lu-te-ly! I don't care what others say!"
> Another time the young boss of an entertainment center joked: "if you
> don't kill them first, they will kill you." Later, my questioning on
> his skillful fly-killing apparently surprised a mid-aged Tibetan
> museum curator: "Does it bother you (that I kill flies)? Are you a
> Buddhist? I don't believe it at all and none of my family believes
> either." "
>
> (Quoted material fromhttp://www.oycf.org/Perspectives/9_123100/tibet.htm
> )
Well, as usual I have no idea what your point is - more racist Tibetan
ba****ng, I suppose - but I imagine that a lot of people are happy to
sit anywhere in a restaurant as long as they don't have to hear that
LT Lee guy babbling about some marginally relevant topic...
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