Is the King wearing a coat?

I like being in conferences where people share ideas, where dialogues generate insights, and where our brains are bombarded with many different ideas.

I am taking part in the Critical Studies in Drama in Education International Symposium organised by Peter O'Connor at the University of Auckland. Today I was listening to a presentation that mentioned how drama tell truth through lies, and how important it is that we help people find truth through the medium of drama, when the image of a recent incident appeared in my mind.

It was a trial teaching session where one of my master students was testing out a segment of her process drama which she was going to teach in her practicum. She was doing The King's New Clothes. She put everybody in role as different characters in the story, and one of the participants was in role as the King. He mimed putting on the "coat" the deceitful tailors made for him, sat there in his throne, and there came the difficult question.

"Is he wearing any clothes?" the facilitator asked.

No one was able to answer that question.

There we saw him, the participant, definitely wearing clothes. And we had seen him, as someone doing drama, miming to put on a coat, which nobody could see for real since he was miming. And yet we were also seeing him, as the King in the drama, wearing a coat that nobody was supposed to be able to see – but God knows if any "wise" people in the drama were actually able to "see" the coat?

The image came to me as I was pondering on the questions of "Whose truth are we talking about?" and "Whose lenses are we using when we talk about truth?"

And the whole notion of truth becomes even more complicated when socio-political issues are taken into account, isn't it? Consider talking about truth in a political system where the name of an awardee of Nobel Peace Prize just never comes up in any internet search? And how about the different "truths" people hold about the benefits of economic development, say in a city like Hong Kong where the "grand narratives" on the importance of economic advancement are so strongly instilled in people that those who try to uncover the "truth" are so much marginalised and seen as deviants?

Some good food for thought indeed…

半座山

近年建立了冥想的習慣，學習打開潛意識的窗口，與自己好好對話。這對我作自療與調和情緒有很大幫助。

前陣子不知為何，心總是無法靜下來，冥想總不奏效。結果終於在上週一次冥想中，才再度與潛意識接上。

當中，我問自己的心，目前面對的挑戰應要怎樣克服？然後我見到一座高山，從中被切成兩截，上半截跑了下來，與下半截平放。

我自己的felt sense告訴了我這代表什麼，但當我把這個畫面告訴朋友時，有趣地，不同人皆有不同的詮釋。

M說，那是說山其實並非那麼高。

A說：那是說你應該將工作量減半，騰更多時間去面對挑戰。

B 說：那是說你或者並不需要爬上那高聳的山頂，下面那半座山，代表你已經建立了良好的基礎，到達一個遼闊的平原，可以做你想做的事。爬上山頂，或許很威風，但所見卻可能只是所差無幾而已！

我的詮釋與B接近，但大家得出的結論不同。冥想中，我明白到下半座山是我已經建立的基礎，我覺得山很高，但忘記了自己其實已經在山腰，要爬上去沒有我想像中的費勁。某程度上亦即是M說的「山不如你想像中高」。

但B提出了一個很好的問題：真的有需要爬上去嗎？我問心，知道此刻我的答案仍然是肯定的－－不為了登山的風采，只為了完成自我制訂的一個目標和挑戰。

明白了自己的想法，這週以來比較能靜心「爬山」，而且因為從山腰往上爬，覺得沒有那麼遙不可及，也沒有那麼「畏高」。

結果，爬得太起勁的關係，本週睡得很少。

某天當我在清晨時份仍在讀書寫作、腦袋仍停不下來的時候，我忽然有個可笑的念頭，跑出大廳向老公說：難道那個象喻其實只是說「把睡眠時間減半就能有進展」？

原來我一直不懂弄奄列

有次友人來我家開早餐會議，朋友讚我做的火腿炒蛋很好吃，我有點尷尬地回應：「謝謝！但其實我本身是想弄火腿奄列的！」

最近在網上找食譜時，看了一些短片，才發現自己原來一直不懂得弄奄列的竅門，以致一是弄得散散的像炒蛋，一是為了有完整的形狀而把奄列煎得過熟！

看過了短片示範，我方明白自己一直忽略了兩個重要的步驟：蛋剛下鑊時要輕輕攪動，最後上碟時直接由鑊中把奄列滑一半到碟上，然後再翻過來！（見以下示範短片）



至於短片中那高難度的拋鑊動作，大可略過，因我沒有那麼做，依然可以製作出生熟度適中的漂亮奄列！

看！