INCENTIVE TO BECOME LITERATE

They're pounding in the piles for a new Buddhist prayer hall a few blocks over. Which I can hear from my sheltered eyrie while smoking. It's right next to a daycare centre for Cantonese kids. Who must be terrified by the sound. "It's the boojums come to get us!" I imagine there must be whimpering and screaming. What the little tykes need, obviously, is a nice calming cigarette. Fortunately, I have exactly that. Made for delicate little hands, these fags are less than half the diametre of a normal smoke. Longish, and extremely thin. Perfect for them.

But aimed at an entirely different demographic. Probably the snarky and superior college graduate with a degree in Chinese literature, somewhere in Central China. Yellow Crane Pavilion ciggies. Very elegant and exquisite. I purchased a few packs of them last week.
No tax stamp, and rare in these parts. I don't plan to share them with the kiddies.
They're all mine. Gwan, piss off, ya little freeloaders!

黃鶴樓香煙
[Huang He Lou Xiang Yin]

At least until the day they can write down from memory all the words of the Tang Dynasty poem* by Li Pai (李白 'lei baak') bidding farewell to his good friend Meng Haoran (孟浩然 'maang hou-yin') which sad parting these smokes so delightfully recall.

故人西辭黃鶴樓
煙花三月下揚州
孤帆遠影碧空盡
唯見長江天際流

[Cantonese pronunciation: 'gu yan sai chi wong hok lau, yin faa saam yuet haa yeung jau, gu faan yuen ying bik hong jeun, wai kin cheung kong tin jai lau'.]

It is a firmly held principle of mine that one should not indulge in tobacco if one cannot read at a college level. For some of us this may be by our early teens, for too many others it never happens. A lot of people who vote and serve on juries in this great country are squidly out of luck on that score and we're forced to deal with their idiocy dammit.

We should send those off to fight in the robot wars.
Without a damned thing to smoke.



(*) 黃鶴樓送孟浩然之廣陵



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