REBELS DOWN FROM THE HILLS

Mice and rats hop when they go through the grass. Which they do, five or six of them at the same time, because there are wildflowers there. Tasty! Yesterday I observed several of the adorable little vermin nibbling the flowers. And I conclude that they are not scaredy or timid, but cautious. As anyone that small should properly be.

You will no doubt be pleased to hear that I do not eat mice. Or rats.
It's not a bad habit into which I inadvertently fell.
Not a fondly held part of my youth.


Yesterday evening after a tea-time snack and a cuppa I wandered past the park with my pipe. First I counted the vargrant and loonies there, then I got sidetracked by the small grownish-grey blobs in the grass. With long tails. Hopping.
More of them than weirdoes.

Of course I didn't go into the park, seeing as smoking is expressly verboten in the municipal greenswards, and what with not being Chinese I can not convincingly argue with a constable that 我唔識講英文，亦都唔知你講乜鬼嘢，老細，你快啲走。So claiming that I didn't speak English would not be believable, especially if I did so in Cantonese. And trying it in Dutch ("ik weet niet waar ge 't over hebt, ouwe kerel, donder dus maar op") even less. Everyone knows that Netherlanders on the whole speak excellent English.

我唔識講英文，亦都唔知你講乜鬼嘢，老細，你快啲走啦: don't understand you, now shog off ('ngo m sik ying man, yik dou m ji nei gong mat kwai ye, lou sai, nei faai di jau laa').

Pipe smoker outside, crazies within, and hoppity hoppity hoppity.

Somewhere in South China, below the passes, is the grave of the first Chinese person to settle in Kwangtung. Of whom nothing is known. Maybe he was fleeing conscription or the tax man, or perhaps he was wanted for lawbreaking. Or she was escaping from an abusive husband and vile in-laws. Possibly whoever it was just wanted to open a mahjong parlour and rake in some dough without upsetting or including the magistrates.

The only thing of which we can be reasonably certain is that that person had a cavalier disregard for restrictive rules and regulations.

No smoking signs everywhere.
Forsooth.



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