I took a look at your grandmothers painting. It is very nice. However, the close-up shot didnt give me more clue. A close-up of the Chinese words may help more. Anyway, the paintings scenery is very common and there are lots of paintings on similar scenes.
Chinese paintings do no necessarily come in pairs, so you may not be able to find a "companion" painting of this one. You can commission an artist to paint a similar one for your grandmother if she wants it for decoration purpose. It is not a particularly difficult painting, not in my opinion anyway. So you should be able to find someone to draw one for you for a reasonable price.
FROM:Julian Yiu
Canada - Monday, November 16, 1998 at 07:50:05 (PS
According to the following the most ancient explanation for »A·L is
what I cited. But Julian's explanation is also included as an alternative. See:
¤¤¤å¤jÃã¨å¡G¥¼¤Î¤s³»¦b®Ç«@ªû¤§³B¤ê»A·L, ©Îªx¨¥¤s¤][º¸¶®ÄÀ¤s]¡C
¤s¥¼¤Î¤W¡A»A·L¡C[²¨]¡C¡C¡C¤@»¡¡A¤s®ð«CÁe¦â¡A¬G¤ê»A·L¤]¡C
A "shoulder" near the peak is call "cuiwei", not quite the peak. Or, the
bluish green color of the mountain is also called "cuiwei".
I would go with the first explanation by º¸¶® which is the first
dictionary ever for Chinese. Judging from the naming of »A·L palace by
Tang Taizong ð¤Ó©v, I also believe he picked a name of profound meaning rather than
just by the color.
FROM:SL Lee <sllee@asiawind.com>
USA - Sunday, November 15, 1998 at 16:34:15 (PS
I would like to enter this interesting discussion raised by Alfred.
»A·L , as S.L. said, means 'blue-green of a hillside' or 'halfway up the hillside'. I think the term is used to describe the particular tint or color of a mountain ( mid-way ) that one often sees from afar . It is not »A but a little off »A ; hence the term »A·L is used. »A·L , therefore, means ·L »A . I must say this is my own interpretation and it may not be correct.
Alfred, you asked for examples of ·L used in the sense of " lacking of ". I can offer one or two. This word is only used in ¤å ¨¥ ¤å , and rarely used in the modern Chinese writing. ·L ¬ê §^ ¨ä ³½ ¥G , meaning without ¬ê , we will all become fish. ·L §g ¤§ ¬G , if not for your sake. There are lots of such examples in the old classical Chinese writings.
FROM:Julian Yiu
Canada - Sunday, November 15, 1998 at 11:09:25 (PS
Dear Siu-Leung, I'm glad having mixed up those two characters, thus getting knowledges even good old Mathews didn't seem to possess. Thank you. It's true, Chinese language and thinking (these two depend on each other and always go together) is concrete: as I've visited Hong Kong's observatory peak, I know exactly what you (and 'wei1' ·L) want(s) to say! I'd still like to know, if there - except of 'cuiwei' »A·L - are still other compounds or phrases with this specific meaning of 'wei' ·L (close to, almost, with deficit etc.).
Alfred
http://www.fa-kuan.muc.de
"Traces
of Butterflies' Dreams" - ½º¹Ú²ª
You may think of wei ·L as the root pen- as in penultimate. It means "with deficit", not quite, hiding, low, base, unworthy,.... I am only giving a few of many more meanings of wei. »A·L has to be read as a whole. If you separate the two characters, »A by itself does not mean the peak, nor even a mountain! »A·L is not halfway to the hilltop though. More like >95% to the top. If you have been to Hongkong or have seen a picture of the the observatory pavillion near the peak on the island, that fits the exact description of a »A·L«F. A «F "ting" is a structure for temporary shelter and observation for the travellers. Based on the philosophy of Chinese aesthetics, Nature should be always higher than man-made structures. A "ting" being one for the use of common people should not override Nature. The peak is left to dominate the scene. A pavillion just short of topping it can show the height of the natural peak. It allow people to rest in the pavillion and still appreciate there is something higher above. The concept of »A·L«F appears in many Chinese paintings. I think that is why Tang TaiZong named the »A·L palace. Even though he was the Son of Heaven, he is still humble under the ultimate powerful Heaven. On the other hand, a temple ¼q or a ¶ð can be built at the peak, because these are structures symbolic of the ultimate power - Buddha or the heavenly deities.
The beauty and subtlety of the Chinese language is also its problem. One word can be used in so many ways that one has to read the rest of the context to realize what the author really means. On the other hand,if the choice of words is good, one can express ultimate subtlety few other language can match, on top of the dramatic effect of the pictogrpahic expression of calligraphy. The Inuit language has several dozen words for snow/snowing. You might think of Chinese language as one that manifests the same in many more situations, substantial and abstract.
I have not used a Mac before but on Internet Explorer 4.0 and Netsacpe 4.5, my webpage show up fine. There was some change taking place from NSCP 4.0 to 4.5 about Chinese reader. I only have to set the character to "western" if I have the Richwin on. If I also set NSCP to view/character/Big5, the codes are unreadable.
SL Lee
Asiawind.com
FROM:SL Lee <sllee@asiawind.com>
USA - Sunday, November 15, 1998 at 08:06:46 (PS
Dear Siu-Leung, you're most probably right that "Ts'ui Wei Pavilion" would be fine, for one can hardly translate, just explain the name's content. Yet, to westerners this famous proper name doesn't mean nothing (but also "Pavilion on Top of the Hillside" wouldn't transport its real content: 'cui4' »A standing for the kingfisher's beautiful colors, hence is also a symbol for China's green-blue hillsides). Knowing the meaning of 'cuiwei' »A·L as the 'blue-green of a hillside', 'halfway up the hillside', I still could not imagine the exact grammatical meaning of 'wei1' ·L in this compound. Although its bandwidth spreads rather widely - microsoft, nuclear fallout etc. etc. - I didn't already know the meaning given by you (·L¨Sª¾·L·N¸q) :( Do you by chance have some more examples of 'wei's' meaning "short of, lack of"? I'd really appreciate to learn them.
> I guess the pavillion Yue Fei ©¨¸ was referring to was the one built
by Du Fu §ù¨j at south of Gui Ci Xian
> ¶Q¦À¿¤ (¦À¦{).
Yes, that's what "Song Shi Yi Bai Shou" §º¸Ö¤@¦Êº says.
BTW, I visited your site: it's beautiful, done all new with the new RichWin software. But somehow, I'm no longer able to read your Chinese encodings. I think it might depend on the fonts Macintosh cannot read.
Alfred
http://www.fa-kuan.muc.de
"Traces
of Butterflies' Dreams" - ½º¹Ú²ª
I am living in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada and I must admit I don't have the Vancouver Chinese associations addresses and phone numbers handy. I hope other readers from Vancouver can give you the information.
There are at least a few ways that you can find the information yourself:
1. Look up the telephone book and look for the Chinese associations names and phone numbers.
2. Get/Buy a Vancouver local Chinese newspaper(s) and you should be able to find the information in there.
3. Next time when you pay a visit to Vancouver downtown, just drop in one of the Chinese organizations and you'll find the information you need.
4. Make good use of the internet and search for the Chinese assoications information in Vancouver.
5. Contact UBC Chinese faculty and they should be able to help.
Welcome to Canada and wish you best of luck.
FROM:Julian Yiu
Canada - Saturday, November 14, 1998 at 18:17:24 (PS
I am, by virtue of my family, from Anhwei Province, even though I was born in Peking, now Beijing
Very confusing.
FROM:Ming Pei <pei@chinapage.org>
- Saturday, November 14, 1998 at 17:50:01 (PS
Dear Siu-Leung, ³¾ÍÁ¾ÍÊǻҳ¾£¬¿ÉÊdz¾²»ÊǼ⣡
Yes, I really mixed up something: I now remember, searching for the GB character
'chen2 in BIG5 I couldn't find it - and then somehow 'found' the similar-looking
'jian' :(.
As for 'wei/hui' ΢£¬»Õ - it came from Chih Chou ³ØÖÝ nowadays KueiChih ¹ó³ØÏØ
in Anhwei province °²»Õ, hence the erroneous character »Õ with its 'beautiful'
meaning. BTW, how would you translate Ts'ui Wei (T'ing) ´ä΢£¨Í¤£©?
Alfred
www.fa-kuan.muc.de
"Traces of Butterflies'
Dreams" - µûÃκÛ
Dear Siu-Leung, thank you for pointing at my silly typos - giving pure nonsens
to the famous poem. They must have occurred some years ago when I had to do
the boring job of typing in the whole anthology's texts. Sorry - but, nevertheless
my translations of ¹Ð¤g and ©º¦ç into German are correct. (Just this moment,
I'm experiencing a rather strange behavior while copying and pasting some Chinese
characters of your posting: some have disappeared, others have changed, e.g.
copy and past of 'chen tu' or 'zheng yi' - together - was not possible: the
second character respective always had disappeared or had been altered.)
Thank you for the hint to that calligraphy book of Zhou Hui Jun (maybe she would
allow me to put some of her brushes to my anthology. I initially wanted to have
each of the poems published together with its calligraphy.) I assume that her
book is available through amazon.com.
Dear Julian, thanks to you too for the correction. Just one note to the character 'wu' µL in Lu Yu's poem: My anthology's texts all go back to 'One hundred Sung poems' (§º¸Ö¤@¦Êº) a small booklet, first published Dec. 1, 1959 in PRCh and also used for educational purposes. The texts all are in GuoBiao, so I had to (wanted to) transfer them into BIG5 encoding. I'm not sure if it's right or wrong, but in this edition the negative 'wu' is written GB 'ÎÞ' (2nd tone - I'm not sure it displays correctly), hence in BIG5 'µL' and not '¤ð' (3rd tone). Since both characters are negatives with about the same meaning, they easily might have been mixed up with each other. If I find the time, I'll look into other sources. Since the 'shih' form of poetry is ruled by strict orders of composition, one also ought to be able to decide wether 'wu2' or 'wu3' is correct.
Alfred
"Traces of Butterflies' Dreams"
- ½º¹Ú²ª
There are two words not very clear in the last sentence, so I re-post it here. Great poem.
¦º ¥h ì ª¾ ¸U ¨Æ ªÅ
¦ý ´d ¤£ ¨£ ¤E ¦{ ¦P
¤ý ®v ¥_ ©w ¤¤ ì ¤é
®a ²½ ¤ð §Ñ §i¤D ¯Î
FROM:Julian Yiu
Canada - Friday, November 13, 1998 at 13:08:25 (PS
Paul, I think you're certainly right: I also like Yueh Fei's poetry, (especially the one quoted below for its lapidar poetical strength), not to speak of Lu Yu and his famous shih (see below). But these (very 'poetical') poems don't 'tell you a story' the way 'Cheng Ch'i Ko' does, the tragic story of Wen's very own life that - after suffering for at least 3 years - ended with his execution. Esp. in Wen's case, real life and 'words' (i.e. poetry) fit together as a convincing congruent 'whole'.
|
¦À¦{»A÷³«F ¸g¦~¦y¤gº¡¸C¦ç
|
Ching nien chien t'u man cheng i T'e t'e hsu:n fang shang ts'ui hui Hao shui hao shan k'an pu tsu Ma t'i ts'ui ch'en yu:eh ming kuei |
|
¥Ü¨à ¦º¥h쪾¸U¨ÆªÅ |
Szu ch'u: yu:en chih wan shih k'ung Tan pei pu chien chiu chou t'ung Wang shih pei ting chung yu:en jih Chia chi wu wang kao chi weng |
Alfred
"Traces of Butterflies' Dreams"
- ½º¹Ú²ª
You can use Unionway to type in the Chinese words. That is the software I use. It is not the greatest and it takes longer if you are not familiar with the input methods.
Call up the Unionway, click on ^ ¼Æ , then choose your input method. ( Unionway offers 7 different types of input method. I use the Cantonese one. ) It is quite easy to use one you get used to it. Give it a try.
FROM:Julian Yiu
Canada - Thursday, November 12, 1998 at 07:12:08 (PS
Ming, thank you for offering me the Chinese text of the canto from your Classics page, but the 'shih' is already part of my anthology, in both German and Chinese (yet the original texts are gathered in separate pages on my site). Except of the titles overview, the originals are in BIG5 encoding only - so I'll have to add gif-files some day. (After at least having the preface and the footnotes translated also into English, I hope once finding the time to make also the poems' huge notes and the poets' biographies added available to an English speaking readership.)
Wendy, running through my sources I couldn't find the saying '¤@¤s¤£¯àÂäGªê' (yi shan bu neng cang er hu). But, as the tiger in Chinese thinking is a most powerful and frightening being (people often didn't even dare to pronounce his proper name, hence e.g. calling him '¤j¦ä' big insect), he was regarded as the 'Mountain King' ¤s¤ý, so I'd guess the statement could mean: 'two (mighty) rulers never are willing to share one kingdom'.
Alfred
"Traces of Butterflies' Dreams"
- ½º¹Ú²ª
Dear Julian, that's exactly the poem of Wen T'ien-hsiang that really touched me by its poetical profoundness and lapidarity. That's opposite to western maudlin talkativeness - Wen tells of his fate's tragic decline through some plain 'pictures', at the same time professing his firm belief in the virtue of 'pure heart'. This was one of my poetical translations I really was satisfied with. I'd wish somebody could translate it adequately into English. thank you for pointing to this excellent piece of poetry.
Kuo Ling Ting Yang
Sung - Wen T'ien-hsiang shih
Hsin k'u tsao feng ch'i i ching
Kan ke liao luo szu chou hsing
Shan ho p'o sui feng p'iao hsu:
Shen shih fu ch'en yu: ta p'ing
Huang k'ung t'an t'ou shuo huang k'ung
Ling ting yang li t'an ling ting
Jen sheng tzu ku shui wu szu
Liu ch'u: tan hsin chao han ch'ing
Wir kamen durch Ling Ting Yang
Manch Muehsal ist und Plag mir widerfahren,
seit ich von Meister K'ung die erste Schrift gelesen;
Vollendet viermal der Gestirne Kreis,
dass ward zerstreut von Schild und Lanze meine Welt.
Zerrissen sind Gebirg und Strom -
von Weiden Samenflocken, die im Winde jagen;
Mein Lebensschicksal - treibend, untergehend,
wie wenn auf Wasserlinsen prasselnd Regen faellt.
Huang K'ung T'an T'ou - 'Klippen der Angst',
die auch fuer uns nur Angst und Schrecken hiessen;
Nun Ling Ting Yang - 'am Ozean der letzten Maenner',
wo meiner letzten Maenner Trauerklage gellt.
Der Menschen Los: wem waer von Anbeginn der Tod nicht beigegeben!
Bewahr' ein Herz von laut'rer Treu mir doch,
auf dass des Reiches Chronik leuchtend einst davon erhellt.
Wen T'ien-hsiang (1236-1282)
Alfred
"Traces of Butterflies' Dreams"
- ½º¹Ú²ª
FROM:Ming Pei
- Monday, November 09, 1998 at 13:26:29 (PS
¥¿ ®ð ºq was one of the must read poems in my high school days. And for that matter I can still recite a good part of it by heart.
This poem has a very unique place in Chinese classical poems because of its historical background and subject matter. Many of the Tang poems and Sung Cis " ¤£ ¬O ¯f °s ¡A «K¬O ´d î ¬î This poem is on the "righteous spirit" ¡] ¥¿ ®ð ¡^ of mankind ( not just Chinese ) and how it influences us during the most difficult times.
¤å ¤Ñ ²» is one of the most revered historical figures in Chinese history. Many people rank him the same as ½Ñ ¸¯ «G and ©¨ ¸ . I certainly agree to that. He wrote a few famous poems and I would like to share the following one with you
¨¯ W ¾D ³{ °_ ¤@ ¸g
¤z ¤à ¸¨ ¸¨ ¥| ©P P ¬P
¤s ªe ¯} ¸H · ©ß µ µ¶
¨ ¥@ ÄÆ ¹s «B ¥´ µÓ
´q ®£ Åy ÀY »¡ ´q ®£
¹s ¤B ¬v ¸Ì ¹Ä ¹s ¤B
¤H ¥Í ¦Û ¥j ½Ö µL ¦º
¯d ¨ú ¤¦ ¤ß ·Ó ¦½ «C
FROM:Julian Yiu
Canada - Monday, November 09, 1998 at 08:17:35 (PS
¥¿ ®ð ºq was one of the must read poems in my high school days. And for that matter I can still recite a good part of it by heart.
This poem has a very unique place in Chinese classical poems because of its historical background and subject matter. Many of the Tang poems and Sung Cis " ¤£ ¬O ¯f °s ¡A «K¬O ´d î ¬î This poem is on the "righteous spirit" ¡] ¥¿ ®ð ¡^ of mankind ( not just Chinese ) and how it influences us during the most difficult times.
¤å ¤Ñ ²» is one of the most revered historical figures in Chinese history. Many people rank him the same as ½Ñ ¸¯ «G and ©¨ ¸ . I certainly agree to that. He wrote a few famous poems and I would like to share the following one with you
¨¯ W ¾D ³{ °_ ¤@ ¸g
¤z ¤à ¸¨ ¸¨ ¥| ©P P ¬P
¤s ªe ¯} ¸H · ©ß µ µ¶
¨ ¥@ ÄÆ ¹s «B ¥´ µÓ
´q ®£ Åy ÀY »¡ ´q ®£
¹s ¤B ¬v ¸Ì ¹Ä ¹s ¤B
¤H ¥Í ¦Û ¥j ½Ö µL ¦º
¯d ¨ú ¤¦ ¤ß ·Ó ¦½ «C
FROM:Julian Yiu
Canada - Monday, November 09, 1998 at 08:16:17 (PS
Thank you Ming for your hint: yesterday I happened to go there also and, to
my surprise, learned that 'Okano' now also provides Dr. Eye products for the
Macintosh platform. They have a really comfortable and good-looking website
in several languages (Chinese BIG5/GB, Japanese and English). Anybody interested
in these tools might pay a visit and have a look! (Up to the moment, I just
don't know how shipping etc. will work.)
Alfred
"Traces of Butterflies' Dreams"
- ½º¹Ú²
The company has a website at
http://www.okano.com.tw
It has changed to
http://www.oknet.com.tw
Ming
FROM:Ming Pei <pei@chinapage.org>
- Sunday, November 08, 1998 at 18:07:01 (PS
The company has a website at
http://www.okano.com.tw
Ming
FROM:Ming Pei <pei@chinapage.org>
- Sunday, November 08, 1998 at 18:04:37 (PS
Sorry, something doesn't work with the Readme text (BIG5) on my server. So I post it right here (my apologize to Ming for wasting board space - but he can remove it afterwards):
¡o¡o¡o¡o¡o¡o¡o¡o¡o¡o¡o¡o¡o¡o¡o¡o¡o¡o¡o¡o¡o¡o¡o¡o¡o¡o¡o¡o¡o¡o¡o
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Alfred
"Traces of Butterflies' Dreams"
- ½º¹Ú²ª
Could anybody of you help me with a specific problem:
As you know, my machine is Apple Macintosh with CLK (Chinese Language Kit) extension.
From a net friend I learned that there is a Chinese-English/English-Chinese
dictionary for Macintosh (and also for MS Windows 95 now) by the name of 'Dr.
Eye'. As I have heard, this software is rather mighty and comfortable and I
really would like to get it - but where?? (That net friend mentioned doesn't
know either, although he's bought one when travelling toTaiwan.) He and me were
searching the web after it without success. I also checked the great Apple sites
for the dictionary, yet couldn't find it. Since I was told that the (original)
version for Macintosh was sold by Apple Taiwan, I tried to get into connection
with them from their site respective: Sending an e-mail in English to Apple
Taiwan proved to be invain - up to now there was no response. Do you have an
idea what else to do? Should I try one more e-mail in Chinese (although my stock
of Chinese expressions for computer stuff has got rusty since last corresponding
with Taiwanese companies - and pretty poor anyway)?
Clicking here, you can open the Readme text file of the software 'Dr. Eye' (BIG5 encoding). The company 'Okano' mentioned there only sells the Window version - as I was told.
Alfred
"Traces of Butterflies' Dreams"
- ½º¹Ú²ª
I'm not sure what was meant by the term 'epic' because it was used with regard to the 'Gilgamesh' epic and other great poems of genesis. If you are looking for a poem in the sense of Julian's definition ("an epic is a long poem on historical events"), I could suggest a 'canto' (ge1 ºq) done by the Sung poet Wen T'ien-hsiang /Wen Tianxiang (¤å¤Ñ²») with the title '¥¿Éaºq' (germ.: "Der Gesang von der rechten Kraft", engl.: "The Real Force's Canto") - it's poem Nr. XXXI. I like this poem very much as it tells of Wen's tragedy of life, written by him in his 2nd year of imprisonment (1279-1283) under the Yuan in Yen-Chou ¿P¦{ (Peking) area. During the about 3 or 4 months of translating the epic to German (alas, not to English) I really became very familiar with this touching work of poetry. It was a matter of my concern as a poetical translater to keep as close as possible to the original's consiseness. So (with regard to the historical background) the necessary notes became a whole bunch. Perhaps one day I at least will translate these notes into English. I wonder if this epic is available also in English translation. I'd also like to know my Chinese friends' opinion on this poem.
Alfred
"Traces of Butterflies' Dreams"
- ½º¹Ú²ª
I made a typo in my last email. The "Browse all 300 poems" is on the left hand side, not on the right hand side. Let me know if you can't locate this poem.
FROM:Julian Yiu
Canada - Thursday, November 05, 1998 at 10:46:27 (PS
You are looking for a Chinese epic to introduce to your Grade 9 students. By definition, an epic is a long poem on historical events. The one I suggest is called "A Song of Unending Sorrow" by Bai Juyi. This poem is based on the true romanic story between Emperor Ming Tong and his favorite concubine Yeung Yuk-wan. To get this poem, follow these steps:
Click on " Poetry" in the home page of this website, then click on "Other Poetry Sites ", then on " 300 Poems of Tang Dynasty", then click on the right hand side " Browse all 300 Peoms". Then scroll down to #71 and you will find the English Translation of this poem.
If you find this poem is too long for your students, you can browse other poems and I am sure you will find one suitable for them.
FROM:Julian Yiu
Canada - Thursday, November 05, 1998 at 10:38:59 (PS
Click on"Poetry", then "other poetry sites", then " By Ying Shi in (GIF) " and then "§õ ·Ô " and you will find some of his major works.
FROM:Julian Yiu
Canada - Thursday, November 05, 1998 at 09:42:41 (PS
Asia instructional materials
esp. for teachers
To all those searching for instructional materials for school purposes the following site might be helpful. It's from 'Asia Society' with the URL "http://www.asiasociety.org/. One section of it is called 'AskAsia' which also contains a page 'Instructional Resources for Educators' . Although I didn't try it out thoroughly I can say that the site looks pretty good - and could be worth a visit by all those educators showing up on this message board.
Alfred Ti@fa-kuan.muc.de
"Traces of Butterflies' Dreams"
- ½º¹Ú²ª
Look at the "Novels" page from the home page.
FROM:Ming Pei <pei@chinapage.org>
- Wednesday, November 04, 1998 at 13:58:14 (PS
I noticed there was something wrong with the Discussion page as I couldn't get access to it yesterday. I am glad it is now up and running again. I clicked on the poetry page and it was fine. Hopefully it is true with all other sections.
FROM:Julian Yiu
Canada - Wednesday, November 04, 1998 at 07:21:31 (PS
I urge you to bookmark (save) both URL of China the
Beautiful on your computer, to avoid disruption. After
the crash occurs, it will be too late.
FROM:Webmaster <webmaster@chinapage.org>
- Wednesday, November 04, 1998 at 06:42:16 (PS
Some time yesterday, the computer system where this discussion forum is hosted suffered a major failure.
After a whole day, it is finally up again, but only by using an old backup tape of many days ago.
I have restored the October discussions from my backup. But all discussions after November 1 is lost.
I will try to restore many recent updates, such as the Picture of the Month feature, as quickly as possible. But it may be several days before I will know the extent of the damage.
FROM:Webmaster <pei@chinapage.org>
- Wednesday, November 04, 1998 at 06:27:04 (PS
You can't even call a person who speaks Cantonese a Cantonese. Cantonese has two meanings. 1. It is a dialect spoken by the natives of Canton. 2. It is a term used to call those people who are natives of Canton.
A person can learn to speak Cantonese, but he/she is not necessarily a Cantonese. It can be a mistake to take it for granted that a person who speaks Cantonese, a Cantonese. I suppose that is true for all other languages. Say I learn how to speak German, but I am not a German.
FROM:Julian Yiu
Canada - Sunday, November 01, 1998 at 07:33:25 (PS
On or about the first of each month, discussions of the previous month
are moved to a separate file for the previous month..
In this way, current month's discussions will download faster.
To read the earlier discussions, click on the button below.