作者：陳錫蕃 2011/05/10 14:55:00
去年12月底，菲律賓破獲一起兩岸合夥的跨國詐騙集團，其中包括14名中華民國籍嫌犯，卻遭菲國政府以兩岸有「司法互助協議」為由，遣送到大陸就審，掀起 軒然大波，至今讓國人記憶猶新。為避免類似憾事再度發生，菲國目前積極推動和台灣的「司法互助合作機制」。
「司法互助」一詞自扁家海外洗錢案爆發後，已經成為國人耳熟能詳的法律用語，惟不少台灣英文媒體未能理解其真義，故望文生義，將「司法互助」直譯為 mutual judicial assistance或judicial cooperation；由於judicial一字在英文中指法院及法官，涉及「審判」，一旦將mutual judicial assistance或judicial cooperation譯回中文，就會變成兩國法院之間的「互助審判」，實世所未有。
「司法互助」主要是締約雙方同意在司法案件中由檢察機關協助提供與案件相關的證據（詞）和資料，以利進行犯罪之偵辦、追訴與審判，宜譯為mutual legal assistance in judicial matters。例如我國與美國在2002年簽署台美刑事司法互助協定，中文全名為「駐美國台北經濟文化代表處與美國在台協會間之刑事司法互助協定」，英 文全名為Agreement on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters between the American Institute in Taiwan and the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the United States（簡稱AIT-TECRO Mutual Legal Assistance Agreement）。
其實類似的例子不少。首先，「杯葛」一詞在國內報刊文章頻繁出現，惟誤用情形屢見不鮮，國人似已習焉不察。例如今年4月，總統咨請立法院同意提名大法官， 惟若干人選因「恐龍法官」和綠卡風波引發爭議。據媒體報導，在野黨要求總統府重新提名，揚言否則將「杯葛」大法官人事案付委。事實上，「杯葛」一詞在此係 誤用。
「杯葛」係英文boycott的音譯，意指「以拒絕使用、購買，或商量，作為抗議或壓制的手段」（to abstain from using, buying, or dealing with, as a protest or means of coercion）；簡而言之，即拒絕參與或拒絕往來。
1950年代，美國南方阿拉巴馬州蒙哥馬利市（Montgomery, Alabama）實行種族隔離政策（segregation），規定公車前排座位保留給白人，黑人搭乘公車只能坐後排座位，且當前排坐滿時，白人有權要求 後排黑人讓位。不料，有位黑人婦女羅莎．帕克斯（Rosa Parks）因為拒絕讓位給白人而遭警察逮捕，造成逾五萬名黑人在1955年發起「罷乘公車運動」，並呼籲以私家車共乘（car-pool）的方式來代 替，竭力抵制種族隔離的法律，結果迫使當地政府在1年後取消該項隔離政策。蒙哥馬利市「罷乘公車運動」是歷史上「杯葛」行動中著名的例子。
1960年，日本首相岸信介（Nobusuke Kishi）在反對黨退席（即「杯葛」）之下，強行通過《美日安保條約》，引發日本國內大規模「反安保」抗爭。美國總統艾森豪因此取消原訂訪日行程，岸信 介也在條約生效後不久宣布下台。是為另一著名「杯葛」的例子。
反觀所謂「杯葛」大法官人事案付委，照字面解釋，理應拒絕出席投票或至少是退席抗議，即比照去年為「杯葛」兩岸經濟架構協議（ECFA）退出立院臨時會一 般。
事實上，一黨黨團在某案中選擇出席投票。儘管該黨立委在議場舉牌抗議，企圖妨礙議事進行，仍稱不上是「杯葛」，就算是爆發肢體衝突或打群架的行徑，頂多稱 之為「阻撓」立法，即英文的block或stymie。惟此次國內某英文報下標某黨“to boycott nominee screening”，硬是將「阻撓」譯為「杯葛」，以致報導失真，亦恐誤導國際讀者，不可不察。
其次，兩岸去年6月簽署ECFA並在9月完成換文後生效實施，兩岸經貿關係自始邁入歷史新頁，當時國內媒體紛紛開始討論「後ECFA時期」，至今不改。殊 不知按其字面邏輯解釋，ECFA才完成換文，卻要馬上走入歷史，不禁令人皺眉。
英文中常見「後（post-）某某時期」一詞，post即after，解為「之後」，例如戰後（post-war）指二次世界大戰結束後，又如「後冷戰時 期」（The Post-Cold War Era）指冷戰結束後，以美國為首「一超多強」的格局。蓋達組織（Al Qaeda）首腦賓拉登（Osama Bin Laden）週前遭美軍擊斃後，全球反恐作戰進入「後賓拉登時期」（The Post-Bin Laden Era），各國開始憂慮報復性攻擊。
同樣地，ECFA第一波早收清單才於今年元月一日起生效，許多ECFA後續談判尚未展開，倘稱現在為「後ECFA時期」（Post-ECFA Era），那麼歐巴馬總統在2009年1月宣誓就任後，美國豈非就進入「後歐巴馬時代」了？
立法院本月3日三讀通過「會計法」修正案，為包括分屬兩黨的百餘位政府機關首長，因支用和核銷特別費所引發的司法爭議解套，國內媒體多以「特別費除罪化」 做為標題來報導，聽來似乎言之成理，其實也不符邏輯。
蓋除罪化（decriminalization）一詞係指透過立（修）法程序讓原屬非法者合法化，例如政府可以設置紅燈區，使性交易除罪化，也可以設置博 弈特區，使賭博除罪化。特別費本身並無涉違法的問題，本次修法的標的是違法使用特別費的行為，故應改稱特別費違規案件除罪化 （decriminalization of discretionary fund transgressions），才符合事實。
新聞報導求其準確性，不外乎反映新聞從業人員的專業素養。惟每見國內媒體用字遣詞有誤，如鯁在喉，不吐不快。囿於篇幅，本文僅舉數例，未來有機會當續為文 討論。
轉自於 http://global.cna.com.tw/Detail.aspx?Category=mastersforum&id=201105100001
2011年5月12日 星期四
2011年4月11日 星期一
Reveling in the real Taiwan
I was very happy to find out another good article about the place where I came from. Proud of Taiwan.
Washington Post, By Erin Meister, Friday, April , 12:20 PM
At Taiwan’s Taoyuan International Airport, a customs agent takes my passport and eyes it suspiciously. He looks up at me, one eyebrow raised. “Why have you come to Taiwan?” he demands.
“I heard it was a beautiful place,” I reply nervously, and the official’s gaze suddenly softens. He clutches his hands to his heart and grins widely.
“We are so happy to have you here,” he says. “I hope you find it beautiful, and tell everyone where you are from how friendly we are.”
Then he stamps my documents and waves me in, beaming long after I pass through the airport doors.
Although it has something of an international reputation as “China lite,” Taiwan possesses a vibrant national identity and pride of its own. Despite (or perhaps because of) lingering Chinese, Japanese and Dutch colonial influences, the sweet-potato-shaped island has fought to express its cultural, economic and political independence, and a strong youth culture combined with the marks of more than a dozen aboriginal tribes lend it today a dynamic air of self-rediscovery.
My delight in exploring the country’s capital city, Taipei, comes after I shed any lingering dreams of pagodas and rolling rice paddies; instead, I quickly learn to love slipping through dark, dusty doorways into shops, restaurants and seemingly secret cubbyholes where cool urban natives and hip travelers go to find the real Taiwan.
That’s what I’m after on this trip: Local color in every shape and form.
Thanks to the country’s rekindled pride, “Made in Taiwan” no longer implies the cheap production of plastic novelty items. Instead, it signifies a newfound emphasis on the local designer, the unmistakably Taiwanese artisan.
Finding them, however, can be difficult. Some of Taipei’s most adventuresome and innovative producers are tucked into the city’s claustrophobic back alleys. You have to brave the many mopeds whizzing recklessly by to reach them. But the peril’s worth it.
I discover an undeniable diamond in the rough in Figure 21, a don’t-blink sliver of a leather-goods boutique hidden in one of the East District’s many unassuming corridors. Each piece here — deliberately cockeyed change purses and meticulously hand-stitched saddlebags — has a personality of its own. The buttery-warm smell of leather hangs in the air of the studio-like boutique, where rough-and-ready briefcases rest casually alongside oddball knickknacks and vintage books, as though absent-mindedly left behind on a living-room shelf.
Venturing northeast, near the Zhongshan MRT Station, I pop into another pair of local-focused shops for a quick look around — and end up losing much of an afternoon. At the quirky, minimalist Booday, I score an armload of unique, hipstery goodies, giddily browsing through stacks of chopsticks in hand-sewn pouches, off-kilter canvas bags and playfully rough-hewn jewelry. Founded by a group of friends as a design label in 2003, Booday not only produces its own line of screen-printed notebooks that sell for about $6-$10, carry-alls ($50-$76) and T-shirts ($15-$30), it also stocks and promotes local art and artists and publishes its own quarterly magazine. In the homey upstairs cafe, I can’t decide whether to munch a house-made sandwich or get lost among the stacks of CDs by Taiwanese musicians. So naturally I find time for both.
Next door to Booday is Lovely Taiwan, a not-for-profit shop focusing on aboriginal handicrafts and art from outlying villages — from intricately detailed animal statuettes (about $26) to hand-woven fabrics adorned with native patterns (about $40). At first drawn to more banal goodies such as soaps peppered with dried local herbs, I soon find myself puzzling over a set of beautiful bottles of honey- and plum-infused drinking vinegar for about $12. A sweet-and-sour favorite throughout East Asia, sipping vinegar is often served in small cups between meal courses, purportedly to aid digestion and balance your pH. Dozens of mass-produced varieties are sold in the island’s labyrinthine grocery stores, but I was pleased to find small-batch flasks to use as an unusual cocktail mixer back home.
From mid-May, when the humidity skyrockets, sunbrella-toting locals forgo the charm of the shopping alleys to duck from one mammoth air-conditioned department store to the next. While Western designers are well represented here, most of the better malls feature local producers as well; I happily skip past racks of Calvin Klein jeans for hometown hoodies by T-shirt designer ’0416.
At the Xinyi District’s not-just-books flagship Eslite Bookstore, you can meander through seven floors stocked with gorgeous tea sets, funky pillows, hi-tech gadgets and unique stationery from Taipei-based craftspeople. Of course, the books are notable, too: The stunning photographs in such regional tour books as “Taiwan Tribes Travel” by the local publisher Guide make them great souvenirs even if you don’t read Mandarin.
Department store food courts, meanwhile, offer some of Taipei’s most delicious and inexpensive bites: crave-worthy shaved ice topped with fresh fruit (tsua bing), sizzling bibimbap (rice with vegetables), made-to-order sushi, fried rice, barbecue and even the odd twist on Western food (cone-shaped pizza, submarine sandwiches stuffed with sliced fruit). Staking out a table can be stressful, but no one seems to mind my hungry hovering as I wait to pounce on a seat.
Some malls boast fantastic sit-down eateries as well. The famous xiao long bao (steamed soup dumplings) at venerable Shanghai-style chow house Din Tai Fung are worth the long wait for a table on the basement level of the Fuxing District’s Pacific SOGO department store. Huge glass windows separate hungry patrons from the dumplingistas in the kitchen, so you can watch them hand-rolling each perfect little pouch.
Classic pork dumplings arrive screaming hot, and waiting for the morsels to cool enough before sucking out the broth is a challenge. Despite the warnings on every table about proper soup-dumpling technique, my tongue wags painfully after the first bite. Once they’re cool enough, though, the soft, salty snacks disappear quickly.
Probably no comestible is as quintessentially Taiwanese as the xiaochi, or “little eats,” found at Taipei City’s night markets. Some of these nocturnal haunts are meandering collections of stalls and food carts on streets lined with clothing and record shops (such as the Times Square-like Ximending marketplace). Others are more formal structures. The oldest of these is the covered food court at Shilin, where diners have sampled the wares of more than 500 peddlers since 1910. Year-round, a crush of students, midnight noshers and hipsters fills the pleasingly run-down enclosure lined with stalls hawking deep-fried milk, oyster omelets and da chang bao xiao chang (literally “big sausage wraps small sausage” — the little sausage is pork, stuffed inside a casing made from compressed glutinous rice).
I brace myself for another culinary rite of passage: trying chou doufu (“stinky tofu”), fermented blocks of spongy bean curd often served deep-fried and topped with pickled vegetables and a gooey, bittersweet sauce. The snack’s stench varies from vendor to vendor, but its bark can mercifully be worse than the first bite. Pleasantly chewy, it has a slightly sour flavor with a pungent, mustardlike kick.
In daylight, Taipei has a run-down quality that no one would blame you for describing as dingy. Summer’s extreme humidity leaves tracks of mold on many facades. The modern, glass-fronted buildings surrounding the massive skyscraper Taipei 101 in the Xinyi District suggest a shift toward cleaner, starker development, but a trip to older parts of the city reveals hidden corners untouched by modernity.
The oldest section, Wanhua, with its winding corridors and quiet decay, offers a glimpse of the city’s bygone days. At its bustling heart is the busy Longshan Temple. I bump past a flurry of tourists, worshipers and monks selling prayer beads outside the gates to reach the controlled chaos within, where hundreds of faithful light incense and present offerings at myriad shrines to Buddha and other deities.
Students in starched uniforms are a common sight here, coming to plead for high marks on exams and good news at the end of the school term. Other visitors leave gifts of remembrance or tokens meant to assist the unlucky in love.
In the temple’s shadow is the claustrophobic artery known as Herb Alley, a hub for Chinese-medicine vendors. Pushing past loosely bundled dried roots and dried shark fins dangling from hooks, I peruse open bags of exotic dried mushrooms, fragrant rose petals and pungent tangles of ginger and ginseng.
A short walk from Herb Alley is the city’s wholesale fabric district. At its nucleus stands a crumbling two-story building crammed with textile merchants advertising silks, satins and variations on the most popular local pattern: a vibrantly colored background splayed with peonies or other bright flowers, often referred to simply as “floral cloth.” After bargaining with a vendor selling the stuff sewn into pillowcases, I snatch it up elsewhere by the yard to use as eye-catching gift wrap.
Interested in more time travel, I take a leisurely day trip to the lush tea-growing region of Maokong, which involves a breathtaking if vertigo-inducing sky-gondola ride. The mountain’s former fame as an oolong-producing region has faded, but the gondola’s slow, 25-minute climb gives you an incredible bird’s-eye view of tiny backyard vegetable gardens and temples snuggled in the dense foliage below.
Once in hilly Maokong, I have some serious hiking to do before reaching the strip of Zhinan, the main road flanked by teahouses. I settle on a teahouse high atop a ledge for the fabled tea ceremony: a way of systematically brewing and re-brewing the leaves to draw out their flavor.
There’s often a little wistful local mysticism offered while the oolong unfurls in its clay pot. “I grew up here, and moved to the city as a young man,” the tea merchant says quietly as he pours bitter green liquid into my cup. “It gets so dark here at night, some people are afraid. But I missed this place, and I came back. I’m not afraid of the mountain. It is my home; I am from here.”
Just like the steaming cup of tea before me, he is very proudly made in Taiwan.
Meister is a New York-based writer, coffee professional and author of the blog the Nervous Cook (www.thenervouscook.com).
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