Revelatio

Old days

2009-08-25T23:00:00.002+08:00

Have you ever had the sudden nostalgic flash of memory of the old days so sudden that you take a break from whatever you're doing at that particular moment to recall "adjacent" memories because you just can't help it? I had such moment today. I was listening to the radio and Mariah Carey's Without You was in the air. I liked her. And that was some 15 years ago. I remember I used to listen to her song pretending that I was more sophisticated than my peers, who listened to Chinese songs. And I remember that I used to read up all good reviews in the newspaper or magazine, so that I could read about the critics' review about her new album, so that I could recite those comments about her octave range, or something like that, and felt sophisticated by doing so. And I remember San Chin agreed with me, and made me feel great about my choice of favorite artist. And I remember we had a lot of fights, and arguments, and stupid jokes, and real laughters, all the time when we were in high schools. And then I remember the stand-up comedy in cassette tape by this I-forgot-the-name guy from Singapore. San Chin liked to mimic his accent and jokes over and over again, and it was never old, and I laughed my pants off, every time, truthfully, sincerely. It was just so, funny.

Hah... those were the days... the old days. Nostalgic memory can be a pleasant surprise. At least this one made my day, today.

Return from Hiatus

2009-08-23T20:20:00.002+08:00

I started this blog more than 3 years ago hoping to learn more about myself in the process. Well, I stopped writing about 2 years ago, for no obvious reason. Just like that, stopped writing.

Let's see if I have the will to continue this ranting, about things I observe in life. Since there's no longer anyone subscribing update from this blog, I think I can write my mind. If for some reasons you're strangely subscribed to this blog, I thank you, and I love you :)

Good News

2007-03-11T23:59:00.000+08:00

Good news this past weekend – Phil got engaged, and Jacky and Michelle are getting married in May. I am so happy for them. Even though I learned it through email, I could still feel the joy from the simple writing. It was like seeing an expecting mother. And there is something about expecting mother that glows – they are suddenly full of love and kindness. It is as if they love all the people in the whole wide world. Not to mention that there’s an aura of divinity around mothers-to-be when they are, in essence, creating life. Yeah, it was like that – I felt the joy seep through the emails. Life is beautiful.

We are really not that different

2007-02-25T12:10:00.000+08:00

"I laugh, I love, I hope, I hurt, I need, I fear, I cry. And I know you do the same thing too, so we're really not that different, me and you." -- Colin Rave

I Am TIME Person of the Year

2006-12-17T10:40:00.000+08:00

Woohoo! Congratulations to me!

Love Your Life

2006-12-17T10:27:00.000+08:00

By Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)

"However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names. It is not so bad as you are. It looks poorest when you are the richest. The fault finder will find faults even in paradise. Love your life, poor as it is. You may perhaps have some pleasant thrilling, glorious hours, even in a poor-house. The setting sun is reflected from the windows of the alms-house as brightly as from the rich man's abode; the snow melts before its door as early in the spring. I do not see but a quiet mind may live as contentedly there, and have as cheering thoughts, as in a palace. The town's poor seem to me often to live the most independent lives of any. Maybe they are simply great enough to receive without misgiving. Most think that they are above being supported by the town; but it oftener happens that they are not above supporting themselves by dishonest means, which should be more disreputable. Cultivate poverty like a garden herb, like sage. Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends. Turn the old, return to them. Things do not change; we change. Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts."

Holiday Mood

2006-12-14T23:02:00.000+08:00

I flew into Hong Kong from Shanghai this afternoon. It was drizzling at the HKIA and on my way back home. It hadn't been raining for a very long time in Hong Kong and the air smelled fresher than usual. The lingering haze since October is now gone. Then, for the first time in 2 months I open my room’s window to enjoy the fleeting fresh air after a late autumn shower. The view, although clichéd, is sparkling with Christmas lights. Combined with the Christmas Jazz music that is playing on my iPod, I’m really in a holiday mood…

Random Thoughts

2006-12-06T01:13:00.000+08:00

Taipei, 01:10 in the morning… from the view of my hotel window, it seems like the city isn’t going to sleep anytime soon; neither am I.

I can’t sleep because there are a lot of things going through my mind right now: a friend’s friend who just slashed the throat of her 3-year old son and is now charged with first-degree murder; a colossal project ahead at work to overhaul the company’s quality culture; the blood diamond article I read in Fortune magazine in-flight; the seemingly never-ending middle-east conflict and war on the news… all these, when considered in perspective, shall mean nothing when we look back 20 years from now…

Yet, they matter because I, we, live in the present time; and this is life.

Scent of a Woman

2006-11-12T00:47:00.000+08:00

I am considered lucky for not having to work on Saturday, unlike most employees in Hong Kong, so I spent most of the afternoon walking and people-gazing in downtown Mongkok. In case you’ve never been to downtown Mongkok in the Kowloon region, it is packed with people all the time, especially during the weekends. That’s what happens when 7 million people are trying to live in an area roughly one-third of Rhode Island.

There I was – walking and minding my own business amidst throngs of Chinese (Hong Kong residents are 95% Chinese) on the busy streets of Mongkok. I stopped in front of a plain looking building and saw a sign “Fa Yuen Street Public Library”. I love libraries; so I followed the crowd, crammed with 22 other Chinese in a 10-person-capacity elevator that took us to the library located on the 4th floor. The library pretty much looked like the waiting room of a DMV office. The place was packed. Half of the people were reading on rows of chairs without desk, while the other half, with desks.

All of a sudden, I saw a cute girl, 20 feet away, walking towards me. She’s one of those girl-next-door type Chinese girls you often see on campus – above-average look, casually dressed, and light make-up. I was holding a book on Italian cuisine when she passed by… How should I describe the experience? I lost my appetite on all kinds of food. It felt like a garbage truck just passed me by after picking up leftovers on Bourbon Street in New Orleans after Mardi Gras…

Okay, maybe I’m bad in choosing adjectives but you get the point. And my point, after all, is that smell is very important in the attraction between opposite sex. Hack, it is important in all kinds of engagements. First you see the physical appearance, next the scent, and finally the character. I know, it’s a trivial and common point. I just think it is funny to share this story – a brief encounter with stinky beauty in a city which never sleeps.

Peace

2006-10-21T09:46:00.000+08:00

"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones." -- Albert Einstein

Don't worry. I'm not going to write a bunch of seemingly profound yet nonsensical paragraphs about politics and society, and suffering and injustice. I just like this quote. World peace is something we laugh about when Miss Universe says it; but it is something I truly wish for.

Mid-Autumn Festival

2006-10-18T21:35:00.000+08:00

Lanterns at night.

Climbing Mt. Kinabalu

2006-10-06T14:00:00.000+08:00

Who: 4 Climbers (Mardy, Madeline, Ann, and me) + 2 guides (Dennis and Manggut)
Where: 4095-meter Mt. Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia
When: October 2-3, 2006
Weather: wet, cold, strong gale at 60 mph, very foggy.
Max. Altitude Reached: 3300 meters, Laban Rata Resthouse/Hostel

I have the perfect excuse for not reaching the summit: the park ranger did not allow us to climb the final stretch due to stormy weather at 2:30 am, even though we were all geared up and gongho to go. But the truth is, I was happy that we weren't allowed to climb. My body was low in sodium and was dehydrated the day before and hence, lots of cramps. I wasn't sure if I could make it (hey, cramp's a bitch!). In all cases, I was probably more out of shape than I wanted to admit, so I pretended to be disappointed when the ranger didn't allow us to climb.

"It's okay," I told myself. "You don't always get everything you want in life." Will I go back to climb Mt. Kinabalu again? Hey, if you're in Malaysia, and you want a climbing buddy, you know who to look for :-)

All's Well

2006-09-06T17:58:00.000+08:00

Alas, things are beginning to fall into place. My work permit application will begin next week. According to the HR, the process will take 6-8 weeks. Since I'm free to travel in the meantime, I'm going to travel around the northern part of Borneo Island - Sabah. It will give me time to think about the offer, and get to know this hidden treasure of Southeast Asia.

I have heard great stories about the 2-day hike to the summit of the 13,436-feet Mt. Kinabalu and the divers’ mecca – Sipadan Island. Most importantly, I will get to visit relatives I haven’t seen for over 15 years. And we will reminisce the embarrassing days when I was a whiny brat who liked, and still like, to eat fruits from their orchards. If the timing is right, I may even enroll myself in one of the outward-bound-school courses!

I truly believe that I’m very lucky… to have friends’ and family’s emotional support through this. If I have learned anything at all during my lone traveling days, it would be that things will always turn out alright in the end – just like everything is now.

V for Vendetta

2006-08-31T21:10:00.000+08:00

Remember, remember, the fifth of November, the gunpowder treason and plot. I know of no reason why the gunpowder treason should ever be forgot.

I watched V for Vendetta today. I must say that it is a very, very good movie. I was awed by the number of words starting with the letter "V" one can use in a paragraph, when V introduced himself to Evey...

V: Voilà! In view, a humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of Fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is it vestige of the vox populi, now vacant, vanished. However, this valorous visitation of a by-gone vexation, stands vivified, and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin vanguarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition. The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta, held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous. Verily, this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose so let me simply add that it's my very good honor to meet you, and you may call me V.

Evey: Are you like a crazy person?

V: I'm quite sure they will say so.

The story of human hair

2006-08-30T22:36:00.000+08:00

Today I decided to get in touch with my sophisticated, cultural self and visited the Hong Kong Museum of Art. There was a special exhibition of hair (see picture below). The introduction to the exhibition indicates that there are always stories behind human hair – and I couldn’t agree with it more…

I remember the hairy Russian babushka I saw while walking down the street in Moscow; she had enough facial hair to knit a winter sweater! And I remember flying squirrel’s notorious (and provocative) claim that there was a link between hairiness (and the number of apocrine sweat glands) and ethnic groups. And I remember being laughed at because I am noticeably hairless – and I retorted that my scarcity of hair was due to natural evolution, in which I have evolved to adapt to the environment, far more advanced than the great ape families. In all cases, there are, indeed, lots of stories behind all sorts of human hairs…

Shoes made of hairs neatly arranged on the floor of the modern art section.

My dad and younger sister's birthday

2006-08-29T22:07:00.000+08:00

My fault for setting a slow shutter speed for this picture - hence the blurred face of my second sister. Anyway, look at that cake! The topping is made of mango and strawberry. The middle layer is filled with mango, while the base is made of crispy white-chocolate wafers and crunchy milk-chocolate nuggets. *Drool* Slurp!

A piece of my life

2006-08-26T23:54:00.000+08:00

I may work for money, but I will give a piece of my life for meaning.

Think about it, don't we all? We all need a noble cause – something that we can talk about five years or fifty years from now because it is meaningful and we are proud of it. Yet, when I think about it more and more, noble cause will definitely demands a noble price, or some kind of noble sacrifice. Am I, and are you, brave enough to do so?

After Stalin's death, Khrushchev was addressing the Supreme Soviet and denouncing Stalin's horrific crimes against his people, who were then appalled by the unimaginable scale of Stalin's evil. Then, from the back of the hall, someone yelled, “Comrade Krushchev, you were there. You were with Stalin. Why didn't you stop him?” Krushchev paused for a moment, his eyes scouring the crowds. “Who said that?” he yelled. “Who said that?” he roared again. There was no reply. No hand was raised. After a terrible silence, Khrushchev finally said, “Now you know why.”

Courage is, perhaps, the attribute that should matter the most in life because it is the strength you need during your leap of faith. So-what if you leaped and fall hard? Just remember the man in the arena, who “at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.” After all, we are not supposed to reach the end of our journey in this life unscathed in an immaculate tuxedo. We should be grinning with few front teeth missing, band-aid all over, champagne in one hand and a chocolate-dipped strawberry in the other, and arrive at the destination on a skateboard.

I may work for money, but I will give a piece of my life for meaning… that’s what I’m going to tell my prospective employer in my next interview.

We are on a journey

2006-08-23T23:42:00.000+08:00

Toussaint’s comment reminded me of a prose I read a few months ago when I was traveling. I found this inspiring prose in the little book titled “The Most Beautiful Proses.” I bought it in Beijing for 20 RMB…

An excerpt from “Ships and Havens” by Henry Van Dyke (1852-1933):

“…wherever you are, and whoever you may be, there is one thing in which you and I are just alike, at this moment, and in all the moments of our existence. We are not at rest; we are on a journey. Our life is not a mere fact; it is a movement, a tendency, a steady, ceaseless progress towards an unseen goal. We are gaining something, or losing something, every day. Even when our position and our character seem to remain precisely the same, they are changing. For the mere advance of time is a change. It is not the same thing to have a bare field in January and in July. The season makes the difference. The limitations that are childlike in the child are childish in the man.

Everything that we do is a step in one direction or another. Even the failure to do something is in itself a deed. It sets us forward or backward. The action of the negative pole of a magnetic needle is just as real as the action of the positive pole. To decline is to accept — the other alternative.

… Are you nearer to your port today than you were yesterday? Yes, — you must be a little nearer to some port or other; for since your ship was first launched upon the sea of life, you have never been still for a single moment; the sea is too deep, you could not find an anchorage if you would; there can be no pause until you come into port.”

I am truly grateful for the many encouraging messages from all of you these past few days. Compared to life’s many tragedies and sad stories, my worries certainly sound like whining. I am alright now.

Let's Dance!

2006-08-22T08:26:00.000+08:00

I have watched this at least 5 times...
Let's Dance! on Transbuddha

Self-Pity

2006-08-21T12:13:00.000+08:00

It has been three weeks since I started looking for a job here in Hong Kong. Other than a few phone interviews and an equal number of rejection emails, there is pretty much no response from them. Morale has never been poorer. I began to doubt everything about myself, my presumably much-sought-after MBA background, my superficially multi-lingual fluency, and my bland professional experience.

Every night I gaze out of the window and see a beautiful Hong Kong skyline… and wonder when can I gaze out of the window from one of the offices over there, and then marvel at how funny life is for playing tricks on me during my job-hunting chapter.

“Tomorrow will be better,” I keep telling myself. One night – that is the maximum amount of time I should give myself for self-pity. At the crack of dawn, I must get over it.

No Great Wisdom Here

2006-04-13T00:02:00.000+08:00

Yeah. There is no great wisdom so far - no inspiration of any kind; and no motivation either. I don't know if I have been having too much fun to think about serious questions in life, or if there's no time at all to "think" about serious questions in life. Yet this I know for sure: at the end of any given day, I'm always too tired to think of anything else.

Chinese Food

2006-02-27T17:31:00.000+08:00

A butcher's stall in GuangZhou, China. The big red Chinese characters on the glass say "Authentic dog meat and mutton from Lei State." Please don't cry. Apparently fissiped mammal as food is more common in GuangZhou than I thought.

Children

2006-02-23T14:00:00.000+08:00

Picture taken at Wuhan Institute of Physical Educations. These children are usually Olympian candidates.

"A lot of people are waiting for Martin Luther King or Mahatma Gandhi to come back-but they are gone. We are it. It is up to us. It is up to you." - Marian Wright Edelman

No Blogging in China

2006-02-22T14:11:00.000+08:00

After trying to view my blog online in China for a week, I conclude that China has banned blogging, and effectively, free speech. What a bummer. I'll have to resort to email posting.

By the way, I have not seen a blue sky since February 15. Not in Shenzhen, not in Wuhan, and certainly not in Shanghai. I don't suppose Beijing will be better. Maybe I should try Hainan.

Home Sweet Home

2006-02-13T11:29:00.000+08:00

Home sweet home.

A New Chapter

2006-01-30T04:41:00.000+08:00

The first step towards getting somewhere is to decide that you are not going to stay where you are. My flight will leave Boston, Massachusetts on February 5, 2006 for Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. For the next one and a half year, I plan to set foot on the continents of Asia, Europe, America, Africa, and Oceania; and possibly Antarctica.

There is something about this particular fresh start that fascinates me – the prospect of a new adventure, all by myself, with perhaps a bit of magic waiting somewhere behind the dawn. I don’t suppose I’ll make an enormous discovery like Vasco da Gama or Christopher Columbus, but I know I will find my own adventure wrapped in a gift called “tomorrow”. I’m talking about retina-burning beaches with vodka-clear water, mountain ranges with echo-bending gorges, deserts with panoramic shimmering views stretched into crimson sunsets, Savannah lions and Serengeti wildebeest, architectural masterpieces, ancient wonders, and so on and so forth. I’m going to find something out there that only I can find – my own little poetic adventure around the world.

In the past few years, I was restless and haunted by the fear that my best years will be wasted before reaching my self-actualization goal. I pursued academics and recreational sports fervently but none gave me any sense of fulfillment. I talked about boredom but somebody pointed out that it is primarily with myself that I am bored; and that the cause of my boredom is my consciousness of a barren, meaningless existence. I cannot stand routine and constantly seek excitement and novelty to avoid boredom because I do not know what to do with myself in my free time. I have lost the concentration of a child.

Therefore, the greatest discovery I can stumble upon in this therapeutic journey is the discovery of myself. I need to see the real world with my own eyes, not through BBC, PBS or National Geographic magazines. I need to catch a glimpse of life on the road and a feel on the essentials. I need some time to chew on issues like existentialism, ambition, and professional career. I need to eliminate the chilling possibility that my life is random, accidental, and unmotivated.

Who knows? I may receive life’s most powerful advice from an old couple while sailing across the Atlantic, or find inspiration while crammed in a six-person van with sixteen other passengers. I may find buried treasures in a jungle, or as some of my friends are concerned, I may just end up with more grey hairs and less money in my pockets. I don’t know, but I’m not afraid either.

In time, at the conclusion of my sabbatical, whatever I end up doing and wherever I end up being, let this short essay be a reminder that the reason I do this is because I choose to embrace the unknown in exchange for a chance to rediscover myself; and in doing so, have an unforgettable trip, and keep on living a remarkable life without regret.

Farewell Dinner at Cheesecake Factory, Chestnut Hill, MA