So the economy in Hong Kong is supposed to be bad – people were getting laid off, no salary increases, some got salary cuts, no bonuses. So then why were people flooding the malls during Christmas, filling restaurants for Christmas and Chinese New Year, flooding Victoria Park for New year’s eve “lien siu”? People weren’t even bargaining for the stuffed animals or the blow-up funnies. Vendors raised prices and people were still buying. Plants were sold out.

 

Compared to last year, I was walking down Victoria Park at 10 pm for Lien Siu, it was cold and drizzling. People just walked and “window shopped”. No one bought anything. No one bought any plants, vendors were screaming for businesses. They slashed prices and no one was buying.

 

Why is it more different this year, with the economy worse than a year ago? What I think is that Hong Kong people went through the worst, realized that they could lose all of their lifetime savings in a day. So why still try to save as much as you can? Spend some of it to make yourself happier. You don’t have to spend all you have, but at least enough to enjoy life.

Another reason was that everyone in Hong Kong realized that you need to spend to help everyone out. It’s like charity. You donate to make other people happy, Karma wise it will come back to you. So why not spend that extra $100 to help others out? If one person thinks that way, then others would too, because HKnese can influence one another so easily.

 

I’m proud of the HKnese……at least they have a different mentality than Americans!

億 萬 富 豪 淪 落 掃 街 - 自 信 三 年 可 翻 身

幾 許 金 融 風 暴 ， 他 豪 言 「 從 未 驚 過 」 ； 全 盛 時 期 ， 他 玩 遊 艇 、 名 車 ， 「 錢 多 到 要 問 人 點 樣 使 」 。 但 03 年 沙 士 疫 潮 ， 令 搞 印 刷 起 家 、 炒 樓 暴 富 的 劉 振 輝 一 鋪 輸 掉 11 億 元 ， 破 產 離 場 。 從 雲 端 摔 落 凡 塵 ， 這 位 落 難 億 萬 富 豪 曾 咬 緊 牙 關 做 「 掃 街 佬 」 。 在 僱 員 再 培 訓 局 協 助 下 ， 他 學 電 腦 、 接 受 輔 導 ， 最 近 成 功 獲 聘 ， 轉 戰 內 地 做 印 刷 廠 廠 長 ， 管 理 5,000 名 員 工 ， 並 自 信 三 年 內 可 以 翻 身 ， 「 有 信 心 ， 就 乜 都 搵 得 番 ！ 」

I admire this guy, who was once a billionaire and went bankrupt due to SARS economic downturn. When he had nothing, he went as low as cleaning the streets.

There's a saying that my grandmother always tells me, that you can never look down on a homeless, because he could very well be a millionaire once. You cannot look down on him for being a homeless now, because he could come back and become rich again. Never disrespect anyone, because one day he could be the one you will look up to.

My grandmother taught me a lot of things. She told me lots of stories that influenced me without knowing. She told me stories how she would go all out to help friends and families in need, even if she had nothing to eat. During the time she never had a full stomach, she took her sons and daughter's clothes and sent them to her relatives in China along with some salt and oil (which at that time, during the end of WWII, salt and oil were hard to get). If you have a few dollars in your pocket, your stomach still growling, would you use that money on someone else? Or would you use it to help other people? She was hungry - yet she thought about other people more unfortunate than her. My grandmother had done a lot of good deeds in her life, and I think her good deeds had passed on to me, making me more lucky than other people in life.

That's why I never fail to think about helping others. I never really know why I love to help others out, taking the extra step, using my energy and time. I know that being able to help others make me happy. Now I think about it, maybe my grandmother had influenced me a lot.

I hope that I can always keep her story in mind. I don't think I had helped enough, but compared to others, I found out that I actually did a lot more than other people already. I always don't get why most people always think about themselves first. Maybe they do not feel that giving is more blessed that receiving.

I heard that the weather pattern is going to be more extreme, and although it seems cold, the winter will start later and will end earlier. So far I'm seeing that the winter had started in the Fall and very much below season's average temperature.

Even though I took a day off for Monday, the week had seemed long. I didn't want to get anything done, not motivated.

HK New Year

I was talking to my uncle on the phone and he told me that he passed by a “gai dan jai” cart and remembered how one year ago Derick and I were addicted to Gai Dan jai and had to look everywhere for it. He thinks it’s a quick year. I think it’s not that quick.

 

Chinese New Year is here again. That makes me remember how I spent the New Year in HK last year. My mom was trying to brag and show off how I came from “America”. She made me buy American Ginseng for all my uncles and aunts (7 of them). My mom was upset that I only bought 1 pound of Ginseng for each family. Dude – the ginseng cost me $500 to buy. But in the end I left 4 lbs. of them in Boston because I didn’t see the bags.

 

I remember how my oldest uncle’s wife gave my mom 1 ounce of “Yin Wor” in front of everyone else in the family, saying to her very loudly that “it’s very expensive ga! It costs several hundred dollars one ounce ga!” So??? You think we can’t afford to buy 1 ounce of Yin Wor? The aunt didn’t give it to anyone else in the family, talk about sucking up to us. This was not nice, to give someone a very small gift and bragged about the price.

 

New Year was fun there, but you can’t really rule out the behind the scenes competition with some of these people. We are family! Some of us are pretty tight. I love my uncles, just not the Oldest ones. I LOVE my uncles and their wives, and their kids too.  I miss them.  =(  I was the center attention when I was young, because I was the only adorable kid in the family.  =) they gave me all their attention. Talk about love, my uncles gave me more love than my mother. Sigh….

 

There were a lot of other memories from last year. Some were bad, with Derick.

 

After joe and vivian's incident in December, everyone thought joe was a bastard. Everyone thought Vivian was stupid. But let me tell you, I just started reading joe's book that I bought 2 years ago, he had referenced a lot about what he thinks in a relationship. About 95% of what he said was so true, well written and straight to the point. The other 5%... well was about how he thinks all men cheat in general. He explained a lot on detail but if you read it, it's pretty entertaining.

Anyway, there's this excerpt that talked about this woman's relationship with her bf that is very similar to mine, almost 99% similar. There were other excerpts that were similar too. They made me understand more about a relationship. I admit now that I was also wrong, now I'm a little confused about my actions. I need to do more thinking.

Regardless of Joe's mistake, after reading his book, I forgive him, and I forgive Vivian. It's hard to put everything in words because that would mean I have to write a whole paper about it.

Sent from my iPod

Giving thanks

In Spirituality, we are often encouraged to give 5 to 10 thanks daily or weekly. Here are my 10 thanks for the week:

 

1)      I am thankful that I am healthy.

2)      I am thankful that I am alive.

3)      I am thankful that I have a job.

4)      I am thankful that my stomach is full every day.

5)      I am thankful that I have good teeth.

6)      I am thankful that my eyes, nose, ears, mouth are proportioned.

7)      I am thankful that I have a family behind my back.

8)      I am thankful to have a faith.

9)      I am thankful to experience life.

10)   I am thankful to have knowledge.

 

 

To acknowledge that nothing comes without a purpose. Nothing should be taken for granted. If you have never had the self-realization about it, wouldn’t you be too selfish? Hope this blog is inspiring.

 

 

 

 

Work

Back in November before I went on the cruise, my computer hard drive had broke down and I lost all my emails and data files for work. Now that I think about it, is it a coincidence, or was someone "helping" me?

The reason I said that is now that I have a new supervisor who is going to review everything I did, he asked me for all the source documents for the audit. I had to tell him that I lost everything and couldn't give him the documents. I think it's a good thing that he didn't see them. Because it was my own audit and I didn't expect anyone to review my work for 4 years, so they were all pretty much arranged for my own review. Now that I don't have any files, it's been easier and I could just slide right through the radar. I don't think I did anything wrong in my work, just that it's a hassle to rearrange everything for another person to audit my audits.

That's the reason why I don't like this work now. When we have the pressure to close audits, that's fine. But to have someone review everything that I did? Then they don't need me then! Sigh.....let me know if I am wrong about this.

I was once a writer. Writers are usually romantic people because they have an imagination.

I should be a romantic person at heart, but whether I can act it out is another story. Here's why...

When your boyfriend was unromantic and unthoughtful, how can you put your mind into it? Let's say even you try, you would be unsuccessful because all the work you had done was not appreciated at all.

So I've become a dull person.

I think my imagination is coming back though. Thank god.

I hope I can meet someone, even though not romantic, can at least embrace my imagination.

Chinese new year is coming. I sort of had a fight with my mom in sept last year. Should I call her for new year?

I'm a person who's out of sight, out of mind. And if I don't want to be upset, I just don't think about it. Or in this case, not call so I don't have to deal with it.

Is this a good way to release? I would say yes temporarily, but it won't solve the problem. Down the line if something happens again, the same thing will happen until one day I can't take it anymore.

I know this is bad...but I get so upset that the only way for me to feel better is to stop thinking about it and totally ignore my problems. At work it's similar too. If I encounter a problem I'd just put it off until it's an absolute must that I have to deal with it. I can put it off for as long as a year and when someone finally inquires about it, I had to gather a lot of courage to face it again.


Sent from my iPod

Auras

Some people say that if you are in a crowded room, you can sense and spot who is looking intently at you, that is called sixth sense. But I recently heard of another theory that's quite interesting. It's about auras.

Everybody has auras, whether it is black, white, brown, orange, yellow, you name it. When you are interacting with someone, your build up something like an invisible feeding tube linked between you and the person. Therefore, this theory leads to:

When you are staring intently at someone behind his back, he will inevitably turn to look at you, without even seeing that you are looking at him. That's because he unconsciously sensed, or detected your aura, which caused him to look. Other people call this intuition or 6th sense. But is it intuition? There's no way to say right or wrong. But it is undeniable that you can't really prove scientifically how this works without crossing the paranormal field.

Auras might be new to someone who are not familiar with the paranomics, but they are widely known to people who know these stuff. It's just a little introduction about auras. There's just a lot to it just as there are a lot to science.

Living part of History

Everyday we are living part of history. Today is Obama’s inauguration day. I must admit that my family dislike Obama very much. I must admit that I did not care for Obama and his running for presidency very much. But I must admit that I have come to like him a bit more than before. It must have been the influence from millions of people in the US, and from billions of watchful eyes around the world – everyone is waiting, hoping, praying, that a miracle would come.

Even though I didn’t care too much for Mr. Obama, I must admit that all the craze about him has made me watched him a bit more intently. Looking at his family photos and the progress he’s been making since his Senator term, he did move me a little. Actually, watching a successful person’s life of how he used to be an unknown kid and how he overcame all obstacles to become a powerful man, anyone can move me. So regardless of Obama or not, I am moved. I am glad that at least humanity can at least make a big step to admire someone for his worth, not their skin color. I am moved that millions of Americans are routing for him. So now I am watching, hoping that the millions of prayers each night would keep Obama safe.

If you screw up, Obama………..I will be watching.

Clint Eastwood's Gran Torino

Interesting to see that the theater's full of middle aged people. It was packed. Movie was good. I realized that there are a lot of people like the character Walt. who is grumpy all the time. Walt refused to open up to his family, to others. His family is afraid to talk to him in result of that. There is lack of understanding and communication with each other. Walt sometimes seek understanding and care from his sons - but if he doesn't open up, it might be hard for other people to reach out to him. But all it takes is just being understanding and find a way to go into his heart - then the path will eventually reveal itself.

Communication is based on 2 sides. It takes 2 sides if you want to make amends. One person cannot always keep trying if the other person just refuses to accept. There's got to be a balance. Things will never change if only one party makes the effort. That is something that I learned from my failure.

Back to the movie - it does take courage for Walt to "open up" and break the ice in his cold heart. Why did he suddenly decide to visit his neighbor? He was feeling lonely on his birthday. He was all alone in his house but he saw that the Asian family next door is so tight within their family circle. Maybe he decided to open up a little and venture in to see what that is all about. Then the rest is just similar to how Americans would slowly open up to other cultures and accepting the differences. We are all human after all.....we are all one kind.

There has been a rumor that my company was going to take away the whole Marketing Dept. I guess it won't happen. I can tell that they are trying to cut costs somewhere else and have the layoffs last. They had just ended our IT consultant's contract - he was a good kid! And now we found out that a lot of the senior management's BlackBerry is going to be taken away also. My boss being one of them, he said to us that he didn't think the BlackBerry being taken away means losing status - as long as his job is not taken away.

I do hope that there are no more layoffs. I mean there are no more places for them to cut! I feel bad for the rest of the world who are losing jobs. I think the impact is so big that I feel like the world's going to fall apart. No matter how I dislike my job, it's better than not having a job at all.....sigh.

Today....the sidewalk was not thoroughly shoveled so my aunt got scared from falling, so we were walking on the edge of the road. Whenever we hear a car pass by, we would stop and let them go. But today - this guy was driving a 20 year old car swore at us and told us to walk on the sidewalk. He got so mad that he kept swearing. What's so mad about? That we are doing something wrong? I guess he took it personally. But I don't know whether to laugh at him for being angry for no reason or what.

Last week, my aunt and I were leaving my grandparents' place and we were taking the elevator. On the way down, this Russian old woman walked in from another floor, and started talking with the Russian woman that was in our elevator with us. Instead of walking out to talk, they blocked the elevator door and kept chatting. They heard us started talking in Chinese, knew that we were complaining about them, then they said to us: "Can you wait 2 minutes?" The problem is - we know that old people cannot stop talking - they will talk more than 2 minutes, can't they step out and let us just go down instead of holding onto the door? We went out of the elevator instead and took the stairs. The woman blocking the door was looking at us in disbelief, thinking we cannot wait until they finish chatting. They are the ones who are wrong here!!! and they think we are wrong!! That made me so mad. Arrghhh......old people.

From Fated to Love You by 錦繡二重唱

我的快樂 Lyrics

徘了徊了走了 錯了哭了痛了
累了倦了哭了 煩的亂的冷的 都是真的
瘋的想的念的 不安的焦慮的
浮躁的夢過的 擁有的失去的 怎麼忘呢
你坐過的沙發寬了 你愛的音樂停了 我等著你等成了 擺設

我的你的他的 好的壞的難的
灰的藍的黃的 酸的甜的苦的 都還記得
非常想要忘的 絕對不能忘的
我想要還你了 真的不想要了 只得放了
環島的火車載著我第幾天了 忽然發現這一刻我不想你了

我的快樂 會回來的
只要清楚曾愛得那麼深刻 不准問值不值得
我的快樂 會回來的離開不是誰給了誰的選擇

我的快樂 會回來的
只要清楚曾愛的那麼深刻 不准問值不值得
我的快樂 會回來的離開不是誰給了誰的選擇

我的快樂 會回來的
只要清楚曾愛的那麼深刻 不准問值不值得
我的快樂 會回來的離開不是你給了我的選擇

瘋的想的念的 不安的焦慮的
浮躁的夢過的 擁有的失去的 怎麼忘呢
非常想遺忘的 絕對不能忘的
我想要還你的 真的不想要了 只得放了
放了... 忘了...

I think writing poems in Chinese can greatly express something shortly. I will try to write more.....I used to be good in writing in english too. But right now, I'll just write.

能量在宇宙是無限的
一個愛情如果完了:

愛,還在嗎?

恨,還有嗎？

緣,完了嗎?

這個結是不了完的.

來生, 還是繼續.

Just found out that another high school friend got engaged. Fun! I will probably have to go to a wedding this year and maybe next year. Good thing that I have more friends than just from College.

I guess a relationship shouldn't go for too long if you are at a financially stable stage, otherwise you would start thinking too much. I was reading my "other" private blog and I had thought about breaking up twice in a year. I guess I eventually woke up and made a decision. I can't say if it's a good or bad decision but I can say that I won't be "happy" or completely satisfied about my marriage later on. I will get to that more later on.

Wa wa wa weeeeiiiiiiiiiaaaaahhhhh…..so much work to do! So much work to do but you know what? Internet and email is down so I can’t get my work done!! I have a lot of urgent stuff to do. This sucks.

Pregnant Women

I never noticed that pregnant women usually look different from normal women until my coworker told me. Pregnant women have a glow to their skin and complexion…maybe because of the hormone changes. Now I take notice, they do look different. Even though they are plumper, they still look like they are happy in life and have a lot of confidence. They can also eat whatever they want without having to worry about their weight! I am happy for them!

I remember back in the old days, when I was in middle school, I was given a bank account with $700 in there given to me from my parents. My aunts gave me the ATM card for it, and taught me how to use it. They told me not to take the money out and spend it, but they would give me the ATM card for safekeeping. I guess they wanted me to learn about how to manage money. But back in the days there were those Sanrio stuff that I loved, and everybody in the class was trying to show off their pretty pens and pencils. Everyone back then was into YES! Cards …. I eventually had to take out money from my bank account to spend on these things, not to mention buying cassette tapes for Aaron or Grasshopper, my beloved Jimmy, Vivian, Andy, Leon, etc. Back then I remember the cassette tapes were around $35 each. Much more expensive then the CD’s!!! (Now talk about downloading for free – please buy CD’s every now and then)

 

Because I was so happy that I could buy the things I wanted, so I kept spending my bank account money. I had no control. I even bought gifts for my friends, they were so happy. It never occurred to me that I had no way of replenishing the money. It didn’t occur to me that what if one day they found out I had spent everything? I think back then, a pack of gum cost about $0.35. So I guess $700 lasted me about 3 months. Because I was secretly buying these things, I had to lie about coming home late; I had to hide my things so my family wouldn’t find out. Ever since I was young, I was so used to lying and hiding things. My life’s been full of lies. I only did it to my family.  I lied because I didn’t want to explain. I didn’t want to get lectures. I always felt like they wouldn’t understand my needs, in which to date I still think parents wouldn’t understand why their kids need Sanrio stuff.

 

Oh so that’s why it led me to child psychology. I happened to have a book at home that talked about child psychology. Maybe I was seeking comfort to be understood? I think back then that was my only escape from the consequences and reality – until I had more money to buy GameBoy in high school. I spent all my time and money on games. I was not studying.

 

In Spirituality, what you are as a person today reflects back to your childhood. Did you have any traumatic experiences when you were a kid? It could affect you subconsciously, even if it’s as little as not getting the toy that you wanted. You could actually go back to these traumatic experiences to heal them so it wouldn’t affect you subconsciously today. In Reiki, this is called healing your Inner Child. Your inner child was hurt in the past, we need to heal it so it would improve your emotions or views towards life.

 

 

Wisdom

Somebody asked me what wisdom is. And everyone tried to explain or describe wisdom. It seems like everyone has difficulties defining it.

 

First, without using a dictionary or Wikipedia. My answer to wisdom would be that it doesn’t have a solid meaning to it. Wisdom could be knowledge – knowledge of life, universe, philosophies. It comes from deep within your heart, your mind. Do not use common sense to define it – because wisdom is deeper than that. Common sense has a right or wrong answer. Whereas wisdom could be as vague as whatever your thoughts are – it is without limits, without boundaries.

 

Definition from Wikipedia:

 

Wisdom is knowledge, understanding, experience, discretion, and intuitive understanding, along with a capacity to apply these qualities well towards finding solutions to problems. It is the judicious and purposeful application of knowledge that is valued in society. To some extent the terms wisdom and intelligence have similar and overlapping meanings. The status of wisdom or prudence as a virtue is recognized in cultural, philosophical and religious sources.

 

Wisdom can be measured using the following criteria:

 

A wise person can discern the core of important problems.

A wise person has self-knowledge.

A wise person seems sincere and direct with others.

Others ask wise people for advice.

A wise person's actions are consistent with his/her ethical beliefs.

 

 

Wow, didn’t you that you can measure it. But it is pretty true. I agree with it, but that’s not all of the definitions of wisdom. Different religions have their own wisdom too! That’s why I said it’s limitless!

 

Dedication

I would like to dedicate this first posting to my angels and guides. Although I don't know if your name is really Giselle, or if I have 2 guides or more, or even one. But I really appreciate the guidance you have given me. Sam L. was right in saying that this is the beginning of my spiritual journey. I didn't know that he had started 8 years ago already. sug gain, sug gain

A lot of my thoughts and emotions come very suddenly - so I cannot go back to how I was thinking 2 hours ago. I hope that I can always capture my thoughts here. Recapturing my thoughts would be hard because I hate reconstructing something I had already done.

Hate is a strong word. That was how I felt 5 years ago. But I have been using more and more of hate. I hope I can have less of the hate and have more love instead.