April 30, 2004 (Fri) Cloudy

I had attended a 'Creative & Positive Thinking' workshop with my friend many years ago. She believed it would be very good for me, because I seldom had smile shining on my face at that time. In the workshop, I could remember the instructor taught us to understand our feeling, and to listen our passion and soul. She also suggested us to have meditation every night before bed. Frankly, I could not get a lot from that class, surely it was my own problem, I did not totally open my heart to this new learning.

The wisdom of positive thinking existed a long long time ago, but it became a popular topic in the recent decade. Lots of seminars and self-help books talking about Emotional quotient (EQ), Adversity quotient (AQ), self growing and development.

This Wednesday I met one of my closest girl friends for a yoga class. She is a believer of positive thinking, human's energy and karma. It is just similar to other people who believe in gravity, correlation and the Universe. She knew that I felt desperate recently, then she suggested me to have positive thinking. She said If you believe you could achieve something finally, then this energy (I guess it means psychic energy) will interact with the Universe, and you dream may finally realized.

Then I tried to think and act positively, I seized all chances, and then I received several good news this weekend. I should say a great thanks for her.

It reminds me that when I have the last Religious study class in my Form 5, we were nervous about the Hong Kong Certicate of Education Examination (HKCEE, a public exam in HK), our bible teacher Mrs. Chung sent us her favourite quote as an encouragement: "God loves you and have a wonderful plan in your life!" It is a quote from an Anonymous.

April 27, 2004 (Tue) Fair

Today is my 27th birthday, I believe I should write down something, but today I just feel blue and have no special feeling.

Then now I am having a retrospect in my mind how I lived the past 26 years.

When I was a tiny kid, I guess around 3, I loved drawing. Once I had drawn dozen of chicken (with a hen in front of the line) on the wall, my parents felt angry and hit me heavily (physical punishment was acceptable at that time). Then they bought me a set of crayons and note pad and I was only allowed to draw on the note pad. Then what I did when boring was drawing.

When I was a primary school student, competition started among classmates, mom & dad always told me studying hard was my responsibility, their repsonsibility were raising the family. In that age, I felt that I started to have desire in this materialistic world, I wished to have those fancy stationaries my classmates had, like Hello Kitty eraser, Melody note book, etc. I think the comsuming culture of children in that decade was highly influenced by the Japanese culture.

It was my great fortune that I have a great daddy, at that period, my daddy introduced me a lot of local and foreign great novels, including Jane Eyre, Great Expectation, Love Education and Garfield comic. It aroused my reading interest. I visited library every Sunday, accompanied with my daddy and sister. My mom was a traditional decent housewife, she would prepare the meal for us at home.

When I was a secondary school student, my parent thought that I was too quiet and too shy, they encouraged me to participate in lots of extra-curricular activities. It was honestly, quite different with other parents' practice. They suggested me to join the Girl Guide community. I realized that the girl guide activities did totally change my personality. I became a confident person to offer public speech. In Form 2, I decided to join the life-saving team in school, I suddenly grew much taller in that summer as I kept swimming practice through the whole summer. My happiest time was in secondary school, I somehow enjoyed the school life, I studied in a girls school, our school motto is Brave, Gentle and Sincere. Mostly, our girls were brave, partially sincere but not gentle. We were as active as boys.

I found that my personality had great transformation when I had dating. I became much more girlish and sentimental. I seldom cried when seeing tragedy before, but then I usually associated my feeling to those movie characters and cried a lot. And I also found that someone you supposed he loved you will hurt you bad. They were different from family members, friends and classmates I met before in my life. I found I became more fragile and pessimistic, I started to hate myself at that moment.

It was my great turning point to meet my husband Jeffrey. He gave me a role model of how to live in an optimistic way, his life was not smoother than anyone of us but his mentality and value was great. Surely Jeffrey is not a perfect person but he is flawless to me.

After we became together, I worked harder in my study, and lived healthier than before.

In 2001, I made a brave (or silly) decision to quit my fairly good job to study Anthropology. Studying something you're interest in but without any economic value seems crazy in Hong Kong, but I wanted to walk my path different from others, then I met lot of smart people and good friends. I had no income that year, but thanks so much that my parent gave me some pocket money. I would not forget how they supported me to actualize my dream. At that year, I grow a lot mentally. I experienced what eternal happiness means, I put greatest effort in my study and cut all the material consumption. The feeling was just fantastic.

Now I had got married with my beloved husband, I still had a close connection with my parental family, especially my lovely sister. My life is blissful and full of joy. Difficulties and painfulness only polished me to be a stronger person.

Sunday, April 25, 2004 (Cloudy and shower)
Something I want to jot down today:

* I have no guts to use the free Dior skin foundation sachet sample which stuck on the ad in Marie Claire.
* I cried when I saw Big Fish in theatre, no one except me cried.
* Hot yoga practice improves my body strength a lot, but I have not experienced the positive effect on my emotion, I guess I should put more effort in meditation part.
* I bought a Tony & Tina eyeline pencil, it is royal blue color, it helps me to complete a chic style makeup, my sister also bought one.
* Someone drank a can of China made beer with poor quality, I do not need to give him a lecture, he had his own self-learning lesson, because he had headache and butterfly in stomach. (Dear someone, you know I am talking about you).
* My sister sent me a bottle of Kenzo perfume (Limited Edition) as a birthday present, I love the scent so much.
* The summer is appraoching, my lavender at the balcony grows strongly and prettily.

April 22, 2004 (Thu) Sunny

Last night I had a nightmare.

I dreamed I was sitting in an examination of Chinese literature. I had great confident on this paper (I usually had good result in my Chinese writing). My friends asked me to sit besides them. However when the examination almost started, I found that I was sitting in a wrong place. Then I found my right place and stayed there breathlessly. When the examination started, I found that the exam paper was for junior form but not my level. I raised up my hand and asked the examiner for the correct paper.

It was what ashame that those examiners just stood in front of me and kept chatting, no one realized that I was in need of help. Then a boy sat besides me brought me out and searched for a correct paper. When he found it out, the chief examiner suspected that we were stealing the paper or intended to commit any cheating behavior. I felt so frustrated and complaint that it was their responsibility to keep an eye on student who needed help, and it was their fault to send me the wrong paper and wasted about half an hour. The examination time was only two hours.

I kept complaining and explaining until I woke myself up... So every Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung or Abraham Maslow, if you know any implication of this nightmare, please send me an email, thanks.

April 19, 2004 (Mon) Sunny

Today is a lovely fair day after the heavy downpour last Saturday, the spring breeze wipes across my face. But today is not a very nice day for me. I slept late last night and then got headache this morning, the feeling is like hangover after a party, I did not go to any party but had hiking in the afternoon and back home after dinner.

Since I have quitted my job, I would not have a proper lunch if I decided not to go out. I live in the middle level of a hill, there are no convenient store nearby, and I am too lazy to grap my shoes and then walked to downhill for a bowl of noodle, therefore I used to stay at home and eat biscuits or cereal. This afternoon, I worked hard on sending job application and then I skipped my lunch. Instead, I remeber to take two capsules of green tea supplement (it is my new habit, to fight against the antioxidant, which described on its bottle). 10 minutes later, I felt sick and threw up, then I realised that I forgot to eat enough before taking the supplement.

I think I am silly and act like a twelve years old.

Last Saturday is my nephew Lok Lok's birthday, a bunch of kids were invited, thousands of birthday presents were upwrapped and all kids played crazily. The living room became a battlefield. I do love children but such scenario suffocated me. You have to be patient and energizing to be a parent!

Kids are monsters with angel faces!

April 14, 2004 (Wed) Cloudy

I've read an impressive article in Marie Claire May, 04 (UK Edition), the title is 'How does ages change your body?' 9 woman in their ages from 15-62, showed their totally naked bodies confidently and shared how they perceive their bodies.

Joy Hussey, 62 years old in size 12 is the most beautiful women among them, she looked fabulous and confident. She said she did ballet a lot when she was young and could maintain muscle tone and body shape even after her second child birth when she was 37. Joy believed that she looks prettier than 20 years ago, even some wrinkles crawled over her face, she thought wrinkles made her looked interesting.

Another girl, Aurora Fleming, 19 years old in size 8 is young and attractive, but she thought she was too skinny and not sexy until she met her ex-boyfriend three years ago. He let her understood that not all men love curvy blondies.

Women always concern about their outlook, many of us do not satisfy with our body and appearance. Under the enormous social pressure, we try to lose several pounds everyday, we are forcing ourselves not to eat as much as we like, we hope to look like sexy goddess likes the image of celebrities and models in magazine or TV. Hundreds of ads with slim bodies (even skinny bodies) bombard us everyday. It seems that it is a guilt if you do not look perfect. However, in this article, I found that even slim girl like Aurora thought she was invisible because of her size 8 body. What we should learn is to love our body, to accept our appearance, it is the gift from our parents.

Petra Joy, 40 years in size 10 mentioned that her male colleague said the sexiest woman is the one being confortable and confident with their naked body. She is a erotic firm producer.

I hope every girl could now start to live for themselves instead of for others' comment. It will make them happier.

April 6, 04 Cloudy

Last Sunday was Chang Ming festival, a day for people to worship their ancestors.

That day, I joined my husband's family and visited their home village in Dongguan. That village located at suburb area of Dongguan, it is a single lineage village. All residents had the same family name YUEN, which is also my husband's family name.The whole village participated agricultural acitivities in the previous time. Many villagers had already moved the city centre, Hong Kong or oversea to involve in the totally differnet lifestyle.

All ancestors' grave yard just situated besides farmland or fish pond, it is really shocking me. 'Didn't the villagers scare when they worked in farmland and when they pick up their head, they could see the grave in front of them?' I asked my husband, then he said the villagers believed ancestors are their family members or neighbours, they would not hurt them, and even hope to get closer to them, to form a link in their daily life. 'Of course,' he added, 'It is not the same story if the dead was someone you hated, people may spit on one's grave when everytime passed by.

Therotically speaking, graves there cannot be claimed as graveyards, because the bones of each ancestor were stored in a ceramic container and exposed on the ground. People digged a very shallow hole on the ground and put it there and secured its position with stones. There is then no name indicated of someone who is R.I.P. Almost the whole container could be seen. When their decendants visit the grave, they would dig a handful of fresh soil and put at the top of the container. Therefore the more frequent the decendants 'sweep their grave', the taller the 'tower' of the soil on or besides the container.