Happy CNY 2006

Alright, after 4 1/2 days of CNY holiday, I am so satisfied and a bit exhausted.

I had a crazy shopping on Friday afternoon, as my company offered us extra 1/2 off. I should on behalf of HK to say thanks to my boss because their generousity helped the growth of HK economy on that day. Jeff and I went to the flower market at night, we bought some beautiful orchid to decorate our cozy little home.

On Saturday, we had a re-union dinner and stayed overnight in our parents-in-law's home.

On Sunday, the first day of the year of dog, all brothers-in-law and their families came to visit us. Everyone wore a nice Chinese traditional wear, funny funny. In the afternoon, we visited my dad and mom and had dinner with them at night.

Yesterday, we visited the biggest brother's family. We had a great outdoor 'Yum Cha' at Sai Kung beachside Chinese restaurant, it was fascinating.

Today, we had a walk at the Peak, wow the Peak was very crowded, it was almost as crowded as Mong Kok!!! Because I had gained more than 10 pounds from my pregnancy, I felt much more tired after the walk, but it was a really good aeobic exercise.

Before we went to the Peak, I had walked around the 'Page Two' (fake name) bookstore in the Festival Walk. When I was leaving, the security alarm rang. Jeff and I knew what happened already, the book 'Every boy got one' in my bag, which I bought from that bookstore several weeks ago, triggered the alarm. Although I experienced this many times before, solely in this bookstore, I still felt very embarrassed to take out my book and let the security guard to check, because people stared at me at checked whether I was a book thief of not.

Today is the third day of the new year. Traditionally, another name of today is 'Red Mouth', the old wisdom suggested that people should not visit each other on this day because quarrels happen easily. Well, seems we should believe to the custom. For that 'Became-a-book-thief-suspect' incident, Jeff and I felt extremely annoying. The security guard felt so sorry in the first place as he already knew the book I carried was bought quite some time ago because it did not look brand new. But we still rushed to the cashier and complaint to the staff. But guess what, one staff who looked quite senior (well, mature, or not young) explained to us arrogantly, 'Well we have already done what we should do, but the customers may do somethings and re-activate the alarm system. If our customers don't mind, they have to remove the security sticker by themselves.' Jeff attacked back, 'Don't you think this is your responsibility to avoid this happen and you should be the one to remove the sticker? I bet this had already happened many times to may customers before and your company should find some solution to solve the problem. You still want people to re-visit your bookstores again, right?' That bitch shut up but still was not convinced, then another younger girl apologized to us and put another sticker on the security sticker. I left the bookstore without saying a 'thank'. I wanted to say thank to the security guard as he looked so worried, as the incident was totally not related to him.

Anyway, I still enjoyed all four days.... and I haven't done any job I bought from office these days, which I supposed I should do so.... anyway, let tomorrow me to take care of it.

1/3 of 'Every Boy's Got One'

I've read 125 pages of 'Every Boy's Got One', there are 203 pages to go. I want to finish the whole book before the Chinese New Year. Have so many works to do this week, tomorrow would be a long day.

Jeff was so sweet and he listened and talked with me whenever I felt depressed in the last few days. Thanks a lot.

It drives me nut!!

Well, as an anthropology student, I always bear in mind that cultures have no hierarchy. No culture is superior or inferior than the others, every culture makes sense in its own environment.

But I cannot bear the culture in my company, which shares the idea of faked democracy amongst us - The bosses always blame how come we don't speak up what we really think, but once they know that our opinion is different from them, they suppress our thought in brutal ways.

This is a typical Asian based company. The bosses acts like parents, or even Kings, which have ultimate authority, what we should do, is to follow their 'orders'.

From their point of view, a good employee is an obedient employee, that is!!

Jesus, is it what market research 1001 taught them? Huh? I could not believe an industry which requires strong analytical skills would develop such culture. We should follow what our bosses want us to do even without a reason, and with no room for discussion at all.

So who could survive in the company, those suck-up rats!

And I felt sick for the appraisal. As I am not the immediate staff of my female boss, when I asked her to give me comment about my performance, she said she could not make any judgment on me as she did not know me well. So please tell me what is the ground for her to decide my salary increment level??!! Why didn't she consult my direct boss Jelly first about my performance in order to give me a fairer adjustment level. Maybe I could not work late every night as I am married and should spend some time to my husband, but it does not mean I do not work hard enough and get the reward I deserve.

Okay, now I am even pregnant, I am so perplexing, is married woman not that acceptable in Hong Kong working place??

Marilyn Monroe Blythe

You gotta meet my new adopted daughter, Marilyn Monroe Blythe!!!
I adopted her from JC Girls Shop. She is more than gorgeous!!
Photographer: Jeff C.Y. Yuen

Candace Bushnell & Meg Cabot

Finally, I finished the novel 'Lipstick jungle', a 432 pages book written by Candace Bushnell, the bestselling author of 'Sex and the City'.

The novel inter-webs the stories of three of the top 50 most important women in New York - Wendy Healy, a mother of 3 kids, the President of a movie company; Victory Ford, single, the hottest fashion designer who used her name as the brand name; and Nico O'Neill, a mother of a gorgeous teenage daughter, the editor of the most fabulous magazine.

Three of them were indulging in their successful career, but at the same time, they faced a lot of problems with their families, relationship and even jobs. Staying in this toughest city jungle, they struggled and sacrificed a lot to get what they believed they deserved to have.

Even all of them are in early 40s, their dedication to jobs and families, and also their confidence made them glow and charming! Women in their middle age can still be very attractive.

******

Today, I started to read another novel, 'Every Boy's Got One' by Meg Cabot. It is a hilarious story as her other novels. I couldn't leave my eyes from the book after I stuck on it. The story is fast moving and I could finish 15 pages from North Point to Kowloon Tong... I mean when I traveled by MTR. Guess I could finish it within a month!!!

I should search for other books in advance of my due date, then I could at least have something funny to read when I stayed in the hospital.

New Year Resolution 2006

Hope it isn’t too late to set the New Year Resolution for 2006:
1. Live up my talents and potentialities.
2. Read more, write more.
3. Be more open-mind.
4. Don’t be bogged into those tiny day-to-day problems or annoyance, focus on the big picture.
5. Be brave when facing difficulties.
6. Spend more time to my family and friends.
7. Strive for the balance between family and career
8. Don’t give up anything easily.
9. Don’t be trapped into any planning fallacy, i.e. being convinced to join any monthly plan but seldom use it.
10. Have confidence, do whatever I believe it is correct.
11. Be a nice girl most of them time, but not all time.
12. Keep learning.
13. Be a great working mother.

My secret Jewelry

Guess that I am not a totally grown up woman. As I still have not developed any obsession to diamonds yet. Rather, I love all those delicate tiny little decoration.

Ear-rings are my most favorite Jewelry. I love silver, pearls and precious stones.

Which pairs in the picture you like most? I like all of them, I can wear different pair everyday in a week!!

Silly rabbit in the greenery

This is the gift Jeff got from the gift exchange event of our New Year's Eve party. We have just planted it for 13 days and now the 'grass' grows more than 5 cm long.

Recently, this kind of 'ready-to-plant' pot is very popular in HK. I have just bought a pot calls 'sprout salad' from City Super, it will grow Sesame, if I am lucky.

TGIF!! TGI(B)F!

Thanks God It’s Friday!! Thanks God It’s Black Friday!!

Am feeling so sleepy, that is why I am writing this new entry during office hour secretly.

Felt so satisfied with the One Martha Gathering last night. One Martha, my Form 1 class name, it was a beautiful room filling with our sentiments of adolescence. 16 years after, several of us gathered in Kwun Tong again – myself, Billie, Grace, Ka Yu, Hiu Wing, Ho Yan and Carmen.

Laughs and sharing occupied our gathering; frankly speaking, I do not think any of them had very great changes. Billie changed most because she wore contact lens instead of spectacles, which made her eyes looked bigger.

And we have quite diversified lives and living style, everyone experienced something. Although we did not afford to have a detail current update of everyone, I can tell that each of us is embracing our adventurous lives.

Grace, you look as cute as you were.

Billie, thanks again for arranging this sweetest gathering!! Do you remember the first person who sits next to you in St. Catharine's was ME!!!!!

An unfortunate loyal customer

I am not a die hard fan of Delifrance, but I buy my take away lunch there about 3 times a week in average, because there are lack of choices for healthy food in North Point.

Unfortunately, today I got a god d$%^&*(*&^am 'rewards' from this French fast food restaurant (but with slow and inefficient service comparing with Cafe de Coral).

I bought a salad lunch set today which cost me HK$45. It is kinda expensive to me. I used to have sandwiches but today my impulse buying was definitely led by the impulse and irrational desire toward vegetable, that's why I spent the dollar stupidly to a pack of pre-made refrigerated vegetables, mayonnaise and cheese mixture.

When I opened the plastic bowl, I discovered that the bottom layer of vegetables were frozen, covered with frost, and a heartless label on the lid told me that the expiry date was today... Technically it was not expired at all, but I could tell this was definitely not fresh.

As I had to rush for a meeting, I had no time to go back to the restaurant to complain. And I also felt very disappointed that I did not even want to spend time to 'offer' a complaint to the restaurant, you know, I only complain to someone/something because I still have hope to it.

And this lesson teaches me, if I want to eat salad, it is better to make the salad by myself, because most restaurants have the same procedure to prepare salad as Delifrance.

Sea gypsies, Moken people

CBS photo

Our planet is consist of millions of different cultures and ethnicities, the world is full of variety.

In the 60 minutes plus program tonight, there was a story covered a minority group living in Andaman sea, which is along Thailand and Burma. This was one of places which faced the most serious attack of the Tsunami on Dec 26, 2005, but they had no casualties at all during this catastrophe.

It is not difficult to understand, because they are sea gypsies, they are the nomads on the sea. Unlike the so-called 'modern civilized culture' of the outside world, they have the strong intimacy to the ocean, which makes them to get familiar with the sea thoroughly, they develop the strong and sensitive sense towards the disaster. An old Moken man asked everyone including some tourists to flee to the high ground when he saw the coastline receded, he saved many lives.

There is another story of Moken which interested me a lot. All Moken people cannot tell you how old they are. According to the French anthropologist Jacques Ivanoff, in Moken language, there is no conception of 'time', they do not have a concept of 'now' and 'then', '2 years ago' or 'yesterday'. No wonder that I can see the special sanctuary on their faces, because they are so moderate and never need to rush for striving everything within any setting time frame. And for them, the question of how long the does the Earth exist in this Universe seems meaningless.

In their language, the concept 'want' is also absent. Moken people only know what is 'give' and 'take', but it seems that, innately, they do not have lush and desire as we are. Probably that they do not fight for anything, because they do not want a lot.

Here, we can see people shape their language, and how the people are shaped by their language and culture.

A great year ahead!

Dear readers, may I wish you have a joyful 2006.

My new year started with a wonderful party with my family.

On Dec 31 evening, we gathered in my parent's home to celebrate the new year and also my mom and dad's birthday. I made an Oreo cake for them. This was the first time we had such a serious birthday party for my parents.

In the party, we also had a gift exchange event. Obviously, my parents, aunt and uncle were the most exciting one during the program. My dad chose the biggest gift literally, he supposed the biggest the best! I bet that he supposed it was a bottle of wine! But turned out, it was a towel and slippers set! His mouth curled downward when he unwrapped the gift.

After that, some of them played Mahjong. And me, my sister, my little cousin and my mom sat together to see all of our 'historical' photos. We kept many albums through out the decades, from my parent's wedding to my wedding. We laughed a lot as we wondered what a big change we had in these years. We passed over various periods, from a delicate little girl, to a 'sturdy' but miserable adolescence, to a normal grown up. This was the best review by the end of the year I ever had.

Then, very old fashioned, we had the counted down in front of the TV during mid-night, and sent bliss and wishes to each others.

Happy new year to you all, wishing for the world peace and no war!

Pic 1: A bunch of gift - this were the gifts we received. I got a DIY calendar, Jeff had a lovely pot

Pic 2: Oreo cake - A birthday cake for my parnets, it didn't look very nice, but it tasted fantastic!