26 September: Happy Birthday, Jacky Wu!

7 May 2007: Amandae and my Hong Kong friends!

We visited the Kowloon Park with our Canadian friends, and I'm happy to know Amandae, Ying Hui and Hui Ping even better through this trip to Hong Kong! We had a sumptuous dim sum lunch at Professor Graham's treat, followed by a group visit to the infamous Chungking Mansions. It was my first time there despite many previous trips to Hong Kong.

I met up with Debby in the evening, and she treated me to a kebab spread before we went to meet Fatpo at a dessert outlet (by the popular franchise 许留山). I had my favourite mango sago called 杨枝甘露 there while catching up with them on our lives and future plans. I was truly happy to have visited Hong Kong, my most preferred travel destination, again within mere months. Amandae will be heading for Hong Kong in the coming weekend, with my shopping list to look at if she gets too bored on the plane.

6 May 2007: Avenue of Stars, Hong Kong

I had gone to Hong Kong in May for the UBC-NUS Summer Programme to learn more about the Chinese Diaspora and migrations in Asia. Coincidentally, Francoise, Hisashi, Marvin and Jasmine were holidaying there as well, so I met up with them in the wee hours of the morning after my hectic schedule earlier in the day. We had drinks and snacks near the Avenue of Stars at Tsim Sha Tsui, and strolled the promenade before parting ways. That was the last time I saw the former three, whom I have known since last year in Taiwan. I often wonder how they have been so far. Wonder too when we will meet again in the near future.

Will I Survive?

I am currently taking 6 full modules that weigh 24 MCs in total, of which 1 is a level-5000 Course-Based Module offered at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy and 2 are level-4000 Independent Study Modules taken with my favourite professors back at the Chinese Studies Department. To spice things up, I am also a Research Assistant in an academic collaboration between the Chinese Studies and Sociology Departments on the study of the City God belief system and temples in Singapore. To make matters worse, I have to submit proposals and make preparations for my Honours Thesis due by the end of my next semester.

I guess I need to frequent the temples for 2 reasons: to complete my research and to pray that I do not collapse before or upon such completion. Good luck to myself.

Dissident or Distant?

It takes a simple mind to assume that things can be aboslute. As a matter-of-fact, they are not. This applies to any issue or policy, which dictates the rules that in turn govern a system. Lone actors within the system may oppose the way things are run, harbouring little more than a simple intention to improve it. However, those who concur with the system, especially those who have benefitted much from it, may dismiss their opinions as pointless ramblings from ones who seem too difficult to please. More often than not, apathy prevents such obliging souls from making critical judgements, and sadly speaking, these souls often constitute the bulk of the system. No constructive change can ever be effected, when the boundaries between conformity and loyalty are blurred.

Realism in Life

All men are self-interested, rational beings who believe that they lead sober existences to face the miseries of the harsh reality of life. Nonetheless, precisely because they are so sober, as well as aware of their own existence, they make a conscious effort to survive in this world of anarchy, and the discreet way to do so in this seemingly civilized world is through mockery and trickery. Breaking psychological defences of others and the sneak-attacking of back-stabbers were more of novelties in the past than they are now.

Laws, rules and principles are simply some of the stardards or norms that reinforce a loose form of conformity upon mankind, and these intangibles constitute a false veneer beneath which an emerging kind of brutal savagery and blatant exploitation lies. In specific terms of gaining a global ethos and thus allowing humility and morality to reign in our worldly realm, we have all failed terribly as global citizens. Disregarding the narrow definitions of progress, the world has certainly not improved in such aspects, and an envisaged future of gratuitous wars and ever-starving children filling our global landscape appears reasonable.

We urgently need a second Enlightenment, before the world tilts beyond its final phase of redemption.