Hee hee!

Check this out if you want; hope it still works:

http://video.aol.com/video-detail/2006-11-25-/3452073438

My Struggle

Everything went blank before my eyes. I groped my way back to my room, threw myself onto my bed, and dug my burning head into my blanket and pillow. So everything has been in vain. In vain all the sacrifices. Blah blah blah.

Animal Farm

In my Beijing trips, I was the shepherd dog. The student participants were the sheep. The professor was the shepherd. There were bones in Istanbul and the Himalayas. I chose to forgo them. But I was the dog who had made many "zhu peng gou you" friends during the trips, especially the recent one in June. That had been a gratifying experience. I wish for a "Taiwanese Thought and Culture". If it ever materializes, I don't mind turning into a pig.

Sakae Sushi: A Matchmaking Place for all

Jiayi had worked part-time for Sakae Sushi before. She still maintained contact with many of her ex-colleagues. She told me that as high as 40% of her branch co-workers got attached to one another. Wow. What a high figure. And these individuals had never met before. We talked about her stint in Sakae and the friends whom she had made there. Seems like they are quite an interesting and fun-loving bunch to be with.

We have been talking about raising the birth/fertility rate in Singapore these recent days. Sakae Sushi is an living example of how to make such things work. I don't know how it works there, but apparently it works. Sociologists, here's your task!

Beijing 2008: One World One Dream (2)

Not bad. It's all coming back to me now. Here is the Beijing National Stadium, or simply the "Bird's Nest". It was this place where I saw the most spectacular Opening Ceremony ever in the history of the Olympic Games on TV. I almost cried as a surge of pride overwhelmed me. I felt so proud to be an ethnic Chinese. We have succeeded! We have shown the world what China can be!

The Stadium remained a fenced-off area in June, so we departed for the 798 Art Zone. For some reason, we became crazy nuts there:

So cute right:

I think this is the Supreme Court of Beijing. Just a guess:

Here is the Grand National Theater of Beijing, where Boon Boon and some others caught an expensive ballet performance a few weeks after. Oh yeah, Boon Boon failed to watch it. Late and lost on his way there. So sad right. :-( :

The professor and I decided to return to the hotel before nightfall with some of the students. The lake at Yiheyuan is very beautiful.

Happy Birthday!

To my friend Tips! Whom I have known since my Marist days. Too bad there isn't any celebration going on amongst us. At least I am not in the know. And Hauser is too busy a lawyer-to-be. No time for the TVB mooncake drama. Everyone around me is busy. I seem to be the odd one out. But I am old. I can feel it. I ought to take the easy way out of life. Tips has gone older too! All the best to his stint in TH. We will pay and pay, not to him though. Haha!

Slogging Hard

An MSN conversation:

D: I'm a pathetic piece of shit.
WJ: If you are, I must be a bigger piece. I belong to a sunset industry. If yours is a sunset industry, mine has to be a nightfall one.
D: China is booming.
WJ: I am not a bicultural talent. A bicultural talent is one who is bilingual and studies "useful" disciplines such as the sciences, engineering and business. I am not needed.

I was on the train in the evening, during which most commuters knocked off from work and were heading home. I heard things like:

"You know ah, that colleague of mine never does anything. So I do everything and people know it. But she is still like this. Never change. Damn pissed off leh."

"He was wrong lah. But he kept arguing with us. I think he didn't know what was going on, or he simply wanted his way lah."

Working life must be tough. Countless adults grumbling and complaining about their colleagues and bosses after work.

If I am a useful piece of poop, I can at least help expel some toxic waste out of the body.

Since I am not, why not I stay on in the rectum, and remain silent without causing harm to the body in which I inhabit?

Learning a Language

I am not qualified to talk much about this. My Chinese standard is not even superb to begin with. The Taiwanese possess a much higher level of proficiency in Mandarin than I do. This I am confident of saying. Absolutely. Without a doubt. What else can I say?

But I agree with this axiom: don't be shy, just try. To learn or master a language, you must have the courage to lose face and speak it, even if your audience is a native speaker. I don't understand why saving face has become such a great private enterprise these days. True to what some of my friends had suggested of me, I can be the sort who would jump into a pool with a suit on. Erm... I mean I may do it if I need to reinforce a point or something. I am not nuts.

If you don't get what I mean, please watch Mad About English. The Chinese really derserve their Olympics and I wish them all the best. Here's signing off as a Taiwan fanatic. It is China that I am talking about. With no political implications.

Beijing 2008: One World One Dream (1)

I keep telling myself that I should update on my Beijing trip soon. Here it comes, with 2 months already past. It is never too late to start I guess. And yes, it will be a real test on my memory. I will try though. Here is one photo taken at the new Terminal 3 of the Beijing International Airport. It was clean and spacious and looked set to usher in the Olympic Games. Go China!

Speaking of lateness, our class was late for our welcome dinner hosted by the Peking University. So sad right. Wait bad impression then we can kiss future trips bye bye. I trust that the Chinese are magnanimous, but noble hearts and minds should not be taken for granted. We were late because our bus stalled on the expressway. And the air-con malfunctioned. What we could do was to alight and take a breather by the road shoulder. And this lasted for an hour before the bus was repaired and took off to the restaurant.

I lost count of the number of times I had seen this signboard:

This is the Peking University central library where I had spent many afternoons when the class was having its lessons:

Not to forget the beautiful Weiming (?) Lake within the campus:

I will update on the trip further, having covered only 2 days here.

Uncle Jacky says again:

Always hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.

Never wait for the sake of waiting, even if you have waited long enough. If nothing is gonna be, it never will. Move on. Says who that your waiting time has been wasted? You have rested well. Alternatives await. The ball is in your court. Toss it to the pasture that lies ahead. You will be happier. :-)

All Rights Reserved: Nostalgia

For 43 years this sacred dust,
Has used its future to frame its past.
Will all that is never come to last,
Today, here, then gone, how fast?

Uncle Jacky says

靠自己，
最实际。

Short clips of my recent trips

I like to take photos, but I don't like seeing myself in them. It took me quite a while before I could find those with me in them. Here I will share 2 photos that my friends had taken in Beijing.

I choose this first one because it features the greatest number of people among the photos that I have. Sad to say (but expectedly), I don't have any class photo with me.

I like this second one because it was taken outside the Beijing Zoo and we were on our way to see the super-duper cute pandas.

As for the photos for Taiwan, I upload this because it captures an unforgettable gathering that my Taiwanese friends and I had in Taipei. Hope to see them again soon:

I decide on this photo because it was taken at the very place where I had the best smelly beancurd in the world:

I will update more on these trips as and when I feel like it. Stay tuned if you're interested!

寻找

对青春茫然
才会借由旅行
来寻找自我
赫然发现
原来我研究历史
是因为对未来
已了无期盼
平凡无奇的人生
还会快乐吗

会的
一定会快乐的
简单就是美
这句被人讲了无数次的话
却没多少人能去履行
我正努力
摒除世俗观点
活出自己

豁出去吧
青春就是本钱
真的
不是盖的

Puzzling Paradox

Recently, I have been asked these questions over and over again:

"Why did you choose to do your Masters instead of work?"

"Don't you have dreams and goals in your life?"

I am not in the least offended. I simply feel tired answering them again and again. These questions, nonetheless, reflect fundamental differences in life philosophy.

To the peeps out there, studying was merely an avenue for them to get their degrees, find good jobs and achieve career advancements. I don't derive my perks from these "material" and "worldly" pursuits. While I agree that having a purpose in life serves to make life a meaningful one, I can assure you that such a purpose will always be an ongoing process and not an end state.

I don't do things for a purpose. Neither do I do things on impulse. I simply follow my heart. This is all that matters. My only interest is travelling. I will make it a point to travel as and when I can. It would be on the premise that I don't starve to death before then.

What a dilemma. Life is a journey of paradoxes.

My Take on Money

Money stinks. Call me an idealist or a pretender, but I am not a commodity. I don't need money to prove my worth and existence in the world. I hope my deeds can match my words in due course.

I certainly don't fit the bill for a capitalist. Perhaps this is why I chose to stay put in my comfy zone of the academia and avoid the stench of cash loading in my face.

Arrogance not desired

An overdose of confidence is arrogance. Take heed.

My Jovial Self in Taiwan

Taiwan always brings a smile on my face.

Boon Boon has been asking me to update my blog on my recent China trip. I need to document my Taiwan exploits too. Looks like I will have pretty much to write about in my next entries.

Purpose

I see one purpose in life now: earn enough money so that I can visit Taiwan every now and then.

Back from Taiwan

I'm back reluctantly, having spent every cent in my pockets. Taiwan had been my home for almost the entire month of July, but to me this was not enough. I wish to visit it again soon.

Here's a glimpse of my itinerary in Taiwan:

3-6 July: Taipei
7-11 July: Kaohsiung (my southern base; 10 July: Tainan, 11 July: Kending)
12 July: Taichung
13 July: Lugang
14 and 16-17 July: Taipei (my main base)
18 July: Keelung
19-20 July: Taitung
21 July: Hualian
22-25 July: Penghu
26 July: Taoyuan International Airport (sob...)

I need to thank Peggy and her friends and relatives for their warm welcome and hospitality, as well as my other Taiwanese friends who had forked out time to meet up with vagrant me. I seem to be the only free soul around these days, so it was only right that I embarked on this trip to visit them. To all my friends out there (especially Peggy!), sorry for all the inconvenience that I might have caused you during my trip!

I am glad to have left my footprints on much of Taiwan. If I am to include the places that I had covered in my SEP duration, I have been to about 80-90% of Taiwan. An overstatement? I need to undertake more trips to verify this.

Will my quest ever be completed?