Needle Fear

My back is like this now.

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My backpain was unbearable again on Saturday when I walked on the street. And I saw this acupuncture clinic.

This was the first-time ever acupunture treatment in my life. The needles the doctor used are as fine as hair and 2 inch long. There were almost 20 needles on my back, bum and legs for 30 minutes. They went in about 1 and half inch deep.

The doctor then used the vaccume cups to pull in the skin over those needles, the force was so strong that it created many circle bruises over my back. Very fun.

The Seven Items to Sort Out

Chinese talk about the seven essential items to get when starting a family/living independently. They are burning woods, rice, cooking oil, salt, soy sauce, vinegar and tea. They are all food related! Nothing about the comfortable bed or hot water bath. Life could be very nice with abundant supply of those essential seven.

Very naive.

I am afraid of teenagers and 20 something people

I think they are fearless, and you don't know how much they know. They are energetic to do anything and while I am so old and tired all the time. They are catching up so fast. I think only aging people would brew this type of feelings against young people.

The other day I phoned home, my dad was again bragging about how cute XiaoHo is. He said "When I was in the super market, many 30 something old women came around me and played with XiaoHo". I was so shocked. I am always my dad's little girl and I just heard my dad addressing females around my age "women".

"But Dad, I am also 30 something". He was also terrified but tried to cover his embarrassment. "You are not the same".

I guess perhaps the only way to preserve little diginity of getting old is to pretend that we know a lot and have experience that you cannot get from reading books. If that fails to arm ourselves, we smoke, drink, eat excessively, we completely give up the fight and lose in self-indulgence.

Hair Style and Chinese Men

I remember my mom's dress.


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I think it is genetic, our hair is usually hard and strong as wire. To make it worse, it is often thick. Westerners' hair is light and etheral as the breeze blowing at summer night, our hair is thick and heavy like the good old winter wool jacket. Ok, perhaps I am biased, I never make peace with my hair. It is unruly, stubborn and it has mind on its own.

Chinese men are not particularly paying much attention to their hair style. I guess that's true for male animals. However, due to the tenacious nature of Chinese hair gene, a lot of my friends always look like they just got out of the bed 10 minutes ago.

My father is an interesting exception. On Sunday morning, he spent long time in our small bathroom, brushing his teeth, washing his face with hot water (he needed to boil water in a cattle for that in the morning, no one else can be bothered to do that in the cold winter morning. We all washed our faces in cold water until I left home for Canada where hot water is abundant). He would then apply the funny-smelled hair wax, carefully part his hair at the side with the 3:7 ratio. The resulting hair style is those you can see in the old movie when men still wore hats and open car doors for ladies. He has kept this style as far as I can remember.

I Like Old People

We got free Champagne again in Granada!

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I went to Miyazaki's animation last weekend, Howl's moving castle. Well, it is not as good as Spirited away (In Spirited away, there are quite a few interesting ideas, such as name is very important to one person, the evil spirit would do anything to make you forget your name and thus, your identity. Such as we all need to learn how to deal with desire, the faceless ghost has lost himself after devouring anything in sight to cure his hunger and emptiness). But in Howl's moving castle, apart from the "love could do anything" stuff, I think one thing struck me very much is how Selvi dealt with getting old.

Selvi was under the spell of the evil witch, she turned into a 60 something old lady. She was not panicking about getting ugly (she was not pretty type but she is very head strong), instead, she learnt to cope with it, even enjoy it. Being an old lady, she is free of many subjective judgements. She seemed satisfied with sitting in the chair staring at the nice scenary for hours.

I like seeing middle-age to old ladies or men. Of course, those happy, nicely dressed ones. If they care how they present themselves in front of others, they must be happy and confident and wise. There is nothing more beautiful then that. I love to see old ladies especially, put on their best dress and go shopping with family or friends, laughing. I think, it takes decades of hard work to age gracefully. They should be those who know how to enjoy life, what is more important to life. Hey, what does really matter if you have been through so much and still happy?

I wish I could steal their wisdom.

Bed Time Struggle

Hello Kitty tortured!

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I never went to bed before midnight when I was a kid. Most of my colleagues and friends enforce the 8 pm bedtime for their youngsters, which really puzzles me.

I think the time between dinner and midnight was the most wonderful time I spent with my family before I went to high school. After cleaning up the dishes, I was free to roam around the street with my friends or my dogs, came home all sweaty and stinky around 9pm. My mom would force me to take a shower. And we all sat together, or lay around the living room to watch TV non stop until 11ish. My brother would usually made some snacks such as boiled pre-cooked dumplings and we all started eating again around 10pm. Definitely no discipline. But I remember the great time laying on my mom's lap and begging her to clean my ears.

Well, it is very natural for a 5 year old kid, that I simply didn't have enough sleep when getting up from bed at 7 am for school One time, when the school bus arrived, the whole family was still sleeping. The teacher had to ring the bell, only to see my mom in pajama, bring out half-sleep Joey, my shcool uniform, socks and shoes.

"Please help Joey dress up in the school bus" she said.

Drving Through Crowded Street

This picture is also my brother's brilliant idea. We were wondering around in Prado Museum in Madrid, and my brother was showing the I-am-so-bored face. This picture of a nice lady drew his attention. Oh, not because of the spectacular bloosom but the little black dot in between them. The fly happened to land there and my brother skillfully captured the moment.

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I was walking around Brick lane this Sunday, which has become my Sunday morning ritual. I love to walk through the second-hand cloth shops, not-taking-shower-for-a-while hippies and flower market. I love to observe people, stall keepers trying to make a deals, shoppers picking fruits, young couples looking for discounted lilies.... Of course, I am on the quest in search of cheap and elegant plotters to decorate my balcony.

Inevitably, some cars would try to drive through the crowded street. Pedestrians definitely have piority (we are bigger in number), I always sympathise the driver.

My mom's apartment in DuanShui locates in the end of a crowded street. Driving through it requires patience, humanity and skill, according to my mom. The street itself is very narrow and there are always cars parking on both side. Pedestrains are forced to walk on the road meant for cars. To top up the complexity, there are also numerous motorcyclist, weaving their way forward in between cars and people.

Day or night, there are old ladies or men, from neighbouring farms, carry the two little buckets filled with fresh vegetables. They set up their little stall right next to the road and start chatting with their friends. They don't really mean to make money but to have some social life. Food stalls spread their sitting area, you can always smell the deep fried fermented tofu or crispy chicken nuggets. Sometimes you see the patient from the hospital nearby walking on the street. They can be identified by their pajama, slippers and medicine bottle (on the wheeled rack, which they push around). Um..., the food in the hostpital must be bad.

I quite enjoy driving through that street for some reason.

Chinese as First Language

I think Cathy looks fabulous in this picture. We were having dinner in the nice garden in the hotel in Nerja. We don't like the city much because it is very touristy but the beach was nice.

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Apart from tones, I think the most confusing bit for westerner is that Chinese does not have the concept of tense. Present perfect, past perfect, continouse, future tenses means nothing to Chinese verbs.

Many friends were so surprised to learn that we don't have tense. The past and future are mixed into present. For example, Dr. Sun Yat-Sen "is" a great man, the text book says. There is no implication that Dr. Sun Yat-Sen has died almost a hundred years ago, as if he is still living with us, watching the same TV channel and listening to the same pop music.

Actually, this concept also applied to Chinese' ancester worshipping. We offer drinks and foods to our ancesters as if we are sharing the same time space.

To Kill or Not to Kill

That was a day of non-stop eating in Toronto. We started our day to have branch in a DimSum place in Richmond hill. We then drove to downtown and hung out in indoor path that connects all office buildings. We walked pass Mache Movenpick, that hosts the best dessert in town, I remember we had the fresh-made Belgium waffle, topped with fresh berries and whipped cream. We then walked around China town and walked pass this great ChiuChow food. The deep-fried tofu cubes has crispy skin and sily interior. We swallowed several of them. Later, we again walked pass the Vietnamese sandwich shop, whose sandwich marries French bagguette and Vietnamese tranditional sour dry cured meat (they even use soy sauce and coriander to dress it up). Too exciting to miss it, we had another treat.

Jen didn't feel so good after the sandwich.

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I remember I used to hang out with a friend in my primary school years. My parents' business made our home not very suitable for 8 years old to hand out, I spent lots of after-school time in her house.

Her grand mom is a devoted Buddhist, she would spend hours kneeing before the Budda status and reading Budda's teaching. Sometimes, she was just repeatly saying all gods' names in small voice. Those names were direct translation from Hindu (I suppose that's the language), which does not mean anything in Chinese. But they sounded very soothing.

One time she asked me to throw a bunch of live mollusk into the boiling pot because killing lives is a unforgiveable sin in her teaching (of course, she is vegetarian only was cooking for her grand children). You will be condemned to hell and not able to elevate yourself out of reincarnation cycle.

My Mom Got Scared...

My father adores children helplessly. The juicer was used to make fresh juice for me and Mankit when we were small, he still keeps it!!

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I was correct when I said that kids are scary. I just confirmed that from my mother. XiaoHo, who is only 18 months old, knows too many things. He has known how to manipulate adults. He clearly undestands his power and how to use them.

He knows adults around him encourage him to learn new things and are all very willing to help him to explore the world. Situation is in favor of him when he wants to batter the Hi-Fi, sits behind the wheels (on my dad's lap) or overturn the basket full of rice. He understands my dad would do anything for him (but not his mom or my mom). In return, he gives my dad the full attention which makes my dad so proud that he has to brag about it to every one, "Look, XiaoHo likes me so much". He dictates what he is going to play, we have no other choice but to follow his lead.

He eavesdrops my parents' conversation. When my dad told my mom that he has to go to the corner store, XiaoHo immediately turned to my father because he knew he stands a great chance to go out with my dad.

My mom starts to feel scared, she thinks she has raised a monster.

We are Lonely Animals

Lonely dog in Barcelona

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I sometime have dreams in which I am the only one who sees what's coming. But other people in my dream seem happy, even having a good time in the crisis.

One of the dreams is in an amusement park, a large pink mechanical bird with a big beak was pecking around. The huge heavy beak dropped in tremendous speed and broke the concrete surface of the ground. Obviously, it was attacking people walking around indiscriminately. What frightened me the most is that they seemed to enjoy the excitment, they even cheered when the beak had spared their heads but hit the ground instead. All I can think was trying to find a basement to hide, I was frenziedly looking for the entrance but to no avail.

I had one of those last night. There was a feast, people were preparing the meal with great excitment. But I somehow figured out the meat were very suspicious and felt great disaster is about to happen. All I could think this time was how to get out of this crazy place.

Running Around

Being a column in Palace Nazarie
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Tomorrow, 7th Oct 2005, is going to be my last day in SunGard. SunGard is my first job out of school, starting on 22nd Oct, 1999. Mike Kirkish was the hiring manager.

I have worked for three different departments, have met a lot of interesting people and have drunk tons of alcohol.

Well, there is never a party without ending.

Gold, Silver and Iron Axes

Pond can be dangerous.



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For those don't know the gold, silver and iron axe story. The real name is "True Wood Cutter". Here you go!!

TRUE WOOD CUTTER
There was a poor man named Mangal. In the day he would cut wood and in the evening he would go to the market with the wood. After selling the wood, with the money earned he could go to the grocery to purchase some things for his house. He was satisfied with his income.

One day he went to the forest to cut wood and climbed a tree at the river bank. While he was cutting the branch, his axe fell into the pond. Mangal came down from the tree and jumped into the pond to find his axe, but he did not find his axe. He was very sad and cried. He had no money to buy an other axe and it was difficult for him to feed his family without any money.

The Goddess of the forest took pity on him and went towards him and said,"Why are you crying my son?"

Mangal said, "My axe fell into the water and how shall I do my work now?"

The Goddess said, "Do not weep, I will bring your axe from the river". So the Goddess jumped into the pond and came out with a gold axe. She asked Mangal is this your axe?

Mangal said," No this is not my axe. I am a poor man so how I can have gold axe?"

The Goddess again jumped into the pond and came out with a silver axe and asked him," Is this your axe?"

But Mangal replied, "No this is not my axe." The Goddess jumped into the pond for third time and came out with an iron axe.

Now Mangal was very happy because it was his very own axe. The Goddess also became happy with Mangal truthfulness. The Goddess said," I am very happy with your honesty and because of that you can take the gold and the silver axe too. Now Mangal was not poor but rich.

Funny face collection

I think we took this picture on our way to Alhambra. I was whinning, complaining all the way through because the hill is so steep. I kept mumbling "I hate hills, I hate hills" and walked in a funny manner to keep myself entertained. But they kinda made all passing-bys smile and made Cathy feel embarrassed.

Great water engineering in Alhambra. Water symbolises purity, essential part of Moorish garden. Sorry to fly off tangent again, but I like water since small, always want to swim whenever possibility approaches. In retrospect, I think I almost drown once or twice in a river, still like open water very much. The clean stream running down the railing, countless number of fountains makes Alhambra very very cool for me.

Cathy, Adil and me. We hung out in Lotfi's sandwich shop every afternoon, I almost learnt how to make proper couscous if we didn't shop too much on the second day. I criticised Lotfi's dirty kitchen and promised to come back later to clean it up.

Came Back from Spain

Cathy had planed everything perfectly, I was just tagging along. We arrived in Barcelona, took the night train to Granada and bused to coast line and Jerez. It is like a quest to get to Jerez because we planed to fly back from Jerez.

We met quite a few interesting people every where we went. The first night, 2 guys chatted up Cathy and I in the street festival. They turned out to be strangely persistant and we agreed to had some coffee with them. Lotfi and Mousti were both Moroccans and Lotfi runs a sandwich shops. Lotfi seemed to know every restauranteurs and pub man in the neighbourhood, we had drinks for free!!

In Granada, we had to dine in a restaurant next to the Cathedral and we were really in a hurry to catch our Flamenco show. The waiter insisted that we should stay for another round of free champaign. Of course, we were late for the show but we have run into a group of Taiwanese tourists who squeeze out two seats for us.

When we were in Alhambra, 2 security guards came around to take pictures for us. One of them gestured coffee, four of us. I only replied with my limited Spanish "Cuanto Vale" and "La Cuanta" (meaning "how much" and "the bill" respectively), which cracked them up. We got rid of the two strange uncles later.

In our last night in Jerez, a guy came around to our table and chatted to us. Funny thing is that he seemed to around to answer our questions whenever we stopped to check out the map.

In Spain, the scenaries are great, the foods are fine. However, I think, what makes this trip the most interesting and memorable are those lovely people we have met over the past week.