Chinese and Japanese Traditional Play

The cherry blossom season is almost finishing by now. However, when it first started, the close look of the budding flowers actually gave me a creep. The sakura wants to come out so much, as if there they are aliens trying to get out of human body. You see them budding out angrily of the cherry tree everywhere, even the tree barks. Very freaky.
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I cannot say all, but some traditional Japanese plays are related to mis-use of money. Or a protagonist managed to millionfold his assets from one golden coin. Chinese traditional plays are related to justice system, someone was arrested for wrong reason and exonerated later (if she/he is lucky, this would be done in her/his lifetime) by a super clever judge. Of course both cultures have play plots of gangsters and outlaweds, but putting these 2 favored topics by these 2 cultures together is quite an interesting comparison.

Not trying to make any judgement but I think Chinese are more relaxed in being poor. You can be unpresentable, you can have nothing to wear but that the fact that you are broke doesn't affect your status as a famous scholar or a person with good virtues, conformity, and filial piety. I also think the popularity of court drama stermed from the unfunctional justice system.

What's the background of Japanese traditional play with money lending/borrowing/growing?

Eduation System

School education system brings to modern society various benefits such as eliminating illiteracy and repeatedly convincing us human beings are no island, you have the chance to learn how to cooperate with your peers and how to please your superior (including teachers and most popular kids in the class).

However, school is definitely not the right place to pursuit knowledge, it actually impedes kids' curioisty and slow down their learning by defining rigid, inflexible of curriculum. The syllabus was not designed to inspire kids to feel excited about researching for the unknown, not to make kids experience the knowledge gap and feel the need to close the gap. Oh well, what do I know, the system has been there for hundreds of years.

Don't remember from which I read this, the author critizes "the school system didn't teach us a lot of things, among the most unforgivable were how to find yourself a job you will be happy going to every day, how to find yourself a partner you will be happy to share the bed with, and how to manage your own personal finance". Career and relationship are of course critical in life, however, life will be more uneasy if compounded with finance worries. Money cannot buy anything, at least money can buy privacy in where you can cry your eyes out without being questioned.

I Swear I will be Nice to my ThinkPad

Which one is the easy pick? My first attempt to crack this type of machine was, unfortunately, a success. I started to get addict to it, thinking I will get another useless fury toy for one token.

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My ThinkPad went on strike yesterday, blue screen followed by repeatingly booting itself to no avail. I was in such a bad mood that I couldn't even go swimming. If I have lost all my data, if I have lost all my code, if I have lost all my design documents, if I cannot go on line to check my email and MSN/Skype, if...

My line manager miraculously revived my hard disk by instructing itself to perform a recovery. We guessed the reason the hard drive went belly up might be resulted in careless handling of my laptop (I put it in my hangbag and the hangbag strap broke onetime, the machine fell on the floor very hard). I have to carry a heavy laptop bag from now on.

Stumbling Happiness

When I am drunk, I can be very mean (I think I was about to hit the person holding the camera if he/she refused to give it to me).
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I am reading "Stumbling Happiness", a book discussing what makes human being happy. We feel pleasure if being in control (does that explains why I like rollerskating so much?). When we thinking about the future, our front lobe instructs us to imagine next and tomorrow, surprisingly, we do it because it is fun to do, we daydream about good thing happening. Ha! That's the definite anti-depressent in the most primitive form.

City Run

I learnt to sit and rest whenever given a chance when skating.



Finishing run and getting ready for a drink!

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I started to join the Saturday Night Skate last Saturday, which happens only once a month, meeting a lot of interesting people. I promised to join this week's Sunday City Run, it was very easy and relaxing. After our regular run, we hung out in the park and they taught me how to do the inline skating, such as maneuver your way around the ice cream cones or jump. I took a couple of pretty bad fall, landing on my butt and, as anyone would do, tried to support myself. My shoulders are feeling weird afterwards...

In Sunday afternoon, I strolled around the city in a speed that I don't feel tired is very nice expericne in Tokyo.

But I need to get new skates soon, my skates are obviously too outdated and worn out.

Dog and Demon

I am re-reading Alex Kerr's "dog and demon, the falling of modern Japan". I read it a couple years ago, but it seems very right to read it again since I am living in Tokyo. I am particularly interested in the chapter about architecture. Kerr critised that Japan is bulldozing the old wooden houses in the name of mordernization. The city becomes a solid concrete jungle, with electricity poles and wires hang around, air conditioners and atennas on the roof tops. I am not sure why the wires are not underground, but a couple of laws (haven't been amended since 60s) such as heavy inheritence tax, dwelling interior utilisation law and sunlight laws force the land owners to construct buildings the way they are today.

What I observe are that Japanese are not keen in making changes if things run fine the way they are. A little of inconvenience and ugly roof top are not such a big deal if we can manage a peaceful living. It is more so in terms of public service related issues.

I guess it is not uncommon in a mature, stable society. But it is very true that Japanese goverment has a lot of baggage. There are too many people's livings mingled into this web of government machine. Could this be Japanese style of socialism?

Taiwan Presdential Election

My father called me a month ago asking me to go back home to cast my vote, he is very worried the party he supported is going to lose the seat to the green party. Unfortunately, the election day coincides with Japan's spring break, I cannot find cheap ticket to get back to Tokyo. So I consoled my father that I will stay in Japan, and make sure Irene doesn't go back to Taipei to cast her vote, efficient and economical.

I am generally not attached to politics, I don't read politics news only if that might impact taxation law or my investment strategy. However, being influenced by my family background, I am a blue party supporter. As growing older, I start to understand the green party's theme, heated by nationalism and identity pride, it makes sense that Taiwanese would like to be recognized as a nation. However, the strategies Green party utilizes in elections are far beyond my comprehension, such as divisive politics (instingate the hatred and resentment between native Taiwanese and people migrated to Taiwan with KMT in 1949) or indiscriminative denial of anything Chinese in Taiwanese soil.

My feelings toward China is very complicated. I am pretty good in adapting to a new environment because, for some reasons, I can see the bright side of things, and meet some great people. And life is not too bad after all. However, during my stay in Beijing, I found myself complain more because the culture shock is greater. It is also a good thing in a way I am toughed up. After being treated rudely in Beijing, you can cope with any ill-manner bank teller, waiters and train ticket office clerks around the world. I've learnt to have thick skin and never feel shy to get what you want, even it means you have to stand up from your seat to get yourself a pair of chopsticks in a restaurant.

Anyhow, I think the rude and brutal nature of Mainlanders has made a lot of green party supporters to think who would like to unit with such a country, such a government. However, unification might not happen in our life time, wouldn't it be nice to work with China in the mean time? Hoping there is going to be a direct flight from Taipei to Beijing soon.

Calculated Life

I dragged the drunk and very-much-need-to-pee Sunary and Susie to the Pachinko place to use their bath room. Sunary is not very good with the noise.

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I calculate what I need to buy during my weekend shopping, making sure that I can finish all foods before next weekend. I never let anything goes bad in my fridge, minimize the waste as much as I can. I want to use the fruit scrapes to create some organic fertilizer just don't know how to do the dicomposition in the right way. Never ask for plastic bags and bring my own chopsticks wherever I go, my small contribution to save the earth.

With my veggetable fruit juice regime, I find it very handy to throw in any hard-to-chew bits and parts of the veggetable into the blender. They become tasteless greenish fluid, it is not hard to gobble it down. Ha, great way to reduce the waste. Beside, it feels kinda cool that I am drinking something full of faber.

I pack my own food to work. That makes me stick to my chair almost the whole day, no need to spend a hour lunch break. Without no one to bug me, gee, that's the most productive time of the day. I love to save, fully utilize every single material is so much fun. I think, this is the true way to show our respect to the world.

Why am I Surrounded by Strange People?

I have a friend, Larry, very Taiwanese. Riding the motorcycle with slippers, tall and stacky build with dark complexion, he speaks Chinese with some Taiwnese accent, very earthy person. He was telling that he's never use his date of birth as bank account pincode, it is too easy to find out. He figured out a way to take advantage of this figure, he uses his one year birthday as the pin. (In Chinese world, toddler's one year birthday is seriously celebrated).

Irene went to the manga shop with massage chair, she liked the massage so much so the massage chair was in operation for 3 hours nonstop. When she walked out the shop, her legs were swallon with bruises.

Just MSN my aunt, she was complaining there is no Karaoke machine in Toronto (she is big fan of singing, although not a good singer at all), so she downloads the karaoke songs and sings in the computer room by herself. She alleged, when you get bored, karaoke is the best medicine.

What are You Afraid the Most

I am pratically fearless at work. I think little of my colleague's fear of pissing of client/coworkers. I am not afraid of snakes, spiders, or cockroaches. Death, oh, maybe, if it is not a prolong, painful one, I think I am OK with it. I think I am afraid of not being able to live up to my potential. I guess it is time for me to write my Japanese lesson home work.

How to Switch On Heater

I think I have a least 3 people came to inspect this remote control because I had no idea how to switch on the heater in my flat. They tried really hard but to no avail. I was going through tough and cold winter nights by wrapping myself up to the size of giant sausage.



Irene came to Tokyo this weekend, and one of her mission was to scold my estate agent, why is there no heating device in the flat. Upon her arrival, I presented her the 2 air cons on the walls and she demanded the remote control. I was like, hey, lady, I don't think you can get anything out of it but I still dully passed it over to her and went about to mind my own business.

A couple seconds later, she said, look, here is the heater selection. She then reveal the secret compartment in the remote control....



The same thing happened to my toilet seat heater. I was so confused why is there a lit indicating seat heating but I never see the switch, Irene figured it out for me as well. She also found the magic hinge where you can pry open and reveal the whole new world in my toilet controler.

OK, I have to say I think sitting on the warm seat when peeing is very nice, but it gives me the creeps as if someone has sat on it for long time and I took the seat right afterward.

Tokyo Babe

Finally we were settled in a yakiniku restaurant after a long walk...

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Meeting up with Isabel, Richard and their 2 year old son in Tokyo. I didn't realise that I have a lot of Toronto friends in Tokyo until Eric and Iris came visiting me. However, it is quite difficult to go around with a baby in tow, picking which restaurant to go is always a hassle, we can only walk around the city and Isabel has to wait outside in cold with the baby buggie.

Isabel doesn't like Tokyo too much as a mother. She doesn't know the language and has no family/friend's support. She was locked up at home with the baby all day long. She was so amazed how unfriendly Tokyo people are toward babies. While struggling to move the buggie up or down stairs in the subway, no one can be bothered to give a hand. Which is quite unthinkable for people from North America. She is also suprised how Richard's male colleagues don't help out much with the baby chores at home. All these make her very unease in Tokyo.

Irene explained that people in Tokyo expect the mother to take care of the baby at home, not on the street. If you are moving around with a toddler, you'd better know how to handle it on your own.

Fruits in Taiwan

While we were traveling, Auntie Feng and I were talking about how much we miss the Taiwanese fruits. I think that's the advantage of growing up in a tropical weather, we are so used to all kind of cheap, sweet, juicy fruits. It is so hard for people growing up in North America or northern part of Asia to understand.

For example, the Laichee and Dragon eyes are totally different, yet my Tokyo office colleagues in my previous company couldn't tell the difference.

Taiwanese fruit farmers were very creative, they did a lot of strange grafting, they put together apple and persimmon, the resultig persimmon tastes so sweet and crunchy. They created a type of pineapple with all the sweetness without a trace of sharp sourness. They also put togher the budda fruit with pineapple, strange but super sweet and easier to eat then traditional budda fruit. Speaking of Guava, there are so many different kinds of them. However, it is so hard to explain to my westerner friends what they are.

I love fruits, I am thinking to replace my moring coffee with fruit/veggie juice after I got myself a juicer!

My Mom and Pony (3)

Like I had said before, Pony was out of control when in cars. The tricky thing is that my mom didn't want to let Grace or my little uncle know how she displined Pony. One time, my mom was driving my little uncle to pick up his car in a remote area. While my uncle went to do the paper work, my mom was left along with Pony in the car and Pony was again going mental of being left alone with the most fearful human being in his world. Pony's barking was sharp enough to drill holes in your ear drum in a confined environment. He barked nonstop. My mother got really annoyed, looked around, there is no one in this quiet parking lot and my uncle was in the office building.

She pulled over Pony, lifted his hairy, long ear (Pony is a cocker spaniel), and barked as hard as she could into Pony's ear. The dog behaved himself ever since. Of course, both Grace and my little uncle do not need do know all about this.

My Mom and Pony (2)

Pony is always out of control when being sat in car. No one can calm him down but Grace or my little uncle. Pony would bark, scream, yell and cry to attract attention. One time when I was in Taiwan and my mom was still living in DanShui, next to Grace's mother, we were assigned the difficult assignment to bring Pony to Grace's mother's house.

I was a bit worried but my mom took the pre-empt action. Instead of instructing Pony to get into the floor of the passneger seat, she simply lifted up Pony by pulling his collar (she doesn't want to touch the dog, I know), so Pony was chocking and out of breath. She sad down and slammed the dog to the floor as if he is a doormap. She then gave himea double slap on the face then a kick at the ass. The whole action took less than 10 seconds, she looked at me, wondered why were were not moving, and said "Let's go". Pony was quiet and nice the whole journey, I almost forgot he was with us.

My Mom and Pony (1)

My aunt in my apartment, she watched TV all day long and really enjoyed it though that's all in Japanese.

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My mother is not a dog person, she is not a cat person, either. Basically, growing up in Hong Kong in a cramping environment (300 squre foot apartment has 6 people living in it), she had no privilage to spoil her affection to animals. She only likes small human beings. Dogs are strictly not allowed to enter human's living space and they are not allow to be naughty. When breaching my mother's rules, she spanked the dogs with blooms, flew them slipper (magically it was alawys spot on) or kicked them without mercy (even my father couldn't bear the sound of dogs crying and howling, and came to their rescue). The stray dogs Mankit and I collected were all so frightened to see my mom. Oh well, they don't need to see her to jump on their feet, as soon as they hear her foot steps, they dashed out of the door like rockets.

Anyhow, when she met Grace 10 years ago, Grace was my young uncle's girl friend (my young uncle is my grand father's second family's kids, long story, got to blog it later). Grace's ex-boy friend figured out a very effective way to occupy his girl friend's mind, he bought her a puppy. Grace adored the dog, Pony. she even let Pony sleep in the same bed as her, feed Pony with spoon if Pony got emotional and refused to eat. PS1.

Of course Grace's ex's strategy didn't go very far, they broke up and she was dating my little uncle. However, Pony stayed. To everyone's surpise, my little uncle adores the dog even more than Grace. My mother adores both Grace and my little uncle, she broke her rigorous rules to let Pony stay in the human house, and took care of Pony when both Grace and my little uncle were not in town.

One time Pony was in my mother's possession because Grace had to travel for business. Pony got the separation anxiety, and refused to eat anything my mom cooked him (our stray dogs were always in the semi-famine state, only ate our leftover and nothing else. In my mom's world, that's all they deserved to eat). Of course my mom wouldn't feed Pony by letting this secondary mammal climb onto her bed and coax it into eating the food. My mom spared no sympathy to Pony's fragile emotional state, she simply kick Pony's bowl full of food into the area our stray dogs were allowed. They inhaled the food instantly right in front of Pony. At day 3, Pony gave in, he finally realised no one is going to shed a tear if he died of starvation. He ate the food the moment my mom brought it over.

My mom hanged over the perfectly healthy Pony back to Grace when she returned.

A couple weeks later, my mom went over to Grace's place. Grace's mother (who is also a good friend my mother's) answered the door via intercom and said Grace was busy to woo Pony to eat because, again, Pony is not in a good mood. My mom said "Is that so?" Obviously Pony eavesdroped the converstaion, dashed into his bowl and finished his food when he recognized my mother's voice.


PS1. Pony was still alive when Grace started dating Kevin. One time when Kevin came to Grace's house and found a nicely cooked beef stew, thinking he can finally try Grace's cooking. To his dismay, that was for Pony.