Saving lives

Photo Credit by No one... 

Dad told me when this airplane crashed into the river close to my parent's apartment complex, he was in the bank just next to the river. He saw the breaking news on the TV hanging on the wall in the bank, he turned around and jumped on his scooter, dashing to the river band. It was winter and he saw some survivors climbing out of the airplane standing on the wing/airplane body. His first thought was I need to get to the airplane in the middle of the river to search for other survivors who might be trapped by the seatbelts.
He took off his jacket, dawn vest, and shoes. As he was about to take his trousers off, the police officer came over to stop him, saying they have enough people to work on, it is no good if they have to get Dad out of the water.

English

Freaky Ryokan in Ise coast

Some media described Clinton as "elite" because she used the big words that average Americans will not use. Having 5 or 6 times of vocabularies over normal English speakers, seems to be the must-have if you want to be recognized as the upper class. Churchill was said to have roughly 40,000 words he can use at ease whereas average Joe uses about 4,000. I suppose language is a tool for critical thinking. Only when we can precisely describe an issue, we can put together a list of accurate questions to ask, issues to solve.

For example, when someone says "NO", that could mean:
-I do not understand what you are talking about
-I am not ready to agree with you
-I need some more information before agreeing with you
-You are making me feeling uncomfortable
-I need to discuss this with others
-I do not think I can provide what you want

Language provides the tool to describe different possible reasons.  A "NO" means a lot more than an rejection if we are not being scared away by the rejection.   Wow, it is sooooooo powerful.  English is pretty unambiguous and logical.  It is create for business, used by civilians.  There is no special rules depending on hierarchy.  It is solid, flat, and factual language.  It also creates new vocabularies more than other language. 

When someone has any ambiguity in his/her wordings, you can catch the mistake immediately.  Hence it is great tool for independent thinking.   Wow, I am really inspiring myself to study English a bit better just now.

Wet hair

Girls with long hair look more feminine, pretty and delicate - I just cannot help but dislike those who cannot be bothered to tidy up their hair on weekday morning on their way to work(weekend is a mini holiday, no need to look professional). I always think women should not look delicate and feminine during the day, unless your profession requires you to look that way, which I cannot think of many.
Many wash their hair before going to work, why going out with damp hair? I feel that look is extremely inappropriate anywhere but swimming pool or beach.
I am not against being feminine. But a Chinese girl (I am using "girl" to refer to those who has no children, once you become a mum, you can do anything) will be criticized "you are such a boy" if you are not slim, not graceful or not having white complexion. Being a girl means you should not enjoy outdoor sports, should not be outspoken, should not be assertive, hate to get tanned and likes to go shopping.
Basically if you put together these "being a girl" qualities together you get a woman I do not want to hang out with. I suppose that's why I find being feminine during the day so distasteful.

Not working at the moment

Trip to Kyoto to meet with Jen and Eric

I resigned this July after working for this company for more than 9 years. I decided to give myself a break, a break that I have never had since leaving university. I spent August in 200 hour Yoga teacher training course which was part of the American Yoga Alliance certificate program. It was very interesting to become a student learning from 8 to 5 daily again after almost 20 years. After the teacher training course, I spend time in Taipei and started to teach yoga twice a week in the dance studio in our apartment complex. When in Hong Kong, I work in the food waste-recycling kitchen chopping veggie 3 hours a day, the organization collects roughly 4000 kg nearly-expired food ingredients and transform them into 6000 meals daily. Of course, going to 1 or 2 yoga classes when I am not working.

People say...

My family doesn't believe in taking any food supplements to replenish our body or shocking diet recipes for body energizing/weight-loss/rejuvenating. I am not sure whether this is because we are in general pretty healthy, or because we are just blindly confident about our own idea about how human should eat. Mum buys veggies from different stalls in wet market (Mum never shops in super market - the produce looks sad she said), changing the rice brand every 3 months - the idea is to take different toxin matters, she has created the new meaning of balanced diet. She thinks those remedies for high blood pressure, or weight-loss diet recipes were all nonsense. I had to agree with her in this. We both politely listen to Mum's friend talking about their new breakfast idea - blending the raw sweet potato's leaves with milk, and say to each other how crazy it is after getting home. Dad also doesn't believe in any supplements - although he is always given those as gifts. He accepts them with great smiles and forgets about them until I come to his apartment with a mission to clean up the long forgotten closet and throw them away years later.