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.

Reepie, Reepie

falling on the tatami
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I chaired the meeting on Thursday morning with the big guys from SF. After the meeting, I was eyeing the leftover sandwiches and think I should take them as my snack later. I took them to the stationary desk, found a tap, want to tape it up so I can bring it to the bank as my snack. as I did so, I was saying to myself (and the sandwich) "tape it, tape it, tape it...". That sounded so much like what my ex-boss in London would do "reepie, reepie, reepie" (mimcking the frog sound) so I felt amused and said it a couple more times. The big boss came to this side of this office and saw me. He was amused so much, he said he is going to take me to the hospital because I was having a conversation with a sandwich. We were laughing so hard, the office was all staring at us.

Kinugawa Onsen Trip (4)

Before leaving Kinugawa
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We finally arrived in the slightly bigger city, the train service again is stalled due to the strong wind. We lunched and went back to the station. No train is running, so I thought, since we are waiting for train service to come back, why don't we just go to Nikko. So I dragged both Susie and Auntie Feng to the platform, got into the train, only to realise the train service is also cancelled. However, we spot the express train parked in the platform next.

Susie went to make sure where the train is heading and the confirmation is assuring. The train is going to the next slightly bigger city, but at least we can move our way toward tokyo slowly (and perhaps the wind is not that strong, other train service might run). Sounds all good, but should we go? Should we wait for our train service to resume? Will our tickets guarantee us a seat?

Susie suggested to board the train, because she didn't really want to wait to get back to civilization. Quite a few people went on the train as well, but no one is brave enough to go around the train cart to find empty seats. Auntie Feng found us seats and I was a bit worried if the train manager came to ask us for tickets. She said we don't know any Japanese, that's not a problem.

After 3 changes of trains, we went back to Tokyo almost like taking the express train. We then went to refund out express train ticket, before we did that, we were a little bit worried. Obviously all express trains were cancelled, it is reasonable that we would like to get our money back. However, how do you explain that we were back to Tokyo just slightly over the non-existence express train's Tokyo arrival time? Anyhow, we got the money back.

Kinugawa Onsen Trip (3)

The yukata has so many different colours and pattens. Both Auntie Feng and I were so excited and we cannot wait to put on the dress the moment we got in to our room. Anutie Feng is always the girly one, I am just starting.

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As we left the hotel heading to Nikko, the train was stopped 2 stations away from Kinugama onsen station because of the strong wind. Of course, with my limited Japanese I wasn't able to figure out what's the matter. Susie ran around the train chasing the train manager, we finally figured out the train service is suspended, and no one knows then the service would be resumed. After 45 minutes of waiting, both Susie and my aunt were so impatient, they determined to find a solution rather than rest our fate onto the train company's mercy.

We walked out of the train station, the wind was indeed very very strong and bitterly cold. Susie made a couple of phone calls to the taxi company but nothing is available. After a couple of minutes in cold wind, auntie Feng was eyeing those cars coming to pick up people from the station. She ran over and demanded a ride to the bus station in English, unfortunately was turned down. Auntie Feng wasn't giving up, she started to walk toward the big road and raised her thumb. |O|, she is trying to hitchhike. As the weather got worse, it seemed hitchhiking is the only way out. So 3 of us made our way toward the biggest city Shimoi-Imoichi and try to hitchhike at the same time. However, no one really stopped, I was so amused by this, cannot stop laughing the whole time (I might look very mad, perhpas that's why the cars didn't stop). Those 2 finally gave up and walked along the road, while I was still trying to stop a car, walking backward, facing the incoming traffic.

While we were passing a bridge (the scenary is really pretty, if it is not so windy and cold), both my aunt and susie walked so fast that I cannot catch up (I was walking backward, remember?). My aunt later explained me she is afraid the wind is going to blow her over the bridge. Hey, wait a minute, how about me? You cannot be bothered to tell innocent and naive Joey to pass the bridge quickly? She said she think I am OK since I am carrying both her and my stuff in my huge backpack.

We finally found a bus stop, however, the bus just left when we arrived. So desparate and cold, Aunt Feng suggested that we should call the police asking for help because we are foreigners, trapped in the mountain and don't how to get out. I was like, again, hesitating whether I should embarrassing myself or just pretend I don't understand her. While I was checking the bus map, Auntie Feng waved frantically, she spoted an avaialbe taxi. Miraculously all 3 of us got on the taxi, warm and safe, heading toward the largest city to wait for our return train to Tokyo.

Kinugawa Onsen Trip (2)

First Course inclues 8 different small dishes, we are so excited and happy


Still very happy, because the toro sashimi is very yummy. The puff cream soup is also interesting.


Tiny grilled Ayu fish, piece of cake to finish. We later had the tempura, tofu stew, pictures cannot be found.


The picture of shabushabu is not too much to see. Shabushabu is the type of food asks for right timing, so hard to take picture of the beef while you are sending it to your mouth. This is uni rice and kani miso soup. But we are sort of starting to wonder when the course are going to end.


The alien is trying to come out from me
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The onsen dinner consists of 10ish courses, at least 30 different small dishes. After the dinner, we were so stuff and cannot even think about going back to the outdoor onsen to have a midnight dip.

Auntie Feng claimed she cannot sit down because of the full stomach. She dragged us out to explore the hotel, walking up and down the staire. After coming back to the room, she started to walk around our room in circle. I was also too full to lie down (though that's definitely not a problem for me), so I started to follow her walking around, swining our arms dramatically trying to burn the calories. We chatted on and off at the same time. We must look very amusing.

This reminds me so much of the story that Ilan was micmicking Achu's crippling (Achu was the older male dog when Ilan was young).

Kinugawa Onsen Trip (1)

Susie was very shocked to meet my aunt, who looks just a little over 40s. This small sushi shop made the viniger rice with the special type of red rice wine vinigar, the rice was not purely white.

I have never been a big fan of sushi. I think, good food is the product of mysterious concoction of temperature to mouth+stomach, smell to nose and taste to touge. This creates complexities and layers. Of course perhaps I am biased since I am raised with Chinese foods. And I do agree certain seafoods are doomed to have as sashimi, which the only and ultimate way to enjoy the freshness.
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The trip was rushed into. I was planning a one day trip so that Auntie Feng can hang out with her friend, Auntie May, on one of the weekend days, however, change of the plan in the last minute. I found the onsen hotel stay in a good price, and I also found out it is cheaper to find the 3rd person to share the room with, therefore, I convinced Susie to join us despite the fact that she hasn't really settled in her service apartment.

I also researched knowing that there is this world heritage train pass, which includes the free local bus pass, unlimited rides between Kinugawa and Nikko, and the tickets to Toshugu (the Tokagawa shogan built the huge temples in 17th century, um, they must had used up a lot of trees).

We had lunch in Tsukiji fish market, then traveled to Asakusa Tobu line travel agency to pick up our hotel vourchor. The travel agent lady was not very fluent in English, it took a while to explain that we want to buy the world heritage pass and I explained the pass is only valid for foreigner. "Do you need to have a look of our passports?" "No, I can see", she replied.

Auntie Feng is in Town (3)

Auntie Feng has very rigorous sense of right doing in her neighborhood. Shw saw this Chinese woman dressing in pajama walking around in her neibourghood in Toronton one day, she went straight to check with her network in the region, if they have identified the same woman, it is not just her imagination.

I asked, how do you know it is a pajama? She was so certain because it is a faded, pink-turned grayish pajama cut, with 2 large pocket in front. One day she was walking in the sidewalk with another neighbor, the hello kitty PJ woman walking toward them with a man like her husband.

She smiled sweetly and asked the couple where they are from in Mandarin. The man seemed very pleased to meet a non-Cantonese speaking person in Toronto. "TianJin" (a habour city east of Beijing) was the replied. Auntie Feng then asked "If people in TianJin go out in Pajama a lot?". The women was still not aware of this obnoxious attack "Yes, we do this all the time". My auntie followed it up "But in Canada, we don't do it. It is very impolite".

No one ever has seen the Hello Kitty PJ woman in the neibourghood since.

Auntie Feng is in Town (2)

Auntie Feng went to the driving range with her friend, who also just purchased the new clubs in the shop to try out the new toy. Her friend's 20 something, huge, atheletic son in tow. Auntie Feng encouraged the young man to try out the fasinating sport, golf, and try a few swing. He did, and perhaps stroke the club too hard both the club head and the golf ball flew out toward the field. Obviously he's swinging the club too hard, trying to kill the ball and the driver snapped when hitting the ground.

Auntie Feng's first reaction is to call the golf shop owner complaining about the low quality and demand a refund or replacement. After hours of argument, the shop owner agreed to replace the broken club. But the condition is that they have to return the fly-away club head with the stick.

It is impossible to go to the field to pick up the club head when golf ball flying around frantically. Auntie Feng exerted her influence to the driving range manager again and he agreed to go broadcast to the crowd to stop their swing for a minute so he can go to the field to fetch the broken club head for her.

Auntie Feng is in Town (1)

Auntie Feng came to Tokyo to hang out with me and her friend. She was telling me her latest golf excursion. She is a newbie in golfing. She spent a large sum of money to buy the whole set of clubs, because she said to herself, my husband would spend money buy toys for our children, why not spending money buy toys for myself that I can use them until I am 80's? Good deal. She bought the most expensive set in the store. She brought her friends over to the shop to do more golf equipment shopping in the same shop, to her surprise, the shop is about to clear the stock since they are closing the business. She saw her friend buying the same set of clubs with almost half of the money she paid. She then demanded the shop owner, you have to give me something to compensate my loss.

She successfully got herself 2 pairs of golf shoes.

GString

I went to the pool on Sunday, getting ready for my 1.5 km swim. While putting on my swimming cap and selecting which land has more free space and judging in which lanes the swimmers' speed would best suit me, I found this guy in GString. His whole butt was generously revealed, which showed off his slender and long legs. No matter how fit he is, it is still a very odd scene and I cannot help throwing a couple of side glances at him. There is only a very small piece of fabric, shaped like a small sack, covering his package. I could only try hard not to swim behind him since the land he was in is not very crowded.

Money and Women

I realised the importance of money since very young. Seeing my parents constantly struggle to get by and fight over financial arrangement has taken a toll. I am traumatized in a way that I feel very insecured if I am not in control of my own finance. I am more emotional regarding my financial situation than my family, it is not very healthy attitute. I would like to

1. Understand if a problem can be resolved by money, than it is not a problem
2. Be nice to my father. He might have treated my mother unfairly, making her work so hard for years. But I believe if he's had options, he would have not done so.

How to Make People

The Chinese phase, 做人 - "Make People" is the utmost important skill a Chinese person learn．　It doesn't mean to produce people, but to connect with friends, relatives, co-workers and superiors. As mentioned before, it seems women are the natural social bonding guru, thus, a lot of the "make people" skills were passed along by mothers. Mothers teach their youngs to be kind and to empathize with others. At the same time, we were taughted 規矩．This phrase is made of 2 Chinese characters, the first one is compass to draw perfect circle and the second is the ruler with 90 degree angle to help draw a retangle. Rules and manners help people to interact with each other without instigating conflicts.

I have been a kid who is very good at improvising. I observed and read without getting noticed, and I sort of figure out what adults or test makers are expecting us to do or answer in an exam. So, "GuiJu" means be nice to others, and I would be recognized as a good kid. I started to wash up whenever I was invited for meals since very young. But I didn't realise things can be quite tricky when doing the dishes in my boy friend's house with others around. I only start to realise there is also a "GuiJu" for being a guest, which is not to invade the host's turf.

Some people critize Japanese show pretencious manners and etiquette, which mold them into machinary. You hear the mechanical welcoming and farewelling phrases, you see the standard smiles. Do they really mean it? Perhaps not all the time. Would you rather like to prefer it to the rough, hot blooded, straightforward treatment in Beijing? I suppose most people would say yes.

The End of The Game

To my very sadness, I finished "The Game". At the end, Style (the protagonist) met the girl who he doesn't just want to have sex with but he really wants to hang out with. She has seen him through and was attracted by the nerdy, bolding, shy writer Neil covered under the pickup guru Style. He determined to cut off the links with his MLFMs (Multiple Long Term Fuck Mate). Some took it well but one girl didn't. She is hoping things would turn and he will be falling for her. Oh gee, when things like this happens, the party with higher expectation gets hit the worse. I've been around the neighborhood (or corner?). Shouldn't have taken it so seriously, there is no one to blame. The relationship was built on top of the shaky ground, it was no surprise it crumbled.

I am trying to be as honest as possible, it is too much work to pretend being another person in order to draw attention. Of course, I cannot make the whole world happy but at least I feel more comfortable.

Happy Chinese New Year

Joey in Gilbili Museum, the animation geek heaven. It displayed the making of the work of Miyazaki. We were invited to the 15 min long movie at the end of the visit, it is like hypnosis, I came back to the real world when the movie ended.

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My mom gave my father a another fatal blow, she abandoned the whole family and escaped to Hong Kong for Chinese New Year. I could almost feel that my father's embarrassment when being asked whereabout is my mom (and the rest of the family). Knowing that my dad would be left alone, I flew back to Taipei on the New Year's day. It turned out that my mom has arranged so that my sister in law invited my father to join the dinner party in her house on New Year's eve. Although I think my brother and sister-in-law should do so without being asked, my mom insisted it is not proper for my sister in law to invite my farhter to her house without her consent. Again, the subtlety of being Chinese, those sensitive issues among relatives are really beyond my ability to handle.

We all want to hang out with people who make us feel good about ourselves. I thought that's the number one rule to treat people around you. However, as we grow older, the relation is hardly a straight line. The social network can be best represented by spagetti in a plate, it is impossible to straighten one noodle without touching the rest.

Mothers seem to be the experts in dealing with those matters. Constant battles with in laws and family circle make them experienced deal makers. It is almost like an animal instinct, they bond with neighbours, friends, sending out the message of caring by accepting and receiving small gifts (which is pretty OK for women to do). They avoid dangerous zone, potential explosive conversation topic by serving large varieties of foods

The Game

I am reading Neil Strauss' "The Game", the confession of the group of pick up artists, who went about pubs around the world to pick up girls in pubs. The goal of their lifes is to approach girls, get their attention via various techinques such as hypnosis or neg (ignore and tease beautiful women who make normal men weak on knees), suck the phone number out of the girls and then one nightstand. In fact, the techniques they use are very simple reverse psychology. Most people feel uncomfortable when walking into a crowdy pub, a pick up artist simply does everything opposite. He would ignore the girl, talk to her less attractive friend, slowly approach his target, and attack her mercilessly. What action should be performed at what stage was timed perfectly, girls get surprised and impressed.

Pickup artists are usually not drop-dead gorgeous, they are mostly those who didn't lose virginity until early or even late 20s. They work extremely hard to decode the secret of seduction, possibly to make up the lost youth. Of course pickup artists only attract certain type of women, and they indeed like those women. Phone number leads to sex afterward but they are truely after being accepted. When getting women into bed becomes such as an easy task, when the pickup artist has worked himself into a nicer-dressed, more confident, humorous, a general better human being, what is next?

Water Soil and your Body

Having serious eczma attack while in London, I guess I was partying too hard and didn't give my liver a break, plus the weather is really too dry. The rash developed all over my belly and thighs. itching skin and break out face, it is very irritating.

Chinese medicine emphasises that your body harmonizes with the soil and water where you were born. Jetleg affects women more because messing around the clock asynchronizes their menstruation cycles, which was determined at conception.

Is Language Necessary?

In my favorite book “Trader, Guns and Money” I was again fascinated by the power of fine language filled with public school vocabularies and concise yet twisted sentence construction. The Indonesia noodle maker got themselves into trouble by entering the derivatives contracts with some prestigious brand-name investment banks and registered hundreds of millions of loss. The Indonesians wanted to bail themselves out by waging a legal action.

The i-bank people outnumbered the law firm, everyone from the law firm seemed wanting to run out of the door after the i-bank’s head of trading in Asia condemned with the most blasphemy language you could ever imagine “They signed the F****** contracts, they F****** knew what they are getting themselves in F******* to! The meeting is F******* wasting of my F********* time.” The head of the law firm was an old English gentlemen, in his 50’s, stood up and stared at the ballistic raging trader with no trace of timidity. He said “If you have finished your speech then it is my turn, and you sir, shall listen”. He’s stressed the Indonesian’s unsophisticated financial knowledge and implied the totally financial knowledge superior i-bank might have exploited that as an opportunity. He stressed that Financial Times might be interested to put the case into the front line because it has obviously violated her majesty’s FSA (Financial blah blah Association) regulation, which alleges financial institutes are obliged to sell products to customers based on suitability. The lawyers walked out without waiting any further response from the angry and silent opponents. Not a sure win, but at least the old English man has suppressed the “chi” at his enemy. Fancy words and supreme confidences had helped the tiny law firm to stand up in front of the filthily rich and rude i-bank staff.

The author remarked, there is no wonder that the tiny island used to rule the world, with its big vocabularies and legal system. You are easily to be convinced and steered though English is not your first language.

Language is not the most effective way to transmit emotions and feelings. I think most of the time it causes more confusion, does more harm than good because most of us do not want to listen, or the most common cause, misinterpretation.

Hanging out with friends in the noisy pub in city of London, conversation is limited. With different accents of English throwing about the air, I tended not able to follow conversation most of the time, but still able to have good fun, feel getting closer to your friends.

Beef Bourgongne

I bought a packet of Beef Bourgongne Dressing from Tesco, not really knowing what to do with it then. I came back from the talk in LSE just like the old days, not really hungry but thinking I should do something for lunch tomorrow. Remembering the packet and some leftover red wine from the housekeeping abuse party last Friday, I start to make my version of Beef Bourgongne.

The moment I poured the red wine into the boiling pot, the aroma of wine and bouquet of herb (I only have thyme) rushed into the air, wow, that smell brought back a lot of memory. I made my first beef bourgongne with my ex-boy friend, that's almost 7 years ago. How strangely smells can invoke such a distant memory.

The Age of Excitment

I am reading Bill Bryson's Thunderbolt Boy. His writing is fully of mild sarcasm, supposing funny wisdom, which makes you think he is almost afraid of offending someone. Hardly my cup of tea but I had nothing else in hand at the moment, oh well, an easy read to kill time during the night.

In this book he is mainly talking about his childhood in Iowa in the 50's. The food situation is scarily terrible, I mean, people's palates didn't get proper development after the great depression. They only respond to burns and ice cream. Almost everything is good for you, processed food is good for you. Frozen vegetables is good for you. Most doctors smokes Camels, so Camel ciggerates must be good for you. Ice cream makes your bond strong, and people went to Las Vegas to see the atomic bomb testing, so close that they could feel the earth trembling beneath their feet and the radioactive cloud flew over their head, that's good for the picnic.

Everything was exciting, the colour TV and fridge. Scentists reported that they can send missles to the moon carrying letters, allegedly an brand new way to deliver message. The whole nation cheered.

This reminds me a lot of communist China. We laughed at those stories during the great leap, in which the nation fell into the huge craziness to grow the productivity. Funny statistics gathered at the time such as the number of herd grew 10 fold in a year. That's a great deal of similarity of sentiments of that and of America in the 50s.

Visiting T

I made it top of my list to visit my friend T when I am in London, who was hit by the acute leukemia last June. He came to pick me up from the station, I have prepared myself for the worse but I still cannot recognize him when he waved at me. He's lost his hair because of chemotheropy, wearing a hat to fend off the chill, losing so much weight (20kg in the first month). I put on my most cheerful face (borrowed from Mountain View Joey) and convinced myself things are just the way they are when we were working together in California.

He is much better this half month, his mom told me (mom moved to London to take care of him). He is receiving a cocktail of treatments, ranging from radiactive+chemo to kill the bad white blood cell (they are not that bad, at least they are not attacking Thang's body. They are just not doing anything and prevent the marrow from producing useful cells). Sterm cell transplanted from his sister, hopefully they can rebuild the white cell manufactory in T's body. We are still waiting to see if Thang's body would reject his sister's cells (it is very important to have siblings, it is very hard to find the matching if you have none).

I sometimes wonder why fate plays such a cruel thing on a kid (he is literally a kid, no joking, 2 years younger than I am, with the purest heart on earth). It should have happened to the bitter, angry, not-very-nice old witch like me.

Back to London

After 2 years, I flew back to London for 3 weeks, supposingly for business, but I find myself enjoy the reunion with my ex-colleauges enormously. They followed the big boss to the firm I recently joined 2 years ago before I left for Beijing. It is just like the good old days, when we have meeting in the conference room 101 (the pub downstair) bashing/bitching about work. The big boss drew a couple more of my ex-colleagues, we are all in the same boat.

Dave and Manj were 2 of my favorite. Manj is my drinking partner, he's always had the charisma and very talented developer. We spent so many nights drinking and talking silly stuff, nothing very constructive but great to release the stress and it always feels great to hang around with him. Dave is calm and shy, we didn't talk to each other for 2 years because I think he didn't like me. He later explained that's because he is very clumsy to express himself (and clumpsy physically). He's become my mentor, he taught me that I have to be more assertive and there is no need to feel apologetic to anyone. Oh well, I have to say the teaching has reached its success in every dimension, I become a scary woman (after 2 years of professional service and non-stop traveling) who deeply believes no one should mess around with me. I am no longer eager to please the world. Who knows, I think it is partly attributed by aging that I cannot be bothered to try.

I have also met new friends in the team, all very amiable. I threw a housekeeping abuse party on Friday night, presented not very good-tasted roast beef (Brits might think it is OK but it is nowhere close to the standard of Chinese tongue). Anyhow, people came in with drinks and we had a blast.

However, I didn't leave any work for housekeeping. I cannot help but start sorting the soiled plates, forks and knifes, put them into the dish washers while the party was on going. I was reading a book "a female thing", which describes the 4 quantities/emotions still bother nowaday females, struggling between feminism and feminity. They are: envy, sex, dirt and vulnerability.

The section about dirt drew my attention particularly. It is very true that woman and man has different level of sense of cleanness. Thought men started to help out in house chores, women are doomed to do more about the scrapping and washing. What is wrong with us? I only find this cleaning tendency gets stronger and stronger as I get older. I even started to clean up the table in the restaurant if my company dropped things by accident.

Lust & Caution

Akiko successfully tricked me to say "I have flat chest" in Japanese in a restaurant. While people cracking up, she took a picture of me.
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I didn't finish Ang Lee's lust & Caution in one shot, it is kind of embarrassing when sex scene turns up and your parents, sister in laws, Ilan and siblings are around. I had to fast forward those. I am again surprised by Ang Lee, It is beyound my comprehension how he can understand a young lady's lust interwinded with love. How she fell for him, the male protagonist, was depicted subtly. I guess it is very hard for men to understand (most men would not have a clue, I bet). But Ang Lee has done it. The casting is also very successful. Another great work.

POW - Prisoners of Wall Street

Hanging out with Hiroko, I haven't seen her since moving to Tokyo, she is extremely busy with her project, valleyball practice, grandson and the dog, nanachang.
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I am reading this very intersting book by Satyajit Das, Traders, Gunes & Money. Das's scepticism humourous is hysterical, I wish I could write like he does, full of wisdom and prickingly painful humour. I am moving so slowly with his book, because I sincerly want to memorize every single sentence in the book.

There is one chapter about risk management, mathematical finance lends credibility and false precision to the dismal reality of risk management. Take VaR (Value at Risk) for example, all risk management officers are trying to give the bank's senior management one single number to quantify how risky our portfolio is. Some genius came up with the idea of VaR. VaR describes the maximum loss that could occor 1 out of 100 days of trading. However, the model is built on top assumption that all risk factors (interest rates with different tenors, FX rates, etc) are normally distributed. Besides, you need to have at least a couple of thousands of sample space to see the normal distribution. Something smells fishy already. Instead of using Monte Carlo, historical VaR is better? Naaaaaaah. We are making the assmption that the future market movement is somewhat similar to the past. Yeah, tsumani comes every 10 years, and terroist attacks happen periodically.

We still see banks register large loss with liquidity melt down, operational mistake or makret crashes regularly. What are the risk management doing? The conclusion is that risk managment is the insurance that the bank's senior management buy to protect their asses when things go sour, they can have something to blame or someone to fire. In addition, consultants and vendors were the main cheer leaders for risk management guideline, I wouldn't be suprised if there is a group of lobbyists funded by them, trying to push through another new regulation after another market crisis settles.

The Real SiChuan Spicy Hot Pot

My mom and I were invited to the famous hot pot restauraunt in Taipei, which seemed to be very popular and filled with young and attractive ladies. The hotpot is SiChuan style, features the numbing and burning chilly oil covered beef soup, you are allowed to cook anything in it to your satisfaction and it it without any dressing.

However, I was most disappointed. The soup is not genuine, it has way too much MSG and much too salty. The chilly oil on top is not the flavor I tasted in the old fashion SiChuan restaurant in the small alley near my home 20 years ago.

The fabulous restaurant I remembered 20 years agao has the soup cooked out of beef bone and the chilly oil made of SiChuan pepper corns, cinemons, star anis, and other spices. The hot chilly oil was then pour into a bowl full of dried chilly flakes, which brought out the aroma also the hotness without burning the chillies. The combination of the rich beef bone soup base and aromatic chilly oil was hard to describe, at least I haven't smelled it for a very very long time. You can shabu-shabu the thin-sliced beef (or tripes) a second or two before devouring the juicy yet flavored meat. It is really sad that it is so hard to find such a restaurant in Taipei now. The soup I had last night was to salty and so much like instant noodle soup, I rested my chopsticks after a couple of tries.

Our taste buds are deteriating? Or people just go there to see cute girls?

Roller Skating in Paris

I didn’t realize that Tokyo practically shuts down during the western new year period, I booked my ticket and flew home a couple of days after Christmas. Oh well, I didn’t have other plans, besides, I very much like to bring back my roller skates so that I can join the Tokyo Saturday Skate. I used to be the faithful followers for the London Friday Night Skate (but the very last time I did the skating, I really had problem catching up). However, the scale and excitement level cannot be compared with the Paris one.

I went to the gathering place near Montpaness (spelling) by subway, but still had to skate to the big square where 20 thousands skates meet. Without a proper map, I was only following roller skaters on the street. They all seemed to heading toward the same direction. I finally managed to stop a girl (who dressed like a Tom Boy) and asked her where is the meeting point. She was most friendly, understood what I meant but didn’t seem to have enough English vocabularies. She and her friend took me along and we stick together during the trip.

The Friday night skate route changes every week. Paris is not flat, at certain section, we were flying down the hill (gentle one, not the one from Mont Royal). We were all going in full speed because nothing can stop this massive quantity of skaters, we were the king of the road. We were told to move as a group, if someone falls, we have to raise both of our hands, to signal the skaters behind you to stop or slow down. We didn’t really know where we are going to turn at the next corner, thus, we have to raise our both hands wave toward the direction we are going when turning so that the skaters behind us can follow. Just imagine how it looks like when a couple of hundred people doing it at the same time.

When skating in the not well-lit road going in full speed, what most skaters fear is some little pebble or even holes, the wheels can get stuck and your body is still carrying the momentum. Chances are you can land on your knees or chin the worse case. Wrist guard is strongly recommended because we tend to support ourselves with our hands when hitting the ground.

One of my skating friends tripped, she fell forward. With the strange luck, she rolled on her back and stood on her skate going forward again miraculously.

Where to find the Great Taste Bamboo Shoots

In the mountain area near the northern part of Taipei city. That's where the biggest river going through Taipei city meets the ocean. The bamboo shoots produced in that area is very juicy and sweet, in summer times, we always cook them in the boiling water and let it cool, you can almost have it like that, they taste like apples.

People say that the bamboo forest grow so well in that area because that mountain range is also the most favourable burial area in Northern Taiwan, very good Fung Shui.

Happy New Year 2008!

Old China Town Paradox

Where can you get good Chinese food when you are not in the Chinese soil? China town seems to be the common sense for non Chinese people. However, speaking the truth, I rarely had decent Chinese food in any China town, incluing San Francico, New York, Toronto or Yokohama. The foods are OK, but the sitting area is never comfortable. The decor is always the owner's homegrown taste, lighting is commonly dim (so that dinner cannot spot the soiled table cloth because they were not done professionally but in the owner's home laundry machine). Most restuarants are run by the owner, who picks up the phone taking take out orders then runs to the wok to cook. The shop is basically ran by the couple, one cooks and the other handles the accounting and hospitality department.

Waitrons are either temporary (grad students working night shift to save for next semester's expense), or the owner couple's relatives, who you see year after year. There were 2 types of owner's wives (not to be discriminative, but most chefs were male). One type is the hard working one, who never manages to make herself look more presentable. She sits behind the counter, making sure the money is collected. She would also put on the plastic glove cleaning up the table or dishes when shorthanded. The other type always keeps herself pretty, have the nails meticulously done. She would articulates her Chinese style, almond eyes and so on. Smile flirtatiously to every male customer (she also remembers their names). Never dirty her fingers with kitchen work.

The quality of ingredients is not of the best because the restaurants constant struggle of saving cost. I was told, in New York, the final batch of fish market's sales is scarvengered by Chinese restaurants. The old China town restaurants keep feeding the city with cheap and somewhat authentic food. They are fine to survive but cannot pocket more to rejuvenile the food and service.

There is a Chinese saying goes like "You would know how to eat and dress after being rich for 3 generations". Oversea china town tends to be too seedy and overly Chinese to have comtemporary high quality dinning experience. Of course, there are exceptions, those who insists to do their food the original way for decades.

The best hope to get nice food is to trace those Hong Kong immigrants after 80s.

5 Short Stories (yes, there're 5 of them, thanks Ata)

Once upon a time, there was a beautiful princess lived in a small village by the sea. One day tsunami hit the shore and the princess was eaten by a shark.
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Alien attacked the earth and human almost wiped out, but when they all work together they defeat the aliens and the earth is safe. Then a big meteor destroys earth.
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The detective concluded the bulter committed the murder of the millionaire. The bulter protested his innocence, suffered a heart attack and died.
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"Work hard and you can achieve your dreams!" The mother told her son. He then became a world class athlete and he won a gold medal in the olympics.
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A father and son exchange bodies after being struck by lightening. A lot of funny stuff happens regarding kids & adults situations. Then they return to normal.
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This ends my series of SMS haiku stories. Hoep you enjoyed these profound engrossing stories in an SMS (160 character maximum) nutshell.

Broken Fingers

Going to the the Kawaguchiko, the town right next to Mount Fuji. I really need to have a fresh breath of air outside of the concrete jungle. I mean, Tokyo is great but after a while you kinda miss the mountains and trees.

We came to the season where all leaves have fallen the week before, the riverside is under on-going renovation, mud and sand were everywhere. Oh well, it is still good to get out of town for a while.

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As a little girl, I spent a lot of time playing with stray dogs. In fact, I collected them, always took home with me a dog with serious skin problems. Stray dogs were suffering from fugus infection or flea bites. They tend to scratch too much which later develop into infection. Of course, no one was treating them, the ill skin turned into smelly wounds. My parents were too busy to notice what I was doing, I did spend a good deal of time after school in the garage.

I started this fugus infection condition on my fingers since grade 3. During the winter time, the skin broke out no matter how much lotion I applied. It is like the fingers refuesed to obsorb any kind of moisturizer. You can see the small porous holes filled with water underneath the skin on my finger tips. And they itched like hell.

It bothered my mom because my hands were so badly chapped it bleeded all the time. She would squeezed time out from her busy schedule to take to doctors. In my memory, I had tried so many different type of medicine. Sometimes the medical lotion was black greasy like asphalt, sometimes it smelled nice like strawberry. But nothing really helped. The sympton would go away for a while then return. The doctors told me not to play sands or touch dirty stuff, but I guess they don't really know I was taking care of the stray dogs. My mom would sometimes hold my hands while walking, always moving her fingers around mines to check if the condition had been relieved but she always sighed.

After I started attending high school, I had no more time with stray dogs, the condition was getting better but still not fully under control. Sometime later, I got a bottle of medicine for skin diease from the vet and I was applying it on my stray dogs, a couple of weeks later, both my dogs' and my fingers' skin were cured.

Sharing Table with the Iron Chef

I met up with Susie on Sunday for our pilgrimage trip to Muji headquarter near Yurakucho station. When being asked for lunch idea, I suggested the yakitori place that I have read on internet (where people refused to go with me because it is too seedy, too old fashion or whatever the reason is). I walked past this grill chicken paradise a number of times but never had enough courage to walk in and order some grilled skewered chicken with my broken Japanese.

We sat down in the small table, the ceiling is literally above my head (this is the small join underneath the Yurakucho JR station, to be exact, right under the railway. You can feel the wall trembling when trains go by). Later the seats next to us was occupied by 3 Japanese men, the older one started to chat us up, offered us food and drink. It was very much pleasant meeting.

It turned out the old man was one of the iron chef challengers, he runs a restaurant in Ginza and the 2 other young men are also in charge of restaurants in Asakusa and Yebisu. Strange Tokyo, people are so snobbish sometimes yet so friendly if you go to the right place.

The very strange thing is that the youngest chef was doing all the service for the iron chef, I mean, he refilled his glasses and ours with much attention but you don't feel annoyed. He even diluted my drink with water when the iron chef insisted to pour me more liqour while I was eyeing him not to. He skillfully made his master happy and not get me drunk at the same time. Whenever the master talks to him, he would grab his ear (he sat next to the young chef) and dragged him over, the young guy looked exactly like the son being submisive to his father. Is this an act or he is doing it out of an habit?

>

Party like the Indians do

We had the Indian theme party on Saturday, just the way Susie likes it to be. She invites people over to her places, supply a lot of alcohol and make them cook for her. I, as usual, became the best amature sous chief you can ever dream of in town. I observe and guess the chef's next move, I am like the worm inside the cook's stomach, constantly think ahead of the chef. I know exactly when I should hand over the spatula or clean the cutting board. I also julian cut or dice any veggie given the dimensions (sometimes I visualise how the veggie should look in a dish without asking, amazingly, it always works out fine).

I finally met another woman who can make louder laughing sound than me. Sunary is such a character. A typical New Yorker, American, being trapped in the small oriental girl's body. We had a blast. Suchi, Arif and Semeer were also extraordinary. The Indian lady Suchi drinks wine, eats everything and looked so young as a mother of a 8 year old. I hurried back to Nyngyocho by the last train with 3 huge bags stuffing a small stereo system. Half drunk, but still managed to take it home alright. Gee, I have been partied too hard these days.

How to Make You Day

Though the project room and the office is filled with the politics shit and people are not very nice in general. I try my best to put on my happy face to everyone, I am very calm and gentle to people I meet. Including the security guards in the bank. I always smile at them when coming in or going out.

We were required to flash our badges when passing through the gate. I always smile sweetly to them although I seem to be the only one doing it (yeah, Tokyo people all have the poker faces, can hardly spare a smile to strangers). I think it somehow pays off.

I was ask to bring back another colleague's badge back to the bank after my Japanese lesson in the office. I flashed his badge to the security guard and smiled sweetly as usualy when entering the bank. I was not stopped.

In the Train

The old Chinese saying goes "it take 10 years in your previous life to brew a chance to share the same boat with a him/her in your present life. And it takes 100 years to share the pillow". I am always wondering what I did to deserve the chance to share a subway train ride with my fellow passengers.

The subway train ride in Tokyo is dead. The moment a group of talkative and energetic teens board the train, they go dead silent. No one looks around to spot anything/anyone interesting, everyone is trying to avoid eye contact with strangers. I am often amused by this, so I just look around and try to catch anyone's eye contact when I am in the train.

When Irene came to Tokyo, we were sitting in the train and talked in Mandarin. "The train is really quite" " Yeah, I know". "Can we pretend to have a fight?" "Do you want to get on TV first then be deported to Canada and me to Taiwan?"

So I rested my case and we kept talking while everyone else in the train was so quiet. Suddenly Irene grab my shirt and asked me agressively if I think she is going to get rich one day.

I was genuiely shocked, thus, my facial expression said it all that we were not joking. The act clicked in my mind almost instantly and I took over the sence . I started to shake my head violently and gave this please-do-not-beat-me-up look. (I found that Japanese people are very sensitve in facial expression, they are very good at picking up your emotion in general, perhpas that's the side effect of living in a highly, densely populated area).

The train car is still in dead silence. I stole a glance over the people, no one was trying to look at us but the air was tense, you can feel that people in the car are starting to feel uncomfortable. The oyaji (old-middle-age man) sitting next to me just stood up and walked to the door, although it is not his stop to get off.

We resumed our conversation in normal pace, as if nothing has happened, so did our fellow passengers.

Meeting with Big Boss

Obviously the management starts to feel the heat that the lucrative project is not properly managed (we are billing the bank almost a million quarterly). The big boss came to Tokyo and wanted to have 1 to 1 session with every consultant. We agreed to meet for dinner. When I first joined 2 months ago, still young and naive, I gave him a very good impression that I am very energetic and uplifting. He wanted to take me out for dinner.

We went to the pub next to his hotel, I was trying hard to look professional and confident. But the moment I set foot into the pub, I started my multiple sneezing non stop and also I really needed to use the bathroom. So I grabbed chance between my violent sneezing saying I need to go pee. He looked at me, obviously amused, said that's too much information. I was a bit embarrassed because I didn't use the proper language in front of the big boss (that must be the voilent sneezes), nevertheless, I set out to the toilet.

The toilet located in the corner of the small pub was occupied, I decided to go back to our table and wait for my turn. As I walked, I tripped over the platform right underneath the bar stool. I literally flew and landed on my knee. The semi-full, noisy restaurant turned dead silent for a couple of seconds while I was on the floor. I managed to get up with my last streak of diginity but my shins were hurting like hell.

The big boss was even more amused, kept telling people around that I am more fun when I am really drunk. I am old enough not to feel really embarrassed but my shins were badly bruised and scratched. The big boss asked for ice from the bar, put them on my foot and instructed me not to mention this to HR. The waitress came to take our orders and asked me sympathetically how is my foot.

The bruises went away today but my arm muscles are so sore and tense. I must thrust my arms forward very hard when falling.

We Love to Party

Made to Stick

I was reading "Made to Stick", explaining what makes an event, an story linger in your audience's mind for a couple of hours, months or even years. Just got to the chapter about the "surprising" factor. The author explains that emotion is supposed to help us to survive. For example, when being angry, our brians literally stop thinking process so we can focus on the event and get out of danger quick.

Anger also enforces the belief that we are correct, do you remember last time when you were angry with someone, you cannot rationalize but only understand "I was right, it is not my fault"?

Similarly, surprise, the emotion urges us to note there is a change in our thinking pattens. We tend to be comfortable to contant events. A out-of-blue change is more likely to make us think, wanting to get to the bottom of the sudden turn. Because it is a signal to change our guessing routine, thus, the unexpected sticks to our minds longer.

Young Wife

I was invited to Irene's family gathering when we were both in Taipei for Kaiping's wedding. Irene's family friends, managers working in her father's business attended the dinner. Over the dinner table, there was a young lady who looks younger than Irene and I, talking sweetly and telling me that she lives in ShangHai. I was curious how she was dragged into this crowd but I didn't utter a single word. Later, I figured out that she is the young wife of one of Irene's father's managers, who is, of course, around the same age of Irene's father.

He was sitting next to this young girl, attentively making sure that her plate is full of foods and she is not too bored by people around her, who she barely knows. The manager is a typical middle-age Taiwanese business man, loud, grass rooted and sharp. Speaking Mandarin with thick Taiwense accent and looking at me with accusation eyes when I told him that I don't speak Taiwanese fluently. You can feel the fight between manhood and tenderness when he looked at her with the dreamy eyes. How he divoiced his wife who fought with him over these years for better life and married this young lady from ShangHai? However, you can sense the jokes shoot toward this young ShangHai girl from other managers' middle-age wives are not coming out of no where (are they feeling insecured?).

How is life being fare to the divoiced middle-age wife? Will she be able to find another life after all these years spending on her husband and family, living without herself? She is driven out of the social cicle because of this young kid. What is she now after being ripped of the title of being someone's wife? Is she happier after being single again? However, if the middle-age manager responsible for love being lost between them so that the affair could have the chance to grow? We all have the right to pursue happiness, however, if it costs others' happiness? Would you do it?

One thing we can almost be sure is that the middle-age manager would not have been so lovingly taking care of his company if he's not divoiced his wife and brought her to the dinner.

Line of the Day

Having lunch with other consultants in the office, I bashed about how strange this client is. A number of technical analysts were dismissed from the project because of some strange reasons. M.C. is on the job now, under a lot of stress because the client keeps criticising him. Poor young M.C., I mean, I tried to tell him this is only a job, but he is so stressed that he cannot sleep at night.

The client is painstakingly into details, and clinging to the documentation word by word. Another very good tech consutlant who was dismissed from the bank told me that once the bank asked why the downloaded software was a zip file before and is a jar file tihs time. They demanded to log this as an issue and wanted a 10 page long explanation.

(the java jar files are usually packaged into a zip file to ship)

Preoccupied

I seemed very absent-minded these 2 days, I boarded on the train bound for the wrong direction twice in a row. That might have something to do with the book I am reading. Natsuo Kirino is a female writer living in Japan. "Out" is her first book got translated into English in 1998. She is such as good story teller. First, she tried to hook you in with food because the female protagonist worked night shift at the lunch-box factory. I can smell the grease from deep frying pork cutlet and steam from just cooked rice. The foods turned into such mundane, uninteresting objects, lunch boxes, waiting to be shipped. She is cold, intellegent and lonely. She is 43, her career and family are both screwed. She decided to take the night shift job and spent the hours from midnight to 5am with financial stressed part-time housewives.

One of the housewives strangled the abusive hudsband to death and, being the most sturdy and strong one in the group, she was asked to help out getting rid of the body. She did, cutting her friend's husband into pieces and threw them with household waste. The group of part-time housewives is drawn into this killing and cutting one after another. This is really a page turner, you cannot help but wanting to know what is going to happen to these plain, normal housewives, how can they get out of the mess.

After the body part was found, the Casino owner was the primary suspect of the killing. The author spent a long time describing him, how he became impotent after raping and stabbing a woman 17 years ago. With which her pleasure and pain are his and his hers. He is the lonely soul, trying desperately to find the sexual climax no one ever experienced. I actually find this character more interesting than the cold, intellegent Masako (the protagonist). In fact, my attention was drawn to Sakate, the casino owner, because he is such so much different from the ordinary Japanese men I know. He is a pimp, selling women in his hostess club to whoever is willing to buy them a drink. He dressed very well yet too pronounced. His voice is low and smooth. He has solid, almost stocky body build yet his fingers are delicated and well-manicured. He is scary, in Kabuki-cho, people are experienced enough to get out of his way when he's on the street.

He is looking for another woman who hates him like hating snake yet attracted to him, as anyone can guess, Masako fits. (Don't ask me why, Masako is a mystery in the whole book. The book only vaguely explains that both she and the casino owner have things in common, that is, they are both sick. She wouldn't mind being killed, as long as it is in his hand, and he wants to kill her while making love to her). He met Masako when he found out that she got rid of the body. He also found out Masako has the potential to bring back his widest sexual experience.

Meanwhile, Masako started her own little business, as if she had no choice, she started to cut up bodies in her own bathroom for the Yakuza and earn heafty amount of money for herself and her housewife friends. She sure had choice not to get involved. But I think this comes from her self-destruction. She didn't need the money, she just wanted to see how low she can sink.

I am not going to tell you how the story ended. The plot is happening in the most ordinary, boring neighbourhood yet the clush of personalities isamazing. However, I think the book is a bit weak about Masako and Sakate's motivation.

When the Tree Falls in a Forest without Anyone There

Does it make a sound? That's the most strange question I ever encountered, who the hell want to ask this type of question?

I had very philosophical conversation today. It goes like:

"Why it is not good to think negatively?"
"Because you might potentially lose the benefit of thinking positively"
"Your answer is very positive in a negative way."

What Love Looks Like

I will need to do some shopping today. I literally passed out the whole day, haven't been so sick for years.
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I was reading the Taiwanese movie director's plan to depict Taiwanese men. They are usually shy, don't know how to express themself, care about friends (to be honest, I am not sure there is anything to film about). His next filming plan is more interesting, a love story. He said, when you are young, you fall in love with your own imagination. Everything lovable about her/him came from your own restless thinking. When you are middle age, love is a shit hole, features mortgage, children education funds and endless unexpected expense. When you get old, love is to hold your partner's hand and take a walk.

Want to be a Consultant?

My friend has demonstrated everything bad about being a contractor for the past month. I can understand why permenant employees don't like them because they are getting paid a lot more than we do. Also, if the billable work is taken up by contractor, perm workers would have less chance of getting decent bonus.

Contrary to the monetary reward of being a contractor, the downside is you don't know when you will be told to go home. The bank can turn around and say we don't like the contract we signed a couple months ago because we don't like you now and we are not going to pay you anymore. Holly shit, this can get very emotional and personal. I can see it is taking toll on my friend over this past few weeks. Of course, the off-site work were not made clear to the bank at the beginning is also a reason.

The other not-so-good thing is that a contractor is never belonged to any team. It would help if the hosting officer make some effert to blend the contractors in, what if the environment is contractor-obnoxious? The time and energy to cope with the political upheaval are amazing.

Sitting on the Tin

The day I returned to Tokyo, I wasn't feeling well the whole day because I unwisely drank a super huge craneberry banana smoothie in our breakfast hang out in Lotus Hill. We then had lunch in a restaurant in Taipei city before departing to the airport.

My sister in law, nephew, Grace and my parents were all present. We ordered 4 or 5 dishes which are pretty standard and delicious. I didn't eat much but the rice because the food tasted too salty and I had to stop my parents from having a verbal fight. It is very energy consuming to divert their attention.

Anyhow, my dad became the victim to accompany me to the airport. Strangely my bowl movement clock was messed up and things were fine again after a bathroom visit. As usual, airport is the place where my father likes to get emotional and we had a fight, throwing violent languages back and forth (while lots of people enjoy watching) until I entered the gate.

The next day I got my dad's phone call saying everyone is having the diarrhea or vomitting. I am fine apart from the fact that I didn't feel hungry. A couple of days later, Irene called me saying Aoki and she were also seriously ill after returning back from Taiwan. It turned out it is the stomach flu, which is very contagious. The inflammation is caused by rotavirus rather than food poisoning. My mom and I seemed the lucky few who is strong enough to fend it off so far.

I woke up with sore limps and abdominal pain this morning, yet still thinking eagerly what I am going to do today. However, I have to answer the call of nature number of times even before my morning coffee. My Saturday is ruined.

What Do You Really Need in a New Flat

I think I am very much qualified to write about starter's kit of a new home since this is the 3rd time I moved to a new apartment in the past 2 years (if you really count carefully, I changed home twice in California, twice in New York, twice in London, twice in Beijing).

I moved to a flat with almost everything I need, but there is a little mess up with my luggage, I spent my first night on my bed without bedsheet and blanket (had to wrap myself up with my scarf and put on many jumpers). I didn't have towel to dry myself after shower, I pursed up my lips and dried up my hair with pajama, at least they are made of cotton.

Toilet rolls are of course important, but in Japan, you can always get free packet of tissues on the streets, this can wait. My mouth guard is getting uncomfortable, I needed to use scissors to shape up the plastic piece. I used the nail clipper instead, not the most efficient way but it worked.

I brought my french press and fine coffee powder with me. My day is only starting after the boiling hot water goes into the pop and the wonderful coffee aroma flows in the light, crispy morning air... The first time I feel like to cry after this month's relocation ordeal was when I realised I have no coffee mug and it is impossible to drink it out of the coffee pot.

A Hole in the Wall

Running back to my new apartment from work, I am 20 minutes late because my bag is supposed to get delievered to my flat between 6-9pm tonight. When I got home, I was nevously watching around trying to find the delivery truck. Shit, I might have just missed them for 2 minutes. At the same time, I tried to console myself that the delivery guy might not be that puncture. Anyhow, I got back to my little flat and wait, drown myself with a bottle of cold beer.

I don't really agree with the way the bed was positioned in my small bedroom when I viewed this flat with my agent 2 weeks ago. Under the influence of alcohol and boredom, I think tonight is the night to make my life a whole lot better, by changing the orientation of the bed. I went to the bedroom, removed all excess weight that is going to impede my grand plan of rotating the bed, ready to go. Carefully calculated the space, I decided to lift my double bed side way, rotate it to the position desired and then let it down carefully without damaging the drywall. The bed is surprisingly heavy even after I remove the matrics and supporting woodslabs. I lifted the bed up so it is resting on the side frame. I easily rotated it to the position and the real problem revealed itself to me. It is viturally impossible for me along to lower the side of the heavy bed. Many ideas started to roam in my mind. Disassemble the bed requires screwdriver, which I don't have. Asking the delivery guy to help me with it is too risky, number 1, I don't speak Japanese (he might think I am inviting him to have some fun with me). Number 2, I don't want to invite stranger to my bedroom, either. OK, so I am all by myself, what can I do?

I slowly lower one end of the bed, carefully cushion the leg against the wall with my T-shirt. I then move along to the other side, trying to move the side on the ground inch by inch (the floor is carpetted, friction is huge, very hard to move), so I can adjust the cushion T-shirt inch-by-inch so that I don't damange the wallpaper. As I moved to the lower end of the bed, a strange thinking occured to me, why shouldn't I try to lift the whole bed quickly so both end can be situated in the right position? That saves a lot of time. I naturally went to the weight center, lifted up the bed as hard as I can and then the disaster followed.

The bed has the heavy wooden panel sticked to the head, what I have miscalculated is the bedsite lamp has added the additional weight to one side. The bed was not balanced when I hold the center of hte bed frame, it quickly ducked over to the wall and created a 2x1 inch hole on the wall. I am very much devastated.

Edgy

I went through the emotional rollercoaster ride yesterday. Thinking the apartment contract is finally settling in and I only need to trash Stephen's apartment for a couple of nights, I was only too relieve that this flat hunting nightmare was calling to an end. A phone call from my manager came. He accused me of not being sensitve to the office manager, who was swamped by the apartment application I introduced. Also, the agents I have ever had contact with persistently called her to see if Joey is still looking for a place in Tokyo. I was furious, burning with rage. I wasn't told the apartment rental process in Japan, and I had no idea that the agents I worked with have caused such a dramatic effect on our office manager. I was also repeatedly told that the company can seal the contract for me as long as I can find a flat I like. The reality is far off. I was frustrated, stressed, and constantly worried that I am going to sleep on the street because the company didn't show any sign of sympathizing my situation, thus, my corporate apartment is not going to be extended. Now I was given a lecture of how unsensitive I have been?

I wrote to my manager, clearly indicated that I don't appreciate his phone call and my first month in Tokyo is certainly not the best. His phone call made the lowest of the low. When I clicked the "send" button, I was determined to quit. I cannot imagine working with such a character. What the hack, I can always find a job in Starbucks.

My manager wrote back within half an hour, I cannot be bother to read it. Toward end of the work day, I finally bring it open and found that my manager has agreed to extend my corporate apartment yet alleged I am the key person he wants to keep in his professional service team. OK, my immediate problem is solved (I don't need to slush my luggage with me to Rippongi and move again on Monday when the apartment is ready), a relief. But I am still edgy, feeling humiliated and uncomfortable.

Grinding Teeth

It seemed not stress-related but more food-related, my grinding teeth. I heard my father do it, the sound is like pressing 2 ceramic objects against each other tightly, then slowly sliding one of them away. Of course, with a lot more intensity. Obviously I was doing it myself, one time I was half awoke and found that my jaw clench so tight as if I am chewing. The molars were moved against each other slowly but the action felt so right at the moment, my brain cannot think of any other things to do to make myself more comfortable then.

I was given the dental guard and use it religiously since. However, I sometimes dream about biting into food and found that the guard has stopped me from enjoying the texture.

The Bloody Finger

I think I should write this down as a slice of my childhood. That was a autum day where I was still in junior high school, all I want is a better bicycle and photographic memory (so I can pass exam easily). Uncle Thomas was in town that day.

I came back home from school just like any other oridinary school day. My father was working on the machine in the garage. My mom was chatting with Uncle Thomas. Out of blue,my dad walked into the living room with his left hand holding his right, blood was springing from his enclosed left hand and dripping on the floor. My father said "Give me a cigerrate, I think we need to go to the hospital.". I remember my mom slipped into floor and Uncle Thomas held her up. I came out from my room and witnessed the whole bloody scene. I fetched the car key for Uncle Thomas and they were rushing to the emergency room.

I was left alone in the empty house, with blood all over the floor from garage to the living room. My mom's rigid house clean training kicked in. I picked up the table cloth and mop, started to clean up the blood from the first scene, the machine in the garage. As I cleaned the blood from the steel debribs, I found the top third portion of my father's pinky finger. I think my father and I had never been that close since my childhood. I took the lifeless, meat-like finger to the sink and let the water wash away the dirt. I read in reader's digest some people's limbs were saved that way (reader's digest is only good at that time). I wrapped the finger in tissue paper, put it in my back packet and jump on the bike, riding as fast as I can to the hospital.

They saved my dad's ring fingure, but the pinky finger I sent cannnot be attached because the bones and muscle were threaded. We put it in the perservative filled glass bottle and save it in the fridge so we can scare and disgust our guests once in a while. It might be lost when we moved house a couple of years ago.

Happy Birthday, Miffy!

I went to the acqarium to celebrate my birthday. To see other miserable creatures stucked in the dead end pool swimming in circles seems to help me lifting up a bit. Am I cruel or what?

There is a huge white dolphin isolated in one huge tank (I am using huge too many times? But she is really huge, 3 meter long at least). She swam in circles, practiced tricks because she knew how to draw the wow from the crowd. Her face seem cheerful, you know how dophine looks like, the slightly upward curvey lips always give you the illusion that they are enjoying themselves. She skillfully let out the potato size bubble from the breathing hole on top of her head and then eats it in with her smily mouth. She does it again and again, as if she is appreciating the attention. I stood there and felt so damn sad. She knew it all yet she is doing it because she has no other choice to make her life better. This is a little entertainment in her life, perhaps.

The wild animals are too busy to worry about what they were born to do, they are constantly finding anything that can sustain their life longer in order to reproduce and raise the young. The purpose of life is very clear that they want to survive and prosper. What is there for the animials and fishes in cages? What is there for human beings if you are well fed and don't know what to do next?

The slits are located in the underside of the dolphin's body, concealing the reproductive organ. It looks surprising sensual. After all, we are all mammal, are we not?

Time to Say Goodbye

My starting month in the new job in Tokyo is not the best. In addition to the bad luck with apartment hunt, the unfriendly officemates, unhelpful office manager and obnoxious project teammates. I am so deperssed that I only want to do the mininum and get my paycheck. This is so unthinkable to me in the past, I always put 200% of myself into my job, I dated and slept with my work, sadly, I like it.

I start to wonder why some people strive in their work and some don't. I mean, put the right people in the right envivronment, they grow, blossom and glow. Suppose the opposite, they fade and wither.

One of the most experienced contractors is released from the project for some reasons I don't quite understand. Is there a god? If there is, he must be a serious joker. Sometimes you just have to let things fail, I guess.

Do you notice that the most difficult part of messenging, chatting with people on the internet is when to say good bye? You two seemed to run out of interesting conversation topics yet out of politeness, you hang around, waiting for the other to quit first. I mean, I feel guilty and rude to say good bye, perhaps I am still a nice person deep down?