Those Small Things in Life (1)

Riding home, having a very bad feeling about the evening rain forecasted by news in the morning. When walking out of the building, the sky was darkened and it was drizzling. Too lazy to leave my bike in Shinagawa, I got on riding thinking I might be able to beat the odds.

It turned raining like crazy when I reached Tsukiji, another 20 minutes to go, I was soaking wet and the freezing temperature didn't help. I started to really worry about my leather gloves and handbags. Most of all, is my computer bag waterproof? Getting really annoyed being stopped by red light, even angry. An umbrella came over to my head, a guy was also waiting to cross and giving me a half of his shelter. I was very delighted but couldn't find the proper Japanese to express my gratitute - "domo aligado" was the only think I can say before running into the rain again.

What is True Love

Joey with bad hair cut
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I went out drinking with my friends in the last night of my stay in London, I might not come back to London again in January at all. Hanging out in a crowdy pub, with all our laptop bags on the floor, after finishing the last sip of our drink, my friend produced a candy from her pocket and handed it over to her boy friend.

She is known for hating sweets like candies or cakes yet she kept a candy handy so she can surprise her boy friend anytime. Seeing the delighted face on him, I guess this is true love.

Precision

I had these 2 gel package freebies from my nail polish purchase in Tokyo a while ago, didn't get a chance to use them until I am in London. Since they are gelly like, and pink (the other set is dark pink), I assumed they must be for the lips.

Only today I was trying hard to decode the Katagana, it turns out "a-- i-- ka---la--". "pu-- si---shu--" Holly sh*t, I have been applying the eyecolour on my lips for 2 weeks.

Outliner

Finished reading Melcolm Gladewell's outliner in 3 days. This is really cheating, double spaced and thick papers (but I also complain if the words are too small, women are hard to please). The ideas are pretty much very Melcolm, I mean, just like his previous "Tipping points" and "Blink", what he said in those books are very very common sense. However, he is just a very good story teller, who organized the idea in a better way such that the dull, mundane common knowledges become very interesting.

In one of the chapers he said that the middle class family tends to train kids to speak with adults with ease, thus, they tend to conform with the society better (knowing how to deal with the authority, filling up the forms to apply for scholarship, etc). However, kids grew up in poor family tend to be against the authority because they have been rejected all their childhood. Anti-social, or has difficulty to communicate or to bargain for a better deal for themselves in school, or in life.

It took me a long long time to talk to adults with ease, ha ha ha ha, even after I have turned into an adult myself.

Falling Leaves Return to Their Roots

Sorry about not writing much this month. I found this great Odenya (Oden house) in Ginza, featuring Kyoto style cooking. After being in Tokyo for a while, you can feel that somehow everything in Kyoto is more elegant and most people do agree. Tokyo people are feeling cultural inferior to Kyoto despite the booming economy

That's the power of culture. It has no obvious meaning of all the ceremonies and rituals or decorations. But without them, life seem so damn boring.
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The story of an unwanted daughter in a Chinese family. The whole book was filled with self-pity and insecurity. Even when the author was around 50 something, successful career woman with good family, she is still begging for her step mother's acceptance and love. WTF! I cannot believe this. She has wasted all these year living in fear, reciting how badly she was treated in her childhood and how proud of herself she was because she put herself through the difficult time.

Wake up, move on, and stop writing/thinking about your childhood (maybe too late, she's published a book) and pitying yourself.

I have no idea what type of people would spend money to buy the book, trying to satisfy their curiousity about China before after WWII? Or they would like to know how Chinese women's feet were bounded. Ok, I have to admit I started to read it because of that. After chapter 3, I only want to know how bad this book can be. Thank god this bad read didn't take me too much time, finished it on my flight to London.

I want to create a category "IMPOSSBLE TO READ" in my blog just for this book.

How to Degrade Your Enemy

Asking your colleauge to prepare for snakes and drinks for a meeting seems to be the way to do it.

Facebook is Evil

I got an email from Thang's family via Facebook saying that he was in the intensive care unit, and we have to expect the worse last month.

I got another message today, the sister of my university friend, Michael Thorsley, wrote to me saying that Michael has lost contact with his family 3 years ago, she was wondering if I have heard anything from him since. Damn, I thought he is only playing seek and hide with me, I hope everything is ok.

Credit Crunch Theorya

Was chatting with my friend Cathy in California. She said tha she just figured out one theory after the stock market crash, spend as much as you can while you can enjoy it. You lose money faster in stock market than buying a Gucci bag or Burberry shoes. Besides, as you get old, it is more and more expensive to make yourself happy. Do it while you can afford it.

I guess I am going to buy the most expensive shoes in my life this weekend.

Self Development and Growth

I do not particularly like these types of books. One of our family friends has turned herself into sort of a cult leader, giving talks, publishing books and hosting a blog to answer questions. People truely admire her, follow her advise and sincerely want to elevate their spiritual level such that they can separate themselves from unsatisfactory realities.

My dentist in Taipei was her faithful follower, so keen and eager to discuss her books with everyone who set foot in his clinic. He was so much like to get in touch with her once he realised she is our family friend. My mom turned to me for help. Oh gee, we haven't seen her for almost 15 years (after she divoiced my father's friend). I wrote her an email, hoping she still remember me and introduce my dentist to her.

I have never understood why people spend money on this type of books. Her writings are simple, story-like, without deep philosophy. The deepest is that "oh, you have to look into your innerself to ask what you want" Man, I am doing that everyday, I seriously ask myself what I want to eat. All these are bloody straightforward, everyone-understand concepts, but few people achieve. People just buy them to give themselves a false hope that they will be able to let go desire and temptation?

TV shows

Coming back to London, one of the things I am very happy about is that, finally, I am in touch with English speaking TV programs again. I spent my Saturdday night watching CSI New York, CSI Miami, CSI Vegas, then Law & Order. topped with Agatha Christie's 2-hour long program, OMG, I am in heaven. It is no longer the programs that I can only guess (Japanese TV shows are also quite interesting, I only had to guess 80% of the time). I can understand the plot, how the director want your attention to drift, wow, amazing.

I no longer able to do my manicure, iron my shirt, cook/eat dinner while the TV is on. That's the only shortcoming of it.

Agatha Chrstie's England

I am a big fan of Agatha Christie's detective stories, read most of them in both Chinese and English. But seeing BBC's production of it is another thing. It is not easy to imagine those stiff-upper-lip, Eton graduates's life was like in the pre world war II London or Oxfordshire. Though human natures are pretty much not surprising in every culture (love, hate, desire and fear), the BBC series gave a fair images. No Brits myself, but I quite enjoy the England depicted in it.

Women dressed in puffy skirts and skin tight tops, the waists are so tiny almost like a part of their bodies have stayed in the age of 10. They look confident, flirtatious and humorous, regardless of their age (Miss Marple is the exception, but I think that's her camouflage). Men are dignified and calm, even when the killer was identified at the end, rarely the killer lost his/her cool. Everyone seemed to have a story but no one is telling (English is very private), suspension arises, hard to find any better setting for detective stories.

Scent of Woman

Al Pacino's "Scent of Woman" was one of my all-time favorite movies. Oh, I don't remember most of it, but I am going to talk about scent. I used to think the medieval Europeans must be mad, they would exchange a ounce of peppers for gold. They sailed into the uncertain angry sea in search of fresh exotic spices and fragrance. Who needs those stuff? Growing up in a Chinese family, my parents never used colong, perfume. My father smelled of ciggarrete, toothpaste (in the morning) and tea. My mom smelled a bit of sweat and light body odour. Our clothes smelled of detergent and camphor. The most exciting spiece we used in our foods are ginger and chillies.

After turning 30ish, I start to rediscover my body, It is perhaps we were so distracted to explore the surroundings when we're young that we had no time to see (really seeing) ourselves. Now we were to bored with the world, so we look at ourselves to find some entertainment.

I do not think I have strong body odor, but perfume has become something I must wear before going to work. It is almost a statement and a hint of my existence. It is part of the dress that day. Of course, it has a percentage of attention attracting purpose. I started to realise why those Europeans were obsessive with scent. Before all the chemical engineering makes fabricating smells easy, what they can do about creating a good smell? Right, colonize the tropical lands! Oh well, it is all economics, business men found it is lucrative to sell the spices and parfume, let's lobby the royal family to build a big ship, money can be a pretty strong motivation.

Software Production

Party, party, party, Susie likes to have me in her parties.
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I started to realise that you dont need to be a super smart, rocket scientist to produce software that clients will accept. It is all about expectation management, planning and quality assurance. There is no bullet proof software, it largely relies on how well we educate our users. Everything is possible, if you use the software the right way.

To Help or Not to Help

The Infinity people


I feel like a queen of East Europe!


A couple of drinks in the old Hog's head in St Mary Axe, wow, it is all like the old days.
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When going through the UK immigration, I volunteered to help an old Chinese man to answer immgration officer's inquiries. Amoung all oriental looking passengers (I came out of a 747 loaded with Japanese), I stepped out because I hope someone would also step forward to help my father or mother when they are traveling abroad alone.

I was tired and exhausted after 13 hours flight, but trying hard to keep my cool. The old man was from GuangXi, a retired teacher. I filled out the landing card for him, patiently waiting in the queue.

However, the old Chinese man is annoying in a brutal mannerless Chinese way. I did not feel his appreciation (it is not like I want him to thank me, but if he can put a little bit of thoughts for me, sweet but useless comments like "I am sorry to take your time, but..." I think I would be much more than happy to help him through). Of course his attitute was really his best weapon, I did admire his fearless and nothing-to-lose bluntiness. Nevertheless, that annoyed the hell out of me. As if he deserved to be served.

Although he has got a full set of documentation to allow him to get into UK, the immigration officer's attitute was not of his best. Question: How long is he going to stay? Answer from the old man "5 months" So I immediate translated but the old man added "maybe 6 months". So I faithfully ferried the answer to the officer, who was not amused "5 or 6 moths?". "Can you just put down 6 months to be sure" "I was expecting a truthful, concise answer when you replied". After the routine examination, he was let go and my passport was handled. The officer was not able to find any empty page to stamp, he was giving me the nagging about my lack of attention to my travel document, the old man standing behind the line raised his voice in Chinese "Why don't they let you through?" Immigration folks hate people talking in language they don't know, especially they thought we are traveling together. Dirty looks exchanged, oh god, I just want to get to my apartment and rest.

Finally I went through, though the old man is annoying, I worried that he won't be able to find his luggage from the laggage reclaim bells. I lead him to the reclaim area and pointed to him where he should find his luggages then I went to find mine. Again, he was sticking to me, nagging "what should I do, what should I do" Totally not using his brain cells but hoping I would find his luggages and pamper him all the way out. To this point, I was most annoyed to a point I want to run. But he really had no options without knowing anything. I ran around to find his bags (with him in tow), just before he got the chance to get on hold of me again, I quickly ran toward the "Nothing to claim" exit and shouted "You should also get out from here". I was worried he might catch me so I really walked very fast.

Broken Heels

I was such a violent walker, especially when wearing my 3 inch heels (these are really my favorite heels, they are so comfortable though very high, classic style, they go with any outfit). When crossing the busy street near Liverpool street station, I thought my heel was caught between the cobble stone. It turned out that the heel on my right foot has broken into half.

I quickly calculated what my options are, plan A, I limped to the shoe and key making shop next to the station. Pleading "Can you do something about it?" handing my poor shoe to the shoe expert "I just need it to hold up for one day, just let me pass today". The shoe expert was so cool, he explained "love, this cannot be fixed within one day, you need to have the whole heel replace." "Can you just tape it up or glue it together" "Nope, I have seen many stressed ladies like you, but the good news is that you get to do some shoe shopping".

Sex and Men

Reading another film critic's work about Ang Lee's "Lust, Caution". She described Tony Leung's performance in the film astonishing, especially the sex scene. "Have not ever seen any actor expressing his distress and loneliness during sex to a degree that you feel painful as if your heart is torn. At fierecely violent and aggressive moment, his thighs trembled because of fear and excitment. This devil who dictated many innocent lifes let out his deepest anxiety and insecurity during sex."

What a powerful description, I regret I didn't have the chance to watch it carefully. However, this makes me think about the relation between males and sex. Is it the incredibly unfulfilling desire not to be lonely pushing men to be more sexually aggressive than women? That's what makes men different from other male animals? The desire has surpassed the need of survival?

Where is the Post Office

Yummy Japanese beef, Sandy and I got really full just a couple of pieces of these highly fatty meat, Uncle Thomas had another 3 or 4 plates all by himself.
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I need to send out some document to my bank in Japan, trying to find the post office nearby the client which is right next to Bank of England. The building is certainly historical, but the interior sucks. I feel like the living maid in the movie Gosford Park, working in the dark mezzanie.

Anyhow, I quickly googled the post office near by bank station, keyworded "post office bank London". The result came very satisfactory, I am in 30 something Lambard street, and the post office is 10-15 Lambard street. I farewelled the group from lunch and walked toward the post office. The address numbering system is very confusing, the number jumps from 82 to 21, I started to have bad feelings. I walked the same segment of road up and down twice, I still cannot see the 10-15 Lambard. Desparate, I went to ask for direction from the newspaper guy. He didn't even look at me when saying "straight down". I kept walking on Kings William's road, very confused. I thought the post office is in Lambard street? A couple blocks passed, I gave up and retrieved back to the office, thinking I shall return tomorrow morning with clear idea where the post office is.

Checked on the google map the next morning (10-15 Lambard street is really hiding near King William's road side), I was all confident in finding it this time. However, failure hit me again. Frustrated, I went to the Pret-a-manger to buy a crossiant to cheer myself up (also wanted to ask where the hell the post office is). The nice lady behind the counter say "Post office? You have to walk toward Monument, it is right next to the Tesco". "But the google map says there is a post office on Lambard street". "Oh, that's the name of the road, Post Office Court!".

Critics

I was really shocked to realise that an ex-colleague of mine who always looked so confident, talked so well, and damn knowledgeable of everything about progamming actually collapsed when being pressed to produce a piece of software.

I guess we all need a bit of silliness in life, I was silly enough to think I can do certain things and I go ahead thinking optimisitcally that I will finish it within 2 weeks. I think he is too obssessive to create the perfect software, no silly thinking like mine.

London Seems Strange

Standing in the Ginza crossing in Tokyo, autum is in Tokyo.
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Returning to London again, walking on the street, I suddenly find that people are bigger in size, women are not really paying attention to their looks (trainers with dressing suit? Oh My God, London is turning into American), and there are a lot of rubbish on the street. Look carefully, it is lacking attention to details everywhere. Most of the Victoria era buildings have been converted to modern dwellings, such as office or pubs or apartments. But the bathrooms or kitchens are just not completed (of course, they are not meant to be functioning that way when the whole living space was designed in 19 century). I cannot believe that I am getting used to Japanese standard so fast and I started to understand the culture shock hitting Irene when she first came to London. London is rough, yes. I walk on Fenchurch street feeling that I am really small and fragile.

My French colleague made an very interesting comments about women in London. He can feel their sexuality, very obvious, whereas you do not feel so much about it with women in Tokyo. I have to agree with him. In London, women are more like an open book showing their desire, wants and dont-wants. In Tokyo, women, though dressed very girly, are playing down their sexuality as much as they can. They are cute, but not sexy. Perhaps that's what a harmony, balanced, smooth social operation needs. It is just a bit of less fun, maybe that's why Japanese men have to find their lovers in Ginza with money.

Unstoppable

My friend, Thang, passed away last Sunday. I was hoping to see him again in London before I boarded on the plane, planning buying another set of DVDs so we can watch together in his Newbury Park flat. Just 2 days before my trip, I received the emails from his family saying that he's in the intensive unit back in his hometown Phileadaphia and it's going to be his last few days alive on this planet.

31 of the age, he struggled with this acute lymphatic luekimia for 1 and half years. I was very angry when knowing he's fallen seriously ill last year, he had every right to live, to have a normal life, fighting with his wife, kids, getting old, wrinkly and naggy, then die with all his family and friends around him. As time progressed seeing him being tortured by chemo theropy and god-knows-what drugs the doctors gave him, I still had hope that all these pains and suffer will pay off one day when he is healthy and building up his muscles again.

I am not sure how to feel, feeling happy that he is not suffering anymore and, at the same time, feeling truely depressed because there is indeed no hope for his recovery.