This has to be the funniest thing (in a weird way.) God has a hilarious sense of humor

i realized several things about rock music at least for myself:1) i don't know if I have enough angst to write a heavy rock ballad. 2) i need to grow out my hair so i can shake it all around in those hard hitting solos.

If you haven't seen school of rock for those of you avid rockers out there (i know most of you listen to rock when you're taking a shower.) go see it.

So anyway, nothing much happening in the far east except there's a huge epidemic of bird flu so it kinda makes one paranoid about eating KFC. Apparently this bird flu is more dangerous than SARS. No Chicken, no beef. what next? No pork? That'll be it man. I'm gonna start hunting chipmunks again.

Currently listening to: Our Lady Peace and Sarah McLachlan's Afterglow.

updates at Poetics
check it out

Are you afraid of dreaming or having your dreams stifled so you don't dare dream anymore?

Chinese new Year :
Hong Kong during Chinese new years is like Halloween without the nasty ghouls and scary things of our imagination. Instead of trick or treating, we wish people good health and prosperity and other things and in turn, get money and then get invited to eat good things like fruit and candy. At Halloween, you get scared and if you don't want to give out candy, you get your house TP-ed. And you don't get the candy or money.

It's been nice in HK for Chinese New years. Welcome year of the monkey. To all you monkeys out there, its your year. It means you're either 12, 24, or 36 or any multiple of 12. But most of my friends out there, you're probably 24. No predictions for you except when you get a lot of money, send some my way.

What Classic Movie Are You?

here's another funny test. interesting... very interesting.

What Famous Leader Are You?

interesting.

I must say that Hong Kong weather is so strange. For the longest time, it never rained and then God decided its time to water the lawn so it's been pouring since. Hong Kong rain in the winter is very similar to Vancouver winters. Unfortunately, the experience of taking a stroll outside is quite different to that of Vancouver (other than the difference of driving in Vancouver vs. taking public transport in HK). The biggest difference however is that being closer in distance to the top of the skyscrapers in HK as opposed to the majority of the HK population, people's umbrellas often are at eye level with me. I fear walking in the rain mainly due to the fact that I never know if I will lose my eye sight after a 15 minute walk to the shopping mall. For some reason, people hate wearing rain coats because you know, they don't like maneuvring quicker through crowds or don't mind the fact that there is already very little walking space and by opening one's umbrella, one has just increased human density in the street. Or maybe it is because of the fact that by opening an umbrella, you've created a personal space around you and won't get accidently inappropriately touched by the 30 people around you. See if I were any shorter, I wouldn't have to bring an umbrella because I could just walk under the people who already have their umbrellas open and because there's so many people, it'd be like walking under a covered walkway where the columns constantly move so you have to dodge them.

Needless to say, I try to walk in the street with my raincoat to avoid accidents that could remove my vision permanently. Then again, walking on the street poses the danger of actually losing my life to a passing double decker bus going like 100 Km in a bustling congested area. Hmm.. Hard choice.

I find Hong Kong overtly smoggy. Bad air, too many crazy taxis, and people with no concept of Deodorant. Then again, this is unpreventable in a city of 6 million + in such a highly densely populated region. Imagine if everyone farted at once? I think the smog would probably thicken. Perhaps that is a logical explanation of why HK smells so bad. If there is so much pollution which is all kept in by the tall buildings (no air current allowed through to clear the pollution), it must create this layer of perpetual smoke that forms a saran wrap for the smells that emanate from the city (e.g. rotting garbage, people farting etc.) .Perhaps the word 'Hong' or rather, in cantonese pronunciation "heung" which means fragrant should be changed to "chou" or stinky in Hong Kong. (kong is harbor) It should be called Chow Kong. Stinky harbor.

Does anyone know of any architecture firms hiring in North America? Preferred cities:San Fran, L.A. county, Boston, Montreal, Toronto.

Even though its vacation time right now, I still feel like I need to be in search for the next part of my life. The question still remains: what do I want? Where should I be? And somewhere inside, the answers are there and its whether or not I choose to realize the true divine control in my life that it is not in my hands.

The fear of 'wasting' time in doing nothing can be a scary thought; still, I believe that in those times, I will find something to occupy my time, its more of a question of whether or not my parents deem to think so. For example, blogging. Yes, this entry started out on a serious note and it probably still is. While you think I jest that blogging to my parents can appear to be a waste of time, I believe it is probably a good time investment in that I am readily imposing on you, the reader, my thoughts and because we are all voyeurs to a degree, you want to know whats going on in my life and live vicariously through my random drivel. Of course, you may say, no, I don't care to really know what's going on in your life nor do I feel a particular attachment to you as an individual, still, you have made it this far in this paragraph and that somehow, the formulation of words that I form into sentences somehow have hopefully, captivated your attention. Like I said, blogging is a mere expression of thought into an accessible format because, (don't know what word describes the giving end of the voyeur) somehow as people, we still want to people to notice us in a weird twistesd way.

This leads me to another digression about how as an Asian kid (now well into quarterlife crisis), that I am a product of a mish-mash of cultures, possessing my affinity to chicken feet, and also learning that expression of self is not a bad thing. I wonder why in Chinese culture especially (Note: I do not want to label all asian cultures to be similar and there are very similar, yet very different things. Chinese people and Japanese people, for example, come from the same background but culturally to a degree, quite different on the sub-levels.) that there is a tendency of being inexpressive as people. I believe that emotional expression is seen as a sign of vulnerability and hence, a sign of weakness. It is ok, in the male-driven culture of the chinese, that the woman shows more emotion and affection. Still, this is passed on from generation to generation where children are negatively reinforced throughout their lives and hence, emotionally repressed because its BAD to cry and show your emotions when u are sad or angry. "Why are you crying? STOP crying!" for fear of inconveniencing others. And this idea that being vulnerable leads to this whole thing about face. It is more important to save face than to express your opinion. I state this only from mere observation because to express oneself can open one up to what is on one's mind. This is a definite taboo in chinese circles especially concerning deep feelings of affection (both on a friendship type love- phileo, and the intimate kind of love between a couple-eros) Because of this saving face thing, the culture has become a somewhat emotionless culture but i think slowly, North American ways are melting this away, allowing younger asians to express and not be afraid of this whole face thing.
Because of this whole saving face, we have a tendency of also being overtly courteous to the point where as friends, reciprocity must exist in a very tabulated way. You do something for me, I will do it for you in the near future and one more time so that the other person, your friend will owe you. Perhaps I speak of it in such a manner that it appears that we are selfish jerks but perhaps it is somewhat true. On that note, because of this face thing, Asians tend to put oneself down especially the kids, and compare them to other children saying their kids are no good in front of the other person even if the kid may have straight A's. Hence, we are led to the inferior asian child who strives to be the best academically (usually because we can't play sports other than badminton or ping-pong or racket affiliated sports) and become the best violinist or pianist. "LOOK your son is soo good at piano. He's 3 and He's already playing at a gr.8 level! WOW! my son? oh he's no good, he came first so many times but he's 19 but its all luck because there were only two people in the competition" How does one resolve this? Who knows. but recognizing these issues is a start. Why are there no artists ? Perhaps those are the rare jewels that exist amongst asian circles who realize they don't need to raise their children like that. Many of the artsy fartsy asians portrayed however on TV and in the media for some reason turn out to be more effeminate. Can someone explain that to me? Where are the macho artist types? Who says art isn't for the MAN!

Let me just wrap this somewhat long-winded entry with this: I probably had a lot of issues as a child so please, if you think i'm outrageously over-analytical and critical, you could be right, and I'm probably a lil' jaded by my childhood experiences. Nevertheless, my childhood was still pretty happy. So I turned out relatively normal. I think.
then again, what's normal? Who defined Normal?

"people come and go like farts in the wind... they make a first impression but then it floats away.."
-Matt Nicholas

So I am back in Hong Kong, the land of SARS paranoia and rude people.

On another note, it seems like I'm not the only one thinking about the purpose of my so-called life. Being at home has its perks like talking with the parental units who play a big role in decision making and its been fun. Still, the path is still before me to travel and its always about wondering where I'll head and whether the path I take is the right one. For those of you who don't really know where I come from, I'll tell you straight up: a lot of my decisions are based on this paradoxical, yet somewhat sensible idea that God has this amazing path for me that He's plotted out and yet has left me to decide how to go about it. Amongst the questions I've been thinking about and trying to be a little bit pragmatic about things (a bi-product of growing up in an Asian cultural background), I wonder what the deeper implications are of my passions and dreams. Are the dreams that I dream placed in my heart by God or are they a product of my own selfish desire to make something of my name? Or rather, is it because I follow a God who by His Son Jesus Christ gave me this desire to make it known that He wants to use me in revealing His hope for the world? In that sense, the greater purpose for me is there to be used by God to inspire those to live for something more than being just caught in a moment.

Maybe there's something inside all of us whether we have faith or not, to search for a greater purpose. For those of us who have a faith, are we ready to take the challenge to live it and go deep into it to discover its truths knowing that we could really find something more to live for? In a way, there's not much to lose. On the other hand, do we live complacently and pretend its just a part of our culture, forgetting who we are and allow the waves of activity wash over what we might need to really focus on? Or am I just molding something to justify that it is something that God wants for me?

T-1 day before I leave this Tropical climate of Singapore. It's been an awesome time of just ingesting the wide variety of SE Asian foods. I think i've gained like 5 pounds + eating so much here. Time to start running again.

Lots of thoughts about life and stuff but more on that later. In the mean time, must ingest as much chinchow (thats grass jelly or 'seen choe' in cantonese or most commonly known as "Leung fun" ) Anyway more to come.

Another awesome day of hanging out minus the bathroom experience but don't worry, I'll be sparing you the details as things like this get kind of old. On another note, I almost got chased by a bald fat man for taking his picture. Well, at least in my mind. Today, Erx played tour guide as she took us through Little India. So we were taking some small street to get to some monster Indian version of Walmart, Jasper was talking about photography with Erx and myself. Jasper kept remarking that I should take photographs of people and that they make more interesting subjects. I thought alley ways were more interesting to photograph but he insisted that people were cooler to take pictures of and that you shouldn't be afraid. I still persisted that it would be dangerous to take pictures of people especially in a foreign country where you do not know the roads because if you upset people (for some reason, most people hate having their picture taken. Perhaps they think you're mentally violating them) they might just chase you down. so Anyway, there was this guy waxing his truck pretty close by. He kept eyeballing us and as I finally gave way to Jasper's nagging, I pointed the camera in that direction and the guy for some reason had an invisible eye on the top of his bald head and pointed at me just as I snapped a shot (trying very hard to be inconspicuous) in his direction. Then I yelled, "I was shooting a picture over there!" (like pointing past him). Then we turned around and walked off before I could catch anymore of his evil eye. Jasper of course had to make his remark about how i should have just taken the photo and then run for it. I don't think he realizes, that he could have probably 1) chased us in his truck that he was waxing 2) the fact that he could have a million indians on our tails and I'd have to heroically use my art of jon-fu on them. 3) He most likely knew the area much better than us.

In the end, we were thankful that nothing happened.

On that note, my paranoia not only comes in with foreign places but foreign animals. I went on a night safari last night with Erx and Jasper. A night safari I might mention is pretty much a safari on foot and there are no fences between you and the animals. I might add that I have a paranoia complex of uncertainty and cannot be scared at all. I cannot handle any sudden movements or I react very poorly (usually aggresively).
Least to say, after walking past a tree with sleeping bats that were as big as my head, I am happy to say that my machoness has not been compromised.