a new year

At this cusp in time when the old year fades into the new, one is oft to slip into wistful reflection. Many of my acquaintances and friends are getting engaged or married or having children and moving on with their "adult" lives while I seem to float about like a wisp of cloud not willing to settle. I am envious of those who have found the other half of their heart and who have settled into white picket fences but yet there is a part of me that throws arms wide out into the wind to be carried away by the whispers of lands unknown. I follow the piper. I choose the mountain.

This past year I fell in love with Paris and experienced the beauty of India. Ever since I was in grade school, I have dreamed of those two places. It was everything and more. And then on a day trip to Brugges I saw a field of daffodils. There are perfect moments in my travels that can't be captured exactly on camera but I remember every detail in the picture the mind takes and carry it throughout life... like the splash of flower pots in a dusty hutong alley in Beijing, the blue sky reflected in a still puddle in Tibet, the indigo sunrise silhouetting the trees in the plains of Kenya, riding a bus in the vast vast desert of Mongolia with a little girl asleep on my lap... And the daffodils.

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such jocund company: I
gazed - and gazed - but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought.

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And when my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

~William Wordsworth


Bruges, April 2009

What if...

What if girls stopped caring about their physical appearance?

Maybe then the sides will switch and it'll be the boys who get all gussied up to attract our attention.

Sex and mind games

"It is fortunate that the law of equal transmission of characters to both sexes prevails with mammals; otherwise it is probable that man would have become as superior in mental endowment to woman, as the peacock is in ornamental plumage to the peahen."

~Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man

This quote brings up interesting thoughts and could be taken many ways. We have to keep in mind that Darwin did live in the Victorian times, and history has always favored the thoughts of men. We're not called mankind for nothing. If you think about the history of the human race, it's very much men oriented. Women for many centuries were thought to be insipid, simpering ornamentation on a man's arm. But yet, if you look at nature and the effects of natural selection on evolution, especially in mammals, it's the females who usually 'shape' the evolution of males. They do this by selecting for the better trait or the better genes in their mates to pass down to their offsprings. This results in the exaggeration of those traits that have evolved after specific selection over many generations (i.e. the peacock's tail, lion's mane, antlers). Interestingly enough, research done have shown that females pick these traits not because it tickles their fancy, as pretty as that tail might be. But these exaggerated and seemingly useless traits that the males are burdened with could actually be the advertisement that they themselves carry the desired traits that are more fit for survival regardless of the burdensome advertisement. Not to bore anyone with the bio talk, the underlying point is that the genes carried by the male who caught the girl's fancy is actually more desirable and more hardy in survival.

So where does this put human gender evolution? Darwin assumes human females have selected for human males based on mental traits. This is sort of a contradiction to the hunter role that males traditionally take on. So in a way, according to Darwin, human intelligence has evolved due to male's conniving ability to convince females of their fitness rather than having natural selection naturally carry out it's role in selecting for the best adaptability to the environment. Darwin was seeing it as unfortunate that man have not evolved through sexual selection to possess the differential 'beauty' of peacocks since genetically, 'smart' men will have smart if not smarter daughters.

those three little words

When I was young, in the throes of those hazy days of first love, I verbally lived those three little words often. The idea of loving and being loved in return was intoxicating and that feeling of weightlessness? You really do float about in a love-induced stupor.

As I grew older and those three little words spoken in youthful fervor went the way of broken promises, the expectations increased. Rather than an innocent declaration, those three little words become weightier, attached with strings, strings that bind like a Mobius strip.

In all the relationships since that first heady rush, I’ve made a conscious decision not to use those three little words at all with any of the subsequent guys I went out with... Not even with the one I thought might have been...

Perhaps I should have.

Except that those three little words come with a sanctity that is lost in today’s vernacular of love and lust; we love and we hate as easily as a coin toss and we throw those three little words around like confetti into the wind. If I ever do say those three little words again, I would want it to stick for good… like superglue.

On the flip side, one can never say those three little words enough to family, friends, and a wee little cat.

wants

I want to start Tai Chi lessons again and move beyond the 24 forms.
I want to take dance lessons, ballet, swing, bollywood or maybe just bounce about.
I want to take guitar lessons and actually keep to it.
I want to finish my knitting and stitching projects.
I want to go climbing 3 times a week again and be able to do the Moonhill again.
I want to read the books I want to without feeling guilty.
I want to go to plays, music and dance performances, operas, concerts.
I want to spend a weekend on a LoTR marathon... the extended version.
I want to go outdoors and soak in the green.

I want to know how people balance working full-time, studying part-time with a life.

And I'll keep telling myself, less than a year to go now with my masters and then I will have my time back.

never... ending

The end is always difficult.

Whether it's the end of a journey,

... the end of a good book,

... the end of a relationship,

or the end of the essay you are writing.

Sometimes it's just hard to come to a conclusion.

bitterly sweet

bit-ter-sweet

-adjective
1. both bitter and sweet: bittersweet chocolate.
2. both pleasant and painful or regretful: a bittersweet memory.

-noun
3. also called woody nightshade. a climbing or trailing plant, Solanum dulcamara, of the nightshade family, having small, violet, star-shaped flowers with a protruding yellow center and scarlet berries.

I remember my last summer in Vancouver. It was a summer of clear sunny days and balmy nights. The second to last week, I went camping at a glacial lake with a group of acquaintances, and the boy I had loved when I was sweet 16 (whatever that means... sweeter than 15?) and then lost at a not-so-sweet age. Perhaps I still loved him but everyone tells me first loves are never real. First love is the insubstantial love of youth and inexperience.

The hot afternoons would find me shivering in the glacial lake as I dived into the icy waters, numbing myself since I already regretted coming on the camping trip.

On the last night, a quiet night, I spread my towel on the beach beside the lake and stretched out under the great expanse of the dark sky. Have you ever seen the night sky far far away from the bright city lights? The stars were so numerous that it was almost like looking into infinity. I wanted to count the shooting stars but I lost track. And why are they called stars anyway? They are just meteors passing through the Earth's atmosphere, much less romantic than the idea of stars falling from the sky.

The boy I had loved joined me, stretched out next to me an arm's length away and when I turned my head to look at him, I could see the wispy fog of his warm breath in the cool night air. We were within touching distance and yet, I felt closer to the stars.

We didn't talk. Or if we did, it's forgotten. All that is left is the bittersweet aftertaste of knowing I was leaving soon, away from my childhood home, and away from the boy I had loved with the wild abandonment that comes with the first love.

He left to go back to the heat of the campfire. I stayed on the beach huddled inside my hoodie until I couldn't feel my toes anymore.

Dreams have a way of bringing up unwanted memories and emotions. But is it unwanted or is it a deep repressed desire that one doesn't have the right to anymore?

I dreamt of him last night. It was so tangible and scintillating to all the senses. I woke up and wanted to shout, "Out, out, away from my mind!"

And now I can't stop thinking about him.

frilly concoctions

There was a show* (I think it's a different bridal reality show than the one in my last post) about a bridal boutique and finding brides the perfect dress. All through the show, they would show the bride's budget for finding the dress and each time, I'm sure the entire estate could hear my bursts of disbelief.

"What? 3k for a dress?!?! That's a month's salary!" "You've got to be kidding! I can take a vacation to India for a month and still spend less than that!" "7K!!! Don't they have anything better to spend money on? Maybe money really grows on trees!"

And so on...

Anyway, right now, Miss Mary-Jane on Weddingbee is my new hero. And yes, I've been reading that blog since my photog friend was mentioned on that site. She went into her closet and dug out a white dress that she bought ages ago and is now thinking of wearing that as her wedding dress. How's that for being thrifty as well as not succumbing to the over-consumption of the wedding craze. Cheers to brides who are thrifty and environmentally conscious.

There's so many dresses that are unique and inexpensive; etsy, ebay, thrift shops, vintage online stores, or even your own closet. I wish brides would think outside the wedding box.

If I were getting married anytime soon, this dress totally made me smile, and only 85$USD on etsy. How delightful is that?




*I rarely watch TV and in my home, the Discovery channel is the only English channel I've subscribed to. Even I'm boggled by all the wedding related reality stuff on Discovery these days.

wedding bliss?

I was watching this wedding show, Rich Bride, Poor Bride with my mum on TV about brides and budgets. One bride had a budget of 20 000$USD and ended up going over by more than 16 000$. I wonder if that's considered the "poor bride's" budget. The show was interspersed with older couples sharing their own experiences and how much they spent back then. One couple who got married 51 years ago, spent 6000$ on their wedding. I exclaimed to my mum how much money that was 51 years ago! And then my mum so aptly pointed out that there _are_ people out there who have money to spend.

The wedding industry is growing exponentially. They market the wedding day as the "happiest day of the couple's lives" when really, if that was true, what kind of marriage would that be without anymore "happiest" days? In Hong Kong (as I'm sure as with anywhere else), dresses are getting frillier until you're not sure which structure is the cake or the bride; entire forests are killed to make invitations for just one wedding; the amount of photos taken rivals that of any paparazzi; and 20 000$ USD is considered underbudget for a decent wedding *boggle*

When my parents got married 30 years ago, they spent only 1000$ HKD (less than 200$USD). So I told my mum, if I ever get married (considering I can find a guy first), I will only spend 1000$ CND... and the trees can stay standing.

Addendum: When I think more on weddings (since I had a plethora of friends married the past 3 years and more this year), it's not so much the budget but the sheer consumption and its results. The massive amount of paper for save-the-dates, invitations, post-invitation, programs, thank-you cards, etc; the favours that no one ever keeps but everyone still insists on giving; the decorations that goes into the rubbish afterwards; and dresses that are worn once and never again (which boggles the mind when you think about how many brides and bridesmaids there are getting married).

self portrait 01

I loved my red crocs.

crouching crane, hidden chi

I started my first Tai Chi lesson and this is what I learned:

* being a crane is hard.
* the horse ran away when I parted its mane.
* and the sparrow doesn't like to be grabbed by its tail.