fear of unknown

This photo reminds me of an interesting experience in my 3-day trip to Hualien (花蓮), the west coast of Taiwan early this month.

Myriam, Rodolphe, and I decided to walk from TienHsiang back to Taruko (17 kms) the second day of our trip, since we arrived Taruko in the late evening and didn't see much scenery on the way up to TienHsiang.

This photo was taken before we went thru this TienHsiang Turnel (天祥隧道). I didn't expect this turnel didn't have lights installed and was so long that we walked almost all the way in the dark like blinds. Only when cars driving thru, which were not much, did we see the road via the car lights. My eyes were completely useless in the dark turnel. While in the dark, my fear raised from nowhere and I found myself using my right arm leaning tightly against the wall as the senser for the direction. I walked very slowly with cautious and sometimes hestiated stepping forward. However, when with the dim lights, I saw the road, felt relieved, and fasten my steps. Interestingly, I started realising how deeply I had been counting on my eyes for sensing and experiencing this world, plus how coward I was when facing the unknown...

How about life? I keep complaining my current life but don't or haven't dared to change it! Is it also due to my fear of unknown?

Merry Christmas

This Christmas eve, I prepared the Christmas gifts for each of my families though we are not Christians and I have not been the fan of Christmas celebration for years. I don't know why I did so... anyway, my second niece has joined this world since this May and her father is currently having the 2-month overseas assignment and her mother has to work late usually on Fridays and... whatever..., so I decided to become the Santa Claus that night and celebrate the Christmas with these two little cute angels. Interestingly, I felt very contented when arranging these gifts under the plastic Christmas tree decorated with lights, bells, and candies that their mother set up a week ago...

Another funny thing was that I also received great Christmas presents from friends, in a virtual way: a funny talk with my lesbian friend and some emails from some of my favorite friends, including a great Christmas present from K: a cute blog and a synical but cool comment about Shanghai.

So happy to receive K's response cause I was so worried about his disappearing and being in his down time too long. Now, at least, I am aware that he's staying alive and kicking and so delighted to see his arrogance's coming back little by little...

I also feel happy receiving P's greetings though it's a pity we couldn't meet each other before his leaving Taiwan...

This Christmas, I was both happy and lonely and oddly I enjoy it ...

Sake

My preference of warmed sake having a better taste than the chilled one is defeated by myself again tonight in a Japanese restaurant. The Japanese friend introduced two different kinds of Japanese sake (chilled, of course) to us and confirmed that the poor quality of sake can be disguised by serving in warm. This reminds me of the discussion about the sake temperature in June with K... Is he ready to come back from the down time?

okay, back to the dinner... sitting between the Norwegian and French guys, two of my favorite languges, discussing about the Sophie's World and Freud, enjoying the tasty Japanese food and sake... all and all, brought me back to my study in Newcastle upon Tyne in 1996... ahh...I want to be a student again....

dilemma

Dilemma is translated as 進退兩難 in Chinese?! Pronounced as "Jin4 Tuei4 Liang3 Nan2" How come I don't know this expression?!

While googling, I find this word is used as "騎虎難下" in this Chinese-English idiom site... hmm... interesting...

busy

Recently, heard a lot from friends and colleagues complaining about their being busy... busy at work, study, families, relationships, life, etc. I is complaining about her work and not quite happy about her life living in a foreign country. K is disappearing and I so worry about if anything gone bad at his side, ill, accident, down time, so and so...and which silly thought I should have stopped since... *sigh*... Anyhow, is busy becoming a fancy word people hung at their mouths nowadays?

I have been in fact also quite busy these days... yet, what on earth am I busy with? let me think...

- work, working like a dog... don't know where those workload springing from... oh, and handling a brand new type of project which I have never dealed with... struggling with the project sizing estimation and yet on the other hand feeling motivated in these new stuff...

- helping a good friend moving from another country to settle down in Taipei for her one-year stay and Chinese language study... visiting apartments, meeting landlords or potiential flatmates... (this could be a great experience for my future flat hunting!)

- acompanying a colleague having an overseas business trip in Taipei for sightseeing... she is excited in planning, with my company, to visit many famous sightseeing spots each weekend for her 4 weekends in here, whereas I feel worried for my short of time excorting her.... gosh... why everything is all bumpped into each other at the same time!!!

Then, today, I suddenly realise, "hey, wait...what about me myself?" seems that I have been placing myself in the lowest priority in all kinds of relationships... I should have had my priority focusd on my taichi course on Sundays, my weekly squash time spent with my old time friends (athena and meihsin), my long-overdue assignment (which would probably affect my salary), my certificate exam preparation (should be done by Dec this year), and my exhausted and desperately-need-to-rest body...and my healing the... *sigh*...

Friends gathering in Taipei (continued...)

My French friend, Myriam, arrives Taiwan today and starts her one year of studying Chinese and living in Taipei. She has talked about this plan since last year, moving her life to this city in which she's been in love so much. She said if she wouldn't do this now, she will probably never do it in her life. Now, she finally makes her plan for real...

Now, Andreas and his family, Laurent, and Mimi are finally all living in Taipei... wondering who else will be the next?


ps. Admire and envy her courage and execution on her dream... then me? how about my plan?

attitude: Kerry vs Lien

On Nov 3, 2004, Kerry lost the US presidential election of 2004 with a minor difference of vote counts. Though regret, he's showed his respect to the choice of American people and accepted the vote result for unity of his country.

On Mar 20, 2004, Lien lost the Taiwan presidential election of 2004 by a margin of 0.22% of valid votes. With upset to the two-bullet effect, he refused to concede and is challenging the vote result. On Nov 4, 2004, Lien lost the High Court Lawsuit. Again, he refused to accept this verdict and made a shocking statement.

When will this man realise that accepting the lost and facing the truth may move on a new life for him?

huh... this question seems to be for me too... *sigh*...

Gift of Life (生命)

Just watched Wu Yi-Feng's latest documentation, Gift of Life (生命), a 142-minute film focusing on residents of Chiufen Erh Shan (九份二山) about families dealing with loss after the 921 earthquake and putting their lives back together again...

feel touched by how these people got thru this disaster and struggled with their sadness of losing their familes, no matter the two couples' "life has to go on" for their loosing their children or Hui-Ru's anger and lost for losing her parents... time, also playing an interesting role...they somehow found a way to move on their lives... time...

and... how about my ilfe? live my own life... *sigh*...

sick leave

nose running, body aching, headaching...
heart hurting, heart bleeding, heart breaking...

cold soon getting better,
but a broken heart?
*sigh*...

sick away,
leave now...

photo (continued...)

happened to find my post of photo may become true, just in another setting and even...

time frozen at that certain moment... heart squeezed... mind blanked... unconsciously browsing all the pics, walking here and there, left messages but no dare to know the answers... until, all of a sudden, what are you doing? asking myself and stopping these silly actions...

disappointed, sad, lost, feeling left alone... huh, disappointed, sad, lost, and left alone by the image you created for yourself? hehe... *sigh*... facing the truth, you have been alone all the way, haven't you?

cotton candy clouds transform into sour rain drops... feet step back to the solid ground... reality revealed...

kurumi

Get your handkerchief ready for Mr. Children's K u r u m i...

Remember your dreams and keep going...

Vicky the Viking

Vicky the Viking (北海小英雄, the Chinese title) was one of the popular animated TV series when I was a kid. Seemed most of us kids would urge heading home directly after school just for the main character Vicky's advantures with his fellow Vikings...

From Little Gems: "... All the characters lived in a village called Flake which lies somewhere on the coastal regions of Norway or Sweden. It is based on the stories of Runer Johnson and is centralised on Vicky who is not a brave, fierce, strong Viking like his father but is a small boy who always relies on thinking through a problem before applying the correct solution..."

The terms used in this animation become a common expression among us in the same generation. For example, my old time painter friend, Meihsin, has been named 小威 (Xiao Wei. huh, yep, Vicky was named Xiao Wei in the Chinese version) as her nickname since we were in school.

Now, this animation is replayed on TV and has attracted my 4-year-old niece`s attention. She even can sing along when listening to the theme song...

Namtso Lake, Tibet

The beautiful clouds over the Namtso Lake, Tibet.

Would be nice to see the clouds in person...

MIT OpenCourseWare

The link for this info, in case my tiny little brain can't recall where I place it...

Some Chinese literature

- 老子道德經: Liao Zi's Tao Te Ching
- 三字經: San Zi Jing
- 詩經: Shijing, The Book of Songs or Poetry (my favorite one... can't believe this ancient Chinese book has been translated in English!)

Learning French

Learning French will surely the item in the top of my Mid Year Resolution List, so that I will be able to read some sentences like "Je m'appelle Kai Carver et je réponds à l'appel! (salue)" in this post or some tour guides of Paris like this...

Plus, I will feel more delighted when read "I am sorry, I am sorry, It's in French." :p

ps. Is the sentence in English like:
"My name is Kai Carver and I...bla bla bla... > <'' (greetings)"??

Honey Yang

Honey was brought to us by chance when my mom took my brother Lucien for a pet shopping after his serveral months of long pleading.  In front of a pet shop, a woman asked them if they wanted to keep one of her new born mixed puppies, instead of buying a dog.  Heard that woman wanted to give us a white puppy but that little one was having a bad stomache that day. She was afraid that we did not know how to handle that situation since we had never raised a dog.  Thus, Honey became one of our family members.

At first, my father complained about Honey's loud barking a lot and strongly disagreed to keep a pet in the house.  Funny thing was, Honey never hid her love and passion to my father.  Honey could amazingly recognise the sound of my father's steps.  Whenever she heard my father's, she would immediately run toward to the door and wag her tail hard and excitedly to welcome him home.  We were thus informed Father's back when hearing the "bump, bump, bump" sound hitting on the door.   Gradually, we found Father softened his attitude and seems very pleased to enjoy this warm welcome.  We also found he even looked forwards to this greeting when coming home.  

Honey had some wierd behaviours that we even could not understand where they came from.  She did not like dog food at all but was a great lover of meat mixed with rice.  She liked lying in the middle of living room so as to watch all of the family members with her innocent-like watery round eyes.  I so love her eyes...  She used to sleep in my bed leaning against my legs.   I liked the feeling of touching her brown furry back with my foot.   Thinking of this... she's really the best heater in winter and the coolest pillow in summer.   

Maybe because we saw Honey as a little sister of ours, interestingly, she sometimes acted just like a spoiled little girl.  She didn't like to be left alone in the house.   When we had to leave her at home, she barked so loud that we still could hear her barking all the way down the road.  Seemed she thought herself a human being like us or she thought we were dogs like her...  

Due to aging, Honey died when she was 14 years old of human being's age.  When she was sent to the vet, my sister Shengwen, planning to get married in the next year, whispered to our dying dear old dog that, if possible, she would like her becoming her daughter in the next life.  hmm... when my niece Yaya was very little, some of her movements were increditably like those of Honey, such as the way she wiping her face.

I was so sad for Honey's passed away and cried a lot for losing her.  I dreamed of her sometimes.  In my dream, she was as cute as usual, especially for her innocent-like eyes...

Orlanda

An interesting novel by Jacqueline Harpman, sparked by Virginia Woolf's Orlando, also one of my favorite films.

- French version: original language (would love to read this novel in French... pity... ok, todo: one of my new year resolution of 2005...)
- Chinese version: 歐蘭達
- English version: Editorial Reviews by Amazon.com.

From translation viewpoint, the English translator uses this novel as an example of cultural adaptation from vous/tu switching in conversation to body language/gesturing, so as to convey English-speaking reader with equal subtlety.

Wonder how this part is presented in Chinese version?

Metro maps in the world

UrbanRail.net, a site collecting the metro maps all over the world.

Metros I've taken so far:

Taipei, Taiwan (wow, this site contains the detailed and future plan. Cool!)
Paris, France
New York, USA
San Franciso, USA
Newcastle, England (I miss this map a lot.)
Glasgow, Scotland

uhh... it would be nice if a world metro map of mine can be drawn like this.

Japan guide

Appearance of the newest Japan for foreign visiters before their being troubled?

Some interesting topics:
- No.1 vending machine of the world (gosh, automatic blood donation machine!)
- The police in Japan (Ninja?)
- The taboo in Japan (American) with "lucky strike"

This link is provided by Yukako and Ken. Thank you...