Incoherent Thought(s)

It is 4am on Tuesday, July 1 here. I've only got one more full day and I'm off to the airport on Wednesday morning. I'm really excited to go back home--and it's not that I didn't love this trip. I had a great time! But there's only so much you can do, so much you can enjoy, and so much you can learn when you know that it's all temporary.

I've been thinking about one of my favorite quotes, which ended up being the title of my blog. I spend a good amount of time reading here and everything I read, everywhere I look, I see elements of this "sophisticated ruin". When we're young, we want to be older, mature, sophisticated. We want to do things "grown-ups" do; we constantly demand to be treated like an adult without knowing what that means or accepting the consequences; we celebrate turning 18 as being an adult and being able to buy cigarettes! but not exercising the right to vote; we want to work, take care of ourselves, be independent. I'm slightly digressing from what I really want to talk about. But what is up with the eagerness to be "old"...especially with what it requires?

What I want to discuss is why being mature and "sophisticated" has to be so dreary in this time period of Western culture. When did the definition of a good person become measured by how much money she makes or busy he is? When did it become so subtly popular to compete for who slept the fewest hours? How come when you ask people how they're doing the responses are more and more "tired" than "fine"? It seems like a lot of people are so caught up in work and commitments and responsibility that they take advantage of the number one driver of happiness: relationships. I've been thinking about this a lot because I definitely fell into this "appetite for sophisticated ruin". Not as bleakly as I've described, since a lot of my commitments ARE leisure, but I am addicted to being busy. I feel like I'm a waste of space and oxygen if I don't have something to do or if I settle for what I have. That's crazy, isn't it?

I would say I'm a pretty independent person, but definitely not completely. A good chunk of the time I really enjoy being alone--reading, watching tv, eating...just stuff. But being in Hong Kong for a month by myself (not entirely alone, but at least living by myself and planning days by myself to an extent) without an obligation in the world has changed a lot of that. Why is it that we don't appreciate things until they're gone? Is the human condition really predisposed to such forgetfulness and lack of passion? In our slur of sophisticated ruin, we take advantage of the people around us so much--and when we realize it...it sucks and engulfs you with guilt. To say the least, I really miss my family, my friends, my dog, and even my acquaintances. I miss the motions of normalcy, of being important, of being loved and loving others. Even though I've met very interesting people here, I just end up talking about the people from home and sharing stories about you all. I brag a little, I poke fun a little. It's strange how when people ask me about myself I describe the people and things around me. But that's a different topic.

It started to worry me, the way we don't appreciate things until they're gone. Does it mean we don't really care? Does it mean we only like people, institutions, and things when they are useful to us? It made me kind of sad. But then I thought about this vague fact in the back of my brain from 9th grade biology about our sense of touch. This tidbit so crudely reproduced from my memory is that our nerves are constantly sending messages to our brain about things we are touching. But if each and every one of those messages were consciously processed, we'd go crazy! Imagine if every second you were thinking "I'm wearing a shirt"...that'd be nuts! So it becomes a subconscious process and we only feel or recognize things that we consciously think about or are jolted to think about by some external force that adds or removes a factor.

Maybe that's the same way with our love for people. It's not that we don't truly care about the relationships we're so lucky to have or only care about them on a superficial level. We just love so much and so often that it becomes automatic and subconscious. I'm going to choose to believe that we sometimes take advantage of the fact that we have people that love us and deserve our time, affection, and love back because we've just loved them for so long that it's just not in the foreground. And even though that's kind of sad, at least we know that all you need is some external shock or minor effort on our part to remember and act on that emotion. All you have to do is say it out loud, tell someone, or get your head out of that craphole of sophisticated ruin and LOOK at what delicate, valuable, and self-defining relationships you've got around you.

I miss you all a lot. All of you!

My Neck, My Back...

First off...

Happy Father's Day! Happy Birthday, Patty! Happy Graduation, Patty!

These past few days have been really really relaxing. I didn't do too many touristy things except go up to Victoria's Peak and take in the view of Hong Kong and Kowloon. It really is beautiful to see at night. I mostly ate a lot of good food, walked all the local and not so local shopping areas, checked out prices on some electronics and such...read a good bit. The greatest thing I did was go see this crazy chiropractor. Fai Fai's dad's friend's friend is a well-known chiropractor that you have to book appointments with weeks in advance cause he's so amazing. My neck has been hurting for a good 3-4 weeks so I thought I would get it checked out while Jayson got his lower back looked at. Apparently we got this huge discount and were squeezed into an appointment. There really were a lot of people there...made me feel a little more comfortable. The treatment was one of the most painful things ever, yo! Most of you know that I'm really sensitive to pain in my shoulder area and he kept moving my head in different directions to make a certain tendon or muscle bulge and then "massaged" the hell out of it. I wanted to cry and my face was all sorts of messed up from the pain. At one point, he stops and says "Wah, lay deem mm deem ah?" which is like...Dude, are you okay/can you handle this? And I just had to apologize for my expressions of pain and was just like...DO IT. I didn't know until after but he asked Jayson what happened to me and if I got in a car accident because my neck was so out of alignment. I wonder what I did...? In any case, my muscles are a little sore but my neck doesn't hurt anymore and now I have full rotation of my neck. Tight!

We also met up with Charles (Hu) from Berkeley. He lives in HK and took us out to Lan Kwai Fong. LKF is the area near SoHo that has a gazillion bars and clubs with flashing lights and different music. There's this one bar that only plays 80s and 90s English music--I like!!!! I think the best part about it is that it has this great blend of foreigners and locals and everyone is so friendly and just wants to enjoy themselves. What's nutty is that happy hour doesn't start until 3am because the bars don't close until 5am! We went to this super cool Russian Ice Bar. They have a room that is basically an ice freezer with the walls and furniture all made out of ice. They give you (fake) fur coats to wear to go in there. It's so neat! There's a vodka bar inside and people just take shots wearing fur coats and sitting on ice chairs. Afterwards, we met up with some of Charles' friends at Armani Bar. Did you know that Armani has a bar??? It was okay...a little too bourgeois for Jayson's and my taste. Then we headed up to a club on the 28th floor of some building. The clubs are really small, but the worst part is that people are allowed to smoke inside! How are 920483290 dancing people packed into a 800 sqft. room supposed to breath with smoke everywhere? Yuck. The people don't really dance that much...they kind of two step the whole night. Jayson and I looked like CRAZIES. We kept getting looks and people pointing at us. Oh well! We also ran into Dorothy Xu from Movement--weird! We left at 2am and people were like...it's so early! ??!? I was so tired. How do people go out that long?

I wish more of ya'll were here with us--it'd be so much more fun! Fai Fai is actually leaving tomorrow morning for Taiwan for an entire week. I'm not really sure what I'm going to do by myself here...but I'm pretty sure I'm going to take some dance classes and head over to Lamma Island for a day excursion. I'll probably see what some of the people living here are going to be up to and see if we can hang out a bit. OH! Old friend is also going to be in HK for a week for work, so I'll be seeing about meeting up with her. All in all, it's been a really chill and relaxing vacation...which is good! Hope you all are doing well too =)

Storming

I took this picture from the covered balcony at the top of my apartment building a few days ago. Flash flooding to the max, yo! There are people wading to get across the street--uber unsanitary. The rest of the day, people were trying to clean up the mess in their shops and reverse any water damage they could. It was pretty sad to see the heavier glances, sluggish movements, and hunched shoulders of aged shopkeepers just trying to stay afloat, no pun intended. After the flooding, the streets were filled with garbage and the sewers were backed up. What a day!

But to point out my benefit in others' distress, I loved the storm! I was gently awakened at 7:30am. The erratic sprays of rain at different angles and strengths made an oddly comforting sound to wake up to. I felt ironically cozy and safe. The lightning looked like it was dancing in the rain, and I liked it. It made me want to dance in the rain. I miss dancing, but mainly dancing with all of my friends. Anyhow, all of this was really strange because I would normally be freaked out beyond all freakability, but I suppose just being here in Hong Kong changed all that. I couldn't get back to sleep so I decided to take my companion, Austen, to the balcony and read a little bit in the storm.

This is what the balcony looked like during the storm. It's really nice up there. Next time there's a storm where you are, read a novel. There's something about the thunder, lightning, and rain that magnifies every emotion on the page. Persuasion is 100x more romantic, tragic, and heartbreaking. Loves it! My book is a little crinkly from the humidity though. Small price to pay, indeed!

While up there, Ray, the Filipino man who takes care of the apartments, comes up to do his daily cleaning routine and spots me chilling in the storm. He is a phenomenal person! I invited him to sit with me and just look at the lightning and we started talking about our lives. I don't think I'll ever forget that conversation because it was so genuine. Have you ever just found a stranger that you could just tell everything to because s/he was a stranger? I'd like to think that our sharing things about our lives made an impact on the other. He talked about his Catholic faith, his wife Christine, and how fortunate he is to have this job. He told me how he studied civil engineering in the Philippines, but had to come to Hong Kong to work because it has better conditions and pay. He talked about his previous girlfriend of 5 years and his 3 week text messaging relationship with Christine before marrying her. We shared tears as he talked about how fortunate he feels about his job because both he and his wife get to live together and work for the same employer here in Hong Kong. Ray takes care of the apartment while Christine works during the day in the owner's home. I met the man and he seems like he really is a good employer. While telling me this, Ray played with my set of keys and saw my car keys. He asked, "You have a car?" His tone of voice was heartbreaking. He shared his photo album with me. We exchanged mailing addresses to keep in touch when I leave here.

I really don't mean to sound cheesy or write like I've been reading too many novels. But the storm really did feel magical to me. It brought about a passion for whatever was going on at the moment, whether it be rising out of bed, reading, having a conversation, or just thinking. To be honest, I didn't even read too much while I was up there...only a couple chapters. I mainly sat and thought about my surroundings and how beautiful everything is, even tragedy. I missed my friends, my family, my dog, and my home(s). But at the same time I felt so liberated, like this storm was washing everything away and starting fresh. New job, new home, new city, new friends. This next year is going to be really scary, but even with all this new stuff happening, I know that all the old "stuff" I have in my life will always be there and will always be strong. I can't say anything except I know that we'll get through whatever comes our way together =)

I love metaphors and you do too.

Supersize Me

Fai Fai (aka Jayson) and I went shopping from 1:30pm - 9pm with a 45 minute break for a meal. My legs are fatigued, my feet hurt from my attempt to break in *new* chucks, my hair is wavy from the humid heavy rains, and my wallet is much lighter.

The theme for today was "what's the largest size you carry?" That's what I asked in every store I walked into because even though both my parents are Chinese, I somehow came out to be a gigantor freak of nature. How is the population of Hong Kong so tiny and yet the tallest female in the world is Chinese? Most places don't even carry my shoe size. As I passed by stores, a clever few would yell out "we carry size large and size 9 (shoe)!!" I would always go into those stores =) In most of the trendier spots, the largest size they carry is medium, if even that. Oh and the best part: For the first time in my life, I tried on pants and they got stuck on my calves. What the hell!! And then when they handed me the largest size up from that, they got stuck on my thighs. That was probably the highpoint of my shopping experience. Now I know that I'll just be shopping for dresses, purses, and other accessories. Speaking of purses, my Urban Outfitters purse broke for the second time and is irreparable. Piece of shit! You'd think that price would correlate with higher quality. That's boo boo.

I'm not sure if people are just that small or if they are that small because if they weren't, they would be forced to be naked or consistently sporting sweatpants. I've only been here for 2 days and I want to get lipo and cut off my toes so that I can fit into these funky, fresh, and fobby clothing! The pressures are insane. There's nothing like 7.5 hours of not fitting into clothes to boost your self-confidence. I just have to keep thinking that, relative to the most obese country in the world, I am thin!

Okay, I kid. The point of this blog is to say that it's nuts how important it is to be petite in this country. We talk about the pressures to be thin in America, but it seems like that ideal thinness is standard here, and the goal is to be even thinner that what we imagine. It's just strange how skinniness is a way of life. And it's not just that people are structurally small, I've seen a good number of relatively "tall" guys and girls. They definitely don't use height as an excuse for weight. I don't know why I find it so intriguing that the cultural standards for appearance are so different. I suppose it's because body image is so vital to self-confidence and governs so much of our perceptions, actions, and behaviors...and yet it varies so much across time and space. It's just strange having your power and sense of self change in a matter of a 14 hour plane ride.

By the by, Pizza Hut is a sit-down restaurant here.

Welcome!

I promised many people I would keep a blog of my summer vacation adventures, so here it is. I just arrived in Hong Kong today at 6:25am. I ate dim sum with fai fai's family and met his adorable grandmother. It's always really nice to see old people smile because 1.) they don't have very many teeth 2.) even after all they've been through and know about the world, they still smile 3.) it's genuine 4.) there's more but it gets cheesy.

I checked into my apartment that I'll be staying at for a month. It's called "The Nest" and is quite amazing. It's got a rooftop garden with tables and benches with soft and clean cushions. I'm definitely going to get some reading done up there. I just hope that the humidity doesn't do too much damage on my books. I checked into room 9. I hope that brings a smile across my Korean friends' faces.

The people who work here and stay here seem amazing! There is a common lobby on the top floor with the TV, kitchen, books, couches and such where it's really easy to meet the other people staying here. I'm totally jazzed to see who lives here. I met one guy who is here for a couple months on business establishing a new art studio here. Another gang of people are just staying here while they find a place to live.

I'll do my best to keep this blog interesting and not simply an account of what's happening in my life. But I don't normally come up with particularly poignant things to say or spend a lot of time reflecting on experiences that changed my life and perspective in a manner that can be expressed in words. Hopefully this blog will force me to get more out of life by thinking about it instead of letting life just happen. This will be like my discussion sections in sociology classes that I will miss oh so much. I'll try to write more later, but I just wanted to welcome myself back into the blogging world and to Hong Kong.