Sunday, August 19, 2007

Hongkonger Vs Chinese

Haven't written for a really long time. I believe I should write more often, I'm just lazy, I know.

I have seen a lot of Hong Kong handover 10 years anniversary TV programmes. They made me think a lot. When people ask me where I come from, I would answer without a second thought: "I'm from Hong Kong". "Oh you're from China..." people would say, "urgh... yeees" I answer. Foreigners think my answer is odd. Chinese mainlanders think I am wierd. Sometimes people tease me by saying "Oh yeah?! I am from Amager!" Hum... Well, I guess, only Hong Kong people can truely understand the reasons and feelings behind. We belong to no country, we are simply, orphans.

This is actually very sad if you think about it. I cannot hide my face, it is written on my forehead that I am a Chinese, no doublt about that. I have no desire to hide or deny this fact. The problem is, I don't know how to sing the national anthem. I did not grow up in that culture. I do not agree on what they do a lot of the time. We think in different ways. Hongkongers and mainlanders are just like two different nations although we do share something in common. Several times I think "Should I from now on tell people that I'm from China?" "No, no way, it just feels so un-natural to say that". That is how I feel, I believe, that is also how a few million people in Hong Kong feel. Watch documentary about how the young people feel.

Sunday, March 18, 2007

Look who's on the poster

My friend just mentioned about the Copenhagen Night Film Festival to me today. Look who's on the poster? Andy Lau! I know he is big in Asia, just never thought he has made this far! There is even a session called "Andy Lau and the New Breed of Hong Kong" too. I am totally impressed and suddenly felt proud of being a Hongkonger. I will definitely go and grap one of those posters and hang in on the wall. A little comment: Both "A Battle of Wits" and "Internal Affairs" are good. After watching the Internal Affairs then watched "The Departed", I "accidentally" fell asleep while I was watching the latter. It is just... uncomparable.

Sunday, January 14, 2007

Amistad

A movie which I cannot forget after I have seen it, which is a totally abnormal behavior -- Amistad

DISASTER!!!

I actually had something I wanted to post, but now I got distracted because I just found something extremely important to write!!

The blogger site failed to let me in when I logged in with Firefox (failed saying cannot connect for many times) but it works instantly when I switched to IE!



Oh my god! What is happening with Google?!

Monday, January 01, 2007

New look

A new look for the new year. Hope the green helps your eyes.

Happy New Year

2006 has come to an end and today is a new start. Last night was the first time I spent a new year eve with only Brian, sitting at home quietly watching tele. It made me thought a lot about my past, all those years I used to spend with friends and families for all the big festive events. It was fun. My life has changed a lot since 2001 when I first moved to Denmark. I travelled a lot since then, this is the summary of where I spent the last six xmas and new years:
2001 Norway
2002 Hong Kong
2003 Scotland
2004 Scotland and Denmark
2005 The Gambia and Denmark
2006 Scotland and Denmark

Although I have been travelling a lot, the amount of time I actually spend sitting around at home in these years probably exceed the amount for the 20 years prior to 2001. I spend 95% of my evenings, 80% of my weekends at home. Having such a nice apartment is crucial to this living style. People always ask me why I do not go out. I just cannot find a good reason to go out. Here the shops always sell the same things and you would not really want to look at the price tags at all. Going out shopping once every half a year (during the big sale periods) seems to be good enough. Moreover, everything here only opens from 10-17 on Saturday during the entire weekend. Do not expect to go out for a wonder outside this period. Of course I can go out for dinners or movies or bowling or something. We always do this sort of things when we hang out with friends right? The problem here is, we do not have many friends (less than a handful). Even though we have been here for a while, we never manage to integrate into the Danish society. It is a shame, I know. There are various reasons for it but I will skip this details for now. Anyway, going out to do these activities with only Brian and I feels a bit awkward. Sometimes it even brings stronger loneliness when you think about it.

This is why I have been talking about moving. I do not like this and I think I have had enough. This is not me. So in 2007 I am going to make the plan comes true. I will need to find a place that will change my life back to normal, with more friends or families around. That is the goal of the year.

Thursday, December 28, 2006

Christmas break in Scotland

Unlike last year's adventurous christmas in the Gambia, this christmas was back to peace, quiet and nice homeish style with lots of eating. We spent a few days in Brian's home in Scotland with his family. Sara and her friend Marianma travelled all the way from Africa back home for xmas too. Nice to see them again, it has been a year since we met in the Gambia. Christmas in the West is always the same to me, very much like Chinese New Year, people meet up with friends and families and involve continuous eating events.

Instead of Chinese New Year markets they have christmas markets, christmas trees instead of "peach flower", christmas flowers instead of little mandarin trees, presents instead of red pockets, turkeys instead of various Chinese New Year dishes. To some people Christmas is celebrating the birth of Jesus, but to a lot of them it is just a once a year family reunion, the idea is entirely the same as Chinese New Year. I have not been home for a few Chinese New Years already, not been able to receive my eldest sister's red pockets (Only married people give them). I am really looking forward to Feb.



Same as usual as Elizabeth said, I had my birthday on Christmas Eve. Brian made me a nice sweet birthday cake. Prior to Christmas I received a few birthday presents. My sister said I was robbing people by visiting during Christmas time. Having being born on Christmas Eve was not my choice though, although I quite enjoy it.




Everytime we visit Brian's family we cook a Chinese dinner for people, this time is no different. Although I don't really think we are particular good at cooking, people seems to like it very much. As long as they enjoy our food we are happy to cook :).

Christmas at IBM

I should have written this post about 2 weeks ago but I think never too late. This christmas at work differs a bit from the previous two years, coz this is the first year I (or We as the old Maersk Data folks) am with IBM. At the start of the month I was quite a bit disappointed. The huge christmas trees we used to have, which were about 3 floors tall (really, they were the biggest indoor christmas trees I have seen), were shrinked into a few feets in height. I do not need to squeeze pass the reception hall to avoid walking into the tree anymore. Well, I treated it as environment friendliness to use a smaller tree. While I was thinking I might not be getting any christmas present from work this year, my thought turned into a little surprise. There were two different kinds of boxes: Mediterranean style spices and Japanese style seasoning. I got a Mediterranean one, but since both Brian and I don't drink wine and I am not really a fan of Mediterranean food, I swapped with Anders for a Jap box.
It is quite nice, with quite a few different bottles of seasoning, rice, wasabi beans, 4 big bottles of Jap beers, green tea and a nice looking cook book (in danish...) It even contains a couple pairs of chopsticks, seems to fit us well. I know it is not nice to compare I just cannot help it, compare to what we used to get, the boxes shrinked too.

Friday, December 01, 2006

Awarded

Same as before, I have not updated my blog for a significant amount of time. A few of the very few of my readers complained about it. I guess it is time to write something now since I finally have something more interesting to tell.

I have been awarded a "Bravo Award" today by the department. Set aside the actual money matter, this award means a lot to me. First of all, I have not got any award for years now. I used to be a frequent award receiver when I was in primary school. The glory years suddenly disappeared since the day I started in a band 1 secondary school. What was the good for entering a good school? I lost all the fame and confidence! I was buried! After I got kicked out (I was so glad to tell you the truth), the good days came again when I started in a lower band school. I got all the honors and attention back to me again, till I started uni. But of course, the older you get, the lesser chance you would get awarded. This I take it as an adult life. You do not get a sweet by doing your homework quick, but really need to work real hard to get noticed. So every so often you have to award your self for something, no matter a gadget or a nice dinner.

The second important meaning of this award is, I proved the statement "You cannot perform if you don't speak danish" wrong. That statement was threw on to my face not long ago. Now I can proudly say I can always perform if I have the motivation to. Perhaps you can argue that statement was part of my motivation, then I have to say thank you to the speaker. So, "Don't give up even you got looked down upon" now become my golden rule.

Saturday, September 02, 2006

Sunny is gone

Sunny finally passed away on Wednesday 30/8 around 8 o'clock. It was strong to struggle for a few days until it totally lost its balance. We decided to bury it at our backyard under a tree. Hope it will have peace round there. The last memory of Sunny: