Hong Kong: The Land of Paradoxes

My recent 33rd birthday reflection as well as a recent conversation with my family comparing living in Scandinavian, Australian and Canadian cities allowed me to reorganize my thoughts on the city I now reside in: Hong Kong. How I locate myself on this canvas. What I have found out is that we HK residents live in a land of paradoxes.

Before the handover in 1997, Hong Kong was already one of the most densely populated cities in the world. Now that the city has been forced to open up to it's biological mother China, it has now entered the inevitable stage of being a (what I like to think) rebellious teenager with an identity crisis. For those who want to jump and criticize me for insulting HK residents like that, let me just preempt that I have no intentions of doing so but quite the contrary. Bear with me.

HK residents ever since the 60s and 70s has developed a great work ethic of diligence. Working their supposedly 9-5 job way over time. The abbreviation O.T. (standing for over time) is widely used and understood even by my grandma who knows negligible English. This work ethic was inherited by the next generation of millennials (ahem, moi) the only difference is that we are the living, breathing anthem of "Work hard, play hard." Unlike our parents who never indulged in designer brands, fine dining and traveling to save money for an apartment, we millennials are lucky enough to have a family that is in no dire financial abyss and hence can live life a bit more than the last generation. HK residents literally coined the Cantonese short hand for the weekend routine of "shop, movie, dine". In recent years, some has dove into the alternative of wellness, spending time at the gym, doing yoga, hiking or cycling. 

And here is my first observed paradox: HK residents would gladly give into a job they most probably loath and grind at for most of the week, and then at the end of the week, do an absolute 180 and just let loose. What is the meaning of life for the many bankers and office workers who either hate their tedious jobs or the ethically questionable institution they loath? What is the meaning of life for the many people who is complacent at their government jobs yet spends the holidays protesting against their boss? Why not work in something you feel passionately for most of the week so you do not have to force a weekend of  "let's make myself happy"? 

The next paradox is derived from that very last question but perhaps a more quantified question: Is the hefty price tag of indulgence that important that we give up our choice of how we make a living?

A parallel paradox is that we work tirelessly for months so that we can go traveling. Why not build a home we do not need to escape from? This question after some thought is the result of the system we unfortunately can't change too much. There are more mainland Chinese flooding into our city whether, some just tourists or some evolving into residents taking up not only space but even resources. And I understand that this frustration is often what drives us to travel. But wouldn't it be nice that we can live in a city, working at a job we love, so we needn't have to escape all the time?

Another paradox comes in the form of health and lifestyle: (and I am by no means an exception from this) we live in a society that salivates on the gluttony of Instagram worthy food yet after that then again take a 180 turn and torture ourselves in the gym. Why not stay disciplined when consuming food in the first place? Why not exercise because we enjoy it, not to detox?

Last paradox: we spend so much time at work multi-tasking, when we don't we need apps to remind us to breathe, to stand up and walk around, drink, to do basic things we used to do on our own. Our minds are so preoccupied that we need time to meditate and unwind from that. And sometimes we aren't even good at doing that. 

What I have come to conclude (at least for me) is that life is a gift of constantly being in the present. If I wake up everyday knowing I love the work that I do, that I enjoy nurturing the next generation about literature, that I feel a humbling sense of work flow when I write, I do not have to force a weekend of "make up for the fives days I just spent in hell" nor do I have to escape when I travel around the world. That my traveling is instead wanderlust driven. 

Life At This Point

As the semester and also 2016 comes to an end, I am left here sitting in my new home grading essays as well as pondering what goals should I aim for 2017. For most of my twenties I have loved to travel and yearned to travel even more. But as I have built a career and home I don't need to escape from, as well as my wanderlust satisfied for the past decade or so...I find my mind wandering and wondering about what else can I achieve? What other places can my career bring me? And for many years even before I started writing the manuscript of my novel I simply wished to be a published writer. That was the goal. But somehow that shifted recently. I still want to be published but I want it to be published in my way, a very socially corporate responsible way, and so I want to start my own publishing company. I want to adapt the model of:
1. Every time you buy a book, a book will go to a child who needs one
2. If you send in a second hand book, you can get a half price discount, that book again will go to a child who needs one.
Selling 3 manuscripts (novel, nonfiction and my short story and poems collection) as well as this business model is almost hard to achieve at all, much to say in the short future) so why shouldn't I start my own publishing company? With this business I also want to help the many writers who keep feeling rejected by the major publishing houses because their writing is not "commercial" enough. I want to create a publishing house that is not just printing money but printing heartfelt pages.

At this point in my life I also don't need to broaden my network at mixers because I know that if I really go through with this business model, I know the trusty friends I have whom I can contract as editor, designer, IT, tax advisor and legal advisor. I have been reading up whether LLC or S-corp will be a better business model, costs of publishing paper books and ebooks. I have even been fiddling with names for my publishing house. I think the more serious I get with this project, the more it would come true. It's like the self fulfilling prophecy I had for my novel. Telling myself I could do it, while I kept doing it made it come true.

Life at this point is about taking care of myself, my family, and giving back to the community that blessed me with their help. Life right now...is still going to be challenging (I wouldn't ask for any less of it). And life right now...is pretty damn good...=)

#GivingTuesday (It still is Tuesday on the other side of the globe)

Balancing Expectations and Hopefulness

Despite aplenty who think I look a decade younger than 30, there is not one breathing second I am not aware that I am 30 going on 31. My job reminds me that everyday. People around me remind me that everyday. Whether it is high school classmates, college friends, colleagues or strangers I meet on the street, I am constantly reminded I am 30 and single. Sometimes the look I see in kids and parents can jerk tears. And every time I get my hopes up for a certain guy, I am more than often disappointed.

While learning not to have expectations I am tugged between being hopeful that something will turn up. While learning to accept that I may live the rest of my life alone, I loath the idea that I am throwing in the towel on love, that I am giving in, giving up. While guy after guy, time after time, I learn that men just aren't as romantic and committing than a decade ago let alone Jane Austen's time, I am torn between the many couples I know that attest love still exists.

In the name of love, how do we balance between not having expectations and being hopeful that it will eventually happen?

This is the one moment I loath being an optimist. I can be an optimist about my career because it is somehow in my hands. But being an optimist in love is tiring when time after time you are wrestled down and you feel you have no control over it...

And what if I don't have expectations for love? I never had a back-up plan for when I don't find love...I can have a back-up plan if this job doesn't work and hop onto another career, but there is no back-up plan for this...it's either spinsterhood all the way or adopting, which is nothing compared to the real deal. And is what I want really that much to ask for? Waking up to find your love by your side and going to bed knowing that the same person will be there, is that a lot to ask for? What happened to men of the 21st century?

As much as I know this is part of growing up, when is it going to end? This tunnel feels everlasting...

An Epilogue, A Prologue

There has been a hollow part of me ever since I finished writing The Year I Turned 30. Writing that collection of essays felt like writing a journal that hopefully meant something. But now with the year finished, and hence the writing of it finished, I am often left feeling a lack of outlet for these cathartic feelings. While I continue to write in my journal it just doesn't surmount to the feeling of penning something for a greater audience and hopefully bigger cause.

But while I lament on the end of this least to say fun chapter, I am happy to start the new chapter of not only work in academia, but also spending more time on my novel. I was recently interviewed by my alma mater UWaterloo on my current endeavors. While exhilarated to talk about academia, I was glad they asked what was next for me, in which I gladly answered "finishing my novel". So cheers to a new year, and quite literally some new chapters!

Chapter 37 The Universe and God

Here is a sneak peek to one of the chapters for the nonfiction book I am working on: (and no those photos will not be in the book, it's just for the blog)

"So I was watching one of Amy Schumer’s sketch the other day. It was mocking Caucasian women always relating the smallest coincidences in life to hints from the universe. As I laughed at how absurd it sounded, I also reflected on how much I was the same. As you all read my chapter on the pink balloon. For a split second I did want to believe it meant something. Even if logically speaking it was not the universe telling me that there is still hope in love, I just wanted to believe that. I needed to believe that.

And reflecting on my religious beliefs, I only came to be more pious two years ago, and started to go to church every Sunday (or as many Sundays as I can, it’s dedication man, and if you were out with your girls on a Saturday night, it takes a lot more conviction to wake up, not to mention slaving away studying). But the reason I still believe in God or the universe, is not because I think my mere steadfastness or my prayers will easily heal all my problems. But contrarily, my belief is in a way a reflection system I have in my brain about my life. Bible passages and homilies are things that remind me of what kind of life I wish to live, and how to live it. It is the fuel to my belief system that humanity has a purpose.

When people see that I have a photo frame that has the words “Believe” arched over three photos propped on my desk, I always wish I can tell them in a sentence what it really means, rather than saying “It encompasses a lot of things, believing in myself, believing in God, in my dreams, in my values” I wish I could tell them that it is part of my simple belief system that pushes me day in and out to be a better person.

So when I tell myself everything happens for a reason like the so-called white girls say, or when I say I believe in God’s grand plans, I am not saying I believe in small coincidences, but rather I am saying that I believe that my wisdom can never be compared to His wisdom. I recently found a blogger worth my attention called Jen Glantz, and as I read her blog about graduating from college and the things she went through these five years, I couldn’t help but share her sentiment. More importantly she pointed out a very important lesson I learnt as well: once life gets comfortable, it will have a way of reminding you, that’s not what life is about, that life is about challenges and being resilient.

The reason I am bringing this up in this context is that even though you think you are the driver in the car of your life, you are not the one who is steering, because God may frown upon you texting and decide you need a little lesson, and give you a pothole to wake you up or a road bump to slow you down. He does not talk to us, but he will have his ways in showing us the true meaning of life. Whether that comes in the form of small coincidences or in my case realizing why bad things have happened to me in life to make me a better person. God’s plans are beyond our understanding and power to change. We may be able to work harder at our 9-5 job and get a raise, but the economy can change any minute, a family member can be gone at a split of a second. If we do not value the things that should be valued in life, it can be taken away from us in seconds. The only constancy in life is love.  Trust me on this one."