Sunday, November 30, 2008

Another Sunday Hike

Buffalo Hill, New Territories. An interesting hike. I like rocky terrain; hate loose rock and dirt. Half of the trail was the first, the second half consisted of the latter. So I half hated it and half loved it. But it was pretty, nonetheless.

One of my favorite hikers, a Frenchman who took a sabbatical to come live with his wife here, snapping a shot:

The city of Sha Tin:


Looking towards the direction of Hong Kong:


So, the hike was interesting, but not as interesting as it could have been (and by interesting in the second clause of this here sentence, I mean disastrous). The dude, despite sending me an email at 3 in the morning saying that he had just come in from a night of gambling in Ma cau, made it to the hike, though I was sure he would not. And the dude's girlfriend did not make it. So my moral inadequacies did not up and smack me upside the head today as I expected.

There were some hi-fucking-larious moments today as related to the dude. My favorite was when, over burgers and beers with the aforementioned Frenchman and his wife, the Frenchman teased the dude, "And during your trip to the States for Christmas, will you also be giving [your girlfriend] a ring?" Mind you, I'm sitting right next to the dude, who (methinks perhaps with a slight flush?) denied he had this in mind.

On the bus home (and again on the street on which we both live), dude asked me ... out, is the only way to describe it, for Tuesday night. Against my better moral sense, I said okay. This time, the WTF applies to me, I guess.

Saturday, November 29, 2008

Despicable Acts

Giselle, which I saw performed this afternoon by the Hong Kong Ballet, courtesy of the firm's Social Committee, is about a young peasant girl who falls in love with a young man from a neighboring village. The gamekeeper, whose love Giselle spurns, reveals that her fiance is actually also affianced to a nobleman's daughter, and Giselle dies of a broken heart.

(In other words, damn two-timing jerk causes his lover to die. Though who dies of a broken heart? Girl, get it together.)

Both the spurned suitor and Giselle's lover visit her grave, where the Wilis, the spirits of brides who died before their wedding day, drive the spurned suitor to his death (apparently by making him dance to death. huh). They're about to do the same to the lover despite Giselle's attempts to save him, when daylight breaks and the Wilis fade away. Giselle, now one of them, also fades away, and her two-timing lover is left with nothing but fading flowers and his sorrow.

(In other words, damn two-timing jerk should have gotten what he deserved and Giselle should have been all up in his face about it too, but -- oops, gotta keep an eye on the clock.)

I haven't seen ballet since I lived in Our Nation's Capital, and I remember not liking it very much. I appreciated the technical difficulty and the amazing physical feats of the dancers, but I thought it was all kinda hokey.

Well, hk done grown up, apparently, because I loved this performance. The sets and costumes were both so pretty, and the last few minutes, where Giselle is exorably drawn into the shadow despite her attempts to comfort her lover, and her lover's abject form, dropping the flowers she gave him on the floor, made me tear up. (Okay, not really. But it did hit me, nonetheless.)

I love also the fact that the universe? It likes to drop anvils.

Because last night, as I mentioned in an earlier post today, I did one crazy thing and one despicable thing. The crazy thing was climbing to the Peak at 3:30 in the morning, which is the sort of thing that seems like a good idea when you're drunk and enjoying someone's company. (It was actually pretty fun, and the nighttime view was pretty.)


The despicable thing was being kissed by and kissing someone who has a serious girlfriend, for whom he moved to this city almost a year ago, with whom he lives, and with whom I thought he was in love.

The weird thing about it was that after said person left my apartment at 7 in the morning, I took a shower, tried to sleep and woke up feeling completely devoid of emotion. Strange, when you've just helped someone commit infidelity. You think you'd feel something: anger, shame, pride, self-hatred, take your pick.

A number of hours later, after seeing Giselle and going to the gym (where I watched a soothing episode of House -- the gym, awesomely, has DVDs of tons of TV shows and movies), I did feel something. Anger. What kind of person does that? What kind of thinking, feeling person thinks it's okay to cheat on someone, especially someone he ostensibly loves and cares for?

And what kind of person helps him do it?

You may condemn me for this; I am. But as long as we're all condemning me, I may as well admit something: there's a part of me that enjoys this. The drama, the mental handwringing, the potential for disaster. The potential to feel something. Anything. You may call it juvenile; I do. I wonder sometimes if I don't have a warped sense of morality. And whether I will burst into flames when I go sing in church next Thursday.

Not your usual Friday night

Last night I did one crazy thing and one despicable thing.

More to come. But I will say that I was right about this. And wrong about that (Oct. 30).

Thursday, November 27, 2008

hk is thankful

I am. Even though I'm in a whiny, downer mood tonight, not helped by the beers with dinner, I'm still thankful.

I'm thankful for the little things. The azure blue of the water in Sai Wan on Sunday. The little moment of silence after the chef of the Szechuan restaurant I went to tonight sang the final note of the mournful folk song in operatic style. The way my officemate and I try to best each other in the Scrabble-like game on our Blackberries.

I'm thankful for the big things. I am sound of body, and mostly of mind. I still have a ludicrously lucrative job. I have enough money to be more than comfortable.

I'm thankful for the people in my life. My family, the members of which are sound of mind and body, except for one. My friends in the States. My new friends in Hong Kong. Those who have passed out of my life after gifting me with their humor and friendship, and those who
still want to know what I'm doing after all these years, and still care.

I'm thankful for the absence of tragedy in my life -- and the experience of seeing that even sad events can be borne with great dignity and good humor.

I wish to be happy, and I am thankful that every day, I have the means, the health, and the freedom to pursue happiness.

I've spent Thanksgivings in many different places over the years. With bigbro in DC, sharing a pre-made dinner from the supermarket. Thawing out turkey wingpits with BC in New York. With Mormons and Destroyers in Cambridge. With missionaries in Seoul. With Double M and her family in DC. With Empress Ro snapping at waitresses "We're models, honey! We can't eat cheese!" in Soho. I think it might be my favorite holiday, because no one expects you to go home or bring presents. No one has any expectations at all.

Tonight I had Thanksgiving dinner with three people I didn't know a month ago, in a Szechuan place in the heart of Hong Kong. It wasn't the smoothest of dinners or the best of times, but it was companionship and good food, and I'm thankful.

And now I'm going to go out and buy a pack of cigarettes, and be thankful for that too.

Sunday, November 23, 2008

Sunday Hiking in New Territories

I was in a silent kind of mood today, probably from oversocializing this past week:
  • Monday: dinner with coworker (v. good, got head on straight from talk)
  • Wednesday: favor to a friend (junk trip and dinner in Tsim Sha Tsui with an amazing view of Victoria Harbor, v. nice)
  • Thursday: Korea night (much drinkage and bad singing)
  • Friday: lunch with hiking club friends (lovely people -- so glad to have met) and a quick celebratory drink for the first year who just passed the bar (lovely person -- so glad to have met)
  • Saturday: acupressure massage (painful) and dinner with 2 coworkers (great food, stilted convo)
This is far, far more socializing than I do in New York. For an introvert, it's tiring, even if it's enjoyable. So by today, Sunday, I was talked out and didn't really feel like talking with the hiking club people. But fortunately, it was a pretty hard, very brushy trail, and so easy enough to pace myself between clusters of walkers.

It was my first time hiking in the New Territories, the area of Hong Kong closest to mainland China. Much wilder out there, and correspondingly, cleaner and prettier.

I met up with the lovely French couple with whom I had lunch on Friday (she works at a bank, he's on sabbatical from his job with the national health service) at 8 am this morning, as it took over an hour to get the meeting point. We actually got there a bit early, which was fine. Lots of people were out at the restaurants in Sai Kung having dim sum, and we strolled around.
You can apparently order seafood straight from the fishermen along the quay and they'll toss it up. Some examples of recent catches:
They look rather sad, don't they? I felt a bit sad for them.

I love signs like the one in this next picture.

The next pictures, most frustratingly, do not capture the hazy, mystical feel of the dark mountains interspersed with the waters of the West Bay (Sai Wan).




Hikers at repose:


To give you a sense of where we climbed, look at the tiny little white dots in the center of this picture. Those are 2 stragglers, coming down through the brush on the back side of the mountain we climbed (through the brush).


It was a great hike. The last section was steep and brushy, and we all used vines and trees to stop ourselves from rolling down. We came out on the beautiful beach of Sai Wan, which a pack of wild dogs seemed to also be enjoying immensely.




We had beers nearby this beach, then it was over another steep ass hill or two to catch a taxi to Sai Kung for dinner. On the way over said steep ass hill, though, we caught the sun sidling down and creating a most picturesque reservoir scene.



It's almost enough to make one love Hong Kong, no?

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Shift

Lest you think all is gloom and doom this side of the Pacific, I am writing at 1:20 in the morning after a long evening of Korean food and karaoke with the 8 other people of Korean heritage in the office. And it was fun!

Abroad, it is much easier for people to understand me as Korean rather than American. I've observed this in a couple different continents, and it strikes me as one of the wonderful things about the U.S. We may be provincial and ignorant, but Americans, uniquely, understand that you can come from any ethnic background and still be American. Which is why we demand things like English-only statutes and workplaces -- it is because we expect the outsiders to become one of us. It's not perfect, and not everyone has this understanding (witness the young Texan boy who asked me once, "Do you come from America?" when I was in college), but the theory behind it all is profoundly moving and in my experience very different from the way people in other nations approach outsiders. People in Japan and Korea forgive your strange mannerisms and customs, because you're an outsider. You can't be expected to know Japanese/Korean ways. The flip side of that is that you never belong. In a way, American intolerance for foreign manners and customs is an outgrowth of an underlying belief that no matter where you come from, you can belong. We aren't a closed community, impossible to enter into if you aren't born to it. We proselytize because we believe everyone can reach salvation.

The struggle, of course, is finding the balance between you as American and you as XYZ ethnicity. It's a struggle that all hyphenated Americans face, but none more obviously than those who don't fit the European American mold. Who aren't, in plain English, white.

All of this is sort of related to my point here (admittedly loose and vague due to large amounts of soju), which is that in the States, I don't hang out with many Korean Americans. But here, it was oddly comforting to go out as a group and do "Korean" things.

Layered onto that are the memories of the last time I went out with Koreans in a work outing -- when I worked at a Korean office in Seoul. Then, I was an outsider myself -- the lone Korean American in an office of native Koreans, and I was treated as such, due to my lack of familiarity with the language and customs. Tonight, though, even though my language ability was the lowest of the group, I felt a part of it in a way I didn't feel in Korea.

This week things seemed to turn around. I was really thrown for a loop by the lack of work here, and so spent 5 weeks moorless, casting around for something to hold on to in a sea of endless free time, no acquaintances, and nothing to do but amuse myself. But after a good talk with a Korean American coworker on Monday, I feel like I have more of a grip. I made contact with the litigation department and asked for some work, because it's not just boring to have nothing to do, it's time lost from developing skills and experiences I need to advance in my job. The social thing is fine -- I'm content with the acquaintances I've made. I've made a list of projects I'd like to do in my free time, of which I'll pick one to concentrate on. And I have a guiding principle.

What is it? It's so simple, I laugh at myself. But it's just this: be happy.

It's taken 6 weeks, but I'm finally ready to enjoy this experience.

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Side Effects
(among the first in a series)

Alzheimer's is irreversible, incurable and degenerative. There are some studies that suggest increased mental activity can help prevent it, but it's not clear how the causation works (i.e., if mental activity staves it off, or if you're more mentally active because you don't have or don't have a predisposition for Alzheimer's).

Degenerative is a clinical word. It does not capture the experience of having the person you've lived with for 35 years accuse you of stealing her jewelry, or poisoning her. It does not capture the annoyance of having the same question asked 15 times in 15 minutes. It does not capture the helpless frustration when your spouse shakes with anger over things that happened 35 years ago. It will not capture the full horror of the first time when your spouse doesn't recognize you, thinks you're a stranger, demands to know where her husband is.

The progression of the disease is well documented, you see. I don't know whether it's better to know or not. My uncle must know, since he's done the reading. I can't imagine.

A few years ago, my aunt mentioned that she felt something different about herself. She was starting to slow down, feel old. And that's normal, right? She is 72, after all. Slowing down in your late 60s is eminently normal. I forget what caused it at the time, but I remember around that time starting to feel concerned about her brain, and having a discussion about it, during which she angrily declared that she wasn't stupid.

No, she wasn't and isn't stupid, but she definitely had begun to close herself off from outside pursuits and people. She used to volunteer at a local Buddhist temple, but someone there kept asking her for favors, and so it got too complicated to continue going there. She used to be friendly with so-and-so, but she found her annoying, so she stopped seeing her.

So we sent her puzzles and Sudoku and dance lessons and gift certificates to gardening stores outside the immediate area, and she did some of the puzzles and some Sudoku, but never did the dance lessons and never went to that gardening store. And the amyloid plaques in her neurons began to build.

She and my uncle talked of traveling, which they could do cheaply because of his affiliation with the armed forces. She's never been to Europe. Never seen Buddha's birthplace. Never been to so many places that she wanted to see. They never went, and now she'll never see Europe, never see Buddha's birthplace.

When she started having more and more trouble hearing, we had a number of conversations about learning sign language, but she refused. Was she afraid? Was she refusing to accept that she was getting more deaf? But she wouldn't, and now she never will.

I encouraged them to get a dog years ago, but she didn't want to get one, because it was too sad when the dog dies. So they never got one, and now they've given up on getting one, because she's too unstable to take care of one.

Come out to graduation, I begged, come out to New York for Thanksgiving, I asked, and they said yes, no, yes, and then finally, no.

The number of things they could have done, that we encouraged them to do, that could have put off the onset! I want to scream, "You should have done this! You should have done that! Why didn't you? Why did you just sit at home and do nothing? Why did you let her just sit at home and do nothing? Why didn't you try the dance lessons, the ASL classes, the new gardening store? Why didn't you, when you had the chance? Why did you refuse, and why did you let her refuse?"

And now: Why can't you take the long view? Why do you tell me it's terrible and you don't know if you can keep her at home much longer one day but the next day, that "she's doing a lot better" and that everything was "real good"? Don't you know that it's irreversible? Incurable? Degenerative?

It's so tempting to fall into the anger, and think accusing thoughts. Easier than advising across oceans, easier than being supportive across a dozen time zones.

Why? Why? Why? All those things, that might have helped, and you shut them down, refused, turned away. Why?

Monday, November 17, 2008

Misspent youth

After seeing Sexy Daniel Craig: The Movie on Saturday, Sun and I were walking back up to our respective homes when she said that she wanted to be able to look back at a misspent youth, because in a lot of biographies of people she'd read, they did exactly that, with little regret.

I asked her what that meant to her, and she said that it meant having a good time, enjoying youth, not worrying about the future or what it all leads to, not worrying about what today's actions will mean for tomorrow's resume.

Now that's an admirable goal. I like that (although misspent youth to me sounds more like sex, drugs and rock 'n roll). I think by Sun's definition, my youth was indeed misspent, wandering around to different cities and jobs, never thinking more than a year or two ahead -- or more accurately, never letting it affect the decisions to move to the next job or the next city.

The thinking behind coming to HK was to try capital markets work and live in Asia again for a little while (and to have a little change so that I didn't burn out as fast as a corporate lawyer). But not having any work (and I do mean NO work) has really thrown me for a loop. It's all well and good to have your free time on the weekends and after work, but if you do nothing at work all day and then have to amuse yourself outside of work as well -- well, that's too much freedom, and I feel more secure when I've got some walls around me.

What do I do all day at work? Well you may ask.
9:45-10 am. Roll in. Check work email. Check personal email. Check Facebook. Check fun blogs. Read NY Times.

11 am. Check to see who's online in the NY office. Chat with them for a while, then apologize for keeping them on IM when they're working late, and say goodbye.

11:30 am. Time for a stroll around the office. Ask partners and associates if they have any work. Chat with coworkers, complain that I'm dying of boredom.

11:45 am. Return to desk, read Salon or CNN or The Economist online.

12:30 pm. Hopefully, go to lunch or a in-house seminar. If not, mope at desk and consider reading a treatise. At around 1, give up and get some lunch.

2 pm. Return to desk and read more papers online, consider plans for weekend.

3 pm. Get up and stroll around some more, complain again about being bored. Take a banana from the fruit basket and eat.

3:45 pm. Pull out treatise and read about 3 pages before turning back to internets.

4 pm. Officemate calls out, "How's it going over there? Busy?" I call back, "Extremely busy. Please be quiet and stop bothering me." Proceed to either play Word Mole with officemate, ask him about something vaguely related to work, ask him about restaurant recommendations, or check out something amusing on his computer.

4:30 pm. IM Stegmaier, "McDonalds run?" (Sometimes receive IM from Stegmaier: "Caffeine... need caffeine...")

5:15 pm. Return to desk, consider plans for that evening. See if I can recognize anyone from the NY Times wedding announcements.

6 pm. Bounce.
Now you might think this sounds good, and yes, you're right, it's not a day in the mines or anything like that. But I've had five weeks of this schedule! That's enough to try anyone's patience.

What I need is a guiding principle. A project and a motto. And I will think of both, right after this episode of Chuck playing now on AXN.

Sunday, November 16, 2008

Social success

After having worked at the meet-and-greet thing for the past month, I got to the point this past week where I had plans for every night! Let's review:

Monday: impromptu dinner at Penny's
Tuesday: Democrats Abroad event, where Stegmaier and I re-met Political Dude
Wednesday: art show opening with Grace, a friend of Penny's
Thursday: drinks with a coworker and Dennis, another friend of Penny's
Friday: Indian food with coworkers, 2 people from the hiking club, and a friend of the aspiring filmmaker
Saturday: dinner and Sexy Daniel Craig: The Movie with Sun
Sunday: charity concert with Penny

Okay, so Wednesday and Thursday plans got canceled because I got sick, but the fact that I did have plans counts, right? I'm especially proud of the gathering on Friday, since I did the inviting and gathering and choosing of place (i.e., played hostess). Very gratifying.

Hey, it's the little things. Don't roll your eyes at me. When you really have nothing to do all day at work, you start wondering just exactly what defines you as a person. Apparently, having plans means something to my little, little brain.

But seriously, folks. We got emails from higher-ups this week that basically said: don't expect any work til the new year.

I think I would make a very bad lady of leisure, since I can't seem to think of anything with which to occupy my time. I've always been sort of a dilettante, a dabbler in all things, an expert in none. I've heard of a lot of things, but don't know much about any of 'em. And left to my own devices, I seem to be completely at sea. What the hell should I be doing? Everyone says, "Enjoy yourself!" But how exactly do I do that? What do I enjoy?

I suppose if I didn't have to be at work during the daylight hours, I'd go hiking. I do like it tremendously. But there's got to be more to me than hiking, right? I wish I knew more of what I liked. I wish I knew me better. What a curious and sad thing to write!

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Happy Pepero Day

In Korea, 11/11 is Pepero Day, when people (okay, kids and couples) give each other the stick-shaped crackers also known as Pocky. In a zany mood today, I went to the store and bought six boxes of the stuff and distributed them around the office. Sometimes you just have to amuse yourself. And if it amuses others at the same time, all the better.

Last night, after Mandarin language class (still fun!), I went up to Penny's apartment for dinner. She'd invited me earlier in the day, and I was very pleased to accept, seeing that I had no plans and nothing exciting in mind for dinner. I stopped on the way to buy a bottle of wine and was treated to a great dinner of pork, garlicky greens, and spicy tofu.

Penny is only a year older than me, but she seems ever so much more mature. Having been in the workplace for much longer probably does that to a person. Born in Singapore, she lived and worked in Switzerland before coming to HK, and her apartment is filled with art and furnishings she's collected over the years. When we talked about being weak bidders and she said, "Well, they [the men she let go over the years] were great then, but now they're extraordinary -- the heads of banks and companies." I laughed on the inside and out. Chalk that up to working in the financial sector, I guess.

Tonight, my favorite person at work, Stegmaier, and I went to the monthly Democrats Abroad event to meet up with the fellow who last week gifted us with Obama t-shirts after we expressed our desire to have them (i.e, I whined that I wanted one and he gave the ones he was holding to us). The fellow's a spokesperson for this chapter of DA, and has given lots of radio and TV interviews. He's clearly a political animal, and after the first few minutes, I dismissed him as a political hack, like all the political hacks in DC I'd ever met. In fact, he's headed there this weekend, no doubt to interview for a job with the administration. I looked at his pale, washed out face and thought, "Well, he'll fit right in."

But toward the end of the hour, after Stegmaier and I had met a series of folks -- some obnoxious, some young and annoying, some socially awkward -- the fellow noticed the socially awkward person standing behind us by himself, and said to him, "Socially Awkward Person! Come talk to this nice person right here!" gesturing to someone else he knew. And I thought, well, well. There's a lesson in dismissing people for ya, hk. Even political hacks might have a sweet, considerate side.

P.S. This blog entry was brought to you by a pint of Kilkenny ale and a bowl of ramen. Sorry if it doesn't make any sense.

Monday, November 10, 2008

Fall has arrived!

On Saturday night, there was a hint of it, when we were seated outside for dinner and got cold in the night breeze. But Sunday was the first day that the air was crisp, the skies clear and blue without a hint of haze, and the island seemed actually habitable.

For the first hour and a half of the day, I kinda wanted to die.

The hangover started out harmless enough. A slight headache, a slightly nervous stomach -- nothing that in my experience wouldn't succumb to water, toast and ibuprofen.

However, I was not counting on the 10-minute taxi ride to the ferry.

Or the 30-minute ferry ride over wind-ruffled waters.

Or the 20-minute taxi ride that followed. Over windy, curving mountain roads.

I had to get out the taxi halfway to the trailhead. I didn't end up hurling, but only because my distaste for puking slightly trumps my distaste for being nauseated. Just barely.

Once I got on the trail, however, everything just melted away. It was a beautiful day to be outside, cooled by the breezes coming off the water, warmed by the autumn sun. The lack of haze revealed inspiring vistas. We even came upon a few moody beaches.


Oh, and also the random feral cow.


Yes, feral cows do roam the outer islands of Hong Kong.

The wind rattling the bamboo sounded like a hundred children knocking hollow sticks together. A melancholy, meditative sound.


Two hours of hiking on Lantau wasn't enough, so I came back to Hong Kong Island and set off for Victoria Peak with another coworker. The view, at last, lived up to its potential.


I hope it stays like this until I leave. Unlikely, but hopefully for a few months, it'll continue to be cool and crisp.

Saturday, November 08, 2008

Saturday night is the loneliest night of the week

So Frank Sinatra sang, but tonight was pretty happy and unlonely, thanks to a random chance (redundant, ack) meeting in an elevator.

No, I haven't found my Canadian expat soulmate (YET), for whom I'm still on the lookout.

Whoa, I'm drunk!

Yep, it is I, drunk.

Lemme backup.

Last weekend I finally met the person living on the same floor as me (there are only 2 units on this floor in this tower) and I said, "Hi, I'm hk" and she said "I'm Penny and I'm moving out today" and then when I returned from whatever I was doing that day, I found her card and one of the coupons for free dinners the building gave us when we moved it under my door. And so she invited me to her housewarming party today, which involved champagne with her 3 other friends at her new apartment down the street and a VERY, VERY expensive dinner at this molecular gastronomy place in Wan Chai. (It really was alarmingly expensive, and so it made sense that there were empty tables at a place that only had seating for about 50, I think, but then again, I'm totally housed on the wine pairings, so I could be off.)

Anyhoo. Her friends were nice and she was nice, and did I mention the wine pairing with the chef's menu? Six mini glasses of wine = one drunk hk. Not to mention the other small Asian women at the table.

One thing I've learned over and over again here is that the answer to the question "Where are you from?" is inevitably multi-layered and complex. Tonight there were:

1. U.S. guy who had been in Singapore for 2 years before coming to HK 4 years ago
2. Korean girl who moved to Germany at age 8, worked in Korea for 2 years before moving here a year ago
3. Singaporean guy who lived in the U.S. for 2 years before coming to HK
4. Singaporean girl who lived in Switzerland for a few years before coming to HK
5. me

Even the chef, who says he is self-taught (damn), hails from London but lived in Canada before coming to HK, where he works for an acoustic equipment company during the day but somehow works as a chef at night. Yeah.

The dinner was stupendous. The Wagyu dish was possibly the best meat dish I've ever tasted. Beluga caviar on a crisp little pastry thing. Hairy crab souffle and the traditional ginger tea chaser -- but the chaser was frozen with liquid nitro, so you picked it off the chef's spoon with your fingers. And of course the wine pairings were fantastical.

A note about the wine -- it hit me hard because I didn't get much sleep last night. Why is that? Er, because I was supposed to meet friends of a friend at the metro station at 7:15 am this morning, and -- wonder of wonders -- I got there on time, only to stand there stupidly for 30 minutes while no one else showed up. I finally got on the train and tried to get to the ferry to the island we were hiking by myself, but failed to get to the ferry on time. At 8:15, the friend called, very apologetic, saying that she and her boyfriend had overslept. Argh.

So after missing the ferry, I turned around and got back home at 9, and completely wasted the day away playing Word Mole on my Blackberry (addictive, strangely so) and watching crap on TV like the end of Closer (hello, bad and unrealistic dialogue and delivery! Yes, I'm talking to you Natalie Portman) and Anaconda II: Search for the Blood Orchid (which was oddly enjoyable and really kind of good for what it was). Until I went to dinner with aforementioned international folks. With whom I had a shiny, brilliant, drunken time.

And that was my Saturday. Now must go to bed (first drink water) and also not throw up, as going to hike tomorrow with coworkers. Involves ferry ride. Ugh. Bed. Go to. Must.

Wednesday, November 05, 2008

Yes!

After backing losers the only other times I was eligible to vote in a presidential election, it feels good to back a winner. And what a winner! Not just any Democrat, but someone who -- in a way still kind of mystifying to me -- has managed to inspire the kind of hope, enthusiasm and loyalty I don't remember ever witnessing before.

Democrats Abroad HK hosted an event tonight at a local bar; people were pretty joyful.

True to my pessimistic nature, this is what I was thinking: Obama is bound to disappoint -- there is no way any human could live up to the hopes, symbolism and expectations that have been laid upon him. Bill Clinton at his best exhibited the charisma of a movie star (and what is Washington but Hollywood for ugly people?), but he made some significant missteps early on (and later on too, but that's another matter). So I don't have high expectations of President Obama. I just hope he doesn't fail too badly.

But by god, it feels good to write "President Obama"!

Tuesday, November 04, 2008

The way it is

Okay, now that I've written a paragraph about the world at large, I feel slightly better about turning the focus back to me. (After all, you don't have to read this.)

So this is the way it is. (Right now. If I didn't have hope for a better tomorrow, I might just shoot myself.) It's been over a month since I've done any real work at my job and I'm in a city where I don't have any friends. I've never been so bored in my life.

At the same time, I'm horribly guilt-ridden, grief-laden, and anger-filled about my aunt having dementia.

At the same, same time, I'm terribly lonely (see also, bored).

At the same, same, same time, I feel completely lost at sea. I don't know why I'm here or what I should do next. I don't find much meaning in anything, even the things I used to find meaningful, like writing, or framing a good picture, or being out in the woods (the jungle, here). The things I write are crap and trite, the pictures I take boring and cliched, and the natural world offers no solace.

At the same -- oh, you get it. I want to have purpose, I want to feel like life has meaning. I want my life to have meaning.

Really, I want to stop sounding and feeling like an angsty teenager. I hate this me.

Crossing my fingers

November 4 is almost over in Hong Kong, and like much of the world, I am hoping that Americans elect Barack Obama as president.

I wasn't a believer when this campaign started. I still think that Hillary Clinton would be a good and able president. I think left to his own judgment, McCain would make a good president, too. (The less said about Palin, the better.) But Obama appears to embody all the traits I hope the next president has, all the traits I believe the next president must have in order to restore some of the goodwill and respect the U.S. used to command in the world. The more difficult task, I think, will be to bring some of that back into the U.S. itself.

Sunday, November 02, 2008

Posts from the last week

October 29, 2008: Theatah

Because the LA Philharmonic concert was sold out tonight, I went to see Waiting for Godot, and because I felt like it, I emailed Sun, the girl I met at the Democrats thing last week, to go with.

I had never seen or read Waiting for Godot, and as it turns out, Sun and I are both habitually late for things, so I spent the first 20 minutes watching the play on the screen outside the theatre and the rest of the first act being totally baffled. What’s the deal with that poor slave guy? Is that a commentary on race relations? Actual slavery? The slavery of expectation born of human relationships? Is the long monologue supposed to make sense, or is it really (as it sounded) just gibberish meant to sound intellectual but signifying nothing? Is the monologue supposed to show the danger of educating the lower classes to the moneyed classes? And why do they keep pronouncing it GOHdoe? I thought it was GuhDOE?

At intermission, one of Sun’s friends admitted that she was baffled, but intellectually stimulated, trying to figure out what it all meant. So I went into the second act more prepared to engage, and found myself swept along on an unceasing, unmitigated river of pessimism and nihilism. If GOHdoe is God, then God does nothing, never appears, but punishes if you don’t show up. And nothing, NOTHING you do means anything – kindness to strangers just ends up with you being beaten up, intelligent thought gets you beaten up, longsuffering patient endurance gets you abused and called a pig, amusement isn’t amusing, and we’re destined to repeat our meaningless playacting day after day after day, waiting for something that makes empty promises and doesn’t remember you from one day to the next.

I kinda wanted to shoot myself afterward.

The past three weeks have been so boring, people! The workday stretches out forever, and the evenings – well, I’ve been having some fun at theatres and volunteer events and dinners and the like, but I feel like the Hugh Grant character in About A Boy, who has nothing to do all day and so makes things up for himself to do and assigns points to them: 2.5 points for a haircut. 2 points for the gym. 1 point for a bath. 2.5 points for an hour loafing at the bookstore. 1.5 points for lunch.

Aren’t we waiting for the market to settle down, for the financial gods to bestow some peace and stability to our lives? But Godot doesn’t actually do anything, and even though he promises to show up every evening, he doesn’t. So we’re doomed to loaf around, desperately trying to amuse ourselves, convince ourselves that Godot is the answer, the salvation, the solution. But none of our amusements, none of the things we do to pass the time ultimately means anything. We should just hang ourselves, apparently. Except that we haven’t got any rope.

After the play, Sun and I got some dinner, and it was eerie – we’ve read a lot of the same books, got a lot of each other’s references, and she even completed my sentence about next month being Nanowrimo (National Novel Writing Month). If she were a guy, we’d be the couple that doesn’t work out because we’re too similar. But she’s not, and we got on very well, and I’m pleased about that.

But I’m even more pleased about this: she’s a writer, and while she writes fiction, she told me about a friend who’d written a memoir during a past Nanowrimo. Now, I don’t write fiction, and probably never will, not having the creativity to come up with a different world and people who don’t exist. But I think I might try to do this Nanowrimo thing anyway.

At least it’ll be something to do. Since in the end it’s all effin’ meaningless anyway.

October 30, 2008: Some Run of the Mill Navel-Gazing

Someone from the hiking club and his girlfriend took me to a way excellent local place in North Point tonight, where I stuffed myself with amazing dishes: deep-fried pork covered with mayonnaise, garlicky greens, oxtail in a rich, fiery pepper-infused sauce, yolk-fried shrimp. Except for the greens, I hadn’t seen these dishes before, which made it pretty special, and the presence of dozens and dozens of locals attested to the quality of the food. The place occupied part of the third floor of a huge warehouse whose first floor was meats and whose second floor was vegetables.

My companions were amiable and talkative and supremely pleasant, even as they bickered like an old couple, and I enjoyed their company enough (and apparently they mine) to accept their invitation to a dinner of hairy crab on Saturday. She, a Singapore native fluent in at least three languages, works in compliance at a bank; he, a New Jersey native with an indefatigably cheerful demeanor, took a sabbatical from his economist job at another bank to follow her here.

To me, these two young people seemed so comfortable with each other and themselves, so secure in their love for each other that the fact of it – the love, I mean – was like an almost invisible backdrop to their lives. They felt no need to announce it in either word or action. It was like the air they breathed or the ground they walked upon, so real and so true that no acknowledgement of it was necessary.

I wonder, often these days, whether I shall ever find someone with which to share that kind of feeling. As I edge out of my early 30s and into the mids, more and more people feel the need to comment on my single status, and I’ve become sensitive about it. I’m not codependent, but sometimes I think it’s only because I’ve never had a chance to become so. I’m not the girl that boys drifted over to – I often feel quite invisible in a crowd. And before you start saying that I don’t have self-confidence, I promise you, that isn’t the problem. I like myself just fine. And I know I’ve inspired some deep emotions in certain men. But real relationships? Actual dates? Not so much.

It’s a little disconcerting, thinking of being alone the rest of my life (and possibly being eaten by Alsatiens – TM Bridget Jones). Now, my usual argument is that something like 95% of Americans eventually get married, so there’s a certain amount of hubris in thinking that you’re special and unique enough to be in that 5% of Americans who don’t ever get married. But I kind of do think I’m special and unique, and before you start guffawing about that one, let me say that I don’t equate special and unique to “cool,” “good,” or any synonym of “desirable” on any level. I just don’t know many people, who, like me, wandered through post-college life with no plan, purpose or guiding principle, ended up getting a degree at a posh law school, but exited said law school with no more of a plan, purpose or guiding principle than what I started with. What am I doing? I feel like I’m waiting for something – anything – to define me. But I’m beginning to think that I’m like those two tramps waiting by the road for Godot, aimlessly and uselessly waiting for something that’ll never show up, or, if it did, wouldn’t solve anything anyway.