Like a Normal Human

Life is all about finding something for yourself to enjoy. You could fill up your holiday schedule with a list of things you passionate about, whether it’s your new or old hobbies, playing sports, visiting new places, revisiting old places you haven’t been for a very long time, learning new things, meeting up with friends or even better do the things previously mentioned with your lover… I truly believe the key is to keep yourself productive and active. Productive, meaning have your time spent as planned. Active, is my recent discovery that it keeps you sharp and confident.

I’d advise try to go out as much as possible. It applies to people with a shared home when you’ve little or no control over it, especially in a cramped apartment to most people in Hong Kong. Our city is more than just windows, walls and ceilings. Now when I think of it, I can’t recall my last morning respiratory allergy!

During this long Easter weekend, my schedule was reasonably occupied. All these activities began early and lasted a whole day. It was the most productive holiday weekend I’ve ever had since a kid.

I winded down my day with a iced mocha, in the pedestrian and dogs friendly Sai Kung neighborhood. Their vehicle/franchise-free market streets are filled with local boutiques, restaurants and cafes. The waterfront nearby is where people can actually do things like a normal human. Some played with their/others pets, some played with kites, some couples did selfies, some kids had fun just to run around. All these combination reminds us this is the one and only Sai Kung.

15 Years Later…Just Like a Dream

My recent attend to a former classmate’s wedding had become our ultimate high school volleyball team reunion after so many years. It’s not that we did not want to see each other. It’s just that we all have our own priorities, and certainly not everyone can be available with just a flick of a finger.

We spent 3 years in the team training as if we were going to Olympics. Well…not the nation’s standard but the physical trainings were like an implant to our body. Looking back, our coach/teacher had done a fantastic job making effort to build our synergy and spirit. Despite all the limited resources in school (we did not have an official size volleyball court), it was more like a MMA cage for basketball. The school was originally just a house property, amazing how it got modified into a school…Anyways, we did what was impossible to make it possible.

I was so glad to meet our coach again after all those years. Though there’s some aging in him, he’s very much like before calling out our names like a real coach. And how about a dismiss with a team chant. Ironically I did think about him from time to time, i wanted to thank him for so long. He was our mentor. From sports, we learned about life and how it was made useful until today.

I guess one of the biggest surprises in this reunion was we all remember a fair amount of our ‘old days’. We all felt like strangers at first, but our brotherhoods are still in our hearts. We just clicked again after some food and beverages. It was a cosmic collision. Everybody had told their version, their parts, their roles, it really brought together the entire picture of how we were. Everyone gets only one and only teenage life, one and only high school memory. Memories brought us back our closeness. We were glad we can be still in the loop.

I wish I had attended an University locally. I may have another piece of fun memory that can be shared with another group of people. Not a lot of people would understand my college life abroad without experiencing it together, nobody gives a sh_t really.

Hope we all will see and cheer for each other again soon. That’s what we all needed in life!

2047

It was a year and on, for the Occupy Central. Many have said there are many changes since then. To me, there’s nothing fundamentally have changed. Unhappy people are still unhappy and happy people are also still happy. All that people cares about on the news are the negativities.

Nobody liked how the Umbrella Revolution had turned out. Let’s face it. The Legco and Governments will forever in a deadlock until 2047, the expiration of One Country – Two Systems. Hong Kong Government is very poor at piloting the city. We are much like sailing on a refuged cruise ship heading to a destination that says on the one-way ticket. The thing about this ship is that we treat our ship as home, not the land. Our crew members receive what we were supplied on and only know how to operate. There’s not a need to plan for the passengers on board, as they just want everyone arrives safely in this long journey. The crew receives radio and satellite signals from the destination to make sure the ship is always on course.

I’m one of those silly passengers on board always question why that island has this, that island has that, why can’t we have it? We have the architects and masterminds visioning what can be done on the ship while they’re not authorized to change what has been inplaced.

Until the last leg of this journey, passengers begin to panic. Worrying when the ship would get taken over by the parked destination and the radical changes to be made.

More and more people will get scared about the uncertainties in future. As we count down to 2047 for those who could live long enough:
What if Hong Kong is no longer a Special Region?
What if the police is replaced by the public safety?
What if all our language is no longer our mother tongue?
What if all our banners become red?
What if we have no access to Facebook/Google or anything China does not want us to view?
What if our media cannot report freely as they wish?
What if foreign labor comes from many provinces of China?
What if we get yelled by the Chinese in return when Hong Kong is no longer our ‘own’ place?

There has been concerned groups chanting for the independence of Hong Kong. I know the impossibility behind their wildest imagination. But let’s face it, we pretty much treat Hong Kong as a separate entity. When we get asked where are we from, how would you answer?

Hong Kong people are realists. If you ask the post world war II baby boomers their relationship with China, they’d for sure say “we all belong to China for the historical reasons”. I totally understood the hardship during their times. If you ask the same question to the generations after, they’d say “what do China have to do with us? We’re Hong Kongese. Hong Kong is our home.”