The Art of Nonchalence

I think I am starting to grasp and put into action what I call the 'art of nonchalance'. In short, it's remaining calm when personal insults are in the air. 

Difficult people are a fact of life and sometimes you can't avoid them, or even if you can, you need to deal with them for a short period of time. I realized that it's not fair to let their emotions control mine. It was intensely liberating when I started understanding that the stuff they say may actually not be true, and that I ultimately decide how their words affect me. This applies to anyone, really...colleagues, supervisors, and family members. 

I use mantras to help me hang onto this fact, such as:

- (insert name of person) is known to torpedo people's ideas without taking the time to understand them. do a favour to myself and do not give a flying crap about (person)'s reaction to your idea

- what is the worst case scenario? can i handle that? why yes I can! therefore, i have nothing to fear.

- (   ) is very emotional right now and does not know what (  ) is saying

- there are things you can control and things that you cannot. you can control your own reaction even though you cannot control the other person. 

- is what (   ) saying true? is there a sliver of truth? no? then they are just mistaken and deluded. yes? then maybe I should put away my pride and listen after all.

New toy - a German Pool halogen oven, which came free as a 'welcome gift' upon signing up for a credit card (HK is good like that. lots of freebies when you sign up for credit cards). This very cool device that makes uses of moving heated air to cook foods in a shorter period of time, achieving grilling, steaming, baking and roasting functions. I've made souffle (was such a fail), roast chicken (turned out ok, although you can't really fail with chicken), and grilled vegetables with it so far. Its small size would fit into my future small kitchen. 

Gorgeous scenery at the top of the hike! The way down was kind of treacherous though, jagged rocks and all... 

Tapas after the hike to replenish lost calories.

Rope climbing. Instructor is that big stocky bulge of a man. Do not underestimate said big stocky bulge of a man. He is a beast on the ropes. His immaculate balance enables him to literally walk on a piece of rope.

WOOHOOO~~~ new stuff to play on the piano.

More new stuff to play with. Eyeliner with soft powder tip to create a gorgeous smokey eye look gradient.

In case anyone is interested in 'how wedding prep is going', I've been shopping around for bridesmaids dresses. We're going to go with a 'greek goddess' kind of look. Hopefully I can negotiate diff coloured sashes and get multicoloured mismatched bridesmaids. I've also been working on the playlist and rundown of the day and finding instrumentalists and vocalists to help out. Anyway, I'm glad to say that it's been low stress as of late and more on the fun side. 

Traditions of a a Chinese christian somewhat western wedding

I pored through Bobbi Brown's make up manual after taking a make up class with my bridal party (well, half of it--one was in Canada and one got sick, so my mom took her spot gleefully). The make up trial by the "professional" was terrible. I decided that I may just take matters into my own hands and take a course and practice a lot. Hiring a make up artist isn't cheap after all.

And this is how I discovered my new interest--beauty and make up products! I've been on a giant spree! (everything is counted towards 'wedding expenses' so I've got this giant excuse to spend money).


I will attempt to summarize what to expect of a modern yet traditional Christian Chinese wedding, because to me, it's complicated, and it took months of 'pretending I know what's going on' to 'I think I actually know what's going on.' For example, VERY traditional Chinese marriages involve the giving of pairs of coconuts, live chickens (H1N5 hazard), fruit seafood, wine and other food items by the fiance to the bride's parents.
But anyway, we are not SUPER traditional people. We're practical people. So we will forego this practice of exchanging coconuts. But apparently, we are not UNtraditional that we'd refuse money... hence, my next point:

Dowry
Apparently, there's a market price for this kind of thing. You'd think that in this day and age, living in metropolitan HK, we don't have this anymore. Well, we do, because what mother of a daughter wouldn't enforce this? The male's family is supposed to give a lump sum to the daughter's parents (the reasoning behind this was because in the old days, the girl would follow the guy's family and leave her own. it was payment to compensate for the fact that the girl might not see her family that often again).

Auspicious Days
The first step after engagement is to pick a day to get married on, which according to chinese customs, should not be in a 'blind year', when there are no first days of spring. We picked 2013, which is an ominous year because neither of us give a flying bun about superstitions. I figured, if people don't want to get married this year, everything's just going to be cheaper, and we're going to get more choices. My mom (who IS superstitious) managed to pick a day that offsets the bad karma by matching our birthdays to the stars or something like that. All the 3s in it is also probably lucky. I like it because it's easy to remember.

Ritualistic Cakes and dowry and stuff
There is also the giving of 'double happiness cakes' along with the wedding invitations by both families. These cakes are basically high calorie, overpriced, overpackaged lumps of sugar. Instead of buying the actual pastries, everyone will get normal invitation cards, and a coupon to their local bakery. Invitations from the girl's side will get the coupon, and invitations from the boy's side will get a $10 note. So what needs to happen like a week or two before the wedding is, Kelvin will come visit my house, bringing the cheque with the dowry, some seafood, chicken and cake coupons. Our family will return half of it to his family, and each side of the family will throw a dinner party.

Traveling all over the map to play door games
Early morning, the groom will gather his men and set out to my house, which happens to be the other end of Hong Kong from his place. Meanwhile, my bridesmaids will be setting up to 'test' how serious the groom is, and this could involve eating wasabi, snot-flavoured jelly bellies, completing physical feats ...etc. depending on my friends' creativity. When he finally gets through, I will come out dressed in red, while opening a red umbrella, supposingly to protect me from evil spirits, and everyone else will scatter rice and beans on me (supposingly to attract the attention of the 'golden chicken'). I will climb into the car, and head over to the groom's place and have tea with my future in-laws (using red tea cups and pot). In return for me presenting tea, they will give me some money and jewelry. Then we are off to the ceremony!

Chinese Class

 Yummy long sushi ~~ (we severed the

Trial make up by the pro. did not post the front of my face. too scary.

Decided to learn and DIY!!

Recent spoils from frantic shopping activity

Masks galore! ~ 

Love this Korean line (Face Shop)! 

Chaos due to typhoon...

More spoils~

Crocheted chocobo!

New skirt

The immersion blender

I have finally bought myself an immersion blender (well, to be exact, Kelvin paid for it). It is the Gadget Of The Year next to the ereader, which I have been raving about for the past few months. But honestly, eInk technology is awesome. I have been devouring through books like juicy chicken drumsticks. Let's see, good books I've read recently: Hardboiled wonderland and the end of the world (Murakami - none of his books make real sense, but still an excellent read), The Help (Stockett), The Painted Veil, The Curious Incident of the Dog at Night Time. Currently reading "the orphan master's son".

With the immersion blender, I've made mushroom soup, carrot soup, asparagus soup, blueberry yogurt smoothies, banana smoothies, apple kiwi juice and the like. I should author a book on pureed foods. In fact, I can do a whole series. Puree the Rainbow. Puree for Good Health. Pureed Meals. Puree for the Lazy Eater. I get all excited over the prospect of homemade hummus.

I am definitely what you'd call a lazy eater. Fish head, tail, parts with bones go to Kelvin. I eat only fillet. I don't care what they say about how the meat on the bones are better. It's not worth the trouble. I have a penchant for soft, smooth, squishy foods. Like pudding, oatmeal, congee, tofu, and stews.

So I went right ahead and registered myself for CRE just to test the waters (a governmental chinese exam that you can take for free and as many times as you like without it affecting your latest best score). I think this is the first time I've ever went into an exam knowing that I will fail. About halfway through, the invigilator announced that there is only 5 minutes left. I took this time to black out about 20 circles with "A".

People keep asking me 'how are wedding preparations?' There's actually nothing to do right now. Wedding planning is doing a bunch of stuff right after engagement, and then scrambling 4 months before actual date. So all I'm doing is waiting... and maybe try out a few make up artists in the meanwhile...

NO FART IN CAR

Disneyland for mother's day

Manly Court. Only those with enough testosterone may enter.

The sign reads 'Sad Hot and Sour Noodles - so sour your mouth will water, so hot you will cry'

Pureed mushrooms. Tastes better than it looks in this picture.

Bad english...

Circle is a name!!

Comparison chart I used to make the decision.

Cleaning up my computer. "1 day left"...

Enough sugar for a month

My dear friend will be returning to Canada after enduring 2 yrs in HK. I bid her farewell over high tea one fine afternoon. We ended up being really really really full on the below set. The clotted cream was clotting my stomach. I am now on a sugar-ban after having ingested a month's worth of sugar for the month. 

As with any normal boy, my boyfriend has cravings for a slab of meat on a metal plate. Do not underestimate the pile of meat in this picture. It's as big as the plate (think a decent sized plate), and there's ANOTHER layer of meat about the same size below the first slab. The portions are so gigantuan that neither of us could finish the meal.

Hiking along the smoggy hills of HK.

 Look, a monkey!

 Look, a cow!

Look, a whole family of them, in fact!

Look, a boyfriend peering over the railing.

Japanese android on display.

 Flaxseed from Canada that costs less than buying it in Canada. It was $68 HK, no tax, AND came with a free bag of thai rice.

I want a blender...

How would one litter into the toilet bowl?

letter to the photographer from hell

Spicy noodle from hell that some people can just slurp up in just 7 minutes

15 minutes and only about 20% into my lunch of wagon noodles, a man with the same thing plunked his bowl in front of me. I, in the meanwhile, was sweating from the spiciness, blowing my nose a few times, and trying at least to finish the veggies. He was done, drank all the soup in the bowl, and got up with his tray in 7 minutes flat. I gave up eventually, leaving most of the noodles untouched and doused my mouth with a cold beverage.

My mom stole my feet-warming socks. Now I can't wear them anymore knowing she's been wearing them daily like slippers.

The one in the bottom right hand corner I just want to put up as a sign on my desk

Watoto, a children's choir from Africa. Most of these kids are orphaned by AIDs and grew up hungry for food, shelter and for love (until of course they were saved by the Watoto organization). When I plan my wedding, I think of all the lavish things that I'm supposed to do, and somehow it angers me. (Not a popular one with some people, but I got shark fin soup out of the menu. Getting rid of the banquet entirely seemed out of the question though.) I told my mom, 'do i really need to give people favours that nobody ever keeps anyway? The package will probably end up in the sea and choke a sea turtle or something'.

Is it right for me to increase my carbon footprint even more by buying cute little trinkets en mass while the poor and vulnerable don't even have food? The purchase of things are so easy for us, because they cost so little, but the environmental repercussions hit the poor the hardest.

I've discovered that the mascaras out nowadays don't 'run' like they used to. They sort of cleanly flake off when you dab with a tissue. In the middle of my photo shoot, I had a nervous breakdown and started uncontrollably crying for 20 minutes. I was still pretty miserable after the team of make-up artists managed to fix me up again. My fiance seemed dumbfounded. He explained that people who steamroll over others in their hurry to get things done are somehow just a normal HK phenomenon, which did nothing to cheer me up, because when you're sad, you don't want an explanation; you want acknowledgement for the validity of your emotions, and give time for it to pass. However, I felt so much better after writing the below letter. I think I'll feel even better if I share it.

dear photographer-from-hell:

if you can take a moment to take out the stick up your ass and listen to what i have to say, it might do you some good. cuz there's a reason why we only chose only 20% of the photos you deemed to be the masterpieces.

1, nobody was telling you what to do. it didn't even occur to me that i had other ideas about how we should pose. i was already busy dealing with the freezing weather and painful shoes and girdle, the fake eyelashes poking into my eye, the rain, the hunger.... do you really think i was trying to be uncooperative on purpose? can you just put your stupid 'professional pride' on hold and think about your customers, whom you're supposed to be serving... and not the other way around? to stage that little 'punishment' was just low. i didn't even know it was punishment until after 10 shots and after you saying, "oh, so you're ready to listen to me again", that i realized that you made us make up our own poses out of spite. what. the. hell.

2, why don't you try communicating with your customers? and by communicating, i don't mean cryptic and confusing lines like "i need an artistic stylistic flair from you. do you understand?" or sarcastically criticize how we are not following his instructions. "it's hard for me because you're not being responsive." you insensitive SOB, i was being as responsive as i could. do you know that not every citizen does photoshoots for a living? oh, and i love this one: "can you stop looking around so that we can go on?" (gosh, even I'm not aware that i was looking around).

You know, there's a report card like thingy we have to submit back to your company? I can sort of put whatever comment I want in there, like the fact that we got the worse customer service ever? You know that, right? Now, can we go on, without you being a douchebag?"

3, stop inflicting physical pain on your subject. stop making me pose from the back, twisting my neck at some unnatural angle. making me bend at 90 degree angles isn't such a great idea either. I mean, I do yoga and pilates, but when you're wearing a girdle and a some mean shoes, some poses are impossible. in any case, it was a waste of effort. we didn't like any of those weird 90 degree angle shots. you probably thought you were being creative.

4, stop telling me to make that super wide smile. i don't look good with it and it's not even natural. i can't smile any wider. that's how my mouth is.

5. it'd be nice to ask that nice stranger's permission before you used his artwork as a backdrop for your photoshoot, while hijacking his booth and shooing him out of the way like you owned the place.

the weather is secondary to you barking at us for the entire day. Thanks for making an otherwise happy day a miserable one. your subjects are humans. if they are unhappy, they will look fake-happy while smiling, which will effectively ruin the whole picture.

from you-know-who