que pasa

Remember the park of the stupid cows?  I was there last night .  There was a mad party going on at the flat square (non-grass area), well kinda.

I walked closer to see what people were gathering there about and then I heard wafts of waltz-type music playing.  There were all these middle-aged/senior couples dancing together in the courtyard.  Real moves.  They knew the footwork, the poise, the hand/arm positions.  Some were even dressed up and were clearly performing for others.  Some couples would prance their way around the courtyard very elegantly, others would just stay around the same area and move slightly.

Then there were all these people at the periphery.  Taking a break from the prior dance, waiting for their partners, or waiting to be asked to dance.  Kinda like high school prom all over again.  As can be expected, there were more women then men, so some women starting pairing up to dance.  Not too shabby really.  Id say there were like a few hundred people there.

And these folks can dance.  It was nice to watch, I found myself smiling at all these couples waltzing around.  This is clearly some sort of exercise for them but I also wondered if people saw dancing as a romantic thing.  Somehow I stereotype middle aged Chinese folks as un-romantic but I could be pretty far off.

Anyway, I stayed to watch 1 song, and the music switched to some cha-cha music after that.  The couples on the floor moved off, and another group came on and started busting their moves.   

I remember there was one time in college when we had this heat wave during the month of May.  And my roommate and I decided to have this little contest going in our small group where people could submit their entries to us by completing the sentence "It's so hot that..." and there would be a prize for the winner with the best line.

Not in college anymore, but it sure is ridiculously hot and humid right now in Shanghai.  Summer has really arrived.  It's nasty.   So anyway, here are few of my own entries this time round:

It's so hot that...

... even sitting down in my apartment makes me sweat

... 7-eleven has become a place to hang out (because of the cold a/c)

... people are walking around with grimaces on their faces

... I plan my walking route to the subway via the "coolest" path i.e. the places with the most a/c

... I keep moving so that I generate some draught to cool of my sweat

... at 6pm, it is already dark because of the grey clouds looming overhead and they look like they're gonna burst with rain

Well, irritatingly enough, ãlmost 3 hours later, it still hasn't poured like I thought it would.  Instead we're getting this nonsense super-light drizzle that is doing nothing to alleviate the humidity and heat.  LET IT POUR PLS!

Had dinner last night with a friend who's leaving in a month's time.  We've only hung out a couple of times but she lives near me and we have somewhat simliar profiles so maybe that helps us click better.

Normally we just chat about work, weekend trips, what we've been up to, random stuff.  But yesterday was different.  We went deeper into topics and shared about our perspectives on work, faith, and future direction.  In telling her about why Shanghai has been a good place for me to be in, I also realized certain changes in how I see things. 

Sometimes it's only when you try and articulate (either verbally or in writing) a summary of your past few months/years of life that you can actually observe changes that have happened.  Just thinking about it doesn't seem to be enough because articulation requires an organization of thoughts and that's what helps you piece things together.  Otherwise you miss it completely and that's such a pity because I think we can be amazed at what we discover. 

We were supposed to do this birthday suprise thing for one of our friends by pretending we had other plans instead of not going for dinner with him after our meeting (which he probably expected us to since it was his birthday on the same day).  But in the end his girlfriend called it off because he had already asked her to make sure everybody knew it was his birthday and get people together, so it wouldn't be a surprise afterall. 

Strangely enough, some people were rather irritated at the change of plans, or at how the change of plans was decided/executed.  I thought it was interesting, in a sad way, how some people take offence at these things.  When I spoke with the birthday boy, he mentioned he was aware of the original plans and said that he wasn't that big into birthday surprises for himself (but he wouldn't mind doing it for other people).

Guess we all see birthday surprises differently.  That while some people really appreciate the planning, some others just want to know that there will be people to celebrate their birthday with them.  Which makes sense because people only appreciate you care when you express love in a way they understand it, not in the way you do. 

Else, just be really obtuse and say "I love you." 

I was talking to a friend the other day, she was bothered by certain friendships which seemed to have turned awkward or estranged.  While I'm certainly not the guru on friendships, nor am I good at keeping in touch with friends, I have always felt that friends and friendship are Papa's gifts, i think i might have called it "chemistry" before. 

There's no particular reason why some people click.  And there's no particular reason why people change and don't click like they use to.  Friends move in and out of our lives, and as I live in this city where there's lots of people movement (my cell group here changes it's composition every 6 months or so), I am even more convinced that we are all put in places to meet certain people, do certain things and have certain conversations.  We are meant to be friends for a season.

For some, seasons are very short, like a month or two.  For others (who have become good friends), the seasons are long, spanning years and years.  For some, friends leave and then come back again.  It's just as well since we only have bandwidth to be good friends to x number of people.

So for as long as we are in "season", let's be a good friend to that person.