que pasa

Turns out I'm not the only one who's a fan of Mac's breakfasts.  In my past 3 visits to this particular Mac's near my place, I've noticed this bunch of 6 middle aged men who sit in the middle of the restaurant and have energetic discussions about various topics.  I say various topics because they're speaking Shanghainese, which I don't understand.

They're there every week, before I arrive and stay around after I leave.  They're having a great time.  Talking rather passionately, as if they're discussing on some very important matter.  Then again, they could just be bitching although they wouldn't looks so amiable if they were, bitching gives you a pretty mean facial expression while you're at it (take it from me, I know). 

I guess there comes a time when you can no longer do the Boys' Night Out or Girls' Night Out.  That time is probably when you're married with kids and should be spending nights at home so you can hang with the kids before they sleep.  Or when you're too old and just can't hack the late nights anymore.  So the workaround is Boys' (or Girl's) Morning Out, where 1 parent stays at home to hold the fort with the kids while the other goes out.  Or because you're finding it your body prefers earlier mornings to later nights (which seems to be the case as you get older). 

Trust me, these guys are having a good time.  They sit with their coffees or teas and they move one of the small tables to join together with the one they are gathered around to form a comfortable table size of 8, and then they just sit around and start debating/discussing.  It's just cool to see that they're comfortable in a place like Mac's, which usually comes across as a place for the young to youths to people below 35.

When I grow old, I wanna be like that too.  I wanna have a bunch of friends I can do Sunday breakfasts with in air-conditioned comfort.  Preferably Mac's so that I can have my Sausage McMuffin with Egg at the same time, and oh, that arabica-coffee-beans-brew too :)

Some of you have probably seen the soap The O.C. and enjoyed the drama that was going on there.  I'm seeing The R.C. over here, live.  The Residents' Committee.

The other night, when i came home, there were 20 people gathered in the lobby (which made it feel rather claustrophobic actually) talking at the top of their voices.  In shanghainese.  On the way up, I asked the other passenger what was going on and my memory is fuzzy on this, but she either said that they were talking about the new R.C. or changing the R.C. 

Some of you know what I'm talking about.  In every private estate, some residents get voted into a committee to represent the interests of the community and make decisions for the public good.  Turns out over here, in my 1 block estate, it's time for elections again (and it's time to please the people) or we just changed the R.C (and they wanna flex some muscles, like the first 100 days of the President coming into office).

So, we've had

• that old billboard torn off the wall (exposing these small square toilet-looking mosaic tiles)
• the dingy "reception" office/apt on the ground floor renovated (it now has a new coat of spanking white paint on the wall so bright that it blinds you when you come in, and it took like 2 weeks to get it done too so you couldn't possibly miss it)
• the crappy cracked leather sofas that were sitting in the what-we-call-a-lobby removed leaving no place to sit (though to be fair i didn't think anyone was sitting on them anyways)
• the cleaning crew come and scrub the floors of said lobby smack in the middle of the day when there was tons of traffic and did not look any better for the cleaning (but it's almost as if they wanted to make sure everybody knew the cleaning crew came)
• new white zone lines painted for the bicycle parking section (not that you didn't know where where it was before with the 50 plus so bikes parked in the same area)

Maybe they'll do something really useful and and offer each apartment a few free hours of cleaning service... 

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.   

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.

On Sunday, Mr. T (one of my home church missionaries working in Middle Country) shared a message which struck a chord deep in me. I generally look forward to his sharing because his messages succinct and "fat-free". I’ve articulated my takeaway from his latest sharing once but I think it has become significant enough to share with all.

In Luke 13:6-9, Jesus told the parable of the barren fig tree. Mr. T interpreted the parable to be that Papa is the keeper who pleaded with the owner to give the barren fig tree one more year to live, during which the keeper would nourish the tree, so that it might have the chance to bear fruit. Typically, I would have interpreted the parable differently, that Papa was the owner who agreed to give another the fig tree another chance, but the conclusion reached would still be the same.

This different perspective is interesting to me because as I look back on my move to Shanghai, I also see that Papa is the keeper the in the parable. Chengdu was, to use one of Jukebox’s phrases, a negative-positive experience in my life. It was very rough, and even dark at times, but all in all, I have emerged a more mature (but less healthy in all respects) person. Shanghai has and continues to be even more trying and challenging professionally, but it is an environment within which I am gradually recovering my spiritual health. I feel that going to Shanghai has been Papa's way of keeping me, nourishing me, giving me one more year – not so much an actual time period, bur more like another chance.

So, coming back to Mr. T, his challenge was that how could we be like the keeper in the parable? How could we be somebody who gives another person that provides nourishment to another so that they would have "one more year" to recover and bear fruit?

What scares me about responding to this challenge is that Papa will ask me for the one thing that I have resisted for the longest time. To care for the people of Middle Country - people whom I have criticized and whined about many times in this blog, people I do not love and cannot imagine caring for. Yet at the same time it is clear that I should love my neighbors, and it’s obvious who my neighbors are, and that I care not for them.

There is another group of neighbors though that is emerging – people in my small group in Shanghai. While I already like these people, to care for them would mean investing in relationships – and that takes a lot of effort to build – something that I am also hesitant to do. As I write this, I realize now how self-centered I have become and will continue to be if I do not arrest this.

I am also concerned with how my home church small group is doing. I think that it is a phase all such groups go through, and can only hope that we will emerge stronger and better for this. Yet I feel that I have no right to say too much because I am not physically present. Truth is, I have not done much by way of keeping relationships either.

Perhaps therein lies the problem. Papa is a relationship keeper, but I have become poor at that. I have been so preoccupied with my own problems that I cannot see the bigger picture anymore. Maybe this is what my Shanghai experience is, a time for nourishment and recovery so that I may be able to provide the something similar for others. We'll see.

Supposed to be writing report now.  But I've been distracted by thinking about eyebrows. 

Someone told me about how nicely shaped eyebrows (esp on women) can make all the difference.  Noticed that Jordin Sparks (on her music videos) has nice eyebrows.  Have also been looking the eyebrows of people around me lately. 

It's kinda fascinating, I don't know why.  Nice eyebrows can be really nice!

Googled for reviews on the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony just now and it seems that the world really liked what it saw. Stuff along the lines of "perfect 10", "perfect night" and "rave reviews" were peppered among my search results.

I disagree though. I think the Chinese were trying too hard. I know that it's rare to have such an opportunity when foreigners watch the country with their prior prejudices put aside, but the crash course in the evolution of the nation was absolutely unnecessary.

I also felt that the build up was poorly done. I thought such ceremonies should generally want to peak at the end, but it seemed like the best of it was at the beginning. The countdown, fireworks (29 steps from Tiannanmen Square to the Bird's Nest stadium) and the opening drum act was spectacular. But the rest of the program failed to keep the momentum going, which led to a lull instead. My friends (also foreigners) and I were bored.

What I was really disappointed with was the lack of aerial perspective performances, i.e. formations, play of colors and motion from the bird's eye view. The costumes were very detailed and many of the performances were beautiful if you could actually see them (i.e. front row seats or on tv) but most of the people in the stadium probably couldn't (unless there was something on the big screen). But I felt that if you have so many people performing, then you should really try to maximize the "macro" effect. I guess Zhang Yimou pretty much arranged the opening ceremony to be like one of his movies.

The lighting of the torch (they lifted up the torch-bearer and he did running motions in the air around the stadium) was also tacky and lame. Worst of all, there was a timing screw-up between the speed of the cable and the projection of the scroll unveiling itself. That should have been rehearsed many times, the mistake was unacceptable. Also, the fireworks display at the end was just pure overkill, no choreography at all.

Of course, the Chinese probably do not share my opinion, nor do many of the foreigners who have not seen much of Chinese culture, and the on-site spectators must have been really felt the excitement. They were just ready to be impressed, and I have always been rather critical. I think that Singapore's National Day celebrations are more entertaining, despite being on a smaller scale. And I wouldn't even consider myself a die-hard patriot. (Speaking of which, that's tonight – I'll find out if I have to eat my words. But first I need to find somebody with cable TV so that I can watch it...)

Anyway, I think the Chinese could have done a better job.

This letter submitted to The Straits Times in Singapore proposes the case that it is not hard to learn Chinese, contrary to what many Singaporeans think.  He gives his instance of how he is now proficient in both English and Chinese because of his open mind.

I didn't think much of the article at first.  In fact, I ignored it when I read the headlines.  Because I thought it was just some Chinese educated guy or someone with a strong Chinese background bragging about how he learn English which to me is no big deal because I do feel that English is much easier than Chinese.  But then I read it anyway because Asiaone had it flashing in its main headlines for quite a few days. 

I didn't like the way he wrote the article.  "Flogging a dead horse," a friend called it.  We get the point already.  I didn't like how he made learning Chinese so easy because I have struggled with Chinese for the longest time, and am still struggling.  I know it's not easy.

But then, I realized that what the writer said could be applied to anything – from a language to a skill to a sport. That having the right mindset is all it takes for success.  Not necessarily good enough to turn professional or specialize at it, but good enough to be comfortable. 

Then I wondered if he could be right in suggesting that I have narrowed my mind to be biased against something and so could never get good at it.  That, apart from uncontrollable factors, I am hindering myself from getting better. 

I have always maintained the position that as far as education is concerned, if the teacher can stir the student's interest in a topic, the student will voluntarily put in all the effort needed to get familiar with it.  The teacher's primary job is to open his mind to the fact that the subject could be interesting, and second, to facilitate the learning by providing materials, knowledge and guidance.

In the same way, if we are interested in a subject, you can be sure we will be googling it, checking out books or talking to people on the matter.  But what if it's a new subject, or something we just can't seem to enjoy?  How can we create the interest in ourselves, so that that will drive our learning?  May I suggest the following ways:

1. Talk to someone who is already interested in the subject.
Ask them what's so fun/interesting/cool about it.  Hear his passion on the matter and just bask in it for a while.  Just listen, try to picture things from his perspective.  Maybe his enthusiasm will catch on.  I remember when a friend passed me a DVD on ultimate frisbee, it was so intense that I wanted to start playing.

2. Try it out. 
This could mean deliberately signing up for one of those one-day crash course thingies – go with a friend – or when the impulse catches you, just walk-in somewhere, or take up an opportunity that presents itself and get your hands dirty.  Sometimes unexpected and unintended exposure to something lets you realize that you have a natural knack or hidden interest in something.  It's like cooking, some people who have never really cooked before can just throw some random stuff together and it tastes pretty darn good!  Or it’s like that time when my friends and I were in Bali, we signed up for this 2 hours basic surfing lesson...  Crispy Prawn certainly impressed me with how fast she got the hang of the whole thing.

3. Realizing it's not that difficult and can be enjoyable/ meaningful. 
Apart from trying something out, if you can observe from the side how something is done, maybe you'll discover you don't have to be such and such to do it.  Take away preconceived notions of qualifying conditions.  Watch the smile, grin, fist pump or shout of satisfaction when the task is completed, look at the result of the task (if something is created) – wouldn't you want to feel that way, or have something like that of your own?

I think there are so many things in life that stop us from trying things out, but we don't make things any easier when we already think we can't do it, or can't be possibly be good at it.  We are already defeated.  Remember, the goal is not turn professional, it's to get comfortable at it. 

And if it so turns out that you really aren't good at it, you can at least say you tried, you know what its like (which will be great for relating with people) and you know yourself a little better now.  But the flipside is also true; you might discover a new interest or natural ability and pursue that further.

Is there something that you want to work on or something you always thought you couldn't do?  See if you can somehow "open your mind".  Once you're hooked, you'll be willing to put in the effort needed to improve.  Then you will get better.  

The Vatican has put together a list of seven "social" sins as follows:
1. 'Bioethical' violations such as birth control
2. 'Morally dubious' experiments such as stem cell research
3. Drug abuse
4. Polluting the environment
5. Contributing to widening divide between rich and poor
6. Excessive wealth
7. Creating poverty
(Original article here)

The seven deadly sins are pride, envy, gluttony, lust, anger, greed and sloth.

In one of the early chapters of "The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hussein (which is a pretty good book by the way), one of the characters' father tells his son, with regards to what he's learning in religious school,

'"No matter what the mullah teaches, there is only one sin, only one. And that is theft. Every other sin is a variation of theft. Do you understand that?"

'"When you kill a man, you steal a life… You steal his wife’s right to a husband, rob a children of his father. When you tell a lie, you steal someone’s right to the truth. When you cheat, you steal the right to fairness. Do you see?"'

I can see the logic to that actually, and I think that perspective could be used to interpret the seven deadly sins. I don't quite feel that it is all encompassing though, but good enough for a general rule of thumb.

One thing I have realized is that my position on what constitutes sin is now grey. I can't see things in black and white anymore. As much as the church would like things to be clear, it's very hard to have such high moral standing when life in the commercial world has so many complications.

I've done my share of grey things so I do not have the right to judge. I hate calling sin "sin" because it makes me sound and feel "holier-than-thou" when I’m not. I suppose the solution would be to not participate in grey activities but I realize that in my line of work at where I am, it's impossible. So maybe, you say, I should get out of this job altogether. But that brings us full circle to why I'm here in the first place.

So I'm keeping my eyes focused on my exit, I must keep plugging at it.