40 days and 40 nights

Jesus spent 40 days and nights in the wilderness before he was tempted by the devil.

I spent 40 days and nights in HK escaping from the real world. What do modern day devils do?

Death is dead, love has won, Christ has conquered

That's what Easter means. It's such a beautiful occasion, brings hope and joy. Makes earthly life temporary and trivial.

I was reminded on Sunday that this is the Easter week. I think resurrection is the most beautiful thing in life - actually, not just life - the universe.

May a new life begin after this Easter weekend.

Two lives

Life is so unfair. There are people who work so hard they don't get to see any daylight; there are people who fear they would lose their job; there are people who have lost their job and are looking for one.

And I get to sleep till 10am every day, wander somewhere to meet friends for lunch, talk about how much they love (little) or hate (much) their job, wander further or watch a movie or play squash or have a nap, meet with someone else for dinner (normally I would have to wait for quite a while for them to get off work, sometimes hours...).

Six weeks in HK makes me feel like a HK citizen again (even though my HK ID card tells me I have always been). Of course there are many things I love about being in HK, and there will certainly be things I miss when I go back to the Land of Expensive and Unreliable Transport (guess what!). But I could see many people are jealous of my position and the freedom I have. To be honest, I would be if I were them. Life isn't always perfect. Actually, life is never perfect. But I just seem to be so lucky, or blessed. When I leave HK, I will be glad to leave the imperfections of living in HK behind. Ironically, when I escaped from London, I was in search for things to fill the gaps of my London life. I wonder whether it is possible to have two lives, or homes which complement each other.

3 more days

The chance of me having another home-cooked meal in HK is increasingly slim. Feels like having back-to-back meetings back at work. Shame I didn't bring my secretary with me. Oh well if I still can't meet up with somebody with 6 weeks in HK, when will I get to do it? So secondary school friends, A level friends, Uni friends all play a part in sampling culinary delights with me this week.

當吃的 good food 我也吃過了, 我也再無所求.

And then there's the last-minute shopping, if only I could bring the whole of HK back. I think I have lived abroad for long enough that I have learnt to survive without supplies from HK...actually maybe clothes my size.

Dreams

When your life is all planned out there is little scope to dream. Only when there's a blank page in front of you you can begin to dream.

I am dreaming. I am dreaming about my next 5k, 10k, half marathon, marathon and finer skills on the squash court. I am dreaming of speaking another language. I am dreaming of playing the guitar. I am dreaming of possessing better knowledge of the Bible. I am dreaming of making everyone around me smile.

I am dreaming. Except that I know I can make these dreams a reality.

5 stages of death

From watching House I understood that there are 5 stages of death:

1. Denial
2. Anger
3. Bargaining
4. Depression
5. Acceptance

You probably go through the same when you are ill, except that this cycle will keep repeating, and every time it does it gets more frustrating. Sometimes you linger on a certain stage longer. Sometimes I never get past Stage One.

What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

I suddenly had a craving for Chinese books. In the last 8 years apart from reading HK news online and my Chinese bible I rarely had a chance to read Chinese. Nowadays with many things you can actually read online. Novels are too short-lived. You read it and then you put it on the shelf. It's not worth carrying it 6,000 miles when your baggage limit is only 20kg. Religious books make me look more intellectual, but the better ones are written in English.

I went to quite a bookstore today with the aim of coming out with a book. Number 9 on the chart was a book by a Japanese author and runner 村上春樹 Haruki Murakami (translated into Chinese). For some reason I have been quite exposed to Japanese culture recently, from going to Japan to watching more Japanese movies. What caught my eyes was the title: What I Talk About When I Talk About Running《關於跑步，我說的其實是……》And I realised I was subconsciously attracted to anything to do with running, even books.

Blessed

I have met quite a few people and had quite a few good chats in the past month, something I couldn't normally fit in my life before. With some I hadn't met for a few years. It makes me feel so blessed to be able to share, catch up with, support and pray for the friends I met through various walks of life.

Reminiscence as it may seem, but the rememberance of good times and presence of good friends make me feel more positive, or at least thankful about my circumstances.

Previously when I could only spend 2 weeks on holiday in HK, I would just meet the people I kept in touch with most. But now with 6 weeks I'm trying to dig deeper, both with the number of people I meet and the depth of the conversations we have.

It's interesting to see how in the past we may be doing the same thing, studying or whatever, and now have walked our separate paths, some better than the others. If nothing else I have learnt a lot through the chats I had these few weeks, and it makes me smile to know that there are more of those to come.

Change of gear

It has now swiftly come to the second quarter of 2009, and after counting my remaining days in HK with both my hands I still have a spare finger left. It's probably time for me to get myself ready for the challenges ahead. But there are still people to meet, things to buy, food to eat and squash to play. This March was quite different from all the other ones. No work, no study, only rest. It's a month that helped me see things from a different perspective and live life at a slower pace. However, if you asked me whether I want to spend the rest of my life like this I would probably say no. No more laissez-faire, April will see me shifting to a higher gear and being more focussed, while not forgetting that I'm still on holiday.

1 April

1 April brings back some hollowing memories. Six years ago when Hong Kong was plagued by SARS, I was back here for my Easter holiday. I had never seen HK people being so deflated before. And I remember that night watching news report of Leslie Cheung killing himself. There were looks of disbelief on people's faces that face masks could not hide. People were afraid of being in contact with, or even talking to others, for fear of contracting, or spreading the deadly disease. It's certainly something I do not wish to have happened, but once HK had got through it, positive vibes appeared. Everyone seemed to have learnt a lesson. Being able to touch and talk to your family members was no longer taken for granted. During the post-SARS period a record number of HK people turned to Christ.

And a bit before SARS, we had the Asian financial crisis. I was at the tender age of 13 then. My only memory seems to be the stock market falling every day, accompanied with cases of suicide dominating the headlines. Convenient as it may seem, many people chose to throw themselves off tall buildings thanks to their abundance in the territory. How HK survived I don't remember, but all I know it's part of the economic cycle, and these things happen.

Now even though Asia seems to be doing better than the rest of the world, it's hard to say someone isn't affected at the slightest. When bad news strikes at such massive scale, when everyone's on a sinking boat, instead of blaming each other people turn to other forms of refuge. Bible sales have reportedly increased during this 'financial tsunami', as the HK people call it. Perhaps 'disasters' are needed so that some people would turn to their senses. While I'm not in a position to say why some 'bad', or unfair, or unfortunate things happen, all I know is it's up to me to bring something good out of it.