Last Cruise

After noticing my zits on my right cheek have got much better, after feeling getting more used to say “cheers” instead of “thank you” to a bus driver and after finally reducing the times of saying “hao”, which means "OK" in Chinese on the phone, it has also come to the end of my journey.

My last evening in the UK, sitting on the cozy red sofa listening to people accusing each other on Jeremy Kyle's show, I felt the urge to get away from the ugly side of humanity and have a last cruise of the city.

Clip-clop. Clip-clop. Listen to the certain, confident but easy clop from my boots when they kissed the chilly ground, I found it interesting that in both ends of my journeys to Germany and to the UK this time, I felt I’ve lived in both of the cities for much much longer than just five and fifteen days. 

Walking down Cathedral Road, I passed the grocery store, the old lady's vegetable shop, the butcher's shop that I had been to and then some beautiful waiting-for-let houses with their winter sleeping gardens. I started to wander between the reality and my fantasy. I picked a house I liked and began to picture what if I really live here, what I would be doing right now in the evening.

"Hmm…will I be crouching on my chair in front of my desk, having shit Chinese food from Tesco alone with a legal textbook on my lap and also trying to swear at the same time while eating it?! I may have no choice since I was as homesick as my best friend Gina used to be and being a student here has already made me too exhausted to cook...... OR…after all these years here, I have been totally assimilated that I will be sinking into a dark blue cheap cotton sofa from Ikea, stroking my gradually bigger and bigger, thicker and thicker belly and thighs with a remote control in my hand and thinking about what is the junk food I am going to have next…" 

Imagining both of the pictures along the road, I tried my best not to grin like a dumbass and continued my walk toward the shopping centre.

When getting closer and closer to the city centre, besides trying to buy myself a pair of shoes in this country, I discovered the second frustrating thing living in the UK – It was just about 7pm, but most shops were ready to close, even coffee shops. And the only available cheap food seemed to be Burger King or Subway this kind of place. The voice-over resounded in my head and said, “No wonder binge drinking is such an issue in this country - Cos they don't have many choices of entertainment in the evening! Poor British people…”

It was Hobson's choice that I walked into the Burger King. The young girl in her uniform standing opposite the counter had a very familiar face and reminded me of someone. It was not because of her black hair, yellow skin and her Chinese name suggested by the name tag on her left chest. It was Wei-Wei’s ponytail and hard-working attitude that reminded me of Sylvia, a friend whom I had visited and stayed with for two weeks in London in 2007.

Sylvia had a BA degree in Music in Taiwan. Her major and minor were Vocal Music and Piano. I still remembered the evening she was in her slivery white dress being radiant and singing on her mini graduation concert. She looked very elegant and her performance was beautiful.

When I saw Sylvia again in 2007, she has just got her MA degree in Arts Administration and Management in a university in London and also just started to work from early evening till early morning as a waitress in a night club. There were many times I wondered if those customers knew the waitress, who just took their orders and brought them their fancy cocktails could actually play wonderful piano and sing like an angel.

I could still recall a few times watching Sylvia dragging her stories with heavy steps going to work. And if I dug out my memory, I could still hear Sylvia's sobs when she told me parts of the stories and the reasons why she was rather being bossed around and working like a dog in the UK than coming back to Taiwan to have some claps she deserved on the stage. 

Sylvia had lost a very close family member due to a serious car accident when she was studying in the UK. And because of many many family and her emotional issues, Taiwan has become a place that’s too sorrowful for her to live in.

Even though the journey in 2007 was full of fascinating memory, after coming back to Taiwan, occasionally even till now I still think about Sylvia's story and wonder to what extent or because of what incident that I'll make such a sudden turn and find a new balance, like Sylvia did, in my life. 

Wei-Wei handed me my tea and stopped me before I went any deeper to my question this time. I smiled at Wei-Wei and tried to squint gently down as if it would make me discover what story she was dragging to work in such a cold evening with her. 

Time is never enough for remembering all those good and sad old days. But tea is always helpful when it comes to digestion, even when it's about memory. I quickly finished my tea after doing some writing and then kept cruising to the rest of the evening. 

Didn't really look down while walking, but I think, like Sylvia, we all drag some stories behind those smiley faces with us, no matter where we are or how hard we try to forget.

Guten Tag, Deutschland!

Before the plane really kissed the ground at Frankfurt International Airport, I could glance outside from the window that except the runway, most of the places were dusted with a generous layer of icing sugar. Didn't feel worried at all. In fact, I felt like a seven-year-old little girl going to Disneyland and seeing Micky and Minnie out of TV for the first time. And it also reminded me the short conversation I had with a girl from China when I was waiting for boarding in Hong Kong. She shared with me how difficult and how many documents she needed to provide to get the visa to visit her sister in the UK. And also told me it was her first time taking a flight. It's not hard to tell how excited she was because when we really stood in front of our plane, she said to me, 'awwwww, THIS is a plane!'

When my flight landed it the white theme city, Frankfurt, I kind of understood how the girl felt. Because I also had the excitement and wanted to say, 'awww...THIS is snow!' However, the romantic feeling about snowing soon disappeared. After dragging my chubby lagguage and trying to take S-Bahn to the central train station to my hotel, I understood how much inconvenience it might cause.

The hotel room I stayed at the first night was nice - free minibar, a big sofa, a bathtub and everything was pretty tidy. But there was one reason I really needed to get my room changed - the extremely unstable wireless internet connection. Thanks for the helpful hotel staff. My new room allowed me no need to sit almost at the hallway to use the internet and also provided a better view by facing the central train station. But this came with a price - I lost the big sofa and the bathtub. Damn.

The first culture difference I discovered was German must be a very patient people. Cos when the first time I entered the lift in my hotel, my unconscious action next was to impatiently find the 'close' button to close the lift doors. In Taiwan, it seems an unspoken rule that the lastest person coming into the lift should press the button and close the doors. But, in Frankfurt, there's no 'close' button in the lift! Therefore, I felt slightly embarrassed and inefficient no matter I was standing sliently for six seconds (Yes, I've counted it.) with just myself  or a group of people in the lift waiting for the doors to close. Am I being a too impatient Scorpion?! Or it just explained how tense our life was in Taiwan?!

Besides, I also gave Germany some of my 'virgin experience' - first time I learned it may also look like bigger breadcrumb when snow falling from the sky, first time I understood how salty a real Brezel should be, first time I tried and found that Japanese wasabi has a twin brother called horseradish......

I knew I was going to be fine when most of my family intimidated me how cold it may be in Germany. The thing was I didn't even feel the need to swear to expel the coldness or to spend time checking whether my nose and ears were still staying at the right places. But maybe it's because five days were still too short for the challenge. Ok, Germany, I promise I'll be back again! 

Advice needed - How To Dream A Dream?

I woke up with an half-wet t-shirt this morning. It's all because of a scary dream. Well, it's not about blood everywhere or about ghosts, that kind of scary.

In my dream, I was visiting a skyscraper with some friends. The building was taller than Taipei 101 and was even much taller than the new record winner - Burj Dubai, which is about 800 meters in Dubai. In fact, in my dream when my friends and I got to the highest floor of the skyscraper, we were actually in outer space.

Before I noticed that my friends and I were standing and taking some rest under a dark blue sign, there had already been thousands of people queuing after us. And I was the head of the line.

The dark blue sign seemed like a MRT station sign. So I was thinking, "ok, taking MRT, ummm...not a bad idea. think it will bring us to the center of the city."

After a few minutes, a roofless black train followed his track arrived. Because of being the head of the long queue, I was sitting at the first row of the roofless train. The train departed elegantly and smoothly. No doubt it was a normal train until we kept speeding up and I realised that it was actually a roller coaster!

While we were reaching the supersonic speed, the roofless black roller coaster also came to the end of its track. Suddenly, it was like a hystrical cork which was just popping out from a bottle of champagne after massive shakes. The roller coaster was not only flying and dashing with a mad speed in all kinds of directions in the universe, but also doing some tumblings and spins at the same time. And when friction from doing all the tricks slowed down the roller coaster, there came a long long free fall to bring us from the universe down to about sea level to meet another track. And then, it would speed up until we were in the universe and fast enough to do all the tricks again.

After many repeats of the whole process and running out all my energy to continue screaming and swearing in my dream, I woke up. No surprise that even with eight-hours sleeping, I still felt very tired.

Don't know what will come out if I try to google "how to dream a baby pink and princess theme merry-go-round dream."

I just want a good sleep tonight.

Always Get The Right Line Ready

Many years ago once I remember telling one of my college friends Yang that she and I had almost the same height. Yang felt hilarious but also slightly annoyed and said, 'Can't believe you say that! Don't you aware that your line of vision was going up when you're talking to me?!'

My explanation and theory to Yang then was maybe it's because most of time in my life I have to lift my chin with different angles when I talk to people. Since it is too often and I've got used to it, I stop feeling others are actually that much taller than I am.

I almost forgot about my crap theory until this afternoon Hannah, who I am sure is at least 5cm shorter than I am, said, 'After not seeing you for years, you are still petite and have the same height with me.'

Hannah and I were college schoolmates. Even though we usually found it interesting and relaxing talking to each other, we seldom hung out together then. After losing contact since our graduation, the connection was built again via facebook.

But not like those 'only-want-to-be-a-muted-voyeur' friends, Hannah sent me a message and asked me if I want to have a cup of coffee with her shortly after I clicked the 'accept' button.

Not hard to tell that Hannah brought me to a famous and popular afternoon tea shop. Layers of people were surrounding the small patio outside of the shop as if we were waiting to see a brilliant street performer playing ten oranges with his hands and spitting out flame at the same time. According to the waiting number we got, I estimated an hour of waiting was inevitable.

Queuing for at least an hour to get a cup of coffee and a piece of cake or some sandwiches while it was chilly and had some thin liquid threads falling from the sky?! Come on! It's crazy.

While I was planning how to make Hannah understand that patience is never my virtue and persuade her that the coffee and the cake next door would be as good as well, a waitress came out and said, 'Excuse me. If there are two guests who don't mind to sit at the counter, you may go inside right now. Anyone? Please raise your hand to let me know.'

I know I should ask Hannah first, but I just couldn't help to instantly stand on my tiptoe and put my right palm as high as possible above my head after the waitress closed her mouth. Maybe Hannah felt the threats from my eyes when I asked her. She smiled and said she doesn't mind before the waitress decided to let us in.

Honestly I don't understand why most of people preferred waiting for an hour than enjoying their time with their friends at the moment while also be able to monitor that their sandwich will be spread with enough butter and be put in decent amount of smoked chicken.

The afternoon was a bit like Hannah's press conference about her wonderful three-months trip in America. But I didn't feel annoyed at all. In fact, I often feel fascinated about people's self-help journey. I can understand that it's what may happen when you discovered and experienced the unexpected scenery or enlightenment from the expedition - you may have no time to swallow your spit and want to share the joy and excitement with others about what you've encountered.

I asked Hannah a question which I was asked frequently when people knew about my trip to the UK and Japan in 2007 - Did anything dangerous happen? Have you felt scared during your travel?

Hannah gave me the same answer that I offered to the people - 'No. I seldom felt afraid. Think it's because I prepared the information I need in advance. Or maybe I was just lucky.'

While I was just going to identify myself with her, Hannah continued and shared her friend's story with me.

Once on a very crowded tube in New york, Hannah's Taiwanese friend was sure that there was a palm sticking on her butt. She turned her head and stared at the man with a firm and serious voice, and said, "Do not touch me." But the guy wore a evil smile and answered with an obscene look, 'Why not?' Then it ended up with Hannah's friend getting off the tube at the next stop embarrassingly.

Hannah and I both felt lucky that none of this kind of thing happened to us. But think even if it does happen, I have my line ready. My advice for Hannah was - Never hesitate to start with the F word and make sure that everyone there knows that his name is wanker.

To Ignore Or Not To Ignore

I am not being too serious about it or taking it too far. I am just trying to value having such a clear and very straightforward chance to decide who can or can not walk into my life.

People may use Facebook for many different purposes. For me, it's all about sharing my PRIVATE life. Maybe I am self-obsessed. But just think it's equally rude for people to be a peeping Tom, make themselves at home in my life but NEVER even try to say hi after I accepted their 'friend' request.

I know there is privacy setting and there is also a button called "delete" in friends list. Trust me, I think some people may have found themselves getting lost on their way to my home now (if they try to.) But there are still some peeping Toms who swear never going to talk to me hiding in my friends list.

This evening I saw a new friend request on my Facebook. It's not at all a stranger. But since I can count with a single hand about how many sincere "Happy birthday!" I have received from the person during the past recent years, I can only assume that this 'friend' will not have the time and the energy to leave a comment when he sees the five-year-old me in my red bikini.

Problems must be solved from the root. Therefore, this time, about my pompous friends list, I decided to take action at the very beginning rather than grumbling and trimming it later.

Sorry! ("Ignore" button clicked.)

The Life-Changing Ten Months

The draft of this entry has been deleted and rewritten many times since I started this blog. Cos just thinking about the still vivid past and the disorientated future often make my fingers spend most their time being in a trance on the keyboard.

From junior high school to university, can't explain how my compass and my eyesight worked. The direction and the sign of my future were always clear to me - no professional or technical school, but high school, and then university and will definitely not choose English as my major.

None of my parents' opinions were involved at all. Not that I totally ignored their opinions. It's just I never really felt I would need them to tell me which way to go. It's like my everyday walk from home to school. On the way, attention and time could easily be distracted and wasted, but the crucial turn was just hard to be missed. It was as simple and nature as that. And the future even became more specific when I was at uni - to become a lawyer, just like most of my law school friends.

But after uni, the compass was somehow lost. And also, soon I suffered from one of the downsides of getting older - gradually deteriorating eyesight. Things became vague and it even got worse when I started my first and only full-time job I have had so far.

In 2005, I had my second job interview after only graduated from uni in a very short time. I remember I was trapped in a fancy library for about three hours to finish a paper test and for another 40 minutes for an interview. Finally, I left the impressive building with a free, cold and skinny chicken sandwich as lunch and an offer to work as a paralegal from next Monday.

It never occurred to the smug that it would turn out to be the longest and the darkest ten months of her life.

If people want to quickly get a picture of our life in the law firm. I will highly recommend the film, The Devil Wears Prada. For the people who haven't watched it, especially guys, I can assure you that it's not another chick flick. It's a documentary or a mental war film based on a true story!

Not sure it's the devil in my office acting on the silver screen, or simply just one of the many other devils in this world. One thing for sure about the common feature of the devils is a harsh tone and an icy look. And conventionally, even with the mahogany door firmly closed, it can still be loud and clear when the devil is yelling at someone in her office.

Moreover, under the devil's ruling, the clock ticked with a different sound. Time flies one hour a unit in the office to meet the format of the timesheet. Every entry of the timesheet must also accompany an equivalent work product. For example, 1079-01 0.2 Telephone conference with the officer of Patent Office about the patent application. It means I spent 12 minutes discussing a patent application for Client No. 1079-01. And the equivalent work product will be a short telephone conference report recording the conversation about it. This is how we charged our big company and celebrity clients with an hourly-rate bill. By how many chargeable hours we can provide from our own timesheet, it proves our value to the law firm.

There were times I worried about having an easy working day, since it would be difficult to fill the timesheet and come out with evidence to show how much I am worth.

In the law firm, 'freedom is slavery' is really being believed, since you will have your freedom once you become one of the senior partners. So, before achieving that, we have to endure being watched. By the devil. Through the timesheet.

Think people will still never get to imagine how tense our life could be, even when I share the private fact that Kevin, a junior lawyer, once shown me he got two coin-big areas on the back of his head that had no hair and I had already got my period missing for three months with no medical explanation then.

You may raise a question by now : why didn't you just quit if it's that stressful and painful? The answer is plain by looking at the past from now - cos I wasn't permitted. Not because of my supervisor, but myself.

In my generation, we are not only branded as "Generation Y" but also called "The Strawberry Generation" in Taiwan. The latter especially means an irresponsible generation that can't stand with pressure and will easily run away from challenges.

Turning in a resignation somehow meant to me was to admit my own failure and the rest of synonyms, to admit I was heavily knocked down with no teeth left in my mouth. Not to mention I would also be misunderstood and associated with the bad name that I always despise. Besides, it just wasn't that easy when you discovered and tried to face that the life was totally different from what you had pictured at uni. Hence, that's one of the reasons why I took an entrance exam to study for a master degree - to justify my resignation.

Luckily, I passed the exam and successfully got rid of the devil. But my dim future started to haunt me since then. To light the way to my future, I understand I need to be honest with myself and carefully listen to what I really want from my soul. But the process of it is like to consciously operate for myself.

It feels like I have to cut through every layer of my own skins, tissue and then bravely deep down to my bones to find out which cell or nerve goes wrong to blur my vision and also make me come up with so many questions : why can't I just like those 'normal' people who think some things will still be the same when you do it at the age of sixty after retire with my pension? And why can't I just accept that it will be a shortcut to things I want as long as I suffer for a relatively short time? Why am I being so serious about this? Why can't I be quiet not to ask so many questions? Why... Why.... And why.....?

While still being at the early stage of the operation, I think it is still too early to claim my breakup with law. The only two preliminary discoveries are : (1) Law firm will be the last choice of my future working place. (2) I am really not a pushover. I need MORE convincing answers than others about the questions above.

Another Guinness World Record?!

From Taipei Times - Taiwanese to kiss 100 men in Paris
English interview at the bottom of the page by Dan Bloom
The photos

Before Christina sent me the links above, I didn't notice it was on the news and had already had a storm-tide of viewers visiting her blog. Obviously Christina knew part of my appetite about news. The title did intrigued me and made me immediately gulped the links with my mouse. But after reading the article by Dan Bloom, I am...disappointed and worried.

The thing which disappoints and worries me is in the interview she said, as I quote, "now, a kiss seems like an amazing exchange of very interesting 'energy' for both the people kissing each other. That's what I've learned." If I were her ex-boyfriend, I would probably feel ashamed and then secretly try to find a cram school teaching about kissing or question if she had ever really loved me - is this something we need to spend two years living in Paris or to kiss 54 total strangers to know?!

Don't get me wrong. No matter what people think about her idea, I think the 27-year-old woman, Yang, is completely entitled to say it loud and proud that she did it for no reason but merely just a whim. And also about that's what she has learned. However, if it is going to be published as a book, her lack of purpose and a more creative enlightenment will greatly dilute my interest about the book and make me feel it is just like some of the Guinness World Records - it may mean a lot to the person who achieves a new record, but it brings and means almost nothing to me.

Before her coming book reveals her tips of how to break the ice when asking for a kiss from a stranger or shares with us that the exotic kisses will remove the shy and implicit character of we Chinese and make us be able to express the feelings more directly to the people we really love, I think I will tend to save the money to watch Daniel Craig being topless on the silver screen and walking in slow motion with his six packs and then passionately kiss the sexy Bond girl on the beach while the sun goes down.