Special moments in our life

Got an email lying in my inbox this morning with a subject - "Want to share this special moment with you." "The special moment" had nothing to do with any romantic atmosphere, but a special (well, at least, to my friend it is) combination of numbers.

The email said, at 12hr 34 minutes and 56 seconds on the 7th of August this year, the time and date will never happen in your life again! (123456789)

Although obviously I would not only share the special moment with my friend but also with at least 30 unrecognizable recipients, I still appreciate his time clicking my email address from his contact list.

I am just wondering : How special was the moment? Doesn't it also make "at 10hr 10 minutes and 10 seconds on the 10th of October of 2010", "at 11hr 11 minutes and 11 seconds on the 11th of November of 2011" and so on special, too?

Maybe there is an implicit message in my friend's email that some special moments indeed will never happen again in our life, but some special moments are still there, waiting.

Priceless egg fried rice

It was almost five o'clock when mum and dad got home this evening. Usually if the kitchen still remains dark after five, it means my sisters and I should probably start to decide later in the evening - turn left or right? Shida night market or Yong Kang street?

As the cheap but delicious Thai restaurant on Yong Kang street and the Japanese style roast chicken in Shida night market were still trying to fight for the championship in my head, dad knocked my door and asked me if I want some egg fried rice for dinner.

"errr...ok", I answered with many question marks on my face.

Don't get me wrong. I have no bias against egg fried rice. I was just googling in my head if I had tried any delicious egg fried rice in Shida or on Yong Kong street.

I tried to find out which food stall or restaurant we were talking about. But, "No, I am gonna cook it for you all myself." That's the answer I heard from dad.

From kindergarten to high school, no matter how early I needed to get up, I often had my breakfast at home which was made or at least prepared by mum. Even for Taiwanese women, it's still not that common to make breakfast for your children in the morning. I have many classmates that their mums were still sleeping when they went out to school.

I remember when I was about 10, for a child who seldom had any chance to eat outside I used to envy some classmates who could have their lunch box ordered from the school. But after trying it, I immediately realized I was just charmed by the colourful pictures outside of the lunch box.

With a really good cook in my family, sometimes it's hard to show how much cooking talent I have, let alone dad. The only memory of dad cooking for me that I can still scoop out now is about twelve or thirteen years ago when mum went travelling to Canada for around two weeks.

Even though curry and chicken noodle soup took their turn to be my sister Ruby's and my dinner for quite a few days during that period, we never complained about anything. Because after seeing dad trying to toss the pan like a chef to give us a tasty fried egg for breakfast, but ended up with the egg clinging passionately on the wall, it's hilarious enough to convert our attention of the constant attack of the curry and the noodle soup.

As a thoughtful daughter, I asked dad if he needed any help when he was heading to the kitchen. He said, "Oh, come on. It's just egg fried rice! It's easy." Well, he might be right since eggs and rice were really the only ingredients he used.

Not like the good egg fried rice we have tried, dad's rice didn't separate from each other completely enough and without any supporting characters, the only two leading characters were clearly recognizable.

But, believe it or not, the bland food was very delicious.

Chinese idioms with animals

After learning some idioms from my dog-tired friend Gary this morning, it kind of reminds me when I was a little girl, a comic book about idioms related with animals used to be my bedtime reading for quite a while.

We have a lot of idioms about animals/insects in Chinese, from a tiny ant to a big elephant, from animals with no legs to animals who need plenty of shoe racks. Below are some I find interesting. (And literally translated by me.)

A cat crying for a rat (貓哭耗子)
showing insincere sympathy

A three-legs cat (三腳貓)
doing something clumsily, especially because of not having enough knowledge or skill

Playing piano to an ox (對牛彈琴)
talking about something to someone who can't understand it at all or is not interested in it at all

Looking for a horse while riding a donkey (騎驢找馬)
looking for something you have already had, or keeping staying with something you're not that satisfied with while looking for something better to replace at the same time

Add legs after drawing a snake (畫蛇添足)
doing something unnecessary

Roars from an east riverbank lion (河東獅吼)
shoutings from a very angry wife to her husband

After watching the great match played by Andy Roddick and Andy Murray and being struggling in which Andy I am going to root for during the whole match, I am dog-tired, too. Bed time.

Sometimes maybe it should be as simple as that

Cathy was a colleague from my part-time job at school. I don't know if it's because her funny and silly problem of keeping walking straight on a pavement amuses me very much or it's because she also has the height of a hobbit as I do. I usually forget she is actually three years older than I am. The two hobbits became good friends.

During the past year, Cathy had always been a supporter of having black and straight hair as her DNA suggests. She usually ties her hair into a ponytail which suitably meets her simple and quiet dressing style. But about two weeks before she quit her job, she walked into the office with a romantically curled hairstyle which also carried a comfortable red-brown shimmer.

Cathy explained that since she is going to move to Japan soon and gets married in July, her mum thinks the new hairstyle might become a fashion shield which can keep her safe from any possible attack from those stylish Tokyo girls.

For Cathy's own safety and beauty, she changed her hairstyle, but the rest of her still remains. She's still the girl who thinks it's unnecessary to spend any money wearing her wedding dress and take photos before the wedding ceremony. In fact, if it were not for the wishes from her fiance's family, she even wouldn't want a dinner reception.

The spark between Cathy and her Japanese fiance was lighted in the first year while they both studied for their master degree in America. From then on, together for the following two years they took some courses which are not only about English teaching but also about dating.

After leaving America and respectively going back to Japan and Taiwan with a diploma, they advanced their learning about dating by taking another two-year, long-distance and cross-culture course.

Even though they saw each other every six months in Japan or in Taiwan and texted each other once or twice a day, they seldom chatted on MSN and only talked once every two weeks on Skype for usually less than 40 minutes during the past two years.

I thought I have already been well aware how few I can recognize the faces of love. But after knowing Cathy's story, I found out that when it comes to love, I was more ignorant and uneducated than I thought - Do you know in a long-distance relationship the temperature from a lover's hand can last for six months without any frequent help from Skype or MSN to maintain the heat?

Cathy usually walked with me to buy my coach ticket back to Taipei. Once while we walked along the calm and beautiful lake in our school campus, she told me she felt uncertain about quitting her job to start a new life in Japan. I asked her if it's because she is still not so sure he's the right man to marry and feels the two of them should spend more time living together before they get married.

She slightly bit her lips and gently shook her head while two baby pink clouds floated through her cheeks. "Never. We have never doubted about it.", Cathy answered bashfully.

I believe sometimes it's very important and necessary to show how much our love is and how hard we can try for the one we love. Even though I seldom question about how brave and defiant I can be for love, Cathy's story reminds me maybe it's equally important to learn that sometimes it is not the harder the better and it might be perfectly enough to try with the efforts it just needs.

Me and the prince

I can't remember the exact age during my adolescence when the first time I read Le Petite Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry in Chinese. But I remember the puzzled feelings after reading it that it seemed not that brilliant as people said. At that time I blamed myself for being too young and too foolish to realize its profundity. I deeply believed there must be some misunderstanding between me and the little prince.

About a month ago, accidentally I bumped into Le Petite Prince in an English version in a second-hand bookshop. It was quite unusual for me, whose eyes are sometimes too BIG to find things in front to notice this aged, slim and wrinkled book standing at a very unnoticed corner of the bookcase. I immediately took it as a sign that the prince wanted a chance to appeal. He wanted to claim his innocence to me and regain his reputation.

Sorry to let the author down that I didn't do what he mentioned in the end of the book to inform him about my encounter with the prince. Instead, I took him home with me secretly and silently.

Honestly, after reading the book again, I feel it turned out to be proving my innocence more like. I still feel almost the same way as the first time I read it.

Even though I do envy the moments when the little prince is being romantic to his rose and I would also like to go to any pawn shop to exchange for any childlike imagination like the prince's, I think I have a problem appreciating the beauty of the could-not-be-more-obvious ideas in this parable.

It's like some mums who try to hide some very finely chopped carrots in a hamburger and persuade their kids to eat it. Carrots are still carrots which still can be seen clearly.

Besides the-finely-chopped-carrots-like metaphors to me, I also have a different feeling about some ideas the author mentioned in the book. For example, in chapter six the little prince says, "You know - one loves the sunset, when one is so sad.."

There is one very famous line from a poem by Li Shang-Yin in Tang Dynasty says, "Sunset is extremely beautiful, but night is drawing nigh." It's the same in Chines culture that sunset is usually related to some reminiscent and sadness atmosphere.

To some people, to be embraced by a nostalgic color tone of twilight might be a trigger to immerse themselves in their bitter sweet memory. But instead of keeping drowning myself in the tide of my irrecoverable beautiful past, I would rather wear a shallow smile, admire the feminine and not-so-aggressive beauty of sunset and tell myself I am just waiting for a more beautiful future to come.

Perhaps I have already become a serious adult with no imagination, just like what the prince says. Maybe the prince will want another appeal. But guess he will have to wait for quite a long time to see me again in my supreme court.

A period of repeat

Every year around this time, from one week before Christmas until the last day of the year, I call it a period of repeat. It's a period that someone seems to press the "repeat last year" button for all of us. (If you can rewind your life to every year around this time, you might understand what I mean.)

The period starts from playing "Last Christmas", "Do they know it's Christmas", or "I wish it could be Christmas everyday" as a prelude. We will never get a chance to remember which one was played first to remind us it's Christmas time. Because those songs were played repeatedly until we got confused.

After Christmas, although it depends, most of us will feel content but also a little melancholy in a certain way. Therefore, not an excuse to gain some weight but to cure ourselves of the depression and also make it more festival under such a cold season, we drink and eat more. After the "treatment", we might not be cured completely but at least will always have something for our New Year's resolutions - will reduce circumference of thighs by 2 inches. Then, here comes the must-repeat line, "5...4...3...2...1, (You know what to say next...)"

As for one of personal repeated lines of my family every year around this time, my mum's is "Oh, so fast! It's another year?! can't believe it!", my dad's is "Any special place you want to go today?" and my middle sister's is "Dear mum and dad, I will stay at my friend's place for the following two days."

This kind of repeat never really annoys me, not like the red big zit on my right cheek again now. Because although many things may be the same every year during this time, I can still have everything the same differently.

For example, this year, I helped my mum cook a roast chicken instead of steak for Christmas Eve's dinner, spent some time having a cup of tea with my best friend, Gina, on Christmas Day instead of being with a group of friends, enjoyed a quiet evening instead of a strident dinner on New Year' Eve.

And the difference of my New Year's resolutions this year is I only have one resolution - will try to live a simple happy life. Although simple doesn't seem to mean easy when it comes to life, New Year's resolutions are never something easy I think.

Bye, my roller-coaster-like 2008 and hello, the foreseeable unknown and poor 2009!

All they need is a bicycle, a scooter or...some reindeers

As usual, I tried to find something interesting to entertain me when I was doing my lunch. And I couldn't help to write this immediately after watching it. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7778553.stm) It's about some delivering staff complaining they are being bullied into walking at four miles an hour to help meet delivery times.

Who has the privilege to see me being very sluttish with my tousled hair and wearing my pajamas in the morning when I just get up? Well, besides my family and my boyfriend (if I have one), it's a postman in Taiwan!

Sometimes the door bell rang when I just got up and my mum was busy speaking on the phone or doing something that she really couldn't get down stairs to get the mails from the postman herself. Then she would raise her right eyebrow to deliver a quiet but firm order to me - "get down stairs to get the mails NOW." Since I have always tried to be a very considerate daughter and there was no way to say no, I usually prayed not to meet any friends or neighbours and ran like an Olympic sprinter during the whole process.

Although I got down stairs so many times with my sleepy face and hardly open eyes, I am still quite sure the postmen in Taiwan all accessorize with a scooter. I can always remember seeing their green scooters lying docilely aside waiting for their masters to keep taking them for a walk.

Even a small country like Taiwan the postmen need a scooter to help them. I am quite surprised that postmen in the UK deliver mails to one's home all by walking?!

Of course I understand it's the busiest time of a year for postmen and I do have sympathy for them. But I thought the situation is not hard to tackle and there are many resolutions instead of delicately calculating the realistic speed.

It's just a little weird and funny for me.