Pleasant Creep
It's not a day for
Radiohead's "Creep"...
I let the long-desserted scent of lavender permeate the whole flat and turned off all alarms when I went to bed last night. I felt I needed sufficient courage to do that, oddly. Yes, it's Saturday night - I know. And I live in Hong Kong, and the 21st century, you know. Sunday is just the seventh day, usually.
Breaking the routine rhythm I retrieved some lost time (from where?) to give away some old clothes and clear the space for sweaters and trousers piled up on any 1x2 feet surfaces around. Then, on the way to a restaurant I seldom visited for a late brunch, I "discovered" a car-park where I could probably afford for the "new" second-hand Toyota almost mine. Excited by the discovery I nearly called my colleague who gave the offer for the key right away. Only a "new" Beethoven sonata calmed the exhilaration. In fact, the focus was "transferred" when I succeeded in making an appointment with the driver-tutor for practising the long abandoned skill.
An auto was far more easier than a manual, despite I found it still too "spectacular" to drive a car on the road. I remember after any lesson on a manual, I would have a backache and sore neck... while I was only delighted today after 1.5 hours "creeping" (in 30 mph) round the East side of the island. I could hardly keep the environmental issue in my head which was my second greatest concern before today, to drive a car. I have been always
bad with temptation, when it's in my face.
I went to gym and cooked for myself a delicious pan-fried spagehtti with mushroom afterwards, devoured over some practices of Francais with the film "
Les Choristes" listed for the upcoming movie club I have to host. Then the late evening belonged to my first exploration on iMovie. That's the end of the story of a Sunday bourgeoisie.
Or you prefer the real
Creep I "rediscovered" with today's luxurious leisure?
("
Lowmorale" illustration above by
Monkeyhub)
Update: I meant 30KMph... (just found out 1 mile = 1.609344 kilometers). Yes, that means I crept even slower than you thought :p
Homework Free Age
Suddenly my world has been besieged by the word "education". The exchange program HKICC is organizing (above), the School of Creativity (still), the new course "Curriculum Issues and Assessments" E and I are teaching at the Polytechnic University, and, thus, our regular discussions. I am even starting to revisit all those notes and handouts of my education study. And now, it's my blog.
In Telegarph today, the head teacher of St John's in Marlborough, Wilts, says
scrapping homework is the third step of the school to encourage students-of-the-information-age to "love learning for its own sake". The "controversial" measure comes after (1) replacing subjects with "cross-curricular projects" and (2) allowing pupils to mark each other's work.
Everybody seems like talking more or less the same objective and direction for education reform all over the world (at least -or just?- most of the metropolitan cities). Hong Kong government has titled its paradigm shift of education straightly as "
Learning to Learn" since the beginning of the millennium. But,
how, is the though one, at which most complaints have targeted. The three-step UK version sounds not particularly inspiring, with the citation "Homework is a dinosaur" echoing in the press more like a gimmick in fact.
No homework? I wonder. Or he means
what kind of homework to give instead? Well, when I was a student, I liked homework to a certain extent, even the "repetitive" kind. "Practice makes perfection" is my way of learning. My piano teacher said today a MAN at my age, and an intermediate learner, can hardly twist the fingers in the speed I played today. Well, I answered, totally flattered, I did practise a few hours more this week.
This is hardly an example to rule out today's subject, piano playing is skill-based in the end and education is more than that.
(Update: Too bad the exchange programme was
cancelled.)
We Three
I started reading "
We Three" in Beijing last week, which might have accounted for the vividness of the references and events described throughout the reading experience. And I finished it this morning on a ferry under a gloomy sky, which might have imprinted more weight (of waves) on my final impression of the book...
You can definitely postulate the content from the title: an autobiography, not of the writer, but a family of three as a unit, who survived most of the critical events in the modern history of China. And you probably can smell the colour from it too: rustic yet literary, heartwarming yet solitary, melancholic yet calm, ordinary yet elaborated, and proud.
I am most mesmerized by such quality of pride, and perseverance, about the pursuit of life which is almost extinct in our time, and perhaps the concept of a family. It permeates the pages with the scent of some antique chest. Not from the filial responsibility, but the mutual reliance and genuine appreciation. You do not need to know both the
father and mother were renowned artists (writers) to feel it, because there is nothing extravagant in the narration despite the dramatic backdrop. Everything seems so light and tiny that you would just miss in a glimpse.... even the expected deaths of the father and the daughter, witnessed by the mother and writer, after all.
After all, everything seems so natural, which is why it's worth remembering it, and writing it down. Any memory should be commemorated with respect.
A Winter in winter
5 days in Beijing seemed longer, longer than the mind can construe the idea of being in such coldness. The snow had fallen already without a scene but it's still bitterly freezing in the open, with annoying bites felt deep inside the finger-bones and toes. Laughter seemed coming from the heating chemicals stuck on the girls' back, or the steam from food we constantly desired.
Stepping on the Wall (from
another pass) or inside the Forbidden City again (after a decade) seemed an unconscious self-destruction act by memory. The murderers: rollercoaster-like climbing vehicles (were we in Disneyland?) and, again, Starbucks (no, the sight of those colourful toilets were only next). Were there too many packaging or too less, Mr. Creative Industries? Lacking "aesthetics' consideration", in our passionate leader's term, the richest content could become merely a face, well represented by the "Hero Plate" where the giant was once, and where the tourists crowded.
There was surprise, also from the cold, and another warm. The frozen
Kunming Lake (pic 2) was more than a spectacular historic site in winter, where feet dreamed like ships on a 300-hectare white. On the last day behind the
chic at Houhai (Back Lake), we met Liu, a 64-y/o guide (pic 1), who lived in the
hutong and competed humbly hard with other corporatized tri-cyclists. He did not have a brandname on his torn overcoat, but on his hand that pulled the blanket tight on us when it dropped, and his Mandarin which told stories from the tone but words, and his hospitality which put sweet mandarins into our bags... and his smile.
BlogAid for Asia Disaster
Blogger can
help more than
being insensitive. (Thanks, Toby)
flickr brings back lost peacefulness
I've had a
flickr account for ages
too, and I have forgotten even either the name or the bookmark in the long extended list of "my favourites".
And, I am again
triggered. So...
Here are some photos I took at Anyang Nunnery (Tuenmun) where we had the Buddhist camp during Christmas.
A place where I found a lot of calmness, tranquility and reminiscence of the time past.
See if you also like the
other gesture of light, and flickr (I am at least surprised it
knows what camera I was using).
Aftermath and Relief
While facts can be
archived (CBC News) as useful as it could extend, can reflections and the induced compassion of people be accumulated rather than forgotten, or
confused, soon like always?
My conversation with my mom remained about the fact that
you don't need someone to approach you in the street for making a donation. Well, she did pause and think for a while when I suggested the influences of personal habits, like daily consumption, to the natural environment. She is very open-minded after all, even to some
alternative opinion.
And (to the skeptical taxi driver) yes, the affected territories do need
real money so that they can
buy daily necessities the victims need, besides a lot to be done, and paid for.
