A decade: a short time but a big step

It's going to be our 10th anniversary this Friday. Ever felt like you had too good a time during Thanksgiving and completely forgot about your final and when you had that blue book in front of you, you wish you could write more than your name and your student ID? That's how I feel now. According to the credit card statement, daddy has been preparing since September unless that item is something I shouldn't be seeing... Me? Maybe I can be a romantic for once and dedicate this piece to daddy.

We were introduced to each other at Christine's farewell party under a carefully orchestrated plan by Ali and Glenn. I got completely shitfaced. Somehow that didn't deter you and you were a real gent about it and made sure I got home safely.

The first time I went to your apartment, I freaked out. Not only was it a very messy bachelor pad, you had bugs under the cushion of your sofa.

The first time my sister-in-law caught us walking down the street hand in hand in Central, I didn't know how to introduce you to each other and I think I jumped into the BodyShop to think.

We went to Tokyo with your sister before we got married and it was my first time in my life that I didn't get to do laundry every night during my holiday. Wearing dirty clothes wasn't as bad as I thought.

My first time to spend the night in a jail cell at a police station was on our wedding night. We got into a fight with the manager and bouncers at Red Rock in LKF. We had to send the relatives off to the airport the next morning and we pretended to be wearing contact lenses. Changunnie, you are so NOT going to repeat that feat!

The honeymoon was delayed because you had to work (which include the recruitment of John!) Whilst other couples would spend a romantic week in Maui, we took advantage of the unlimited golf package at Kapalua. Don't think I saw much other than golf courses that week!

We played Torrey Pines (and to this day, my favourite course in the US) and I managed to play par and bogey with some college players till I lost my ball in the thick rough. Think it was all downhill from there.

I still laugh about the time when we played golf in Bali and the caddy thought you were my dad.

We spent 13 hours on the plane from HK to Hokkaido because of the storm. As if that's not a good enough indication of how bad weather can get in that area, we went hiking in the mountain on a snowy day without food or drinks in our backpack. The chocolate bar saved us. And not to mention the icy road confirmed who got better balance - Me!

When I found out I was pregnant with Changunnie, you were at the stupid sports bar in Seoul with Tom, watching the 2006 world cup game. Your reaction was "Oh that's wonderful! Let me call you back after the game"

The night before the delivery was the time when I blamed myself for being your personal assistant for too long. I tried to give you all the details of bank accounts, when bills are due and how to take money from our account....

The first time you let Changunnie rolled off the bed when she was a bit younger than six months, I was so angry that I could have killed you! I wish you pushed me out of the window from our 15th floor flat instead.

When we had that big fight last year, I thought I was going to grow old on my own and I was scared! Just like the first time I realized that my mum was gone forever.

And now, it's our tenth anniversary. Thank you for everything and I look forward to the many decades to come!

My favourite TV show and movie?

I hate it when new acquaintences ask this question. How would I know if I don't have access to the remote control?

Before Changunnie, it was ESPN all day and daddy's famous move was

"Yubo, you are glued in front of the TV, can you move out of my way please?"

Daddy shrugged and said "moved" while his butt never left the ottomon and eyes followed the basketball on the screen like a laser gun and he had a firm grip on the remote. Not the grip I would recommend for golf but well... I was dumbfounded.

These days, it's either we don't watch any TV or we get those educational programme for children. Word World was cute the first time I watched it but I don't really enjoy the repetition to a point I know exactly what Ant is going to say to Pig about the pies!

If I will ever invest in any dot com company, I'll buy Youtube shares. Not that I believe in the business model or anything. Even if my investment will be used to buy some crazy gadgets for some twenty something who has just joined the company, I will still go for it as it's my only way to watch TV these days.

I watched my favourite Frasier episodes, the funniest clips of Curb Your Enthsiasm. I manage to catch up on 30 Rock. And I watch Top Gear too. I don't see why some women hate it so much!

Btw, don't tell me that your favourite shows include Friends and Sex and the City. Don't think we will get along.

Home Sweet Home

I spent some quality time on the rooftop this weekend and my heart was filled with a sense of achievement that I think the last time I had such sweet emotion was when I was four; my brother was given the babysitting task that didn't rank to high on his list of priorities. He was penalized for putting me in the washig machine (and told me it was my private swimming pool) and a new scheme emerged to allow me to focus on something else other than hanging around him. He showed me how to calculate square root of any numbers without a calculator and he gave me couple random numbers to play with. And I did it. I cannot forget how great I felt when I handed him the paper.

Anyway, some of you may know that we had some serious leaking problem back in the Summer when weekends meant horrible weather with heavy rain. The contractor told us it would take 3 weeks but it dragged on the usual Hong Kong way and the waterproofing work only finished last week, after three months of drama. We got our rooftop and little garden back. My strawberry plants are now in four flower beds. If we get good harvest, we will be able to make our very own strawberry jam. I was happy when I was up on the rooftop. All that bitter bickering, the scheming when I dealt with the contractor all became worthwhile.

To celebrate, we even went out to buy the furnitures that we needed but never got around to buy since we bought our home last Spring. Things are finally falling in place and I can't see why I want to spend my weekends elsewhere!

Hey Big Blender!

Not sure how many of you keep a little garden at home. We (mainly grandma and grandpa) wanted to have a little vegetable garden for supply of fresh salad green and herbs. So we converted our rooftop into some sort of experimental farms. Racks and flower beds were set up and we have quite a variety of plants. Besides of the usual herbs, we have tomato, chili pepper, ginger, garlic, scallion, onion, lettuce, eggplants, zucchinis, cucumber, strawberry and even watermelon. It's been working well and I have to admit that the vegetable from home tastes better than those from the supermarket.

The problem we had was to get good fertilizer. Grandma ordered a compost drum from the organic store in Sai Kung town. It is a slow process but was ok until one day, we found lots of mini-leech like worms on the roof top floor. Our maid must have put some meat part in the compost bin and the sight was very hitchcock (if you've seen "The Birds"). We were forced to seal all the holes on the drum with duct tape to kill the worms. In the meantime, we searched for "cleaner" alternatives. We are now experimenting but not sure if it will work as advertised. We basically collect all rotten vegetables, fallen leaves, fruit peels as before but this time, we simply blend them and apply with water.

I got a big blender for the blending but the thing started to smoke 2 minutes into our morning blending on the second day. Gotta go to the shop to exchange for a new one. Hope it is no reflection of the method itself!

Lost in Translation or Lost in Thoughts?

Changunnie has been going to pre-school on a regular basis and I literally see her developing in front of my eyes. Her vocabulary has always been good because of some silly games we play at home, like "who has the last word" which requires different answers to the same question and see who cannot come up with a new answer. In the short 1.5 months though, Changunnie's speech simply evolved to the next level.

We got her a new bed and in an attempt to make her room a little more like fantasy land for little girls, we got some colourful flags to hang on the wall. She saw them and said "Oh! Decoration!" Daddy and I were surprised by her vocabulary and she saw our faces and repeated the word "De-Co-Ra-Tion" to make sure we understood what she was saying. Later that week, we went out for a walk and she took my hand and said "Cars are coming! I have to hold mummy's hands. Otherwise, I will be in trouble!" I was speechless. What happened to my little girl who refused to say "daddy" or mummy" when everyone else were babbling? Soon, she'll write better than I do and she probably will write something that rivals the Constitution when she turns 14?? Changunnie even improved her maths skills. I am not sure if she will do what I did as a kid (put down 1 - 100 in different orders in a 10x10 grid and circle out all the prime numbers to find patterns) but I am very pleased that she doesn't reject counting and algebra the way she did when she was younger!

Children are amazing little creatures. They are capable of things that we grown-ups aren't able to do without some extensive training (unless you are talking about figure of speech, putting your feet in your mouth is no easy task) and they learn so quickly. They see the beautiful side of the world and they appreciate it.

I read about an interview of an environmentalist the other day and the interviewee said the world is in disarray and having children is rather selfish as we are giving them a very grim future...blah blah blah. Ok, we've done a lot of harms over the past 30 years or so but shouldn't we have some hope of getting things done right?

I don't know if I can trust the government or any of the politicians out there who talk about change but when I look at my own child, I know I will do something about it.

Cannot sleep

Don't you hate it when you have to take the first flight in the morning for work? I am taking the 8am flight which means I need to leave home by 6:30 in the morning and be up by 5:30 as I haven't packed yet and am avoiding it. It's between 10/20C in Beijing right now. HK is 22/30C. It's a bit of a pain in the butt to dress right. The above is not important. It's 4:30 now and I cannot sleep.

You probably will say I asked for it. I could have taken the last flight out last night and spend the night in Beijing but why would I want to do that? I don't get to see Changunnie that much during the week and I try to spend at least an hour or so with her in the morning and in the evening. Knowing I would be gone, I went home a little earlier than usual yesterday and made it back just in time to have dinner with her. I told her that I would be gone for 2 days and she threw herself to me and said "Mummy, don't go back to the office" with her arms wrapped around me. I looked at her face and wanted to quit.

I want to win the lottery

I don't want to keep working but it costs a lot when you have a kid and retired parents. I may not be the nicest person on the block but I'm a good person, can I win the lottery please??

Got the credit card bill last night and my heart missed a beat. I looked around, other than groceries, I didn't but any luxury item. In fact, I ran out of shampoo but didn't get a chance to go to the shop and have been using the soap... What happened??

I haven't been particularly happy at work and yet I need to keep my spirit up at home. That's really driving me up the wall. And what have I been doing as a result? I eat but I am not eating well. I think I killed a number of bags of crisps, biscuits during the week and I cleared all the old snack left behind by Changunnie at home. I eat to a point I wake up at 2am and want to have a Shin Ramyun with egg and spam.

Gotta take some time off.

Common sense is not so common

Perhaps I am the one who doesn't know the rules of engagement of using the search engine.

Changunnie has been refusing to sleep in her cot for couple weeks now. As her mother, my head is still filled with images of her as an infant when she was born and she was the size of a thermo flask. Changunnie pulled me and the two of us sat inside of her cot and there was no space left. Ok, I got the message.

Simmons mattresses were on sale at the shop that we frequent and the shop gave out $100 voucher for every $1000 spending. Yes, I am a sucker of discount and voucher and if I need to spend the money anyway, why don't I max out the value of my money? So, we ordered the mattress for Changunnie. The bed at Simmons are very adult, we thought it should not be that difficult to buy the frame and so off we went.

It was the beginning of a nightmare. All the shops we went to only have ugly beds and so I tried my luck on the internet. Regardless of the key words I used, I couldn't get anything other than manufacturer and suppliers of furniture in China. Oh! That's exactly what I am looking for; bed made with recycling material of unknown origin and the paint they used isn't VOCC.

I am not sure what to do at this stage. I sent emails to three custom-made furniture shop. Why is it so difficult to get decent looking wooden furniture which are safe for children at a reasonable price? I am serious about it, I found designer highchair, princess castle but there was no decent bed! I thought we spend 1/3 of our time in bed.

Mirror mirror, who's the fattest person around?

Changunnie had a play date yesterday and I tagged along for some fresh air. It's nice to be away from home once in a while. The play date is supposed to start at 11ish but Changunnie forced us to leave the house at 10. We were at the door by 10 to 11. The play date itself was good but the best part was when we took all the kids to a book reading event at a bookstore. (Daddy's cousin -in-law and niece are the author and illustrator respectively).

We took Changunnie and her favourite unni, Teri, to the bookstore while Teri's parents took Teri's brother in another taxi. Of the 5 minutes in the cab, Teri told Changunnie's daddy that he's fat but not too fat because his tummy doesn't stick out as much as her yahyah's. Teri also explained to us why we had to get off the taxi a block away from the bookstore because all the yahyahs are having lunch on the street and the police had to close off the road.

It was really funny and makes you appreciate how honest little kids are. They tell you about things exactly the way they see it and understand it. There's no processing to make the statement politically correct. If you can handle the truth, ask a 4 year old whether you look good in this season's hottest designer items. If the comment is "You look like a princess" you can proudly stroll out. If it's anything that has pig, bag lady, monster, please change and write off that piece of garment. Who said you should follow Vogue and Cosmo when it comes to style?

Oh! And always be careful of what you say in front of them. Kids love to mimic. I have been telling myself to stay clear of any four letter words at home.

My Beijing trip - Time traveller experience

And no, I don't mean anything new age. I travelled back in time instead.

I went to Beijing for work right before the start of the National Day golden week holiday. The flight was packed but this time with the rich and famous from HK instead of bankers. They were all heading to Beijing to join the National Day Celebration for Overseas Chinese (Isn't HK and Macau part of China now? Why are we still Overseas Chinese? It's a subject to spend some time on!) It was awkward as the crowd was talking about their business, holidays...etc, things that are beyond my reach. At least, I don't need to consider which husband to go on holiday with. I only have one and have no plan to get #2. The old lady sitting next to me and I stood out like a sore thumb. Oh well, no wonder the two of us were placed next to each other.

The first 30 minutes was quiet until we were given the health declaration form. I think the health declaration form in itself is a health screening tool. My neighbour couldn't read the small prints and so I helped her out. It was a very small act but it turned out to be the beginning of a very meaningful conversation with the old lady (Ms Chan) and I gladly walked down the memory lane with her.

I forgot exactly how it started but Ms Chan recounted the story of how the publishing and printing business that she and her husband started in Guangzhou was nationalized and Ms Chan stayed behind with their four young children while the husband came to Hong Kong in search of a new life after the forming of the new China. She didn't get to join him until 1961 with the two younger children. Took them another year and lots of money to get the older boys to move to Hong Kong. The family had to start from scratch again but they never forgot to help people who didn't have the opportunity to learn back in China. All through the years, they purchased and shipped books for free to China to stock libraries in remote places. It wasn't an easy thing to do during the time when the Hong Kong government didn't exactly consider their philanthropic act as politically correct. The officials in China also wanted them to pay a business tax on their donation (!?!)

I felt very honoured to have the opportunity to listen to the story first hand from the source. My family wasn't well to do when I was young but I didn't have to live in hardship the way the older generation did. I remember my grandparents telling me how they have to escape the Japanese during the war and tree bark was pretty much all they had to eat. Hope was such a luxury for them and yet they prevailed and here I am today with the next generation.

It pains me to look at the youngsters in Hong Kong these days. They take lots of things for granted and respect is something very Ali G to them (if you don't know who Ali G is, the other persona by the same actor includes Borat and Bruno. Wiki it). What does it take for the young generation to have a better sense of responsibility, be able to respect the others and be able to love others and to love themselves (Geez! I am starting to sound like Whitney Houston)?