I am sitting in a coffee shop near my Shangahi apartment, after a leisure day of researching properties in Hawaii, yoga practice, and lunch and dinner of wontons. I can really say that after 10 days of being in the city, my spirit and my soul are back in place. I am back in my element.
I am not sure whether it is because my old Shanghainese friend's visit and stay with me the week before Shanghai had made me agitated and brought out hidden emotions, but the last few days in Hong Kong made me very agitated. I felt like ants on the lid of a hot pot, to quote a Chinese saying. I did all that I should be doing, attending all the birthday drinks and network events, but in the end I felt more frustrated than ever. People are mostly superficial, and the city has become ever more crowded. People just move about like they are wound up to move about in their little world.
It's nice to be home. I can be moving forward from this point, but I am happy I have found that spot in the world to call home in the meantime.
Saturday, February 8, 2014
Friday, January 24, 2014
Emotionally stronger
I am getting quite neurotic these days. A friend is staying with me, returning to Hong Kong after a year away in London. We are now looking at Hong Kong with renewed eyes and I have an increasing feeling growing inside of me that I need to leave this city. I am getting quite depressed. Work has become ever more unbearable with how cold people are to each other, how no one cares about me.
I still have my heart hung on the strategist. When I saw his coat on his chair today in the morning after being gone for a long while, I was hoping that I would gather enough courage to say hi to him. Instead, the next thing I know, he walked by without greeting me and I saw him waiting for the elevator with that private equity girl. She looked happy. I was feeling devastated.
Meaningless activities one after another. I think this year I will make a major change. I plan to leave the job altogether by mid-year and meanwhile, I am planning to go to Shanghai and not come back for a while. Meaning, no more half half. It should just be one place.
I need to find peace with my mind and spirit. That is the most important thing. My decade in Hong Kong shall draw to a close in 2014. Happy year of the horse!
I still have my heart hung on the strategist. When I saw his coat on his chair today in the morning after being gone for a long while, I was hoping that I would gather enough courage to say hi to him. Instead, the next thing I know, he walked by without greeting me and I saw him waiting for the elevator with that private equity girl. She looked happy. I was feeling devastated.
Meaningless activities one after another. I think this year I will make a major change. I plan to leave the job altogether by mid-year and meanwhile, I am planning to go to Shanghai and not come back for a while. Meaning, no more half half. It should just be one place.
I need to find peace with my mind and spirit. That is the most important thing. My decade in Hong Kong shall draw to a close in 2014. Happy year of the horse!
Tuesday, January 21, 2014
A new step
Looking back, it had been a year since I started the blog, hoping that I could meet that special someone through methodical determination. A year later, nothing. I am however, spending half of my time in Shanghai and liking the change in environment. Though I am in Hong Kong right now. I like the warmer weather.
Sunday, December 15, 2013
Carpetbaggers and Chinese locusts
I had lunch with an old college friend who moved to Hong Kong in the past year. A young Chinese transplant like myself, she grew up in New York and works in media. A very headstrong girl. Though it can get annoying at times, I am nonetheless interested to see the world from her perspectives.
She is a go-getter and made it a goal to find a boy marry him and have a kid all in the span of one year. She achieved it, along with a few of my other friends. She recommended that Atlantic Monthly article "Marry him!" in 2008 that argued for settling.
When the conversation went to a more practical point, I said that I got what I needed from Hong Kong, that being citizenship and a house. To any financier, that would be practical and correct. My girlfriend cringed however and said that I sounded like a carpetbagger, or exactly like those Chinese locusts.
Do I? Isn't all that true in what I said? Everyone's in some place for something right? Like people move to the States to get a green card and make money, people move to New York to make it, etc, etc. Of course, I won't bring up that I learned a lot and matured through the experience, but aren't we all enslaved in some way in society and striving for that next goal? Am I too jaded or is she too idealistic?
In the evening time, despite the rain, I went to visit a local care group, or Bible Study group in Hong Kong. The couple's home was in Tin Hau and a very good part of it. I arrived all wet from walking uphill in the rain and they were surprised to see me. The woman told me that their yearly sessions were already over but invited me in for tea and gave me an umbrella afterwards. Their big house had five cats roaming about and gave me an instant feeling of home. If I were living like them, of course I'd like Hong Kong! The older guy told me that he was born in Shanghai but grew up in Hong Kong and his son having gone to Deerfield Academy, a premier boarding school in the US, now studies at Yale and is a swimmer there. They are in fact leaving for San Francisco to meet up with him this holiday season. An ideal life in Hong Kong indeed.
She is a go-getter and made it a goal to find a boy marry him and have a kid all in the span of one year. She achieved it, along with a few of my other friends. She recommended that Atlantic Monthly article "Marry him!" in 2008 that argued for settling.
When the conversation went to a more practical point, I said that I got what I needed from Hong Kong, that being citizenship and a house. To any financier, that would be practical and correct. My girlfriend cringed however and said that I sounded like a carpetbagger, or exactly like those Chinese locusts.
Do I? Isn't all that true in what I said? Everyone's in some place for something right? Like people move to the States to get a green card and make money, people move to New York to make it, etc, etc. Of course, I won't bring up that I learned a lot and matured through the experience, but aren't we all enslaved in some way in society and striving for that next goal? Am I too jaded or is she too idealistic?
In the evening time, despite the rain, I went to visit a local care group, or Bible Study group in Hong Kong. The couple's home was in Tin Hau and a very good part of it. I arrived all wet from walking uphill in the rain and they were surprised to see me. The woman told me that their yearly sessions were already over but invited me in for tea and gave me an umbrella afterwards. Their big house had five cats roaming about and gave me an instant feeling of home. If I were living like them, of course I'd like Hong Kong! The older guy told me that he was born in Shanghai but grew up in Hong Kong and his son having gone to Deerfield Academy, a premier boarding school in the US, now studies at Yale and is a swimmer there. They are in fact leaving for San Francisco to meet up with him this holiday season. An ideal life in Hong Kong indeed.
Tuesday, December 10, 2013
The back and forth
I escaped the smog in Shanghai, having experienced a terrible day last Friday in a mostly dreamlike cloud atmosphere, except your throat and your eyes tell you that it is not really that great for you. Back in Hong Kong. I am happy that there is a deadline to it all. I can be here, enjoy the air, enjoy the food, but next Friday I will be off again. I still have the same feeling toward my crush, but I am so happy that I can be leaving it all. I do not want my emotion and actions be restricted by the environment. I know I would not have the will power to fight it, so escaping makes it all so much easier, like a permanent vacation.
So many things going on around us in the macro economic environment, and I have lost on the Rmb appreciation in addition to the scary property price appreciation. I want to capture it. I would very much like to buy that apartment, even if it means stretching it a bit. A million USD. That's how much a half decent two bedroom apartment would cost. I am scrambling to gather the 300k down payment. I want a base there. It gives me purpose. I am doing something... rather than being trapped by a job, by people, by place.
Ten days...
So many things going on around us in the macro economic environment, and I have lost on the Rmb appreciation in addition to the scary property price appreciation. I want to capture it. I would very much like to buy that apartment, even if it means stretching it a bit. A million USD. That's how much a half decent two bedroom apartment would cost. I am scrambling to gather the 300k down payment. I want a base there. It gives me purpose. I am doing something... rather than being trapped by a job, by people, by place.
Ten days...
Grandma and girlfriends
Two separate topics:
First, my grandmother passed away today. She was 88 or so. I think the end of a life can involve quite a lot of suffering, and you can slowly wither away. I hope she went smoothly and is now without suffering.
Girlfriends. One of the local girls was quite aggressive in meeting my guy friends and we all went out for corporate lunch today. I do feel threatened around these younger girls, though she may be a friend. Especially in China when I feel like they know they have more power and can be using it.
First, my grandmother passed away today. She was 88 or so. I think the end of a life can involve quite a lot of suffering, and you can slowly wither away. I hope she went smoothly and is now without suffering.
Girlfriends. One of the local girls was quite aggressive in meeting my guy friends and we all went out for corporate lunch today. I do feel threatened around these younger girls, though she may be a friend. Especially in China when I feel like they know they have more power and can be using it.
Sunday, November 17, 2013
Resting in Maldives
I am resting in Maldives as we speak, trying to work on a few things for work. The resort island is beautiful but also quite expensive. Getting here on speedboat from the capital Male cost almost 200 US alone. Add to that the meal plan etc. I do need a break though. For almost half a year, I have been shuttling between Hong Kong and Shanghai and lying next to the beach of a neutral place is a good break. Come Monday I am off to Shanghai again. The morning I get into Hong Kong and in the evening I am off.
I think it will be a good change. Somehow my experience in Hong Kong has been deteriorating. After all these years, it is a pity that it is still not home. I don't know what I can find elsewhere but we shall see. The one thing I need to find to do is running a profitable business so I do not need to rely on work for all my attention span and all my possibilities in life. "Man is born free but everywhere he is in chains," that's the age old philosophy that still rings true. I want to be free from my chains and really live a spectacular life, a creative one, and a truthful one. I hope I can.
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