big hole in a qantas plane...

hmm I am going to be flying on one of those in a little over a week >.<

but on the upside, I don't have glandular fever!! hugs to Aine and Alan :) your well wishes protected me from such a nasty sounding virus.

I was down with fatigue after the trip to Kuching, guess my immune system is shot at the moment. Not too happy these days. Now I've caught a cold to go with my newly repaired but still sensitive tonsils...

let's hope the Qantas plane that I take on my way to Europe holds up better ;) even though the grammar in this post isn't holding up at all. bed time

What is fatigue?

It's the feeling when all your muscles hurt, your limbs don't want to move and every movement you do make causes pain and small cries. It's the feeling when your eyes are trying to close, but you're trying to keep them open, dark circles begin to form. One minute you are chirpy and the next minute you feel like you passed your bedtime by 3 hours. This is all in the middle of the afternoon - 4pm.

Now it is 10pm and I've been trying to eat and stay awake so I can take my medication. Previous doctor gave me antibiotics but the second gave me sleeping pills...apparently it's a viral not a bacterial infection. I might have glandular fever. When I look it up, the nickname is 'kissing disease' but I haven't kissed anyone for 6 months...so I think it's cos I was sharing drinks. Not doing that any more.

It's probably time to go to sleep now... ahhh getting ready for bed will take another hour because doing anything takes time.

This sucks, But I still want to attend those birthday parties tomorrow night...so I'm going to get lots and lots of sleep just like the second doctor said. Interesting experience seeing doctors in Singapore. Cultural observations to follow later.

Being away from home

Well after being away for so long, I met an Aussie today and we joked with good old sarcastic self-deprecating humour. The type I miss so much here where everyone is straight talking, honest and mean everything they say. Doesn't take a lot of guessing or wit to know what people mean. But it does take a little bit of the fun out of language.

I noticed that the Aussie girl hadn't changed much at all since going to HK but I have changed my style to fit in with the local flavour.

It makes me wonder, if I stay here for one more year, what would I become? Less of myself? Less of a Kiwi? Less Cantonese? More Singaporean? More of an international? A foreigner or a local?

Makes you wonder what identity is and how many you can take on in a lifetime. Or perhaps you just have one identity that is constantly changing.

Speak good Cantonese campaign

Apparently my Cantonese is getting worse. Something I already started noticing when I first moved to Wellington because I kept forgetting words; but I never thought the tone of my speech had also changed that much. I guess with 3 years living away from home and having no Cantonese speakers around you, one would experience that effect. People used to say my tones sounded fine even though I couldn't use high-level vocabulary. It helped that I had debates with mum and dad at the dinner table every night but I never had formal schooling unless you count kindergarten.

But this never became an identity issue until I moved away from my home. After that I realised that speaking Chinese is more than just a way to communicate to my parents and grandparents but also a way of showing that I am still Chinese.

Here, speaking multiple dialects is a badge of honour and is an important part of who you are. An identity crisis I am now facing: most people wonder if I speak any other language at all because I speak English with a Kiwi accent. In NZ speaking perfect Kiwi accented English helped you fit in, here, I feel it actually makes some people uncomfortable - i.e. my hairdresser who felt a lot better when I started speaking Cantonese with him!

Unfortunately, he is one of the few people whom I have entire conversations in Cantonese with now apart from my mum - she calls once every 2 weeks - and I only see my hairdresser once every 3 months! Does my Cantonese sound so bad that no one wants to talk to me in case they start to sound like me? Why do I even care? Is this another form of culture shock?

Maybe I'll feel more at home when I'm in Europe? I am so 'ang mo' (foreign) sometimes anyway. So many questions. I should just be comfortable in my own skin? I dislike ambiguity?

But I just wish I had someone to speak Cantonese with (more than 2-3 sentences a day that is). Where do I find this person? Will I find them in Europe? Is this self-discovery? Questions!

On life.

Someone once said:
"Life is a journey, not a destination"

Since life's final destination is death, one should definitely make the journey enjoyable, right? :D

One of those lessons to remember...

I sometimes hear people say it's harder to find new friends as you get older. You really start appreciating the old ones that you have or had.

Over the last couple of weeks I've had some pretty nice moments and some not-so-nice ones. Nice moments: I was lucky enough to meet lots of new friends from all over the world in Singapore and on Sibu Island. I also met up with some old acquaintances who quickly became friends over the course of their trip in Singapore. And got to go online a lot more these days after work to catch up with Kiwis in New Zealand and Hungary! And honorary Kiwis in Belgium.

Not-so-nice moments: Finding myself quite betrayed by some old friends, their remarks, their gossip and their behaviour. Makes you wonder if they were worth keeping at all and if they really held you as a friend in their eyes.

So should I write about the good or the bad? Taking an example from Ryan an old friend of mine, I think I'll start with the bad and finish with the good.

Have you ever wondered why guys like to score points on their mates by listing out all the girls who have ever liked them or even looked at them? And then even girls who rejected them miraculously transform into their 'past lovers'? I have wondered... and I think it's because they're telling the story. Here's my guess.

This is to keep their girlfriends on their toes so they know that:
a) those other girls never had a chance
b) what they have is valuable to other girls too

Nice.

What happens to those girls who become known as the 'bitches' and 'boyfriend stealers' in the eyes of their girlfriends? Well it doesn't matter to them anyway because these other girls are in the past.

Everything is fine until the girls find out. And frankly, I'm pissed off.

I don't like being told that I was madly in love with a guy 5 years ago when in actual fact I immediately rejected him as soon as I got a closer look. In another case, I don't like finding out that people I thought were friends only saw me as some past girl who never mattered to them at all but their girlfriends should be jealous of if I ever showed up again.

I'm sorry but I don't think these are things that friends do.

So taking the good with the bad. I am willing to accept that there will be 'friends' out there who really don't deserve your time and energy to keep.

On a high note though - I'm loving my friends in Singapore :) and let's hope I don't get into 'love affairs' I'm not aware ever took place at all.

Lesson learnt huh.

Caught in the middle

Mature beyond her years. Grace Wang is currently a celebrity. You may want to read this article to get some background and here it from her own voice.

Not many "victims" of incidents like this get the opportunity or have the courage to speak out. But the fact that she did shows that this is not a girl to be pushed around and good on her for standing up for what she believes in! And what does she believe in? Not China against rest of the world, not Tibetan independence but freedom for all and better understanding of cultures.

This girl learns languages in the hope of understanding more people and bridging the gap between people. She has learned there is no 'right' side in this argument, only lots of people who are not willing to quiet their own voices for just a moment to listen to what others have to say - even people who speak their language.

Lots to learn from this incident. And I've had some pretty intense conversations with Chinese people on this. In the past, I may have just taken the side of Tibet because we live in the 'free' world after all, but the more I interact with Chinese people, the more I've come to realise that neither side is 'right'. They see the whole situation in different ways. And simply jumping on the bandwagon without looking into the facts is what has conjured up these protests.

I am also beginning to realise what politics really is. Haha so much for taking politics 202 last year. This puts it all into perspective.