Life is so interesting in how it moves by us while we watch from behind these eyes. Somewhere it is all being recorded and stored away in the most amazing computer ever conceived, an organic web of cells that contains not only sights, but true 4D. It is not designed for access at will though, only certain events will easily coalesce in its lightrooms. Events written in emotion will often lay like a projection on water's surface, clearer images cast by the light of love and hate, lesser visions cast their recollections ever deeper below the surface. Our retrieval, like our lungs, has limitations. We can only go so deep.
This is one reason that I want to teach myself to feel things. I want to remember those things that should remain. This post will be a brief listings of just some of the things that I hope will stay with me:
- Friday morning we took some students to Tung Chung for a friendly basketball tourney organized by the police. The tourney was cool, but the ride back was amazing. We bused to Mui Wo and took a sampan across to Cheung Chau. Sampan rides are everyday for me now, but a night cruise is a rarity. A night cruise on a clear night even rarer. I sat on a chair on the bow and drank it in the whole way back. The stars above, and the city lights of Hong Kong in the background off our port side, beyond Hei Ling Chau's glowing prison lights. All it takes is remembering back to who I was, and where I was not even so many years ago. How did I ever get here! So sublime.
- Got the call late in the day early last week to go with one of the brother's as an escort to his mother's birthday dinner. English is not on the menu. He is Thai and Chinese. His family is wonderfully warm and inviting to this necessary stranger who must come with their son. As we sit in their little store with the aunts, one uncle, some cousins, and a genuinely gregarious grandfather I am fed some pre-dinner desserts of Ferrero Rocher© and a refreshingly sweet mango coconut dish. This eased what I anticipated to be an uncomfortable forty-five minute wait before we left for the restaurant. When we did sit down at the restaurant the uncle went after his young nephew with a merciless ribbing that entertained everyone at the table, especially the young cousins who gripped their sides as they laughed. I couldn't help but laugh even though I didn't understand a word. Grandpa kept making sure that my bowl was loaded up with abalone, prawns, crab (with egg and Chinese wine), and he wasn't even sitting next to me. It was an absolute blast.
- This morning I had to go into the city early to get some stuff for my son's birthday party, and while I was waiting for the fairy back I sat and ate a quick breakfast with a coffee at the Star Ferry pier in Central. Buddhist monks frequent this area, because just like sharks at the edge of a reef, they know there'll be food here. Food in the form of pasty white foreigners too travel giddy to know that this guy is just a religious scam artist without a cable show. He hands them some little trinket and then tells them that he needs money for his monastery, which they usually hand over. The guy I watched today didn't even try to fake humility, and clearly was agitated with how long it took for the gwai lo (鬼佬) to figure out that he wanted cash. The usual 100HKD (~$13CAD) was handed over and off the respective participants went. By his attitude I figured this guy needed the cash for his morning coffee fix. I wanted to yell,"You know the guy's a fake, right!?". Couldn't bring myself to do it though. Maybe next time.
- This one I did not witness, but my wife and daughter relayed it with such intensity that I had to include it here. When my daughter came to the dormitory to drop off some clothes for me she saw our elderly neighbor whacking a bamboo pit viper into Nirvana with a long stick; probably bamboo.
These brilliantly fluorescent green visitors are venomous and aggressive, but no more so than our aged neighbor who stands right around four feet high when she can straighten up, and that last happened on her 80th birthday. My oldest ran back into the house to tell my wife, about the goings on outside and when they arrived back at the scene granny was still whacking the thing. Apparently the buddha had not yet confirmed the viper's arrival in bliss. When she was finally satisfied that the reptile was no more she picked it up and disposed of its carcass, which my daughter said was dripping blood from its crushed cranium. I'll have to remember to keep the hissing to a dull roar the next time I saunter by her house.
There are more that I could write, but I'm gonna save them for a different glass of wine and free time. Thanks for reading. Cheers!
This is one reason that I want to teach myself to feel things. I want to remember those things that should remain. This post will be a brief listings of just some of the things that I hope will stay with me:
- Friday morning we took some students to Tung Chung for a friendly basketball tourney organized by the police. The tourney was cool, but the ride back was amazing. We bused to Mui Wo and took a sampan across to Cheung Chau. Sampan rides are everyday for me now, but a night cruise is a rarity. A night cruise on a clear night even rarer. I sat on a chair on the bow and drank it in the whole way back. The stars above, and the city lights of Hong Kong in the background off our port side, beyond Hei Ling Chau's glowing prison lights. All it takes is remembering back to who I was, and where I was not even so many years ago. How did I ever get here! So sublime.
- Got the call late in the day early last week to go with one of the brother's as an escort to his mother's birthday dinner. English is not on the menu. He is Thai and Chinese. His family is wonderfully warm and inviting to this necessary stranger who must come with their son. As we sit in their little store with the aunts, one uncle, some cousins, and a genuinely gregarious grandfather I am fed some pre-dinner desserts of Ferrero Rocher© and a refreshingly sweet mango coconut dish. This eased what I anticipated to be an uncomfortable forty-five minute wait before we left for the restaurant. When we did sit down at the restaurant the uncle went after his young nephew with a merciless ribbing that entertained everyone at the table, especially the young cousins who gripped their sides as they laughed. I couldn't help but laugh even though I didn't understand a word. Grandpa kept making sure that my bowl was loaded up with abalone, prawns, crab (with egg and Chinese wine), and he wasn't even sitting next to me. It was an absolute blast.
- This morning I had to go into the city early to get some stuff for my son's birthday party, and while I was waiting for the fairy back I sat and ate a quick breakfast with a coffee at the Star Ferry pier in Central. Buddhist monks frequent this area, because just like sharks at the edge of a reef, they know there'll be food here. Food in the form of pasty white foreigners too travel giddy to know that this guy is just a religious scam artist without a cable show. He hands them some little trinket and then tells them that he needs money for his monastery, which they usually hand over. The guy I watched today didn't even try to fake humility, and clearly was agitated with how long it took for the gwai lo (鬼佬) to figure out that he wanted cash. The usual 100HKD (~$13CAD) was handed over and off the respective participants went. By his attitude I figured this guy needed the cash for his morning coffee fix. I wanted to yell,"You know the guy's a fake, right!?". Couldn't bring myself to do it though. Maybe next time.
- This one I did not witness, but my wife and daughter relayed it with such intensity that I had to include it here. When my daughter came to the dormitory to drop off some clothes for me she saw our elderly neighbor whacking a bamboo pit viper into Nirvana with a long stick; probably bamboo.
These brilliantly fluorescent green visitors are venomous and aggressive, but no more so than our aged neighbor who stands right around four feet high when she can straighten up, and that last happened on her 80th birthday. My oldest ran back into the house to tell my wife, about the goings on outside and when they arrived back at the scene granny was still whacking the thing. Apparently the buddha had not yet confirmed the viper's arrival in bliss. When she was finally satisfied that the reptile was no more she picked it up and disposed of its carcass, which my daughter said was dripping blood from its crushed cranium. I'll have to remember to keep the hissing to a dull roar the next time I saunter by her house.There are more that I could write, but I'm gonna save them for a different glass of wine and free time. Thanks for reading. Cheers!
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