Beowulf on a Sunday

Saw Robert Zemeckis' Beowulf this afternoon at Cyberport. Throughout the whole film I had the impression that the lead actor was Gerard Butler, whom I totally admired in Phantom of the Opera, where he played a most dashing Phantom to Emily Rossum's bug-eyed waif-singer. I only found out when the credits rolled in that it was played by Ray Winstone.

The Butler vehicle was the 2005 feature Beowulf and Grendel directed by Sturla Gunnarsson - gotta hunt that down in the video stores. Here's the preview:



Zemeckis' movie was made using what they call motion capture, in order to effect a seamless merge of the CGI effects (necessary for the monster-troll sequences I suppose) and natural actors used in the film. The reviews have been mixed (TIME came out with a glowing review). But overall, I was personally powerfully moved by the mythology of it all. Beowulf is an adventurer, a hero with a flawed core. Aren't many of us the same? We are the heroes in our own lives, and we are all flawed. Yes, I mean you, and I'm looking at the mirror too. :-)

A thought-provoking afternoon and not just on account of Beowulf alone.

The blue room

This is my room at our house in Marilao, Bulacan, in the Philippines.

When we were little (some would say I have remained little, but that's another story, down boy!) I always wanted a room of my own, having always shared space with one sister or another. But when you have five kids in the family, two adults, and just three bedrooms there will inevitably be compromises. So I guess when I relocated to Hong Kong more than 10 years ago - although I had lived in the odd boarding house during my work stints in Manila - something in me expanded, was immensely grateful, and terribly excited, to have my own place at last. Even if I had to pay rent on it.

My first flat was the tinest bedsit in Causeway Bay, Hong Kong's overcrowded, 24-hour noisy shopping district. The place was all of 300 square feet, perhaps less, and when you pushed open the main door you would immediately be staring at the bed, living room and wardrobe. The toilet had the WC and immediately above it, the shower head. You can imagine what contortions showering entailed. Directly facing the bathroom door was the kitchen stove under which was an alcove that housed a mini fridge.

That was the smallest space I'd ever lived in, but it was the first true room I could call my own. What followed after that was a succession of rental flats, including two on Lamma island, where I had a balcony and could enjoy looking out on trees, green hills and the odd banana plantation.

Where I live now, in Pokfulam on the southwestern side of HK Island, is probably the best flat and location that my budget can afford (so far). The flat is over 500 square feet, which would make it about the size of my blue bedroom back home plus part of our kitchen. But the best thing is it overlooks green hillsides and in the summer the air is alive with birds. It's autumn-y now and I hear few or no songbirds of a morning, and although I still see the hawks wheeling there aren't as many of them as in the warmer months, they must be wintering in Barbados or something. the community is quiet and solidly middle-class, so no major dramas. Also, the 2-bedroom layout beloved of developers in these parts has been converted by the owner into a large single bedroom that has tons of space for my stuff. I like the sense of space.

When I moved to this flat I was dismayed by the Victorian-like wallpaper in the living room, in a kind of geometric floral pattern on silver-toned and textured grey background. The bedroom was awash in more wallpaper - an emerald green with thankfully no design, just texture. I wanted something more modern, more cleanlooking. I had visions of repainting but gave it up as it would have cost a pretty penny.

It's grown on me though, and I rather like that it looks like few other flats in my part of town. Other residential estates are newer, but they cost more, or don't have my panoramic green view. The only thing I regret is when the *##&*^&#&*^ water heater refuses to work and reduces me to marshalling my palanggana fleet, just to be able to wash my hair. And also the kitchen faucet keeps falling off - surprising quite a few friends when they come over for a meal or coffee and then try to help with the washing up.

But back to my blue bedroom. It's quiet, serene, peaceful, rather bare. I feel sometimes that I have abandoned it. It holds so little of me, so few personal effects, because I am abroad 11 months out of 12. But it's always going to be my haven, and it's always going to be home.

Autumn bougainvilleas

This time last year a good friend and I took a walk in the country park near my place (and if you've ever lived in Hong Kong you would know that the country parks here are tame and completely safe affairs with paved, oh yes paved, trails and greenery trimmed to within an inch of their lives) trawling for good photo ops that would really test the capabilities of her newly acquired Nikon DSLR.

She downloaded the images a few months ago and having glanced at them quickly - being really busy at the time - I thought no more of the little photography outing.

But just now I reviewed old pix as I was cleaning up my PC and found this beautifully sharp, crisp beauty (the photo, not the subject).

The lively reds of the bougainvilleas make a wonderful contrast to the dark curls of the ahem, subject. I like that the subject is slightly off-centre and is as detailed and sharp as the bunch of blooms, although I suppose another approach would've been to put the face in focus and blur the rest.

That does it

Having just learnt that the incomparable Maggie Cheung (check her out in In the Mood for Love, trailer below) is a fluent francais speaker I am hereby vowing to take my classes more seriously - even if they are held over in Kowloon Bay (!!!) - in hopes of wowing Cannes one day.

Gorgeous pictures

A friend in America - Glorious' other half - just sent a beautiful collection of some photos he took in Virginia. I am amazed at the colours! Will be browsing them in earnest over the weekend, but in the meantime if you're into nature or photography or Virginia or all three, have a look!

Animal story

I don't mind lizards. I mean, I'd rather they stayed out of my place, since for all that they resemble miniature dragons their smelly little droppings are not my idea of home decor. But I would never intentionally harm one. The last time I sent one to the Great Lizzy Heaven, it was because it got stuck to some scotch tape I had used to pack my mini stairmaster. So you can imagine how horrified I was this evening when a little one got sucked into the vacuum cleaner. I moved the coffeetable out of the way and it sprang out from underneath and direct into the machine's powerful suction. Oh, its horrific struggle to get free! For a couple of micro seconds I was frozen to the spot - I was sure it was going to get whooshed into the dust bag and from there to oblivion. But Nature is wise - the little beastie shed part of its anatomy (the upper right limb), and even before I could cut the power it had wriggled its way free, minus one limb. What survival instincts!

I hope its lost limb grows back!

Icarus thoughts

Icarus
by Rebecca Baggett

The story is so simple
really. Imagine
yourself gifted with wings,
every child's sleeping
and waking dream, imagine
that you could defy
that force dragging us all
to heel, imagine every sweet safe
green harbor below, laid out
for your choosing
like candies in their box.
Then imagine that one
gold coin, that fierce and pulsing
point around which worlds dance,
imagine the gentleness below
and that wildness above, imagine
that something in you echoed
to the leaping of its flames,
imagine how its one question
beat in your veins, how you saw
with perfect clarity that moment
in which each of us chooses,
forever. Imagine that voice
far below crying: Come
back Come back

Talking heads

Oohhh....what will they measure next?

The project "head" is a Professor Ball.

I'm full of bad puns this morning.

Why western shapes don't fit Chinese heads
South China Morning Post
September 18, 2007

A research project which measured the head shapes of 2,000 Chinese appears to have unlocked the mystery of why some products, like eyeglasses and safety helmets, do not fit Chinese users.

This is because the head of an average Chinese is rounder and higher than that of a westerner, according to the 18-month study.

Chinese heads are also smaller, usually measuring 540mm in circumference, compared with the 570mm western head. And the upper, rear section is much flatter.

The information, collected by a research team at the Polytechnic University's school of design, is arguably the world's first comprehensive databank of Chinese head sizes and facial features.

While the findings may sound trivial to some, the data has potentially huge implications for product makers targeting the Chinese.

Hats, glasses and even facemasks are made to fit western faces and heads, and often the physiology of Chinese consumers is not considered.

"Baseball caps sometimes sit awkwardly on Chinese heads. It is not about size, but the shape, because Chinese heads are higher," said Roger Ball, leader of the project SizeChina.com and assistant professor of the school of design.

"Understanding human size and shape is the cornerstone for designing successful consumer products, because every product relies on accurate fitting," said Professor Ball.

"Designers, engineers and architects need sophisticated data on head and face shapes to design best-selling products. How well a product fits us is the most important part of any successful design."

Working with local universities and community centres, the team collected head details from more than 2,000 volunteers aged 18 to 70.

A 360-degree rotary laser scanner was used to take readings of their heads.

The project began in April last year, with nearly HK$4.5 million funding from the government's Innovation and Technology Commission under the project titled "Perfect fit China".

Professor Ball, a sports safety products designer from Canada, developed an interest in the shapes and features of Asian heads after meeting a Japanese sales representative 10 years ago over poor response to helmets he had designed.

"I was told the shape of the helmet was not right, it was too tight a fit on the sides of the head," he said.

In compiling the data, the researchers visited six cities - Beijing, Hangzhou , Guangzhou, Lanzhou , Chongqing and Shenyang . Professor Ball said these were representative cities in the northern, eastern, southern and western parts of the mainland.

The project's technology supervisor, Chan Wai-yin, said they might consider a project to measure Chinese hands.

September the 16th

I am very much a secular person, and often I think my only religion, if you could call it that, is kindness. But sometimes I suspect there is a God and a heaven. And when I think of Eric, then I definitely wish with every atom and neutron and proton of my being, that there is indeed an afterlife, because I miss him so and thoughts of seeing my kid brother again would almost reconcile me to the D word.

We love you, kiddo. When I get there, I swear I'll be patient this time and play chess with you.

She's half the girl she used to be

Heh. heh.



Experiments in focusing, using my new Sony DSLR! Not quite as successful as I'd hoped, but I was trying to put my face into sharp focus and blur the background.

I really should have kids around - it's more fun photographing other people.

Kids...

Nah.

Highs and lows

The past week has been hectic at work, as we were trying to put the magazine to bed. Meeting production deadlines have always been a tough job for writers and editors--well that's why there are production managers in any publishing firm I guess. Many freelance contributors are habitually late with their stuff, or they wait until the very last minute. It must be a psychic thing. Having done freelance myself I can say an impending deadline can produce a massive adrenaline rush that can result in some of the best work I've ever done.

Highs and lows of the last few days:
* Erap's conviction. Although this brought a lot of rejoicing it also made some people wonder why comparable or even bigger offenders aren't being prosecuted. Imelda Marcos, for example, is flourishing and enjoying a revival of her popularity and clout. We Pinoys really are a forgiving lot.

* Friends in need. A good friend that I used to work with was going through a tough time in her personal life and also at work. While I, like all our other friends, felt tremendous sympathy for her, I also wanted to shake her and tell her it wasn't the end of the world, that things usually turn out for the best, that she will look back a month, heck maybe even a week from now at the string of events that upset her, and laugh about it. But the older I get the more I realise that the best way to help friends sometimes is to just be there for them and not bludgeon them with too much unsolicited advice. She was in a glum uncommunicative mood but after dimsum and a bit of window shopping yesterday her mood lifted, she was laughing at the end of the day, and the shadows seemed to have gone away. At least for a time.

* Grey skies. This week the horrible haze is back. After weeks and weeks of impossibly blue skies, HK is Pollution Land again. The Observatory said a freak southesterly wind--which blew all the pollution back to Guangdong--created those perfect days. Come back, come back! As I texted friends yesterday, I'm not sure I want to live in a city that is under a perpetual soupy haze compounded of diesel emissions from local vehicles plus the nasty stuff from the factories across the border! When I first came to Hong Kong in 1997 the skies were so clear and blue. They say the last blue skies were in 2000. But I think of how cloudless and clear the skies over the Philippines are--oh yes, even over Metro Manila--and I could weep. Last year, when I was vacationing in France, I was perpetually astonished by how clear the skies were. You could see forever into the distance. My flat, and I've mentioned this many times before, overlooks Hong Kong's low hills and I used to rejoice at the green vistas that gave me. Well today, I can barely discern the green slopes through the haze.

* What is it with restaurants? Dim Sum restaurant in Happy Valley (63 Sing Wo Road) was always my go-to to impress visiting out of towners because while its offerings were rather pricey they were reliably excellent. But my recent visit left me disappointed; either it was an off day for the chef--although how you can go wrong when the menu hasn't changed in years--or they're now cutting quite a lot of corners, but the food was BLAH! The hau gau was not as strikingly fresh as in the past, when the prawns seemed to be just minutes from the sea. The siu mai was so-so, the tea wasn't as earthy-rich (it was puerh, or po lei), and the 3 other dishes were just forgettable. I paid HK$220 ($7.7=US$1). In another dimsum restaurant I would have paid half the bill and probably come away more satisfied with the quality.

...Well look at that! Almost 9 am. Gotta start on the work I brought home. At least I don't have to worry about cleaning the flat--I finally gave in and asked a parttime cleaning lady to do the necessary. In three hours the place will at least sparkle.

Have a great Sunday everyone!

Might take a while though...

MANILA, Philippines -- Communist leader Jose Maria Sison has been freed from prison, just hours after a Dutch court ordered his release after it failed to find “sufficient indications” he was involved in the murders of former political colleagues in the Philippines.

But Sison, founder of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and its armed wing the New People’s Army (NPA), is not off the hook yet as the District Court of The Hague does not preclude him from being prosecuted on murder charges.

“The charges are not being dropped. The investigation will continue and the national police still consider him a suspect,” spokesman Wim de Bruin of the national prosecutor's office told INQUIRER.net in a phone interview.

The Dutch court only rules on the request to keep someone in custody, while it is the public prosecutor's office that decides on whether or not to prosecute.

“Now that he is released, there is no need for a trial within three months,” De Bruin said. “It can start longer than three months.”

Sison, who has been living in the Dutch town of Utrecht since 1987, was arrested on August 28 on charges of having ordered the murder, from the Netherlands, of former comrades Arturo Tabara and Romulo Kintanar.

According to Dutch prosecutors, Sison ordered the assassination of Kintanar, former NPA chief, on January 23, 2003. The murder was claimed by the NPA itself in an official publication, they said

Prosecutors are also investigating the role of Sison, 68, in the killings of Tabara and his son-in-law Stephen Ong on September 26, 2006. Tabara was a member of the highest command of the NPA and his assassination was also claimed by the rebel group.

The district court has established that the murders were committed in the Philippines due to disagreements within the CPP and that the decision to commit these crimes was made “within party structures of the CPP.”

Kintanar and Tabara were among rebel leaders who led a faction that split from the mainstream communist movement in the 1990s.

The court also recognized “many indications in the files which support the point of view that the accused is still playing a leading role in the Central Committee of the CPP as well as in the military branch of the CPP, the New People's Army.”

The court ruled however that there was not enough evidence to prove Sison committed the crimes in collusion with others or that he incited others to kill the victims.

De Bruin said the Dutch national prosecutor’s office will appeal the court’s decision to release Sison.

Full news here

Twice right

Erap will soon be behind bars!

And perhaps so too will Joma Sison!

Mysterious ways

Someone very dear to me has announced her impending marriage to a man who clearly is vastly superior to the one she nearly married a year ago. When THAT engagement was broken we all bled for her, so this one...is oh joy, such joy unexpected, a heavenly gift, like unlooked-for rain in the middle of a parched summer. If the previous engagement had gone ahead who knows what misery she might be in now? Truly, if you just let life take its course the reason for many things become crystal clear. I myself have railed against my own personal disappointments and failures, and yet now, with the benefit of hindsight, I could literally fall down on my knees and be grateful to the Creator that those events happened. Each one happened for a damn good reason.

My cup runneth over.

Kwento ni Emmet

P and I were chatting the other night about a Pinoy writer who, being fortunate enough to have the means to spend a vacation abroad (Greece, I think), had to be a crashing bore and a pathetic arrogant showoff to boot - her account of her plane trip was full of how annoyed she was to share coach class with many Pinoy OFWs (overseas foreign workers) with their 'working class' perfume and incessant chatter.

Not surprisingly the article aroused indignation not just among OFWs but non-OFW folk. I told P that I found the writer just too laughable and pretentious, so clearly a nouveau riche wannabe, she wasn't worth my indignation. Although I could understand how outraged many were.

But this overseas migration, this is a modern tragedy. Marami nang nasulat tungkol dito, ayoko na halos magdagdag pa kasi ang sakit isipin minsan. Pero nabasa ko ito at nakakaiyak uli. Bihirang Pinoy siguro ang walang kakilalang Emmet.

Facts of life

I was told the other day that some kids were calling my goddaughter E some very cruel names that had to do with her appearance and I was thinking to myself, God I’d like to slap those kids silly and oh my poor baby girl but then I realised that this is the way life is, this is the way many kids are, little savages who know just how to wound and will do so when they sense the slightest weakness just like sharks scenting blood, this is why kindergarten and grade school all the way to uni can be such hell. None of which will help E because the fact is in many situations you have to almost be preemptively the bitch, but what a difficult thing to learn when you’re only nine and have always always been completely loved and protected by your family and never needed to suit up in armour.

I still want to slap those thoughtless kids silly.

Public service announcement

In case you were wondering..

Having rejoined the workforce after traipsing around for a year, La Corsaire is still in a state of shock but hopes to recover in a few more weeks.

Julien dans En Aparté

Don't you just love that voice. Especially quand il chante en français!

"Ugly tourist"

Found this article in the NYT. I found several points interesting. I agree absolutely: any nationality can be a pain-in-the-ass tourist. Some offend by being loud and pushy, some by being arrogant (if not loud), some by pushing and shoving, some by merely dressing differently, eating differently, and a thousand other infractions of the daily code in the foreign place.

And more people will be travelling each year. With China's economy booming, there will be more and more Sino waves descending on the major tourist spots, whether it's tasting wine in Bordeaux, admiring the Statue of Liberty or snorkeling in Tubbataha. The traditional travelers--the Americans, Europeans, Japanese--will also grow in numbers.

What's the answer? Having been both the tourist (I could say 'traveler' I suppose, but I often sense a certain aura of moral superiority in those who prefer to be called that rather than the other apparently noxious term in this day and age. As if anyone who is not in his home country isn't a tourist by default. But that's a subject for another day) and toured, I can see both sides of the question. There is something annoying when a foreigner comes in and starts being demanding. Equally, when one is travelling (or touring ;-p)one is somewhat disoriented and takes one's own cultural habits and attitudes, since you can't really leave those behind like an old shirt.

The answer then would be a spirit of mutual accommodation. The "toured" tries to understand that the tourist not only makes a contribution to the local economy--they're human too, with the curiosity native to any human being, and that's why they're around. And the tourist should try to be more sensitive. Both sides seeking to understand and communicate with some degree of compassion and fellowship.

New York Times
May 27, 2007

They Came, They Toured, They Offended
By PAUL VITELLO
EVERY summer, people all over the world become acquainted again with a deep truth spoken by the philosopher-tourist Steve Martin.

He was speaking for tourists everywhere, not just to France, when he said: “Boy, those French, they have a different word for everything!”

That people from different countries observe different customs — not only of speaking, but of eating, sleeping, gesturing, counting change, observing boundaries of personal space, tipping cab drivers, standing in lines, avoiding certain topics of conversation at dinnertime as unbearably disgusting — is a truism one probably can never be reminded of too often.

Especially this year, which according to statistics compiled by New York City, is likely to be a very big year for foreign tourists around here. The dollar is cheap. The shopping is endless. And about seven million foreign visitors are expected in the city — the highest number since before 9/11 — mainly from Britain, Ireland, France, Italy, Spain, Scandinavia and Germany.

This is good news for New York, of course. Foreigners who vacation in the United States spend about four times as much as American tourists do.

But it is bad news only in those isolated cases (which you hear about if you talk to cabbies, tour guides and certain sarcastic individuals in sales) where the awe of Mr. Martin’s revelation is supplanted by the ugly reality of a culture clash — a tip denied, a personal boundary violated, or a long line at a drug store counter jumped by a family of Italian-speaking people, who forever thereafter shall be remembered by the offended party present (an acquaintance of mine) as those “ugly Europeans.”

Let it be said that no group holds a monopoly on the title of “ugly.” Tip-stiffing, line-jumping, excessive price-haggling, sidewalk-blocking-when-stopping-suddenly-to-take-pictures-of-a-person-playing-the-steel-drums — none of these are unique to any national group.

Expedia, the online travel service, conducted a survey of tourist boards around the world that rated British tourists as the most obnoxious. Some people in the tourism world claim that the Chinese, the newest wave of world travelers, are even more so.

Whatever. Is it time, at least, for retiring the term “ugly American” from the dictionary of foreign phrases?

The answer, according to experts in the rarified field of tourism anthropology, is a possible yes.

“Ugly” behavior in tourists is almost always in the eye of the people being toured; and Americans are no longer the only, or even the dominant group of tourists out in the world. We are now as often toured as tour-ing.

And New Yorkers, it turns out, are just as likely to be exasperated being toured by tourists unfamiliar with their local mores about tipping or standing in check-out lines, say, as the Achuar tribesmen of Ecuador are to be offended by tourists who sit on certain sacred rocks.

“The Achuars have actually developed a list of rules for tourists,” said Sharon Gmelch, an anthropology professor at Union College in Schenectady, N.Y. “If you are a man, you are not to look directly at a woman, for example. You are not to sit in certain sacred places, or touch anyone’s person. You’re not to take pictures without asking permission. Some of these rules might work in New York, too, I would imagine.”

Nelson H. H. Graburn, a professor of anthropology at the University of California at Berkeley, said one of his graduate students recently asked tour guides in China to rate the tourists from various Western countries.

“They told her that Israeli, French and American tourists could be the most difficult,” Professor Graburn said, “but that what distinguished Americans was that they could be loud and demanding, and then would invariably apologize and give them big tips.”

To be an ugly tourist is to miss the fundamental truth in Mr. Martin’s statement. “It is to have an overall lack of understanding that there is such a thing as cultural difference,” wrote Prof. Inga Treitler, the secretary for the National Association for the Practice of Anthropology, in an e-mail message.

Valene Smith, an anthropology professor at California State University at Chico who pioneered the academic study of tourism and travel in the 1970s, said that the tourists most likely to be deplored by their hosts these days are not the euro-rich Europeans or the British or the standard ugly Americans but the Chinese.

“They have only been traveling widely in the last five years or so, but they are touring in numbers no one has seen before — by the thousands,” she said. “They behave as they would at home — there is a lot of pushing and shoving. Very few speak languages other than Chinese.”

Last summer, in an incident widely discussed among travel experts, she said, 40,000 Chinese tourists descended on the small German city of Trier to visit the birthplace of Karl Marx.

“It was quite a mess,” Professor Smith said. “No one was prepared ahead of time. The Germans were quite upset.”

And so, my fellow Americans, this summer let us host and be hosted as travelers in a world in which we are no longer alone; a world where we can venture forth with the unschooled of other nations, and join hand in hand in ignorance of all the different words those French have for everything!

Itchy feet, again

Half the fun of the travel is the esthetic of lostness.
~Ray Bradbury

Commercial break

I'm sorry, but isn't he beautiful?

The first time I saw Will Yun Lee was in the Witchblade, that short lived TV series starring Yancy Butler (another beautiful person, although a bit the worse for wear nowadays - all thar hard drinking will tell). You couldn't take your eyes off him - he was that magnetic. He had other film roles (Colonel Moon in James Bond's Die Another Day), but the next time I really watched him onscreen for any decent length of time was in Elektra, the 2005 movie starring Jennifer Garner, where he played the villain Kirigi. His upcoming movie is Bionic Woman - can't wait!*

WYL was born in Virginia, which is where another Korean recently went on a shooting spree. Wonder how WYL feels about that.

*Obviously he doesn't actually play the bionic woman, ano.

The boys and girls of summer

With temps hitting 33 C there was nothing for it but to hit the beach last Saturday, but if you think you're going to get a glimpse of my avoirdupois you are sadly mistaken. My friends however are braver (these young 'uns....) and so, ladies and gentlemen, I present: the Beach Boys and Girls!

Setting was Big Wave Bay, which is a lovely, clean and not too crowded little beach towards the south end of Hong Kong Island. Very popular with the surfer community. I just read today that the red tide is spreading in Hong Kong's beaches, so that was perfect timing.

I am laughing so hard

It's too hot to think of saving the world right now. Maybe later. Meanwhile, there's this incredibly insightful demonstration of the perils of global warming.

Look right - isn't the weather widget cool? That's because I can't be bothered to check out the weather forecast on TV.

Dalawang abuela

I very closely resemble my mom, and in turn she looks very much like her mother, my lola Elena who recently passed away. Lola Elena, now she was a tough cookie; she was known all her life as being something of a fishwife, and by that I mean no disrespect whatsoever, only an honest recognition of her nature. She did sell fish--making the long trek from the Malolos talipapa (wet market) all the way to Manila every day--and she did always have plenty to say. About nearly everything! Her attitude towards life was robust, forthright, and a broad streak of asperity colored all her dealings with others - her family and clan as well as friends and neighbors.

Palaban, ika nga. Walang pinangingimian. A very different kettle of fish from my lola Bebeng who was the soul of gentleness and discretion....Incidentally, my sister Vicky looks very like Lola B, from the long straight nose to the cast of the forehead, while I have Lola E's facial cast and shall we say very petite stature, as well as her ringing laughter. But I am more peaceable, like Lola B I think!! Whereas V is a war freak :-p

In any case both my lolas were women of admirable fortitude. These were people who survived World War II. When I was little, some of my worst dreams involved being caught in war, where I was always enveloped in a cloud of indefinable dread. My grandmothers lived through those times and flourished, eventually raising large broods: Each had seven children who survived to maturity.

Many ancient ones, when they pass on to the hereafter, leave heirlooms behind. While I have nothing material from either lola I like to think they left me and all their grandchildren and great-grandchildren something even better: personal grace and the sheer stubbornness that sometimes is the only thing that will see you through life's rough patches. To know that I am part inheritor of lives very richly lived--it's the best legacy ever. (Though a baul of vintage clothing wouldn't have come amiss. Joke!)

My Islands

Even as the bough breaks
from the sheer weight of song
so does my heart break with love,
so will my rivers flow
to kiss the sea's warm eternal breast,
so will my islands poise their hills
against the sun.

My heart is proud
of this dream and prouder yet my rivers
of the faith that keeps the pace
of tides and moons, and prouder
still my islands of their hills.


From - who else? - the late great NVM Gonzalez, National Artist. I confess I found his A Season of Grace hard going; my mind is not built for the patient reading it requires. But I always always loved My Islands, which I first encountered in one of my first- or second-grade textbooks back in our Malolos days. Often when I read this verse it calls up an image of a sleepy bamboo grove somewhere in a barrio. In this mind's picture, it is always noon. The sun is a white glare in the sky. Someone -- a tired farmer, perhaps -- has wiggled into that leafy refuge for a midday nap. His hat is a crushed pillow cushioning his head, and his limbs are asprawl in slumber. He snores. Around him all is quiet except for the friendly hiss-hiss-hiss sounds that bamboo makes when the wind stirs it, and the gurgle of a nearby ilog.

Ewwwwwwww

Seen on www.scmp.com this morning at around 9:30:



Sure hope the French chef doesn't actually plan to dish that up.

However, fear not - in another page in the same section, the webmaster got it right:

Words

Words. Sometimes they fail me. Sometimes I post trivia, I swipe videos from Youtube, I photograph cupcakes and cookies, because I need the light relief. April and May, the months of spring--they’ve brought lightning too. Two grandmothers passing away after long, well-lived lives. Remarkable women; but when was being a grandmother or a mother anything less than remarkable? When is that profound decision to bring life into the world, to start a new branch in your section of the human tree, ever anything less than insanely brave? (Or breathtakingly foolhardy, as I sometimes think.)

Continuity. Moving forward. We make that decision every day. Someone who is like a sister to me recently had a medical diagnosis that made this a very real issue, because as it turned out her condition would be immensely alleviated by having a child. A solution with its own complication.

New generations. Four kids, each different, each a wonderful sapling. Vicky’s eight-year-old AJ, precociously articulate. Lee’s sturdy Geoff, fairly vibrating with mischief. Betchie’s comic Jill, who likes more than anything to make faces. And my goddaughter, Erika, growing up enfolding everyone in her big-sister embrace, and yet the most fragile of them all.

What do you do when your cup runneth over with love for these creatures, whom you had never imagined could exist?

A friend's child celebrates his first birthday. He is beautiful too, this boy. Soft, plump, a ball of tenderness, lavish with his smiles.

Life overflows. I am enmeshed in ties of blood and connections. Parents, sisters, brother. Uncles, aunts. Cousins and cousins’ children. Lost grandparents. Carriers of pieces of my own genetic code. Friends, comrades, neighbors. Strangers. All builders of my social DNA. I am caught in a web of need and loss, love and animosity (and insecurity, and pigheadedness, vanity, pettiness). But it is all to be cherished. I am grateful to life, in all its events. Even when it drives me inchoate or leaves me speaking in code.

Stuck!

This is what I do when tormented by writer's block (or not a block really, since it implies that there is usually an uninterrupted Zen-zone of flow in my writing, instead of the spasmodic fits and starts, let-me-just-pop-a-bowl-of-popcorn or have-a-drink-of-water getting up and sitting down that characterizes the process 90 percent of the time)....I trawl the Web for inspiring bits of prose and verse written by people 1 thousand million gajillion bazillion times better than I ever will be:

Litany

You are the bread and the knife,
The crystal goblet and the wine...
-Jacques Crickillon

You are the bread and the knife,
the crystal goblet and the wine.
You are the dew on the morning grass
and the burning wheel of the sun.
You are the white apron of the baker,
and the marsh birds suddenly in flight.

However, you are not the wind in the orchard,
the plums on the counter,
or the house of cards.
And you are certainly not the pine-scented air.
There is just no way that you are the pine-scented air.

It is possible that you are the fish under the bridge,
maybe even the pigeon on the general's head,
but you are not even close
to being the field of cornflowers at dusk.

And a quick look in the mirror will show
that you are neither the boots in the corner
nor the boat asleep in its boathouse.

It might interest you to know,
speaking of the plentiful imagery of the world,
that I am the sound of rain on the roof.

I also happen to be the shooting star,
the evening paper blowing down an alley
and the basket of chestnuts on the kitchen table.

I am also the moon in the trees
and the blind woman's tea cup.
But don't worry, I'm not the bread and the knife.
You are still the bread and the knife.
You will always be the bread and the knife,
not to mention the crystal goblet and--somehow--the wine.


Billy Collins

Infuriating

Are they for real?

Another cockeyed proposal that mistakes the symptom for the problem! The government's too tax-happy as it is. If implemented, it will result in ALSO penalizing overseas wage earners who will very likely be forced to send more to compensate for the taxation. The taxation system is already corrupt and inefficient--one wonders where the extra taxes will really be used efficiently or whether it will be swallowed up by the same usual mysterious channels. And why for heaven's sake shift more of the burden of sustaining the economy to the struggling lower and middle classes??

Paling na naman!

MANILA, Philippines -- The government should tax income remittances from overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) and use the proceeds to shore up the productivity of workers left behind, a study by De La Salle University’s business and economics experts has proposed.

The research, titled “The Economic Impacts of International Migration: A Case Study on the Philippines,” written by Tereso Tullao, Michael Angelo Cortez and Edward See, said: “The possibility of increasing and internalizing the cost of international migration may be considered to reduce the economic ills it has generated. Such a move can arrest the possible hollowing effects on industries and mitigate the loss in international competition.”

The study suggested that these same remittance incomes pouring into the country had nurtured dependence, contributed indirectly to the contraction of industries and developed a culture of migration among Filipinos.

One way of compensating the country for the loss of migrants who attended government-funded state universities and colleges, the study said, would be to oblige them to compensate for the cost of their education.

“Another option is to impose some form of exit tax on migrating workers like nurses whose massive exit has affected nursing education as well as the health sector of the country,” said the study, which was presented during a recent international forum on labor migration conducted by the National Economic and Development Authority.

It acknowledged that the huge amount of remittances sent by OFWs as captured in official central bank statistics and a substantial amount unaccounted for that flows through the various informal channels had contributed significantly to the growth and stability of the national economy in recent years. But instead of alleviating unemployment, it argued that international migration has reduced the demand and supply of labor.

“International migration has increased the reservation wage of individuals coming from households with remittance income,” the research said.

The study also said that temporary overseas employment had the potential of depressing domestic industries and contracting employment similar to the consequence of the “Dutch disease,” referring to a situation in which dependence on a natural resource could erode competitiveness.

“The phenomenon of international migration, more particularly, temporary overseas employment, has also reduced self-reliance among individual members of the households. This has been shown in the long-term consumption pattern of households,” the research said.

It added that the reduced labor force participation of family members with remittance income can be interpreted as another manifestation of dependence.

Nawa'y maayos

Halalan ngayon sa Pilipinas. Sana mapayapa at di (masyadong) magulo.

http://eleksyon2007m.inquirer.net/running/

Sunday afternoon in Aberdeen

Aberdeen is an old old town in the southern district of Hong Kong and was reputed for its fishing trade. These days the fishing industry remains significant -- a third of Hong Kong's seafood supply is said to come through Aberdeen -- although few of the fishing families live on their boats now.

In daytime and on weekdays, it seems that Aberdeen is a town of old people. Nearly everyone you see strolling about in the town square is a sexagenarian, if not a sept- or an octo-. The town comes alive only in the afternoons when the children are let out of school, in the early evening as office workers get home and the char chan tengs and roast shops do a roaring trade in dinner, and on the weekends.

The promenade beside the harbour is especially attractive. There's usually a cool breeze blowing even in summer, and the sight of sampans, kaitos, trawlers, pleasure boats and other watercraft is soothing to anyone sick of office blocks and cramped cubicles. Just don't fall into the water.

Fantasia Barrino - Summertime

Bebiana

Today we bury my grandmother
I am far away. Seven hundred miles as the plane flies
But I see the serried ranks of baked white headstones
Jostling for a glimpse of the regnant sun

She was as flint richly seaming
the cracked seared earth of La Union
Hers was the faith in small daily graces
And the constant redemptions of the mundane
Scraggly vegetables plucked from the unyielding soil
Rice roasted and served in tin cups for coffee
Black thick-bristled native pigs slaughtered for a feasting
Thrifty stream alive with sturdy brown children
Circled by the pungent scent of flue-cured tobacco

She was my grandmother from the north. I never
really knew her, did not speak her tongue.
I should have.
She would have known the many tales of the tribal north
The lover who stored his woman’s breath in a bamboo tube
And waited to be reunited as she floated down the river
She would have known about the trees, the grains and fruits of the land
The fish and the beasts
The songs, the rituals, the faith
She would have known what it takes
To birth a child and bury him
To dream of love and bury that too
To stay the course through ninety-odd years
Rising daily, waking at dawn, turning one’s face to a burning sun
Still smiling that Mona Lisa smile.

For my grandmother, Bebiana Amoyen, 1914-2007

The trip north

La Union is where half of my heritage lies. This is the place my father called home before he and Mom decided to raise their kids in the province of Bulacan in central Luzon. As a result my sisters and I never learned the language and the traditions of the north. I know my father still misses his hometown. But I, despite the occasional summers spent there as a kid, have only fragmented images of Sudipen, that town in La Union where Lola Bebeng and Lolo Caloy, his parents, spent most of their lives.

Lola Bebeng died April 26 at the ripe old age of 93, having outlived her husband by more than a decade. I flew home to pay my last respects, but could not stay for the funeral.

She had a harsh life. Coming from a landed family (the Amoyens had been well known in the district for many many years), she eloped with an adventurer and had seven children by him -- my Dad, Ariston the eldest; Carlito, who looks so much like his father; Ruben, with whose family my sisters lived in Baguio City during their college days at St Louis University; Nene, my aunt who lives in Hong Kong; Gloria, who married an American and has made Oregon her home for the past 13 years; Helen, who has four kids and lives in the family compound in Sudipen; and Romeo, who went into the Philippine army and died fighting rebels in Mindanao. In the early days money was hard to come by and she had to sell off her inheritance--land--parcel by parcel to support her children's education.

Her children have all made good, and helped make her old age more comfortable than her middle years. But this prosaic summary does not do justice to the grace, dignity and astonishing fortitude she showed in life. Lola Bebeng's history, the history and legacy of this side of my family--I still do not feel equal to writing about it adequately. I simply do not know enough; after all, I paid it no attention for decades. But I hope to one day soon find the words to honor and celebrate such a life well lived.

In the meantime, some pictures. In April, the Ilocos region--and much of the Philippines--bakes in 36 to 40 degree heat. High summer is the cruellest time. The air hardly moves, the fields are seared; animals look thirsty and take refuge in drying rivers; in many households water supplies run low.


But a tributary of the Amburayan river from the Mountain Province runs through Sudipen and the townspeople take full advantage of its cool clear waters to escape the summer heat.





When she was still strong, my lola would have bought these onions and garlic at the town market. Maybe the field snails too:




And she would cook on these clay stoves so typical of the region:



I found this interesting history of Sudipen. The town has undergone a number of political changes this century. It even used to be part of Mountain Province. There is much to learn and remember.

He looks at me

The Pokfulam riding school is a public riding academy near the Pokfulam country park, and a 10-minute walk from my flat. Lessons are HK$360 an hour for adults (about US$45) with one caveat: You must be 175lbs or less. Children pay HK$290 for a 45-minute session, and they must be below 105lbs. If that's not an incentive for budding equestrians to stay slender I don't know what is.

Waterlogged memories

Burano: crazy colorwheel of an island, situated just off Venice. Rows and rows of little houses looking as though they had been painted by a nutcase on an acid trip. Comedic, hallucinogenic. Cerise, salmon pink, acid yellow, lavender, aquamarine, ochre. A visual treat despite the rain that fell nonstop the day we visited.



History says that in the days when Burano was mainly a fishing community, the island women painted their houses in bright colors so their husbands could easily pick out their homes from the sea. These days, the residents are required to repaint their houses every year, and always in the same color.



We reached the island after a 40-minute ferry ride from Venice. Rain kept pelting the windows, and while we were mostly dry inside the boat, the occasional seaspray managed to get through. Ignoring the rising smells of damp denim and wet people, we entertained ourselves royally, collapsing in mirth at our own lurid Pinoy jokes, and frequently ogling our fellow passengers -- which included some of the most gorgeous Italian priests this side of the Rose Line. Mama mia!

You'd think it was the monsoon...

But no, it's just the spring rains, driven by gusty winds whipping the hillside opposite my building.

It is really, really pissing down -- rain has been falling in a steady downpour all day. But wrapped like suman in my trusty raincoat I went about my day quite enjoying the fresh dampness of the air: lunch with a friend, a stop at the tailor's to collect repaired trousers, and then on to pick up magazine proofs I am to read tonight.

Anyway. Someone sent through Raymond Carver's "Principles of a Story" -- a compelling essay for anyone who writes for public consumption. While the essay was addressed to short story writers, one passage in particular spoke to me:

That's all we have, finally, the words, and they had better be the right ones...If the words are heavy with the writer's own unbridled emotions, or if they are imprecise or inaccurate for some other reason--if the words are in any way blurred--the reader's eyes will slide right over them and nothing will be achieved. The reader's own artistic sense will simply not be engaged.

This is because for countless years I was an imprecise writer; bridles were a foreign country. I hurled words and feeling onto the page with very little craft involved. It is only lately that I started learning about the power of factuality, selectivity and precision. How to show, not tell. How to bank my emotion, thereby allowing the reader to call forth his.

In Texas they fry rattlesnakes

The Chinese are big on snake, both for its medicinal properties -- the bile is especially prized -- and as warming food during the winter months. Photo shows a typical Chinese shop on Shau Kei Wan Road on the eastern side of Hong Kong Island. The shop sells looseleaf tea in big glass jars, dried mushrooms (shown left), dried snake (middle) and dried frog (right), among other delicacies.

In Texas they fry rattlesnake, dredging it first in cornmeal. Among the Chinese the two most popular ways of preparing snake are stirfries or stews. (Here's a good article on snake preparation). Despite living in Hong Kong since 1997 I have not yet found the guts to try snake though.

As for dried frog, one of my Chinese friends says it helps boost the reproductive system -- I reckon this is badly needed in Hong Kong since birth rates here are falling -- and is good for the skin too. Ideally only the frog's reproductive organs should be consumed.

The mushrooms on the far left are variously called lion's mane, monkey head or bear's head mushroom. It's supposed to be a brain tonic and a digestive aid.

I'm visualising dumping all three ingredients into a stew and letting it bubble away in some wicked magical kawa somewhere...with perhaps a bit of toadstool, a smidgen of wolfsbane and fresh newt.

Conjugating the conditional

The new term starts at Alliance Francaise today - well actually, it started last week but I skipped the first day of class. Happily, I finished today's work ahead of time and was quite pleased with how it turned out too. It's a highly technical paper on manufacturing systems I wouldn't ordinarily touch, not having the expertise, but I can be quite stubborn: I was challenged by the very fact that I wasn't an expert.

The week starts well. An hour from now will find me conjugating the conditionnel - wish me luck!

What's playing: Catherine Tate - Lauren's French Oral

Return to Me - October Project

The problem with writing

The curse of perfectionism is perhaps the single biggest stumbling block as I put pen to paper. Every time I receive a writing assignment, I am initially excited, and set about lining up interviews, visiting places if required, doing Web research and jotting down words or phrases that I think will make the final product "pop" - that is, give it an extra oomph.

But then, when the deadline looms, I sit in front of the computer, dashing off one lead after another, agonisingly (notice how my spelling is erratically British; that's because the publications I write for now stick to British English) unable to commit to a single lead, a single approach.

This process will generally take at least an hour. More often, three hours have passed before I am happy with the way the article begins.

Which means that any single article, even if it is just 500 words, will take me the better part of the day.

It may be that for those of you who write for a living (or who just love to write) a lot of the work will already have been done by the time you type the first word to an essay, a short story, or magazine article. You'll have massaged your ideas into some semblance of shape. That wonderful alchemical process will already have taken place in your brain. And sometimes when I am lucky this happens to me also. But more frequently, for me the story becomes a story only in the very act of writing. Out of nowhere it seems, the words come, phrases arrange themselves, and new ways of saying things spill out of god knows what dark creative caves in my mind. But it only starts to happen when I am actually picking out the letters on the keyboard. It's a though I need the visual cues, the shape, the curves, the architecture of the letters themselves, the spaces and punctuation to give birth to thought.

This birthing, it is tedious. I come to it with dread. I delay it and delay it. I fix up the house, rearrange my closet, wash a few dishes before I can bring myself to sit down and write. And yet nothing, almost nothing else I do in my working life, gives me greater pleasure. I do not yet write fiction (although I feel there is at least a few essays and maybe a short story and a poem in me), but feature writing, journaling, and even the most mundane of blog posts keep something in me alive.

The yellow station

Many of the train stops of the Hong Kong subway system are color coded. One of my favorites is Wanchai Station, because the wall paint and mosaic tiles are an eyepopping lime green. In the past couple of days I've also come to know Sai Wan Ho Station, as I visited the district to do research for a commissioned article.



After a bleary half-hour on the train, the yellows, tangerines and mustards of Sai Wan Ho Station are guaranteed to stun you awake...

Easter boy

Photo taken Easter Sunday in the World Trade Center mall in Hong Kong which had the egg exhibit and a children's play area where the little tykes could draw their own designs on the eggs.

Happy Easter!

Spring has come. Color is returning to the landscape. The trees are shaking off the stupor of a startlingly short winter and starting to bud. The ground is carpeted with coral blooms. Spindly brown branches are thickly clustered with furled petals. Outside my window the birds are making a racket; they seem to be drunk on song. On the streets, few woollen coats and jackets to be seen; cotton is back, and pale colors and maybe a hint of linen, although no one is wearing white trousers just yet. Inside me, I feel myself thawing too. Time to leave winter's fug behind. I love this resurgence of the year.

Happy Easter everyone! Shall we agree to make it a year of marvels?

Warm-weather eats

With the TV stations and weather reports trumpeting the coming of spring, my thoughts turn, naturally, to warm-weather eating. In between writing about posh serviced apartments and equally posh shopping malls I find myself dreaming of food. It may have something to do with the travel programme currently on TV at this very moment - I hear Samantha Brown waxing orgiastic about Sorrento in southern Italy while I sit tapping away on my laptop.

September 2005: my first visit to Italy. I was with several friends, and we were in the center of Florence. It was searing hot that day. The cobblestoned streets were radiating heat in waves. It didn't stop tourists like us from trudging from one painting and marble statuary to another. Arms and legs bare, glistening with sunscreen. Everyone festooned with bottles of Pellegrinos, oversized sunglasses and straw hats. But after hours of oohing and aahing over the marvels of Florence we needed a break. We needed L-U-N-C-H.

You can only take in so much art - the stomach demands its due. We limped and drooped our way to a trattoria near the Uffizi Museum and top of the agenda was -- after ice-cold beers -- a salad. A caprese to be exact.

Easy enough to reproduce. It's better if you can get hold of really top-quality tomatoes, oils, olives and cheeses, but even approximations can be wonderfully restorative.

* about 4 large ripe tomatoes, sliced ¼ inch thick
* 1 pound fresh mozzarella, sliced ¼ inch thick
* ¼ cup fresh basil leaves
* ¼ teaspoon dried oregano, crumbled
* 4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
* fine sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

On a platter, arrange tomato and mozzarella slices and basil leaves, sprinkle with oregano and drizzle with the oil and vinegar. Season with salt and pepper. Add olives as desired.

We also enjoyed a tasty pizza with tons of mozzarella and a crispy crust:



With sharp and mild cheeses and perfect globes of grapes...



The meal could have ended there, but a generous slice of almond pie was the perfect finishing touch.

Friday yeah Friday!

I love Fridays, next only to Saturdays. On Saturdays a whole universe of leisure possibilities lie on your hands. But Fridays give you the first tantalizing glimpse of that universe, and the anticipation can sometimes be too much for dedicated slackers (like me).

Today is going to be busy, with proofs to read for the magazine I copyedit, and a rush commission from The Newspaper. Actually, the second is somewhat of a breeze: I was given a press release kit to slap into something that more closely resembles editorial. Not exactly high journalism, but it keeps the juices flowing. So: A cup of the blackest brew -- Italian roast, Waitrose; my Turkish coffee and Figaro barako supplies having run out at this point -- a quick shower using a fleet of palangganas (my hot water heater having decided to conk out, and as it's not yet warm enough despite the arrival of the spring equinox to take cold showers, I'm improvising my hot water supply) and I plunge into the day.

At 8 - freaking - a.m.!

To the table!

One of my new favorites is pancit palabok with tuna. Yep, tuna as in tinned tuna, canned tuna, Century tuna. It's made a few appearances on my table and I've brought it to the occasional potluck at a friend's place.

You could call this cuisine a la pobre - or maybe even cuisine minceur if you're the optimistic type (cos all those boiled eggs don't do your cholesterol count any favors).

Anyway, nothing could be simpler:

Tuna pancit palabok

For the sauce:
* 225g can of tuna in oil (tastier than brined)
* 1 pouch Mama Sita pancit palabok mix
* chopped onions and garlic for sauteeing
* a few drops of fish sauce (patis), salt and pepper to taste
* any type of white noodle

Garnish
* lemon/lime/calamansi slices, sliced hard-boiled eggs, chopped spring onions, fried garlic

Method:

First, soak noodles in water for 5 to 10 min.

Saute onions, then garlic. Add mix, stir fry briefly. Add the tuna with some of the oil from the can and season with the patis, salt and pepper. Let simmer a few minutes, then get cracking with the noodle. Bring a pot of salted water to boil, blanch noodles till al dente, and drain into a bowl. Add the sauce, and top with garnishings of your choice.

À table!

Today's horoscope for Cappies

While you may have valor, resolve, and even vigor, what you don't have is a basic understanding of what those words actually mean.

Want more? Here's more.

Child labor

So one Sunday morning, or it could have been Saturday, Mom was sweeping the front yard clear of debris (it's part of her morning aerobics haha) when out comes my little four-year-old nephew, squares his shoulders, flexes his fledgling boy muscles, and manfully takes over Operation Linis.



We couldn't dissuade him.



What a boy.

Back from Outer Mongolia

For some time I have wanted to get out of town to make a clean break from something that happened recently, something that I know I am already putting behind me even as I write. Because travel is not only a powerful distraction, it also drives home the fact that things change, life can still be good, and that nothing lasts forever, certainly not pain. So I was going over my old travel pictures, rather sad and pine-y, and then I read this timely reminder somewhere on the Web.

There's no point in trying to go to Outer Mongolia to escape your issues; they will find you there because they live inside your head.

Physical travel would still be nice; but I know that simply by staying where I am, and working things out inside myself, I'll be all right, oh yes I'll be OK.

Fruits of childhood

Have just come across something in my bloghopping this Saturday afternoon. Karen of The Pilgrim's Pots and Pans wrote about sampaloc. I was instantly transported to my childhood many many years ago in Malolos, and also in La Union and later in Marilao. My sisters and cousins and I were forever clambering atop guava trees -- this was in my maternal lolo and lola's old house by the river in Atlag -- and the camachile trees nearby my father's parents' place in La Union. Later on, when we moved to Marilao in Bulacan, we had a few aratiles trees planted in the front yard and I would spend hours and hours perched high in the branches, hidden by the foliage, waiting for my mom to come home from work.

I seldom see aratiles trees nowadays in Manila. Guess they're kind of old-fashioned. The berries are lovely: plump, glossy, green or yellow or red depending on the degree of ripeness. When you eat them when they're very ripe, they burst on your tongue with a slightly gritty, sugary sweetness. You then spit out the skins, or not, as you like.

(Thanks to stuartxchange.org for the image)

The Ornish diet

Several years ago a blood test showed quite high levels of cholesterol in my blood, and the Dr wanted to put me on medication, an idea I rejected out of hand. To my mind, the fewer drugs circulating in my bloodstream, the better. I wanted to improve my health through more natural means and promptly started a healthier diet with less fat and more veg.

A few years down the line, I have relapsed and am back to scarfing down obscene amounts of cake, cookies, chocolate, roasted duck, rich pastas etc. I still can't give up coffee, wine and a few drinks on a Friday night. I don't even want to know what my blood cholesterol reading is now.

But this morning I came across the Ornish diet, which unlike Atkins and other diet programs, has been proved to actually reduce bad cholesterol in the diet, as opposed to merely raising the levels of good cholesterol. However, it's just as much of a challenge to follow, if not more so. It's simpler in the sense that the moment you cut out all meat (red, white, fish, fowl) from your diet, and eat more veg, legumes and fruit, you are guaranteed a healthier heart and to lose weight besides.

But giving up things like olives, ice cream, alcohol, coffee, choccy...!

* * *

Ornish counsels that we will find success not by restricting calories, but by watching the ones we eat. He breaks this down into foods that should be eaten all of the time, some of the time, and none of the time.

Eat whenever you are hungry, until you are full:
- Beans and legumes (kidney beans, lentils, peas, pinto, garbanzo, black)
- Fruits: anything from apples to watermelon, from raspberries to pineapples
- Grains (rice, whole wheat, oats)
- Vegetables

Eat in moderation:
- Nonfat dairy products (skim milk, nonfat yogurt, nonfat cheeses, nonfat sour cream, and egg whites)
- Nonfat or very low-fat commercially available products, from frozen dinners to frozen yogurt bars and fat-free desserts (unless sugar is among the first few ingredients listed)

Avoid:
- Meat of all kinds -- red and white, fish and fowl (if we can't give up meat, we should at least eat as little as possible)
- Oils and oil-containing products, such as margarine and most salad dressings
- Avocados
- Olives
- Nuts and seeds
- Dairy products (other than the nonfat ones above)
- Sugar and simple sugar derivatives -- honey, molasses, corn syrup, and high-fructose syrup
- Alcohol
- Anything commercially prepared that has more than 2 grams of fat per serving


I think I will need to restock my fridge and cupboards from the ground up! Ah well (resignedly goes to microwave a bowl of oatmeal)

La tranquillité

R's fantastic pictures from her bike tour to the Candaba swamp in Pampanga reminded me of the day trip I took in November 2004 to Mai Po nature reserve, which lies in northwest Hong Kong, very close to the border with Shenzhen, China. Every year, the Mai Po marshes host about 60,000 wintering birds -- gulls, duck, teal, herons, egrets, though environmentalists and birders are worried the numbers are dropping.

With P and D, I enjoyed watching the birds (while dodging the ever-present danger of bird caca) but mostly I just savored the calm, peaceful day.



Fishponds, mudflats, lagoons. It's a soothing place, provided you keep your eyes averted from the views of Shenzhen just a mile away or so.



Unfortunately, I seem to have forgotten to save the pictures of the birds :-)

Claim possibility

For all those who find themselvesw in a trying, sad, complex or just plain blah place in their lives right now, Marianne Williamson's words:

One of the problems that many of us have is that we want something to happen, but we don't really harness the power of our desire. We want something to happen, but we don't claim the possibility that it will.

A COURSE IN MIRACLES says that we achieve so little because we have undisciplined minds. We don't focus our thoughts, intentions and energies the way we could. And so every day, possibilities we would love to experience remain unmanifest. Today we will begin to change that.

Pick a possibility, something that might even be a wild unspoken dream. Inside each of us, I think, are wishes and dreams we haven't necessarily shared with anyone, but still cherish. And all I'm asking you to do is to allow the dream a little space to breathe. Give yourself permission to have it. Ask what it means, and surrender it to God.

Now know this: if that dream would further your good somehow, then it already exists fully formed in the mind of God. From there, it can be downloaded into your physical experience if it is the will of God. Just know that. Would you be blessed if it occurred? Would you serve the world at a higher level?

Ask God those questions, and then claim the possibility. As is often said, "this or something better."And do not dream small. In A Course in Miracles, it is said that we don't ask God for too much but for too little.

This week, ASK FOR WHAT YOU REALLY WANT. And then release it. Let God take it from here.

I claim the possibility of a greater life, for myself and those around me. May God's glory express itself, in my life and in the world.

Amen.

New week resolutions

A bright sunny Monday with cooler weather (15 C to 22 plus) forecast for the week. Expect this is the last cold spell we're gonna have till the next winter. The prospect of constant sunshine again is lovely, but the thought of Hong Kong's perpetual 100 % humidity in the worst days of summer---argh.

New week, new resolutions. I am hoping to accomplish much this week, and putting it on the record so that if nothing else, the shame of non-accomplishment will keep me on track!

1. Work out at least TWICE a week. A HK$299 monthly gym fee isn't big bucks, but it ain't peanuts either so I might as well use it.

2. Bake my first sponge cake. I've baked many coffee cakes and cookies and poundcakes, but have always felt intimidated by sponge cakes and angel cakes. But I remember my Mom making tons of chiffon cakes when we were young. She had this tall tube pan and we were always excited the minute we saw her pouring batter into it.

3. Drink less. I'm up to two glasses of red daily now just to unwind. Bad girl. Bad.

4. Draft two promised articles -- one for a Singaporean publication, the other to a Hong Kong editor.

5. Finish the first 5 CDs of Pimsleur II.

6. Watch my new DVDs/VCDs: Serenity, Proof, Paris je t'aime, Elektra, and finally get to the Tori Amos concert DVD that someone lent me.

I want a daemon

One of Philip Pullman's most striking concepts in His Dark Materials trilogy is the concept of a daemon -- the physical manifestation of part of your soul. The daemon takes the form of an animal -- an alpine chough (bet you don't know what that is; neither did I!), a panther, a monkey, a mouse. It's your most intimate companion, conscience, comforter and the voice inside your head. Its gender (yes, you language purists, I know it's more accurate to say 'sex' but I'm shy) tends to be the opposite of yours.

A number of pop quizzes have popped up across the Web purporting to tell you what your daemon is likely to be, based on your answers to the questions. Try this or this and tell me what YOUR daemon would be. Mine would seem to be a cat (like Will's), goose (Serafina Pekkala's) or an eagle/hawk (like John Parry's).

My vote goes to the goose or hawk. Being able to fly is a marvellous thing. I live on the 25th floor of a building with a clear fantastic view of hillsides and I often see black kites wheeling, cawing, plummeting, soaring. They seem quite drunk with flight. So if I ever become a mutant superhero, you already know what my power is going to be. Kwaaak! Kwaak!

Photo by raptor.org.tw