Looking Back

View from the Country Club in HK on Christmas Day.

I said, "ru guo ai,"
He said, "yee ding ai."

I read something this afternoon which was encouraging. I don't know what He has for me in the grand scheme of things, but I know His will is perfect and just.
Who am I to question Your ways? You know me far better than I know myself.

Taking a step back, I realize despite 'unfortunate' circumstances, that I have made a lot of friends in New York. I don't think I really saw it until recently. After first year, I could count all my friends on one hand: and those didn't even count because they were my roommates who I was somewhat forced to live with. Now it's definitely spanned to over ten people. I guess I was forced to move outside the four walls of my studio partially because my roomie is always at her boyfriend's place so I sought company elsewhere. After class today, I met up with a former roommate and we went to find Heath Ledger's apartment in Soho. We've made celebrity-home walks a unique tradition between the two of us; it all started in freshmen year when we decided to walk all the way up to Marilyn Monroe's apartment and back which was a total of 100 blocks and on another occasion, we visited Christy Turlington's apartment on the East side. Upon arrival, we'd just look at the building trying to imagine a celebrity living in there, take a picture and then walk back. Anyway, at the foot of Heath Ledger's apartment were a lot of flowers, a million miniature origami cranes scattered in a rainbow of colours as well as personal notes from fans.
Walking back, another school friend called and I ended up walking with her to the Marc Jacobs store on Bleeker because she wanted to scout out the area since she had an interview lined up in the coming week. I saw a shirt there for $248 USD and I remember trying the exact same one on in a small store in Wan Chai which resells 'extra' designer garments for $60 USD. Those poor Americans who are suckered into buying 'made in china' clothing with a $200 designer label.
After that, I met up with another friend to eat dinner at St Alps. We had a good conversation- a two way conversation.

Looking back, the times I felt the happiest were from March to May. Looking back I would have liked to tell my naive self to enjoy it to its fullest and not hope for more because she wouldn't experience it again later on. There are some songs that are hard to listen to because each is ingrained with a specific memory.

Heartbreak is not what we usually perceive it as: some dramatically tragic Romeo and Juliet sob fest. Rather it is a quiet acknowledgement of something that will never be- the absorption of all those feelings manifested for the person in a long, painful but quiet process of healing. '2046' does well to portray this kind of quiet disappointment.

The Impossibility of Forgetting

My roomie didn't get a cake on her birthday so I decided, along with one of our former roommates, to bake her one. I decided on making french 'petit fours' and tried my hand at making fondant- that thick doughy icing you see on wedding cakes. After four hours of baking this was the fruit of my labour. I gotta say it was quite an experiment since this cake was not fluffy but solid and heavy.
We somewhat 'surprised' her by setting up her black desk with trays of petit fours, slices of iced cake, strawberries, Magnolia cupcakes as well as a few wrapped presents (I even paid attention to lighting by spotlighting the desk and dimming the lights down in other places for the full dramatic effect... pahahaha). I think she liked it a lot- presentation wise it was gorgeous:


It started off looking not so great... the shortening was just oozing from our fingers as we rolled the fondant out. Gross.


But we always figure out ways to make the ugly mistakes into something pretty. What you saw from the first image is what we ended up doing with the trial cakes: sliced them up into quarters and added sprinkles, add a silk bow on a plastic cutting tray with a doiley and bam! It looks pretty darn good.


After many years of making miniature clay roses the size of a fingernail, I tried it with fondant and they looked great as a detail on the cakes.

People often ask me why I don't go to culinary school. My only answer to them is that I don't have a passion for the culinary arts: I just do it as a way of showing my love for other people. It's not something I see myself doing twenty years from now- and I can't produce things in mass amounts because it'll just get boring.

*
Jess wanted me to go to her place down in the Financial District. We like to smooth talk each other which always ends up me disgusted at Jess.
S: yeah you live so farrrrr
J: it's okay, you're near.
J: seeing as you occupy my heart.
J: teehee.
S: PUAAHH
S: do i have to pay rent?
J: yes, in rice porridge. and that tiramisu of yours.
S: thanks
S: I see your heart lies in your stomach.

*

This weekend has been quite interesting...

I don't know how I got myself into this situation. It seems only fit for an Asian drama. In this game of love, I know the cards that all the other players have been dealt which they've shown me willingly yet I keep my own hand rather quietly, revealing it once in a while. So why am I losing if I know the cards that they have been dealt with?
It somewhat broke my heart to do this: I don't know why I did it but it was my way of letting go. I shouldn't want anyway because I don't think I really deserve to want. And I want someone to deal me a better hand.
Ironically the only person I could talk to at the time was a guy who I knew back in HK who ended up in Australia for boarding school. I had a crush on him back in gr6- my reasons being that he played the piano well and was also good at tennis. lol. Anyway, he was online until 4:30am and I found out that we could have crossed paths in HK though unfortunately I did not know he was in town at the same time. We both ended up moping about our love lives and how messed up life can seem at times.
And I convinced him to get facebook. lol. Sometimes you just gotta laugh at the circumstances that you've been given because they're so ironic.

I got a call from Mel, "friday, asian frat party at 12am."
I went because I had nothing else to do. And I just wanted to forget.
Forget, forget, forget.
Forget you,
Forget all the feelings I want to bury.
Dance to forget.
But the more I wanted to forget, the more I had to remember to forget. Thus the idea of forgetting was impossible.
Who would have known that He would take away so many things away at the beginning of the year? I understand, I'm not angry or bitter but I'm just a little lost as to what I'm supposed to do now. Am I blind to things that I should be aware of and the only way of making me see is to remove all distractions from my sight? Interestingly enough I don't see as I used to.

I didn't want to go to church today. I know I should be going there to meet God but at the same time I really did not want to go because I didn't want to see him.

Old loves don't die.
I know that as a fact. You think they've faded but they always return- feelings are like that, they just creep up on you unexpectedly (somewhat of a paraphrase from '2046').

So I got there early to set up and to somewhat of my dismay, he was already there. I just avoided him by talking to other friends I had not seen since Christmas yet it was inevitable that I had to make some conversation since he was edging over to the area where I was making hot chocolate. I asked him indirectly to test the chocolate and then went to pray with the rest of the Welcoming Ministry.
Afterwards I just had to suck it up, go to him and talk because I didn't want to dread going to church the rest of the semester in order to avoid him. And for once I didn't really have to carry the conversation: he seemed a little confused to see me since he thought I was back for new years and then disappeared for another two weeks when in fact I was gone for a solid month. I told him about HK and getting an internship there and he asked me if I could speak Canto. I think we're both on the same level speaking wise.

I think it'll be alright- I can't avoid him so I'll just befriend him. He seems interested in talking as friends. Or maybe it's just all in my head. To my dismay I've become really good at seeing life as the photographer- as the third person- in relationships. I can see when a guy is interested in a girl and vice versa through body language.
Like I said one and a half years ago, never the player but always the spectator. And I thought I was taking ownership of my relationships.

*

At lunch today with a friend, the conversation ended up her asking me why I don't ever talk about myself. She told me that when I told her that my uncle was sick in HK, she was pleased that I finally decided to 'open up': however I don't really consider that as opening up because it only affects me indirectly. I'm still not talking about myself, rather, about someone else.

The reason why I don't talk about myself is simple: I suffer some self esteem issues where I do not believe that anyone is really interested in getting to know me so if they don't ask me anything, I won't divulge them with anything of my own. I don't talk about myself because I don't feel like they'd really care about what I say about myself. So when I start talking to people, I end up asking them questions about themselves thus I turn into a sponge and just soak in what other people have to say about themselves: and you wonder why I forget what people say, because I just can't contain that much small talk information in my head. So when I want to talk about myself, I write it all down here because blogs don't shun people. I don't know if you realize this, but if you ever come out of a conversation without me asking me anything, you'll discover that at the end, you will have gotten nothing out of me. I'm scared to come off as needy or wanting attention.

The funny thing is is that the people whom I value most are the people who I can
1)feel free to talk about myself without having them ask necessarily but if they ask, it makes me feel wanted because not many people ask. At times when I'm talking about myself to someone else, I'm having an inner dialogue with myself, questioning the reason why I started talking about myself in the first place when the person probably does not give a darn with what I have to say because it doesn't concern them.
2)look 'ugly'. I mean that I can just feel accepted without makeup or elaborate clothes.

My roomie told me that I should start talking about myself because people actually are interested. Ironically I find it extremely hard to open up to her- I don't know why.
Lately I've been trying to change- I try to randomly talk more about myself yet after I finish and do not illicit any response from the person, I feel really bad as if I took up their time with my selfishness. After all, why would they care for what I had to say about my life?
I feel like I give a lot but never get anything back and I feel selfish for wanting something in return. I want to get to know people but at the same time, I want others to know more about me.

I don't know if this makes any sense because my thoughts always end up in pools at my feet and I'm trying to wade through. I know it sounds messy and I might just totally sound psychotic but there's logic in my emotion.

Endings to a New Year

When we think of the turn of a new year, we often think of resolutions to start afresh (or renew). For me this new year started off by closing a few doors:

Well, he got a girlfriend over the Christmas break.
You gotta thank Facebook for keeping everyone so well informed about both social groups and the individuals within them; I say this with a wry smile.
When I first found out, on one hand I wasn't disappointed because as I've said before, time and distance often help sever those feelings I have for anyone and since I haven't seen him for a month, those feelings have dissipated to a little less than a memory and a few blog entries. So what I wrote about heartbreak, I don't even know what that means anymore. Does this constitute as one? I know if I stayed behind this past holiday, I surely would have been devastated but because I have not seen him since, I don't remember the times when my heart would skip a beat when I saw him nor do I remember laughing giddily when talking about him to a friend. I guess you could say it hasn't really hit me... which is why a part of me doesn't want to go to church this Sunday.
It's a known social activity for girls to giggle to each other about guys they have crushes on. It's one of those activities I normally do not participate in because I'm always afraid that if my crush loved someone else, it'd kill me knowing that for some reason I wasn't pretty enough, smart enough, good enough...
So in keeping it to myself, it was a self preservation tactic. Upon the news that he liked someone else, using my 'sponge in a bottle' analogy, alone I would just soak in the disappointment and insecurity until it became virtually nothing.
This is how I work but recently I've been trying to change because, hey, I don't own the person, nor am I in control of the outcome when I've tried my best and the most important, I already know that I'm loved by family and friends, this is not an affirmation of any sort of inadequacy or fault of my own.
It's easier said than done because we love to base our self esteem on what people think of us.

I also got a new laptop- my old one was just overbearing. I tried to save it in the hopes that it wouldn't end up as 'garbage'- I wanted it to last at least until my graduation in 2009. At this rate if laptops break down after every 3.5 years, there's gonna be a lot of laptops in the landfill. Sigh. But my new one is pretty and hopefull Alex will be able to save it so Rin can keep what's left of it. lol.

There's another door I'm trying to close: I realize that I'm holding all the chess pieces. It's funny to be in 'power' because at the same time, it's going to end up being my own undoing. Knowledge is power.

You're right- you may have said it in jest that day but honestly this nomadic existence is getting me nowhere and that I'd have to settle down if I were to get anywhere with my relationships. But the desire to succeed career wise is just as strong: for ambition or for love? They seem so disparate. So far I've been successful career-wise, I'm studying at the so-called top fashion school in Manhattan, had an internship with Edun and am about to embark on another internship in Hong Kong. How could anyone not call me lucky? It's what I've dreamt of doing. I've never regreted not going into another field and thinking what if because I chose to pursue exactly that 'what if' with the least probability of me succeeding.
Anyway the ambition- that drive- to go far in my career is strong presently because unlike relationships, I am the one who is more in control: no need to wait for the other person to reciprocate or leave you wondering whether or not he likes you.

God, what am I doing to myself?
Maybe I just cause my own heartbreak.
This is the folly that I face,
for words can never replace the physicality of being,
when I smile you'll never see it or anything inbetween,
instead you'll see: =)
I've just reduced myself to words.

I Miss You.

Click to enlarge.

I knew how to say this in Mandarin, ironically, but couldn't remember the Canto translation till I asked my parents. Whether or not I spelled it out correctly is not really an issue, but I just found the analogy amusing: to miss someone in Canto is to 'hook' them 'up' almost like a jacket on a coat hanger hence this is the outcome of my one hour flight from Toronto to Manhattan.

I do miss you. Wo shang ni.

But I guess, it's time to move on and look ahead at relationships here, setting aside all those I've just temporarily left.
You've probably gone ahead while I'm still trailing behind.
I want to be free of you as you are of me, Count of Monte Cristo.
But I gather that all that I miss is just an idea of a person who does not physically exist.
As Aragorn said, it is but a shadow and a thought that you love.

I know this formula too well: caring more than I ought to for someone, realizing nothing will happen, pack my bags both in the disappointment and hopes that my companions, Time and Distance, would sever these ties so that when we meet again, I'll feel nothing.
I know that it'll never be the same as before.

He asked me while we were hanging out last week, why I seem to have so many problems with moving because he had friends who loved the nomadic lifestyle and didn't have any qualms about it. I don't know, I wish I did: I've never loved it but at the same time, I don't hate it either. Though I say I don't feel like I belong to any country, at the same time I am proud to say that I am a citizen of three.
I didn't shed any tears this time to my relief.


Sorry for all the vagueness, I talk in 'code' when I don't want people to know exactly what I'm saying in the fear of either being too vulnerable and others taking advantage, or people being afraid of what I truly want to say.

Holding You at Arms Length

Click: Holding you at arms length

Woke up today with the sun streaming into my room with orange walls aglow and thinking,
tomorrow I'm flying back to NY,

Friday was great: I bussed to York U. to keep Jerry company through a showing of '300' along with Bobby and Kevin. Since I arrived there on time and everyone else was running late, I amused myself by walking around campus and plopping myself in the middle of the food court with my sketchbook to soak in the normal university student campus life. I love it- so many like-minded people around in a 'restricted' area- something I feel like I'm missing out on as a student in New York. After the movie came food and coincidentally, bumped into a fellow AY high school classmate who recently borrowed my apartment for New Years but never saw since gr 12. Then came a slightly hellish bus ride back to the Silver City station with Bobby and then met up with the summer Japanese crew for food and then taught them how to make tiramisu. And then came SALT, bumming around and bubble tea at the new Destiny till 2am.

I haven't once wanted to go back- ever looked forward going back. Except I already know what will happen when I return: busy evening unpacking, getting ready for school and returning to 'old' friends and to a somewhat familiar church.

The elixir of numbing and forgetting unrealized dreams has always been the brutality of the separation through distance. As painful as it is, it somewhat allows me to detach myself from people and things that I could never let go willingly in my wistfulness. As much as I don't want to go to NY, it'll allow me to reconnect with a few good friends I made there and forget the intensity of ones here. I hope as my life becomes more cyclical there, I'll start to forget, and forgetfulness is the soothing balm to my selfish desires.
I scribbled this drawing down today (for some odd reason I wrote 'jan 9' instead of 'jan 20': the 9th was a day prior to my departure from HK while the 20th is Toronto)
I've realized I hold two different people at arms length: those who I somewhat dislike and am guarded against because they're not healthy to be around and those who I want to be loved by but am afraid to be transparent and let them in. If love and hate are such disparate things, why do I act somewhat the same in both circumstances?
But perhaps you too are holding me at a distance.
Some people are so hard to embrace because it means so much.
I don't want to love anymore.
-----

Sitting face to face at the tea shop today with china dripping in celadon, the snow flurries swirling round and round the wooden skeleton wrapped in a glass skin, it seemed like a fleeting moment set into eternity.

A summer ago you were one of the last people I would have considered someone I would confide in. I don't know why I told you the things I did- matters that usually stifle my tongue when others ask, but am cautiously telling all to you.

% Introspection-ettes

% So Valentine's Day reminders are popping up everywhere thanks to good ol' Hallmark, Walmart and just about every cookie cutter corporation in every cookie cutter suburbian mall here in Toronto. They're painting the town in bloody red.
Anyway, Teen Vogue decide to celebrate via a 'Valentines Day' photo spread featuring an actor with some unknown model and as usual the clothes are tailored to girls which are extremely quirky and I know when guys see this shoot, they must draw a blank. I like the menswear they feature in the editorial except if I ever saw a guy wear that in reality- that'd probably mean he's gay.
Then again the following hoodie/tie/vest/shirt combo looks good in the many shades of red:
Psst I also like her glasses with hat. :P


% So trying to make best of my situation as of now, I got a new pair of glasses: because if I'm stuck with glasses at least for the next while, I need another pair to work with (also as a spare if I break the first). Though I am not really a logical person, my approach in design is a little more on the rational side. Since my existing pair was in the style of last season's (yeah I know that sounds frivolous) thick plastic fob rims, I wanted something that obstructed my eyes less but maintained a certain shape.
I ended up with a pair of Dolce and Gabbana's (Can you spell gabbana?)<- devil wears prada reference :P:
Frameless: because my other pair has a dark frame, frameless would allow less obstruction on the face and eyes (and eye makeup if I choose to apply)
Thin 'arms': These had really cool aerodynamic-esque arms in silver and black. The arms look like swoops and since it doesn't hug the ears, it looks like some futuristic design element. Yeah, I'm a sucker for these things and so is my dad since he liked that pair over all the rest.
Rectangular lenses: I think the most important feature for glasses since my face looks like a horse, meaning that it's really long, therefore to counteract the verticality of my face, a horizontal line must be 'drawn' across my face to balance it out: this is also the reason why I have bangs which was to divide my face in half to make it appear shorter than it really is and these glasses make my face look wider than it really is. It's all about optical illusions and making people see what you don't have. hahaha. See, I told you my thought process in design was extremely rational. :P

% I want some colour in my wardrobe, except all the stores are still in their grey/black/white phase so it's becoming a little depressing. I saw a pair of neon pink heels in HK and I wanted them so bad despite my usual distaste for neons, but thanks to those puny HK girls, they only went up to size 8. I shake my fist at you all.
Btw, cobalt blue and paintbox colours are coming in (if you're interested. :P No I don't study trends, there are actual professional fashion trend forecasting sites up).

% The suburbian cookie cutter stores are driving me up the wall: don't people get bored of Home Depot, Canadian Tire, Walmart, Guess, Le Chateau and Aldo??? It's like when a new strip mall pops up, these are the constants in the equation. Perhaps it's because I've been in HK and NY too long to notice the mundanity of the stores here. But it baffles me to see that people don't get bored because when people get together, they either go eat or shop: and if the shopping is all the same, how is that not boring? Also the prices are psychotic here (cuz there's also tax to consider which is not a problem in HK and slightly in NY if I ever buy anything over $110 which is really rare). I was at Le Chateau today, saw a blue shirt with this really neat back cut but dropped it at the sight of the $60 price tag: $60 for a frickin JERSEY shirt?? I may have bought it if I wasn't in fashion since I would be ignorant to the fact that jersey is crap material and wears easily.
I must retreat into my Value Village sanctuary, mothballs and all. :P

% What hurts the most was being so close,
And having so much to say and watching you walk away,
And never knowing what could have been.

% I was hanging out with Rin the other day who asked me about the seeming disparity between who I am on my blog and who I am in person. Ironically my closest friends are the ones who I am the most disconnected with and who have hung out with me the least. The reason why my blog sounds so doom and gloom at times while I, in person, seem really happy, is not because I'm depressed or mentally ill or have split personalities, but because being the unconfrontational person I am, I use my blog to channel all my anger and hurt into as well as record all abstracted secrets. It's not healthy in a way but it helps me to deal with resentment without blathering out nonsense in a fit of rage to the other person or saying something I'd regret later on. For me to angrily tell someone to 'shut up' is pretty extreme already: my mom once told me in grade five that I shouldn't bottle up my emotions because I'd explode one day. So what I've become is a bottle stuffed with a sponge soaked in water: when someone hurts me, I soak it in and let it slowly desaturate until it becomes almost nothing. The blog is a sponge, my words the water which allow me to digest and analyze the situation without having to talk to anyone.
It's probably why, growing up, I was always the one being bullied.
I'm not trying to make a victim out of myself but I've been made fun of many times and since people say I'm 'sensitive', it's even more of a reason why I DON'T confront the person in my fear that it's actually my fault for taking things too seriously.

Also I'm slightly a people-pleaser therefore I try not to anger them though they may really annoy me. I told this to Andrew before, but I hate shopping with people who don't shop and when walking through stores or malls, if I see something I like, I'll mentally take note of it and return later alone. I rarely shop with my parents because I hate people following me. I hate having people to wait for me therefore I'd rather accomodate them than accomodate myself.

So when you see me in person, all smiles, it's not because I'm putting up a front, it's because I am extremely happy to see you. Since I don't see many of you that often, to see friends who I only talk to over the internet, makes me extremely giddy.

Tongue-Tied: Thoughts Visualized

Decided to post a bunch of sketches I did- crappy snapshots hence the ill lighting and shadows that do no justice to all my work. Lucky for me I did these sketches (these are about half of the ones I did over the course of the past month) because this was all I had to show for at my interview. The ones I did not feature here are essentially fashion drawings and personal illustrated text- but those will go up another day.
The following selection tend to be single focal points in a specific style with a lot of details in the manner of dress- dress being the representation of the meaning derived from self expression. I think my style at the moment has developed into a merge of Audrey Kawasaki and fashion illustration. All in all, I think I really focused on illustrating hands- I like the expression hands can give and they look beautiful if the anatomy is done correctly.
I don't see myself like my cousin, as an illustrator; my sketches are basically a physical embodiment of my verbal thoughts and my blog. Art has always been the language that I spoke best- it transcends all rules of grammar, verb tenses and sentence structure although oddly enough, writing became a source of inspiration in creating and designing for me. In my sketchbook both writing and drawing exist side by side- those small moments of realization accompanied by a quick sketch. Oddly enough, though I am not a writer (personal expression being my only claim as one), I find it easier to write than to draw. So in a way, drawing does not come naturally to this artist, she just perceives it as another outlet since she's so tongue-tied in the many spoken languages that are known to Man:



Click for details




A week into my HK trip, I got a little depressed because all I could see around me was the constant consumption of material goods with little output on the consumer's behalf. So I felt a need to have to start sketching in my sketchbook and ended up doing a lot of 'work' killing time during lunches and downtime at home. This is one of the first I did- random surrealist 'perfume bottle'- doesn't really have a meaning; just wanted to draw glass from my head therefore if the light does not make sense, it's because I didn't have an object to draw from.




I think I saw some Gucci dress with a bamboo print at Pacific Place and started sketching this which ended up being some random play on freedom and enslavement with the handcuffs, birdcage earrings and feathers as hair. All that she is is a (sorry to have to use this word) juxtaposition of being free and being enslaved: feathers as hair, the bamboo print reminiscent of the bars of a cell to her 'choice' of letting the birds go free while she never will be. Initially I was going to illustrate her hair in the stylized fashion of mizu that you often see on washi paper but decided against it since feathers seem to tie back into the birdcage idea better.
I love how I did her hands- a little bit of foreshortening, graceful, long and delicate. It's hard to make it look effortless but yeah, a lot of erasing and resketching was done to make it look natural.




Goal: Draw someone 'upside down' and to practice my foreshortening. I think it came out quite well..




Bored at dinner and started drawing in a rather 2d decorative style reminiscent of one of my favourite artists, Gustav Klimt with the contorted twisting bodies, nature abstracted and richly detailed finishes. I remember feverishly drawing this one and was exhausted after its completion because I got so into it (and that doesn't happen too often...)



I did this one today out of my misery. Whatver, you can call it 'emo' but what is art without feeling?

The Nature of Ugly

We've all heard of the story of the 'Ugly Duckling'- duckling finds out it's not like the rest of his siblings- he's grey and 'ugly' while they're white as snow. He embarks on a journey to discover his self and realizes that he actually is a swan. And then he along with his parents live happily ever after.

As a kid, this was a story of hope; hope for a day that perhaps what I saw myself as as a grade four girl would blossom into something that looked drastically different. I always thought that the physical transformation and maturing process from child to adult would be a vast one- beyond just the usual height growth, breasts and hips but I thought my face would aesthetically change too. But now these days I just look in the mirror and feel like I got cheated in the painful process of physical maturation. I look the same. Really, beyond the normal 'woman' configurations, I still look the same as I did in grade four, five, six, seven, eight etc.
One day, I thought, one day my past self met my present self, it wouldn't be able to recognize her.

But I really have not changed. Back in HK, my cousin and I pulled out about twelve old and dusty family albums; one of them which I was in, my cousin laughs and mentions that I really have not changed since I was in grade one. Ask any one of my family members and they'll tell you my face has not changed since. I even have the same hair cut as I did before except longer in the back. My cousin, on the other hand, had a really generic Asian face as a kid but grew up to be one of the girls I consider extremely pretty- she looks mixed with a sprinkle of freckles, almond eyes with deep folds and extremely long and thick eyelashes, perfectly white teeth and dimples. She looks nothing like the kid in those old family albums.

The reason I'm writing about this is, I guess, one part of my confidence has been derived from wearing contacts and avoiding glasses like a plague. When I went into that interview, I wore glasses but mentally I had to constantly remind myself to find confidence in my skills rather than on what I looked like- and if she rejected it be, it was not because of what I looked like.
I dislike glasses for the practical reasons- you know- the constant slipping, the headaches they cause when tired, constant need to wipe them but more so for the aesthetic: I feel like there's a wall between me and a person I'm talking to, I feel like I'm hiding behind glass and plastic and I just think they make someone look really serious and dull.
Okay and maybe also the fact that they look really unfeminine. :S

Anyway, I went to my eye doctor to get my eye infection checked up. I thought he would say "yeah just let your eyes rest for a few more days and then you can wear your lenses again."
Instead he basically told me that I got a double whammy of allergies and viral problems in HK. Miniscule 'pimples' were growing in my top eyelid- make it worse, I can't really see it so I can't really gauge how bad it really is unless someone flips my lid over. As for contacts?
Sorry, you can't wear them for now.
How long?
I don't know. You will carry this for life- it never goes back to 0: it'll always be on a scale of 1-5. So don't wear contacts for now until I see you. It's a vicious cycle: contacts aggravate lid, lid produces the conjuctivitis, the conjuctivitis spreads to the lid and round and round it goes.
It's a permanent state??? And I can't wear contacts until May and perhaps not ever???
Sorry, I had to tell you the truth.

He might as well have just slapped me. He said more stuff but I tuned him out in my disbelief.
I just tried to sleep on the car ride and at home- sleep away the reality of what was actually happening. In my subconsciousness I prayed to God to spit on my eyes and to just make them new again or when I'd open my eyes after sleep, somehow miraculously they'd be perfect.
My mom spoke to me when I got home, trying to cheer me up by telling me to find a doctor in NY who could check up on me and see if I would be able enough to wear the lenses again sooner.

All I could do was cry.
For the past decade I've been trying different lenses, first starting with overnight lenses in HK- after going through 18 pairs in HK and Toronto collectively, I gave up looking for the right pair because I was seeing two years of my life through one eye with perfect vision and the other in a blur (yes it's not fun- it's dizzying and tiring). I decided to give ortho k another shot by going to another doc but every time I removed my lenses, it would be so painful I couldn't open my eyes because my eye cells were coming off with the lens. So finally I decided to switch to daytime lenses- I thought at least I could wear these during the day and didn't have to worry about pain in terms of removing the lens or having unbalanced vision.
Can you imagine how I feel now? I feel like I've been robbed of something. I ended up settling for the most unobtrusive lens procedure and now I can't even wear them. Like all that time spent at the eye doctors, spent in cleaning lenses and taking care of them, in spending money on different procedures has really amounted to nothing at the end.
You know if you asked me if I could change one thing about my body externally or internally, it would be my eyes. It's always been my eyes.

So now I'm back to square one: glasses.
The things I do for vanity's sake.
God, if you're trying to teach me something about finding beauty not through outward adornment, this feels like one really long, painful, cruel joke.
Yesterday I saw myself as someone pretty, now I feel I've been reborn as the ugly duckling.

I guess I should just stop fighting nature.
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I think I write these things down because I don't want to know how people react to my raw thoughts- I don't want a nod or a shrug because no one really knows the crap I've been through with my eyes. And it just sounds pitiful and vain at the same time so I'd rather just toss it out here and get it out of my system because life can really suck at times.

Part 2: Sticks and Stones break Bones, but the Wounds Words Inflict run Deeper

Today at Timmies, I wanted tell her to stop talking because she was not telling me anything new. My refusal to speak Cantonese to her was my defense mechanism to not be criticized by others. I didn't know how to react so I just had a frozen 'grin' plastered on my face as I was furiously trying to work things out in my head.
"You have to speak Chinese don't you? You eventually will have to speak it at your workplace so how are you gonna do that if you don't speak it now?" she said.
"I got the job didn't I?" I retorted.

But that didn't really seem to matter.
She seemed more concerned that I didnt know Sammy Cheng's chinese name.
Whilst in HK playing an intense three hour game of HK Monopoly, in my excitement I spewed out some really badly pronounced Canto because I was so happy someone landed on my property (with a house mind you). The guy next to me, jeered and said that even if I received double or triple amount of the money with the house, it wasn't as bad as my Canto. I felt my blood starting to boil and all I could do was stare at him and hiss shut up between my teeth. He tried to apologize and put down his own Chinese, but what do I care if he tries to elevate my pride by putting down his Canto?

Can I say how I got my internship? I purposely did not write it here so I could tell people personally because that's how thrilled I am with the position. I do get tired of this blog in a way it does not allow physical communication but I can't be that choosy.
I first heard about the boutique through a friend at Parsons, I asked her what she did and it seemed a lot better than the typical photocopying jobs you get in American internships, so I asked her if she was going to intern there again, she said no. My goal was to get a senior internship to fulfill a fourth year credit which could be done during the summer. I then realized, from my friend, that I needed to know Canto and short keys on the computer.
I was extremely deflated at that point in my trip in HK and started desperately looking for other individual designers and English based department stores like Lane Crawford, who could potentially take english speaking interns. I was deflated because after having to deal with admin at Parsons has just made me give up quickly.

Well, all I can say is that, thanks to my mom, she pushed me saying that my friend didn't know what the designer really wanted- maybe she has other canto interns and she would want me to work behind the scenes and didn't need to learn shortkeys. Being pushed by her, I called and they told me to send my resume and cover letter so I sent them in. Two days later my mom pushed me to call them to follow up despite my protests of thinking that it was too early and I was pushing them too much- but the assistant said since I knew a previous intern of theirs, they would try to schedule an interview with the designer for me. Long story short, I didn't go to Shanghai for the last three days of my trip because my mom was scared I'd miss the reply the designer. She emailed me asking me to come in on the 10th of Jan which was the day that I had to leave- at 10:45am. On that day my grandmother's chauffeur dropped us off there, waited, and the designer showed up and she basically talked to me about my skills and my perception of her label. And upon entering the store, it just screamed me- the style, the atmosphere, the location of the boutique. She had this fusion of chinese and western styles in one- which is what I was interested in so I had no problem really answering questions.
When she asked me, in Canto, if I knew how to listen in Chinese I sheepishly said,
"Au sik teng, sik gong siu siu, mm sik tai tung my se"
Oh that's okay, she told me, as long as you understand. We'll work with your skills since you are really strong in fashion illustration, I love your sketches, and since you love cheongsams, perhaps we can do a collaboration project. You don't need to get them done, at the end of the internship though it is unpaid, we pay you with four garments that you design. We'll tailor the job to your strengths and then work from there. If you want, you can go to functions and go swatch sampling for us.

aejhlrarkjaenr. The functions I know my friend went to were Dior parties and she met Christian Louboutin. aehrklhakjwra Plus I get an internship that allows me to design, illustrate, sew, do fittings for custom designs with clients, attend designer parties and events, swatching in the garment district and retail??? INSANE!!! It's really a dream internship- or at least I hope so.
She even seemed more concerned that I accept the internship than I was concerned about her securing her end of the bargain. So I got the job and hopped on my flight four hours later, with my summer secured.

So why am I still being harped about my canto. And why can't I get over people harping on me about it. It's as if that is the sole defining qualification of a design job. Does the visual not transcend the verbal? Well at least in the case of the internship I was applying for?
I hate it- so I'm speaking as much canto to my parents as possible although I stutter over words and we just laugh cuz I sound like I have speech problems and I'm slowly picking up Chinese words- I wrote a list of the characters I recognize in my sketchbook so I don't forget. Yes I'm slow at learning, but I've picked up really basic characters which I've learned to recognize around HK.

So when we sang today at church, whom then shall I fear (in the context of being with God)? It spoke a lot to me at that point because I've been really affected by the comments of others when I really should just ignore them all. This internship, I believe, really was God-ordained- the timing, the availability, the day of the internship- everything was not just mere coincidence. I have been blessed, so why have others take it out on me for the inadequacies that my employers do not really see as a big issue? An inspiration to me this christmas was my cousin's bf who moved to HK to help out with her family- his Canto is really off in terms of intonation but he speaks it as much as possible like it was his mothertongue. And I admire him because no one makes fun of him and he still speaks and makes the effort into learning it.

But it would be nice, if you could all stop.
I don't harp on your fashion sense, because I don't think it should be something worthy of having to comment on, so shut up.

Part 1: On Church

A lot going on in my head this Sunday- I came to church a little scared and wary. In the past thirty days I have attended three different churches and lived in three different cities/countries. During the sermon I was phasing in and out of it having a hard time concentrating thinking about, to be honest, Andrew, his blog and his 'struggles' at church.
There's one line I remember from the Pixar animated film, 'Ratatouille', that really resonates within me as an artist and a blogger:
In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face, is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is more meaningful than our criticism designating it so.

Isn't it so true? Most of the time we get extremely defensive and critical about the work of others whom they offer up vulnerably for others to partake in. Yet critics automatically seize this opportunity of vulnerability and assume they can take the position of being higher than the creator and shred the work to pieces. The critic nitpicks and take apart- without having thorougly examined the process, the heart and intention of the creator himself/herself.
If everything we are is supposed to glorify God, that includes our blogs right? When I hear people's personal testimonies prior to baptism or whatever at RHCBC, are they not full of both hope and frustration, darkness and light, anger and joy? And aren't testimonies basically a summarized version of a blog? All the concerns, worries, questions, discoveries, experiences and understanding condensed into a two page document? Yet when we tell others that God sent us burdens to bear, we smooth over the frustrations of the past, riding on the knowledge of hindsight.

Therefore, is not this blog a testimony to my walk with God? It's a day by day walk- and yes it can be painful at times in my questions of the uncertainty of the future- yeah I have fallen and probably will still fall in my confusion of 'finding' myself in the grand scheme of things, but I know, as in all personal testimonies, that God will somehow get me through.
I think people have become too focused on trying to 'fix' other people and have lost focus on their journey in getting there.

The pastor spoke today about being a genuine Christian who does not do the Sunday fake smiles and the Monday to Saturday grumbles (basically a 'part time Christian'). Honestly, I am not being really genuine as a person if I'm not pissed one day or another. And when I'm annoyed, I usually end up writing it down here in hopes of finding some understanding and reason to my anger.

Having traveled quite a lot this past month has given me a taste of three different style churches whom I am all familiar with.
Remnant Westside (NYC): I love the worship- you see passion and heart in their music based worship and I just love worshiping with this really free body of Christ. They jump, sing, raise their hands, yell- whatever. The sermons are really lacking though and I don't feel nourished at all mentally/philosophically/whatever requires knowledge in the word of God but the people are great there.
ECC (HK): I'm somewhat a stranger now having not attended this church for 2.5 years but man, their prayers and sermons are so simple, precise and straightforward you are not left wondering what they mean by really broad, theological phrases. The sermons do not waver from the featured Bible passage and include a personal example from the pastor himself that makes it easy for everyone to comprehend. Why is it that so many pastors find it so difficult to preach from the Word without trying to induce false emotion out of the congregation or find some elaborate theological reasoning to back up their very simple themes?
I'm not trying thwart what I said earlier about being a critic, I'm just trying to find answers. As for my thoughts on RHCBC, there's too much and at the same time, a lot of things I'm probably not aware of so I'm not gonna say anything here for my sanity's sake.
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Robyn, I found out the name of the song from Christmas dinner, The Stand thanks to the worship team today. hahaha...
So I'll stand, with arms high and heart abandoned in awe of the One who gave it all.

Despite all reservations of myself, singing a line like that gave me that "screw it" attitude, let's do it Remnant Westside style- we verbally sing it, therefore there should be some follow up with the body.

H to the K

This is the station where I used to live. Oh how I love the HK MTR.

Last published Dec 28th eh.

Well HK is doing fine.
I myself, no longer an HKer, is prone to now all the exotic diseases and germs that you probably won't find anywhere else on the planet save Hong Kong.
So I got an eye infection.
It's not really visible to anyone else but I can see a slight swelling and my delicate double fold disappearing ('delicate' because it used to be 0.5 fold and lately it turned itself into a full eye fold. lol)
I'm off my contacts and putting in antibiotic eyedrops. The doc said it must be from either bacteria or pollution. Great.

I hate wearing glasses- shallow me, but I feel very assexual with them on. I know that sounds totally weird but I'm convinced that in HK, if I cut off all my hair, I could pass off as a Hong Kong guy. Thus I've been feeling really ugly for the past week.
So yeah, I need to rebuild an immune system with the antibodies to fight off the extra HK-bred germination.


Christmas and New Years weren't really special this year in terms of celebrations. When you consider Toronto as home base- time doesn't seem to matter anymore because the present in HK has not yet come to being in Toronto. So when we watched the fireworks go off at the IFC on tv in HK, though technically the new year started here, it wasn't until 13 hours later at the Country Club with my entire family did I utter a "happy new years!" when the toronto/new york countdown went off.
What I'd like to do one day is celebrate half a Christmas in HK and then fly back in the afternoon to Toronto and celebrate the last half in Canada. That would be so cool.


Okay, coming to Hong Kong has made me realize my canto needs some serious work. And I mean a lot of work.


So what am I doing in HK? What everyone else is doing: shopping (a lot), eating (a lot more) and hanging out with people. The latter I will save for later because it deserves a mini post on its own.
Shopping wise it has been pretty dry actually. Like I said, I don't fit into the majority of the cheap clothes here and I'm not interested (nor have the funds) to purchase from Gucci or Prada. Hong Kong has changed a lot since I left- the places I once knew to be unique have all become a melting pot of glorious high end brands.

And it's so boring because why would I want to fly all the way to HK to buy what I can get in New York? Yeah it's cheaper with no taxes and all, but from Pacific Place (Admiralty) to the IFC (Central) to Element (Kowloon) to Lee Gardens (Causeway Bay) to Ocean Terminal (Tsim Sha Tsui) are just reeking with the same stores over and over again. I have never seen so many Burberrys in my entire life- even New York doesn't compare.

So I really think people consider me fat here. Sorry, I just had to say it. I myself do not think of myself as 'fat' but talking to certain people has given me the idea that they do consider me on the 'dai jek' side here. My cousin arrives from San Fran a couple of days ago, and yesterday we unexpectedly found a few stores in Wan Chai that sold real designer clothes for like... $700 HK with some Chinese 'discount.' From Matthew Williamson to Emilio Pucci to Blumarine to Marc Jacobs to Ports to Vera Wang, I was going a little psycho because it was the real deal- in all the glorious wool crepe and 100% silk. They were essentially rejects from the factories resold for about a tenth of the retail price.
Anyway, so I was being fitted for a jacket and the woman decides to put a belt on my waist. I cinch it in tighter and she exclaims "wahhhh lei goh yui ho sai ah! Wah lei ho fit ah! Lei ho fit ah!"
As opposed to? Die jek? Fei?


Another day I was wandering around Sogo by myself trying to kill time when this little Chinese woman in her late 20's comes up to me asking if I could partake in a questionnaire. I said no but she persisted and held onto my sleeve begging me so I said fine. I told her I couldn't read chinese so she read out the options- I think it was on skincare or whatever so I picked really random options. She then proceeded to tell me that they had a store right outside that I could get something free done. Being that my Chinese is only limited to conversation I had no idea what that 'free' thing entailed. I politely said no but she started talking about how she hadn't gotten any customers yet and pleaded with me with those typical large Chinese eyes which were framed with silver glitter, how could I say no?
So I got ushered into this small room in which they proceeded to lather some cream onto the top of my hand and this other woman started talking to me about my skin. I started freaking out in my head because I heard her say that she would remove the cream in a few minutes, I thought I was in for some hair removal treatment. And the last time I got hair removed via wax, was four years ago and the skin around my eyebrows started breaking out in hives. Yeah, not good.
Anyway she starts asking me about my skin care regiment, I just gave her some dumb answers like "no I don't take care of my face" because I didnt want to have to explain what I do in the mornings in my broken Canto. She then proceeds to remove the cream by just simply wiping it off to show me the 'difference' the cream made- the skin which was covered with cream was paler than my normal skin which was probably done by a very diluted bleaching agent. But she tells me my skin could look like this 'clean' if I used their product. I told her I didn't want to buy anything and she asked me why I looked so... I didn't understand what word she used but it was something like 'annoyed' or 'skeptical' when I wanted to change my skin but didn't want to do anything about it. I retorted by saying that I came in because that woman outside wanted me to. And then I left.

See, Asian girls are so good at the cute, helpless look to get what they want, even a Chinese female like me got sucker punched into it. Now that's kind of sad.


And if you're a Hong Konger/Canto, you'll understand this joke. I thought it was hilarious because my aunt always does that.