The Dustless Workshop（無塵工作室）

Announcement: 27/2/06

2006-02-26T19:58:00.000+01:00

I am currently moving my blog to Wordpress - The Dustless Workshop Version 2.0, so please move to the new blog, start getting used to it, and bear with me while I update the RSS feeds and all that. Thank you very much.

Currently reading: The House of Morgan

2006-02-23T20:11:00.000+01:00

As I've told fellow blogger Wiwiana a couple of months ago that I had my eyes set on this monster of a book (800+ pages full of english with some pretty pictures, enough to scare most HKers away at the mere sightof it), and as a self-proclaimed prolific reader that I am, I'm only half way through reading it because of the sheer size and content, and of course, lack of time on my behalf. For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, this isn't a book about Morgan's House, whoever Morgan could be (warning: if you really thought that, then please turn off the monitor now, if you know how to), it's a book on the family who were once the de facto eloquent ruler of the financial universe - namely Junius Morgan, J Pierpont Morgan Sr and their descendents. If you still don't know what I'm talking about, maybe the terms JPMorganChase and Morgan Stanley rings your bell. Yes, for those of you curious lot who, like me from a very young age, wondered if there were ever any relations at all between these two banking giants, there were - they were both creations of JP Morgan & Co and the partners who ran it. In fact, both used to be one bank (under JP Morgan & Co.) before they were seperated in 1933 due to the Glass-Steagall Act, which effectively seperated commercial and investment banking and made American banking industry extremely segmented. But this book is much more than that. The story started in 19th century London when the City was the world's financial centre, and the US was merely a rogue country full of gay cowboys running around fishing (Brokeback Mountain...hahahaha), when George Peabody, who set up a merchant bank in London, effectively set the foundation stone for his partner, Junius Morgan, for him, and his family after him, to take over the world. The story told of a totally different time, when bankers were gentlemanly and rare (the others are the Rothschilds and Barings), companies operated mostly on partnerships and trusts with no corporate structure and relatively weak, currency was still based on the Gold standard, and amongst many things. This colossal epic spanned across a timeline of more than a century, from what the author elegently called the Baronial age - when bankers exerted so much influences on companies and governments, as JP Morgan Sr once did, that they actually lived and behaved like barons; to the Diplomatic age when bankers acted as more or less diplomats for their government clients (From US, Germany, UK, Japan to the Vatican), indulging in the political game, foreign policy making and war finances (in fact, JP Morgan & Co financed both sides of WW1 and effectively WW2), and finally to the Casino age - when bankers lost their influence over to multinational corporations, and became extremely aggressive in their stances (hence the term) with hostile takeovers and LBOs. If I have to state one single bad point of this book, it must be the fact that it's simply too long for some people, but IMHO this length is well and truly justified for the amount of content the author had intended. Bankers nowadays are merely being portrayed as jargon-talking, money-spinning bunch of yes-men dressed in tailor-made suits, but after reading this book readers maybe able to contemplate a different, perhaps more primative but more romantic age, when bankers relied on gentleman's agreement, held long and deep relationships with their clients, sat on company boards as trusts, and was more or less the angel AND the devil. JP Morgan Sr even acted as the central banker who single-handedly saved USA from the 1907 gold panic, before the Federal Reseve Act was ever conceptualised. These stories are what legends are made of, about the decisions real people made, how and why and made them, and what becomest of them. As the great Keynes himself put it, which the author had included in the first page of the book, "It is necessarily part of the business of a banker to prefess a conventional respectability which is more than human. Life-long practices of this kind make them the most romantic and the least realistic of men." The amount of research that the author had contributed his time to, and the vast archive of correspondences, stories, pictures and comments that he unearthed, had already won this book fame beyond its first intention. This book describes a piece of modern history, a story which included the 1929 and 1987 crash, two world wars, The Titanic (which was financed by JP Morgan & Co), Herbert Hoover, Franklin D Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, John Maynard Keynes, Charles Lindbergh Jr, Benito Mussolini and, last but not least, astronomically insane amount of money. Your humble host had actually just got on the Franklin D Roosevelt part, before he enforced the Glass-Steagall Act on the finance industry in 1933. This book had actually aided me greatly on the finance module I'm currently doing for my economics degree, which included quite a lot of financial history (and of course, lots of equations). It painted a colourful picture of the mysterious Morgan family, their business, their conduct, their wealth, their turmoils, and how they made their stash. Of course no single human is perfect - JP Morgan Sr was extremely rash, anti-Semetic, had a funny nose, and basically bullied companies into submission to his almighty command, and Jack Morgan (JP Morgan Jr) was the public-hating, German-hating weirdo with very low self-esteem, who financed both sides of WWI and Benito Mussolini, but through this story one can clearly see that these characters, who only lived in most people's minds as autonomic money-making machines (or simply filthy rich bastards), are real; they too have flesh and bones, real feelings and emotions; although they lived exquisitely lavish lives, their low profile covered them like a smoke-screen - you never knew what went on behind the family doors, and the author deserves great credit for uncovering what really went on within the family, and inside their heads. But readers beware, if you're looking for a book which will teach you how to invest, to win money, to speculate and/or otherwise, I would suggest you look somewhere else, this is merely a documentary (indeed a very long one) about how modern finance came about, how and why it's the most heavily-regulated industry in the whole wide world, and the family of bankers who made this be, whether intentionally or unintentionally. However, if you enjoy reading history (financial or not), then this book is beyond any traditional history books which only speaks of far away times. The author employed a more exciting tone than normal academic history books, and providing you knew your history well this book provides a rare and fascinating perspective on things that already happened. The House of Morgan is no easy book, as I can tell you already after reading only half of it, but it's also extremely rewarding - rewatch (or in my case, watch for the first time) fascinating modern history in the making, and the family of people who made it happen.

Cardinal Zen Ze-kiun of Hong Kong?

2006-02-23T05:31:00.000+01:00

Apart from Hong Kong, Korea, Phillipines, Venezuela also got a new Cardinal, along with 12 others like Boston (a total of 15). Of course, since I'm inside the Big Lychee, it's only normal to just hear news about Cardinal Zen Ze-kiun of Hong Kong and no one else. However, I always love a conspiricy theory towards this - there's a political motive as well as a religious one (if there ever was one). For a while people thought that the ex-pope John Paul II had elected Zen as a 'secret cardinal' - if appointments are politcally sensitive the Vatican can keep the name of the cardinal secret, but that we shall never know. What we know though from this appointment is the fact that Zen takes politcal stance, and therefore politics can never be left out of this. Hence this is an open gesture, but as military genius Sun-Tzu once said, "What's fake is real, and what's real is fake." One can pretty much be sure that there are political motives. According to some, Cardinals are like consultants to the pope, but given how the Vatican had expressed wants in the past to establish links with China again, having a person who hates China as much as I hate stupid people is hardly diplomatic is it? What comments can Zen possibly give about China that the Vatican doesn't know already? Since medieval times the Vatican has powers to influence politicians, start wars, and topple governments with a click of its fingertips, although this power is dimishing since Darwin and Nietzsche, China is possibly the last place on Earth that Vatican hadn't had its hands on yet. Given Zen's outspokeness against the Chinese government (another words, he fucking hates the grandpas with a vengence) and staunch support for the underground Catholics in the mainland (the other Catholics are basically controlled by the state), if the Vatican really wants diplomatic ties with China, Zen will be the last person one would choose. As we all know, China never takes things the hard way (we have clear examples like 4/6/1989 and how China diminished the stupid falundaga with such force, and how China reacted to Japanese stances, etc etc), the only way forward is the soft and diplomatic way, as China is fast becoming an influential economical and political power. Pope Benedict XVI's stance on this seems clear - to establish links with China, whilst at the same time telling China to not mess with the Vatican (and the Catholics). China is renowned for its censorship and cronic suppression of any form of religion (including the extremely stupid falundafa), believers took this as the fact that the Vatican had not abandoned Catholics in mainland China. As an athiest, I would like to think otherwise. I believe though, there are a couple of key points to bear in mind - a) The Vatican wants to establish ties with, or rather infiltrate, China. There are an estimated 112 million Catholics already in China. China has a population of 1.3 billion; b) Cardinal Zen is now 75, and although he had recently sent a letter of retirement to the pope, he can vote for a new pope until 80 (the Cardinal in Taiwan is too old to vote for a pope). ?Benedict XVI is 78, and John Paul II died at 85; c) Zen hates the Chinese government, and has good ties with Cardinal Shan in Taiwan, who's too old to choose a new pope; d) According to this Chinese BBC news article, there are 3 possibilities as to what will happen to Zen after this appointment - he can stay a bishop until 2007, then move to the Vatican; put simply that anything can happen to him. According to Vatican rules that all bishop over 75 must retire, the pope can choose whether to keep that particular bishop in concern, even if he's too old. Based on the above points, and that Zen would retire in 2007, I have reasons to believe that the Vatican will move Zen to the Vatican and appoint a new bishop to really start establishing ties with China, possibly someone apolitical in comparison. There are short-term and long-term implications from Zen's appointment - a) In the short-term, Vatican wants the grandpas to look out for Catholicism that's spreading within China, and what the Vatican wants is religious freedom from China. Whether the Vatican really isn't afraid of China, and/or whether it cares about those believers is another matter; b) In the long-term, Vatican will remove someone as outspoken and as Chinaphobic as Zen from the political scene and keep him in the Vatican - as far away from China as possible, so formal ties can be established once again under a new bishop and possibly an apolitical one. As long as Benedict XVI doesn't die before Zen is 80, which I think he definitely won't, then Zen's cardinal power where he can choose a pope has effectively been demolished, given how Vatican always spends immense amount of money in keeping the pope alive. Of course, things can also be explained from the other side - since Zen is still the bishop of Hong Kong and will stay a cardinal until he ascends to heaven, the Vatican can keep Zen there until he bloody dies. However, IMHO that won't be of any benefict to the Vatican - as long as Zen is there, then China isn't going to talk to the Vatican at all, and DEFINITELY not to the Taiwanese cardinal either. If Vatican wants China, Zen must go.

Wordpress...

2006-02-22T18:46:00.000+01:00

I got myself another blog hosted by hkbloggers.org, but the problem is the import function...everything is fine except the bloody Chinese font shows up in many weird ways. Are there ways to not go through EVERY SINGLE CHINESE POST and repost it in UTF? Please advice...

Feb 19th, felt ill...

2006-02-19T21:10:00.000+01:00

a) Since I will be starting work as a graduate accountant on March 1st, it's only normal for me to start learning about what one actually does about accounting; since it's mission impossible to get myself up to undegraduate standard in less than a month, I can only do what I can do and learn from the basic LCCI course (my wife had notes leftover from when she did that course), and the rest I shall do once I started working and attend conversion course (which should happen sometime in September); and, of course, the economics correspondance degree... b) I have acquied a PSP from a friend (actually just borrowed), and the game in there is �u�T��L��, which I enjoyed playing very much...no worries I only play it when I was in transit. c) As the title suggested, I fell ill today. Just flu, nothing big...feeling better already, but feeling ill really hampers progress...fucking viruses.

Gorillaz - Demon Days

2006-02-15T18:13:00.000+01:00

(Picture from Amazon.co.uk) Let me tell you what I think first - it's eerie, but at the same time insanely cool. You may not have heard of Blur nor the Grey album, but you probaly have heard of Gorillaz. Their self-titled debut album was a surprise (and indeed massive) worldwide success, with wicked illustration representing this virtual band of 4 - Russel, 2D, Murdoc and Noodles. This 2/3 D Quartet was created by illustrator Jamie Hewlett and Albarn. With them, everything is fictional, even their recording studio, and being the most succesful virtual band on Earth...but I have no wish to indulge on the artistic side, I'm just going to talk about the music. Demon Days, musically speaking, is by far their masterpiece. I didn't much like Gorillaz the 1st album, because the choice of songs weren't very focused, with everything from electronica to punk and a little hip-hop (in their own words, they recoreded everything), the structure of songs were kind of playful, loose but somwhat inconsistent (which bears striking similarities with the Pancakes of Hong Kong). Fortunately they made a huge improvement with Demon Days, it was more focused on electronica, phat bass lines, infused more hip-hop elements (the beats and sampling), even on the verge of being trip-hop due to its eerie darkness. It was clear from the album that Demon Days was going to be darker than Gorillaz, even before listening to one single note - the illustrations were simply much darker, rendering the characters zombie-like - afterall Gorillaz and the illustrations are inseperable. Upon listening to the songs, one cannot stop noticing that the songs, although with structure almost as loose as hits from their first album, sounds just right. All the different kinds of elements - electronica, beats, bass lines, guitar riffs, samples - mixed together without any complication, to the degree of being harmonious. Whilst Gorillaz seemed just too eager to impress, Demon Days gave a feeling of confidence and simplicity; electronically speaking Demon Days was very simple and straightforwad 0 that is, when you compare it to works by masters like Richard D James a.k.a. Aphex Twin, but their styles are inherently different so it's not really an apple-apple comparison when putting them together, but you'll see what I mean when you do. Overall the feeling of Demon Days was very consistent, one can listen to it from start to finish without feeling peculiar (although the music and the lyrics themselves are peculiar enough); they have also merged themselves successfully with hints of dance vibes (from DARE), which made it popular by being so effortlessly cool. However, one shouldn't be confused by the four illustrative cartoon band members - to speak of Gorillaz as a 4-piece is simply meaningless because their music relied heavily on sampling and synthesisers, and many stars had given their fair share of help during recording (as many as 50 at one time) - from Rachel Stevens (S Club 7) to Dennis Hopper, De La Soul to Shaun Ryder of Happy Mondays - to name just a few. To be honest, their production method is no different from manufacturing crappy pop music, but that's exactly where they proved themselves far more superior than talentless 16 year olds - they have originality. To sum this album up - it's quite edgy, but beautifully simple, which is the same summary I would give to Dark Side of the Moon, and that says something. Recommended Songs: All of them, they're all just so worth a listen.

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2006-02-15T05:00:00.000+01:00

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WTF!!!!

2006-02-14T21:00:00.000+01:00

Whilst I was checking my online bank statement, I've found that on 1st Feb $5000 had been withdrawn from my account using ATM. This is extremely, fucking alarming because - a) I never take out that much money at once because if I needed to pay that kind of amount I would either use a cheque or a credit card, and avoid cash wherever possible; b) I WAS OUT OF THE FUCKING COUNTRY AT THE TIME, MY ATM CARD SITS IN MY WALLET, AND I TAKE MY WALLET WHEREVER I GO! HOW COULD I FUCKING WITHDRAW CASH WHEN BOTH I AND THE ATM CARD WAS FUCKING ABROAD? MORE IMPORTANTLY, WHAT'S THE USE OF HKD WHEN I WAS IN THE UK? No matter what I'm getting that $5000 back...it's fucking worrying because I was too busy these couple of months to do my usual book keeping...fuck!!! I'm definitely going to start again right this moment!!

Happy Valentine's Day everyone...

2006-02-14T16:24:00.000+01:00

...I know it's a little late, but it's still 14th isn't it? What did you do today? Did you receive a big/medium/small bunch of flowers/roses? Did you have a romantic/unromantic dinner? Did you have a good/bad time? If there are things that I am incapable of doing in this world, it will be - art, gambling, and being romantic. I suck at all of the above, no matter how hard I try; my talent simply lies somewhere else. For me, Valentine's day is like a testing, to test how romantic I really can be, but the answer each time is "not very." I just have an innate reluctance towards doing anything romantic or impractical, they're both the same thing to me, damning and difficult. Luckily, my wife understands this, and not only that, we are pretty much the same kind of person - pragmatism comes first. Of course, having been a playah before, I know that sometimes (or sometimes most of the time) women don't always mean what they say (as illustrated by fellow blogger Ana here, which I think is comedial, in a good way), and therefore every year when the time of testing comes (the other one is birthdays), I always try to do what I can, without contradicting myself into doing what I don't want to do - waste money. I went to Seiyu in Shatin, brought 2 "Australian" Kobe steaks (I never knew such things existed, since I thought the town of Kobe only existed in Japan, and hence I'm still very skeptical about those steaks, although it tasted not bad and quite tender) and various things to cook for my wife tonight, at home. Yes, at home. This is the obvious choice since I have nothing to do yet. Also, I really cannot justify my own action by eating out tonight, and/or sending roses to my wife, for me it's just a fucking waste of money - roses price rose by 100% this year, although there was a 20-30% increase in orders from romantic people (I call it impractical); as for eating out, jesus you have no fucking idea how much more they're charging for a fucking 3 course dinner! It's like being raped financially. Nevertheless, since I know how to cook steaks (of course not as good as some uptown restaurents, otherwise I would have opened one myself), the food that I brought, although exquisite (sashimi, nice ice-cream and drinks), it was well within my budget of HKD$350, that's less than $200 each. Ask yourself, those who ate out tonight, how much did your dinner cost you? Was it worth it? That, of course, depends on what you want to get out of it, and most will be satisfied by material things. So was I. I made some soup, sliced up sashimi, and brought ice-cream, cleaned up the house, and brought some cheap candles from Ikea (less than $20), then I went to pick my wife up from work, went home, and had a fantastic night. You may think that I'm unromantic because I didn't buy flowers and/or took my wife out for a romantic dinner, I guess I don't need to explain myself here. My flat was burning real candles, there were no white noise from that annoying fucker who's sitting next to you, just me, my wife and Thelonious Monk - I mean, which restaurent in Hong Kong had such good taste in playing the Monk? We ate some weird but tasty steaks, there were no over-powered air conditioning, no crap waiters, no time limit, and I believe my cooking is great...well at the very least I don't buy crap ingredients, and there were no profit margins to maximise; ok so I had to wash the dishes afterwards but that's beside the point. My wife said something really funny, "If you brought me a large bunch of roses I would have killed you, what a hassle having to take that bloody thing around the place! Into the MTR with loads of people! All for that one moment of glory, and then afterwards it's just trouble...you spend $1000+ on it, and then after a day or two they bloody wither and die. If you want to send me flowers in the future please send me flowers made from $1000 bills..." Wise words. Having said all that against seemingly every couple who went out to dine tonight, and who had a bunch of dying flowers in their hand, I still wish that you had a good time with your other half, and most important of all - you enjoyed your time together. I merely did it in the most economic way I think feasible, whilst trying to be romantic, but without the impracticality. p.s. I'm still playing around with Wordpress, so please be assured that I will be moving out of here soon...

If you want to publish a novel (as a publisher)...

2006-02-13T20:24:00.000+01:00

...then my advice to you is - Don't. Instead, what you want to do is to start publishing academic textbook for doctors/professors. Generally speaking, you can publish two types of academic textbooks. The first of the two kind of books is a 600 page monster epic on a very specialised subject (most famous examples will be journal selections or all of Feynmann lectures on physics), which you can sell for hundreds or even thousands of dollars per book. You probaly will only be able to sell 100 of them and probably in no more than 2 editions, but after deducting cost of printing etc. you will still make a little profit. Or... Publish the second type - a comprehensive and easily-understandable guide to some academic subjects such as physics or economics, if it's popular and universities lecturers endorse them (just talk to one of them lecturers and see if you can get them to endorse it, they're normally an easy bunch, providing your textbook has substance), then the majority of their students will buy it as well, and hence making a substantial profit. You can sell one for $200, and then print 30 editions (with 1000 books printed). You will also be pleased to know that a professors/doctors who wrote academic textbooks normally don't ask for financial returns or profit share, the pubisher has the copyright assigned to them (that's why so many universities have their own publishing subsidiaries as well) and can therefore retain all profits. A third, previously unmentioned type, is publishing journals. Go to the IEEE website, they're selling journals for something like $20 (that's USD by the way). Of course I have excluded most of the economics of publishing, for example there are loads of costs not mentioned in this little rant, but on a strategic basis, I believe that, with such a high profit margin, how can publishing academic textbooks not sound attractive to people? It's certainly much better than publishing crappy romance novels which only sells for no more than $40 (that's HKD) per book... Publishing academic textbooks has distinct advantages over novels - there are no universally accepted standard as to what a good novel constitutes, therefore people can write absolute crap and get it published by publishers who is taking this serious risk in hoping to make a quick buck. 1) You can publish an academic textbook, but you can be pretty sure that if it's a crap one than no university lecturer is going to endorse it, hence no student market; that means you have a free quality filter working for you for free. 2) Publishing journals is a relatively risky business because most scientific foundings in journals have yet to be testified by the scientific community, but textbooks are basically comprehensive guides, and hence what you're publishing had essentially been testified and approved by many scientists/lecturers/professors great and small - it's relatively less risky, definitely less so than novels where there are no quality assurance. 3) As I've said above, you can pretty much retain all the profits, and even if you're a profit-making entity working with a professor, he's probably not doing it for the money anyway; you have the money, he has the scientific fame that he may or may not want. A win-win situation. 4) Last, but not least, with all those pieces of revoting, craply written, pointless, misleading, incoherent mumble-jumble of meaningless words on toilet paper that some three-legged people seems to call novels, which has no educational or any value whatsoever, that are floating around the gutter of this society right now (I'm certain those publishers who dares to publish these fiends knew what they are doing - they're publishing crap just to cover cost of the previous crap they published, hoping that sometime in the near future they may pick up a novel that actually makes a profit for them, or at the very least break even), publishing academic textbook that can help students study and understand some constructive and useful knowledge and get them through class, is financially and morally better than being a publisher that survives on regurgitating shit until they go into administration. Bottom line is - why not do something constructive and useful today? Those who call themselves publishers, and those who dream about writing novels...

A little note on Alan Greenspan...

2006-02-12T19:38:00.000+01:00

...Mr. Greenspan will definitely go down in history as one of the most prominent central banker of the 20th century by sustaining the longest American bull-economy, however what I'm going to tell you has nothing to do with his reputation. From this (Central Banking Publishing Ltd), one can observe the annual salary of central bankers of the worl including, of course, Mr. Greenspan. What surprised me, however, is this: Central bank governors' salaries (US$) 1) Joseph Yam (Hong Kong) $1,120,000 16) Alan Greenspan (Federal Reserve) $172,000 You would have thought that, being the most influential central banker in the whole wide world, Mr Greenspan will be paid a substantial amount of money for what he does, but in fact it seems surprisingly disproportional that our Joseph Yam actually makes more money per year than Greenspan. Maybe Mr. Yam was paid disproportionally high? Or vice verse? Can't believe Alan Greenspan makes the same amount of money as an investment banker (without bonuses)! No wonder Mr Lam from the Hong Kong Economic Journal had specifically noted the amount of money Greenspan make after his tenure at the Federal Reserve.

Reality, in terms of novel writing, viewed from the eyes of a scientist

2006-02-10T19:12:00.000+01:00

More thoughts tonight, but no worries, it won't be about stupid people this time. (It's rather long...) Reality, in terms of Novel Writing I started writing novels when I was 16, and pretty much stopped when I was 21 (although there are on-and-off writings). At that sweet, innocent and tender age, I was told by a mentor (which is a good friend of mine, a published writer and a renowned Wu-xia novels writer - at least on the net - he writes amazing novels and lives in Taiwan) that my novels have more than enough imagination, but not enough substance. At that time I didn't understand a word he saids and just kept on writing. According to him, I kept on producing highly imaginative and experimental short novels, and gladly, he saids, the substances are eventually building up as well. As I read more and more novels, both in literature and on the net, I realise what his words meant, what he meant by substance, where I stood, and where I currently stand. This enlightement didn't come until about last year, and since then I was deprived of any time to write novels, because I simply was too occupied. Substance, in the context of a novel, is probably as abstract as reality itself is, but what a novelist cannot deny is this empirical fact - a novel is about reality, about humans. You can obviously write about a dog's life (someone had certainly done that), but at the most that will only be a personification of a dog, since neither I nor the reader had been a dog before, it's pretty hard trying to determine what constitutes a dog's mind, or the society a dog perceives; we can derive a whole world which revolves around that particular dog, but it's still merely a reflection of reality - our perception of what we think a dog's perception of reality is. You can write a novel in whatever genre you like, but you still cannot deny that it's a reflection of reality, or rather, it's the novelist's perception of reality. Having said that, a novel need not to be truly realistic, in fact it can be as surreal (or in Garcia-Marquez's case, magically real), and/or as absurd as one likes. What is truly realistic? What is surreal? What is absurd? Nothing is truly realistic except the objective reality - events that are happening around us as we speak - even then it's only our perception of it. Our perception of this objective reality is what I term subjective reality, and if you agree with my empirical observation, hence my fundamental assumption that humans aren't perfect and will never be, then subjective reality will always be inferior to objective reality and cannot BE it. There's a strange relationship between subjective and objective reality, because one isn't merely the derivation of another. Rather, what links objective and subjective reality isn't casuality but correlations. Our perception of what this particular reality at this particular time and moment, is actually based on our senses, knowledge, values and morals, which in infinite terms is a derivation from what people before (our parents, our ancestors, or some wise guy like Confucious) had experienced from the objective reality, and what they had empirically learnt from it. We learn in many ways, and in particular pereptions of the reality passed on through human society through many generations, some still exists today, some probably went extinct long ago. On one side, what we have instinctively, or empirically, learnt from the objective reality is a peception, a correlation of it; on the other hand we perform actions (whether by means of action, speech, words or whatever) that directly affects the objective reality, because the society is formed of an astronomical amount of entities like us - humans. You can probably guess by now that the relationship between objective and subjective reality is asymmetric. However, that is then beyond the context of this chain of thought, you only need to know the reception part. We write our novels based on our subjective reality, and what is amazing about novel writing is the fact that when we write we are no longer obliged to confine to correlating with objective reality, but only the realms or our imagination. They sky is the limit basically. In other words, you can derive a novel from your subjective reality and your imagination. Novels are direct derivations of the particular novelist's perception of reality, even if in the end the novel appears surrel to its readers. No one can deny that there are hints of subjective reality in surrelism (or it's lesser counterpart magical realism), it merely messes with the reader's own subjective reality, rather like an itch, which is a disruption of some sort from the neuron sending out false signals. Take, for example, time traveling. Although special relativity told us that time traveling is not possible because of the existence of mass, unless the object that is to travel at the speed of light is massless, like a photon, is special relativity an objective reality? No. In fact, nothing is, and special relativity is only Einstein's perception of reality, which of course is subjective. We have no way of knowing if time travel is ever possible, at least not in our lifetimes because our current level of technology, advanced as it may seem, cannot cope with the testing of such theories. Let's take a little detour. From the previous scenario you may ask, "what about scientific theories?" Theories are likeness of reality - they describe it (At this point, I would like to stress the difference between theories and laws - both theories and laws are technically falsifiable, however, laws, because of their basicness, it pretty damn hard to falsify empirically, that's why they're are called laws, like Newton's three laws of motion and Faraday's law of electomagnetic induction instead of theories). One can see the superiority of empiricism in relation to reason - Aristotle's perception of reality was overtaken by Galileo's because of their different methods of arriving at a theory, Aristotle derived his theories from reason, whereas Galileo derived his theories from empircal experiements; the same difference goes to Adam Smith and Plato, and the difference in their views had eventually developed into different schools of economic thoughts. Put in simple terms, reasoning is what you think with your mind, empiricism is with your learn from your senses and experiences (this definition is noway near the length I need to goto to explain the two, you may try to find something here, found on the net). Although things can be seemed to be reasonable, sometimes it doesn't conform to the subjective reality that's limited by empircism. My definition would suggest that subjective realities will always be inferior to objective realities, because of the method of arriving at the theory - empiricism - derivation by our senses and experiences, although we can say that it's pretty close to it; empiricism therefore poses as a limit to how close to objective reality we can be. As for ensuring that theories are based on observations and derivations that are as empirical as possible, humans employed two major tools - mathematics, which is imperfect but perfect, and a whole community of scientists dedicated to empiricism. Let's get back to novels. Of course writing novel isn't as simple as writing a subjective reality like "I woke up at 7 in the morning and did this..." that's just writing a diary, and most people would find it quite bland and crap. Most novels based on a set of scenarios, and how the protagonists and other characters react to it. In other words - it's the novelist's portrayal of a story and its characters, according to his own perception of reality, which doesn't necessarily have to be realistic. However, there are often complications associated with novel writing in terms of reality, for example, most rookie novelists tend to muddle empiricism with reason. It can be easily seen from teenage writers (but not confined to them, sometimes I saw rookie middle-aged novelists making this mistake), with what they don't know or had no empircal knowledge of, they simply derive it with their reason, and with varying degrees of success. For me it's pretty much a rookie mistake, because it lacks substance. What does it mean when empiricism was muddled with reason? Take, for example, you have created a character that's very inclined to be impulsive; and if you've lived long enough, you will probably agree that because most humans are lazy fuckers, their personality only changes in a very limited number of circumstances, and one of them is if something catastrophic had happened in their lives (what we call life-changing circumstances); therefore, you cannot expect this character to wake up one day and suddenly stops being impulsive, be considerate and thoughtful at the click of the pen. It's simply not empircal. Normally, if a novelist want this to happen, he may wantmake it happen slowly but eventually by inserting scenarios that slowly opened his eyes to the real world (or as I said before, a drastic situation) whilst a rookie will try to explain this sudden change, often without success. That's why I call this a rookie mistake, because if a rookie knew then he probably wouldn't let it happen, because if he came into experience with someone like the character he created, then he would know that his reasoning was in fact wrong in the face of empiricism. What I've learnt over the years of novel writing, about reality, is this - "What you write need not be real, but at the very least it should be empirical." From the above statement and all the crap I wrote before, can we reconcile the seemingly contradicting relationship between realism and surrealism? Does surreality necessarily contradicts with empiricism? Yes, of course it does, but the reconciliation is simple - here's when imagination (not reason) comes in. We all know that, in the reality that's in front of us, a human cannot extend the physical length of one's arm at one's command, but we can certainly make that possible in a novel. But does imagination equals reason? That's a question I will probably try to answer, with my limited knowledge, later. I remembered an open letter written by Jin Yong to some young writers who have entered a novel competition, the essence of it basically said that "young people should concentrate on their study and personal developments than to spend much of their adolescence on writing novels." Harsh words, but I agree with the master. That's it for now, need to think before I carry on writing (damn when can I sleep!) p.s. I have no intention to write a philosophical discussion out of this, I merely want to write down what I've learnt from years of novel writing.

I've had it...

2006-02-09T20:41:00.000+01:00

That's fucking it! I can't take it anymore, I'm going to move out of blogger. Any suggestions?

Thoughts

2006-02-09T19:55:00.000+01:00

1) Ever since I experienced the dark side of things, and been in some extraordinary situations (well for a kid anyway) for the first time since my adolescence, nothing much can surprise me in this little world, and my firm belief is that there is a dark side to everything, absolutely fucking everything. So I came back to HK from London earlier than I thought because I wanted to attend the gathering hosted by Marky and Blacksnow, at that time I was really tired and didn't realise one or two things - from some people's blogs there were words written with sacarsm (save you time finding it, it's here, and possibly more that I didn't know of); before the meeting I didn't really know Marky that well, and of course I didn't see this either. Of course I didn't know enought about what went on behind the screen to bother or comment, but I think I can guess, and I'm bloody good at that. From a very early date it was clear to me that so-called HKBLOGGERS would fall into three main categories - those who do (or not) mind their own business, those who do (or not) have points to make, those who do (or not) seclude themselves within their own little social circles. Ah HA! Just like reality. The longer you write blogs, the more people you know, and the more people you saw starting to write blogs, you will know that the so called blogosphere is really nothing more than a reflection (or an interpretation) of present day society, namely the Hong Kong one. That means - like you read a newspaper everyday - hope for the best, but expect the worst, from people, because shit happens. As things become more in line with reality it becomes, at the same time, more colourful and there's often more than meets the eye. For example, just because you have a little something you can then project yourself as the eventual master or God, using the same principles of projecting a company's future earning power based on current performance. This allows you to acquire a fan club of mobbish followers (namely readers or cult fanatics) and, when somone better than you comes along and start criticising you, you can command your horde of stupid fuckers to stop whoever's in your way. There are mobs like these all over the place, from ICQ to MSN to forums to blogs, they're like cockcroaches who just won't fucking die. Nobody knew why they have to attach themselves to idols and present themselves as inferior fans or volunteer slaves; maybe they were abused by their parents when they were very young, and in need of totemic comfort or just simply lacking self esteem. Though these little mobs reminds me of a Beyond song (which is in Chinese of course), which goes as such: ��A�@��RBeyond�@��R�L��j ��U�H�g ��z�} �]�˦h�L�@�� h�t�s��§ ��U�H�g �o��D �Y�Ϥ��|�q�� L4�\�� ܡI��ܡI��ܡI��ܡI �A�b�I�g ��H�c�� @�A��o ��I�L�^�� N�ñ��g �A�]��D �l��l��}�� \�� |�I��ܡI��|�I��ܡI WAKE UP! WAKE UP! WAKE UP!WHAT YOU SAY? �ڨS�H�g �u�Q��U�� @�Ǥ߸̷Pı ��g�ƻs �i��±� �n��걡�� 4�t��8 ��]�˰�� G�|�I��L�I�G�|�I��L�I To be honest, musically speaking this is only an average post-Koma era Beyond song, but what really surprised me was that the lyrics were written by the legendary Mr. Lam...never knew he had that kind of fire in him - that spite against stupid people who glorified themselves as fans. I guess what I really wanted to say is - the so called HK blogosphere isn't as pure and clean a place as some would otherwise think, and it should really comes as no surprise, because afterall bloggers, who write blogs, are real people (regardless of what they wrote were true or not), and real people behave like they always do - like fucking animals. There is a dark side to everything, even writing blogs and immerging oneself into an internet community that's more deregulated than reality. And if you're a parent of a child, then be prepared because this is the global trend that people have, in fact, two realities - a real one and a internet one. People don't seem to be who they are when they're in front of a screen, even I don't seem as the foul-mouth dick who bitches at everything, but frankly put there are just two sides of me - the usual one and the dark side - just like everybody else. 2) WTO ruled (in an interim report) that EU banning of GM food violates international trade agreements (read news here). I don't know if HKers knew anything about GM food, but if anyone eats any crop-based products that's from the West side of the Atlantic (That's USA, Canada et al) then it will probably be GM. There are currently no HK legislation that I know of that bans or regulates any GM food that are being sold in Hong Kong. You may think it may not concern us who live in HK, far and far away from the Atlantic, think again - China is also thinking about developing GM food to feed its own people. The whole case is ironic - whilst American bans stem-cell research, growing GM crops was one of the major triumph of 21st biotechnology, currently a thriving industrial sector in USA; and whilst EU is more open to the former, most Europeans are aversive of GM foods, probably manipulated into it by their governments and environmentalist nutters with scare tactics. EU has a de-facto ban on all food that's got GM written on their pack, and USA et al claimed that the EU was using safety concern this as a trade barrier against them because their safety concern carries no scientific justification. The Europeans of course fought back with their safety concerns (who knows? Maybe it's because they had read too much H. G. Wells or Michael Chriton or something? Probably mad cow cases), but this editorial comment from the FT had summed it up - this WTO ruling didn't, or rather not asked to, look specific into any safety concern that's associated with GM food (another words, whether GM food is really safe or not), but to investigate whether the EU had followed reasonable procedures in forming regulations. Put simply that means - if their safety concerns were proved to be unfounded, then they were obviously wrong in drawing up regulations equal to a de facto ban on all things GM; don't get me wrong - regulations are fine, but reality is that it obviously pissed many people off because it seemed too excessive. So, if you have read about this somewhere else and/or by pro-green organisations, don't believe a word those environmentalist nutters said about WTO legitimacy, those are just useless white noise and from people who hadn't a clue about, in fact, anything. No one is fucking complaining about the EU in the wrong for being scared about GM products, but the fact that they had put up excessive regulations that hampers international trade. Any suggestions for webhosts and blog platform? Because I want to move out of blogger, the downtime is really pissing me off...

The blogger meeting today...

2006-02-05T14:40:00.000+01:00

I went afterall, and had a couple of pleasent surprises, which I may or may not talk about later (kinda tired right now). We talked about a few things, and overall it was a nice experience and my curiosity was fulfilled (finally!). As to whoever wrote that comment about me at the gathering - I should try and write more post in Chinese in the future. :P Time to sleep... Update with my side of the account of the meeting: (Ok, I will bloody write it in Chinese this time; I think Stackey wrote that comment about me...) ��W�T�I�Q��!M�ڦ]��ɮt��Y��ӤF�C ��`�ӻ��M��f��~��^��䪺�H��|�g��y��]�A�ˡz��ɮt��D�]�S�O�O�F��Z��^�C�ڨëD��H�M�۵M�]��|�ҥ~�C��]�A�˪��N��²��w�w��_�ɡM�U�Ȯɤ+K�}�l��W�ΡM�O�H�C�@��q�^��^�ӧڳ��|��@�a��]�ߤl�C�ߤ@�ѨM�ɮt��G�k��K�O�Q�Τ@�ܨ�ӬP�aM��ղz�ίv�ɶ��Q�S�Ϊ̥i�βr�Īv��f�M��j��Q�h�p�ɪ��ίv��A��ܤȩ]�C �]�\�O�ڦ~��ɱ`�`�βr�Īv�o��f�a�S��M�~��ٻ��~�g�Ө�F�Q�]�]��`�ȥͯf�M�ҥH�K�u�n�C�C��v�ɮt��D�C �Q�ѤU�Ȳz3�O�ڪ��ı�ɶ��M��F�X�ubog-you��իȻE�|�M�K�i��ťX�h�F�C�Ʊ�ڱ˨��]��H��R�A�T�j�N�Q�O�T�^��ߥi�H��ʲ��H�C�]��꦳��n��ʪ��S�^ ��ƫe�ڥu�O�h�ۤK��ߺA�M�Q�ݬݨs��իȬO��ˤl�}�F�M��L�̫��٬O��o�D�`�ɿ��C�_��X�u�o�ӻE�|�G�M�O�ȱo��C �N�p��e�һ��M�E�|��X�ӥO�ڦL�H�`�誺��ߡM�b��P�P�Q²��g�X�C ��M��3�ӬO�̿��F�E�|��@�H�M��I�}�l�M�M�ӧڤT�I�~��i�@�ثǡC�_��٦��I��i�M�]�\�t�a�̧ڹﲳ�H�h�ۤ��ִq�w�w��j�a��ڦb�ո��̻{�Ѫ��j�a�@�ˡM�S��'O�C ��F��~�y�@�ثǡM�Q�ӭ��3�⶧�x��M�ڥ^�^�ƤF�H�Ƣw�w��G�Q�ӭӡC�L�̤��|�H��ڦ�b�R�'a�S�A�Q�ۤv3�ӬO�̿��F��@�ӡM��ɮg�Ӫ��إ�3�Ӥ��֡C ��i��x�M��M�Pı��|�g��R�C��ı�T�O��ı�TShit�T ��H��n�ݧڡC�y�A�O�ְڡT�z��n��ӷ��h�h�M�o�{��DVC��Ӥ��N�O�m�Y��s�D�n��L�l��S ��W��W��]��줣�Ρy��^��谥��z�O�S�^�M�b��Ҧ��H�J�M�y��T�z�F�@�n�C �A�̷F�ܡS��D��H��a�ܡS �y�`�`�ʤf��ӡS�z�L�l��ݧڡC ��S�ڱ`�`�ʤf�ܡS �ڥu�n�W��ۧ_�{�F�L��D�M�M��ۭӨ�{��@�ǧ��a�觤�U�C ��M�³�Marky��ѡM�L�̵��ڪ��Ĥ@�ӦL�H�O�w�w�y�¥��١S�z �ڤ]�M�M��F�X�y�M�i�O�K�K�o�å��a�O�Өk��S�k�H�Ѫ��o�ئW�r�S��L�ܻ��^�ӥL��y�թMStackey��ٯu��C Ana�MSinfairy�M�ڷQ�H��@�Ҥ@�ˡQ�̱�M�賣�O�즸�{�ѡCDan Ryan�MStackey��ڷQ�H��~��C �ݵۧY�N��b��L�l��X�ݮɩ��M��F�]�g��׭�M��E�|�W�K�F�Y�ª��^�M��L�L��ı�o�ܦ��M�i��O�]��L�o��I�{�u�ҥHı�o��CSinfairy��ڤ]3�ӥh�@�Ѳ��M�ڥu�n�W��ۻ��Q�x��]�O�o�˼g�a�S�^�]�O�즸�{�Ѫ��իȡC �L�l��Ӵ'ک��ɮɰݤF�X�Ӱ��D�M�y�A��M��W�g�F�誺�A��ɬۦP�S�O��ʮ�5�a�S�z�ڨS��ߧY�^3�L�M��M�}�x��ӳX�ݡM3�Ӯ�ѵ��F�L��ðݡC��ɸ��U�ťաM�u�n�ɥL��~�M��L3�ӷ|�Q�L�R�ŧa�S�L��O�絹�ѱC�ݪ��]�o�O�gThis Teacher Blogs��իȡ^�C Marky�ݧڳܤ��ܭ��b�w�w��O��b�D�w��@�W�իȸ��e�Ӫ��M��ۤv�{�b��ܰs�ҥH�u�n��ڤF�C��ӵo�{��Ӱ��F��b�ٰe�Ӥ@��}�G��A��M�u��߫䪺�k�ġCMarky�S�i�D�ڦb�ȤW�g�U�ۤv��w�ΰQ��իȩM�P��M�O�X�ߵ�i�H�o��~�Q��U�ťաM�u�n��v��g�C �M��o�ͤF�y�B�E�s�ƥ�z�w�w�̱��MDan Ryan�M�ڳ��M��Q�k�̻ͭz�ٻŦ�B�E�s�Q��|�O�S��ı�o3�ӬODR��ˤl�̹��M�̱��k�M�O�Y�ӥx��ҢءQ�ڶܡS�֤]��M��H�U��ݩx��o��]�o�ODaytona��᪺�E�|�Ӥ�^�C�n��ܡM�٬OAna��ӡy��°��ϬY�g�z��!]�ڥu�O�o��°� :P�^�C �̫�M�کMDR�o��y�B�E�s�S�̡z�y�Q�G�z�ۻ{�M�ƽ]�D�`�C ��F�\Ū�P��ɶ��ɡM�X�{�F�@�Ӹ��Ԫ�|�Ϣw�w��@�i�o��P��S��H��]��L��o��̬ODR�MJacky�^�M��]�O�y��׹L��E�P�M�o��̮��ͩR�M�I�z�]�o�@�q�j�a��3�ӷ|�b�L�l��podcast��ݨ�M�G��ء^�Q�ٽЦ��ߤH�Ѷ}�ڳo�κðݡC �|�I�b�M�쥻��U��w�g��o�C�C�K�K�M��M�y�j�i�z�]�j��q�i�^��W�q�x�X�ݮɫo�O�V�ӶV�s��r�M�󦳩��M�ΤO�MRyan�MĬ��]�S�q��a�S�^�M�e�N��M�M��MSherfield�]�ëD�իȡM�o�O�y�}�W�Өӡz��ǴC�H�T�^�@�_�Q�פ��ǴC�M�g�ո��D�M��q�}�h�Q�b�o�̦h�¤j�a��_�Q�P�W�쪺�N��M�u�Ʊ�j�a��Q�ڪ��o�ܴe�ˡC �]�p�G�Qťť��e��ܡM�y�}�x�z��N�|��o��podcast�X�ݡ^ �쥻��I��E�|�M�j�a��줻�I�٬O��h�M�D�`��ɿ��Q�̫�M�³��j�٨��F�X�y��K�̨̤��˦a��}�@�ثǡC ��ӻE�|��F�ګܦn��Pı�M�ߤ@�P��Ѫ��O�M�]��֩M�t��Y�S��n�n�M�X�u�E�|��Ҧ��իȲ�ѥ��D�M�S�O�O�šMStackey�M��H�]�٦��@�ǨS�ӱo�λ{�Ѫ��իȡ^�M�Ʊ��A��ͪ��|�C �]��S��^�W�s��իȹD�p�^ ��¤j�a��d��M�Ʊ�u��̪��ڨS��j�a��]��]�j�a��ڳo�p��l��q檺�ܡ^�C �M��ݧڡR�y�Aı�o�A��άO�^�ꪺ�v�T��j�S�z �ڵ��R��!M��̤]��M��L�^��v�T�ܤj�N�O�C�ڪ�q��診�@�M��}�񪺱Ш|��k�M�q�ӾǷ|�F�W�ߪ��ҼҦ��Q��䪺�v�T�٬O�b��M�_�X�ک��l��٦��ۤ��H��M��a��Q�M�y��I�N�O�y��X�z�z�C �ڤ��|�W��ۤv�u��H�@�M��Q�M�u�n�O�A�αo�y��Q�ڳ��|�ĤJ�ۤv��ͬ��C

This is the end, my only friend, the end...

2006-02-04T02:56:00.000+01:00

Touched down at HK international airport today, after an 11 hour flight. Yet again confirm my developing cronic hatred for long haul flying. My ears are still fucking hurting from the abrupt change in cabin pressure - afterall from 30000 feet to ground zero is quite a considerable drop, and the pilot probably felt obliged to fly straight down to the runway instead of slowly circling down, which contributed to my pain. I swear, if either/ or both of my ears popped due to landing procedures (or rather the crapness of it) I'm going to sue the airline company (whichever one I happened to fly with at the time) for a couple of billion dollars in physical damages, just for fun. Since the Eygptian car accident involving Hong Kong tourists a couple of days ago, this happened - even more hardcore than your car accident, a fucking cruise ship was sunk in the Red Sea! Yet many more people died, which kind of makes you think "Are these merely isolated incidents whose inadequete safety measures are at fault, or rather these are coordinated (terrorist) actions?" I love a consipiracy theory... My life as a full-time irresponsible student is officially over, and a new, more challanging, phase of my life is going to unfold in front of me, so watch this space. Meanwhile, should really tackle the jetlag so I can goto the blogger meeting tomorrow...

News today...

2006-02-02T18:40:00.000+01:00

...As I've done pretty much everything there is to be done before I return to Hong Kong, I've come to a couple of pieces of news that's fascinating to read: 1) As for the HKers who were killed in Egypt in the New Year holidays, I offer my most sincere condolences. These things do happen, and although we can't really help them to get through this tragedy, the best we can do is to learn from them - that means buying travel insurances wherever you leave HK for travelling. 2) Shell announced record profit for financial year 2005, which stood at 13 billion pounds. Hardly surprising really, considering how high the oil prices are now, and just another confirmation of the manipulation of the oil market by multinational oil giants...having said that, Sinopec, PetroChina and CNOOC are probably good buys for this year. 3) Saudi Arabia had boycotted Danish goods import, and members of Hamas in Gaza had surrounded the EU embassy, both demanding an apology from the EU, for allowing the Danish Newspaper Jyllands Posten to post offensive images of the prophet Muhammed, founder of Islam. Shown below are pictures that I can find from the internet on those cartoons; but if you want my opinion, they aren't that blasphamous really, not at least compared to some of the images people made against the Catholic and Christian churches (what can be more sick than a gay priest fucking a little boy from behind?). As a Chinese capitalist dog who was brought up in the secular United Kingdom (or even the Confusian China), I think the last caption presents a very strong point.

If you want a great response from a muslim on this matter, read this.

1/2/06...

2006-02-01T22:13:00.000+01:00

...booked my return flight - friday morning. Something happened in HK so I have to go back earlier than expected (nothing bad, so no worries). Listening to the ever-so-depressing Lost Souls by Doves, suddenly feeling a great sense of nostalgia and distances...

30/1/06...

2006-01-30T17:51:00.000+01:00

...I touched down at London Heathrow at 620am today, and after being awake for 14 hours (I vaguely slept on the plane for about 11 hours, which was God blessed) I've done pretty much what I came here to do...all except packing. I have arranged everything to change over to my fellow housemates who will be carrying on living at the house without me. I'm very grateful to have 2 very understanding housemates who aren't too pissed off about me ditching them and working in Hong Kong. I felt that I owned them loads because you know how tenents are always binded by that fucking tenency contract and its terms, and therefore I should do as much as I can without putting too much burden onto them and their work. As my last days in the UK become imminent, suddenly I started to miss this God forsaken country. Although it's always cold, always bloody raining and always make you feel shit, afterall I have given more than a decade of my life growing up at this place, from just a little boy to now an independent adult - in England's green and pleasent land, as William Blake put it. There were memories both good and bad about this country - I made lifelong friends, experienced life that I never could have in Hong Kong, fell in love (and heart broken) for the first time, blah blah blah. It's in this country, because of it's freedom, that I was encouraged to pursue my interests, things that I wanted to do where I wouldn't stand a chance elsewhere. In the end my mother was right, if I stayed in Hong Kong I will probably either end up in jail or fail at school and live on doll money because of my personality just wouldn't survive within the Hong Kong education system, and hence becoming a reject. Now that I have 2 degrees and climbing loads of ladders at the same time, I wish that my mum would be proud of her son should she be around today. As many bad points as there exists, and how I severely bitched about this country, it and its people developed me into who I am today, and I am always grateful for that. My life, and the country I grew up in, showed me how lucky a person I am compared with some people. All I need to do now is to stay awake...

The New Year comes...

2006-01-27T17:42:00.000+01:00

Just want to wish everybody a happy new year, live long and prosper, make loads of money, have lots of kids, and suceed at whatever you want to do in the coming year, meanwhile I will be leaving HK for London on Sunday night to go back to pack...

A little note about the hkbloggers meeting...

2006-01-25T15:37:00.000+01:00

...although I don't really who will be going to that bloggers meeting (only two bloggers I know will be), but I will probably be going (although I haven't paid yet). PROBABLY in this case means that I am coming back from the UK on the 5th of February, so I don't know if the jetlag will get me, but I believe plenty of sleep before and Red Bull will help me through it - it's a Godsend that 7-11 now sells Red Bull in Hong Kong, that yellow stuff had helped me through some hardest times before...

The verdict:

2006-01-25T05:24:00.000+01:00

GOT THE JOB, WILL BE STAYING IN HONG KONG. Now it's time to go back to the UK and pack, and then I may have to desert this blog for 3-5-7 years working/studying towards being a chartered accountant in Hong Kong...or maybe not, I will find time to write something uesless and bitch, however hard it may be in the future. But, Shatin - Sheung Wan everyday? Jees...

Midnight of 21/1/06...

2006-01-20T17:57:00.000+01:00

...as usual and not surprisingly, I can't sleep again. It hadn't happened to me for a while now (since summer anyway), although that doesn't necessarily means that I am cured from such occasional insomnia (whether the origin of it is incidental or psychological is beyond me), sigh... It probably has something to do with my intensive use of brainpower lately - thinking about mortgages, cash flows...money matters, and my life in general. It may sound melodramatic and too sentimental at times, but constant self-assessment is one of the most effective way to improve on any matters, after all being criticized is one thing, but realizing where one has gone wrong oneself isn't as easy as it seems; some people are vain enough to think that they are, in fact, perfect. "Life, just take it as it comes man, what is there to contemplate about?" A friend once said this to me. Am I simply thinking about meaningless things too much or otherwise? One thing that confuses me is this - Is thoroughly planning one's life really exclusive from phrases such as 'take life as it comes'? I used to face things as they comes, and react according to how I felt at that time, what situation I was in, and possible consequences my actions may provoke, or even evoke. As I gain more and more experiences and caused yet more blunders to myself and others, it's becoming increasingly impossible to just take things as it comes - at the very least, I realized that one really can't be reactive to the outside world. Bruce Lee once said, "When someone attacks you, don't defend, attack!" If one takes proactive approach to problem solving, then it implies exerting control, before you're being controlled by outside forces. Socrates was the proclaimed man of wisdom because he knows truly that he knows nothing, and I guess what I am going through also happens to other people - as one knows more and more, one cannot stop having the feeling that even though one is no Socrates, at least one can try ones best to control whatever is happening and/or will happen in front of ones eyes. As I take more and more control of my life and what I project my life will head, it's blatant that there are some things which are totally in my grasp, and some that are totally out of my control. Ever since I was young I was exposed to both sides of the science-religion argument - my boarding school was an Anglican school and my education was based heavily on science - I hold no religious belief that everything has a creator and all things then and now serves a purpose; if Quantum mechanics can explain even macroscopic phenomena by purely statistical measures, why is it so hard to accept that things happened by chance? (Please note that I have no wish to debate about the first cause here, so don't) There are things in life that are imminently close in sight - things that will happen today, tomorrow or in no time; and then there are things that are really fat-fetched, either way in the past or way in the future. For us who are mere mortals, is it really that meaningful to search for the (non-)existence of God? Even if we manage to (dis)prove God's existence, will that feed our families? Probably. How about discovering the meaning of life? Probably not, because the society we live in runs with a different mechanism. If you're starving, will that same answer save your life and put you out of misery? Probably will, but not in a constructive way. Fortunately I have no imminent problems that I cannot solve, only those with outcomes that I seemingly cannot control at all. These couple of years I have taken my life literally with my own bare hands and took it towards a direction that I kind of intended it to go, but lately that doesn't seems to be enough, because there are too little proportion of it that I can control, but too much that I can't. If I had less ambitions in life I probably would have gladly accepted the fact that there are things that are simply beyond my control, then give up and live the rest of my life as a normal human being just like other people; at one point in life I really did feel that my life was fulfilled, I was living pretty much in peace and at one with the situation I was in, until one day my mother suddenly passed away...I still can't forget what that whole tragedy meant to me; I guess it all comes with constant self assessment - my mother's death had taught me more things than she had actually taught me whilst she was alive, and how much of an influence she had on me, both good and bad. Like it or not, we are like a sponge that absorbs very much from what's happening around us (especially when we are young, but not confined to adulthood), and we apply it into our daily life - that's one of the most fascinating aspects of psychology, and whatever decisions we make we are conscious of it, because we made that decision based on our conscious streams of thought. Freud categorized consciousness into the famous 3 - id, ego and super-ego. We pretty much base our decisions on those 3...and also outside influences. One of the things that changed me is that there really is nothing that I cannot do, only things that I don't want to do. I have already changed some of the habits some people struggle with all their life; some of the things I've done is a prove that my new found philosophy in life is at least applicable on my own matters. At least now I know that I can influence myself, I've done one half of Sun Tzu's most famous proclaimation, "Know yourself and your enemy, and you shall win in every battle." (in this way, Sun Tzu seems to have even more wisdom than Socrates because he went one step further) Lately one comes to realize that although there really are things one cannot control, one can at the very least try to influence the outcome; When I was young, because of my sometimes unhappy life experiences I tend to turn inward for self-comfort, and although such symptoms seemingly cured itself during university times, my mother's death had totally shattered my mentality and I retreated inwardly for quite a while until I can regain some sort of composure. It's not until very recently that I realized that even outside forces can be influenced one way or another - whilst I was working for the previous job I had (which lasted 2 weeks) as a credit analyst trainee (frankly speaking it's just interviewing company directors and compiling a credit report based on the information obtained) I interviewed directors of companies big and small...ok so I haven't interviewed any big bosses from multinational corporations, but some SME (samll and medium enterprises) are bigger than I thought, and as I interviewed those so-called directors, it suddenly daunted on me that these people are merely human, and most of the time words alone can already influence them into giving in formation that I needed to do my job (given how reluctant some people seemed when asked about sensitive information about the company). Of course I didn't excel at a job that I've only been doing for 2 weeks, but I've already learnt more than I thought I would. What that means is - those so called outside forces that I cannot control are actually no more than forces exerted on me by other people, and if I am ever able to get to the person who exerts these forces on me, then at least there's a chance of influencing them, and hence the outcome (providing they're the cause). For example, there are reasons why I wasn't considered for a particular job - the interviewer thought that I wasn't suitable, or someone else was better qualified than I was at that job. With hindsight, I could have influenced the outcome of that interview by being better prepared, know someone that can get you the job, or kill the other candidates. Whilst the last possibility is only one of the extremes, it really isn't that hard to network with other people right? And being better prepared is even easier. Of course there are no guarantees that I will eventually get that job, and that's just to prove my point that even outside forces can be influenced, simply because us humans are such inferior being that can be influenced one way or another. We live in a society intensely overpopulated by humans, and therefore it's only reasonable that we sometimes feels the effects from causes not by us but by other humans...basically speaking, if you don't have a clue what I've just said above, I can summarize it for you in two words - Chaos Theory. In our society, so much is happening that it becomes mission impossible to trace every single cause and effect back to its origin, however if you've studied Chaos than you will realized that although chaotic actions are in no way predictable (it's unpredictable in the fact that once the starting conditions were changed, even by the slightest amount, the latter chaos is in no way the same as the previous chaos), most of them are observable, and if one thinks hard enough a relationship can be derived from it, eventually; our brains has a natural talent for spotting patterns, even seemingly chaotic ones - a maths professors room is like hell to his students, but he can find everything that he had eer published in those Everest of papers. The latest range of HSBC adverts had one line which I think gives food for thoughts - a different point of view is simply from a place where you are not. Referring to my first questions, I simply hold a different point of view - my life had told me that contemplating about life isn't necessarily exclusive from the reactive attitude of take life as it comes, if one had planned and anticipated what could and would happen imminently, and then one can afford to relax and be reactive, because chances are you already attacked it. Maybe that's another part of what my mother's death taught me - in planning one can anticipate things that can happen, and to do that different perspectives have to be thought out. Good night. Thank you for listening.

My life as a movie...

2006-01-20T16:00:00.000+01:00

Erotic Thriller

You've made your own rules in life - and sometimes that catches up with you. Winding a web of deceit comes naturally, and no one really knows the true you. Your best movie matches: Swimming Pool, Unfaithful, The Crush

If Your Life Was a Movie, What Genre Would It Be?

Jees...that thing just makes me a fucking pervert...

Some thoughts on New Year Resolutions...

2006-01-19T17:58:00.000+01:00

(felt like writing something tonight, so I am risking a late night writing this, in expense of the busy day that's ahead of me tomorrow...) I never bothered with new year resolutions. From a very young age I've already discovered that life doesn't work on a 'you get what you want' basis, so I remember once when my primary school teacher asked me what I wanted to do as a new year resolution, I simply answered "nothing." Doing nothing is the simplest way out of everything, well at least for a kid of 5 anyway. Although that would probably make people think I'm lazy bastard because I don't bother, I beg to differ. I'm a kind of workaholic - I can work for a whole working day without eating a single gram of food, just living on water or sometimes sugary drink, and I've done it throughout my education, dissertation projects and at work (except for a summer job when I was working as a warehouse assistant, you really can't do those jobs without eating anything). The thing a workaholic dread most is that there's nothing for him/her to do - when I was in UK trying to find a job, I got so bored because I simply had nothing to do that I started draining all the alcahol in my house, in order to kill time (some people call this functioning alcaholism). However, if I'm working on things at home I simply don't eat at all, even though the fridge is only steps away from my study. "How can you mistreat yourself like this?" Whenever my wife found out that I didn't eat whilst doing things at home she puts up her angry face. I don't blank out messages from my stomach, when I'm hungry I do feel it like a normal human being, but since I am only doing work with my brain and not my body I tend to ignore/tolerate those seemingly meaningless messages; after a while the hungry feeling will die off, and then I can work without thinking about food for the rest of the day. I love eating, and it's a known fact that I have a bossy taste for all things edible, however, for me food simply isn't as important in the hierarchy of life as other things like money, and having lots of it. Back to the main point. Although I don't make up new year resolutions in particular and on purpose, I do set myself targets - my degrees and other things that I'm learning and doing right now are all set according to what I want to do with my life and money, and luckily I always get to complete what I wanted to do. People set new year resolutions because they want to do them, but how many actually gets them done? Something like saving money for a house is a long term thing and is therefore understandable if it wasn't completed in under 1 year, but how about simple things like stop smoking, stop swearing too often, stay happy and be nice to people, make friends, learn to cook and make cocktails etc? For me, new year resolutions are perfect examples of how life works - if you want something, you must pay for it (one way or another - with money, time etc.) - and how many people simply misses the point. Or put it this way - if you didn't set a target, then there won't be disappointment at the end of the year if you didn't complete it, because you fell short of your own expectation. That may comfort most people. I had a friend who always claimed that he wants to stop smoking, and that became his new year resolution and motto...but after 5 years, to this very day he's still smoking. I stopped smoking cold turkey about 3 years ago, and I didn't even make it a new year resolution. Of course, I also have targets that I haven't yet succeed - work in the investment banking industry, but for me that's one of my long term targets and I am now finding other ways to equip myself with knowledge and experience, and prepare myself for this long term target. My life told me that if you want things done the target itself isn't really that important - that's simply your starting point - it's hard enough for some people to realise what they actually want to do with their life; the most important thing for completing any target is perseverence and constant self-assessment. I guess the former is the point that most people don't want face because it implies hard work; I am also one of the victims at times - I always felt that 24 hours just aren't enough to do all the things I wanted to do, so I was forced to give up doing things like writing and reading (I still read, but at a much slower pace than before), which I don't want to give up at all. If I need a new year resolution, one of them will definitely be to sleep less, because it seems that I must sleep a lot if I am to retain enough energy to start the day, but as I said before, there's only 24 hours in a day, and if I need more time to do things then I must give up my sleeping time (averaging at 8 hours+ so far), and probably in expense of my health in the long run...probably not, I am sleeping more now because I don't have to wake up early to goto work, when I get a job (again) I will probably have to sleep less and work more anyway. Speaking of which, someone once told me how the relationship between money, family and health changes with age - When you're young money > family > health, if you don't have money you simply can't feed your family, and therefore money was earned in expense of family (less family time etc.) and health. As you reach middle age family > money > health, as you accumulate more and more money in the bank, with investments and insurances and all that, money becomes less and less important and you can concentrate more on your family, but since you're still working the issue of health just seemed too far-fetched to bother yet. When you're old health > family > money, when you don't need money and your family don't need you anymore, health suddenly becomes more important than anything - the rapid deterioration of health with old age can be very daunting for most people. The above relationship doesn't only show how money becomes less important with age, but how family is always more important than the other two, and how much people tend to neglect health because we have it. My grandpa-in-law (and indeed, many old people) is the perfect example, his colourful life story confirms the saying. However, what I couldn't agree with is what this person then say to me, "therefore you should take more care of your health now, before it's too late." Damn it! If I start to be scared of ill-health and dying now, then how am I supposed to work towards all those things that I want to do? What good is health if one has no money and can't feed its family? Can I eat my own body or my family if I get hungry? (theoretically yes, legally no) Thinking as I wrote, another reason why I don't set new year resolution is because there are simply so many things that can happen in one year/the future that can put you off-course your targets - last year I would have absolutely no idea that I will be in Hong Kong moving house and all that. Because there are simply so many possibilities of things happening, and everytime something happened it brings up new possibilities of doing other things, it seems to me kind of meaningless to set petty targets because you never know what will happen to you, and how you will react to it, and what the reaction means - it may mean giving up your previous target. What will you do when that happens? Give up your old target so you can pursue the new one? Or vice versa? If you set rigid targets then you will be bound for doom because most people will spend most of their time either struggling with the decision and/or regretting their reaction because they can only choose one or the other. Nike had a great motto that it used for many years - just do it. If you just do it and not waste time worrying about what if and what if not, you maybe more comfortable facing the road ahead of you, kind of like what I'm doing now. This is not to say that one should be a hot-headed fool because that implies eventually failing at everything; just as my wife always nags me that suitable risk management is desirable, but be bold once you laid out what you want to do. New year resolutions or not, targets are, afterall, starting points, one still has a long way to go once the whole thing is started. Time to sleep. Thank you for listening.