What To Do?

September 12, 2021

Work seems to be picking up after my (half) Sabbatical and studio cleanup, made a new batch of business cards before meeting up a couple of potential collaborators in the past week. In our conversations, I did not hide my plans of possibly moving the business to Canada in the near future as I had pretty much lost all hope in our puppet government and its behind-the-scene regime.

It’s rather depressing to witness the continuing daily persecution of the leaders who had fought for democracy, freedom, justice, and human rights, etc. In the past week, another 4 leaders who had helped organize the annual candlelight vigil to commemorate the Tiananmen incident on June 4th, 1989 were detained and denied bail. What can we do to help the persecuted other than feeling helpless and depressed? I had been donating regularly to a crowdfunding project to help those being persecuted find legal aid and financial assistance, but now even the fund organizers are being persecuted and the fund itself ceasing to operate shortly. Sigh.

Foreseeing the decline of the once beautiful city and knowing that I’ll likely be moving back to Canada in the near future, I had been asking myself a lot about what I should do in HK for the meantime. I don’t have any concrete plans, but in deciding to keep the studio running, I hope to use the gifts and resources God had lavishly given me to serve others and to do “good works”. Hope that I can be a glimmer of light in this darkening city for as long as God keeps me here. 🙏🏻

Sketch… Sunday Service

September 12, 2021

Let’s Run!!

September 5, 2021

Originally had my eyes set on a marathon in Toronto in October so as to give myself an excuse to temporarily escape this depressed city and visit my other home and my family and friends there. But due to the marathon pandemic, the full marathon will only happen virtually this year, in-person run will be limited to 10k race only.

God seemed to know my disappointment and consoled me with a replacement marathon run locally in this depressed city. Most of the local public events are cancelled in the name of COVID-19, but our illogical government let this marathon slip for some reason. And the race is usually held annually in February when the weather is cool and perfect for long distance running, but this makeup race (cancelled in 2019 due to pandemic) unusually scheduled to be on Oct. 24, which I’m worrying might still be a bit too hot for a marathon. Regardless, I need to learn to trust that God’s plan is always much better than what I can imagine with my limited mind.

Things in our city continues to head south, and many personal things are troubling me without any clear resolutions, and this never-ending pandemic is exacerbating the whole situation. Having a marathon run to look forward to and my now-motivated weekly sweaty practices seem to provide temporary relief to the surfacing depression I’m experiencing… Let’s just run!!

Sketch… Sunday Service

September 5, 2021

Sketch… Sunday Service

August 29, 2021

Unusually Social Week

August 28, 2021

I’m not entirely sure why, but many of my social meetups ended up cramping into this one week and fitted perfectly into the weekly scheduling without overlapping. Other than Monday which I usually set aside for my weekly indulgence in ink art, I met up with friends every single day, probably a personal social record in recent years!!

Being a little introverted, continuous social meetups can easily drain my energy. I’m indeed rather tired while writing this post at the end of the week, but at the same time, I’m very grateful to have the opportunity to meet and catchup with friends amidst this never-ending pandemic.

Studio Cleanup

August 22, 2021

Have been busy cleaning up the studio in the last few weeks, it seemed like a never ending task, there’s always more things I could have organized and cleaned up further. Decided to finally call it quit for the big cleanup project last week after repotting the many plants in the studio!

The city and the world seemed to be falling apart while I was caught up with the studio cleanup:

  • The Professional Teachers Union disbanded, it’s one of the largest union in HK with over 90k members and a history of near 50 years
  • Civil Human Rights Front, organizer of the largest peaceful protests (over 2 million people), also disbanded citing “unprecedented challenges”
  • 612 Humanitarian Fund, a crowdfunding effort to provide financial assistance to the pro-democracy individuals who are being persecuted, halted operation
  • July 2021 was the hottest month ever on record
  • Taliban seized Afghanistan
  • Covid-19 Delta variant continued to ravage the world, even those countries with high vaccination rates

The Sunday sermon today hinted on the possibility that these were signs of the second coming of Christ, it certainly matched some scriptures in the Revelations. Many of us (including myself) are not prepared for the Apocalypse yet, may God be merciful to us all. 🙏🏻

Sketch… Sunday Service

August 22, 2021

Sketch… Sunday Service

August 15, 2021

A Time For Sorrow

August 9, 2021

There’s a time for joy and a time for sorrow. Following a happy reunion with my UW gang and coffee with the girl-I-like after more than a year of pandemic craziness, news of sickness and death started coming in from people around me.

First, my colleague told me her husband’s intestinal cancer had metastasized into the lymph nodes (stage 3) and will need to schedule for chemo and electro therapy. Then, one of my high school friends’ mother was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and she was deemed too old and weak for an operation to remove the tumor. And lastly, news of the death of my high school’s Chinese teacher reached my high school’s friends’ group and a few of us decided to attend her funeral on Sunday evening.

The grand funeral hall was packed with my late Chinese teachers’ family, friends, colleagues, and students. Each of the guests were handed a book that my late teacher had written and edited herself. It contained photos and letters and detailed chronological posts of her thoughts and feelings in the year long battle against tongue and throat cancer. I started sobbing as soon as I began reading the book. Even though I dreaded to read long passages of Chinese, I managed to read through the entire book from cover to cover after I got home, my eyes were watery most of the time. I think it was about 0330 when I finished reading and took a shower before going to bed.

My late Chinese teacher was one of the nicest teacher I had despite Chinese Language being my most dreaded subject back in the days. I studied it the hardest and yet get the lowest mark of all subjects. I can still recall one occasion when my late teacher asked me while smiling kindly in front of the class whether I was Chinese – “你係咪中國人嚟㗎？”. Don’t remember exactly what made her ask that question back then, and I was not at all offended, but her kind smile and voice stayed in my head after 20+ years, quite incredible if you think about it. I doubt that she would remember the incident or even me being once her student out of the thousands of students she had taught in the past 20+ years, but I think she’ll be happy to know from heaven that one of her students who hated Chinese is now learning Chinese calligraphy and am still a follower of Christ.

I must confess however, I still hate to read long passages of Chinese, it takes too much effort.