Tony Law's Website

End of Olympics

Aug 13, 2024

The little over 2 weeks of Olympic Games provided a good distraction from my daily routine of cleaning my home and studio. I seemed to be more engaged in watching the games this time than 3 years ago held in Tokyo amid the pandemic. HK did great with 2 golds and 2 bronzes, best result ever for the little city!

One of my most vivid memories of the Olympics was the one held in Beijing in 2008. I was still doing my master and watching the games from Canada. I don’t remember whether HK won any medal that time, but I was really proud seeing how well China had hosted the game and showing the world their unbelievably rapid development to become the world’s second biggest economy! That was one of the reasons why I decided to return to HK the next year.

Now in 2024, after experiencing the Umbrella Movement in 2014, Anti-Extradition Movement in 2019, 3 years of pandemic, and the hasty legislation of NSL and Article 23 in 2020 and 2024 respectively, I had witnessed the side of Beijing that’s completely different than the one I watched from afar in 2008. I have now lost hope in my birth city that’s ultimately being ruled by Beijing.

With the Olympic distraction over, it’s time to pick up the pace of cleaning up my home and studio and prepare for the return to my “Home and Native Land”. May God guide my steps. 🙏🏻

Studio Visits

Jul 29, 2024

Finished the studio cleanup just in time for some studio visits this past week. A brother from church whom I met recently visited on Monday afternoon. After the visit, I treated him afternoon tea and visited his office since it’s only 10 min walk from mine! An old CUHK classmate, who’s now an associate professor at a local university, visited the studio with her student on Thursday evening. Didn’t have too much to show them beyond what they could explore at their university facilities, so the visit was considerably short. I treated them dinner afterwards to thank them for their visit amidst the sweltering heat. In preparation for these and future studio visits, I made some customized souvenirs using my previous calligraphy work of the visitors’ surnames.

Besides the two studio visits, I had dinner with a few fellowship brothers to celebrate one of the guys’ bday on Monday. In retrospect, the week was a bit too social for an introvert like myself.

Tuesday was my studio’s 10th anniversary, I took the opportunity to do some gardening at work.

The Olympic Games had begun during the weekend. I managed to stay up to watch the amazing final of Vivian Kong winning the city’s first fencing gold medal! I joined my university alumni group to play some friendly badminton on Sunday evening. The last time I played was already about a year ago. My muscles are still sore while I’m writing up this post, but it’s good to get a healthy dose of exercise every now and then.

Studio Cleanup

Jul 22, 2024

Designed and made a couple of shelving units at the studio using some old Ikea boards, papertubes, and custom 3D printed joints. The extra shelving units added some much needed space for organizing miscellaneous things at the studio.

After a few weeks of dedicated work, the studio is now more or less cleaned up! My next step will be to start moving stuff from home to the studio. My home will need to be cleared out before I move back to Canada. Target to have this done in 2 to 3 weeks time. Add oil!! 💪🏻

Sketch… Sunday Service

Jul 21, 2024

Cleanups and Meetups

Jul 15, 2024

As preluded in last week’s post, I had spent much of my time last week cleaning up the studio. Made some decent progress. Will continue the seemingly never ending chore this week! I continued to experiment with multicolor 3D printing while cleaning up the studio. The milestone this past week was being able to incorporate my ink art into the prints, this opened up a world of possibilities in future product designs!

Also had a number of meetups in the past week. Had dinner with my calligraphy class on Thursday night, one of my classmates insisted on paying to farewell me even though I explained that my return to Canada had been postponed. Had lunch with the class again the next day, this time the classmate who treated us earlier couldn’t make it, and my teacher’s wife and an ex-classmate joined. My classmates paid the bill saying to farewell me even though I explained many times that I had postponed my trip and the exact date is yet to be determined. A uni friend from Canada was visiting town, me and another couple of friends had lunch with him and his wife on Sunday. We were planning to treat the couple of visiting friends, I ended up being treated as well, also partly due to “farewell”.

Even though I had told friends about postponing my return to Canada and that the exact date was still not set, many of them still want to know when I’ll be leaving. Maybe they think I’ll just be gone suddenly without properly saying goodbye? It’s not like I’ll never come back again, right? Regardless, I’m very grateful for friends who cared and wished to offer their farewell blessings, I’ll try my best to meetup everyone after I have the date set.

Sketch… Sunday Service

Jul 14, 2024

Drenching Heat

Jul 7, 2024

The scorching heat last week had drenched out much of my energy. It was unbearably hot here in HK last summer too, but this year seemed worse. Monday was a public holiday, I turned down my fellowship b&s’ invitation to visit Macau and instead stayed home drenched in sweat and simply wasted the day away. Stayed home on Tuesday as well to finish up the final piece of calligraphy work – the hundred surnames in seal script.

After getting all the calligraphy work over with, I immediately shifted my focus to cleaning up the studio. Made considerable progress, but the work was interrupted by a couple of meetup with friends on Thursday and Friday evenings. This long overdue studio cleanup project will be my main focus next week!

Still don’t wanna turn on the ac in my living room at home during the day in this drenching heat, so I had been, and will likely continue to be, spending much of my time in the studio in the next week or so!

Sketch… Sunday Service

Jul 7, 2024

End of Q2

Jun 30, 2024

Finished the 4th and last class of the paper-making course on Monday. I can now resume my regular routines on Mondays. I started going to work at the studio early in the morning because I desperately needed AC during the day in this extremely hot weather. Started the long process of cleaning up the messy studio. Started with the neglected Garden of Eden project. Dusted off the table and added automated lighting. The abandoned piece of land had now been turned into a land flowing with milk and honey. It’s now ready for the addition of new plants.

There’s an agave plant at a park near my studio that is blooming. The rare 2-3 storey high flower got me visiting nearly everyday for the past few weeks. This is one of the most exciting occasions for a succulent lover!

Finally read the “Loss Adjustment Report” from our studio neighbor who is seeking compensations from the disastrous sprinkler incident that happened in our unit back in January. I deterred reading the report last week after seeing the crazy large amount of compensations that the neighbour is seeking from us. But after spending some time to read the report in more details this week, I felt utter relief! The report was one of the most unprofessional reports I have ever read, and most of the items that they’re claiming compensations from us had no proof of damages and were obviously fraudulent claims. If they decide to go ahead with their legal prosecutions on us, they might end up needing to explain to the judge how this wasn’t a case of extortion instead!

Q2 had gone by in a whiff. Q3 will be a quarter of thorough cleanup for both my studio and my home. Hopefully it wouldn’t take up the whole quarter, will see.

Sketch… Sunday Service

Jun 30, 2024