忠

Loyalty.

Loyalty is a great thing. Tight knit friends who have your back are great. It might take years to build, but it’s not easily thrown away. Even if you’re thousands of miles away.

Brotherhood is a great thing.

the ‘future’

One of my friends got me thinking today, and basically this is my life’s version of what he thought.

I’m halfway done with being here in Hong Kong. It a mere two months, I’ll be back to the United States, struggling to deal with my classes back at good old UCSD. I even planned out my schedule and await my registration date. It’s going by so fast.

And to think, if you had asked me a little over a year before if I planned on going abroad, I would have given an emphatic “no”. It just wasn’t on my plans of things to do. But here I am, doing things I never would have imagined.

I don’t remember how much I planned on going to UCSD. I certainly didn’t plan on living in a triple freshman year. I shuffled through multiple double majors before deciding on a Lit/Writing minor, which I might have majored in if I had time. I didn’t plan on working on any on campus job. I didn’t plan on taking any improv classes. I came to college to study music. And what am I doing now? Drawing graphs and writing stories, wishing I pursued more theater.

So, do I even try to plan for the future? Right now as I sort through my ideas and fears about grad school, teaching English abroad, writing, interning, interpreting, or even going back to my paramedic crazy ordeal, I feel like maybe I shouldn’t plan at all. After all, I’m not doing anything I planned right now. Or maybe I am, and I just don’t realize it because it’s simply a different take on what I had planned.

It’s funny, how so much seems to go back to what I learned in improv. You plan for things, but they get morphed into something you can never expect. All you can do is act in the moment, and keep listening for what happens next.

Japan, Pt. I

And so begins my thoughts on my trip to Japan. It’ll take several posts to get all my thoughts out, and in between I’ll continue to throw more Hong Kong goodness, or badness whichever way suits your style.

I loved Japan. I want to go into so much of how much I liked it, how special it is. But something set me off a little while ago and I feel the need to write about this more discomforting thing first.

I learned of a disheartening fact while I was in Japan. 34,000 Japanese, or maybe just Tokyo-ites, it doesn’t really matter, commit suicide every year. Did you know, that Japan is the only country to have a book detailing the different ways of committing suicide, that has become a best seller? Japanese is also probably one of the few languages to have multiple words for suicide, depending on how its style of execution.

For those who don’t like semi-gory details or terrifying stories, skip to the next bolded text. There are some trains in Tokyo that are express trains, meaning they skip various stations and stop only at the major points of interest. So because these trains skip various stations, their speed is fairly high when passing through. People, with no hope, have been known to wait on these stations for these express trains, and then jump on the rails at the last moments, knowing that there is no way to stop the oncoming train.

And so, not only is one life instantly lost, a family must grieve. Friends must grieve. But family must also pay the train company for the damage and the cleanup. And these costs usually are tremendous.

But what about the conductors of the trains that smash into people wishing to end their lives? How must it feel to be the controller of an unstoppable train, watching as it plows right into a fellow man? How about the people in the train who invariably know that the train they’re on just killed somebody?

There are times when I don’t miss what goes on in the US. I can’t, my heart aches for what goes on around me.

Someone make it stop.

Naive? Maturity?

我好想用粵話寫一個日記, 但是粵話有一些字我不可以用Windows XP 寫一下.

I’d love to use Cantonese to write a journal, but Cantonese has some words that I can’t write down using Windows XP.

Hong Kong is not as fun as it used to be. There, I said it. Something has been lost since I last came here. Either I got older, or Hong Kong changed. Or both. Maybe everything was just cool when I was a kid. But I seriously view Hong Kong through new eyes. Some things are cooler, but others just aren’t.
The number one thing that has to bother me about here, is the drive for money, and the materialism. I thought America had it bad. I guess not. You cannot walk around here without your eyes being plastered with billboards, commercials telling you to buy things (to increase your popularity or what not), and people asking you to come into their stores to buy the latest thing on sale, which of course was on sale since last month and will be for the next. Crazy Christmas shopping crowds? Yeah, it’s like that here year round. Too bad people aren’t buying things for each other.

And lately, so much has been killing the part in me that wants to be idealistic. Is it even good to be idealistic? Sometimes you ignore severity of problems when you do.  Bitterness is a terrible thing. Absolutely killer…and the funny thing is, we have the right to be bitter too. But I’m sure there’s an idealistic version of bitterness which isn’t good either. I guess that would be choosing to be ignorant.

I still do, have a lot of love for Hong Kong. I definitely am happy to be here, and will always be happy to come back, as well as show friends around. It’s a part of me, and I can’t reject that.

Can’t let things get to me.

嬴得!!

“Win!” in Chinese.

Few things make me happy like people working differences out, no matter how small or big. I guess seeing broken things (anything from objects to friendships) fixed and put back together is a, simple pleasure of mine. (And sometimes not so simple, but still.) It might run in my blood–I think I know why.

Peoples

I mentioned a while back that I’ve come to realize that every place in the world is ultimately about the people.

That truth is becoming more and more evident as I stop exploring new areas (although I still do here and there) and simply start living here.  It’s interesting, just to even listen to my roommate talk about his stresses, goals, family quirks, dreams. We’re both different people, different values, different life lessons learned. And we both have our own mistakes and lessons to learn.

And the great thing is, the world as a whole seems to be like this. Sure, sometimes people do terrible things. But in reality, we all do. My roommate has his issues. I have my issues. But we both also have things we can share with each other, things that we can learn from each other.

Sometimes when I’m on the MTR, standing on the subway trains (or sitting on busses) waiting to go wherever I’m going,  I wonder what other people are doing. Where are they going? Is he going home from work to see family? Is she visiting a friend? What’s she playing on the Nintendo DS?

And I realize, our lives, over the world, intersect. Everyone has stresses, goals, family quirks, dreams. Stories. We all have issues, and we all have things to give each other.

What am I going to give to these people?

Rewards in Full

I used to think that I wanted to do something huge with my life. Like, I want to impact the world. So I tell myself, ‘Dream big Dan, dream big, and act on those dreams.’

But I’ve come to wonder. Am I okay with not doing anything big, with never having made a “gigantic impact”? What if I don’t start a huge movement? What if I don’t helpan entire nation out of poverty? What if I don’t plant an organization that gives food to the hungry? What if I don’t come up with a cure for a medical disease that kills millions?

What if, all I do is help one person here, one person there, and then another person there? What if it all goes unnoticed, except for those few people I do help?

What if, the sole purpose of my life is to help one person who no one else can help?

Am I okay with that?

Haircut Part II

So, what do you think?

Haircuts

So, yeah, I got my hair cut today.

You know what’s funny? They give you a big binder full of clippings of huge celebrities that I could have my hair styled to be like. A few selections:

-Won Bin (what’s a Korean guy doing in Hong Kong? I could have considered this though if it weren’t a picture of him with his hair shaved, who knows)
-Andy Lau (nah)
-Aaron Kwok
-George Clooney (?)
-Brad Pitt
-Edison Chen
-some random guy who’s on posters for cell phones

among others. I ended up choosing some random, probably unknown guy who’s hair was relatively similar to mine, and I just asked for it shorter. As for how it turned out, let me take a relatively decent picture, and then put it up. And then you guys can decide if Dan looks like a fob.

Stoked.

Again, anything you guys want me to write about?

You know what I discovered? I’m excited to be here in Hong Kong. I love it.

But you know what? I think I’m actually excited to go home, even though it’s three months away, and even though I know I’ll miss Hong Kong like crazy. I’m not homesick, I just feel like, it’d be cool to go home. See how much I feel home is different, and how much I know I’ll say Hong Kong is so much more fun.

I think, I’m excited to just be alive.