Jan
12th

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Since I said I don’t make new year’s resolutions anymore, I wanted to make some un-resolutions— things I realized in the past couple of years and need to undo.

Stop reading emails and messages and when I can’t reply right away— like on the Blackberry. Because that tends to lead to forgetfulness.

Stop being in a rush all the time. My friends always say that I am constantly in a rush— and they are right. I feel like I have to constantly get things done really fast all the time because that’s just the way I roll. Must. Breath.

Stop talking so fast. Simply because I can’t and the stuttering proves it. I can only talk amazingly fast in Chinese. And walking so fast. But sometime I can’t help that because “I have long legs.” Harhar.

Stop wasting time. Stop peaking at my emails, Twitter and my RSS feeds. Get my work done and get outta there.

Stop being so critical about myself. I hardly blog because I get sick of my entries— I’ll write one and let it sit in my drafts for weeks and then finally delete it. I don’t upload my design work because I don’t think it’s good enough. I’m so use to working for my company where my work gets reviewed internally and getting all my freelance clients by word-of-mouth, thus never having to make an online portfolio and display work to the “world.” When I started MMC with my girlfriend, I was quite terrified because that meant the world will get to see my work (even if it wasn’t polished to my expectations). I’m just going to have to have to step out of my comfort zone and learn that I can’t always be perfect. This is no way to market yourself either.

Stop sleeping so late. This is slowly killing me.

It’s kind of hypocritical that I am writing this entry right now… at 4am and it will probably sit in my drafts folder for at least a week or more. Maybe even un-resolutions are meant to be broken. Let’s see if I can prove myself wrong.

STOP!!!!!!!! Now for a little hehehe nostalgica:

Hey you, always on the run. Gotta slow it down baby, gotta have some fun.

Edit — Only sat in my drafts folder for a week! But here I am, publishing it off at 5am after sending out my last emails for the night. And after this, I’m going to be on Youtube watching old Spice Girls’ videos. Maybe this is why I stopped writing these things down. I will start these… in a couple of hours.

Thoughts & Insights

Sep
16th

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Do you get offended when people refer to you based on your skin color?

For example:

“Those white people don’t know what yeet hay means.”

I never hear Asians being referred to as the “yellow people” though. In fact, all Asian ethnicities are sometimes referred to as “orientals” or just plain old “Chinese.” I don’t get offended because I am oriental and I am Chinese but I’d be annoyed if I was Korean and someone just called me Chinese. It’d be like me calling all “white” people Scottish.

What about South-Asian Indians who are referred to as “brown people?” Aren’t they Asian as well? I rarely hear them being referred to as “Asian” especially living and being around so many East-Asians. Why do we call ourselves Asians but not them?

Just so I don’t leave the “red people” out; growing up in Saskatchewan, I’ve been taught since Kindergarten to call them “First Nations” instead of Natives or Indians as a sign of respect because one of my best friends back then was one. She didn’t have red skin though. First Nations history use to fascinate me and I remember wanting to be one because I thought that living in a tipi, hunting buffalo and eating pemmican would be so awesome despite the fact that none of those things really happen anymore.

I’m guilty of sometimes calling “white” and “black” people based on their skin color if I was referring to the entire race. I wouldn’t be offended (even if you call me a YELLOW) but since race is such a touchy subject, I’ve been trying to stop the habit. Even when I blog, I try to say African-Americans when referring to “black people” … but that sounds awkward because not all Africans are Americans and vice versa. But would I be offending them if I just say black people? Should I just say Africans? Or people from Africa?

Edit – here’s another thought since there’s been so much discussion about the “black” issue. I believe in evolution and that we all originated from Africa (or the land that was…) so that means we’re all Africans. Just a funny thought. Kidding. But anyway, I wish race wasn’t such a controversial subject because we all originated from the same place whether you believe in evolution or creation and we live on the same planet anyway.

News, Issues & Events Thoughts & Insights

Sep
11th

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Technology replacing books.

Can you imagine if all schools and libraries replaced their books with a digital archive (a “book-free library“)? What if a visit to a bookstore meant standing in front of a computer, browsing through titles and downloading them into your Kindle? What if bookstores won’t even exist anymore because all you’d have to do is download an e-book from your computer?

I don’t think books will ever disappear from the world but doesn’t the thought of it make you sad?

In Terry Brooks’ The Voyage of the Jerle Shannara trilogy, [Spoiler Alert!] they are searching for a relic of the old world (Shannara is magic-filled, fantasy world that was created after the our current earth and it’s people died from an apocalyptic event), only to find out that this relic is a huge compound full of discs filled with past human history and scientific discoveries BUT they can’t access it because they don’t understand nor have the technology to read the “discs.” What an oversight from a world that was so far in terms of technological advances, huh? [/Spoiler] Now imagine if all of our information were stored digitally… what happens when technology ceases to work? Everything would be lost.

You can increase information-sharing and save tons of space and money by going digital but the experience of reading a book just wouldn’t be same and would completely loose it’s essence. The touch of a book, the smell of the pages and even the occasional smudge of ink is all part of the experience. Walking in a bookstore, being surrounded by books and spending hours browsing the shelves is fun and therapeutic but where’s the fun in standing in front of a computer or reading The Pillars of the Earth from a tiny screen? Not being able to have the book in your hands makes it so boring and artificial.

Real book-lovers like myself will never go digital because there is nothing like the touch of an actual book or seeing those spines lined up beautifully on your bookshelves.

Well unless they are 948430lbs textbooks… then I’ll reconsider.

Books Thoughts & Insights

Sep
9th

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Yeet Hay (literally translates to “hot air“) is a condition that the Chinese believe you get when you consume too many “hot” foods. The Chinese culture revolves around yin and yang, so when you eat too many “hot” foods (eg. greasy/spicy food, lychee, durian, mango, etc.), your body will become imbalanced causing annoyances like cankersores, acne, dried lips, sore throats, nose bleeds, etc.

My parents and grandparents use to warn us all the time that eating too much of something will give us yeet hay but I always thought it was just something they said to make us stop eating junk food and never believed it until I got older.

Lychee is my favorite fruit and has deadly yang properties, hence the quote, “one lychee equals three torches of fire“. I can probably eat 985641564lbs in a sitting despite my dad’s warnings, but one day a light bulb went off in my head and I realized why I was getting so many cankersores in the summer (after basking in a pile of lychee)… YEET HAY! So my dad wasn’t lying after all.

IT’S TRUE. YEET HAY EXISTS. OH-EM-GEE.

One discussion that I have with my Chinese friends and family is: is there an English term for “yeet hay”? It’s always difficult to explain to our non-Chinese friends because there doesn’t seem to be an official term for it since the concept doesn’t really exist in any other cultures. The funniest definition I’ve heard is, “Are you sure it doesn’t mean yeast infection? …Chinese yeast infection?”

The Chinese believes that to cure yeet hay, you have to balance it out with yin (or “cool”) foods, for example, logans are the opposite of lychee (too bad they’re not as good).

Every ten li a station swirling with dust,
Every five li a post to urge couriers on;
Men die like flies, their corpses line the road,
So that lychees and longans may be delivered to court.
Carriages race over hills, boats sweep through the seas,
With new plucked fruit on fresh boughs, the leaves still dewy,
All to win a smile from the beauty in the palace,
Though it cost bloodshed and strife,
and its effect remains for ever.�

- Su Shi, 11th Century Chinese Poet, from A Lament for Lychees

I still eat boatloads of lychee. It’s totally worth the yeet hay considering I only get to eat it about 2 months out of a year. Slurp.

Food Thoughts & Insights

Apr
18th

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A century ago, nobody knew the Theory of Relativity (not like I do now, but you know). Humans dreamed of space travel but never in their mind would they imagine we’d be able to send humans into space now (even though we can’t go very far at the moment).

Half a century ago, there was no such thing as the internet. No Lost or Grey’s Anatomy in your living room. No credit cards (gasp). No diet sodas. No catastrophic killers such as the atom bomb.

Can you just imagine what’s going to be invented in the next 50 years? Can you imagine how changed the world will be when we’re old and hobbling around with some futuristic version of a cane?

@JohnChow‘s daughter has no idea what a tape or record is. Are my grand-kids going to laugh at me because I’ll still be reading BOOKS while they’re reading from some Super-Kindle that also pours you a martini with a simple thought-command … or one that reads for you (ooh)?

My girlfriends and I made a vow that we’d go to a rave when we’re 70 and try pick up 20-year-old guys to gross them out… what would “raves” be like then?

Are we going to be able to our grow boobs bigger without an incision? Or make all our fat and cellulite disappear with a simple pill? (Too bad we can only dream for now.)

The world is an amazing place. I can’t wait to live the rest of my life.

… that is if global warming or some apocalyptic event doesn’t kills us all first.

What do you think the future will hold?

Thoughts & Insights