明珠 The Year of Lost&Found

In my youthful years, strangers(little kids) used to point at me and called me Mulan enthusiastically while their parents panicked and apologized.  Nothing to offer apologies for…  I am honored to be seen as a warrior.  That positive sentiment no longer holds its ground thanks to the latest Disney rendition.  Mulan 2020 was an unfortunate mix of cultural stigma and lazy storytelling.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas… wrapping up gifts for my team.  The devil is in the peppermint red and white swirl twine!

 

父親故鄉產珍珠, 從小讀’滄海月明珠有淚’, 對山海經博物誌的鮫人泣珠充滿遐想.  結婚時父親母親公婆與眾長輩相贈的珍珠手飾, 因貴重且LK不擅珠光寶氣, 沈睡銀行保險箱多年.

... read more 閱讀全文 >

挑燈 Mischief Managed

An unsettling month of anxiety and depression from reading news or refreshing news feed very five minutes has come to a positive end.  USA needs a soulful recovery from the pandemic and we must learn to bridge a chasm of polarity. 

Home office 2.0 - old sketches, fresh bay leaf wreath, my pet Phalaenopsis and Microlepia strigosa.

'了卻君王天下事, 贏得生前身後名, 可憐白髪生.'

... read more 閱讀全文 >

嬋娟 E Pluribus Unum

October, inaugurated another season of the Nobel Prize.  What a relief hearing the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to the World Food Programme instead of Who Must Not Be Named.

... read more 閱讀全文 >

蘭絮 To Youth And All Its Foolishness

After excavating artifacts from old times, I decided to decorate my makeshift home office with a pair of royal wooden puppets from Bali, a boater from London, and numerous photo tiles from past journeys.  During the zoom debut, the team wondered if I drifted off to a remote island in the Mediterranean…  I WISH. 

整理舊物, 許多昔日心頭好陸續出土, 恰恰裝點違建居家辦公空牆, 開視訊會議時老闆與同事們狐疑, 這傢伙是溜到地中海還是巴厘島?

... read more 閱讀全文 >

解讀 Memento Mori, 109 Mt

So I titled my birth month post 'Remember You Must Die'… any psychiatrist in the house?  While COVID-19 hovers, I would be a hypocrite if I don't contemplate the probability and possibility of death.  GoT offers a somewhat plausible repartee, valar dohaeris(all men must serve) to valar morghulis(all men must die).

The will be, birthday reading of a couple books from my favorites.

SIP silver lining no. 0:  Breakfast table becoming… a modern art deconstructionism installation.

生日月談死亡似乎忌諱, 然陰曆七月半鬼門開, 中元普渡盂蘭盆節, 以史學人類學角度觀來, 祭祀先祖七七復生, 溫情淵趣.  同為八月壽星的LK弟, 感嘆自己不知不覺成大叔, 嬌妻幼子, 其實頗幸福.  老朋友M則選生日當天獨處小旅行兼冥思, 符合他近年清簡哲人風範.

... read more 閱讀全文 >

舊愛 Hrabal And Hannibal

Found another book in my garage(where're the skeletons?) which I started reading years ago and closed the final chapter with dignity last Sunday in one sitting, Too Loud A Solitude by Bohumil Hrabal.  Over a decade, the story of Hanta, the bibliophile, marinated to perfection for my palate or for it, I properly aged.  

兩者風馬牛不相及, 卻於敝人腦海過招, 愛誰更多些?  Dr. Lecter前有Anthony Hopkins睿智冰藍雙眸後有肌肉型男Mads Mikkelsen背書, 食色性也略勝一籌?  孰不知讀舊書的午后, 一氣呵成Too Loud A Solitude, 末頁喝得醉醺醺的怪老頭Hanta替自己舖好碎紙墓穴, 按下千斤頂壓床綠色鈕, 他眼前浮現曾親手綰的風箏和莫名失蹤枉死的吉普塞戀人…

... read more 閱讀全文 >

占卜 Toast

Sortes Vergilianae is a form of divination by books, specifically Virgil's Aeneid.  I continue to question the epic:  it's the men who play with fire but always the women burned on the pyre, WHY?!  The ability of making visual connection as a designer has made me a fine detective.  My foresight however puts me in awkwardly social danger sometimes, death by moral, so to speak.  Uncannily I was reunited with Nigel Slater nearly an exact year after by the movie Toast.

去年此時端坐京都開化堂的咖啡沙龍, 悠然午后品茗嗑小食翻書, 當時的我不識Nigel Slater何方神聖, 完全以封面和視覺效果取書, 想著要記下書名而後拋諸腦後.

... read more 閱讀全文 >

蜉蝣 Mayfly

年年此時皆外出遠遊探親訪友, 暑休兼暑修; 而今另番業障, 日日讀新聞往往焦慮難安.  Covid黑翼飛舞下, 族羣衝突警民對立, 各黨各派互挖坑讓對方跳… 人性的偏見與盲點深不見底, 頗厭世的躲書堆, 或專看動物頻道和溫暖勵志的酷男異想世界.  

Exhausted from reading news after news of injustice and judgement, all I wanted to do after hours was binge watching Queer Eye or Absurd Planet.  LOVE rules.  NATURE rules.  Home cooking also becomes a ritual of calmness.

... read more 閱讀全文 >

香丘 Ranunculus Revelation

May Day mayhem… the analog hack of journaling seems to retain my sanity in the pandemic when both our physical reality and emotional state equally ravaged by Covid-19.  I turned to the gifts of nature too for consolation - the exuberant bouquet of ranunculus celebrated May birthdays in the family and Happy Mother's Day!!!

百感交集的五月天, 七年前父親驟逝, 當年黑洞似的殤慟隨歲月漸褪, 心頭卻滿溢絮語欲向彼岸說.

... read more 閱讀全文 >

思念 Wind of Change

Marching into the 7th week of shelter-in-place.  Glory, glory, hallelujah… what IS the next policy actually supported by economic planning(vs. election campaign) and scientific studies of the COVID-19 pandemic(instead of a mud-slinging civil war)?!  Unexpected gains and losses here and there.  

Sipping dark chocolate becomes my mood booster and hope immunity joins the hike, too.

堂堂進入居家隔離第七星期, 即使WFH, 職場依舊詭譎.  自七年前加入目前品牌, 本部門從未嚐敗蹟, 時也運也, 如今大衰退, 其它部門則供不應求漲停板.  風水輪流轉, 慶幸LK向來淡然, 不至成眾矢之的.

... read more 閱讀全文 >

殤疫 Shelter In Place

At the end of the 2019 annual meeting for the charity foundation I serve last May, each board member was asked for a word that came to mind.  "Tomorrow.", I said.  In the midst of COVID-19, we could only hope for a better tomorrow.  Social distancing for the greater good has strange effects on the nuclear family.  WFH ZOOMing and e-learning during the weekdays(what?  what's a weekend?), reading and home cinema for the rest(we finally signed up for Disney+ and YES, enamored with Baby Yoda :)  

image source:  https://www.focusfeatures.com/emma

The latest version of Emma is entrancing with its ubiquitous mustard yellow and the PERIOD, signifying the eponymous character's finality in her prejudice.

... read more 閱讀全文 >

天問 Libro de Las Preguntas

The recent newsphere is full of apocalypse doom.  Not sure where and how to anchor one's thoughts.  Perhaps the costume trend in the sci-fi films rings the bell of truth - what future humans need are respirators, goggles and head to toe vinyl suits.  Right after the new year I was just in Shanghai for work and it will be a long while before any company will want to send anyone to China.  Praying for all my friends in the other side of the Pacific. 

Resorting to the serene images from our summer Kyoto trip, a dose of emotional Novocaine.  Haku, a tea confectionery parlor tucked away in Gion with its poetry written in sticky rice and dehydrated seasonal fruits. 

今夕何夕?  年初赴上海商務, 街市喧囂, 一派洋洋喜氣迎舊歷年, 大都會的聲色犬馬早厭倦, 公餘獨自逛福州路上海書城, 購入'徒然草'和中譯的聶魯達詩集.  誰知返美數星期後, 武漢肺炎疫情爆發, 很擔憂中國各地的生意夥伴, 祇能於遠方默禱大家早日安渡難關.

... read more 閱讀全文 >

善意 Miss LK's Rhapsody 11th Anniversary

Let bygones be bygones and begin the beguine.  Writing is my form of therapy.  Din't quite flow in 2019, lots of moral dilemmas choking me up and at times, I found myself sedated into obscure reality like the figure in Vuillard's paintings.  The artistic psychoanalytic animation Ruben Brandt, Collector uncannily resonates with me.

 Salon de Muge

As usual, I paired my writing with images from various trips through out 2019.  This anniversary post celebrates my rendezvous with Kyoto.  

從2010至2020, 又一個十年過去, 各行各業紛紛回顧高峰低谷, LK則從新加坡搬回美國, 由全職母親轉身再次投入工作帶領團隊開疆闢土, 小V也成長為少年. 

... read more 閱讀全文 >