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.

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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.'

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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.

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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?

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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.

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