YOGAYUGA

I totally agreed with the following saying:

“On the surface China has changed so much, but essentially it still is a coercive society. The Maoist ideology has been replaced by “getting rich is glorious” ideology. I discovered that it is almost impossible not to become corrupt. The hypocrisy of the establishment is destroying the morality of Chinese people.”

There are many good sides to be seen on the surface of society, but deep down the weakness is leaking. The gap between the rich and the poor is getting bigger and bigger. We need balance and critical thinking in our society. During Cultural Revolution, Mao reformed thinking of Chinese people towards the new China for what he created, but this ideology didn’t complete his objective. It only slowed down the understanding development of China towards outside world. I wonder what Mao is thinking if he was still alive, and seeing the modern China??

Yes, there is significant difference for me!

There is a story about it. When I was few years old, I always ate too little food. My Mum always saw me holding a bowl without moving my chopsticks on the dinning table. No matter how she pursued me to eat more, I still ate so little. One day, she cooked mince beef with tomato sauce and rice, and served them on a plate. Surprisingly, I finished the whole plate. Since that day, my Mum realised me like dinning with plate and fork rather than bowl and chopsticks. She got the trick how to make me to eat more. It was weird, but was true. I don’t even know why and how, but I do naturally eat more food and rice while they are served on a plate. However, it’s not all kinds of Chinese food are suitable to be served on a plate with rice, so I still need to use bowl and chopsticks for daily meal.

When I have dinner on my own, I must serve my food and rice on a plate. I do still eat more when dinning with a plate and a fork. It seems this habit is naturally grown in my dinning behaviour. Only one reason I can explain is that I maybe lazy to pick various food from different plates to my bowl with chopsticks. It’s much convenient to have everything on one plate.

This is my first dish I learned from Cat Cora! Oh well, I just followed the recipe of the cookbook written by Cat Cora. Most of her dishes are with seafood. The one I chose to cook is Chicken Stewed in Wine, Garlic, and Cinnamon. I don’t know what the original taste is supposed to be like, but I guess my cooking skill is not too bad.

My sister called me this afternoon and told me she wasn’t coming back for dinner, but she would like to have a lunch box for tomorrow. I cooked her pork chop with black pepper sauce, Chinese vegetable and fry egg. We have total different taste of fry egg. My sister needs egg absolutely being cooked. She doesn’t like eating fresh egg yoke, but I am total opposite, I am into the sunny side up egg with fresh egg yoke. Anyway, I become the main cook of our house these days.

“We should have a target for the withdrawal of all British troops by the end of October this year”  Sir Menzies Campbell

Basically, Tony Blair is also trying to save his PM position in the parliament. He is no longer popular and powerful since his policy has been so active towards the war.

Well, I really hope that Bush can make some sensible judgment on what he has been doing, and not keep sending more and more troops to the dead end. This is really a tragedy of the century, and the sadness of modern world.

Today is the forth day of Chinese New Year. My parents went away for holiday yesterday. I stay at home as usual to look after all the house stuff. We have animals and plants to take care of, so there must be someone to stay at home for them if others are not around. I am totally fine with it as I enjoy doing so. I stay at home these two days for rest. I am very glad that the workers are not working in the construction site next door due to New Year holiday. I enjoy so much being in the piece of quiet. I hear the singing of birds again. I do feel like missing their songs for long in the early morning, as their songs were covered by the construction noise.

We went to visit our uncles on the first day of New Year; three of their families live in three different places. They live in Shatin, Wong Tai Sin and Ma On Shan separately. We were all back tired, but this is the usual situation for everyone in the New Year. You just have to visit close relatives in the first three days. My parents went away for holidays in the third day, so they needed to visit everyone in the first two days that included relatives visiting us. Our cousins visited us in the afternoon of second day so we went to visit their new home at night the same day. It was another tiry day. We did have enough visits in two days, so the best is to stay at home for the rest of holiday.

However, visiting will be continued after my parents are back on Saturday. This is Chinese New Year!

There are no good movies coming up lately on cinema. The one I am really looking forward to seeing is The Queen. It won’t be on until March 8. We always have new movies come up at least one to three months later after those have been finished showing in the U.S. This is the least, but could be longer. The only type of movies we do show at the same time with the U.S; it must be movie like MI3 or any kind of international Hollywood movies. Hollywoodland finished showing in U.S since Nov last year, but I haven’t even seen it’s ads in our movie theatre. I guess we may not have it at all. I didn’t even know about this movie until I read this article back in Nov 2006. I always like acting of Adrien Brody. I am very surprise he didn’t do many good movies after Pianist. Pianist is a great movie same as Life is Beautiful. I am not sure if Hollywoodland was good, but definitely King Kong he did; it wasn’t very good at all. The movie itself wasn’t attractive anyway.

I haven’t seen Borat, but after I read an article about the story of it I don’t think I am interested in it at all. I thought it was a comedy, but actually was not. The story sounds so mean to many people, especially to the poor. The article stated the story actually tells the conflict between British and American towards various world issues in terms of culture, religion and politic. Well, I think I have seen the war scene enough these days on TV, so such movie is definitely not a good idea for “entertaining” the auidence.

So what’s the best to see next? Just wait to see “The Queen” I guess.

I have been cleaning up, so I got my collection box out, and looked at it again. They are my collection I have been keeping for more than 15 years. I do look at them once in a while. They are my memory of school period.
My Medieval toy I got from Czech. You can make it any shape you want, which is the puzzle toy people liked playing in Medieval period. The next one is my name block, which I did it for my dissertation presentation. There should be few more pieces, but I only keep this one with my name on it.

A gift from my Norweigen friend, Cecilie, which is a milk pot. She always liked to bring me some stuff and gifts from Norway when she was back to the U.K from our university break. I also sent her some traditional Chinese folk art stuff for exchange. She got me Norweigen wooden made knife and cheese cutter. I haven’t even opened them. They are still in original packed and good condition. I keep them good! I am not sure if I had a chance to use them at all. Another pottery made doll is the Norweigen folk art doll. It should be a special name for this doll, but I can’t remember now.

These badges I collected from different cities I ever visited in the U.K…Cambridge, Nottingham, Oxford, York. I like Maggie Cheung, so I did collect her photo badge too. It was her photo more than 15 years ago. The middle picture is my wooden made dolls from Hungary and Czech. The last one is a plant pot, which I forgot where I got it, but was already broken.

Some stuff I can still use such as milk pot and cheese cutter, but not sure if I had a chance to use it at home. We hardly use these utensils in our kitchen though.