Yay for Korean films!

Yay for Korean films - they're so good. The library at my university has heaps of Korean films displayed, so i feel like i'm taking an extra subject in 'Korean Cinema.'

I reckon the best so far is 'Driving with my wife's lover' about a man who knows his wife is having an affair with a cab driver, so gets in his cab and goes on a long distance drive. Meanwhile a truckload of watermelons tumble down the road, and they go for a swim, and have other adventures.

At the moment i'm watching a film called 'Barking dogs never bite' about a man in an apartment who is annoyed by a dog constantly barking, so he finds the dog and tries to kill it in various ways, but doesn't have the guts so he just locks it in a cupboard and leaves it. It's meant to be a comedy, but so far it's a little disturbing. Will let you know what happens........

No tao for the western mind

So during my time in Hong Kong i've tried to explore eastern philosophy a bit more, especially Taoism, 'cos i find the tiny bit of information i learnt about it at UQ really interesting. My psyc course here brought in some stuff about the Tao, as did another class i sat in. However, the disspointing thing is that apparently unless you speak chinese you just don't get it. People don't even bother trying to explain it anymore. This makes me a bit sad.

Oh well, at least the bible is all written in English.

Monday 2 for 1

Monday is 2 for 1 main meal night in Soho, on Hong Kong Island. It's a horrible place, full of ex-pats and classy Australian bars, but really really good food!

I ate spinach and mushroom enchiladas, and it was goooood.

Hooray for routines!

I love routines! They make the world feel like a structured and safe place. Here are some things i like to do which make me happy;

-read the bbc news in the morning
-get my room key out of my pocket when i'm waiting for the lift up to my floor
-go running
-take my id card out of my pocket as i walk along the walkway to my building
-line my slippers up parallel to my bed
-drink tea from my thermos thing in every class

Confusing Returns

Today i returned the umbrella that dumpling lady leant me. This was a very confusing event due to language barrier. I walked in with the umbrella in the afternoon but dumpling lady wasn't there -just her other family/colleagues who don't speak any english. So obviously they thought i wanted to eat and were trying to sit me down, and when i said no they brought me the menu, and i was doing that language barrier gesturing thing with the umbrella so they thought i wanted to put my umbrella down, and so eventually took it from me and put it in the corner, presumably so i could sit and eat. And then i walked out. So they now must think i'm very weird - why did i come in, refuse to eat and leave my umbrella, and furthermore....why was i carrying an umbrella on a hot hot sunny day??????????

Creepy Sleep

Last night i had a dream that i was trying to go to sleep and getting really frustrated because i couldn't, and people kept coming in and disturbing me and i was getting really angry...

and then i woke up, and i felt tired.

Typhoon

Today there is a typhoon. I'm hanging out for it to get to level 8 so that i don't have to go to my exam on monday. I also would like to get a hat so i can have a classic moment of my hat flying off, as the guy in the sign has.

I wanted to go climb a rock today, but the typhoon won, so i slept most of the day and then went to get some food from the dumpling lady. When i was there the rain increased, and when i was leaving dumpling lady asked if i wanted an umbrella. Then she got me an umbrella, which had some dumpling flour on it, but was still very useful.

Thankyou again, dumpling lady, for providing me not only with food, but also shelter.

Speaking of portions

Speaking of extra portions, i was actually able to meditate this morning. I think it's because Friday is my nothing day, so i get to wake up slowly and do my washing and let my brain stay asleep all day.

So i was reading Psalm 16, which has a verse;

the lord is my chosen portion
and my cup
you hold my lot

I remember this line about portion because a staff member i worked with in New Zealand liked it. She had some elaborate analogy to do with pudding, and portions, and God, which i can't exactly remember right now, but i'm sure it was enlightening at the time.

Even though i'd heard this verse, i think this is the first time i've read it, and i didn't know (at least in my bibles translation) that there was the word 'chosen' in there. I thought it was just that the lord is your sweet nourishing pudding whether you like it or not. But in this reading it seems that it is a choice.

But when i think about portions, and choice, i automatically think of the typical canteen food serving style here which is having about 8 different dishes and you can choose two or three of them depending on the deal. Arg! choice! anxiety!

And now it's time to do my laundry. This makes me a little bit excited.

Food favours

Yesterday the vegetarian cafe smiley woman gave me an extra potato wrapped in eggplant thing with my usual meal. I think this is because i understood when she asked me if i wanted soup in cantonese, and she was proud of me.
At least this is what i would like to think, maybe she just had too many potato things, or she felt sorry for me because my cantonese is so crap.

Buddhism 101

The topic of a class about china stuff i sit in was philosophy this week. (there's many things wrong with that last sentence, but i think i've lost my ability to do englihs, so i can't fix it actually.) Anyway, it briefly covered confucianism and buddhism, and what i got from it was that confucianism is all about mountains and water (though tao is also about water, aparently, no wait, in taoism woman are water, arg!) and buddhism is about having big muscles. (see! going to the gym is essential for spiritual development!)

To explain buddhim to us we watched a 15 minute exert from a dvd called 'Running on Karma' which has an ex-monk who buffs up to a huge size to kill his best friend's murderer, meanwhile the murderer kills his other best friend who let herself be killed because she realised she would die soon anyway because of her faulty soul, and the muscly ex-monk goes to the forest and takes his pants off and walks around and 8 years, has a fight with some spirits, and himself as a spirit who's older, later find the murderer and gives him a hug then takes him back to the monastery and gets new clothes and smokes a cigarette.

And that is our explaination of the concept of karma.

I'm yet to blog about the surreal nature of the hong kong education system, but let this be a prologue.

Oh, the other thing we got taught is 'If you eat a fish, you are eating your grandmother!'

Then after class we went for seafood dim sum.

But one of my grandmothers is alive, and one is dead, so i don't know which one i'm eating, not that i eat much fish for this reason. And why is there a problem of aging population in hong kong if this is the case?

Arg! so many questions, so little answers from Hong Kong Polytecnic University.

Spiderman!

Yesterday a french climber Alain Robert climbed up a 45 story hotel in Central.

What a champ! (and a little insane)

Here is the footage:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/7349023.stm

Harbour Run

I think one of my favourite things to do in Hong Kong is go running along the harbour. (Actually it's up there with the custard bun dim sum.) From where i live there are two ways to run along the harbour - one is towards Tsim Tsa Tsui promenade, and the other is towards whompoa in Hung Hom. The first way is ok, but can be quite crowded and although the view is spectacular it goes paralel to the road, so there is alot of fumes.

The other way is lovely, because it's cut off from the road and really quiet. There are people fishing and lots of old people going for an evening walk. If you look to the left you see the backs of apartments, but if you look to the right then you get an awesome view of central, and get to see the 'bank of china' building doing its flashy light thing. and sometimes there's even a breeze, which seems rare in Hong Kong.

Mindful Laundry

My teacher for one of my classes gives us exercises to enhance mindfulness. i feel the times i have the most mindfulness is doing my laundry. i had a really relaxing experience this morning feeling at one with my washing. The item i like interacting with the most is my big blue towel, it always has a nice texture, whether it's just coming out of the wash wet, or when it's dry. i also have some shirts that are particularly good for tactile experience in the laundry process. I also feel happy because i remembered to wash my sheets today.

Nothing

Last night i thought about nothing for about 2 minutes.
Then i watched some Korean short films and fell asleep.

Music Meal

I decided not to bring any music to Hong Kong. This was a bit hard to handle at first, because i was listening to alot of really nice music before i left. I did this to cleanse my music palet. (i can't spell, as everyone knows, but that word is meant to mean the palet in the mouth, not the other ones, like the wooden things they use in warehouses to carry boxes around.) Also, i didn't want to repeat my mistake of being in England and only having one nirvana album and two bob dyland songs for a year.

So having cleansed my aforementioned and badly spelled music thing, music place, music mind, whatever, i have started filling it with new music.

Jessie sent me some Sufyan Stevens, then my french friend first filled my music place with some french dub and reggae, which is lovely. Then my canadian friend gave me 5 albums of 'Magnetic Fields' which has been a delightful experience.

I sometimes feel i should listen to more cantopop while i'm here, but then i don't want to break my music place thing.

I also find it interesting to feel what music i miss. At the moment i miss;

-Basia Bulat
-Kev Carmody
-Nick Drake
-Sufyan Stevens

My art is rubbish

So for one of my classes i had to do a small art project. I put some emails and short stories through a crappy online translator, to change them from english to dutch, then back to english, then into chinese. This creates a really broken nonsensical chinese piece. Then i made the bad writing paper into oragami, and put the oragami in take away containers and put it in a plastic bag because that was part of my concept. It was meant to be interactive.

We had to display our work on a podium at university in a designated area, so i placed it on monday morning, but when i went back on monday afternoon for another class i realised it was gone, and i checked the bin, and yes, someone had thrown out my art because it looked like rubbish! HA!

I think it's a pretty funny thing to have happened, and works with my overall concept.

Post-curry haze and flashing lights

I just finished eating at ChungKing Mansions, home of the best indian food in Hong Kong. This is another of the few places where you can get really good vegetarian food. I tried to explain the concept of the 'post-curry haze' where you get into a dopey drug induced like state after eating too much curry - thinking of you Jess!

Then i walked home the long way, because looking out over Hong Kong Island at night is really really nice. I never believed people that the Hong Kong skyline was so stunning, because i didn't think that towering commercial buildings could hold much aesthetic appeal. But strangely, they do. I suppose we're all just fundamentally attracted to flashing lights.

I like Tsim Tsa Tsui at night too, even though, again, it is just rows and rows of shiny flashing shops - and far too many 7-11's. One thing i have developed in Hong Kong is an attraction to walk into 7-11's, because they are just so shiny and attractive looking. Usually i buy mochi icecream, or some gum, or a beer, just because i found i walked into the shop. Ok, so seems i have been engulfed by the capitalist machine. But sometimes i go into 'Circle K' which is the same as 7-11 but on the other side of the road, because this helps me feel that i don't have a problem with walking into 7-11's.

Today i meditated in my head while standing in line at the printer. I wanted to do more when i came back, but there are too many french people in my room, so instead i will watch a dvd (2 days in paris. arg! french colonialism!) and go to sleep.

bonne nuit

Great Link

Here is a link to a really funny blog:

http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com/

Who chases who?

Today, for maybe the second time since i started this blog supposedly about the quest to find time to meditate, i actually did! Hoorah! My roomate came home at 4am, then got up and left a few hours later, leaving me with a quiet room (apart form the constant buzz of...something. i don't know exactly what the buzz is, but something is always buzzing in Hong Kong. i think when people describe it as a 'buzzing' city, they don't mean that it's energetic and crowded, i think it refers to this constant buzzing sound wherever you are.)



In an individual's relationship with God, i wonder who chases who? Maybe my enquiry stems from my psych course here about interpersonal relationships, which goes into power dynamics a bit.



I remember a friend once pointing out some part of a psalm which talks about God chasing people down like a wild animal chasing down its prey. It sounds a bit violent, but i guess he was

making the point that even if people ignore God, they will still be pursued, harrassed, or something by God.



Then there's the more popular version promoted by contemporary churches, that if you want to be close to God you have to work on it. And the more bible studies, and church services, and hillsongs you listen to, the closer you'll get. This version seems tied up in an idea of 'good works' or 'appropriate works' being rewarded, which isn't inline with alot of the bible. I also always feel that with this approach you get the mentality of 'accumulating' God, and aim to have more God that other people. Maybe the drive to attain 'God capital' is linked up somehow with our economic systems, but that's a totally different topic.



So anyway, my point is that neither view of being the passive or active partner in the relatinship with God seems to make sense. Even though we use all the same language as with human relationships to talk about the interaction between people and God, maybe this is useless.



Sorry this rant is a bit incoherent, it's still early here (11:30.) I'll try to finish this train of thought another time.



Trains! I booked train tickets to beijing for Kyja and me! Yaaaay!



And Linda - here is a sweet new business idea; a sushi train that operates on a regular train. what do you think? so you can be sitting in your train carriage, and then a sushi train can go right past you, and you can have a snack as well as double the train goodness. what can go wrong? forget nursing - we'll do up a business plan as soon as i return.

Sleeping Meditation

Today i slept until 2pm, because i was out late drinking beer in an australian bar for a friend's birthday.

But my sleep was really good, and a bit like meditation.

Lift Meditation

because i live on the 18th floor, i spend lots of time in the lift everyday, going from my room, to class, back to my room, down to the gym, back to my room, down to dinner, up to my room, down to the gym, etc....

and usually, because i'm fidgetty, it makes me really irritated to wait for the lift, and be in the lift for ages, so i started trying to do lift meditation. this is just saying verses of psalms in my head while i wait, which i find makes me feel relaxed.

i was challenged by someting Henry said, about not trying to find a special place to meditate, but just to do it whenever in your everyday life.

i found meditating in the lift is kinda like having a short nap on the bus, but less jerky, and i don't miss my stop on the lift becuase the lift tells me where i am. so it is actually quite convenient, and makes me wonder if i'm assimilating to the hong kong style of time efficiency by fitting in something productive even in a space of 2-5 minutes.

and that is my exciting revelation for today.