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March 31, 2005
The unique name card
I told Vivian that I added a new category “ Quote of the day” in my blog and she said :” Why don’t you add “ Humor of the day” or sth like that as well? “. I thought it was a good idea so I would start with my first “Laugh of the day” story.
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He was my neighbour. I saw him almost everyday in the bus. We always said good morning to each other, more like doorway friends. Later we sat together sometimes and we started to talk. He was very knowledgeable and we always engaged a very good conversation. We talked about each other’s life, work, our parents, his kids…everything, like old friends. This morning he said:” It is so beautiful now, you should come to visit some time and to meet my wife and kids!” Then we realized that we have never given each other contact information yet. I was searching for my name card but did not find any, then I was surprised by what I saw: He tore off one of his checks and gave it to me:” You will find all the information there…” “ OMG, this is the most unique name card I have ever got…” We both laughed. “ By the way,” I asked, “ Can you sign it, please?”
Posted by pengbo at 5:52 PM | Comments (0)
Quote of the day
"One's philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes. In the long run, we shape our lives and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And, the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility."
Eleanor Roosevelt
1884-1962, American First Lady, Columnist and Lecturer
Posted by pengbo at 11:11 AM | Comments (0)
March 30, 2005
胡思乱想--由失眠引起的
I am suffering from insomnia.
There must be something in my mind and I do not know what it is. I open my eyes in the middle of the night and look at the shadow of the metal header of my bed and the first idea that comes to my mind is: I should take a picture! How crazy I am! A real maniac of photography. Well, it is always good to have passion on something, isn’t it?
The feeling is like having a jetlag. I remember last time I went back to Beijing I was tossed and turned at 4am in my old bed. The whole world was dead and I felt that I was cut into half. Half of myself was familiar with that bed, that room and that world. The other half wasn’t, at all. A lot of past, some of them were long forgotten, was flashed back, fighting with my present. It was torturing, sort of.
I start to let my thoughts fly. From the insomnia to jetlag, from jetlag to home. Seems to be a reasonable flow. For so many years I have drifted around and I do not know where exactly home is, to me. My hometown, where I was born and brought up and where my parents were still living? Not exactly. I still remember last time I visited my hometown hailun, I was homesick! Yes I felt homesick when I was home! Kind of weird. Beijing? It used to be my home, for a period. However even when I was there, I did not have the feeling of complete belonging. Montreal? Maybe. Because I start to feel comfortable and relaxed here. One day a friend sent me a message to congratulate me on my new home here in Canada, he happened to use the phrase that I have read many times in life:” Home is where your heart is.” (心安便是家） Then I realized that I did have a feeling of home then, because I was my own home. So it does not matter which city or which country I am living in, I would have the feeling of home as long as I put my heart back to my own body.
Yes now I am at my HOME, at 3 O’clock in the morning, with my eyes wide open.
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Posted by pengbo at 7:41 PM | Comments (0)
Quote of the day
"Be careful the environment you choose for it will shape you; be careful the friends you choose for you will become like them."
W. Clement Stone
1902-2002, Author and Businessman
Posted by pengbo at 12:31 PM | Comments (0)
March 28, 2005
The irony
She: You did not write much these days.
Me: Because my mind has been stuffed.
She: By what?
Me: Food:P. This has been an eating Easter:
Thursday evening: dumplings at Vivian's
Friday lunch: Eggspectations
Friday dinner: Thai food
Saturday lunch: Chinese hot pot
Saturday dinner: Caribbean food
Sunday dinner: Home made Chinese food at a friend's
Monday lunch: Sichuan food at another friend's...
....
She: You are a pig!
Me: Yes, a pig with diarrhea now...
Posted by pengbo at 8:11 PM | Comments (0)
March 25, 2005
Who says that it is just Spring?
While doing my camera shopping with a friend, I caught this on St-Catherine in a sunny chilly afternoon...
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Posted by pengbo at 6:05 PM | Comments (0)
March 24, 2005
The world 世界
Just the thoughts of having a looooong weekend ahead of me made me happy. Besides, Vivian invited me for dumplings after work, although her invitation sounded more like a warning:" Come for dumplings Thursday night then DON'T bug me for the rest of the weekend because I need to prepare for my exam!"
After the delicious dumplings I thought I should fully exercise my right of bugging her tonight so I grabbed her to watch the movie that Beth recommended a few days ago at Cinama du Parc: The world 世界。
This is a Chinese movie which describes the life of a young dancer Tao, her security-guard boyfriend and others who work at World Park, a theme park where visitors can have a glance of the world famous interests including the Eiffel Tower, Big Ben, the Pyramids and even the Twin Towers, without ever leaving the Beijing suburbs. Those people are mostly from different small towns, coming to Beijing to see a bigger world. They speak different dialects, even Vivian and I have to read the subtitles from time to time.
I like the movie because it talks about the life of ordinary people, because it has strong Chinese culture context, and mostly because it depicts a real life of many Chinese, sometimes sad though.
There is a scene that is very touchy and beautiful:
Tao met this Russian girl Anna. Tao did not speak Russian while Anna did not speak Chinese. But the two women seemed connected. They sat in a small restaurant drinking Chinese wine. And then they had a beautiful conversation in two languages. They did not need each other to understand what they were saying, they just needed to know that they were with each other and cared about each other...
When we got out of the cimena, Vivian said:" Compare to many people in the movie, we are lucky, because we have more choices." That was true. We were like them, leaving our country to explore a different world. The difference might be that we had more choices to decide what kind of life we wanted. The girl Tao in the movie once said, " No one that I have known ever takes the airplane. I wonder how it feels."
The world is big yet small.
Posted by pengbo at 11:15 PM | Comments (0)
March 21, 2005
My past was shuffled
The Sun, the sky, the breeze of the wind and the smiling faces on the street all remind me that it was officially Spring today.
I was still in the honeymoon with my new love so I immediately imported many of my CDs including a lot of Chinese ones from long time ago. I went on the bus with a spring mood and casually put it on “shuffle” mode. A beam of sunshine dropped on my eyelids and the music started to flow to my ear. Suddenly my heart was wrung a little bit. I heard “you will not be happy if you can’t learn to let go…“ by Mingjun Gao. That brought me back to 10 years ago in a corner of China when I was struggling for the first time with love in life. That was also a day in March, my long black hair was up to my waist, flying in the wind and I heard this song crooning in a book store....and all of sudden I was in tears...
The music ended and I did not know what the next was, same as I did not know what the future would be. 30 seconds later I was in Paris in a small blue polo car, someone was singing Huajian Zhou in a Mandarin-Cantonese way:” let me take you home…” Then a French song “ La Chanson d'Hélène”, my recent past......
In the 30 minutes bus ride, I was running in between my past, my memories were shuffled.
那阳光，那天空，那拂面的轻风以及街上擦身而过的笑脸都在提醒我：春天来了。
我和我的新宠仍处于蜜月期所以我马不停蹄地把我的CD们输进去，甚至包括很多很久以前从中国带来的歌。我带着春天的心情上了公共汽车，然后很无意地把我的iPod mini放在了随机播放状态。一束阳光落在我的眼lian上然后音乐开始在我耳边流淌。。。突然间我的心猛地收缩了一下，我听到高明骏的“学不会放手，就不会快乐懂不懂。。。” 那苍凉的歌声把我带回了十年前中国的某一个角落。那也是三月的一天，我生平第一次在爱中挣扎。三月的风扬起我齐腰的长发和我黑色的裙裾，然后听到高明骏在一家书店轻声吟唱这首歌，我的泪突然间涌出眼底。。。
音乐停了。我不知道下一首是什么，正如我不知道明天等待我的是什么一样。。。于是30秒钟以后，我置身于巴黎，坐在一辆小小的蓝色polo里面，有个人用国语式的粤语大唱周华健的：“让我送你回家。。。” 然后是“La Chanson de Helene", 我的并不久远的过去。。。
三十分钟的路程，我在过去之间穿梭，我的记忆在随机播放。。。
Posted by pengbo at 10:02 PM | Comments (0)
March 19, 2005
My skiiiiiii day!
太阳这几天暖的让人莫名其妙地高兴，感觉春天就在不远处招手。。。突然间意识到滑雪的季节就要在春天的脚步里宣告结束。不行，收拾雪具，启程！
Ski Bromont1
Ski Bromont2
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Sunset at Ski Bromont
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Serenity
Pink snow
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Posted by pengbo at 11:22 PM | Comments (0)
March 18, 2005
My new love
After brief encounter, I fell in love with him who was so sexy and charming and I took Him home...
Posted by pengbo at 2:27 PM | Comments (0)
March 16, 2005
Encounter with limo driver
I like talking with taxi drivers. The conversations usually make the trip seem shorter and less boring, especially when they are a good partners to talk with. Pretty often in Montreal I feel easy practicing my French with taxi drivers because they don't really care if I mess up with "le" and "la", which I do rather frequently, and they always encourage me by complimenting my accent.;-)
At 1:30pm I embarked at a limo and headed for the airport for my 3pm flight back to Montreal. The driver was 60ish and very eloquent. We started a conversation by asking each other where we were from and he started to tell me his life stories. He was Australian and managed hotel business and a travel agency when he was young...er. He met a girl from Europe and married her who turned out to be his ex after a few years. Then a cowgirl entered his life. After being with the girl for a while he was facing a situation: The hotel that sent him to Canada now wanted to send him to a small island in Africa. The cowgirl told him that he could either go to the small island or have free sex for life. And he made the right choice. We both laughed when he said so. Then we discussed a lot of things including mistakes we made in life. When he mentioned his first marriage, he said:" I don't consider it as a mistake. If you put your hand on a pan and you got burned, is is not a mistake because you just don't know, it is an experience; but you put your hand on the pan for the second time and you got burned again, then it is a mistake."
He told me that he had been married with the cowgirl for 24 years and he was still happy and in love with her. I asked about the secret, his answer really surprised me:" Forgive me if I am blunt, we have sort of managed an open relationship." It was very funny because weeks ago I was discussing the same topic with a friend who was in favor of this kind of human relationship now it came out of the mouth of a limo driver! " Of course you have to build a very solid foundation and reach a very good common understanding about open relationship and above all, you both have to be extremely honest to each other and have tremendous trust on each other...there are great risks as well but we are kind of lucky..."
I always like to know different ideas, different perspectives or different cultures. When some concepts come up, which might be totally against my belief, my experience, my culture or my principles, as opposed to killing them immediately I'd like to ask why. What are the reasons behind that, why people think that way. If I think the reasons are justified, I would understand and accept, which does not necessarily mean I will do the same.
I really wanted to dig deep yet I have arrived at the airport. He kindly offered his personal card with the e-mail to me saying it was great talking to me and I could send him an e-mail if I want further discussions. And he added," By the way, there is an MBA on this card."
Posted by pengbo at 10:42 PM | Comments (0)
March 15, 2005
My Japanese night
Posted by pengbo at 10:50 PM | Comments (0)
March 14, 2005
Hello Toronto
Posted by pengbo at 6:40 PM | Comments (0)
March 13, 2005
飞行及其他
我不讨厌飞行，尤其是5个小时以下的飞行。实际上我很多的人生体验都跟机场，飞机或飞行有关。每每当我双脚离开地面，我的思绪也开始四处飞扬。我会暂时远离我生活的世界，或飞回过去，或飞去将来，或干脆没有边际地遐想。我会经常记起一些很少想起的人或事。记得曾经在西伯利亚的上空很强烈地思念某个人，而那个人不过在某一瞬间和我有过心灵的碰撞。飞行还有的好处是可以遇到很多如Preetam 提到的random far away friends，大家分享一段短暂却真实的时光然后微笑告别，从此从对方世界里消失。
记得第一次坐飞机时大三去实习。当时带我的师兄后来成了我多年的好友帮我买了张折扣票回家过中秋，我兴奋之极。年轻时的兴奋是那么单纯与真实，以至于师兄后来写信来说：“那天你头也不回地走入安检的大门。。。“我才意识到自己兴奋地忘了礼节。。。然后我的人生开始和飞机有了大大小小的联系。无数次出入各个机场，无数次离开，无数次回来。每一次都觉得是穿梭在不同的世界，人有时也好像分割成无数块。最浪漫的与飞行有关的经历莫过于我在天上飞而我曾深爱过的男人在地面开车前往我所飞去的城市然后在机场接我下飞机。
人生似乎就是这样交织着无数次的归来和离去,而我已然不介意下一次会飞去何处.比如今天,我飞往多伦多.
Posted by pengbo at 6:59 PM | Comments (0)
March 12, 2005
Three moons
Posted by pengbo at 6:27 PM | Comments (0)
Café Concept--Eassssy?
Posted by pengbo at 3:43 PM | Comments (0)
March 11, 2005
黑暗中的凝视
Posted by pengbo at 11:24 AM | Comments (0)
March 9, 2005
Cleaning Up the Past
My new computer arrived. Looked fresh and innocent.
I started to tidy up my files in my old computer. Until then have I realized that how much past I have stored and what indeed has occupied my space. Some were the old memories that were long forgotten while some were just pure junk. Why did I save the junks? Maybe at that time I considered them useful as well? When would I clean them up if my computer did not perform occasional strikes on me?
We all need a perfect timing to tidy up the past, like moving, like quitting a job, like ending a love story. Life is a long journey and we can not carry all the burden of the past. We need to take whatever we consider valuable with us and not hesitate to discard the rest. This reminds me of an e-mail conversation with a friend who often sinks in nostalgia. I wrote:
"It is wonderful to cherish what you have experienced. However you could always save the memory in some special safety box without taking up your current space. If your heart is full by holding all the past, how can the new fresh greetings come in? When you spend a lot of time mourning for the loss in the past, you will also miss the beautiful present, the awakening of the dawn, the dew on the roses, the smell of the earth in spring, the caress of the snowflakes……”
It is the time. Time to clean up, time to move on. I start to d-e-l-e-t-e……without reluctance.
Posted by pengbo at 11:05 PM | Comments (0)
March 7, 2005
Weird Kissing...
I stepped on the escalator and was kind of surprised by what I saw. A couple was kissing on the escalator. I was not surprised by the fact that they were kissing, but the way that they were kissing. The girl was standing one step higher facing the guy, all parts of the body kept certain distance except the lips. No holding tight, no hand in hand, no gazing at each other, nothing. It looked like that they were experimenting something with the lips. When they got off the first escalator, they walked separately with the hands in their respective pockets. No any intimate behaviors at all. Then they took the second escalator. They started kissing again. All the same.
I refrained myself from the strong desire of taking their pictures. My hand had already touched my camera in my purse, and then I stopped there. There were no others around, only us three. I did not want to embarrass them or be embarrassed if they were mad. Yet it was rather strange kissing pose, almost incomprehensive. I could not feel the passion, I could not feel the intimacy, I could not feel the love, I could not feel anything except the action of 4 lips.
Kissing to me is one of the most beautiful moments in a collision of the passion. Sometimes it is much more beautiful than making love. It is a symbol of intimacy: You see the fire in his eyes, you read each and every inch of his face, you see the trembling lips with desire, he then reaches out his hand, his fingers tenderly caress your cheek, your eyelids, your lips and finally covers them with his...
If some sex behaviors are considered more animal driven, kissing is definitely not. I have read some comments from some men who had sex with prostitutes saying that they never kiss them. I guess one of the reasons could be that they don't want to create that intimacy, they don't want the bond and they just want to finish the deal.
I have been thinking about the couple's kissing all the way home and I still could not get it....
Posted by pengbo at 11:03 AM | Comments (0)
March 4, 2005
My Lucky Evening
Before dinner at Vivian's,
1) My toe was still purple.
2) I have been feeling dizzy for 2 days and I still had my deep sexy voice.
3) It took me half an hour to find the remote control of my garage because I forgot it IN the garage. :-)
4) My car certificate, insurance paper and CAA card were given to Andy who drove my car to Le Massif the last day while I was "handicapped" in Quebec City. He forgot to give me back and took them to San Francisco the next day. So I drove il....legally.
5) I parked at a place but seemed not too safe so I moved to a parking with meter near hers then paid $2 feeling lucky.
At Vivian's
1) I realized that if I needed to use Vivian's phone, I had to consume at least a steak to be able to press her "6" and "9" and Andy's phone number is "9696...".
2) I opened my laptop to show her the presentation that I made for tomorrow only to find a big lock on the screen. I felt innocent:" I did not touch anything!"
3) After playing with it for 10 minutes, Vivian called her computer friend, I called my help desk......Lucky me, it was a BIOS lock and only the technician can unclock it so it meant that I could not do anything about it until Monday...
4) Viv kindly offered her laptop for tomorrow's presentation so I only needed to redo part of the presentation and make a CD. Not too bad.
After leaving Vivian's
1) My car disappeared.
2) I came back to Vivian's to check the number of Ville de Montreal.
3) After a thousand of calls, with the help of two friends who could not help laughing at me, ( not WITH me this time) I found my car with a beautiful $92 ticket. Half of my mini iPod was gone.
Posted by pengbo at 11:48 PM | Comments (0)
March 2, 2005
In the Days of Feeling Dizzy
I swim in the teeth of the books...
and look forward to the Spring in my living room
Posted by pengbo at 11:15 PM | Comments (0)