Random Thoughts by Pauline

March 20 2015  Friday

 Resonance

A teacher has just sent me an article as submission for “Let’s Babble!” She wrote to recommend a YouTube video. This is so touching. My loud cry into the wilderness has won resonance. Fingers crossed, I am praying for more entries! There are bound to be episodes in your classroom, among your friends or in your family that you want to share. It can be about a book, a movie, an incident or just a thought. Or you have a story to tell. There is even no limit to the number of words. But as editor, I abide by one principle – let there be no hatred but love, hope and positivity! 

A couple of days ago, as I was tidying up my various email accounts deleting long-time messages, I came across the mail from a reader about 10 years ago. At that time, I had a column on the fun of learning English in a local Chinese newspaper. There were quite a few fervent readers who wrote to me regularly. One of them was a police sergeant. He called himself a language fanatic writing to me in excellent English telling me about his work and family. There were several messages that were heart-warming. He talked about how he and his wife disagreed on parenting matters, how they planned their family trips and how he was on duty in the street during the anti-World Trade Organization demonstration etc. Sometimes, he would respond to the points I raised in my column.

It is amazing how two people who had never met were able to engage in such buddy talks. Though contacts had stopped for many years, he wrote back once he received my message telling me he has a new hobby now – photography. He even sent me the photos of sunrise he took on New Year Day!

 

Random Thoughts by Pauline

March 17  2015, Tuesday  

                 Helping hands

In recent years, I find myself always at train stations not because I have somewhere across the border to go. I make weekends my car-free days. I like to take the train commuting from my home in Kowloon Tong to my mom’s place in Hung Hom.  When I go to Tsimshatsui for my Sunday indulgence of facial treatment and body massage, it is again the train from Kowloon Tong to Hung Hom and then Tsimshatsui East. If I have meetings at HKWTO venue which is on Sai Yeung Choy Street, I take the train again. There is a bit of walking involved but if I am wearing the right sneakers, I actually walk briskly telling myself “you’ve done your exercise for the day!” 

Very often in the concourse or at the platform, I come across bewildered tourists. Be they mainlanders or westerners, I would offer to point them the direction. Most of the time, my helping hand is warmly accepted. There were, however, a few times, I was shied away from! Well, it seems like mothers across the world have successfully indoctrinated their children into believing that they should not talk to strangers – the one creed we hold onto even when we are grown-ups. Or our human society has become so evil that there should be no angels left.

 

Last Sunday morning at Kowloon Tong Station, I brought smiles to the faces of a distressed couple! They were in their early fifties. They stood there trying hard to decipher the leaflets for tourists when the man decided to approach me. He told me that they came from Changsha, Hunan and that it was their first visit to Hong Kong. They wanted to go somewhere for bargain goods. I told them pleasantly that they should get off at MongKok East but then the stalls were not yet open. They should first go for breakfast at our cha chaan teng, local tea restaurant. 

I could never forget how broad the smile was on the man’s face. His words to the woman still echo in my ears. “Who said that HongKongers are hostile to us mainlanders?” 

Random Thoughts by Pauline

March 14 2015    Saturday

                          What 25 years can mean!

A child can be born, grow up, go to school, graduate with a university degree and is now in his or her second year of career if granted that life is plain-sailing all the way! It can also be for a man and woman in their 20s to meet, date, marry, have children, watch them grow and are now in their 50s ready to enjoy the golden years or are already taking care of grand-children if they are so blessed! 

That is what 25 years can mean! But in real life, I wonder how probable plain-sailing is to most people! These days, everything is on fast track and we as individuals do feel helpless in face of unpredictable mishaps or unwarranted derailing happening in our life. When we have been groomed to believe in fairy tales, we tend to expect the predictable or the norm. When life turns out to be abnormal or rather atypical, we are left asunder!!

Life has taught me some hard lessons. For one, when I am overjoyed, I am also prepared for twists and turns looming round the corner. It doesn’t mean that I have to restrain my happiness. I will still enjoy the moment. I just need to be ready. For two, I am contented with what I have. I don’t compare myself with someone who has more but with those who have less. I count my blessings. I do not take anybody or anything for granted. I know not all babies are born or those who are born are not all healthy! It is too true that not all married men and women live happily hereafter. One last lesson is I do build my happiness upon how others treat me because I was there and had suffered all the frustration. I give but do not ask for return even when the recipients are family.

My life in the last 25 years has been most abnormal opening new frontiers and testing my resilience! But I have been able to uphold my one principle – be good to others though they may fail you!  I have learnt many life lessons. I am ready to leave this beautiful world with no regrets left behind!

Random Thoughts by Pauline

March 13 2015, Friday        

Let’s right the wrong!

I wonder if you have ever noticed this poster.  “LETS RUN TOGETHER”.

As an English Language teacher, I am furious that such a mistake can be made! It should be “Let’s Run Together” with “let’s” meaning “let us”. “Lets” can only be used with a third person singular noun or pronoun such as “Toms lets (allows) his wife bully him.” Of course, we can also use “lets” in “She lets (out) one of the rooms to make some income.”

Mind you! This poster is everywhere transmitting the wrong use of the word “lets” to our easily impressionable young minds! All that is taught in class can be forgotten! Or worse, students can rebut teachers when they are corrected using the word as it is in the poster. Indeed, this slogan is so eye-catching that it is adopted by many school teams in designing their uniforms. Teachers or students responsible all assume what they see in advertisements cannot be wrong.

There are two Chinese idioms that succinctly capture this situation:  習非成是 and  約定俗成.

The literal meaning of the first one is that when enough “negative” or “wrong” things or opinions or responses are collected, then cumulatively speaking, this “wrong” will be taken as the “right”! The second one means more or less the same: when many people agree to do one thing together, then a custom is formed!

Chinese wisdom works again!

Random Thoughts by Pauline

January 20 2015, Tuesday            

 Old Couples

Have you ever been touched by the scene of old couples holding hands? I have! Their hair might be thinned and skin all wrinkled but the calmness of their countenance simply induces my admiration!

In this age when relationships can be so flimsy, we tend to wonder whether people do still hold hands and grow old together in health and sickness! And when we do see or know such couples, we become green-eyed monsters saying “how lucky you guys are!”

As in all matters, “luck” plays but a small part – that no “third person” has ever appeared in their life, that no major hardships have ever put them to test etc. Even when life is uneventful, to be able to grow old together and yet still cherish or at least care for each other is not in the hands of the Almighty!

I don’t know if there are some odd old couples around you or you have heard of. By “odd”, I mean though they remain together living under the same roof and sleeping on the same bed, they hate each other’s guts to the extent that the wife drives the husband out of the apartment in the morning, gives him some twenty dollars allowing him to come back only at dinner time! Such arrangement is not for a day but is a routine!

There is no equality in a relationship, no “win-win” situation but one yielding to the other for whatever reasons! So next time when you envy a happily married couple, ask yourself how far you can bear for the sake of a life together! 

Random Thoughts by Pauline

January 14 2015, Wednesday                

So close and yet so far! 

This New Year break, my friends and I went to Shanghai for 3 days to visit an old friend. The flight to Shanghai takes less than two hours but I cannot say it is convenient. 

 

We departed for Shanghai on December 30. It was the 0830 flight meaning we had to check in not later than 6:30. I had to get up at 5. If I took the airport bus, I would be late. Arriving late has never been my habit. I left home at 5:45 and took a taxi.

 

It was my bad luck that I got on a taxi with a sulky driver. I greeted him nicely. Not only did he not reciprocate my courteous greeting, but he also did not help me put the suitcase in the boot!

 

So I arrived early at the airport, met up with my friends, checked in, took our breakfast and boarded the plane. All these were uneventful! 

We landed punctually at 10:30, took our luggage, went through customs and immigration and were warmly greeted by our friend. We got on the coach at 11.

 

 

Guess when we could sit down for lunch? At 2 in the afternoon! The 30-minute drive to city centre had become 3 hours! Absolutely ridiculous! That was my first-person experience of the terrible traffic jams so notorious of mainland cities. And because we were late, we had to eat dishes left cold if not icy. The waitresses were also very blatant in their expression of impatience!