One year has passed...

Happy Birthday!!!

Miss you so!!!

I will never forget this day. And I will never forget how I spent this day last year.

Western Europe - the classic route

Going with mom and sis. It's actually dingding's graduation trip:

June 17-19: Rome
June 20-21: Florence
June 22-27: Paris
June 28-July 3: London

Miss you......

Happy Birthday!

New Zealand Trip Itinerary

Jsn 25-28: Auckland
Jan 29: Christchurch
Jan 30-31: Dunedin'
Feb 1: Te Anau
Feb 2: Doubtful Sound
Feb 3-4: Queenstown
Feb 5: Mount Cook
Feb 6-9: Apcapa farm
Feb 10: Back to Hong Kong

I'm pleading

I'd loved you. I still want to love you. I think I do...

I've asked you to find me. But you didn't. Or so I thought..

Now I think I need you. Do you still want me?



I've written you this weeks ago out of desperation.
Did you see it? Did you hear me?


"find me
love me
be with me
guide me
love me"



Have you given me up? Have you forsaken me?

Find me, would you, please?

Entertainment as Art

When I went to have lunch at an expensive-looking Italian restaurant yesterday, I deliberately brought along an English book I had purchased a week ago.

It was Shirley Hazzard's The Bay of Noon. Have you heard of her? She won the United States' National Book Award in 2003 for The Great Fire, a novel. The year after that, she won the Miles Franklin Literary Award, Australia's biggest literary prize. You really haven't heard of Shirley Hazzard? Pardon me, but I have to say that isn't very cultured of you.

The truth is, though, neither had I. I bought The Bay of Noon not because I knew of Ms Hazzard's work or because I was attracted by the plot outline on the back cover, but because I thought I would look good reading a literary-award-winning book. It makes people think that I have good taste, and I like that.

So as I walked to the restaurant, I held the Ms Hazzard's book high up in front of my chest, so that everyone I walked past could see it. Of course I realised they might not recognize Shirley Hazzard's name, but at least they would know that it is an English book. In Hong Kong, people generally think that you are more "cultured" reading an English book than a Chinese book. It doesn't make a lot of sense, but that's how things are.

But just before I got to the restaurant, I walked past a Cosmos Books’ store (天地書局) with a huge poster saying that Yi Shu (亦舒)'s new book, Custody (禁足), is out. Yi Shu is one of my favorite Chinese writers. She writes hundreds popular romance novels, and this is her 257th book. I immediately went into the bookshop, grabbed a copy and paid, forgetting all about my Shirley Hazzard novel.

I felt guilty about not resisting the temptation of this kind of "rubbish" books, but that guilt has been with me for a long time. When I was in secondary school, I used to read a lot of Yi Shu 's romance novels and her brother Ni Kuang (倪匡)'s science fictions. My mom hated those books. She said they were superficial and formulaic, that while they may be entertaining, they are not art. She said reading those "rubbish" books were time-wasting and was a bad influence on me, although she didn't explain how. She said I should read more literary books, like Jane Austin (her favorite) or Jin Yong (金庸).

That confused me, because I remember my eldest Aunt, who is more than ten years older than my Mom, saying Jin Yong is not really literature. When my aunt was young, she and her friends thought Jing Yong's books were low-grade entertainment. His martial arts epics were superficial and could never be compared to the Four Great Classic Novels (四大名著), all of which my aunt had finished reading before the age of ten. But now many literature students study Jin Yong and write about his books for their thesis. A hundred of years ago, novels like the Four Great Classic Novels had also been greatly criticized by the literary people of the time, who said they are entertainment but not art. Only poems could be called literature, back then.

In our tutorial reading "The Idea of Entertainment", from Richard Dyer's book Only Entertainment, Dyer said "entertainment became identified with what was not art, not serious, not refined. This distinction remains with us – art is what is edifying, elitist, refined, difficult, whilst entertainment is hedonistic, democratic, vulgar, easy."

Yet the line separating art and entertainment shifts with time. There was a time when poems were art and novels were entertainment, then novels like the Great Classic Novels became art and Jin Yong came onto the scene only as entertainment. Some decades later, Jin Yong became art and Ni Kuang and Yi Shu are entertainment.

I think this line shifts because the books that people enjoy changes as the society change. And as each generation came into power, they gave the books they enjoyed high esteem and bestowed awards on them. With these recognitions, what used to be entertainment became seen as art.

So with Shirley Hazzard's The Bay of Noon on my left hand and Yi Shu's Custody on my right, I asked myself which is art, and which is entertainment? In the end, I told myself to just shut it, because who cares? I opened Yi Shu's book and went into a Cha Chaan Teng (茶餐廳) instead of the Italian restaurant.

(Written for the Middlesex University course Consuming Popular Culture.)

From Vilnius

I've just arrived Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania.

I spent the last three days in Krakow, the old capital of Poland. Before that we were in Warsaw. I think Krakow has a more cultured atmosphere. The old buildings there are really "old" buildings instead of post-war reconstructions - not like the old town of Warsaw.

There was a big event going on while we were there, the 750th anniversary of the incoporation of Krakow. There were classical music concert in the square. An unbelievably huge crowd went. That'd never happen in Hong Kong. You know, some Hong Kong people would prefer listening to Twins.

People (CCC) said Krakow is more touristy. I don't care. I like Krakow.


P.S. We went to a chamber music concert in a huge cathedral. It was touristy.

P.P.S. I've sent out six postcards from Poland. I wrote more or less the same things written here. So for those who are expecting a postcard. Do NOT read this post.

P.P.P.S. Oh, you've read it already? Too bad...