falling down a well

i am helplessly being sucked into murakami's world. he writes of a man who goes down a waterless well to think in the darkness. i wonder what i would do sitting down at the bottom of a well. just me and breath. i recall one time in my life when i was down a well - when i got high with jim in amsterdam. without even knowing it, i inhaled 6 hits and started floating slowly down a deep and dark well, with the wall made out of the cushions like the ones you would find in mental hospitals. every time i closed my eyes, i'd spiral down this well and fall deeper and deeper the longer i shut my eyes. i urged jim to save me from falling but there i'd go again before i knew it. it was one of the scariest experiences in my life. but in a twisted way, this scenario my senses created for my body to believe as reality was the closest thing i will ever come to fantasy.

a profound 4-year-old

"i have no time...i have no time" ethan, my favorite kid, kept repeating. i asked all the students to glue their pictures but for some reason, even though he's usually so peppy and into it, ethan just wouldn't glue. "what do you mean ethan? we have 15 minutes before breaktime." "no...i have no time. 15, 9, then 1, no time." he said this the kind of extreme urgency only a child could convey. but i had no idea what he was talking about. i was so confused. "what are you talking about, ethan? oh come on, just glue...show me how good you are at gluing" "i have no time..." ethan said very quietly. his face starts getting red and his eyes well up. i'm taken aback by this but i open my arms and he comes towards me. all the other kids just watch us silently. "what's wrong ethan? why are you so sad?" "i have no more time." all of us at my musikbox knows ethan's moving to shanghai next week, this week being his last. "is it because you're moving?" he nods slowly and tears start trickling. "no more my musikbox."

his face was so close to mine. perfect and pure. looking him made me want to cry too. "but you're moving to a new place with new things. you'll start a new life" i knew only too well. i held him on my lap and asked all the other children if they've ever moved to another place. one girl did and said, "but i wasn't sad." at this point, i was suddenly inspired to tell them about my moving here to hong kong, even though i had no idea whether or not these little 3 and 4 year olds would understand or care. but they did. i told them about how this was my first time here in hong kong...how all my life, i've lived in america. and i got up and moved to hong kong, leaving family and friends. i missed them at first and still do, and was of course scared coming here. but now i love it. "that'll happen to you, ethan." he stopped crying. i kept holding him on my lap, and the children looked at me with serious eyes. it was the most beautiful and substantive thing i have ever talked about with such young children.

you never think of children being overly concerned with time. it seems only grown-ups watch the clock and feel the passing of time. but children feel it too. ethan was able to feel the future. and see it as a loss of the present. i saw him grow up today.

clicks

goodbyes are awful. i never really know how to handle them. lightly...seriously? and you can't really do them naturally...because what's natural? goodbyes are an end to something...and endings aren't natural for me.

i already miss teresa. if you're reading this teresa...forget america and stay in happy hong kong! damn you! we said our goodbyes, an ending to a short but sweet time of only a couple weeks. i've known her since she was 10 (or maybe younger?) but never actually knew her until now. it's hard to find people you feel comfortable with instantly.

it's also hard to find people who click with you...click enough with you that they come to know you. those people are not the kinds who need your time frequently...but just instances, opportunities to click here and there. because the connection is not something earned, but something that's already there. that's what amy jin is to me. she infuses a kind of childish and pure love in my life, instantly. that's also how i feel about julia..instantly...with every conversation we have. it's so obvious, the clicks between us.

then there are people who have come to know everything about you. and they love you for that everything. they pick on those little things that even you don't notice about yourself, and hold them up high and preserve and cherish them lovingly. like everything about you is fragile and valuable. that's jim. he's the glass snowglobe i get to play in forever.

and of course, there are people who simply know you...have known you, know you, and will know you for the rest of your life. they forgive you, appreciate you, take care of you, love you, through all the stages of your life. that's what lai is to me - an unlimited well of love...sitting there just for me. forever.

i love you. all of you.

This week's theme at work: Caring and Sharing

This kid kept calling me "Teacha Calol"

They're so small!
Krispy Kreme will open in 4 days. They were giving out free half-dozen donut boxes. SCORE.

Night Riding

We take a bus to Mui Wo, the ferry city. We're not hungry yet..only for some good bike riding! I know...corny. We rent one for 10 HKD...that is a little over a dollar, people!

Teresa kept saying this was 'real' hong kong...before all the development. The great thing about it is it's still one little chunk of it. I'm realizing more and more how diverse my new city is...

We rode in and out of dirt and paved paths. After coming out of this one narrow, hidden path...we see this random cow just walk into the bushes. Then we come out onto paved road...and see FOUR COWS. And they're big. and scary looking, as you can see with their demon eyes in the photo. They just stop there when they see us. We walk to the right, trying to get past them...and they just mosey on along, not getting in our way. So after all, they were intriguingly polite creatures. I love cows!

Riding along, we choose a long path going to who-knows-where and stumble upon what I like to call Temple Town. There were just a bunch of people in this communal space, eating at round tables and praying inside rooms with incense. One of them asked us to explore around, especially up the stairs to this special shrine for the 'seven sisters'.

At this point, we're just like...what the heck. But we do the incense thing out of courtesy. I give props to the sisters - miss green being my favorite (not shown in photo).

Afterwards, the temple people invited us to eat with them. And we did...all the while thinking "this is intensely weird...but in a good way". It all felt like the movie Spirited Away. The ambience of it. It was dream-like.

The Big Buddha

Over the weekend, Teresa and I embarked on an adventure! This was only the beginning of it - us with the matching green ipods and pocky sticks. We are disgusting and I actually want to throw up when I look at this picture.

We get off the bus and this is the first thing I see. A BIG BUDDHA just perched on high atop a mountain. Nothing to hide it. It just HITS you. I gasped and Teresa thought I was overcome with joy but no actually, I was freaked out of my mind. It's just this big big being up there. For some reason, it looked SO SCARY.

The more I looked at it though, the more awe-inspiring it was. It DOES seem larger than life and it IS easy to worship.

Here's the necessary tourist-y photo of me with what you see from up 260 steps, the big buddha view of the town.