Changing for the worse

Everyone seems to be moving on, going forward and embracing new challenges, new experiences.  Mortgages, parenthood, marriage...  Sometimes I feel like I'm the only one who hasn't grown up with the rest of them.  Left behind in a different dimension as the world continues its daily struggles with life itself.  It is not such a bad thing to grow up slowly.  There are times where I look back and regret the eagerness to embrace adulthood.  In the end, perhaps my blog was more accurately named than I could have perceived.


Today, I walked a path many tourists walk in my city and found that it is no longer the path I once walked when I was a child.  The landscape, while still recognizable, has changed with time: new buildings, new signboards, new skyline...  As Sam Ewing puts it - "When you finally go back to your old hometown, you find it wasn't the old home you missed but your childhood."  Z and I discussed this topic during our walk and realized that we both felt the same in that what had started with the enhancing of the skyline changed our community as a whole.  As a result, our city's people culture has evolved and regrettably, not for the good.  It shames me to admit that we are slowly but surely mimicking some of the cruder mannerisms of our bordering neighbours and it saddens me that one day I might have to leave this city - the beloved city which I grew up in - if only to save myself from being sucked into this impostor, this shadow of a greatness our people used to be.  

Never give in

"Never give in - never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force, never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy."
~ Sir Winston Churchill

I confess, this really is one of my favorite quotes.

A Heavy Heart

In passing conversation, a friend asked a remarkable question. He asked me why the lives of those in the Manila hostage incident were more valuable than those which were lost in Haiti, Iraq or even Pakistan. My response was this: We never associate tragedies of others until they happen close to home. This is perhaps a harsh reality to accept but no less true.

We never associate the catastrophes we see on the news until it the reality of it happens to a place or a people we consider as familiar. My sincere condolences to the families of the victims of the hostage situation in Manila yesterday. There are no words to describe the grief or express the pain which we, as a community, feel in its wake. Hong Kong has always been seen as one of the safest cities in the world. Too small to cause ripples in the international scene, we are like a mini Switzerland – neutral in all things surrounding our little haven be they politics or art. A diminutive city with an astounding population, Hong Kongers have often mistakenly been disparaged as a distant and unsympathetic people. It is true that we are not as warm as the Malaysians nor can we claim that we are as hospitable as the Thai but today, as our grief unites us, the world will awaken to the fact that regardless of what they believe, we are always there for each other. Our government has stepped up to charter a plane not only to bring back the traumatized, the grieving and the dead but also to carry our very own doctors, psychologists and social workers to those in need. The message is clear; we take care of our own.