the yellow mzungu

the purpose of higher education

2011-03-18T22:04:00.001+01:00

in the midst of this fanatic nerve wrecking waiting of school decision, after all those weekend and evening hours squeezing out intelligent but sincere words of personal statement and sunken in the sweet but slightly annoying whirlpool of decisions, I seem to forget

what was the reason why I wanted grad school so badly?
I was freaked out of the idea of graduating at 32 with debt and no saving and with a lower paid job than now, but I knew that the sweet pursuit of knowledge would worth any financial means in the world, ok maybe shoulder to shoulder with the cost for travelling... but after these 2 things, no material wealth could compare.

ok while I am still a bit of sane, I would like to drop a few lines so that here will be the mental sanitary that I could come back to when I go drama again in the coming one month...

I go to grad school because...

I am addicted to the happiness when I crack something hard and got the 'aaarh'
I love going to lectures and be inspired and be aggressive in argumentation and be smartass every now and then
I would have time and space again to drill in books, lost in thoughts or have a wonderful nap in the midday sun when I study really hard
I would live, eat and travel like a student again, with little money but abundant in free spirit and fun
I would see and live a different continent (WOW)
I would get to know so many nice, arrogant, smart, stupid but generally interesting people (bonus factor 100% international)

hmmm seems I do have some good reasons!

Location:in the small town bonn

Can one be faith filled and curious at the same time?

2009-12-11T19:29:00.000+01:00

Budapest

2009-11-29T17:28:00.000+01:00

The Best - themal bath outdoor on a sunny winter morning
The funnest - Chinese 80 style kongfu movie in Hungarian; slighted topping the similar production of Japanese carton on tv

that really speaks for my heart

2009-10-13T15:14:00.000+02:00

Singapore as a future home?

2009-09-17T22:14:00.001+02:00

Is probably not a crazy idea at all...
It is relatively close to canton (4 hours flight) so my family can visit easily but not so easy (I.e. 4 hours drive) to visit all too often ;)
It is modern and easy to work, both for Chinese and non Chinese speakers - sounds like a perfect place for couples like us
It has even quite good museums and other cultural elements - new discovery this trip - the natonal
museum of Singapore is probably one of the best history museum and the SAM is also up and coming!
Activity vice, tried the night safari first night upon arrival - of course this is more a tourist spot than a standard outing for residents, but I'm impressed by the effort of Singaporeans to entertain. Also did kayaking and if I would be living there, water sports would be my first choice to stay active.
And in longer term, working in Singapore for a period of time will also provide me the opportunity to obtain a Singapore pass, which is way practical than a Chinese one and emotionally more acceptable than a german one for example, thinking personally.

Sounds all good, what's stopping me then?!

Things work so well there, probably even too well - so called 'too controlled', well for someone enjoys living in Germany, that's unlikely a real issue;)
It is too established, where's the exciting new opportunity?!

All in all, it's simplily not crazy enough to move to Singapore...it's too normal & easy to call it a new adventure.

So it can wait, there's still so much to explore elsewhere:)

The myth of malay

2009-09-17T22:14:00.000+02:00

Seed of thought from yersterday's visit to national museum of singapore - Malay sounds like Swahili?! Of course it feels strange first look, but let's dig deeper...

Malay, I was told halfly based on Sanskrit.

Swahili on the other hand, spoken locally by the people in the coastal area - coast of the Indian ocean.

Any other thoughts?

Another interesting piece of realization, the tools local used for grading coconut are more or less the same as those I've seen in lamu or Kenyan coastal region in general...

Lasak is a word origin from Persian language, who would have thought?!

Well a lot to think about... I love the national museum of Singapore!

2009-09-16T15:03:00.000+02:00

Venice 2

2009-08-30T23:45:00.000+02:00

Had amazing dinner in one of the very small restaurants on one of the back lanes not far away from where I stay. Was not suprised that bar tender can just explain almost the whole menu into English for me when I asked, but was excited to see during the course of my early dinner, a whole bunch of people came in and had appetizer... All seems to be knowing the bar tender for as long as they remember. I forgot there are actually venetions living so close by. No, Venice is not an open museum, still. I had the safe option of mix plate of bar starters and ventured for squid - well at least didn't know that when I ordered! It came out to be squid that cooked in their own ink, it was blacker than black I've seen. Wearing the only semi decent dress that I brought to Venice for a vivladi concert afterwards, I was literatuly watching every single bite. If there's any thing more eveil for closing than tomato saurce, it could only be squid ink! It was very delicious though, intense and slightly bit too salty for my liking.

In venice

2009-08-29T17:57:00.000+02:00

Arrived at 9pm, it reminds of Singapore - the coating heat that sticks!
The water in light looks wonderful, yes it's true that it smells a bit but it's not comparable to the river in foshan, even Rhein sometimes gives out this distinguished smell of mix of sea and river...
Sofarsogood, I'm happily surprised. And will join the biggest crowd of tourists tomorrow.

Went to San Marco at 1030pm, who said that the place is diserted once the sun set, he must have come to see Venice in november or feburary... Music was still playing, of course instead of the 20 euro capuccino, now we are sipping 20 euro coke. Hmmm, how sweet;)

When I became rich one day

2009-08-23T20:37:00.000+02:00

I want to have a swimming pool, or a house next to the lake or sea - basucally a place where I can jump into the beatiful deep blue as free as possible.
Love being in water!

When I (can not) sleep

2009-08-21T23:18:00.000+02:00

I'll try again to write. Keep trying and keep failing is still better than giving up straight away, right? Right?!
I realized tonight that, usually when I could not fall asleep at night, ideas will just flood in. These ideas tend to be more couragous.. For example last night I was turning around in bed and completely toasted by the thought of hosting a dinner party on Sunday night inviting my colleagues despite the fact that in a few hours it was already Friday early morning and this beautiful idea was still immature in my stomach... When I finally reach the office though, I started to hestitate:
... mmm, what if none are in Bonn...
... what if only a few would come....
... isn't it just all too random for Germany anyway???

So in the end, the plan was dead in my stomach...

there is a second me in those half awake half sleep moments

the 'thousand-island' country goes to vote

2009-04-09T09:36:00.001+02:00

If Indonesia can, why not China?

Indonesians vote in key elections

what a new consultant hate the most...

2009-03-18T19:15:00.003+01:00

it is not when she has to stay up till 11:30 in the night to finish up;
nor when she needs to hold on and not run to the bathroom in order not to interrupt the flow of thoughts in the mid of high pressure presentation-making;
and definitely not in any feedback round or meeting with clients...

...but waiting waiting waiting in the office for feedback to continue working... :<<<

for the first time...

2009-03-10T15:01:00.002+01:00

after whole 6 weeks - I have not much to do at work in one go of 1 whole hour. And how bored am I...

I am not used to being lazy anymore, oh my god.

no time to write down

2009-03-02T17:24:00.002+01:00

the yellow mzungu is now back to cold old continent and working as a consultant to keep herself fed and warm (and all the rest of luxury...). She loves her job so far though 12 hours a day and dinner at 11pm is probably not the sustainable way of living.

she has been struggling to write down her little stories from this magical place called Kenya. She tried, even flied a plane to Berlin thinking that this culture capital will inspire her writing cry. But still no word, even worse, felt sick. She's back to work and this weekend will be Paris - assuming there are so many museums and markets to wander about, she's not trusting that it will be a more reflective weekend than Berlin.

but she's confident, or determined that eventually she will find time and nerve to put down her thoughts, probably not in a grand symphony but rather bits and pieces, every now and then. Still better than 0, she says it loud.

also she want to scribble down a few notes of her life as corporate consultant. who knows - there might be exciting pieces as well, at least potentially...

books

2008-11-20T11:29:00.002+01:00

finally I put down the "State of Africa", a giant 700 pages, consumed me in total 2 month and a few days to complete. It tells the history of Africa continent since independence, and it is not boring at all (some of us presumed books about history dull). It is almost my favorite type of read - fiction with a historical story at the background. Only that there is no fiction in it, all the horror and sorrow were just a while ago. Actually when I was reading the last few chapters of the book where it commented on 20 century, I can very well flipped open the newspaper of the present day and continue the story almost non disrupted - stories or rather news from Susan, from Somali, from Congo... It was the best read on history I every enjoyed! There were times that I had to put aside the book and stood up to breath and swallow cold water, just to remind myself that the history has passed; there were also times that i could not close the book despite late hours in the night for i was so fascinated of how little i knew, how fractional my information was from those so called news report on the TV. I'd like to read more on this topic and welcome recommendation.

i need some small delicacy between big meals for digestion sake, I guess. So I went to the book store called "bookstop" here in Nairobi although I still had a whole piles of big books that I intended to finish before going back to Europe (by now i am sure that i was too ambitious so Achim will actually need to include some of them in his large luggage allowance). The owner without doubt Asian descendant as a lot of business here are ran by them. He's kind and he has good eyes on the customers. Before I left the store, he showed me a corner where there are a whole shelf of African topic 2nd hand book. "I saw you standing in front of the African section (brand new) for long, thought you might be interested to these as well", he said. I thanked him for his kindness but explained to him though I am more than happy to read more but my journey home is in 2 months so I could not possibly buy more of those before finishing the ones i posted oversea from Germany (with expansive postage charge!). In the end i settled with buying the 2nd-hand "No. 1 Lady's Detective Agency" whose name I have seen so often in most of the African reading list. It staged in Botswana and the story is lovely. I am done reading in 3 days (I think if you sit still you can done reading in a few hours but that is not really me) and I want to read more from this writer. The story is still African, still has dark side of fate, but it is soothed perfectly with the author's descriptive but not over-done writing. It has a good ending and full of emotion for the country and the African land - it is just adorable. It is my lemon ice cream on a hard working day.

"Barack Obama" with a reggae tone

2008-11-04T08:32:00.009+01:00

we heard this song on one of our daily matatu rides - couldn't really understand the lyrics but it kept on going with "Barack Obama" non-stop. Amid the whole craze of Obama, this song is sticking strong to my head at the moment.

people keep saying that Kenya is the best country to watch the big day outside of US - but let me rephrase this - Kenya IS the best country to watch the big day even counting US! Everything is about Obama here nowadays, sharing some statistics:

Kenyan who can imagine an Obama failure: 0

Kenyan who believes in actual benefits/changes to Kenya if Obama wins: more than 50% of the population I'd estimate - and for sure everyone from western Kenya where this golden boy's father came from

One of the many shocking comments - from a 25 year old student (since she's 25, I suppose she's a univ student):

"...it is definite that Obama will ship his family to the US. The visa restrictions will also be reduced. Also, I think he can influence more aid to come to Kenya. Kenyans will also have an upper hand to go to America compared to people from other nationalities..." (from Nation Daily today)

I believe this young girl has already packed her stuff and bought her one-way ticket to her American dream.

There are of course more sensible voices on this but they are drown without trace in the wave of madness of confidence. One of these sensible opinions was the title of the other major newspaper (the Standard) on the election - "America Decides", I'd rather put it as "Americans Decide", but either way it points out the obvious. It is the Americans who will give the mandate of who will be their next President, the reverse is also true: it is the Americans, whoever becomes the next President of USA needs to be accountable for primarily if not solely.

The winning of Obama, can only bring on one positive thing for sure - it is the belief that you can achieve something big despite your skin color, as long as you try hard enough. And this goes for all the Chinese, Indians, Latinos etc, not just the blacks.

-----------------------------oh but I do forgot-----------------------------

another positive thing is surely to come besides the cheerful mood - Kisumu airport is building a new terminal so that Air Force One can land there when Obama visits his grandma and his fellow relatives, and let me just say the whole Kenyan population since we are related to him in one way or another. A new terminal = new jobs = more money = bigger welfare. So I should really be lest sceptic on the whole thing!

besides building new terminal, people in Kisumu are also busy voting(!) - according to the Standard page 8 today, a mock voting exercise on the US election is organised today in Kisumu town, supports of Obama (= everyone) and supporters of McCain (= alien) can cast their votes, and obviously the election, contracted to the real one end of last year "will be free and fair and tallying, will be not conducted at KICC" as claimed by Mr. Lawrence Oyange, who is in charge of this "election".

Bring on more fun.

weekend to the west

2008-10-17T09:29:00.007+02:00

Last weekend was a long weekend thanks for the formal president of Kenya’s birthday, I decided a while back that we SHOULD visit Kisumu – supposedly the 3^rd largest city in Kenya and it is right at the shore of Lake Victoria – the biggest lake in Africa (and the largest tropical lake in the world and the 2^nd largest fresh water lake by surface size in the world if you are a bit of statistic fanatic too) territorially belonging to 3 East African countries and the source of the mighty Nile. To add on to this long list of reasons, the only rain forest in

Kenya

– Kakamega forest reserve is just around the corner. So let’s go.

My excitement of the trip was firstly put off a bit by the delayed flight with Fly540 (the Germanwings/AirAsia/Easyjet in Kenya ) and then when we reached the New Victoria Hotel which should be a good mid-range hotel according to lonely planet, we were told that the room I reserved a few days back was taken already by someone announcing him/herself of the same name of mine (this made me really wonder)! So we were forced to look for another place. Luckily it was just down the street. Let’s just say it was dark enough to not notice how shabby the room was and too late of the day to mind.

Kisumu is much safer than Nairobi as we felt mostly safe wandering around even after dark just by ourselves (being one of the only two aliens in town). There were of course the usual “taxi taxi” touts but the annoyance was minor. The day after we spent a good half day to explore the city – and that is pretty much quite enough to walk about town! It is nothing of the scale of Nairobi but it was tropical heat to walk so we had to make many water-supply stops a.k.a sitting down in the handful of cafes for a soda. The town is sleepy compared to Nairobi but I really enjoyed the calmness (who needs the craziness of Nairobi anyway?!), the pave ways were more or less even though climbing up and down, and they were mostly shaded which strangely reminded me of Penang. Forget about taxi, to go around you have the options of bodaboda (bicycle taxi), pikipiki (motorbike) or tuk tuk(3-wheel motorbike); we even took a tuk tuk to the airport when we departed and the whole journey costs less than 3 euro with breezy air free of charge.

We walked towards the lake then along the train track – for we really wanted to figure out whether the train from Kisumu to Nairobi was still running. We were told by a friend that it is wonderful to see rift valley with the slow train journey but when we consulted the officers in Nairobi train station we were told the train was suspended. Along the road we spotted many signs signaling “mind the crossing” etc – it is all very necessary since we did not see any single running train for the whole day! We finally arrived and the officers there nicely confirmed the fact of the suspension but said “it will reassume next Thursday”. Damn it, of course only just couple of days after we would have left Kisumu! The funny thing is – although it seems no trains were running on any schedule, but there were at least 4 full time personnel there, doing nothing. So we wandered back to town and decided to try the fish stands along the lake. Definitely highlight of the trip! Tilapia are ample and fresh from the lake – we had one fish which weighted more than 1kg just for ourselves! It was all and all a finger-licking-tasty experience, for one thing the fish’s very fresh and tenderly fried, for another it is quite usual that fork & knife are not served in Kenya. I enjoy thoroughly eating with hand only we do need some practices for our poor fingers as they are not really used to grabbing hot flesh while my stomach can’t wait any second longer.

After our feast on fish and the million time saying “hapana asante” (no thanks) to the many sellers of all kinds of goods, we decided it was time to head for Kakamega forest. It was altogether another journey in itself. Firstly a matatu towards Kakamega and we shall get off at Khayega just before Kakamega which took us almost two hours, then a 30 mins ride at the back of a piki piki (mind you: 2 of us with a huge backpack all on one motorbike) on a really bumpy dirt road. Just before I thought we would never make it in one piece, we arrived finally to the heaven on earth for our weekend trip – Rondo Retreat. It was homey, cozy and completely integrated with the surrounding ancient rain forest. I don’t know how to describe that is why you can look at some pictures instead. It was nothing luxury but it was just the effortless effort they spent on putting up the place – many nice sofas to crawl in and armchairs by the magnificent garden, not to mention the lovely collected library with many interesting reads.

I slept like a babe that evening with the sound of nature and woke up renew to our exciting walking trip in the forest. Briefly discussed with our guide, we decided that we would take the longest half-day trail along the yana river. I was too optimistic about the hike and slid and fell hard on my bottom 5 mins after we began the walk. The good things were – I knew how slippery the wooden paths on top of the stream were under daily rain soak and now that my pants were all dirty I did not mind falling in mud again. One of the wonders of the forest was tree murdering. One tree will literally entangle another till the poor one dry out and die away. We also saw the blue monkey (which looks exactly like the wise monkey in Lion King, remember?) and the red-tailed monkey (which is more orange than red, looking like someone has lit up the poor thing’s tail). Another highlight was seeing giant army of safari ants – they were moving in a stream, and a few much bigger fighter ants were solders at the outskirt guarding the march and they will bite hard if you appear threatening! The ancient forest is also famous for its huge variety of butterflies – I had never seen so many butterflies in my entire life.

I was all wrecked after the long walk and glad that we finally made it back to Rondo. We had another lovely well cooked meal and not matter how unwillingly we had to start the whole motorbike+matatu hike back to Kisumu before it was too late. We would love to stay in Rondo for another night…only if we had enough cash on us! (they do not take credit card, see Visa or Master can’t buy everything) The motorbike ride was easier as the mid-day sun dried out the mud road a bit, but the matatu drive was a nightmare of nightmares for me. First of all, at one point of time there were 22 adults and 2 kids on board for a small tiny Nissen which was allow max 14 passengers, plus a small chicken held by one of the kids. Well people know me know that I have phobia for chicken since young (I know that is irrational but isn’t that just what phobia supposed to mean?!), so I was all worried and panic a little while comforting myself by thinking “oh this is just a small chick even without grown feather yet…and she will probably drop off in the next town… ” well she did drop off after 15 mins or so but here it came – a man with like 10 grown cocks and hens got on! In China people will transport these domestic animals in cages but here they were simply tied up by their feet and put underneath one’s seat. So these ten seemly harmless animals were just laying 15 cm away from me right next to Achim’s feet. I was dreadfully scared and being completely honest even a few drops of tear were shed out of fear. This guy with many chicken only got off before we arrived in Kisumu and hence the whole journey turned into a small personal disaster for me.

The last day in town – we went visit the very price-worthy Kisumu Museum. The ticket officers must be a bit disappointed that after all two muzungu were only paying the tiny resident rate of entrance fee so they actually sent a guard to double check our resident status after we entered : ) We paid 1 euro and saw a whole display of culture/history of the western region of Kenya, a well-planned simulated village of the Luo people (local tribal group around Lake Victoria), as well as a small but interesting aquarium, a few tortoises, crocodiles and a informative corridor exhibition of snakes ABC. Well, what can you ask more except a bit of explanation of why the above combination. We enjoyed the visit a lot anyway.

Our trip ended with a late lunch again by the lake in the shanty fish restaurant, watching locals driving cars or school buses into the lake so that they can wash their vehicles in a most convenient way; street kids lingering around with a bottle of glue at hand staring at food on tables waiting for their share of the left-over and many street sellers coming and going with their beyond imagination variety of craps. Oh, what a weekend.

magical masai mara part I

2008-10-06T08:31:00.010+02:00

finally i wrote this for i felt into the usual sleepless sunday night and instead of counting sheep I went up to write on my laptop.

I could barely know how close I can actually get to the nature until I landed in Masai Mara with this tiny 13 persons plane, the plane was full though despite the worries of fewer tourists due to PEV (post-election violence) and lucky Achim was invited to sit on the co-pilot seat (I highly suspect that was because of his pilot style sun glasses!) First time experience with such a small plane and I felt excited but safe. Right before landing, I spotted a group of giraffes among the woods next to the airstrip. Deep breath, I knew this was going to be amazing.

Our first camp was an infamous eco camp in Mara called the Base Camp. You can even take a free tour around to see just how eco-centric they are and stuff from the 2^nd camp we went to referred to Base Camp as ‘very local community friendly’, which can be seen from first contact – most of the staff hired there are Masai coming from the surrounding villages. I love the fact that they have a person who is like a COK (Chief of local Knowledge) who came to us everyday, not only to explain the camp but also to tell us interesting facts of animals, e.g. imitating different animal sounds we heard in the evening and had a quick quiz with us on who is whom (hippos made the loud but easy to recognise snore from the nose while hyenas have this creepy high pitch call when they hunt that woke us in the night a few times). The service was really personal and flexible and the whole atmosphere was always relaxingly low-key.

We spent 3 nights in Base Camp and then moved on to the newly opened Karen Blixen Camp (it was even on the news since they opened the establishment at a really inconvenient time right before the election time) for another 2 days. However judging from the number of occupied dinner tables – it seems the hard time has passed which I am really happy for them. The camp is owned by a Dane whose family come from the same island in Denmark as this well-known lady and the guy who is currently running the Camp still has this sweet Danish accent when he talked which of course brought back my memory of cosy time in Copenhagen. This camp is more to the luxury direction, and it locates at a really impressive part of the Mara river. The water roared all the time and it was so great that we could merely heard each other when we tried to talk while lazying around on our balcony. I would say that Base Camp is more to my taste but I was completely speechless when feasting on our late lunch, watching a family of elephants getting shade under the trees, and then a few impalas and zebras amid a whole clan of Thomson’s gazelles came down to drink water by the river, observed closely by a whole bunch of hippos who became so active and naughty once the heat ceased.

I can not possibly write down my whole 6 days in the Mara as most of the experience is out of my commend of writing skills. Perhaps I can try with a few highlights instead.

My most often seen – wildebeest. There are literately millions of them on the ground of Mara at this point of time. They are main actors in the scene of migrations but they are sadly called the ‘clown’. Well, not without reason though. They look a bit strange and they act even more random – quite often one wildebeest will start running to one direction without any obvious reason and the other will just simply follow. They have really strong legs and they are successfully breed here as a group, so eventually they are probably not as stupid as we think.

Among the wildebeest you can often see one of my favorites – the zebras. They are just having the most comic face among all animals and they can act funny too. But they are as well brave and forceful. I read that they play a leading role in the migration though unfortunately we did not witness that this time. However we did see they attempt to cross the Mara river as a clan alone, which was a very dramatic yet touching scene. The Mara river is rather deep sometimes zebras have to swim with only their head out of the muddy water. Not to mention that one of the their biggest predators are just hungry after months of waiting – Nile crocodiles which can measured up to 5 meters and weighted to 1 tone. A stream of zebras chose the part of the Mara of strong tide and started to cross, within 10 minutes more than 10 crocs swam near the crossing ‘path’ from all directions. However do not underestimate these cute faces, they have solid kicks which can frighten off most of the crocs in the fierce waves and although sometimes croc did managed to catch a bite most of the zebras escaped and successfully made it to the other side (during the whole time we were watching only one poor young zebra were killed). You hear them bark intensively like hundreds of puppies which was in fact the call of family. Seeing so many crocs crumbing around the remaining clan of the zebras were anxious and lost, so some of the zebras who had made it to the other side actually swam back in order to be with their family!(maybe give them further guidance and just to comfort the young ones) And they are as well smart. Seeing the crowd of carnivores at bate was too large they changed strategy and looked for a different location to cross.

The fastest animal on land – Cheetah. They might look similar to leopard at the first sight (or it is just me an wildlife idiot grown up in city?) but after some hints you distinguish them easily. Cheetah have rounded spots and have these tear lines just below their eyes. They made this ‘miao’ sound just like any kitten when they are trying to flirt with their mating partners and they are completely relaxed under the gaze of human beings. Actually they were so calm that sometimes they climb on top of the 4-wheel drive to get a better sight of their preys. On the other hand leopards are very shy cats. They are loners except during mating season. Most of the time they live on trees or lay down between low woods. They are very difficult to spot but we had a really good guide with us and we were the first car to ‘hunt’ down a leopard among the forest just before sunset among the high grasses and short trees.

see if you can find the leopard

My favorites are not the carnivores but the elephants and giraffes. They are the local breed which is significant smaller in size compared to for example India elephants. The similarity between these two is that they always seemed to wear smiles on their faces and the fact that they were co-appearing with a lot other animals all the time. In our walking safari for 3 hours, we were in the woods where a group of giraffes gazing, they were curious as well as cautious, keeping a certain radius of distance from us but circling around in a slow pace, stopping every now and then to stare at us with their very gentle eyes. It is hard to describe that joy! Warthogs are also happy creatures. Member the one who sings ‘Hakuna matata’ in the Lion King? That was the warthog. The reason why they were having no worries was really because they have extremely short memory! It can be a sad fact though in cruel nature as they could be so carelessly forgot about the danger they just encounter and go back to where they predators waiting : (

Ok, time for the king of the jungle – lion to come to stage. Their positive image is largely the result of popular culture, especially cartons. Their majestic look also helps to shape that up a lot I guess. But they are indeed most of the time quite lazy and even when they hunt they only have a 50/50 chance of success. In fact sometimes they stole others carnivores’ preys too! Especially the male ones – for me they are just modelling for foto! The female ones take up the responsibilities of feeding and protecting the young ones, they are usually in group of 3 or more sisters and their curbs become kids of all (fair and square). They excel in team work and hunt mostly only during cooler hours (not like cheetahs). Sometimes they have easy gain as well – (un)fortunately we saw a young lost wildebeest came down to the drink water at the river bank where a team of more than 10 mothers and curbs were resting. It took only a breath of 3 seconds for one of the lioness to catch this poor little thing. But there could be hard time especially when the wildebeests and zebras migrate to the other side – lions can grow so hungry that they have to pick a fight with buffalo – which is a chance to live or die.

... to be continued...

2008-09-26T14:56:00.001+02:00

coming soon: Masai Mara stories and pictures...

I need to give myself some pressure so that I will eventually organise those 1111 pictures... literally, there were 1111 pics!

2008-09-12T13:37:00.005+02:00

just outside of the estate where we stay, there are a line of tin-roofed small shops. Usually when I pass by them during the week, I merely notice what they sell as they are tightly closed, but during the weekend it is a complete bustling scene. There are the ordinary kiosks where you can get a good old glass bottle of cola and crest (local schwepps), along side the fruit/veggie stands. But there are also quite some others selling clothing, furniture, and "hotel" which basically means a place to eat. Today on my unimpressive matatu ride, attracted by the Simpson style mural, I encountered a shop named

TENDER OUCH SALON

oh mine, that's creativity and good humor. Not sure which part of service they are referring to, but doesn't it just catch your eyes and give you a big smile?

I need to take a picture of it sometime soon.

looking for the Sane man...

2008-09-04T15:17:00.007+02:00

There used to be 2 mobile telecommunication providers in Kenya - Safaricom and Celtel.

the green color branded Safaricom is much more populous. Celtel was bought by the ambitious Middle-east and now African continent major player called Zain in 2005. From 1st August, Celtel is rebranded to Zain, the great launch included buying up all paints in color of magenta and hired thousands of people enthusiasticly changing all their service centres, shops and small kiosks into one big world of PINK. (from the pic is not very clear but German friends of mine, please imagine full house t-mobile color just brighter and deeper. YUP!)And this alone of course does not complete the grand marketing plan - so they have also initiated this program called "find the Zain man" through one of the most listened radio in the nation. The game is simple - they basically annouce via the radio station that during certain point of time (e.g. 7:30-8:30) a man carrying 100,000 ksh (1000 euro) will be at certain spot (e.g. today in front of my office) of town, all you need to do is to identify this man and ask him to prove it by showing the id of the radio host - then the 100,000 is yours! sounds really interesting. So today just right acrossed my office, mostly young people, were shouting at every man passed by, asking "are you the Zain man" , "I am looking for the Zain man" etc. Of course there is no description of this person and the only thing you know is that it is going to be a man not a lady... it was a lot of fun to watch : ) and today within the destinated time, no one actually found the Zain man and get that damn 100,000 ksh! what a pity!

oh, you might be curious which network that I am using....

of course, I am in Zain (sane)...

august

2008-09-02T12:30:00.007+02:00

Till today I am here for a full month now. It has been eventful on both positive and negative sides and I am keen to use this update to reflect some key aspects of my time here.

Work started almost immediately after I arrived which was probably not the best option for timing since I had no holiday for a while before quitting my job in Bonn just right before boarding my plane down south. I am a VSO int’l volunteer in Kenya so it is kind of like that VSO is the SN manager in AIESEC terms and supposedly taking care of the logistics and the assignment arrangement with the organization where I actually work for, which is called Ufadhili Trust. Ufadhili aims at mobilizing local resources in eastern African country to help their own people stand on their own feet, or using their motto “east Africans take control of their own development”. I like it a lot, at least the vision in itself. I am not a hardcore agents of virtues skeptics like Paul Theroux (he wrote great traveling books that I enjoy reading a lot) but I do have my doubts of all these international aid schemes that have been active in the continent for so long and have achieved so little, that is why I am interested greatly in the alternative – that Africans can be self-help and self-dependence.

Out of Work can be probably more exciting except for the weekends. One frustration for both us is the fact that quite an amount of time needed to be spent on daily commute since our housing was not as strategic as one might wish. We are working on that now by looking at other lodging locations, which help to bring us some new friends here. Last Sat we were just sitting at a really chill bar and meeting up with Kenyan friends one after another who were really nice, fun, inspiring and helpful. I really hope that we can stay at a new place soon where we can spend less time on jammed matatu on the jammed road and more time on going to nice places meeting new/old friends in this beautiful country.

Weekend was the highlight so far for the past months. Since I came we’ve been visiting new places all the time during the past 4 weekends, well mostly concerning shopping and eating or general leisure theme. But also the excitement of getting to know new people, other volunteers, returned Kenyan and of course locals. Yesterday was the best! My ex-colleague from the yellow company has promised to give us a Narobi tour. I thought it would be something like Karen-Ngong kind of tour where tourist guides normally bring you and this will be just a friend’s version. But no way, it was a tour seeing really different parts of Narobi. We started from South B where we both live, continue to the industrial area where the major productions base and then to Buru Buru which used to be a huge neighborhood designed for Nairobi middle class by some high royalty in Britain (can’t google that out so need further confirmation) centuries ago. It has humanist design of curving roads and stone houses although one can not see very clearly the original structure after all these years’ reconstruction. And from there we drove through Eastleigh where the Somalis settle. There was all crowds, heat, uneven pave ways, and under the bright sun even more obviously dusty. My friend told us that everything trades here and if you are looking for anything they can get you ANYTHING you want as long as you can pay – gun, for example can be one of these goods. I was a bit shocked upon this piece of info and asked “so should I roll the window up a bit?” My friend nodded. Up north we went. All in a sudden, the dusty & dazzling streets have magically extended into waves of greenery and highway of top standard; houses disappear from sight. We came to the Winsor golf and country club – which is ANOTHER planet compared to Eastleigh. We stepped out of the car for the first time – with the excuse of breathing in some fresh air! In the far we can see white tents next to a lack amidst lovely forest. Another friend pointed at them and told me that those are for weddings. How lovely that it is almost dreamy. People say Kenya is a country of contrast, and Nairobi is definitely topping that saying.

Funny observation is what makes life here lovely. Hmm, let me share one to spice up a bit. More you need to come back to check my blog : ) Business idea nr. 1 – Chinese should come here to open salon besides all the construction projects. I’ve never seen a population that is so obsessed with their hair. Achim once said that he has problem distinguished all those Chinese faces during his time in Beijing, well I have a similar issue here but for different reason: some of my female colleagues change their hair look every there weeks or so! Yesterday in the team meeting I was staring at a colleague called Sofia with confusion, last week she was with this short dark black hair of lively curls but today she was with this all brushed up big tail at the back of her head. How can her hair grow so much over the weekend? Well, if you go into a local supermarket then you will get a hint – usually among all the grocery, you come to a section of all kinds of hair extension and wigs! Achim and I joked that we will stock our luggage with some of those for carnival back home! Go to any salons, especially those in the estates, it is always busy around the clock. Ladies spend hours to get their hair done since the African hairdos are anything but simple. When appreciating another colleague’s new combo hairdo of braid at top + straighten + color highlight, I casually asked how long did that take and the answer was shockingly 4 hours! Never been in a salon so long in my life! Actually I think that is the sum of my hours in the salon in Bonn during the last 12 months. They are creative and determined – all kinds of construction can be applied to their hair so that it will look exactly how they want. According to my experience, Chinese salons are among one of the most innovative (=“importing” latest tech from Japan & Korea), reasonably priced and relatively patient. 4 hours is still a gigantic number for Chinese salon but I am sure they can make it. It might probably add another taste to the image of Chinese people here as well, being too hard-working and equipped with Kongfu.

Wow, I would still like to comment on food but let’s pause here as I am tired of typing : ) write later!

better shut up and rest

2008-08-26T15:35:00.002+02:00

I am in a bad mood recently, maybe a low tide, a normal down time in the learning curve of someone experiencing a new culture (which we talked about so much in AIESEC during cultural preparation). I am sure I had those in Denmark and Germany as well, and I guess I survived them just fine, so I am certain that I can fight the blue here as well, some time soon.

caught a cold and felt sick a bit over the weekend, so now trying every means to at least have a warm shower instead of cold water at 7am 10-15 degree morning.

I know I can get pretty emotional in phase like this, so I better shut myself up or else words will appear in this blog that I might regret in the future. So allow my silence for a few days...

swahili

2008-08-21T12:55:00.002+02:00

I am learning Swahili now with a teacher contracted to VSO, yesterday I had lesson of 2 hours so now I can greet people properly esp. reply to the typical tourist "jambo" shout in a more decent way (to show off that I know a little). Besides greeting, the only 2 things I really know are:
1, to say what is my name and quest about others
2, to ask do they have wife or husband and further on asking how many children do they have

the latter one has become the laugh of my office (I am happy to be the entertainer every now and then). Obviously you do not ask around people how many children do they have but this is the sentence that I really want to practice, so I chase people around with this silly question. "Una watoto wangapi?" I am not good at guessing people's age, and esp. not good at that in Africa. I think some africans are just having really perfect smooth skin that lasts long. My swahili teacher Mwalimu Charles has 5(!) and even one mjukuu (grandchild) which I could never tell - I thought he's only around his 40 or so. We practised my new acquired sentence to ask about how many children do his brothers and sisters have. It turned that he has 4 brothers and 2 sisters, and in total his parents have 27 grandchildren (not known number of grand grandchildren)! When he heard that my parents have me as the only kid, he said "pole" (sorry) in such a sentimental way that made me feel pity about this fact as well. Hmm, big family. I do not see yet what is so good to have a big family except for sports purpose, but maybe I will be enlightened someday...

oh how I enjoy learning swahili, it is a lovely and not very complicated language (compared to German).

on a different tone, a voluteer (Kenyan) in Achim's office was very curious about Germany and asked a lot of questions. Some interesting and some not. e.g. "do your people teach your girls that career and work are more important and that is why they do not marry and have kids?" well, I was never educated in Germany so I leave my judgement aside, but I thought what I've been taught was that I have my choices, just like the others.

Kenya, Tourism and China

2008-08-15T09:09:00.002+02:00

well, I have to say I haven't seen many Chinese tourists and businessman here yet although I have heard/read of many stories of them. But one significant difference I noticed here is - In Europe when I travelled, the local will always addressed me firstly as Japanese when failed usually tried Korean then probably Chinese. It was irritating but understandable. In Nairobi though, everyone is addressing me with "Ni hao" or "Chinese"!! So it seems that Asian are predominantly represented by Chinese here. Oh, how proud am I. Guess I will have a lot more to tell in topic of Africa and China, but later.

I have known tourism is an important money-making machine in Kenya, but not completely comprehend how crucial it is until I realized that there is always at least one page (most of the case a few) on both the top two daily newspaper here ("Nation Daily" and "Standard") every day. Current stories usually tune in to encourage domestic tourism, telling Kenyan that how cheap it is for them to visit their national park (which is not said, how ridiculously more a foreigner needs to pay though) and how wonderful their national parks are (which I'm truly bought in). In a sense, tourism is the only "business" that is mentioned daily on the news.

this blog entry has gone a bit random, but what I really want to share was a piece of news that I read a few days ago on Daily Nation which linked perfectly the two: Tourism for Kenya and China. The vice president of Kenya has visited BJ for her magnificent opening of the game with other 80 or so heads of state. In his meeting with some high officials in China (sorry I forgot which one) he enthusiastically expressed his wish, saying (in my own words) how Kenya is beautiful and more Chinese should visit this magical country. He has further detailed his expectation by saying "there should be 10 million Chinese visiting Kenya annually". I was shocked and literally stared at the number for a few seconds. 10 MILLION?! Annually?! I quickly did my simple math, we have 1,3 billion population in China so a bit over a century literally every Chinese would have visited Kenya! I googled some figure this morning, well last year the total number of Chinese visiting abroad were 40 million, more than 90% made their first trip oversea in SE Asia. Safari, mountain climbing or idling around the white sand beach are by all means luxury, even to quite some Europeans; and not to mention such a long journey require quite some days off for my fellow Chinese which is even a bigger luxury in workaholic China. How is the vice president exactly having in his mind that we can achieve this ambitious number of 10 million annually together? My big puzzle.

Alles in Ordnung?

2008-08-14T16:16:00.000+02:00

Nicht ganz. But it is fine.

In Germany one of the most common way to ask “how are you” is to say “Alles in Ordnung?” which can be directly translated as “is everything in order?” which actually sound more like “everthing’s fine?”. You can tell how important “order” or “system” is for Germans. I have been told by many that I am “Germanized” or worse (!) people “praise” me by saying “hey Wing you are actually not Chinese but German.” I do NOT agree, I know I enjoy the comfort of knowing what is going on and where to find out if I am not and I am spoiled after all these years in Europe. However now I am coping Nairobi, I can be more than assured to say that I am still ok being non-German.

There is no system here or there is a secret one which you are only born to if you are lucky enough. Typical encounter is taking the buses. Actually I have never taken any official buses but all those more private and flexible “Matatus” (smaller or mini buses) that come to the corner of where we live way more often than those official buses. Matatu is one of the must see/try experience in Nairobi and they are famous for their individual colorful styling of the whole vehicle no matter how shabby the actually mechanic functionality of the car is, and second to none its often loud music (unfortunately for me mostly hip hop and rap, but I have also sampled one with more traditional type). I read that they are more regulated nowadays and at least they do take care of the actual capacity of seating in a single vehicle. Most of the time, you can find a number either on the side or in front of the car supposedly indicating its direction and route. But be warned, as someone just land in this city, there is almost no way to find out how many lines are there and where do they go (not on maps, no website, of course no online ticket system). There are official but more non-official getting on/off spots around the greater city, but there is never a number plate at the spot providing you with any info of which bus/matatu might stop there. So forget about a route map, lest a time table. Oh, and not even a fixed route. Of the same number of matatus, they can very well go on an different route (as compared to what you might just took the same morning) – depending on not so much about traffic but whether the machine can be filled up more quickly to ensure ends are met for this one journey. Not forgetting about the price - which by now you can certainly guess – that is also not fixed. The general guidance is 30 Ksh, but it fluctuates as how the market goes, the rule is the least traveled time/route the least a passenger pays, which is what market economics all about, isn’t is? So for going back and forth for work costs me 40 one way, but getting into town on Sunday morning (when everyone is with family and at church) will be just 20. So if you need to go somewhere unfamiliar and just like us can not afford taxi regularly then ask and ask again your informed local what the number of the matatu is and which part of the town you can hop on one. For the very first time, I do not blame those who can afford a car are actually driving one on the already completely crammed street, as taking matatu can be a real tiring experience if not yet a dangerous one considering how some crazy drivers “jumped” around in the city. But all our journeys so far have been task-completed and they stop just in front of our building if we manage to take the correct ones, so I am not complaining : ).

Oh since I mentioned transportation, air pollution can’t escape my mind. Nairobi unfortunately is still not a pedestrian city, not only for the crazy traffic and quite often uneven pave way, but most sadly because of its heavy street pollution. There are no heavy production at sight and during the weekend when you walk in city centre there can be actually beautiful blue sky, I conclude that the number 1 (if not the one and only) polluter is car emission. I am suspicious about the health (mind you not functionality) of most cars on the street, and they consistently pipe out ink black waste smoke. As some one who had lived 4 years in Beijing and love the city, I’d recommend the Beijing mayor, when facing pushy questions from foreign journalist about bad air in BJ, instead of defending and having the odd/even-number vehicle system, he can just direct people’s attention to Nairobi. I know this is a bad trick but every kid tends to use it when she is asked why such a low grade, I still remember vividly my response “XX scored even lower!”

Not walking around the chaotic city does not stop me from enjoying the lively street market. After all 4 years, I have fresh mango, papaya, pineapple and the much sweeter small banana again. And waking up to sweet-sour-all-mouth-watering passion fruit as breakfast daily: PRICELESS.

awaking from the long sleep

2006-02-26T22:10:00.000+01:00

ok ok, I know it is long enough when Amit was even posting in the comment when he was just sitting on the table next to me. well, what can I say, life hasn't changed dramatically and all I am enjoying at the moment are all those small things in life, like spending time with my family finally in the first 2 weeks of Feb. It has been too long, more then a year that I can talk with my mom face to face, and it was way too short time not even for a catch up. Besides all those sentimental, we also celebrated a great time in Thailand beaches, with stars and torch lights only lighting up the sky. I tried my first snorkeling experience, was great and I managed it well until the next day when i was too excited to try more and deeper, I cut my leg with a few deep wounds on the rock and had to give up for a supposed to be great 2nd trial. After the short 16 days I came back to Germany with the anticipation that my job arrangment is ready. Well, it took a few more dramas but now everything is settled (at least from the look of it, I hope there aint any more produres hinden somewhere in the overregulated german system). So the good news is that I am now fully employed with an unlimited contract in this big yellow company doing something wonderful and hopefully valuable as well.

hugs from the Karneval city of Cologne. Alaaf!!

extremely sleepy now

2005-11-22T15:38:00.000+01:00

because I couldn't really sleep well last night...

because my brain was overwhelmed by the fact that...

TICKETS ARE BOOKED TO GO HOME IN CHINA!!!

yeah, this is happening, for as long as more than a year by then, I am finally reaching home sweet home with my mom's warm dishes and hopefully promising decent tempreture in the city where I was born and lived for the previous 18 years before going to univ.

so the time's set: Jan 28th 8:15 in the morning I will be embracing my homeland again. The distance has made life hard sometimes, but I hope these short yet nice 2 weeks can make it up for you(mom,family,life-long friends,well-cooked food,chinese books etc), at least for a small tiny part.

also in the plan - small island trip to Thailand, with not so decent budget in my bank account but who cares?! (at least not for now...)I hope to see some of you in Bangkok/Phuket from 6 Feb to 11 Feb before I returning back to neat but less fun Germany and work.

sad that this is an e-ticket I can't just frame it to the wall and smile at it until the trip finally starts; lucky that it is an e-ticket, so the 'accident' of forgetting-to-bring-the-actrual-ticket-but-the-payment-paper-thing won't happen again. this time.

Bring it on!

2005-11-10T14:13:00.000+01:00

“If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence.”
— Bertrand Russell, Roads to Freedom

Misc

2005-11-07T10:40:00.000+01:00

movies watched this weekend:
Country of My Skull: I found the love story a bit cheesy in a way that it was not neccessary and somehow distracted, but as the kids in South Park always said 'I learnt something today', I did too, a great deal. Any suggestions for following reading?

Dancer in the dark: for the 3rd time but the only time that I was actually able to finish the movie, maybe because this time I watched it together with someone else. 2 previous attempts failed because I found it too crule and real. Life is hard, it forces people to the conner.

Current reading:
Veronica decides to die - typical Paulo Coelho I would say, not much surprise yet so far, but still have like 100 pages to go.

Extremely loud and incredibly close - Jonathan Aafran Foer (he was born in 1977, which made 2 people shouted 'he's born in the same year of mine' with a not-too-happy-but-what-can-I-do look). This book looks like a huge red block but very easy read, for the weekend, I already finished more than 250 pages. I love this book, it feels like falling into a secrete passage, and I have the feeling that I don't want to read it fast cuz once it finishs I will be sad. The same when I was reading 'the hours'.

Currently good news:
after paying another 50 euro to the 'Alien'office here, I finally got my visa till end of Feb...50 euro for a few more months' worry-free of how-long-i-can-stay is probably worthy.

Rhein is beautiful by its river bank if winter is not that harsh...and the Sunday myth in Beijing (sun only comes out in SUNdays) also happens here, rain strikes back today firecely again.

wish you have better weather, or at least heating in place.

Male:Female-120:100

2005-08-24T23:35:00.000+02:00

according to recent statistic from the Chinese government, now the propotion between male and female population in China is 120:100. A direct result will be in future 30 years, consider homosexuality is still not a open concept in China, 30,000,000 men will have no Chinese women to marry to.

Why? Tranditionally Chinese family culture considers boys are those who carry out the root of the family since kids will share the family name of the father, girls will just marry someday when they grow up and will "join" another family, so it is just a product waiting to be "sell out". And of course in the times of argruculture, men were also stronger workforce while women can only do light housework (which btw was not the reality).

Time changes but trandition sticks with us. And some people even said that nowadays Chinese girls are having a much bigger market including a lot of foreigners (;)) but the chance of Chinese men finding a foreign wife is somehow much slimer (don't ask me why! ask those spoiled guys!!)

so any solution?

the old one

2005-06-30T19:06:00.000+02:00

DSC02566
Originally uploaded by muwing.

our "new" room

2005-06-30T19:04:00.000+02:00

DSC02567
Originally uploaded by muwing.

2005-06-30T18:47:00.000+02:00

today is the day that we moved out from the office to the room next, tied up and cleared away everything for the new team to land on a brand new office tomorrow. I was taking down the postcards and plan papers from the board above my table... we were not leaving yet...still a month to go before actually leaving the dearest baby completely, don't argue with me that we won't leave completely anyway. You know prefectly what I meant.

Closing up the day with:
1, meeting with Danish Industry, potentiall open up a new great relationship
2, picked up Andrea (the last new team baby) from the airport with the whole old team and a danish flag bag
3, cashed up the used bottles and bought back a whole box of beers just for the old team
4, danced to our favourite song - a cantonese children song! Yah!
... ...

Tomorrow, biking tour kicks off the new year!!!

It is okay to be ignorant...

2005-05-24T16:23:00.000+02:00

but indifferent!

Was wiki-ing something today and suddenly came to the items about Tibet and the Tibet Issue. Not my first time browsing over these pages that I would not be able to open the links when I was in the mainland, honestly speaking, they shocked me but also turned me away for the first few times, cuz I still strongly believed that they'r just telling their side of story, until today when I was reading a pdf file about the comparison of different "sayings" towards this issue from both Beijing and Tibet sides, I had to admit that I slowly accept more of what they told, at least I couldn't believe in my textbook anymore.

I went to Tibet last summer, but I am pretty sure I am not seeing the whole picture. But also I would suggest all those people who have quite extreme viewpoint about Tibet should visit there, and judge by your own eyes and brain. I still couldn't make up my mind, but I guess it doesn't matter, what matter is the process of in pursuit of truth with courage although sometimes it usually hurts.

still, when I saw the supportors of "independance of Tibet" are promoting the boycott of Beijing 2008 Olympic, I found it cowardice.

2005-05-24T09:05:00.000+02:00

China rebukes Japan over shrine

sometimes I am not sure whether we are over-reacting, I mean, we should already give up hope on the Japanese Prime Minister Mr. Junichiro Koizumi, to the end of days, he's just a political figure, sole goal is to earn more political capatical by playing populist in parliment. I was happy that the Chinese side took up the initiative to conduct a conversation, but Ms. Wu's sudden leave without a sincere explanation which might very probably serve as a national protest of a kind has just wrapped away the efforts and sincerity shown from the Chinese side.

just as I repeatedly said, I will never involve in politics, it is either too complicated or too childish.

peace.

2005-05-11T22:51:00.000+02:00

"life always waits for some crisis to occur before revealing itself at its most brilliant..."

- Paulo Coelho "eleven minutes"

2005-05-08T15:42:00.000+02:00

so I was really happy this noon after receiving an email from an old friend of mine, I decided that I deserve a cup of latte for this little joy of my secret. Bup, a big cup of nice latte, went out, raining like hell!!! the worse thing was - that I was actually have more than a cup of coffee in my hand. I confessed that I couldn't resist the charm of the mange icecream. Can you imagine the picture now? - Rain (heavily), Cup of latte, Ice cream (without any cover).

and the girl in the shop was so kind that she actually brought me a chair from outside and asked me to wait till the rain stops.

2 seconds "NO! I don't wanna wait, I wanted to get a cup of coffee and ice cream maybe, then I want to go home to enjoy them in my small messy room, nothing can stop me doing so, not even the rain." so I walked out, walked so fast almost like running (can't run with hot coffee), using my jacket to cover my coffee, with ice cream in another hand. GREAT! it feels great. Indeed. The happiness of being able to do what I want to do and - being able to realize that someone/something was not mine and I am glad that it was not and it won't be.

I learnt to let go.

always the HOURS

2005-04-29T22:09:00.000+02:00

it was my second time to watch this movie, first time was in the movie hall of my campus back in China, in the mid of hundreds of students, I felt like escaping, confused but somehow falling together with Virginia - the woman who looked at life as it is in its face, like it as it is and then put it away. quitely. yet impactfully.

piano and flowers were floating around in the air, different times contracted yet echoed with each other, rather to say that a book or a story was influencing 3 women's life, it was the honesty towards life and the courage to face it as it is that drove them choose their pathes. Different yet similar. Sad yet free. What does life mean to you? Is it a struggle with self or is it a meaningful conversation and discovery journey? I am in the quest.

THE legacy part 2

2005-04-25T21:19:00.000+02:00

coming back from Annual Conference, extremely tired but happy. Amazingly, the world cafe was of great success from the feedback of the delegates, they LIKE it! Despite how much negative suspicion and worries I had before, it shocked me with better than expected results. People were open to talk, talk as if it matters and actively participated in the first half day of non-skill session without much complaints! I am really proud of our delegates! mission complete.

I am overwhlemingly HAPPY when people wrote me sugercube and told me how happy I was and smiling all the time during conference. I didn't notice myself, but it is a fact that I am more then happy to know. : )

plus: the chair was AWESOME! you can always make us laugh no matter how tired we were. And thanks for the fly btw. ; )

love my last conference!

Cantonese cuisine

2005-04-25T21:04:00.000+02:00

"Anything that walks, swims, crawls, or flies with its back to heaven is edible."

(Cantonese saying. Source: The Chinese Kitchen by Eileen Yin-Fei Lo)

can't agree more. We cantonese people do cook and eat almost everything with the respect on the material itself, keep it as fresh as possible, less ingredients as possible. We are especially innovative in the way we cook and try with new methods and recipes, for example, the evolution of Dim Sum.

Proud to be a cantonese, can't be better! My way of cooking is similar, being innovative to an extreme level (with whatsoever i have in the fridge)...

this guy's definitely insane and heartless

2005-04-14T22:22:00.000+02:00

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/050412/356/fg626.html

can't believe someone's actually holding a so so innocent rabbit at hand and asking for "ransom". Is this guy mad or what? poor rabbit....:(((

China and India signed border deal

2005-04-12T09:32:00.000+02:00

India and China have signed an agreement in Delhi aimed at resolving a long-running dispute over their Himalayan border. news from BBC

I was reading this piece of news, looking at the promising smiles from both top leaders of the most populous countries in the world. I remembered what I was taught from school when "Socialist politics" was complusory course from primary school to university - teacher told me that - China realized its priority in the earlier stage of economic reboost that to focus on stabalise external and internal environment, so that to most all the countries that we have bother issues, China signed agreement and both nations in the case agreed on "put aside despute and create peaceful borders for both parties' benefits." Now the new deal with India somehow reminds me of this, and the question is -

Is China playing a more active role in her external issue now?
what does that imply for the 5 years to come?

I also heard of mass demonstration on the street in the major big big cities in China to protest on the recent Japanese textbook tension. Somehow they are signs, special ones, I think. Will keep watching.

the legacy

2005-04-10T16:25:00.000+02:00

leaving AIESEC Denmark in less than 4 months, if there should be any legacy left behind, i wish it could be that "our members start to care and talk about things that really matter in our conferences and are able to connect the organization with the world". I've decided and working on it, though people tell me "people will freak out"... and we will repeat the same "mistake" on National Conference... who cares, leaving in 4 months anyway!

I've made up my mind. period.

the crazy dad!!!

2005-04-07T20:04:00.000+02:00

the crazy dad!!!
Originally uploaded by muwing.

hehe, last but not least, the crazy dad!!! he is usually very gentle and quiet, but somehow the brilliant caremarman graped a picture like this of him. He's the father of all those 3 kids, as well as a great physic professor to be!

cutiest ever kids_1

2005-04-07T20:02:00.000+02:00

cutiest ever kids_1
Originally uploaded by muwing.

Very happy Janis, twin baby with Linus, they look so different though. he has curly hair and very brave most of time, laugh a lot, very nice and sunny kid. love his smile!

cutiest ever kids_2

2005-04-07T20:01:00.000+02:00

cutiest ever kids_2
Originally uploaded by muwing.

Linus...yes, not Linux please. Although that similarity always explains the reason why he's only 2 years old but fascinated by his uncle's camera phone so much..."foto, foto" or "auto auto" was what I heard the most from him (well, maybe also my german is not that rich in vocabulary:D)

pretty little girl

2005-04-07T19:59:00.000+02:00

pretty little girl
Originally uploaded by muwing.

Marilena, speaks German and French, loves super slide made from air mattress in the living room, loves people taking picture of her, loves her cute cute uncle :D

happy family:)

2005-04-07T19:57:00.000+02:00

happy family:)
Originally uploaded by muwing.

here i would like to introduce one very cute family that i recently got to know...enjoy the make-me-happy-all-day-long pictures!

Flickr

2005-04-07T19:27:00.000+02:00

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

stereotype of mine

2005-03-29T21:30:00.000+02:00

I'm ashame, but I commit myself to the wrong steroetypes of countries from former Yugoslavia...(coming back from a conference in Macedonia)

1) before "they are all heavy smokers" after "yes, most of them smoke but they can actually smoke outside and let the inner air free of stinky smell"

2) before "they only eat meat" after "they eat a lot of meat indeed but a good OC will order food just to adjust to your need, a little bit more vegetable, not so enough but great great improvement already"

3) before "the city looked urgly, a lot of ruins from post-war" after "Skopje is rich in history and a harmony of Muslim and Christiananity; Ohrid is AWESOME, the lake is so romatic!!!"

4) before "the living environment is not clean" after "it is not as clean as in westen europe but at least in the hotel they tried to keep it clean and they did put effort into it"

5) before "people are somehow depressed, maybe not as happy as I-don't-know-whom" after "people enjoy their lives very much with hopes"

6) before "parties must be bad if people smoke a lot and the hotel's shitty" after "parties could be so cool in a real CAVE although it is a bit cold but alcohol and dances will warm you up immediately"

long list.... actually, just wanna say, this conference was a great great experience, again motivation floating around the air, faci's great although I was not part of it ; ), delegates were nice and interesting, alcohol was much more responsible, OC......they were just simply the BEST!

hope this set up the standard for the future OC or CC or whatsoever you call them.

thank you again, Macedonia!

different levels of excellence

2005-03-13T15:27:00.000+01:00

there must be different levels of excellence for one simple thing - my flatmate must at a much higher level of excellence when cleaning is concerned. Although I've spent 1.5 hours cleaning the common place (kitchen and toilet in total 4 squre metres) using 5 different kinds of chemical stuff plus water and vaccum cleaner, but I still received a note afterwards saying that "Wing, I am not sure how far you've gone with the cleaning but please clean the table around the sink and clean the floor of the kitchen using vaccum cleaner and soup and water, see you!"....

This is just rediculous! but I still try to put up to her standard, so I started again! I mean I've did exactly what she wrote fully on an A4 paper giving instruction on "how to clean (that 4 squre metres space)" but it is obviously not good enough. After another half an hour hard work, the table still looks the same with a bit white shadow which I don't know coming from when in the history and it just stayed there no matter how hard I applied the chemical cleasing stuff... and actually you can only see it when you come to a certain perfect angle!

Okay, I just can't take this anymore, I've tried my best, and to be honest, I am a really responsible person when it comes to cleaning, but if I am forced to reach a level of excellence that I could not climb up to, I'd give up and do something else more usuful, like looking for a job in Germany for this summer...

THE week

2005-02-22T15:05:00.000+01:00

thanks for everything honey.

I spent a very relaxing and happy week in Merzig.

wine, cheese, icecream, snow, garden, forest, castle, stars, sky, quireness, pureness, white, family, small town, cats, books, dvds, music...

too many good things together, so I am now sad that I left Merzig for the 4th day already. really really missing the time.

it is snowing here in Copenhagen, first time when I am here during the year. cold.

... ...

My year's again

2005-02-08T15:33:00.000+01:00

Tomorrow starts the year of rooster...and okay, yes, it is my year again, after 12 years...I was born in the year of rooster, so now I am turning 24.

Was feeling a bit lonely here in Copenhagen without any big celebration...I am so used to huge huge noisy new year with

## crowd ppl in the flower street(kind of fair selling new year flowers and decoration, usually sold in stands) around mid night tonight (the new year eve and it is only in Cantonese speaking area of China)

## new year eve dinner with big family, grandparents, parents, cusin... big big meal and always delicious ; P

## tomorrow morning breakfast - sticky rice ball with sweet stuffing, yummi! I just bought one pack from the Chinese shop near the central station

## after the sweetest breakfast of all, we(me and my parents) headed to the ancester temple for new year praying...again, heaps of ppl, we threw coins to the stone status to show our present, a bit wired but hey, it is not that dangerous!

## day 3, you are not supposed to go out meeting friends - cuz according to our custom - if you have any fight or arguement with any one, this "fire" will last for the whole year...:( safe solution - keep it home!

## day 7, birthday of all human being, nothing special to celebrate, but another excuse for me and my mom to buy cakes for our "birthday":D

## day 15, the official end of spring festival (yes, we have 15 days to celebrate, so what?!), also known as the Chinese Valentine's Day - again, we should eat those sweet balls for breakfast or snack. And we would head out to a bridge in the downtown of the city - which has the name of "no worries" in Chinese - we threw cabbage into the pool and it shows that we will have a year without troubles

wow, a lot a lot great great memories... and to be honest, I miss home a bit, is the first time that I don't spend Chinese New Year with my family, being so so far away, luckily I still have someone here to spend this big day with me : ) sweet!

shopping from the Chinese shop:
1, very expensive Chinese vegatable - one green leave vegatable and one lotus root (yum!)
2, thai source for curry rice (spicy peanut saurce and coconut milk:D)
3, sweet sticky rice balls with peanut stuffing
4, different packs of noodles

wish everyone who celebrate this holiday HAPPY HAPPY JOY JOY

now it is getting excited!!!

2005-02-01T23:10:00.000+01:00

hehe, with the help of dody (very kind of u dude!), now my post about the "leadership recording" looks getting excited!!! Let's see whether we can make it happen to have nomad in our national conference!!! Yeah, just 19 to go now!!!

show me your voice!!!

just a piece of beautiful melody

2005-02-01T21:59:00.000+01:00

http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=maggay

thanks maggie and I hope you won't mind that I post the link here... I really like it a lot...

a poem...translation on demand...

randomness on a tuesday night

2005-02-01T21:36:00.000+01:00

no energy...my eyes are falling asleep...

tuesday night...what can you expect? office hour finished quite late, reading all those documents trying to create a workshop about branding without much professional knowledge...

browsing people's blog, jumping lazily just using each other's links...

looking for a new book to read...or any old one that I "forgot" half way...

what do you do on Tuesday night??? when you have to overcome the guilty sense of not-yet-finished work when the conference is just in 3 days???

going back to work...

TO ALL AIESECers around the GLOBE:do you want to be heard?!

2005-02-01T18:59:00.000+01:00

Are you a leader of today or tomorrow?

We believe all AIESEC'ers are!
– and would like to show that to our members at the upcoming conference -

AIESEC Denmark Winter Conference 2005!!!!

Help us demonstrate leadership and answer ONE of these 4 questions below in 50 words.

- What is leadership in a developed / developing country
- What is leadership in a global society
- What does leadership mean to you
- Describe a living example of leadership from people you know

Then record it down so that we can hear your voice and attach one of your nicest picture as well (with your name, country coming from). It will be very powerful if we can collect as many as possible from AIESECers all over the world.

To show our gratitude to your contribution, we will send out the whole collection to you for your inspiration after the conference!! just if you if you can kindly help us by sending all these (record,text,picture) by Thursday 12am (GMT+1) this week (Feb 3rd) to Wing at wing.huo@gmail.com. I know it is tight but it will only takes u a few mins to record it down either wiht your MP3 player, your record function in windows system-->start--> accessory --> recorder (if it is shorter then 1 min) and any other kind of device and software!

Thank you very much on behalf of MC 0405 in Denmark!

p.s. anyone can help me to post it on nomadone? I am a tech idiot and dont know how to do it. : (

how many books you read every month?

2005-01-17T22:58:00.000+01:00

If you can read Chinese, strongly recommend for www.blogchina.com not for the blogging there but if you are looking for review or in-depth report on current issues, sometimes it helps quite a lot.

anyway, was reading a post there about a recent survey on the reading habit of Chinese people, and 51% of us read at least 1 book per momth, the review says this number is going down but I still found it quite comforting if this is really an average number which was conducted in a wide scale. I know that people before graduating from university read a lot of books but most of them are very practical - in a Chinese tranditional (state-own) book store you can see heaps of shelves of reference books for subjects that students are putting all their effort in. I believe that makes up a huge part of the survey result. I remember the time when I used to have 2 desks filled with reference books for my last year in high school while preparing for National Entrance Exam for University (that's such a memory you can ask any Chinese student who survived out of it!!) I am not sure whether I can live up to this statistic since I am reading much slower now in a world of non-native languages. But I am glad that I am still doing so! : ) What book are you reading at the moment?

my recent list in a random order:
Elfriede Jelinek "the Piano Teacher" (love the movie and soundtrack!!!)
Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln "Holy Blood Holy Grail"
Paulo Coelho "the Prigrimage"
and quite a bunch of good good Chinese books brought back from China : )

btw, love the new look of my blog!

Happy reading and blogging!

wow,never got that many comments before in other blogs!

2005-01-16T00:36:00.000+01:00

so I was just dropping by and accidentally came to my first post here while happily browsing others and then I caught sight that I even got 5 comments for my first post!! a very nice surprise and motivation. People who have been reading my previous blog know that I am really lazy when it comes to posting. I feel ashame - cuz I really enjoy reading the others...and always feel so glad that I get to know how my friends' going with life but I am too laid back to do the same. :( bad habbit, will try to improve, and Maria - I will be led by example of yours ;)

yeah, life goes great here. I was told before the darkness in Copenhagen will "kill" people in winter for its significant endlessness - esp from Jan to March - it is just been too long and after Christmas and New Year - no more excuse to actually light up the whole city for all day long to comfort the desire of light from the bottom of everyone's heart (well of course there are exceptinonals). anyway, on the way from home back to Denmark - I was depressed already on the plane for the "promissing" future of another 3 months without sunlight - but you know what - it is not THAT bad at all! For the 4 days I've been back, they have all been sunny and today when I went for a trip with trainees to the coast upnorth - It is even so sunny that I seriously thought of where are my sun glasses!!!! Beautiful beautiful ocean blue just flashing around everywhere. With an old and magnificant castle as background with the deep blue just a few feet in front... What can I ask for more? mm, maybe a little bit warmer so I can actually embrace the water?! ;)

oh, just as adviced I need to do a bit of self-intro. My name's Wing as you can see and it comes from my cantonese name not a any random english name though it has a nice meaning in this universal language! (sometimes I hate explaining people about this when they could not possibly accpet that is my name - as simple but different like that), what I will never hate is to introduce where I come from - a southen city of China - Foshan - the homeland of Kongfu and Products of china! my aiesec life in contrast is not as significant as my lovely hometown (which btw has the best food in the world) - was in AIESEC China and now working in AIESEC Denmark struggling with those business-oriented ppl. :)

goodie, here I sigh off and will see how my motivation goes. may you all sound and frequent posting.

back to Copenhagen

2005-01-12T08:25:00.000+01:00

this is a long and very nice holiday back home and I realized how much I missed home and those I love - for the first time - I actually couldnt control my tear when saying goodbye to my mom on the way to the airport... and starring into each of the tree, buidling, people in my hometown - not something extrodinary but definitely important to me.

the trip back to China was extremely comfortable with SAS promoting me to economy flex with a reason unknown to me - maybe because I was the few ppl actually using the self-service check-in machine! ; )

the 3 whole weeks were full of good food(mainly cantonese food plus some other random stuff), wine everyday(even in China, yes, I mean wine!), home-made cookies and Christmas chocolate - sounds like very european isn't it? ; )

to be continued with my pictures....