cloudy congestion in the nasal front

Another week and another week under the weather. Another week and another week without anything physical. Another week and another week without exertion. Another week and another week bedridden.

I don’t know why my immune system has been so weak this year. I just don’t understand why. This is the worst year health wise, easily getting sniffly and mucussy. Not cool.

But hopefully it will get better. Hopefully I’ll just man up and head to the doctors for a overdue checkup and let her know that I’m having some issues and she’ll prescribe me something that will take care of it forever and ever….well at least until I get better.

I think it is just a matter that I’m getting old and that I need my precious sleep. I can’t just stay up late on a whim and not feel the effects of it a few days down the line. General body fatigue, a slow mind, scratchy throat, sniffles, and mucus. Just a general blah of icky sickness. Icky sickness.

* * *

I laugh at the Delicate Flower as she is done with me.

* * *

Strangely, but surely it happened. Sometime yesterday, whether it was at work, or not, but an overwhelming calm in my heart happened. It slowed its beat, steadying itself to the natural rhythms of ok-ness and just continued to beat without any strings, pressure, and yearning. It just beat along to its own tune.

There is a strange calm Zen that is just flowing through me. No more. No mas. Just a whateverness that flows through my veins as I just sit here and type my diddly.

There isn’t that questioning and doubting of whether I made the best decision or not. There’s just an overwhelming calm that whatever decision I made, good or bad, is the right one and that things will turn out in the end, whatever they may be.

I will be okay. I am okay. It isn’t the be all end all that I usually make things out to be.

I am screwed. Yes, I am, but it is a okay screwdness that I am use to and know how to let go; given time of course.

There is that optimism again. There is that overall things will be okay jolly feeling that comes out of nowhere. It is the thing that I need to just calm down and face the day without the obsession that I’m known to do.

Just let it be. Just let it be.

* * *

Following up on Selena Kyle on the posts of faces and it seems that she’s doing okay, moving on. It seems that she’s just having fun and I’m so happy for that. She’s moving on, doing whatever she needs to do. I’m happy for that.

Good for her.

I do genuinely hope that she’s doing okay.

* * *

Old, but full of energy. Burning off their morning doses of caffeine, they sit and argue every weekend morning about whatever they are arguing about in their own foreign tongue. They sit there, all five of them, just talking, not caring about anything that is happening around them. This is their bond, their group of friends that share the same morning routine every day.

Coming here for coffee from the golden arches, which is pretty darn good, and just sit and talk.

Maybe they are talking about politics, world affairs, the motherland… The list goes on and on, as they sit intently listening to each other laying out their opinions, their thoughts and waiting for others to respond, hopefully igniting a full on debate of clashing thoughts, boiling the blood, bringing them to life.

To sit here and just sit here with old friends, brothers, family and just discuss and talk. Things that excite me, that make me think, push my envelope and my way of thinking. Things that I love.

I wonder what will happen when I get to their age, if I get to their age. What will happen?

Will I have that? Will I be with my cousins in the morning and just actually talk about shit?

* * *

Talking.

I was up in the northwest recently, Portland, OR for work. Work was work, quick and easy; overall a free vacation; a free visit to family.

I spent a day with my cousin’s wife, my cousin, and their two kids. It was nice. I loved it, just being with the kids and just catching up.

I know I love kids, and I know I want kids. After Ashlyn in Reno, I kid that I don’t want any kids, because she’s just a wild animal who is much much smarter than I am. I only kid, if only I’m fortunate enough to have a smart kid like Ashlyn.

But just being with my cousins’ kids, I just realize that yes, I do want kids. I do want to hold them and have them hug me back so tightly like Mason does.

To just have them smile at me, knowing that I will keep them safe and I will play with them and protect them.

It was just a good time with family overall. I loved it and it will forever be in my beloved memories.

It kind of brought back flashbacks of me babysitting for Emerson while he was younger when Julie and Phinney came down for a company thing a few years back. The horror. The horror and pain of Emerson crying as he wakes up in a hotel room with a stranger. But eventually he warmed up to me and his mac & cheese.

But, no, it was just great spending a quiet day with Julie and the kids at the park. And all we did was just talk. All we did was just catch up and talk about family, how we’re doing, what’s going on, such and such.

That’s the thing with my family. We just don’t talk. Well, the Ho’s in our family to be exact. We just don’t talk about anything with substance, not our feelings, what happened in our lives, etc. etc. etc.

I know it is a family thing, and a cultural thing of saving face and what not; not wanting other people to know about our shit.

That is one of Julie’s biggest gripes about the family, we just don’t talk. We never did, and hopefully that will change.

People know me. I have no secrets, a open book, that is more than willing to talk about anything and discuss everything, whether personal or not. I’m just a open guy that loves to talk if it is of anything that has substance. But I’m not the type that pushes it on others and family if they aren’t willing to. Therefore, I don’t. Not unless they bring it up or I bring it up and they latch onto it and lets the boulder roll. That rarely happens.

What surprised me was a conversation I had during dinner with Phinney and Julie. I brought up to Julie earlier in the day that whenever I went up for Christmas, Faith would invite Hien and me to go to church with her family. She would precursor this invite with a note stating that Matt wanted us to go, but was too embarrassed to ask.

I don’t know the veracity of it, but it is sweet. I love to know that they both care about the two of us, me to want me to find salvation. I don’t find it offensive that they want me to go with them. It is thoughtful. I know my thoughts on religion, and they know my thoughts on religion and the church. I don’t look down on them for believing what they do and hopefully they don’t do the same to me; and I know I don’t feel that way. They respect my choice of believing in whatever faith I have.

I don’t know if anyone else in the family got the friendly invite to attend church. I don’t know. But Phinney thinks that Faith wanted to ask me because they are worried about me and maybe Hien also.

He believes that they worry about me because I did make the choice of moving down here to be on my own away from family. That because I’m down here alone with no one to look after me. Also, maybe because I’m so vocal about being away, and so opinionated, so sensitive, that they just worry about me. It’s sweet, but I don’t know why, it just gets me to hear that family sees me that way. To actually see me for whom I am, the opinionated and sensitive guy that makes his own choices to do what he needs to do.

Then he talked about my family blog that I wrote back in November. He read it and just went on discussing the part about my uncle.

Again, I told him I never heard about that story before until just recently. Julie chipped in saying that it is because we just don’t talk. Our family’s fatal flaw. But it was just great knowing that he actually read it and that he’s actually willing to talk about it. Maybe he just knows that I’m desperately in a way searching for my roots, wanting to know about my family, everyone and where we came from. That I’m looking for my sense of history, so I can place who I am and where I came from.

We just went on discussing that uncle and him saying that pretty much I got it down right and that my Great Uncle has every right to be pissed. But like me, what he then said is absolutely right, it happened so long ago. Let bygones be bygones. There’s just nothing we can do.

He sees a change in this uncle, coming to family events and just trying to reconnect and seeing that a daughter of his is making an effort to acknowledge our side of the family.

Just funny looking back at family and seeing how certain family connected better than others. Others are off living their separate lives whereas my family and this uncle’s family always got together and hung out. I grew up hanging out with this cousin and his siblings. His father was my favorite uncle because I would always go to their house on the weekends and just hang out and play. We were a close knit bunch.

We never really connected with the other families. Some because they lived so far away, but others that lived locally, we just never connected with them. We grew up apart, not knowing each other. There were some that I haven’t seen for 10-15 years at a time. Others that are just so weird, more hermit than myself that we just never found common ground.

Family. Just baffling how different many of us are even though we share the same blood.

Thinking ahead, it just seems sad in a way how things are going to change. Most of the culture and traditions will be gone because as the older generation slowly disappears we will pick up our own Americanized Traditions. Family is just drifting apart because we are all growing up and becoming more and more focused on our shit than family shit.

It was great to hear a little about family history and a little bit about my dad especially from a cousin that is within my generation. He’s like an older brother to me, and that’s how we address each other as brothers, not as cousins. He would tell me how things were at the farm back in Vietnam and how my dad taught him and his brothers how to shoot a bow and arrow, slingshots, and the such.

It just brings tears to my eyes to know that my dad did that.

It also touched my heart to hear from Julie that Phinney is sad that his dad and my dad aren’t here to see his kids. It just breaks my heart. It is true, it is heart breaking, and my heart is breaking now as I fight back tears in this public place trying to get this down.

It just makes me think of when I do have children. My favorite uncle won’t be here to see them and my dad won’t be here to coddle and spoil them. He isn’t here to teach them things that he taught me. My children won’t be able to see how loving their grandfather can be.

My heart breaks as I fight back tears. Breaking…broken.

Family.

But we all have to grow up and focus on our own shit, not worrying about anyone else because each of us is all grown up doing their own thing.

I do see how even our close knit family is slowly drifting apart because we are all growing up. Many of us are starting our own families, starting out in life, living our own life, that we just don’t have time to focus and worry about anyone else. We just hope that one day we can get together and just talk and open up.

Weddings and Funerals.

It just seems that our family only comes together for those two things. If it isn’t for a wedding, then it is for a funeral. Two big events, yes they are, but nothing more. The two extremes; a addition and a loss. Hopefully one day it will change, but again it just seems life gets in the way of everything.

Life just happens and we are too wrapped up in it to just reconnect.

My cousin says one day we’ll all just sit down and just tell me what life was like back in Vietnam. He said life was just life, but it just sounds so foreign to me. I’m just so interested to hear what it was like. I would like to take him up on that offer and just sit as a group, many generations together and just talk about how life was, how life is. Just talk. Hopefully one day it can happen, so I can just sit back and recollect and put it down for posterity sake, for my sake, so I know how far I’ve come in my life, in my family’s life.

* * *

Morals. Pride. Ethics.

It just seems that I’m full of it and that for some stupid reason I have this innate urge and disposition to do what is right. I see things in the old chivalrous way that is quickly fading. I have to always do what I think is right and fair.

I don’t know why it is that way. Well, I do know why. My parents taught it to me, to do what is right. But sometimes I do think it has gotten in the way of me doing what I want to do and therefore I doubt it and just hate it when I have to do the right thing.

What has it gotten me, being this nice and proper guy? What has it gotten me?

Nothing but the respect of others.

Respect? Does it matter? It goes back to the whole face thing? I could care less about face, just a matter of just.

I see both sides of the coin. I know the pros and cons of both side, reevaluating things before I even make a move and a decision, but always always, I have to take the higher road, the fair road, the just road.

I find it irksome. I wish I can just be a dick and say fuck it and do what isn’t right even if it means hurting people. I know I say it time and time again that it is okay to hurt people, but to do it maliciously, that is something I can’t do.

That would be wrong.

Maybe it is just my naiveté or just my idealism that is getting in the way, a world where things are fair and just happens because it is the right thing. I know the world doesn’t operate in this way, me being the cynic that I am, me being the jaded soul that I am, but there is that hope, that idealism that I do hold on to.

Not long ago I made a fair, just, and honest decision. I had to, for my sake.

I had to do it because it was the right decision to make, for my sake, for my sanity, for my heart. It has to be done.

But I wonder if it was actually the right decision. I wonder do I regret making this decision, constantly playing it in my head, psyching myself out, creating doubt.

I can’t lie; there is a doubt in what I did, in the choice that I made. Regret? Maybe, maybe not.

I’m just not sure if it was a smart decision or a stupid one.

I hear from both sides. One side, I made the absolute correct, fair, and honest decision and on the other it was just plain dumb.

I’m thinking in ways that no one thinks anymore. It is just old school and I need to operate in the here and now where chivalry is changed and dead.

For the most part, I just don’t understand the game. I’m ignorant.

Should I or shouldn’t I?

Even now as I sit here, I doubt my decision, but at the same time, deep inside the calm Zen state of mind, I did make the absolute correct decision.

My coworker didn’t think so and says I should keep that in mind when I am presented with another similar choice. I fucked it up.

I should have gone on and never brought it up and just go about having fun and treating it like it was what it was.

I’m the nice guy. Even though I have been a dick and a asshole to many people, my ex for example, overall I am the nice guy. Nice guys finish last, or so it seems that way.

Because we always have to do the right thing and just let things go because it is the fair thing to do. I wonder if people still think that way or am I a dying breed.

Funny, it just seems that girls say one thing in what they want in a man. A nice decent guy, but they always end up with the asshole. Why? Because they can fix him. Because I don’t think being treated like shit is something they go searching for.

Maybe nice guys are boring. I’m boring. They’re safe, they are proper.

Ha, I don’t know. I just don’t understand.

But I just feel that I’m just this nice guy, who does the right thing because it is the right thing to do and I don’t get the thing that I want out of it.

An asshole in my situation would have gone along with it and continued to hang out and maybe make a move, showing her that he is a better option than the one she currently has and that she’ll defect to him.

I see the point. I understand the reasoning in it, but for some reason I can’t do it. For some stupid reason, it just screams WRONG.

Even Hidalgo said I should just do it.

I don’t know. I don’t know. I know for me, I will always make the stupid right decisions. That’s innate in me to make those choices. I can’t make any other choices. It always has to be the right one. There are no if and or buts about it.

This is me. I guess I should better get use to making the dumb right decisions and live with it and not obsess over it.

Like I said, I live and die by my decisions. I should practice what I preach.

c’est la vie

Things are getting easier. Things are still tough, but things are finally getting a little easier. Easier to breathe, easier to just let go and move on.

I don’t know why it is that way; maybe I’ve just gotten older and have a realistic understanding of the world.

Life is life.

Sometimes, things will just go your way. Other times, it just doesn’t. Whatever comes comes and you have no say in it. You absolutely have no say in it.

You are presented a situation, and you have to sit down and evaluate. You got to compare the good, the bad, the in between and make a decision base on what you know and have to stick to it like glue. There’s no turning back. None. You made a decision.

I made a decision. I live and die by my decision. Everything that I’ve done up to this point in my life, up to this minute, second, all come about by choices that I’ve made in my life. I made one today and I have to stick with it.

I really wanted things to be different. I really did hope that things turned out so differently, but it didn’t.

I know me. I know the type of person I am. I know my heart, inside and out. I know what I can do and what I can’t do.

I made my decision, and let’s just hope that there are no regrets on my part from it. I know there won’t be. I just have to stick with it.

But again, these decisions that I’ve made has gotten easier in my life. They aren’t so life and death like they use to be; not so dramatic anymore.

It was a decision that I made to make things easier on me. And in the long run, it will make things easier.

Things are out and up in the air. There are no secrets. Informed and explained. Understanding.

Sure I will lose some great times, but it has to be done.

I will not forget the times. I will not forget the talks, the joys, the cheers. I will not forget, because it has been a while since I’ve experienced those things. It has been a long time since I had such a great time where I’m completely relaxed and was able to just talk and get to know someone.

Relaxed. No regrets.

It will be in my thoughts for some time to come, but eventually it will fade into my memories, ready to be pulled up at any second, but it will be in the past. It’s not immediate and fresh anymore; with each passing second, it fades away. The pain subsides and I’m back to where I was not so long ago.

Me, myself, and I.

Not so long ago.

Not much has changed, but everything has changed.

letters

Two little letters, put together to cause the biggest confusion of mass confusions.

Two little letters, when put together doesn’t even make a word, causes doubts and the usual “what the fuck?” that is happening in my life.

Two little letters that dashed my hopes, dreams.

Two little letters.

Changing seasons, a turning in the cool cold brisk air

The weather is turning. The seasons are changing. The cool cold air has arrived in Los Angeles and I guess we are heading into the “cold” season of the City of Angels. Maybe it is because of this change that things are changing in the air. Maybe it is because of this change that I am getting the inkling feeling that I will be sick again. I don’t know, but I do know there is a change in the air.

I welcome the newfound weather in this city. It is a quick and nice change of pace from the hot heat that I still have not grown accustomed too. It is just too hot for me. It’s just weird weather when last week we were reaching upper 80s and now we are in the mere upper 60s.

No wonder I succumb to the bug that is floating around. To this day, I still don’t think I’m at 100%. Not yet.

* * *

Looking back at some of my earlier entries again last night and today; reading what it is that I’ve gone through at that time, the emotional state that I was in, it just blows me away how much I’ve grown up and changed, even from a few short years ago.

I’m able to write an write and spill everything out onto these blank pages of mine, whatever that seems to be troubling this pea-brain of mine, whatever that is wanting to spill out, and it helped me work things out. I’m glad to have found a therapy that works for me, and a relatively cheap one at that.

Writing. My therapy. A hate that I learned to love because it just opened up so many facets of my mind and shaped me in many ways to be who I am today. To be able to just write things out, getting it out of my system and seeing, reading, and understanding my problems and then realizing what it is that I must do to fix it.

I’ve came a long way from that really nice, soft, gentle guy who tries to please everyone, no matter who they are. The guy who is so considerate that he thinks of others before he puts his comforts and happiness first. The guy who is easily pressured to do things that he usually doesn’t.

I’ve come a long way. Every day, so it seems, seems to be a day of discovery, of what I’m capable of, finding new facets of me to explore and manipulate.

It is approaching that time of year again. It is approaching the end of the year, for the yearly diatribe. My how this year have gone by so quickly. A blink of an eye and it is gone, and there were a lot of things that happened this year.

Lots.

But there is one thing that keeps coming up with some of my colleagues and friends. One thing in my life, in all aspects of my life that I have noticed and is a point of repetition.

THIS IS THE MOST STRESSLESS AND HAPPIEST TIME I HAVE EVER EXPERIENCED IN MY LIFE.

There is a sense of zen in my life. A calm, cool, collective everything is A-OK and I have nothing to bitch about. I’m not saying life is perfect, but life is pretty damn near it. Life.

I’m sure a lot of it has to do with the new job I got this year. The change of scenery, the change of environment, responsibilities, the appreciation I got for my efforts took a lot of the stress out of my life. Before, everything was just pressing down on me. Now, the responsibilities and the expectations are different. I’m surrounded by all of these IT guys that knows what it means to be in IT. They understand the life, the job, the duties, and they know what the expectations are because they all have been through it.

Maybe the job is relaxed too. Chill. No pressure. We go about our daily business like we do with anything else. As long as the job gets done or if it is a problem, it is a problem that stumps all. Everyone is involved to help figure things out if it is an issue that is beyond my abilities. I have help. I’m not alone.

My office mates help too. They are genuinely decent guys. Funny. Cool. Dorks and geeks like yours truly. We all understand our job and we are just there to do it. No stepping on other people’s toes. Just there to do our job and to help out where needed.

* * *

I don’t know what I’m trying to say today. I don’t know what I’m trying to write today.

There’s just a lot of things that are rumbling and bumbling its way around in my head, bouncing off the echoey walls where it just clatters with its deafening noise and it ripples with other noises from other thoughts and now my brain is just a mess of dissonance.

Reading an old blog of mine that I wrote way back in 2004, I realize that this is the point in my life where things started to change. This is the point in my life where things took action, because it was a point in my life where I started to see myself for the first time who I really am.

I started to see the core of who I really am, this person before you today.

I vaguely remember writing it. I think it was Labor Day weekend in good ol’ Fresno. I wasn’t out at a coffee shop writing. No. I wrote this lil’ entry in a handwritten journal of mine.

Since then my writing took a different turn. Instead of the more direct passionate writing that started my journal, it became the lyrical whimsy that filled years and years of entries. The mish-mash rambling styles of philosophical speak that makes no sense.

It was a time where I just let my thoughts run free and jot everything down. It was the time of my soul searching. All those nonsense had a core purpose of disclosing who I am and what I was thinking. It was the second phase of my therapy.

The first was tackling my anger, writing everything down. The other was focusing on me, the way I think, the introspections that makes me who I am today. My thoughts, my philosophies, my rules in life.

That entry. It sparked the beginning of something that was needed to get me, my life back on track.

I realize the entry before is the first one of the newfound free flowing writing that I got comfortable with, the philosophical jib-jab of late night ramblings that spilled out everything that I was thinking in my life at that particular moment and that sad depressed phase that i was going through. That was the beginning or near the beginning of my road to recovery. The road to me. The Phong before you.

It just seems that I’ve been a lost soul for quite some time. Confused as to what my life means and what I’m to make of it. Questions in the ether that just cloud my mind during that time, always asking what am I? Who am I? Where am I going? The ultimate questions of figuring yourself out.

The Quarter Life Crisis really got to me. It was a big part of my life. It was a answer to what I’m feeling, to know that I am not alone. Well, from that entry, again, it only applied to the first paragraph, of not knowing what it is that I want and the finding myself out.

Life just seemed so different back then, constantly dark and black. There’s no light at the end of the tunnel as it collapsed in on me. But then for some reason, some time, things took a turn for the better. I don’t know exactly when, but it did.

It seemed like a slow subtle change in me. It was a gradual ascension to who I am, as layers and layers of this onion peeled away to reveal the true heart that is me. I do not miss that point in my life. It was rough, sad, but I am glad that I experienced it and conquered it.

And here I am today with a much better understanding of who I am today. What I’m willing to do and what I’m not willing to do. A better understanding of why I am the way I am and a sure found knowledge of who I am and in a way a sure confidence of the decisions that I make.

Life is good. Life is damn good.

I don’t know what came first, me getting better or me thinking optimistically? I think there was a mixture involved as I got a glimpse of who I am, saying to myself that I’m not this bad person who’s always angry at everything, who is a victim, who was dealt a bad hand.

I realized that I made that happen. I made those decisions. My decisions affect who I am and my happiness. I need to do things that I am comfortable with and that benefits me and not other people. Me. It’s all about me.

* * *

I think I’m done today as I really do need to go to the bathroom now and I need to make my movie. I think I’m done today because I have no clue how I came about writing what I just written. I had no idea what it is that I wanted to say today, but I managed to say something. I don’t know.

China: Back on Memory Lane Part I

Sorry for the pictures.  Shutterfly is totally sucking and I’m assuming totally not blog worthy.  I’ll figure something out or just leave it.  Sorry.

Me at the Great Wall of China

It’s been a year to the day since my pilgrimage back to China happened. I still remember like it was yesterday, fresh in my mind, my memories. I still remember waking up at 3:30 in the morning so I can make it to the airport to catch the 6AM flight to San Francisco, where I would meet the rest of my family (Brother, Mother, and Auntie) on our trip.

My first blog about the trip took a turn in a different direction than I originally wanted, but I guess it worked for me. It was a lil’ political and self-indulgent (as my posts are usually are) about my political views and my observations about the country itself rather than my experience of the trip. Hopefully I’ll rectify that with this blog.

Again, as I said in an earlier post, it is a trip I would never forget. It changed me and will always be a part of me. My beloved trip to China, which was four or five years in the making. It finally happened and I couldn’t be any happier.

I can’t believe it has been a year. Where has all that time gone? Life flashed me by, good times, bad times, mediocre times. Another year, 365 days.

That trip for me marked many first. My first real vacation. My first real plane ride (that I remember) to anywhere past the west coast, and my first International Flight (again, to my memory).

Sitting in the cramped 747 for a 14 hour plane ride wasn’t fun. I haven’t eaten that much on a plane before. It was a somewhat new experience for me. There were times back in the day when I remembered airlines serving food and then they stopped. It was a lil’ nostalgic actually. Somewhat nice.

Now, I’m not going to lie. I was dead tired, even on the plane. I’m not the type of person that sleeps on the plane. I’ve done it from time to time, but everything has to be right, and my trip there wasn’t. I guess it was the anticipation of the trip and everything and it was a fucking 14 hour flight, but I couldn’t sleep.

By the time we landed in Beijing, I was up for about 22 hours. Fun times.

We all gathered with the rest of our group, separating the group into two smaller groups and then we were on our way. As our travel guides, Mr. Paul Song and our Beijing tour guide, Tony, made their introductions and speak about the trip, what to expect, and the city of Beijing, to the near dead half asleep crowd, we just sit hoping for a bed. I think it was about 6:30pm local time when we landed. Early I know, but I was pretty much dead. We were on our way to dinner.

Our hotel in Beijing
* * *

whose cuisine reigns supreme?

I’ll probably drop in some asides as I go through this blog, my recollections. I think this is the best way to collect my thoughts.

Food. I love food. All kinds of foods. So, when I got a chance to eat some authentic Chinese food, I’m as giddy as a school child.

Grant it that I was beat tired when our first real meal happened; going on 23 hours of being awake, I guess I was still looking forward to it. When we got to the restaurant in Beijing, it seems to be a traditional package meal that I was so accustomed too. It was an 8-10 course meal.

My first impression, forgettable. As it turns out, the food was mostly forgettable. I didn’t like much of what I ate there. Most likely it is because these are huge restaurants, prepackaged meals, cheap for the tour. I don’t know.

Maybe I built it up in my head that it would be the most awesome Chinese food I’ll ever eat because it is fucking China, but I was sorely disappointed. There were some cities where the cuisine reigned supreme, like in Nanjing I believe or even Suzhou (the best if my memory serves), but overall it was a disappointment.

The worse of the bunch was our lunch stop in Wuxi. That was fucking awful. Hideous. I don’t even think it was food that we ate. I don’t know what it was. Shit comes closest to describing it. Bad.

The worst restaurant EVER.

But, I guess it was an overall experience overall. We got to eat different type of cuisine that is part of each province and region that we’ve visited, but most of them are the same.

Also, it kind of ruined my digestive system for about 10 months too. Bad, horrible.
* * *

Can it be harder?

Sleeping.

Everyone knows that I love my sleep. I love my naps. I just love resting.

So as we got all settled in and checked-in at our hotel in Beijing after the long ass day, I thought I could finally get a peaceful night’s rest and start the first day of our tour full of energy and refreshed. Sadly, no. Never happened.

I wasn’t sleeping in my bed. I could never sleep in another person’s bed but my own. I can’t even do that when I go back home and sleep in the guest room.

What made it worse was that the beds were HARD. They were like fucking granite. Nothing worse than sleeping on what feels like a slab of rock. Horrible. Fucking fucking horrible. But it was an experience that would change my life. I put up with it. I had to. There is nothing that I could have done.

Every hotel that we stayed in, I never really got a good night’s sleep. Maybe in Shanghai when I was feeling a little under the weather and I got a hold of some Theraflu, I was able to get some decent shut-eye, but overall, disappointment.

The fucking beds. I mean how?

I think I am more than willing to put up with some back problems with a lovely cushy bed than some no back pain at all and a bed as hard as the ones I slept in.
* * *

So our trip is officially on its way with the next day. Woke up, showered, dressed and went downstairs for the full continental breakfast of Beijing (the best food I had during the trip and the best breakfast). The first day of the trip.

Our itinerary goes as follows:

2 days in Beijing
1 day in Nanjing
1 day in Wuxi
1 day in Suzhou
1 day in Shanghai
Stop in Wuzhen
1 day in Hangzhou

Beijing

Our first day was packed, like any other day.

The Great wall of China. Just absolutely beautiful and crowded.

It was awesome to me to see the different crowds of people that were there, on vacation. People from Spain, England, US, Japan, etc. all here to conquer the freaking wall.

Lone pagoda

Me and Hien

We were set free from the confines of our tour bus which would be our transportation for two days around Beijing and set free for an hour to scale the behemoth.

Hien and I got our sight on one of the top forts of the Great Wall. We had our eyes set on one particular, hoping that we had enough time to get there and come back before our hour-and-a-half was up. We left our mum and auntie in the dust and others, as we start to climb the giant steps.

I have to say, I haven’t been so out of shape in my life. I started running a few months before our trip because of a high cholesterol problem. But then I stopped two weeks before our trip. Climbing was a bitch.

Hien’s a gym freak. A health freak. He has every right to be. He lost a lot of weight and good for him. He deserves it. Me, out of shape.

Wannabe Asians

We were going a very good clip up the stairs, dodging our way, weaving in and out of traffic. As we got higher and higher, the people thinned out. I was sweating. I was dying. It was rough. Very very rough. I had to strip, because it was getting hot and I pretty much soaked through all three layers that I was wearing. The long sleeve T I was wearing didn’t last long. It was gone at the restaurant.

It was a rough rough climb up. Especially at the speed we were going at. Some people couldn’t even make it up, fainting and dying along the way. Sure they were old, elderly, still couldn’t make it. I’m old too.

Medical help along the way

We got to a point 40-45 minutes in and we didn’t come even close to where we wanted to go. We were about two forts away. I was tired and I felt the time crunch. Hien wanted to go on. I was a pussy and wussed out. We took that picture near the top of where we got to and then we started to go down. Lo-and-behold about 5 minutes later we ran into our mum and auntie.

My brother still wanting to go higher, as did my auntie, decided to go to the highest riches. I bid them luck and went down with my mom. It was nice. We talked, chit-chatted, bonded. Nice.

Me Mum and Me

So my mom and I reached the bottom and realize that many of our group were down there waiting already, ready to go. My brother and my auntie wasn’t back yet. We had to wait.

I don’t know, maybe five to ten minutes later I see my brother coming down, pissed off, angry. The most I have seen him since I moved down to Los Angeles. He was fucking royally pissed. Why? My auntie. She held him up. Though she claimed she wanted to get to the top, they never did because she’s slow. According to my bro, they didn’t even get as far up as we had originally gone. What a waste of time. My auntie would walk up a few steps, turn around and admire. Walk up a few more steps, turn around and admire. It sucked all the time away.

My brother was furious. I don’t blame him.

Climbing down

My brother and auntie separated after they got down to the bus; my brother taking a breather to calm down. If I remember correctly, I did get a good fucking laugh out of it. Better him than me, I would say.

So, onward to our next destination. Lunch.

Again, major disappointment. First taste of Chinese rice wine. Very very strong, like rubbing alcohol. Horrible. But again, this is where I stripped. The Long-sleeve-t went off my body and into my backpack. It was soaked through as was my t-shirt and undershirt. Fun times.

The rest of the trip was less strenuous thankfully.

The Ming’s Tomb was next.

What can I say about the Ming’s tomb? Not much. It didn’t make that big of an impression on me. Not at all. Next it was the Summer Palace.

Now, this made an impression on me. it was just absolutely breathtaking and peaceful. I was just in awe when I got there. Of course, like everywhere else, it was crowded, but it didn’t take away from anything.

Kitschy Amiss

It was very tranquil. I don’t know why, but there was just a sense of calm in me here and the rest of the trip. I was never anxious, never in a rush. I was just waiting to stay, to be there, live there, experience all aspects of what China had to offer me. It was just simply amazing.

Oh, to be rich and not have to work again. I’ll just move there and just finally relax. What a life that would be.

So, after dinner, it is to the theatre for the Chinese acrobats. I would like to say that I stayed awake through the whole thing, but I didn’t. I stayed awake for about half of it I believe. Not that it wasn’t interesting, much of it was, I was just tired. Beat. Fatigued.

One would think that after everything, that would be the end of our first full day. It wasn’t. We get to go shopping again. Not that the whole Jade factory, gift shop in the morning was enough, we get to go shopping in Beijing’s Beverly Hills, Rodeo Drive— Wang Fu Jing St.

Blending in the Crowd at Wang Fu Jing St

Since I had no money, tired, there wasn’t much I could do. Hien and I just walked around for a good forty minutes or so. My mom and auntie went their separate ways, and then it was back on the bus for us, hoping to catch a little rest before going back to the hotel.

Never realize how old and out of shape I was till that trip. Sad, isn’t it?
* * *

Kitschy & Tacky

One thing that got a little tiring in China, and I’m sure it is because China has become a tourism industry for the most part, is that there are these calculated stops to gift shops along our way to our attractions.

We went to two jade shops, each saying that they have the best jade, so on and so forth. Unfortunately for me, for us, we got swindled money into spending money there. I, by request of my friends, had to get some jade bracelets for them and then I went and bought a jade bracelet for my mom and she in turn bought me a jade pendant. Fun. Money money money.

What saddens me most is that here, in these breathtaking sights, like the Forbidden City, the Great Wall, the Sun Yat-Sen Mausoleum, there are these gift shops and ice cream carts that just seem out of place. They just seem so tacky in these vast attractions of ancient and respectful.

In the Forbidden City? Need some ice cream? Stop here!

Just tacky.

But I guess it is a way of making money, of putting food on their tables. They have to do what they need to do to get the green.

What is wrong with this picture?

We had stops in a mint, wanting us to buy jade griffins, a pearl shop, where I did spend some money. It was cheap, and somewhat thoughtful gifts for people back home. Hmm….what else were there? Oh, the painted glass globes in Nanjing.

Ahhh…the memories. I was out of my element there. Preyed upon by five customer service girls, giggling amongst themselves at my lack of Chinese skills and me being “American”. So sad. I could have come home with a wife on that day.

Along the way, there were the silk shop where I did buy a blanket and then the tea-pot shop. I would love to get a tea pot, but the matter of lugging it with me for the remainder of the trip and also, the cost did suck. I just didn’t bring that much money with me and I didn’t want to use my credit card.

There was the tea also, which I bought. I have a shit load of tea left.
* * *

Onward with our tour. The next day our first stop was the Internal Medicine University of Beijing. I have to admit, it was pretty interesting. They had a lecture for us, our group, and they even had a Cantonese speaker. But unfortunately, my attention wandered off as he got more and more into the realms of internal medicine.

It was interesting to hear that they preach preventative medicine, rather than treating the illness after it had happened as Western Medicine is known for.

University of Internal Medicine, Beijing

They take pulse readings, “ba mach”, like in the old Chinese television shows and films that I watch. It was a long time since I had it, way back in the mid-80s in Vancouver. from the little time of taking my pulse reading, they found out I have indigestion or digestive problems. Nice. I’m hot.

But then again, came the mandatory time of “buying” medicine, if you choose to do so. I did, and I think I only finished half of my prescription. I still have a few bottles floating around.

Food carts outside the Internal Medicine University

Temple of Heaven

Beautiful. I was just in awe at how huge the temple is. It is inside this large park where many of the elderly go and entertain themselves with mahjong, Chinese chess, checkers, and just hanging out.

Family tourist picture in front of the Temple of Heaven

Again, it just seemed everywhere we went, it was crowded. A swarm of tourists and locals hanging out, looking, watching, pushing people out of their way to get a better look or a better pictures. It was ridiculous, but I managed to look past that and just saw the beauty in the area.

Calm, tranquil. A dream of mine had come true. I went to China, visiting what I wanted to visit. Plans are coming true. Things are actually happening and I’m experiencing something other than work and work. It was just nice.

Tiananmen Square

Well, what can I say. I didn’t remember much about the riots and the massacre back in the day when I was there. Our tour guide mentioned some stuff and how the officials are still sensitive about what happened. They even have armed guards, police, and undercover people around, listening to conversations just in case a disruption happens.

Another touristy picture at Tiananmen Square

Overall, the square is huge. I believe there was going to be half a million people in that square that day, and many of them are locals. There are even Chinese from other provinces visiting. It was just insane.

Me in front of the Famous Chairman Mao portrait

Then it was on our way into the Forbidden City. It was huge, but unfortunately for us they were doing renovations while we were there. Scaffolding covered many of the main palaces, readying them for the ’08 Olympics. Maybe next time when I go back, I’ll get the full view of the Emperor’s Palace.

I don’t know, it was just humbling to be there. To be at a place where there was so much history. You can feel it. See it. Touch it.

Maybe I just never been around it much here in the States, or was never actually aware of it. It was just different. Everything just seems so modern here, nothing much that awes me. Maybe I’m just so use to it. Who knows.

Forbidden City

So far, the trip is everything that I thought it would be, and more. I never thought about the feelings that I would feel or felt when I was there. It was just an awe inspiring experience. We took our time to go through the City, thankfully, enjoying each section and each temple and palace.

Though there were times when they would all look the same, but who cares. I was here. A place where I would see portrayed in many Chinese Films, and read about in history books.

After the Forbidden City we went to a old fort which was a mint back in the day and then we went to have a foot massage.

I liked the foot massage. It was interesting. Our masseuse tried to communicate with us, but it was hard. The language barrier made it difficult and they had to speak through my mother and auntie. It’s times like these and the gift shop in Nanjing that makes me feel bad that I just don’t know more languages, or that I wasn’t as serious about learning or picking up Mandarin as I should have been.

But it’s not too late. I could always find a class somewhere and just do it. Maybe that’s what I’ll do before my next trip, or Rosetta Stone.

Nanjing

We had a early flight in the morning to get to our next leg of the tour, Nanjing. From Nanjing, the rest of the tour will be a bus tour to the other cities in our itinerary.

A note about our tour guide. She’s a comrade, a patriot, a diehard Nanjing citizen, or as my brother calls her, a blow hard. She was tooting the horn of the Chinese people and the city of Nanjing. It’s her job. I don’t blame her, and I guess my brother is just too American.

But overall, it was a nice city. From the looks of it, it was more worn down, broken, decrepit than Beijing. I guess nothing can compare.

But, to my ignorance at the time, I wasn’t aware of the raping of Nanjing. I didn’t know anything much of anything. But now I do. It use to be the old Capital and then in World War II the Japanese invaded and bombed the living shit out of the city. The atrocities that the Japanese did to the people there were outrageous. No wonder our tour guide got worked up and is so proud of her city.

It was raining when we landed, but eventually it let up. Our first stop was the Mausoleum of Dr. Sun Yat-sen, the first Nationalistic President of China. It was beautiful there, just absolutely beautiful.

The Mausoleum

We spent a lot of time here, slowly climbing the steps, exploring everywhere. This is also the place where young Tony, a kid on the trip, got pissy because Hien and I got ice cream and his mother wouldn’t let him. I felt sorry for him, but it was kind of funny. I still chuckle when I think about it.

Shorter Climb than the Great Wall

We had a lot of time to ourselves here, off wandering anywhere, everywhere. Just needed to get back at a certain time. Hien and I didn’t even wait for the rest of the group, holding us back. We just went exploring.
* * *

wide-eyed wanderer that follows his heart in the middle of the night

Hot. Heat. Temperature rising in the middle of the night, like it is the Gobi during mid-day.

Heat. Hot. Why is it happening where I can’t just close my eyes and wander listlessly into the dreamy flickers that I’m so familiar to? Why can’t I just continue my pursuit of salvation, not just for me, but my fellow friends and travelers? To rescue them from these dreaded faceless beings that haunts me in my dreams.

I’m always the wandering hero, figuring out their next move, using my expert kung fu skill to fend off some worthless piece of shit so everyone else who is not a worthless piece of shit can run for safety. Me, putting my life before others, the knight in shining armor that I am, chivalrous and gallant, a paladin in the days of yore.

But here I am no kung fu skills to speak of. No fighting skills to speak of. No muscles to speak of. Just typing skills to bring me into the middle of the night, hoping that this blared distraction is what I need to tire out this antsy brain of mine, to turn off the things and the thoughts that keep me up in this sauna night of the year.

Why is it happening to me? Sleepless because of guilt? Sleepless because of the wreaked emotions of a tigress?

Still. No more. No mas. There is nothing left, just a drained sense of self. No emotions to think of, moving along in a slow controlled movement because that is all that I can do with my programmed nature to make it seem like I’m alive.

But all in all, I am just a soulless zombie stumbling away through the day, putting on a strong face and a fake smile to make it seem that I’m okay.

I’m not okay. No okay at all. Betrayed and just plain hurt. I can’t go on living. How can I possibly go on living? How?

It just seems impossible. Such darkness surrounds me, no glimmer in sight, no light at the end of the tunnel. What greets me is the familiar, the dark cloud of night.

How can I possibly just live and move on?

But I must, for it is my life. But I must, for it isn’t everything. But I must, for I am stronger than this. Stronger than what he made me out to be.

I can be everything that he wanted me to be, everything and more; the fixed happy being that I have full potential to becoming. I’ll be that and leave him with a sense of guilt and a pang of “oh fuck me”, wanting to get me back.

But I’m done. I’m through. No more. No mas. He doesn’t deserve me in any way. Not anymore. Not after what he’s done to me. No more Gui Gui Ngoi Oh Neis or any sweet words that can change my heart. He is dead to me and my heart is slowly being pieced together by me and there’s one spot open for someone else. The one that can make me smile again, and he will come. He will be my paladin. He will be my gallant knight, and when he comes there will be no other.

Lost looking with my red dried opened eyes of the sleepless night looking at these symbols just put my life in perspective.

There is a bit of guilt in what I did, hurting her, but time and time again, I profess, it has to be done. Maybe they are just excuses and excuses, but it is all said and done.

I just have to sit here and deal and console my heart and tell myself that it is okay. It is okay. It is time to move on. I have to. She has to. We all have to. That goes life. It goes on, moving on, leaving things buried in the past.

Time. Tick. Tock.

Beats of the drum, matching my heart beats, bumping into the night. Moving with a time cadence that hypnotizes me in the rhythmic motions of everything that goes about me. I’m finding the beat that I never found before.

Scared. Frightened. What ifs of the night and the future that will always be there and just the constant doubting of the blank canvas that just stares at me, taunting me to put the first stroke.

What should I do? What should I say? The first act of desperate action that will propel me forward, jumping forward in the crevice that is not a crack but a valley gorge that is impossible to leap, but it must be done to move on from the dreaded sand pit that is slowly sucking me into oblivion.

The Heavenly Net that catches everyone else is not there to catch me. It is a leap of faith. A leap of sure footed-ness of my heart, hoping that everything will be all right, that all that come to pass was meant to be.

Life and time can only make us stronger. What doesn’t kill us only sets us up for more.

These mindless whispers of the dark, yacking in my ears is only comforting me so much before my mind and brain will explode from the max capacity of the small pea that is my brain.

Words flow in nonsensical ways, more so than it ever had and possibly will happen again in this sing-song night of not being able to rest.

Sleep. Slumber. The long sleep of night, the final sleep.

What is it that makes us always wake to face the day? To start again, knowing the possible pain that is out there for us? What is it?

Is it love, or the possibility of love?

Wo hen xiang ai ta but it will never happen. It will never happen because then it would be a fairy tale come true. For all of us.

I don’t know what it is, but the drumming of these fingers isn’t making me closer to sleep at all. These eye lids aren’t getting heavier as I planned, but staying the constant whateverness of this madness that is racking my brain.

I realize that I am in hell. This is hell. Life is hell, which I have realized before. This is life, purgatory. Here we wait and wait until the eternal sleep that we all will come to accept and look forward to.

Soon, soon it will be time to hear the Every I Love You’s that I have the fortunate pleasure of falling for. The sing song tune that hums softly in my ears day in and day out. Lyrics that i can only make out from time to time but the eerie addictiveness of these cantotunes that gets me hooked and only wish for more.

Withdrawal is a bitch. I’m sure it is much worse for some others than for me, but it still hurts none the less.

What is it? Why is it? I don’t know why it is happening to me. Punishment for moving on, for needing to? I don’t know what it is.

Putting on a strong face, going out with others, partying in the city of sin. Things are getting better are they not?

There I walk away, passing you by, hoping that things were different. I walk ahead, mumbling my salutations and I leave, fumbling ahead, looking ahead, stealing a glimpse only as I proceed to my destination in a roundabout way to just drop off a message of what I need to do. Nothing more. Nothing less. I didn’t even need to be there, not at all. But to just be there, stealing that glimpse makes my heart calm.

Fix. Fix. Fix.

I shoot myself up hoping it will take the edge off. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Just another addiction that I need to deal with. Just more shit that I got myself in.

Matters of the heart. Things that I don’t understand. Might as well just rip it out and stomp it to death so I wouldn’t have to deal with these things anymore.

Drowsy night in the summer time. Indian summer. Not summer at all, fall, school time.

Fucking heat. Fucking hot. Kill me now so I can at least get some shut eye. Forced or not. A listless peaceful sleep only to be woken by the soft beep beep of the electronic time keeper that I have near me.

Please.