Heavenly Hawai’i! 1-New and Old World!

2011/02/28 – 11:48

A new world means new energy! It puts me on new edges where I want to fly again towards new dreams that will prolong my life.

I am not quite like those snow birds yet, but I’d want to travel more each year to places of my dream and test how my power of letting things go can work and feel what different variations life can give me.

Hawaii, to a Chinese? It would not be a place to go. I have been wanting to visit Europe, countries like Italy, France, England, Mediterranean seas, etc. of which their cultures have been my interests for almost 20 years. Curiosity leads people with me not as an exception.

Nevertheless, I am happy to be here now, the 2nd day of my trip, not prior to my departure.  I saw some people sitting in the trunk of a truck  in a park area! That is impossible to see in Montreal, let alone the fact that it is minus 12 degrees Celsius now! I would think the police of Montreal would jump on them giving them contravention if ever such happens! I do not know if it is  the fact that cold people have to try harder to survive or just that hot people can live anywhere…It seems that the people who have to try harder( basically from colder areas and countries) have succeeded in building a better and more complex society which provides comfort and possibilities of better surviving than those ones who have been blessed with an already convenient environment, Eskimos are an exception.

Hawaiians remind me of the Philippines. People are very hospitable and kind. Even though I have never been to the Philippines, but I worked with them some 16 years ago.

We were picked up by a grey-hound-like bus to go to a place called Paradise Cove to enjoy their Party of Luau. Luau is actually the word in Hawaiian: party. To me, it is the dream style of my life , which can now replace my previous dream of a Spanish vineyard  life with people enjoying dancing parties every weekend accompanied with fine wine, cheese and BBQ beef or pork…

The Luau started on the bus. The guide was our Cousin Flo who spoke a fantastic fluent, almost singing like English. After about an hour’s round trip to our Paradise, I should conclude that she would make a fine priest for her merit of oozing out beautiful words and phrases that had been served as nearly a drug, the effect of which has put every each one of us into a peaceful, dreamy,  smooth and sweet state of mind . Ah, the Polynesians, with their hip waves and magical hand language, who would not be seduced besides Gaugin who quit his own romantic and famous France and stayed and experienced the Paradise in Marquisas*…

An appalling sun set started our Luau. The sun was at the edge of the sky with some clouds hiding a bit of its charm. The half hidden mystery kept us waiting for the full wonder of its shine. If we could enjoy the full wonder or not, seemed not important at all. The moment of expectation of it or just the continuation of its glory had drunken us more than the Mai Tai*…

The same as Gaugin was seduced by their women I imagine, I was attracted by their men, not having much clothes on and seemed free spirited.  Yes, it is hard to tell,  in this economically whelmed world with sky-scrappers and modern shopping mall selling Aldo’s HIGH heel shoes, to what extend this free spirit and hospitality can be kept. For the same reason,  it has made it harder to find the free spirit and true sincerity and hospitality under the heavy winter coats and soul-sucking working schedule of 9-5…

Music and dance are 2 things that always make my heart stop, not the non-romantic rap and hip hop, but this smooth flowing melody that can put me to dream more and cross more horizens of the unimaginable country. We human beings have become so structural, so complicated and so poor in owning so much that we are quite lost in finding happiness and joy in the basic things we can really afford to have time for. Happiness and joy do not come from more things we possess, they have always been there for us…

” A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone” — Henry David Thoreau, mid-19th century transcendentalist and naturalist of Unites States.

Hawaii, a new and an old world! Despite what I think, it is gorgeously breath taking, heavenly graceful, largely and openly free spirited and for sure painfully hard to leave behind in 10 days…

To be continued…

 

By 王 海波 | Posted in Free the Spirit with Faith as our Guide, Literature, Personal, Travels - Extended Life Time! | Comments (0)

“Wasted”!

2010/12/11 – 11:30

A few days ago, I was invited to have lunch by one of my oldest friends, who is my Yunnan university colleague. We have been friends since 1984 even though we are of 13 years of age difference. We were both teachers. Each year I visit Kunming, we always have lunches or dinners with other friends.

As usual, we had lunch. He is a learned person and he likes to share his knowledge. He gave me 2 books. One is the autobiography by his mother who is now 83 years old and who also graduated from the same university as us. The other is his own thesis-like book called: “Talent Comes From Education”.

I am more interested in his mother’s autobiography, because I know that his mom is quite one of a kind –  an energetic, talkative and mentally very active woman. I went through the pages with photos inside and planned to read it after.

Today, it is very cold and I find myself sitting on the sofa reading the autobiography. It is called: ” My Ordinary Life”, which is not at all ordinary. Any one’s life during her time could never be “ordinary” as China was going through endless big changes from chaos to chaos! Reading the Chinese history through her life from 1945-now- her grand daughter’s time, brings me flashes of my own memory and what my parents told me of that terrible time. If ever you have read the British writer George O’nell’s novel: ” 1984 “, you would have understood what I mean easily, otherwise, you would hardly have any idea how horrible the Revolutions and the Cultural Revolution could be.

The autobiography told in simple ways her life experience. All I can feel is that the protagonist is happy that she survived the tumbling time from a ” bad family background” by doing her best what she was supposed to do as a person who wanted to survive. Her father was one of the important guys who went to study in Japan for 2 years and was working for Mr. Tang Jiyao for years. Mr. Tang was one of Governors General of Yunnan in the 20s and was one of the people who founded Yunnan University. She was born in Japan. As a horrible, yet quite normal consequences, her father committed suicide and also did her uncle who was summoned back from Taiwan by her dad just before 1949 the new China.  With all these anti-revolutionaries in her family, she did survive, and not bad at all! Now she has one son, my friend, who is well retired from Yunnan University and one grand daughter who graduated from one of the best Chinese universities in Shanghai and now working in New York  and living in New Jersey. I read her pride and that of her son and I am happy for them.

It is all very great to have achieved what she did. Even though the success might be against her will and true nature!  Over the lunch, Mr. Zhang, my friend, also told me something very interesting and surprising! His grand father has 13 children including his mom with 2 wives, so he has many cousins. One of his cousins also graduated from Yunnan University and was given a teaching job at a college. The interesting thing is that she resigned about 10 years ago from the Iron-Rice Bowl ( with life insurance, medical care and free housing ) and became a full time Christian believer! Holly cow! It is incredible to believe that as a Chinese and impossible to believe that she as a weak Chinese individual did a thing like that! She talks about Bible, the life of Jesus to friends and families, she does not play Majiang ( a kind of gambling game ) and she travels around the world for her” business”… At the end of my friend’s telling, he commented: ” eh, she is wasted! ”  This is such a normal comment that I bet 99% of Chinese would utter, yet it is hard to believe that it comes out from a scholar’s mouth about his own cousin!

From my parents, the schools’ teachings, the party ( communist ) and the society’s intention, any one who does not go into the direction pointed by them, he/she will be labeled as a person wasted! but I admire her truly from the bottom of my heart that she did it against all the people and the society! I am  proud of her even having the courage to think about it! I told my friend my opinion about his cousin’s choice and I asked him for a visit of her if it is possible.

China is an old country and a new one at the same time. She has not understood the necessity of encouraging its people to go for their own dreams, different dreams from the MAIN Stream! China is seen as to have opened up since 1991 after Deng Xiao Ping’s visit to Shenzhen, a city close to Hong Kong, nevertheless, real opening up of mind takes painfully a long time. Of course, Chinese have opened their eyes for economy, but not really for spiritual pursue, and not in that many detailed cultural domains. A university professor could still think that having a different choice is wasted, you can imagine many sad stories are still going on between parents and children about different choices…

A closest example is my brother. He decided to drop his medical career to become a professional musician ( singer and guitarist ) about 3 years after graduation in 1991 and 5 years of studies in a Medical University in Cheng Du. He has been a pro musician since 1995, 15 years now. As we know the trend for free-lancer musicians, if they are not picked up by the main stream nation-owned Troupes or entertainment companies to go into commercial side, they will have trouble even in survival! That is the case of my brother. After 15 years of increasing struggles of  professional life, travelling between bars and cities, seldom being home with his daughter and wife, his wife left! My parents, his wife and me raised his daughter! My parents often said: ” See,  he does not listen to us, so he has been suffering! ” I often regret the fact that his not-well-doing become my parents proof that his choice is wrong! To me, his choice has nothing wrong. People with different choices are usually those who are intelligent and brave! The results are other stories, which are often of complicated and complex reasons!

My parents told me another story. The daughter of one of their friends chose to be a small business owner selling clothes after her university graduation. Her father stopped talking to her ever since. She was even not welcome to go to his home! The father himself is an artist and he wished her to be like him! Well, she did not satisfy his dream and went into another direction, which created the misery of the family for years till now! In the father’s eye, for sure, she is another ” wasted” person!

I have been supporting my brother from the very beginning of his different career and I have done what I can. Not only for the reason that he is my brother, but more for the reason that I would like to see each human-being happy doing what they like, thus our world becomes passionately inventive and innovative! I have been serving as a break for my parents’ discouraging comments about him and his ” hopeless” career and I have been wishing that he, my brother,  will be fine, at least feel happy about what he does for life despite of survival problems including psychological pressure from his environment.

My son is in Montreal with me. I had tried very hard to have him there 3 years ago. Instead of sending him directly to University at 18 years old while he was completely qualified according to his schooling and scholar marks, I sent him to Dawson college for 2 years. All of his classmates in China are at the last grade of University or preparing to go on the post-graduate study level while my son is not at University yet! My parents are worried and often said that we ( me and my son ) did not do right and have wasted too much time! I know China and Chinese kids. I know where my son was at spiritually 3 years ago. I wanted to give him a break from this Chinese ” education” and wanted him to wake up from the mundane of not knowing what he wants! I would like him to choose his own road and prepare well for his success later! Talents are usually out there already. It would be great if we can have the eyes to discover them and provide them with suitable growing conditions and environment. I am a stubborn woman who believes that there is no waste materials in construction, but only wrong labeling and miss usage.

I am leaving within 10 days for Montreal. I hope that I can meet this special courageous lady to experience again the pioneer spirit of our race and the courage of the heart! I will remember again how we can be at today because of these intelligent and bold people who opened different roads that may not be smooth, but may be proves that we human beings can be true human-beings by trying not to conform, yet by trying to be different and inventive.

 

 

By 王 海波 | Posted in Free the Spirit with Faith as our Guide, Personal, Uncategorized | Comments (1)

“A Consuming Economy” for What Purpose?

2010/12/03 – 13:44

I have been back to China for about 4 weeks now and I haven’t written anything other than my trip experience, not because I am lazy or have no time, it is because I received too much striking information to be able to put anything down! Any good writing relies on mature thoughts and my mind has been turning around for answers, or even for how to get to my answers…China is getting crazy, in good and bad ways, and in ways that make me wonder…

The very first impression is that China is becoming a commercial country. There are shops every where, one after another, following people to where ever there is new development. They are all brand-new, bright, well decorated with marble stones, etc. with painfully expensive stuff! The pictures attached in the article of New York times: In China, Cultivating the Urge to Splurge best show what I am talking about. It seems that China is turning EVERYONE into merchants, a country where, traditionally,  merchants had been looked down upon as the Jewish merchant in Shakespeare’s “Merchant of Venice” ! Yet the more expensive the stuff is, the more lonely the shop is. The place where you find most crowded are the whole sale markets where a bra costs 12RMB while 500RMB is the price in the shining store! The price difference is appalling even with different brands!  Strangely, with the whole-nation-run commerce, China is regarded as a non-consuming country for the reason that ordinary Chinese families save 20-40% of their income instead of being like Americans saving almost zero( nowadays, many of them would be greatly releaved if they can keep up with their mortgage payments! This article thinks that China and US will help each other out of the economic crisis in turning China into a consuming country, in another word, getting Chinese people’s big pennies out from their pockets. What do you think? Shouldn’t we think about how we got into this crisis before we try to find the solution? We might be out this time, but what are we going into once we are out?

Second jaw- dropping image is that China is a paint-fresh country with weird non logical phenomena! On one hand, everything is new and fresh: skyscrapers, new real estate developments with wonderfully planned stereo-typed gardens, falls, wooden bridges and pavilions, even granite stone walk ways! On the other, we see buildings of only 10 years old looking not far from slums, having dirty water streaks, broken balconies, weathered wooden bridges, pavilions, bamboo chairs with 3 legs, water ponds full of stale water…No wonder that overseas Chinese only buy houses of less than 10 years old…For the condos in China,  there is no Condo Management Committee and no owner knows how their condos are managed and where the money is spent. Owners on the top of the building built solarium not at all knowing that the roof does not only belong to the top condo…The developer was trying to steal back the already planted and sold expensive trees in the big day time…

“Splurge” is an exact word to describe many parts of Chinese cities. It is also a precise word by which we can get a clue of Chinese present culture: extraordinarily wonderful outside, just like the drop-dead opening ceremony of Beijing Olympic Games, just like the splendid fireworks of the 13th Asian Games, just like the Shanghai World Expo which was done by billiards of RMB ripped off from the sweating workers and built on apartments where the people had no right in saying no to wiping off their homes ( I believe that they were properly arranged some where else far away) and just like the Water Cube concert hall which is glittering with gold and platinum stage design!! Another thing I saw on TV that I can describe it as “splurge” and weird is that a billionaire mister gives tons of gold to poor people with a loud voice, aiming at summoning other rich Chinese enterprises to follow the “splurge” of his action. Yes, it is great what he is doing, but how come we have people rich as him and people poor as billions of others? He does have brought many rich enterprises in joining his action of giving and I am all for great deeds, but my eyes feel a bit soar shown by the “splurge” of this story. As a wise nation, its each individual should have the right and dignity to be well-off by having fair opportunities and I hope that this Mister shall keep in mind that the glory of giving only belongs to God ( to Heaven as the Chinese believe )!

If you have been a Chinese and lived overseas for many years, you could be happy for these great changes. Yet, you can feel that behind these changes, something has not changed. Quite many Chinese in Montreal complain that the Canadian Medical system is slow, the French culture discriminates allophones by requesting them and their kids to learn French, while at the same time, most of their country men could not even afford medical care some dying outside the hospitals and poor people bend their knees and souls for their kids’ normal 9-year education…We see condos worth of millions sold out even before they are built with handicapped people bleakly singing just beside their display windows…Something has not changed under the marvelous granite paved walkways and behind the gilded concert hall …

One morning, when I was doing my morning exercises in the birds singing park, I over heard an interesting conversation between 2 old ladies. Both are over 65 and retired. The talkative one’s husband died 6 years ago. She was waning that she had been very lonely after her husband passed away…she could not bother her kids to look after her all the time and she was deeply worried that she could die alone without any one knowing… They complained about the Retirement Homes’s bad service and was horrified by the idea that they could end up dying alone or in the Retirement Home. Thus, I hope you can understand my pressure as the older child of my parents. I had been encouraged to go for their dreams ( part of it is my dream luckily), yet I also had been compared to those “great” kids who not only pay for their parents travels around the world, but also can be there whenever they need. Do you know that Chinese kids are their parents’ insurance companies? For not only the truly needy peasants who have no stable income and no insurance of any kind, this insurance not only insures their life, but also their emotional and spiritual dependence. They have no belief to hold them through their old age,  nor have they dreams to realize after retirement. They have only their children or grand children…We wonder how our men’s bones have been soft with their muscles and brain quite stiff and how the spirit of innovation of our people have been killed! How can an eagle fly when it is chained to the ground, less the fact that most are trained to be cows to pull the heavy cart of history and to bear responsibility of the life, happiness of their parents…I absolutely agree that China will step onto another level only when she changes into an innovative country. Nevertheless, to the contrary of the wish of  Chinese parents and the country, 60% of the university graduates each year could not find any jobs, less the fact about the billions of “failed” kids! As a cruel result, instead of helping their elderly parents with their old age problems, they are “eating off” their poor parents year after year!

Since 2000, I visit China almost every year accept 07 & 08. Every year when I spent time with my parents, I try to do something for them. Of course, I bought them a beautiful and well facilitated  big condo in one of the best areas here, also put the down payment for their son to have a place to stay after his divorce, yet what I really want to do is to free their mind and make them happy beyond the material help. Since I was struck by the light( not exactly or necessarily the light around Jesus head!:-) ), I started to see why they are still not happy. Like most Chinese people who are enjoying much better living conditions, they are still worried about many things, not feeling the joy and appreciation! My parents are teachers and their son used to be a medical graduate, who are better educated people. Can you imagine many millions whose eyes do not glow with this simple joy and true happiness no matter what life might bring them? Can you imagine millions who do not even know how to smile and who have never truly smiled from the bottom of their hearts for the precious life that we have? What I truly want for my parents is that they have the spiritual ability to feel joy for the rest of the life they have and content for what they have received from life ( I am happy that they are improving slowly…)

Life beyond life might not be easily understood, like that of humble loving Jesus and that of wise Chinese Zhuang-Zi. Not because the language for expression is different, more becasue that the language for thinking is different as well. The heritage of us human beings should not be the employment of tools, it should very well be the improvement of thinking which should truly be the greatest heritage of human. I wish that my parents could see what I have been trying to do for them and I wish that they could discover the joy everyone could have enjoyed, the joy that will give them happiness and that will defeat their fear of death…That is what I wish for Chinese people and everyone in the world: to be happy and joyful no matter what life might bring…

Earlier this evening, I had a tea party with 4 others univ.classmates. We talked about where happiness come from. All of them said Chinese are not happy because there is dictatorship, there is unfairness, there are people starving or dying outside the hospitals, all reasons for not being happy! One of them said that I become so naive and simple living years in Canada…Who says that their comment is not true? I am happy that I am still naive and simple, and mostly, I hope they can see and feel the reason why I am a joyous person. I am happy that Canada provide me with a well secured society,  the important SPACE for me to think and grow DIFFERENTLY and I managed to have time for myself to be able to learn and  feel more about life and its essence: genuine and grateful attitude towards life, stereo-typed way of thinking and joy for even the smallest event in life, such as smiling to an unknown person…

I have been reading Zhuang-Zi, Lao Zi for 23 years and I just bought a book about the old great” Yi Jing”. Chinese is such a great people with such an old and marvelous Han culture! It is impossibly surprising that we let it disappeared for so many centuries since the last dynasty Qing(rulers of one branch of Mongolian) and we fooled ourselves so long ! It is very regretful that I had to leave China hunting for what I could have right here in China and it is shameful that I had to re-discover my own culture by millions of miles of traveling…Yet, “traveling tens of thousands of miles should follow reading tens of thousands of books” serves as an excellent excuse for leaving China…Staying there 10 years, I have already fallen in love with my new country while having my home country in heart wishing its people true happiness…

Changing China into a country with consuming economy will not change China profoundly, and it will not help US to save their economy by selling their technologies to China or providing services for Chinese with a great purchasing power in near future. If we criticize China for its fake GDP, then I truly doubt about the author’s point. “A consuming economy” for what? For a dog in the cage chasing its own tail? I’d rather see that ordinary people have insurance of life and medical care so that they can stop killing their daughters or continue having to many kids, free education which is educating kids rather than chasing the name of universities and the rate of kids going to universities, I’d rather see the joyous light in everyone’s eyes, the smile on everyone’s face, respectful and careful attitude from everyone’s heart!

We forget that we do not need much to be healthy, joyous and happy. We can have it any time and any where. I do not believe that we should be defined by the reality, rather that the reality be defined by how we think. It will be a shame that we do not inherit our culture and improve our mind , change our way of thinking or perspective. We will be damned if we are only defined by our reality which may not at all necessarily be wise!  ” Consuming” should never be the solution to any problem. Changing our fake and superficial life style to a modest and genuine one should be the answer. I do not want to see Chinese get over weight like many Americans after years of eating fast foods. I hate to accept the fact that Macdonald or many other commerces get rich by misleading people into a wrong and unhealthy life style for which many other commerces try to sell their diet plans after to correct it…What the fxxk we are doing when we need only 3 small decent meals but stuffing our stomachs with double or triple the amount of food and over killing our fine sense with dozens of spices at the same time ? ” A Consuming Economy” might serve very well for misleading people into this unhealthy and wasteful life style and leading the globe into destruction. Can you imagine 16 billion people wasting resources like the Americans with 2 people having 3 big cars!?

Life style or how we can healthily and happily live our lives should be the solution to our present global  problems. To Americans, to Chinese or Europeans, the solution should be the same. We do have enough wealth for everyone to live well, if we do not rip people of and if we use the wealth wisely.  Most importantly, we will have to adjust our way of thinking about life itself and find a way to live our lives joyously with modest consuming speed.  Of course, we will not be like North Korea starving and denying our natural needs.  I believe this is the true solution instead of turning the rest of the world into ‘Consuming Economy” without conscience, vision, priority and truly knowing how we can be happy.

The world economy is just like a giant devil. Who has this wisdom, strength and power to hold it back for a moment for us to re-think and re-design where we are going? Isn’t the economic crisis the right moment?

 

By 王 海波 | Posted in Free the Spirit with Faith as our Guide, Travels - Extended Life Time! | Comments (0)

“Exciting” Trip Back to China!

2010/11/16 – 22:47

Thinking about travelling, the destination usually comes up with China! I have started one of my dreams to travel around the world, yet this had come to a stop because of my passport. It was issued in 1995,  renewed twice in Ottawa. I don’t know why the Chinese Embassy did not offer me a new passport, obviously seeing that the little red book ( not Mao’s book LOL!) was full of stamps in and out of China and Canada 22 times with no empty pages to put any more!

I was trying to go to Europe for my summer vacation in July, but I did not get the Shengen visa because of my too-old passpport. The tickets were bought, a car was reserved and insurance was paid! I was required by the Swiss Embassy at Montreal to get a new passport! To get a new one from the Chinese Embassy at Ottawa, I have to provide a letter from The Immigration Canada to prove that I have not filed for Canadian citizenship. It will take 5-6 months to get this letter!!!! Then it will another 2 months to get a new passport!!! Holy ghost!!! I called my university classmate in Kunming, China and it will take only 15 days for a new passport!!! Damn fast!!!! Isn’t it?

Going through the customs, being checked all over for things we would never bring, taking out the computer with which we can keep contact with my Montreal home and business, removing my boots on which there is 2 zipper heads ( the only metal on me), I handle this redundant but necessary procedure so with ease that it has become a pleasure from a boredom. As my rule life goes, if we can not avoid it, make it fun! Yes, I always make this dull matter fun by joking with the customs officers!

“Toshiba, made in China!” Label on the side of my pc and it was read aloud by one officer.

“Yes, it is! That is why I am going back to repair it!”. Both of us laughed and he gave me a gallant gesture to pass to the other side where 2 women officers were awaiting. Seeing me almost nude( in a sense of having no metal) with only one  black long sweater, they gave me a cold chin pointing to the luggage, which means that I do not have to be checked! Don’t you see how i become a gay, not a lesbian?

The plane arrived at Vancouver 2 hours late than the schedule! Late is late, what can I do about things like this?  From Montreal to Vancouver, we always have small planes, but from Vancouver to Beijing, we have 767, or 777! My strategy of fighting against the 13 hours’  time change is to sleep for 5 hours and then watch 2 movies. Very unfortunately, after some time of sleeping when I was ready to watch my movies, my screen did not work. Re-sets did not mean anything! So I was allowed to sit on any empty seat for the movies.

Movies on the plane are of “avant garde” or ones we do not usually watch, such as: US Chinese: ” Mao’s Last Dancer” and an Italian: ” I am love”. They are non main stream movies, therefore usually special good ones. The first one I watched tells a story of an excellent Chinese man ballet dancer visiting Us in the late 70s and choosing to stay in US for his dancing career. His choice breaks up the red line between the capitalist US and the socialist China. It seems that his opportunity serves for him as an breaking-through from the dark ages to an new era where he began to feel his spirit and the freedom for his soul which are the essence of his art! He knows well that his family will have big troubles back in China, but this yearning for freedom stands firm for his choice! Free our spirit is forever and ever the thing we need for our life, no matter how much it costs in many occasions such as the one the story is telling…Wonderful movie!

” I am love”, English sub tittle! There is no music in the movie except only when there appears emotional scene. When there is music, it is so strong and becomes a big uncomfortable, yet, that is what the music wants to achieve: strong emotions with awkward tragedy!  Love with no emotions is not love and it strikes us with both emotions and tragedy! Love with tragedy are always the best seller. Don’t we know Romeo and Juliette?, and, and…The beautiful middle aged Russian origin Italian woman serves her family duties in quiet scenes calmly and gracefully: organizing dinners, shopping for food, dealing with her lesbian daughter and giving her son support for receiving the big family enterprise, helping her husband with other of his personal affairs…In the quietness, you can feel the boredom, the dreadful long days and nights…Suddenly, a young fresh breeze comes into her life, mmm, the incredibly delicious courses made by the friend of her son, Antonio! Such a great cook! She falls in love, with the food first, then unknowingly, with Antonio! Love happens just like that, without warning, without time for thinking, without time to balance her own family and her new feelings…even without chance to regret the affair which causes the accidental death of her own lovely only son! I cried…my heart and my soul…It is not the death I cried for, it is for her. Her loneliness in soul, her desperation for love and her innocence of the accident…I am a woman and a mom, and I know the guilty she feels for her son…yet she firmly left her rich husband for a young man of 28 years old who is down to earth and loves cooking with passion. She left for love, even though it indirectly took away her son, even though it might be a blind love…

As the consequence of being late at Vancouver, our plane arrived Beijing 2 hours later at 5:30pm Beijing time no matter how much it tried to catch up! I bought my next flight at 7:15pm. Ok, I did have enough time to run for it, but I was put into a kind of weird feeling: no anger, no frustration, just stunned with my mouth open without a single word! My luggage did not come with my plane! Oh, God! I bought 5 bottle of Dior and I was not allowed to bring with me. I had to put into my big luggage! Well, since it did not arrive, I filled out the form so that the airport Beijing could send it to its final destination. I paid more for another ticket at 9pm at Station 1 and traveled back to Station 3 to catch the plane. I caught my parents in the taxi to the airport to tell them that I would be 2 hours late! My father told me that my luggage had arrived and I should go back to get it. Of course I went right away to Station 1 to get the luggage but only to find out that it had gone! Wow, what a Murphy’s bitch  ( oops! Sorry :-) ).

Life is such, but I was calm. Nothing could touch me but the yearning for life and freedom. Nothing could bring out my tears but the yearning for love, even in awkward situations…yet without breaking-through, our heart and soul can not be toughed! New life and love always break through out from old stale mud! Life is wonderful and my trip is of course and obviously full of wonders!

 

 

By 王 海波 | Posted in Personal, Travels - Extended Life Time! | Comments (0)

A Day Worth Celebrating & Remembering!

2010/10/28 – 16:46

–Dedicated to Francois Croteau, Luc Trahan & Richard Julien

Today is a day worth celebrating and remembering for me. It is not my birth, neither the birthday of anyone I know, nor the funeral of anyone who died of a good death! It is a day for me to enter into a new era, when I refinanced one of my properties and put the equity onto the mutual fund market about which I had the least knowledge!

It is a push for my retirement! I personally think that Financial Freedom is a better term than retirement, for we have quite a different outlook of what our later life should be after certain age. Retirement does not mean stop working, it means more to continue living better and fulfilling the dreams of our lives. Isn’t anything working better when there is a necessity, a necessity to live the life we have always been wanting? Imagine that after all the 15 years of running at triple the speed of most people who are walking, I now take a bit time to re-set my goal and re-evaluate my dreams through Salsa dancing nights in-between the sound of hammer of my renovations. I had the important action taken place quietly but surely! This important investment will return with 2 other buddies in 6-8 years! You might say that I might lose my investment. I should say that it is possible! Let’s wait and see.

We all want to be rich, retire with money and without worries! We all want to travel and write books that everyone buys! Yet, between making money and using them, there always is a significant conflict! When you make money traditionally with your one head, two hands and even 24 hours, you will never have extra time to think about how to solve the conflict: either you and your time are consumed for making money, or stopping making it, the money stops coming in! Alas, isn’t it the situation for most of us? For sure, it is!

I started to understand how to solve the puzzle by taking risks. I took unusual risks and I had some body else working for me days and nights since 1998. This some body else is no body but money itself! I borrowed an enormous 380RMB ( Chinese money ) back then from the bank and purchased 2 expensive Volkswagens and got it reimbursed within 2 years, then another 350k and got it reimbursed within 3 years. I did not stay idle watching my buddy making gold coins for me, I worked for 3 businesses at the same time: 2 “foreign companies” having 2 fixed salaries and my own little company as self-employed providing sales service for a Chinese company in Beijing ( ISO 9000 series consultation). It was like falling into a trap with all the leaves and dirt falling on me, fortunately, these leaves and dirt were made of gold! I had one cell, one fax machine and one car to serve me, while my buddy had nothing but himself. This zero-handed, one-quality and 2 sided buddy way overpassed me who worked at 3 jobs at the same time!

You may think that I am boasting about my money or career, wrong! Money is just like cards in our hands to play! We do not need much to feed ourselves, yet as human beings, we do need to grow our knowledge and expand our horizons, otherwise we die! Money serves as an important bridge, not saying that it is the only bridge, and it brings results enough surprising to take care of our older souls, so that we can afford graceful attitude and actions towards people besides ourselves. Yet, easy to say and hard to achieve! We wonder all the time how people start from the same line, but end up miles away!

Yes, I have many days that are worth celebrating and remembering. I had one day in each of 2005, 2006 & 2007 which served as this important day. For such a day, I ran back and forth, searching for months without any complaint for my buddy to give him his task, in a city and a country where I only lived for about 4 years, knowing not at all what the ” Quiet Revolution” was! I needed to play the game, the game of my mind and the game of my life by which I learn and practice what I believe in!

Any game, we should be prepared to fall face-down hard. I have been lucky all these years ( well I know “modestly” that we made our own luck!) with the wind coming my way to push my sails. But, as long as we work at the same time, not having crazy lunatic ideas of how the buddy can create miracles, we should be safe. Rotten will be our mind if we rely on our buddy only to pass our days and nights! Our buddy should be the lubricant for our machines to roll better with more grace rather than a break which stops our mind from sharpening its daggers or producing nerves that prevent us from having Alzheimer!

Till today, I understand completely that if we take no risk, we gain nothing. Even though we might make mistakes and wrong moves, we learn from them, start again and we go forward. We shall never be doubtful nor cynical. We shall never stop!  One of my client invested in IT 10 years ago and lost all his 100k investment, so what, he started again and invested in real estate. He did well as of today; I received some e-mails cursing one of the mutual fund investment advisors in 2008 when the stock market went down; I heard one of my acquaintances say that he lost 60% of his RRSP investment in 2008 and he is secured now(are you really secured?). All these loss stories can only be defined as loss only if we lost our confidence and mind! Those who lost are those who do not really understand it and believe in it,  or those who focus and panick on temporary loss! They backed up and made irrevocable mistakes like anyone who lost money in 2008. If they had stayed invested, the value of their investment would have been kept.

Today it is a day for me to celebrate and remember. If you know where I come from, cultural & family background where the intellectuals basically look down on money and thus have a weird attitude about money and how to manage it, then you will celebrate it together with me! My debt goes up from half a million to 1.5 million as of today!  It sounds scary, isn’t it? Yet I see it as a victory! It is not the victory of me, it has always been the victory of  LEVERAGE, yet it is truly the victory of my sincerity, willingness to learn and to understand, after all, to believe, to take risk and to construct!

Further modification in writing needed!

By 王 海波 | Posted in Professional, Professional Anecdotes | Comments (0)