D. Letterman, B.Clinton and Me!

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David Letterman, the famous millionaire US late-night showman, was talking about himself and the terrible terrible things he did on his show for a change! Who said he himself is not a celebrity chatting almost 20 years with all kinds of people from all kinds of professions about all kinds of subjects!?! Indeed, he becomes even more famous because of this notorious, awkward and very weird life experience he went through very recently and surely even more of a celebrity now that he talked about his own awkward and weird experience on his own show!!!

He had affaires with women in his TV show crew!!! And he got blackmailed for 2 million dollars!!! What a damn rich man, eh? to be rich enough to have his dark secrets dug up and used for some even darker purposes!!! He and his lawyers were smart enough to have gone visiting the public prosecutor for a solution. He wrote a fake check of 2 millions. This Halderman was stuningly stupid enough to go cash the damn check!!!! There he was caught hot!!! Now he was facing years in jail!!!!

Both did terrible things! Letterman himself repeated the word “terrible” twice in a slow funny way!! That a famous man getting discovered having sex with women in his crew while still married seems ugly enough and presumably bad enough for his career!! This blackmailer uses the Lithuanian moral sense of guilt as his base of his terrible terrible action of balckmailing! He thought that Letterman would keep his good name among his viewers by satisfying the blackmailer’s plan and play on the guilt concept! Once the apple is rotten, we have no choice but to throw it out completely! Once Letterman’s terrible terrible things were discovered, what choice did he have but to smartly give out his attitude himself? As well, once a man’s soul is rotten with greed, what choice did Letterman have about him? Smart and courageous Letterman and his lawyers made the right decision and let his terrible terrible thing go in public.

The audience seemed fine about his moral issues that are connected with his own bedroom and let him deal with his personal relations about his personal issues, while I am afraid no one nor the judicial system will forgive Mr.Halderman’s truely terrible terrible thing he did!!! The former is just a moral issue while the latter has already broken the criminal law! What a hilarious and wonderful 10 minutes talk about his terrible terrible things that he did on his own show…

Blackmailing is called manipulation using other people’s secrets to achieve dirty evil purposes. Bill Clinton is another person that I think about. He was not blackmailed for 2 millions, but for the future(past) of Americans ( Of course, we now know that his terrible terrible thing cost the bad name of Junior Bush, the fall of the twin towers and the hardships of the present president B.Obama( LOL! Half joking, my readers! )! Obviously, having just one wife or one girlfriend to love or who love them is cruel and not true since the beginning of the history for funny, lovely and great people like letterman and Clinton!

It is great to find out about the truth in this world. The truth about love can be as varied as the shapes of leaves. We all know that the big love is always the same, while the small love is a devil to handle! How do you love your wife and husband? How do you love your kids and parents? How do you love your friends and neighbors? How do you deal with your wife or husband when they discover your lovers??? What do you do next when your 7th marriage is not working like Elizabeth Taylor???

I am divorced twice! 5 times away from E.Taylor!! The big guilt was the reason of my first divorce, because, like Letterman & Clinton, I also did terrible terrible things. Unlike the 2 great men who could handle very well their guilt, I could not! Therefore, I chose to leave as the solution!!! I wonder sometimes if I was Letterman or Clinton, what would I do??? I really think that they are great men not only in bigger domains like being a talk-showman or president, but also great in dealing with the guilt issue and the relationship between their guilt and the reality with all sorts of possible bad effect, accusations and even blackmailing…

Life is a choice! Bad or good do not hang on the hook! Before we do something, we know that there will be consequences! And since we have chosen something and we did it, then we are not afraid! Not afraid to be accused right or wrong, not to be afraid even we could be blackmailed!!! I am quite a lucky lady who is not rich nor famous enough to be blackmailed!!!

Though I was not blackmailed, I was that close to be used for petty women’s manipulation. My ex told his cousin about my terrible terrible thing and she told that to one mutual friend of ours. It would be ok if I didn’t know about their gossip, because we could not shut up other people’s mind and mouths! But unfortunately, the mutual friend told me. Usually, when someone told you something they knew, especially something about you, then they must have a purpose! She and the mutual friend were living very close and they had been friends since university. Because of various reasons that I didn’t and do not want to know, they felt out. The mutual friend obviously was trying to use my secret to win me over her side in her fight with the secret holder! Mmmme, after hearing this awkward secret disclosure in this weird and twisted way for a stupid purpose, I was stunned and silent. I didn’t know how I ended our conversation and what I said to her. But after that, I stopped talking to this mutual friend for 7 years, so did the first secret holder!

We love life and we should love more the respect for others. Personal secrets should be kept and the key should be in the hands of mercy! We spread good news, change bad news into good and keep secrets for our friends. Any one who uses other people’s secrets to achieve their stupid or dark evil purposes are people whose hearts are rotten!

Many people including many of younger generations after the baby-boomers of Quebec, they just simply DO NOT GET married any more!!! What a great solution to this stupid bound of marriage to many people who are not born to stay only with one person and who always have to feel guilty about their terrible terrible nature! What a great solution it has been for people who have been asking themselves questions about their marriage…Is divorce that terrible terrible a thing? Shouldn’t we live happily with our nature and without guilty???

Do I sound like promoting divorce? No, no, no, no! I just want us to live happily without guilt AND people like Halderman or people who dug up the dirt for Mr. Clinton have nothing to use to achieve their dirty,ugly and evil purposes! Hahaha!

Trips Back to Cities of China – Shanghai 2- Memory Card & Rolex!!

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July 22, 09

Shanghai has been, for centuries, the center of commerce of China though another 2 big cities closer to Hong Kong – Guangzhou & Shen Zhen have become more and more threatening cities in replacing its importance and convenience. Nevertheless the remnants of the old buildings together with its cultural vapor could never be replaced by any other city in China.

Cheng Huang Miao – the old streets of Shanghai is still the busiest and most charming place for shopping. Just visiting is very fine as well for those old styled architecture. What it still amazes me after a few times there already is that you can find everything there, small souvenirs to nicest traditional silk dresses, Rolex to camera memory cards!

I spotted a very nice traditional man’s dress. Nice material with a style of good taste – dark brown silk tissue with dimely visible pattern on and cloth button. I glimpsed at the price: 488 RMB. I know that it is negotiable. I was told that one third or even less would be the real price. I didn’t negotiate. I just gave my price: 150 RMB. I hate negotiations back and forth for myself and I hate the fact that my clients asked me to pay for their notary fee after me having provided them with valuable information & service, which saved lots of their time & energy! She just lowered her price many times, but I stuck to my original one. I got it simple as I offered the first time.

Stephane, my travel accomplice, wanted to buy a Canon memory card. There was a corner as small as 4 square meters max selling memory cards. Canon, Panasonic, Sony, you name it! Do they have 32 G card, no, but 16 G, no problem! asking price 450 RMB! He got it at 250 RMB. Stephane thought it was cheap comparing to the price at Montreal $70. 6 times of 70 is 420 RMB. I would offer max 120 for that. But he is very nice.

The next day when he put it for use in Hang Zhou, he found that it is a complete crap. It was faked as 16G, but it has only 250 MB with the capacity of taking only 60 pictures and no video at all. If he had had taken a close look, he would have found out that there is no decent print no sticker whatsoever on the card!!! He laughed at himself saying: “oh, well, I have paid my stupidity tax!”

All along the streets, there are people chasing us for Rolex, Catier & Omega. There was one man who had been so diligent and patient that he had accompanied us far away one whole hour for lunch in order to lead us back to their stores selling Swiss watches. I just wanted to have a look at the places where fake Swiss watches are sold and got to know about the prices.

While following him into a lane, I was wondering where he was leading us! I stopped for a second asking him where on earth we were going. He said that we had arrived and that was the back door or a store. We entered the store which was full of all kinds of Swiss watches, big and small, for men and women! I wondered if there were any for kids, hehehe!

There were some really nice ones, 680, 800, 1,000, 1,200 and up to 2,000! I wowed to myself how expensive they were, especially for a person like me who never could wear any watches and who never had known the values of watches! Nah, I said, I will continue looking to find the real prices! So off we went away and on the street again!

It seemed that people knew we were interested in watches after we came out from that place and they just followed us asking us the same question again and again like beggars who would never give up!

It was in Beijing that I found out the real prices of the decent real Swiss watches: 2,000 to 400,000 RMB! I guess I would never wear any of those in my life, not much because of the unaffordability but mostly of the fact that I could never keep them on my wrist and the unafordability of a watch wouldn’t tick longer my life as I should die when the day is due( wisper: they are truely too expensive for me as well though)!

Trips Back to Cities of China – Shanghai!

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July 21-23, 2009

After 3 years, I am back to China again. Thinking about going back to China for me is just visiting my parents and taking a big rest. I have been having a burn out one month before leaving, suffering symptoms of exhaustion, period disorder, not sleeping well at nights, and worst of all, loosing interest in everything that I do. So it is a great time that I left and did a reset of my body and soul-or you can call it: recharge of my batteries!

Sitting on the plane for 15 hours is not fun, but I had done that 12 times since 1998, so I am quite good at killing the time. Well this time, I learned something new: how to arrange the timing of doing those things so that we do not have to suffer the change of time zone: eat and sleep according to the local time instead of continuing my past habit. It worked! It had to because we had to jump to our feet visiting each big city for a couple of days upon arrival!

Watching movies is a good way of killing time. Never had I felt so luxurious in time and in the choice of movies: 300 movies in all genres of styles and 50 different popular TV programs. The third movie that I watched was a Chinese movie called: Golden Armors All Over the Ground, a Tang Dynasty story in which the Tang dynasty’s richness in colors and styles of clothings, also the glamor of armors of the royal armies were magnificently displayed!

Shanghai is all a very huge city with its main infrastructure very advanced & modern. 30 million people are working for its prosperity-the population of the whole Canada, English,French speaking & allophone all put together! Density of big huge buildings makes the population overlapping and colliding into each other frequently and giant skyscrapers lift people in the air and their eyes and mind as well! I understand that it is these big city nyon lights, the glamorous colors, huge Ad.screens, man-made and sculptured parks make Chinese overseas home sick and lonely while in Montreal or Quebec, the streets are modest with reasonable brightness, no Maglev ou D trains’ loud speakers announcing the stations, either seldom anyone bumped into them or cut right in front of them…Often, most Chinese would find New York suit their tastes as a big city, a city to which they once dreamed to be part. Shanghai, one of the typical and atypical huge cities in the world; Shanghai, the old capital of China’s commerces…

To be continued…

Naked Shakespeare!-to tutors,writers and performers of Collectif H@mlet!

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Shakespeare is not strange to me since my major at University was English Language and Literature. Yet it was 26 years ago when I last read his Renaissance English whereas nowadays we do not see much of his vocabulary and syntax, neither do we see many expressions, idioms, and many connotations have changed with time and history…

imgp65391For Shakespeare — like many of our ancient writers or poets — not understanding the language and history doesn’t make much of a fuss! Fortunately, we modern people still benefit from those who devote their time and energy and even whole life preserving the language and the history by studying, translating and interpreting the great works of all times.

the author at 6 monthsMy interest in Shakespeare stopped quite some time ago, mostly because my subject rooted overseas and it had been very so strange to me, not only the language and stories, but also the things behind them. I was too young, living in a society too strange to Shakespeare’s world, too naive to understand him and his great works. Eric Satie said: Je suis venu au monde très jeune dans un monde très vieux (I was born very young into a world very old).  As I grow older — 10 years older in Shakespeare’s transformed homeland — my interest is itched up by the show of Stéphane Zarov & Linda Roy, the profs and their theatre students at UQÀM.

imgp65371I would never imagine myself going to see a theatre play like Hamlet! These past 10 years of busy life trying to gain my glorious life in Montreal made me so unused of such matters! When the show started, I felt a certain kind of uneasiness and uncertainty if it would be worth my time…

The show started, freshly and surprisingly from the corridor where we were waiting to enter the hall. A young actor recited, walking through us and looking right into us most of who didn’t realize that it was part of the show:

imgp6470I am. But what does it mean, to be? I am what I do, I am what I want, I am my desire. As are we all; we are what we desire, now, in the present. But, if we desire, we are our future, we are what we wish to become. And this sets us apart from animals: we are capable of inventing our future and not merely awaiting it. This desire to become is nature’s most beautiful creation. A tree, a stone, an animal-none of these are capable of wanting to be what they are not, of transforming mere potential into action. —Augusto Boal

Reciting, the actor even kissed a man on the lips. Having eyes rolled up and side ways, the man being kissed equally expressed our surprise as well.

imgp6532I should say that it started well and fun, for such a damn serious, world’s not oldest but greatest, and most famous tragedy. Yes, eh? remembering watching the 3 hours movie by Olivier, I couldn’t help saying to myself: oh, God, it was slow and long, AND sad! Now we definitely see some new version of it, interpreted by a bunch of university kids around 20-25 years old.

The play was set among us the audience. In the play, Shakespeare had the play in the play where Hamlet engaged a show aiming at rocking up the conscience of Claudius, who assassinated his own brother-the King. For a moment, we don’t know if we are the audience watching Hamlet or the royal members and subordinates of Father Hamlet’s court watching the replay the scene of Hamlet’s father in the garden being poisoned through his ears.

imgp64942The play went on. Among the scenes, there were other actions which had nothing to do with Hamlet. The actors spoke English and French, even Quebecois French. I understood the English part, yet the French part had to be helped with the actions, even some actions didn’t tell me not much…

My mind went off and far away when they spoke French…Shakespeare, Romeo & Juliet, The Taming of the Shrew, Merchant of Venice, King Lear…I saw my father who was actually the first person who acquainted me with Shakespeare. I was 9 or 10, sitting by his feet, listening to him saying that Portia was such an intelligent lady who not even made the Duke win the case, but confiscated Shylock’s belongings… That was in about 1971, during the lonely evenings of China when the cultural revolution was trying its best to burn the books of Shakespeare…

imgp64891The whole play was re-written by twenty some students themselves. Each character in the play was played by many of them. Some times it could be confusing as to who was who now and who was who then. They used a big pair of sun glasses as the symbol for the Queen, the paper crown for the King and the person who had a bare foot was Hamlet.  We saw many versions of each character played by each different student as the symbols traveled among them…

Ophelia appeared with a whitish pale flower of magnolia in her hair -the prettiest, the most naive and innocent victim of the victim, the cute and meek girl of her father and the sister of her brother; the victim of vengeance and confusion, the short-lived magnolia flower who blossomed only 20 days in the Spring.  She fell from a tree into the cold brook,  drowned but still floating with her wreath on her blond curly hair, eyes still half-open singing some meaningless fractured tune that only her un-returned love would understand…

imgp6533My professor appeared as well in front of my eyes after 26 years. He taught the course: Shakespeare Appreciation. Whenever he came to Ophelia, we saw his eyes twinkle with sadness and Ophelia was the character whom he loved the most and he usually said to us: Beauty, naive innocent beauty lives like petals of flowers… After class, he would usually, wonder around the big campus reading all those posters and articles with his shabby dirty bike till evening came and his north-eastern born big and tall wife captured him for supper at home…

Oh, yes, the play now. What the %*&?$? were the two women with orange construction helmets talking about?! They were talking nonsense and obviously one chubbier girl talked better in Quebecois than in English! Yes, the bare foot of Hamlet, the paper crown of the King and the big black sun glasses of the Queen, they were all on the floor together with pieces of red silk symbolizing blood. All on the floor, all died and dead. Justice was rendered, but justice caused the end of the world leaving justice for us people now to chew and ponder…

Yes, we still have hope, because we are what we do. We are what we want. We are what we desire, we are our desire. We are what we desire, now, in the present. If we desire, we are our future. We are born too young into a world too old, yet the young can live their  lives in other ways which show positive energy and beauty, yet  no confusion, neither sadness nor tragedy! Naked Shakespeare, bare foot Hamlet! Our history, our present! As naked and genuine as our thoughts and as bare foot solid on the ground as our actions today!

imgp6542

Queen still has her first husband today!

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Hamlet is no longer tortured by hatred and vengeance! He is not mad anymore and not hiding his love for the lovely, naive and innocent Ophelia!

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Happy Ophelia today!

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Confident and clear-minded King today!




Me and my Garbage Men!

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Wednesday morning is the time for Garbage in Ville Lasalle.  Comparing to those in City Lemoyne ( Old Longueuil ), the garbage men here are much nicer. They pick up construction garbage if you put the waste dry walls, cement, sand in the extra strong construction bags and if you cut short the pieces of  board and wood and tie them up. Of course, all garbage men, they throw your bucket in the air and you will end up with your neighbor’s broken one.

This job is usually done by the young, say 20-35 years old. Some times you see 18 or 19, over 40, which is rare. It requires strength and endurance after all. I see mostly quebecois males doing this job, one or 2 black origin, but never Arabs or Chinese. Being a Chinese woman myself, I believe I will never see a Chinese man doing this job, neither physically nor mentally speaking, simply because of the fact that 90% of the Chinese immigrants are quite well educated either working for companies or very industrious self-employed.

I have been renovating my 3-plex since winter 2007. Throwing out construction garbage is the other job I can do besides painting the walls. You can imagine the amount of garbage I threw out already, because the 3-plex is now turned into a 5-plex plus RDC completely renovated by me, the persistent hard-headed stubborn Chinese woman! I usually laugh at myself being the best friend of Home-Depot or Reno-Depot, now I can truly tease myself being the best friend with the garbage men in Ville Lasalle.

Being the best friend with the garbage men is dramatized this morning when I got refused by them of taking my pile of pieces of wood! Me and my son worked yesterday evening, my son chopping them short and me piling them nicely along the walkway! They were short enough, so I didn’t go find the string to tie them up. There are thousands of nails in the pieces, but I reckoned it  unnecessary to remove them, spending time for the job that the machine can do itself when it takes them in! Plus it is not possible because of the great number of nails!

The garbage truck arrived at 8:00am. When I have too many things to throw away, I always get up, put on my working clothes and gloves and go out to help them loading the stuff. 2 young guys came running. One is about 20 and the other is about 24. I started picking up the pieces and throwing up onto the truck.

The older one said to me:” On prends pas ca! Il y a des clous! On n’a pas de temps pour ca! Tu dois enlever les clous!”

I answered back: ” Il y a milliers de clous, comment je peux tous enlever? Attends, je peux le faire si vous pouvez pas le faire!”

Nevertheless, I only managed a few pieces onto their truck and off wooing away the truck like a gust of wind!

Then I was angry! We cut them nice and short, I put them nice and neat and still I got refused! Seeing the 2 guys away with the truck to my neighbor on the front, I yelled:

” Vous n’etes pas gentils!” and I picked up 2 pieces of wood with lots of nails on and threw them right into the middle of the street! I could have thrown more, but that’s enough to show my point! Back I came into my house, waning to myself that I have to find the string to tie them up and painfully spend hours removing those nails!

A few seconds after, I heard the truck howling closer towards my house! I ran to the front window to see what it was. There, I saw the truck again backing up towards my house, and to be precise, towards my poor abandoned pile of wood!!

I hurried up, putting my shoes and gloves on again, and stepped outside! They saw me! This time, the driver, an older guy about 36 came down to help as well! I saw them and I smiled! I smiled in a way which seems saying: ” there you go, my men! That’s my good boy!”  They smiled back and started joking around!

The older guy said to me: ” C’est pas grave le, on va les prendre!” At the same time, he looked at the younger guys and looked at me hinting that it was them who wouldn’t take them. I understood and I said: ” bon, prochaine fois, je vais les attacher et enlever les clous!” He said again: ” c’est pas grave! On peut le faire!” sounding quite comforting and seeming to mean that not taking them for having nails on is just an excuse.

Nonetheless, I see the importance of communicating and even fighting! Some times, it might take some unexpected ways to achieve it, like me throwing the pieces with nails into the street! They saw that I worked and prepared, they took into their mind the fact that I got up and was ready with gloves on to help them! I see the importance of self-respect in working and trying myself first to have the base for fighting! I also see that people, quebecois, they have a good common sense by which they accept and adjust their thoughts and behaviors: which are based on the principles of working, respect and the power of being able to choose  to be kind when there is ambiguity!

They could have just simply left without returning( they had their point which could hardly be judged right or wrong) , leaving me feeling angry, but they came back, which touched me, this extra kindness of theirs and this willingness of caring, loving and helping!