Sun Yat-sen's granddaughter

I came across Sun Yat-sen's granddaughter in a bookstore this afternoon. She was publicizing her latest book about her grandfather. Sun Yat-sen (Sun Zhongshan) is a great figure in Chinese history. He led the 1911 Revolution in China, overthrowing the last imperial dynasty and founded the Chinese Republic. Personally, I respect Sun Zhongshan a lot, he's one of my favorite historical figures all time.

But Sun's granddaughter disappointed me -- she's not that smart. I saw her in the hall of the bookstore, where several news reporters were interviewing her. Curious about what they were talking about, I came close to them and listened to the whole interview. Also pulled out my camera and took some pictures.

The questions asked by local reporters were boring, like "How many brothers and sisters do you have?" "How many languages do you speak?" "What do you think of some movies about Sun Zhongshan?" Nobody mentioned anything related to politics. I guess they didn't have enough freedom to touch all issues; even if they did, they couldn't print anything in the newspaper at all. So the interview went on well. The reporters were nice and polite, Sun's granddaughter seemed satisfied with what they asked, and kept her professional smile all the time. With the help of thick makeup, she looked younger than her real age 68.

I got a little bit bored, and I really wanted to ask her some questions just across my mind, so I chimed in, "What's your ultimate goal?" She's talking about her effort to improve Sun Yat-sen's status in Chinese history, I wondered what kind of goal she wanted to achieve. In our history book, Sun Zhongshan is definitely a positive figure, there's very few subjective judgment to his achievement; I don't see why she's not content.

"My grandfather is 'The Father of the Republic.' Glad to see this title is printed on some books in mainland too, that's the way it should be. In the past, it was not allowed to use this title..." She started talking about how important Sun Yat-sen is, "As my goal, I want to persuade Chinese leaders to put Sun Yat-sen's three principles of the people into constitution by the year 2010. Three Principles is the first thing all Chinese should live up to, every principle made afterward is based on Three Principles ..."

Hah, puting three principles into constitution? Are you insane, lady? Don't be naive-- China is Communist Party's turf, how could they put three principle into THEIR constitution?? They've already got their crappy Three Represent, there's no place for Three Principles at all. Oh, as a matter of fact, CCP said goodbye to Three Principles as early as the year 1924, the year they invented NEW three principle of the people which is totally different from the original one. CCP loves slogans, but the first rule is -- they have to have their OWN slogan rather than taking from somewhere else. As for Three Principles, right, it used to play an important role in that period of time, but I don't think it's still THAT important. Plus, Three Principles is what Taiwan goverment still believes and carries out, how could it be possible that the Chinese government picks up the same stuff the Taiwan government believes in?

I mentioned Taiwan, Sun's granddaughter seemed to get emotional," Taiwan people believe in three principle, so they're doing great all these years. All parts of China, all Chinese people SHOULD believe in three principle. That's where our roots are..."

I took a quick look around -- many people were secretly laughing at her, pathetic. I did laugh at her too, as her theory was too ridiculous.

Plus, she's 68 years old, Sun Yat-sen died in 1924 -- which means she was born 11 years later after Sun died, so she's never met her grandfather in person at all. I don't think we have a strong tie with some relative we never meet. She said she loves her grandfather, but I think the meaning of love is not the real love but sort of respect and admire. It seemed she considered herself a celebrity, but just because she's Sun Yat-sen's granddaughter doesn't mean she's that great or important or anything.

The readers in bookstore seemed not interested in her that much either. For the first 20 minutes, nobody bought that book, embarrassing.

Finally, there came a middle aged man who wanted to get her signature. He also threw out a question -- "Mrs.Sun, I wonder what's your take on the war on Iraq?"

It's the last question she'd expected to be asked, I'm sure about it. Waiting for 30 minutes, the first reader wanted to discuss Iraq with her. Irony, wasn't it?

Obviously, she didn't feel like talking about Iraq, "Have you paid attention to what I was talking about?" she asked that reader.

"Hmm, no...well, I just came, actually." The reader said.

"Okay, let's talk about my grandfather first...My grandfather was born in..."

I was totally bored, then I left.

Singing in the rain

Every time I see people singing in the rain in music videos, I laught loud. I think that's stupid; they do it a lot, it probably the most cliche scene of music videos.

The scene is pretty much the same in any video, goes like -- they're singing in some heavy rain, their expressions are extremly painful. As the music goes on, the rain is getting heavier dramatically; they're getting wet all over without messing up the thick makeup or hair -- not even a little bit. They keep singing as if the rain doesn't exsit, and their expressions turn out to be devastating. Sometimes they open their arms wildly with intense emotion; sometimes they hold their fists tightly with strong determination. There's a better chance that they squeeze out some tears at the end of the videos-- that's the moment I burst out laughing. At that moment, no matter how great that singer is, he/she looks like a clown to me.

What's the point? Do they think singing in the rain is a cool thing? Or they expect that audiences might like watching singers being tortured by the rain? In such scenes, the rain seems so fake, and their pretending to be serious expressions seem so unnatural. They're trying to use the rain to create some atmosphere , but most of them turn out to be funny and ruin the whole video, that's what I think.

If you really want to talk with me...

Okay -- You've just lost your girlfriend, you need to find somebody to talk to, then TALK to me. What the hell was that supposed to mean ? -- you appeared downstairs of my home out of the fucking blue -- without saying anything. ( anyway, how did you know where I live?). It's not fair throwing the words "You don't understand" to me, I have no idea what happened between you and your girlfriend, how am I supposed to understand your feelings? On the one hand, you said it's all over between you two, and you've already forgotten her; on the other hand, you were talking about her all the time-- obviously, you're thinking about her a lot, and you still love her, and you even have the hope of getting her back. So stop saying this bullshit to me, what's more, stoping LYING to yourself. Just admit that you can't get her out of your mind, it's not that hard, is it? You want to figure yourself out, but it's impossible to do it as you don't really know what your problems are, and you even refuse to think about them. You said you lost yourself, yeah, I'm losing myself from time to time too. What's the big deal? Why do you bother finding youself back right now? Why not just indulge yourself to the sad mood for a while? I don't like being told cheer up when I'm down -- it won't help, and I'm not gonna tell you these useless words even they're what you expect to hear.

I admire your courage to stop me in that bus station the other day. Before that we'd never really talked though we attended the same class for a couple of weeks. We ran into each other in a bus station. After a short greeting, you walked away; ten minutes later, you came back. I was surprised to see you come back and ask me to take a walk with you. To be honest, I wanted to say no. But I was extremly bored that afternoon, and you seemed so down that I didn't want to hurt you feelings. So I said yes. We walked. You told me you broke up with your girlfriend a month ago. I asked why, you said it's hard to explain. Fine, hard to explain, but how come you brought up this conversation if you didn't feel like talking about it at all? You thought I'd be interested in your privacy? No way! Let me tell you something, I'm only cared about the stories from people I like. You're not attracted to me, that's for sure. I said it was OK for me if you didn't feel like talking about it. Then you kept saying "Forget it, forget it." . OK, FORGET IT -- let me tell you another thing -- I HATE people saying "Forget it" to me, it sucks. If you don't feel like developing the conversation with me in the first place, don't bring it up. Once you start it, just trust me. I know it's probably hard to explain, I know you might be awkward, don't worry about them, I'm a good listener, and I'll never feel anything bad about you no matter how terrible your stories sound . "Forget it" makes me feel bad about myself; it makes me feel like you don't trust me, and you don't really feel like talking with me. That afternoon, you probably just needed to find some random person you're not that familiar with to hang out, and I happened to be the one, rather than you thought I'd be a good friend who could be counted on or something.

I'm kinda an interesting person, am I? You seemed to get a little bit better after staying with me for hours, but I have to admit that I was a little bit bored that afternoon, I really wanted to go home. I'm not saying I don't want to help you, I do want to help you. I know exactly the feeling of getting lost, and I know exactly the feeling of lacking friends. I'm there every now and then. Glad you turned to me when you had no where to go, it gave me a good feeling. But what am I supposed to say? how could I possibly help you without knowing what's going on? So, if you want to talk with me, I mean if you really want to talk with me -- open your heart and trust me. Let me know what's on your mind, don't worry about anything. I'm pretty easy to talk with, you know that, don't you? But if you keep doing the same thing -- coming to me without saying anything specific and blame me that I couldn't understand you -- hey, I don't wanna do it anymore. Spending my time with you like that is worthless, I've got many better things to do. You hear that? If you really want to talk with me, you need to TALK...

Precious Stone Hill





I took some pictures from Baoshi Hill yesterday ( Precious Stone Hill). Three sides of Hangzhou are surrounded by hills. These hills are not high ( about a couple hundread meters ), but the nice thing is these hills are all connecting with each other. We can climb from one hill to another, and the view is pretty good.

Baoshi Hill is one of the most famous hills in Hangzhou. Both my high school and university are not far from that hill, so I go there a lot. No matter how many times I go, I'll be never tired of the scenery there. I like hills, enjoy the fresh air, quiet surroundings and open views. Here are the pictures of Precious Stone Hill.

Live

Just opened TV, CCTV 4 (a Chinese national TV station) is broadcasting CNN live, and my whole family is watching. I'm kinda surprised to see CNN on some Chinese TV station, as it's probably the first time for them to broadcast CNN live in China. An interpreter is translating simultaneously , and I think he's doing a great job. They're not showing the whole CNN all the time, it's one part of a big coverage. I've never seen Chinese media pay so much attention to any international event. This time they're doing a pretty good job on reporting; right now no comments to the war, just reporting what's going on in every minute.

Oops, here they come. Just said no comments, a bounch of experts appeared in front of the camera.
Gotta run for school...

...

Back from school
I have to admit that I'm not into talking about the war and don't have any deep opinion about it. It's already everywhere. But I'm really interested in Chinese media's perspective on reporting the war. How they repotr what's going on? Which side are they on? Will they change their side? What's the differences of Chinese media's perspective and others countries'? Curious about these questions, I'll keep an eye on them.

boingboing

Hah, something interesting happened again. I was about going to school after lunch, from sitemeter.com ( the counter), I saw 60 visitors coming in in that hour. I've never got so many visitors per hour. Curious about what happened, I found out that I was linked by Boing Boing for my photo albums. Thanks for the link and thanks for visiting.

I said I'd finish my photo albums soon, but I was too lazy to do it past few days. Taking pictures is fun, but I've never got much confidence on my photography, and I thought people might not be interested in my photos at all. But it seems everything turns out to be a little bit different from what I thought. I feel like I've got more motivation now, and I'll spend some time adding the rest of pictures into the blog tonight.

A New Beginning

Haven't written too much recently, I've been thinking a lot-- at some point, I thought I'd stop writing here, I really did. So what's up with me? Well, I didn't feel like talking or writing about it past few days. But today, I really wanna try to explain everything on my mind.

A few days ago, I wrote this piece somewhere else, that's pretty much what I've been thinking lately.

'Forget about China
Writing an entry every one or two days there turns out to be an obligation, and I'm totally sick and tired of it. Nobody forces me to do it, but recently I'm kinda obsessed by " I need to write something today" as if people cared. Who the hell cares? Nobody really does. Anyone would disappointed that I don't write anything for days? Anyone would miss me if I stop writing? No way! Nobody would ever care, it's silly to think of anything like that. I think I write to much than what I could offer.

Look at the title there: China Blog -- leylop's blog about China. I HATE HATE HATE this title, and I'm gonna change it. China Blog -- Am I trying to be the spokesperson of Chinese bloggers? Who do I think I am? About China -- Am I supposed to tell the world how the real China is like? Do I really know much about China? No, not at all.

Most bloggers in China have some reason to write ( about China ), but I don't -- I don't have a life. I used to think it's cool to write in English on the Internet as not many Chinese are doing this, and it would be great to write something about China from a Chinese perspective. Crap. I don't feel like doing it anymore. Am I that Chinese? How much I can present a Chinese perspective? I feel xin xu to say something like "In China, it's common to... or "Chinese people usually like ..." Am I an expert of China? Do I keep an eye on what's going on in China? Why not just saying I don't really know. Am I afraid that I'm not that thoughtful or interesting? Am I worried it's too boring to show? Do I really care about what I'm talking about? -- " Lantern Festival , it's a traditional Chinese Festival...here's a little bit info about it..." Why did I write these stuff? What for? To show something? Here's what I was really felt on that night -- I felt extremely lost ; I was alone , and I felt lonely. I hate big holidays, I hate crowds, I hate seeing everyone seem to be happy.

Forget about China. All I want to write is a journal, a journal about my life, like what you read today."

Well, that's it. As I wrote, when started blogging, I thought writing about China from a Chinese perspective would be a cool thing, and I've been trying to keep up this perspective thing. Now, I'm sick and tired of it. Nobody ever put any pressure on me, but I do feel the invisible pressure caused by meself, which goes like, "Oh, don't write about this, it's too boring or it's just whining." Or "Hmm...that'd be a good topic to develop." What I write is pretty honest, but I'm definitely not honest enough to myself picking what I really want to talk about. At the first beginning, I had such thought: English is not my native language and I couldn't write that well, plus, there're tons of blogs written by native English speakers. If I what I write has nothing to do with China, who's gonna read this blog? But after writing more and more personal stuff, this stupid thought has gone. I really enjoy writing about some small little things, and sharing these things with you seems quite fun too. But still, I'm thinking maybe I should talk less about myself and more about China. Balancing these two makes me sorta stressful.

Today I've changed the blog title and I feel much more comfortable now. Instead of "China blog -- leylop's blog about China", the new one is simply "leylop's blog". The previous title is a joke. Have you doubt about it? Hmm...well, think in this way, suppose I were an American girl, and I wrote a blog about my ordinary life, which was named "American blog -- leylop's about the United States" Is that ridiculous?? The previous title is too big to me. Though with the help of that title, I'm here, I don't think I deserve this position, and it's meaningless too. China is too big and old, I actually don't know that much about it at all.

So goodbye yesterday, no more "China Blog", no more "blog about China". From now on, this blog will just be myself. I'll put my every thought down no matter how pointless it is, and I won't push myself to write anything I don't feel like writing no matter how significant it is.

Anyway, another unrelated thought about title thing -- it could be tricky too. Suppose I were an Iraqi, and I wrote a blog talking about my university life , music , movies and my views on the US or war or Saddam Hussein...And I named it "Iraqi blog --leylop's blog about Iraq". Does it sound ridiculous ? No, it doesn't, and I bet this blog is gonna be BIG.

Back to my blog -- also, I write too much. I probably write much slower than you. Like I mentioned, making a post every one or two days is kinda like an obligation. I'm not running out of ideas, but writing an entry, some comments, and several e-mails every day seems to take lots of time. I said I wanted to practise speaking English, learning computer, reading more... But I haven't done any of these too much as I feel I don't have enough time. It sounds ridiculous because I've got much more free time than most people, but I do feel I'm too busy with writing. I wirte too much than what I could offer. Sometimes I really need to take a little bit break absorbing more new things. So from today, I'll write when I want to rather than posting some crappy things out of a sense of obligation every day.

Writing in English is still a fun thing to do, and I pretty much enjoy it. What I need is a new attitude.

I think this post is too long, I might be better stopping here. It's a new beginning.




Something More
Just got up in the morning. Read over what I wrote last night, there's something more I want to say.

First is about China stuff. I AM Chinese, I AM living in China, what I write must have something to do with China, that's for sure. And I'm really happy to let more people know more about China and Chinese people, so I'll still keep this part. But no more "I HAVE TO write about China" or "I NEED TO write about something because people might be interested in." These thoughts made me frustrated, and I won't do anything like these anymore.

I'm thinking about this question: how many people are writing about what they really want? Great writers? Newsreporters? Other bloggers? Are they writing purely because of interests or for some purpose? Is it not easy for them to keep up their work without living up to all expectations? Do they have my problems too? Part of my problem is probably because that I think too much.

Also I love freedom too much. I'm easily getting bored once I've lost interests of what I'm working on, interest is the only reason driving to do something. I can't put my heart into something I don't feel like doing, I can't stand doing anything for a specific purpose, and I hate forcing myself to do something I NEED to.

Then about English. I really don't think my English is that good, and I'm not satisfied with what I've got. I want to be great.

Photo Albums
Just added some photo albums links here ( take a look at the left column). I've taken a few thousand photos since I got the camera a couple of months ago. Don't have any real skills, my way of taking pictures is simply "click, click, click". Two things are always with me -- anytime, anywhere -- one is my mp3 player, another is the digital camera.

Sometimes I post some pictures in my blog. But actually, I can't see them most of the time. People in China probably all have the same problem. Because I upload to my pictures to Angerfire.com that is badly blocked in China. I try to find other similar web hosting sites, but most of them ( more than 90 percent , I guess ) are not available in China either.

This time I upload my pictures to Yahoo. I don't like it that much, but it's free, and the service is not bad. Some of the pictures have alreday shown, some haven't yet. I'm trying to put them together by different themes.

Haven't finished the albums yet, still working on them now...

*Songs of the day
Billy Bragg and Wilco -- California Stars
Kiss -- Because I'm a girl ( This Kiss is a Korean group. I like K-Pop.)

They look like the same...

Tuesday evening, I was sitting in the first row of the classroom. Couldn't stand staying in this seat anymore, I wanted to move to the back row as soon as possible. Why? You didn't like the class? No, I liked the class -- I wanted to move because of that teacher. So didn't like that teacher? No, I liked him too -- it's all because of his face. I was about to laugh out loud if I took one more look at him. Yes, I really wanted to laugh.

So what's wrong with that face? Well, because he looked funny! I guess nobody in that classroom would agree with me on that, as he seemed like a normal Chinese guy. But I couldn't help laughing inside the moment I saw him. That teacher reminded me of a French actor in the movie Delicatessen ( the same director of Amelie). The name of that actor is Dominique Pinon, only saw two of his movies, but I'll never forget his face -- really really funny looking, and I like his acting a lot. Every time I think of that face, I couldn't help laughing.

So now, there's a Chinese guy standing right in front of me, who looked like exactly the same as that French guy, isn't that interesting? I thought it was.

Using the word "exactly", technically, I was wrong. A Chinese guy wouldn't look exactly the same like a French guy at any point. But I feel like they have much in common in their appearances. Not details, but each of them is reflecting another one. (Just checked that DVD, I insisted my point.)

There're many people like them, one person reminds me of someone else. I can't say they look like exactly the same, but they do look like each other a lot. Usually I meet one of them first, when I see the second one, thinking of the first one, I feel faimilar with that person very soon.

Sometimes I'm thinking of this question, are there any different people who look exactly the same as each other? Is there anyone who looks excatly the same as me in this world? Moviemakers seem fond of this theme a lot. We see many corny stories go like this: a girl came across a guy (or a guy came across a girl). she was shocked the first moment they met -- he looked like excatly the same as her ex-boyfriend who died in a car crash (or any accident). The girl felt in love with the new guy immedatly , but the new guy already had a girlfriend -- the relationships between them turned out to be a mess. Then scenes would flash back to the past a lot, the girl was thinking of her ex-boyfirend who is played by the same actor of the new guy. She couldn't believe the new guy looked excatly the same as the dead guy, and couldn't stop loving him... Finally, the new guy broke up with his girlfriend for some stupid reason, the girl and the new guy were together forever; Or -- the stories would go like this : There're two guys who look excatly the same , one is a good guy, another is a bad guy. The bad guy was doing lots of bad things, but he could always get away from his crime as people all thought the bad things were done by that good guy. The good guy kept fighting for this situation. At last, everyone realized the good guy was innocent , the real criminal was the bad guy who looked excatly the same as the good guy played by the same actor. Then the story is over.

I hate these stupid movies. First they're stereotyped without any creativity. Second, they're repeating fake stories again and again. In our real world, there's no such thing as excatly the same ( apart from twins ) -- at least I've never seen any two people like that.

In China, the actors who play great guys are selected. Take Mao Zedong for instance, only very few people can play him. On the sreen, they do look like Mao Zedong, but there's much made-up work to be done . When off screen, there're not so many similarities between Mao Zedong and them at all. I think they must be chosen from tons of actors, it's not easy to find someone who look like somebody else, not to mention who look like excatly the same as another person.

Speaking of Mao Zedong, another unrelated thought is coming across my mind. In the past, when the stories of Mao Zedong were told in the movies or on TV, Mao Zedong spoke his local dialect rather than mandarin, which showed people's respect to him. In recent years, I've noticed that Mao Zedong has started to get rid of his accent and speak perfect mandarin in some shows. I believe it's a new trend, maybe someday, Mao Zedong will just speak mandarin. And maybe someday, the actor who can play Mao Zedong and other great guys will not be so strict with their appearances anymore.

Bike Lot






China is a bicycle world -- almost every Chinese can ride a bike, most people have their own bicycle . Therefore, there're countless bicycle in China. Last week, I took a picture of some bicycle lot unintentionally -- I've never so deeply realized that there're so many bicyles right in front of my eyes until I saw that picture. So today, I took more simliar pictures in different places. I've got used to seeing so many bicyles around me , but when looking at them through pictures, I still think they're awesome.

Lazy

I've been lazy lately, the real laziness is killing my time. Spring brings nice weather, but I don't feel like going out for days, as there seems not much I could do outside. Addicted to staying at home, I uaually need a reason to take me out : going to school or bookstore or library, buying DVDs or books or software, taking picutres, walking in random streets aimlessly...and...well, I can't come up with anything else, that's all I do when I'm not at home. Sometimes, I feel like a little kid or an old person, I mean I don't go to some places young people like to hang out that often or experience the lives they enjoy , I don't even know the real meaning of having fun.

When staying at home alone I usually arrange my time pretty well , hardly ever felt I'm wasting my time or anything. But it's a different case when laziness hits me, like now -- my state of mind is just going blank. It's not like getting bored, when bored, I'm sick and tired of what I'm doing , and eager to escape the frustrating things , with the hopes of finding somthing new and interesting. But when getting lazy, I'm satisfied with any pointless things I'm working on , and don't feel like making a change. Many people prefer to sleep when they're lazy, but to me, lazniess has nothing to do with sleeping too much. I don't want to sleep, because after a good sleep, I'll stay awake, then fall into the state of boredom. But if I don't get enough sleep, I'd be sleepy all day-- too sleepy to notice how bored I actually am. Yeah, I like being sluggish more than being bored.

I don't feel like doing anything. I don't feel like reading books , wait, I was reading a book just now , but it was hard to focus, reading through lines, not many words stuck into my mind ; I don't feel like watching movies, I watched one this afternoon though. My eyes kept staring at the TV screen for two hours , I didn't really know what the movie was about, not to mention the details of the movies; I don't feel like writing, there're several things I've been thinking to write about for a while, but I'm not willing to concentrate my mind on writing, I AM writing now, but actually, I have no idea what I'm writing about and what my next sentence will be.

Still spending lots of time on the Interent -- lazniess rules . Sometimes I get lost here : wandering from one site to another, I keep searching for something new, the attention span is really short. Like watching a movie, I 'm not reading much , actually. ( in normal circumstance , I don't have that problem. )

Plus, I'm doing everything slowly and inefficiently. Like today, it took me the whole morning to get two e-mails done ; People said hi to me over IM, I was like a dead person never sent the messages back. Not only my mind goes slack, also the whole body is powerless.

Now I'm cleaning up some pictures I took recently. I've got a couple hundred new ones, but tonight, the laziness beat me obviously-- I only got less than twenty pictures done, here they are : Pictures of the day.

Father

I've never talked about my dad, not even mentioned the word father. Well, he's dead-- in my heart. No, he's never existed-- in my heart.

My dad left us ten years ago. I remember the night when my mom told me that she would get a divorce from my dad. "Really ?! Great !", hearing the news, I jumped out of my bed-- I was so relieved that eventually I could get rid of that monster. It was one of the most exciting moments of my life, and I was probably the happiest kid in the world to know that my parents would divorce.

I left my parents when I was six months old. Both of them were working, no time to take care of me, so my mom's parents took that job. When I was a little kid, I didn't know my parents that well, as we didn't see each other that often, and we were not close. My grandparents took the parents' roles, especially my grandfather, he did everything that a father was supposed to do. In my early memory, there was no such person as a father.

I went back to my parents when it was time for kindergarten. At that time, I wasn't used to living with them. I hated my dad, he didn't treat me well, and I blamed my mom that she couldn't protect me. My grandpa visited me a lot because he missed me. I missed him too; he's my savior, every time he came, I begged him to take me away. He made it, finally. I left my parents, quitted the kindergarten, and lived with my grandparents again. Ever since, I've never left them.

I visited my parents, sometimes; and sometimes, they visited me. I was extremely afraid of seeing my dad, he's nothing to me. I think I was a pretty good kid, but in his eyes, I always did something wrong. Got physically and emotionally abused by him, I was too young to fight, I just wished he could disappear from my life someday, or I would run away from him.

He did disappear, for a stupid reason-- marrying another woman who was pretty young at that time. She came from a remote village, only graduated from elementary school. To survive in a city, the shortcut was to find some guy to rely on. My parents owned a clothing shop, our life was better off because of that shop. The girl worked there, so my dad, her boss became the guy she picked. I'm not sure about the details, as I was too young and didn't live with my parents, but I know my mom had a really really hard time. She was devastated, facing the fact it's impossible to save the marrige, she decided to divorce from my dad. Then, they divorce. My dad took most of the money, house, and everything. My mom got me and little money. In my dad's words, my mom should be satisfied with what she's got, a child is worth lots of money. Mom didn't argue, she was afraid of losing me, and she didn't know actually she had the right to share 50 percent property.

My father just disappeared like that. I've never got in touch with him, and he's never given us anything. Since then, I've been living with my mom and grandparents. As I hated my dad, and I was eagar to be free from him, I didn't lose anything from my parents divorce, what's more, I've got a big gift from it-- a wonderful mom. I didn't know my mom that well before, but after divorce, we've been living together, and getting more close. She's a great woman, working hard to support the whole family , and she gives me lots of freedom. She always says it's better for me to live without that father, or when getting older, I'd fight with him eventually. I hate discipline, I hate somebody tells me what to do, I hate to be pushed. I couldn't imagine who I would be if I kept living in the shadow of my dad.

Tonight when writing this piece, I'm trying to think of what my dad looks like, but I forgot, completly. I don't hate him anymore, he has sunk into my past. And I don't care about him either, because I've never got any love or care from him.

That's the end of the story.
And that's why I never mentioned my dad.

Trash Can






Am I boring ? But I'm really interested in the design of trash cans . Every time I see a new style , I pull out my camera to take a picture in close-up. People in the street all stare at like I'm a freak, What the hell is she doing ? Well, I just think they're interesting, and I've been collecting the pictures of various trash cans. These pictures are what I've got so far. Apart from trash cans, I'm also working on telephone booths, public bathrooms, newspaper stands, interesting stores ... more pictures will come soon.

Snow

It snowed last night, heavy snow . Well, not really, but I think it was.

It doesn't snow too much in Hangzhou. Every time snow comes, I'm happy and excited. Unfortunately, most snow turns out to be rain in a short time. Some people might take snow for granted, even think it's annoying, but here snow is definitely precious. Never experienced really heavy snow as I've never been to north in cold winter, my concept of heavy snow is snow without rain.

Speaking of weather, Hangzhou has four distinct seasons. The coldest weather in winter is -4 C ( 25 F ), the hottest weather in summer is 40 C ( 104 F ). I like four seasons, they take me to different moods. Though I don't like some specific time of the year, I like seeing the changes of seasons -- I feel something fresh going on when one season moves to another season. My faviourte time of the year is the time between late spring and early summer : trees have turned green, the temperature is nice, and I see friendly sunshine everyday. Hangzhou rains too much in March and April. After passing the rainy season , everything turns out to be great. My least favorite season is winter, I don't like cold weather , when feeling cold, I don't want to go anywhere or do anything. Winter is usually along with winter vacation, it's my laziest time of the year -- I stay in the room mostly, plus, eat a lot of food. ( and put on weight )


I haven't lived in other places, and all my family never move out of Hangzhou either. We've gotten used to the weather here, but never experienced the extremely cold or the unbearably hot . I guess many people are like us. Though in modern times, it's easy and convenient to move from one place to another , but not everyone gets chances to do that, and not everyone is willing to take the risk of moving. For many people, they might be stuck in the same place or similiar environment for long long time, so they can't experience the weather conditions out there. Like many poor people living in Africa ( hot areas), they are struggling with getting enough food, it's impossible for them to travel to other countries, so they might have no idea how's winter like and how's snow like all their lives, it's too bad, I think. I want to experience different weather, whether they are nice or not.

And about clothes. I have four different sets of clothes for four seasons, and I like the variety of clothes. But for some people living in other places, they might not need certain clothes at all. Like for people living in hot places, they don't need to wear thick coats . Sometimes I wonder have they thought about putting many clothes on just for fun ? And for people living in cold areas, they wear lots of clothes in winter, are they getting tired of these clumsy stuff sometimes?

Oh, another good thing I like about Hangzhou's weather is there's few natural disaster here ( the only one I know is typhoon which is rare ) , many areas of China have disasters frequently: flood, earthquake, storm... These disasters are unexpected and devastating , not bad that I'm living in a safe place.

Go back to that snow. Though it still snowed , I can't trace too much of winter ; after all, spring is coming, I'm ready for spring.

Here are some random pictures I took yesterday : Pictures

Coming Soon...

Sorry I didn't mean to leave comeing soon here. I wrote half way , and I realized it was too late to finish the other half . I posted the unfinished part by accident ( which I don't want to ); once post it, I can't delete the entry unless I put something new in .

A little bit about today ( Just wrote this , it's not the post I was writing , or it would be too boring )

Finally, I went back to school today. My classmates were surprised to see me, they were worried about me -- rumor says, I was in hospitcal for a week because of gastritis . I had a great laugh hearing this, didn't know who said it first , but funny.

It's a busy day today, many classes. Still got up at 6:30 in the morning ( bad news that I have classes every morning, I can't stay up as late as I want anymore), when getting back home , it was 9:00 in the evening. So late ! There're many things I haven't done yet : writing a new entry, posting some new photos, writing back e-mails, watching some DVDs I just bought, cleaning my computer which will be running out of space soon, reading... lots of things, it's too bad I don't have much time to finish what I wanna do before going to bed ; it's frustrating that I can't keep up doing what I've been working on. The worst part is I was wasting time in my classroom during the day, I wish I could take a computer with me, then I could use time more efficiently.

Only 4 hours from getting up time, I need to get some sleep though I'm not willing to, I'll be back tomorrow !

School

Got up 6:30 in the morning , I was ready for school. Skipped the classes of the first week -- I traveled to Beijing, then slept in my room for days. At that time, I was not in the mood for school. But this morning, I felt different : I was willing to go back to the classroom.

But the classroom was empty, when I got to school, nobody was there. Strange, where are my classmates? I went to the office, a teacher told me this morning class has been canceled . Canceled? Nobody told me that ! Why canceled ?! I came here to attend classes, but now I'm being told the there's no class at all , I can't believe I got up so early in vain, I can't believe I wasted one hour on the bus. My mood for school was gone, again.

I don't like my school. First I don't like my major. I'm learning history, it's totally boring. Not that history itself is boring, I just don't like the way they teach, there's no ounce of creativity or fun in it. The teachers always stand in front of us, talking and talking ... ; The students all sit quietly, busy with taking notes blindly like machines. And there's another thing I don't like : in my major, we learn everything , I mean we learn the history of all countries and all time periods. ( a little bit of each). But I'm not interested in learning everything at all. Like I don't know why, but I don't like ancient Chinese history that much. It's too long and too complicated , I think I'm too impatient to dig into that area. I've already learned some major historical events, and I'm content with what I know, not interested in learning details.

Then the teachers : most of my professors are kinda old, I'm not saying they're old in ages, but their minds. I just feel there's a huge gap between them and me: the way they view the world is so different from mine, and I don't agree with them on many issues. History is a subjective course, I just can't listen to the class from someone whose viewpoints I don't like. Then classmates, there're twenty students in my class. I think they're all nice people, and I get along with them all right. But I feel sort of alienation from them : they're the experts of Chinese history, they listen to Chinese pop music , they watch some lousy movies , they study hard and extremely care about school , they're willing to take part in the activities of school ... but I... well, I'm just not interested in what they're doing.

I'm hopeless.
I've almost stopped learning anything from school since last year. I skip classes, lots of classes. When I'm in the classroom, I don't listen ...I'm reading my own books, sleeping , and listening to music. At the end of the semester, I copy the best student's notes, and cram for the exams. My scores are terrible, I'm at the bottom of the class. What if you fail ? Yeah, I've failed before, and I did it again. This moring, I checked the results of last semester's exams, I flunked one of them. I won't be thrown out of college for that, but I can't graduate unless I pass all the exams. So now what I need to do is to get in touch with that teacher, pay some fees to study that course again, then take another exam. Usually, teachers will let students pass in the second exam.

Some people ask me now that it's not what you want to learn most, why you chose this major. Well, actually it's not my choice at all. In China, the result of China's college entrance examination ( gao kao ) decides everything -- the school and the major. Sometimes it's a dilemma to choose a good school or a good major. I was in a pretty good school, but my scores were not high enough to allow me to choose the major , I was kinda forced to learn history, or I might go to another university.

I'm hopeless, not completely though .
The school is boring , but I enjoy the life outside school. I've got lots of time, free to do anything I want. I don't learn much from school, but I've learnt a lot by myself. I like learning, learning the stuff I'm really interested in. Sometimes I think the top students lives are monotonous and dull. Happy about my life -- life is comfortable : I don't have to work, I don't have any pressure, I feel like I'm on vacation, a long vacation.

Now I'm in the third year , 1.5 more years left. My classmates have already started to plan their future. Attending graduate school ( in China ) is the most popular choice for undergraduates, if the students decide to attend grad school, they have to prepare for it now, as there's a big test one year later. As for me, I don't want to waste more time here . I want to see the outside world , I want to experience something new and different. But it seems the only way to take me out is to attend some grad school outside China. Studying abroad is another popular choice for Chinese students, most people go out to look for a better education, with the hope of finding a better job and a better life. I don't care about all these, I just want to find a way to take me out for a year or two. When I see people from other countries come to China teaching English , I wish I could do that too : going to another county teaching Chinese. But unfortunately, it's impossible : learning Chinese is not as popular as learning English, and I don't think anyone would hire me . Plus, I couldn't go out of China to work in other countires so freely at all. So grad school seems my only choice.
Speaking of grad school , it's time to prepare too. Some of my classmates have already passed IELTS, TOEFL or GRE, and they've started looking for schools. I haven't taken any English exams( I hate learning English for a specific purpose. I figure someday I can pass these English exams without too much preparation ), and I've got no idea how to apply to schools. I'm not even sure where I want to go or what I want to learn. I kinda like make decisions at the last moment, so I'll wait and see what my final decisions are.


*Songs of the day
The All -- American Rejects - Swing Swing
The Kills -- Waite
Jets to Brail -- The Frequency
The Used -- Buried Myself Alive
( stole the last two songs from here )