Christmas Cake

In November, when everyone was still planning his or her Thanksgiving trip, I was already thinking about Christmas.  And for this holiday season, I have a craving for Christmas cake.

Christmas cake brings back the wonderful memories from childhood.  During the Christmas season, I would see some festive, pretty Christmas cakes whenever I walked by the bakeries.

However, since Christmas cakes are uncommon in the US, I can only find a substitute — a fancy, delicious cake.  I have always wanted to try the Mont Blanc, a dessert that is very popular in Japan.  However, finding the Mont Blanc here is too difficult, so I go with my second best option, which in my opinion is the dome from Cocola.

Before I went to Cocola, I had already done my homework and decided that I would also try the Napoleon or the opera besides the dome.  (Photos below from the official Cocola site.)

The Napoleon has always reminded me of a story.  A girl loves a pastry chef, and she makes him teach her how to make the Napoleon.  He hesitates because it is hard for the beginners.  However, it is exactly the reason why she picks the Napoleon; making the Napoleon is time-consuming, and she simply wants to spend more time with him.  And, it turns out that it is her birthday.

Once upon a time, we were young, simple and naive.  Now, because of the old past hurts, we are too afraid to make yet another mistake.  But someday, we may be able to let go of the emotional burden and love as if we have nothing to lose.

When I went to Cocola today, they had neither the Napoleon nor the opera.  Therefore, I just bought the dome.  (Pardon me for the bad cut.  The inside could have looked nicer.  But I had already run the knife under hot water and dried it before the cut.)

Life is full of imperfections.  Certain things may never change regardless of how hard we try.  Should I view it as “only having the dome” or “already having the dome?”  I am not entirely sure, but maybe it does not matter since the outcome is beyond my control.

However, when the banana chocolate mousse melted in my mouth, I was happy that at least I had made an effort to look for what I wanted.  No regrets.  And that, perhaps, was more important than the result.

Wear the Pants

I do not remember having had another winter that felt nearly as cold.

In the morning, sometimes I wonder whether I am dressing for work or for a trip to Lake Tahoe.  I wore two sweaters underneath a coat, as well as a scarf, on Thursday.  Once I got home, I had to take a steaming hot shower immediately.

Perhaps I should have worn the silk thermal underwear vest too.

During winter, there may be a few days in which the temperature in Hong Kong drops below 10C, or 50F.  The media will repeatedly announce 寒流襲港 (cold storms attacking Hong Kong), reminding everyone, especially the seniors, to stay warm.  I have often found this phrase interesting; being the soul of the term, the word 襲 (attacking) animates the whole situation and implies the critical importance of defense.

Wearing a skirt was part of my winter uniform in elementary school.  If the temperature was below a certain degree, however, the girls would be allowed to wear pants to school.  As an attentive parent, besides making sure that our uniforms were neatly ironed and our shoes were regularly polished, my mom would check the weather everyday to see whether it was cold enough to wear pants to school.

But I hated those pants days.  Almost every girl in the class would still be wearing a skirt while I felt embarrassingly uncomfortable with my pants.  Back then, I was unhappy about the cold storms not because I was caring and worried about the elderly and the homeless, but because I was (ludicrously, in retrospect) afraid of having to go to school in pants.

Now that I can wear skirts as often as I desire, I hardly ever do so.  These years, I have always been wearing the pants.  When I go shopping, I am still dazzled by the beautiful dresses and skirts in stores, imagining what perfect outfits they will form — for others, not for myself.  Seeing no good occasions for dresses or skirts, I lack the desire to purchase.  After all, one can comfortably and happily wearing the skirt only when there is someone else in her life wearing the pants.

Why I Shouldn’t Try to Get a PhD

A friend who is in a PhD program shares the following comics.

Mind you, I am not trying to be sarcastic (Haha!) — I can relate to her feelings and understand the pain points.  However, I believe for many people, the days are usually like this:

When you decide to pursue a PhD degree, you know that your life will be completely reversed.

一期一會 (Ichi-go Ichi-e)

一期一會 (ichi-go ichi-e), a Japanese term that originates from the way of tea.  It is translated as “one chance in a lifetime,” meaning people should treasure each encounter as it will never happen again.

After I have seen this term at two different occasions recently, I have been contemplating.  Actually, the underlying message behind ichi-go ichi-e is not novel; it is similar to the concept of living everyday as if it is your last day.  However, should we really live with this mentality?

If we treat every opportunity as once in a lifetime, we will treasure it too much.  Even during the process, even before it ends, we will already feel the fear and pain of losing it.  When we try too hard to grasp the happiness of the present moment, we are already becoming unhappy because of the certainty of its transience and its end.

Our stubbornness to treasure eventually makes there less to be treasured.

My Fortune Cookie in November

On Friday, I got a fortune cookie after lunch.  The message says,

You will make many changes before settling down happily.

There is a question that I have pondered over for quite a few times:

What determines whether someone will go through many changes before happily settling down — in terms of career, love, place of residence, etc.?

Is it personality?  However, to what extent can personality and character be attributed to factors that are controllable?

Some people claim that having changes is actually better because experiences let us realize our true desire.  However, I personally do not find the argument convincing.  There are times in which we just know.  For example, we do not have to have different parents to realize that our parents do dearly love us.

Are Intelligence and Happiness Correlated?

I thought of a random question today.

Is there any correlation between intelligence and happiness?

Psychologists must have conducted research in this area.  However, before I browsed online for others’ opinions, I first would like to hear my friends’ comments.

I had consulted two friends, and they both believed that there was no correlation.  One of them provided more details: intelligent individuals set higher expectations, and happiness is achieved when these expectations have been met.  Nonetheless, we can also argue that intelligence helps people set the right expectations.  Therefore, it may be difficult to find a true answer to this question.

While intelligence is not correlated to happiness, it, in my opinion, helps people approach and ultimately reach tranquility.  With wisdom, one can understand, accept and adapt to the ups and downs in life.  When the thoughts behind every gaze, the underlying meaning of every question, and the motive and consequence of every action are being seen through, the possibility of both pleasant and unpleasant surprises are minimized.

In high school, we had a journalism team that prepared the monthly newspaper.  In the last issue before the school year was over, each student in the graduating class was given a line on the newspaper to write something meaningful.  I can still recall what out-of-place message a weird classmate had written: Being Happy Is Different from Having Fun.  (Yes, in retrospect, I can understand why I could indeed appear strange to the other classmates.  Just like when we look at the old pictures, we can never understand how we managed to comfortably appear in public in certain outfit or hairstyle.)

Even today, I still believe that being happy is indeed different from having fun, but happiness no longer weighs so much more than fun in comparison.  In the ideal case, we all hope for the long- and deep-lasting.  However, what if it is out of reach for whatever reason?  Perhaps we should connect many, many short moments of fun together and make the colorful collage our armor.

A friend shared with me some miniature (about 1cm in diameter) candies that her friend brought from Italy.  I did not recognize them at first.  However, once I had one, I immediately remembered that I had eaten it before.  In fact, I liked it enough that I had tried looking for them, even though my attempt was futile.

Now these candies have become more special to me.  My affinity may be due to their actual flavors, the interesting recovery of the missing memory, or reminiscences of the happy, simple days associated with that period of memory.  I do not know, and why should it matter.  One who sees through everything well will lose the happiness of being touched and surprised.

And my friend gave me a lot more candies after knowing that I liked them.  Now you see why my armor can be so colorful and beautiful.

Pumpkin Soup: Losing Calories Before Gaining Calories

Since I have not bought pumpkins for a long time, I have almost forgotten how hard it is to cut open a pumpkin!  Cutting the pumpkin into big pieces is already a good 20-minute anaerobic exercise for me.

This Chinese-style pumpkin soup is made of pumpkin, pork bone and dry red dates (紅棗).   The recipe actually asks for honey dates (蜜棗), but I do not have honey dates at home so I have added dry dates instead.  I have also skipped the apricot kernel (南杏) and the Chinese almond (北杏), which I also do not have.  After 2-3 hours of boiling, a good portion of the pumpkin has turned into puree.

From the American perspective, pumpkin is rich in fiber and potassium, slows the process of aging, strengthens the immune system and improves the bone density.

From the Chinese perspective, pumpkin gets rid of the poison inside the body, improves metabolism, and prevents cancer as well as diabetes.

From the Chinese-American (i.e. my) perspective, this soup is much simpler than the other Chinese soup because it requires relatively few ingredients.  And at the same time, the American side of me can use it as a (far-fetched) way to celebrate the Halloween belatedly.

Time to Wake Up

I have never paid attention to news of Rihanna or Chris Brown, but I am moved by this article that addresses their case on domestic violence.

[D]on’t react off of love. Eff love. Come out of the situation, and look at it in the third person and for what it really is.

Smith says love is a huge factor in sending women back to their abusers. “They think, ‘I love him; we can work on it, and he’s not always abusive; there are really good things that drew me to this person in the first place.’” She adds, “These women also think they can work with their partners to end the abuse by fixing something that’s wrong in the relationship.” Trouble is, she explains, the only culprit is the one inflicting the violence, and the abuser rarely takes responsibility and gets professional help.

I appreciate the lessons highlighted by this article because they apply to not only domestic violence but also other types of abuses that can happen in a relationship.

Unrequited love has probably existed since the beginning of human.  Feelings are hard to control, and we may be blindly devoted to someone even when our love is not reciprocated.  Well, it happens.  But sometimes we just need to wake up.

心裡亦有淚 不願流淚望著你

We three girls sang this song together at a game.  We were given the name of a song that we would need to sing on the spot.  Once we saw this song, we were so excited and surprised because it was no challenge to us; we knew its melody and lyrics too well — it was our song.  If I remember correctly, it happened in an autumn, seven years ago.

Little did I know that I actually understood so little about this song seven years ago.  But now I have already learned so much from it that I hope I do not need to know further.

One of my favorite, favorite songs, Leslie’s 風繼續吹.

Drinking & I

While everyone is out partying in this Halloween weekend, I am quietly staying at home, blogging about my (short) journey with the alcohol.

Yesterday, I saw a t-shirt online with a witty message: Happily Ever After Is So Once Upon a Time.  Since I have never reached the stage of happily ever after, I have no idea whether it really is very once upon a time.  However, if one believes that everything sinfully glamorous is ephemeral and the days of drinking indeed belong to this category, then I can testify that yes it is true.  I have only had a brief encounter with alcohol, but drinking has already become so once upon a time for me.

I have never really enjoyed drinking and I have never bragged about my tolerance, but at least I recall the days in which I could handle a couple of shots.  But recently, I notice that even a small amount of alcohol, such as two sips of chardonnay, can nauseate me.  No not tipsy, not drunk, it is nauseating, making me feel very uncomfortable and want to take out the alcohol from my body immediately.

Well, even without drinking, I have not been as sober as I should have.  So I ought not to further impair my decision-making skills and judgment with alcohol.