The scent of your hair on my pillow...

On a dreamy Saturday morning, with hazy memory of the night before and a semi stranger in my bed, I felt at ease and at peace as I put everything else on hold. I knew how fcked up I'll be for my exams but I just didn't want to care. For the past few weeks, it's as though I reverted back to September 2008, when I coped with what life threw at me by partying it all out and forgetting all my troubles, forgetting why I left loved ones behind on a lonely adventure, and forgetting how she ripped my heart out. Except that I'm not 23 anymore.

All the moving, exams, interviews and stress from September to February have worn me out. I don't want to remember how lonely it was to have to deal with everything on my own, how ridiculously stressed I was that even making plans to catch up with friends was a stress factor I avoided. I rushed through everything so that I could give her my full attention when she came to see me, and rushed through everything before I hopped on that plane in December.

It has been almost five years since I lived with someone, and she could not have been more wrong for me, but somehow I put up with it for almost a year. I remember getting sucked in by her inertia, frustrated with boredom attributable to her unwillingness to do anything apart from sitting at home watching crappy TV shows, and her emotional immaturity that drove me insane. It suffocated me.

Fast forward four years, I rushed to the airport after work every few weeks, went straight to clubs with her in another country while smelling like the flight cabin and spent the whole weekend rolling around in bed until one of us complained of being hungry and we'd drag our lazy asses out of the flat for food, more partying and then back for more sleep until I had to get to the airport again. One Friday night, I was alone in a hotel room in the southern part of the country waiting for her, except that she missed her train, but she showed up in the morning bringing the best and funniest surprise that a lover could bring. But now, all this sounds very tiring, and I don't know how we did it.

The night before I left Hong Kong, we had dinner with my parents and she passed with flying colours. It was still dark in the morning as I got up the following day and got ready to leave for the airport. She stood up in my bed and whispered "hey, I'm gonna miss you". A month later, I went through all the emotions that come with break ups in the span of a week, put everything on hold and got on with life. Some people said that we didn't love each other enough to compromise on where we want to live. I never agreed with that. We're not that young anymore but I think we are too young to give up our personal goals just to be near each other.

The trip to Poland started out as a solitary exercise, but it turned amazing because of her. I barely knew her, and I still have trouble pronouncing her name, but she looked at me with such fascination that I was amused beyond words. She was kind, attentive and fun. When she walked me out of the hotel reception and stopped at a spot without surveillance camera, she kissed me and said she'd miss me. It was very sweet and I was very smitten, but I probably won't see her again.

It won't be long until my pillow case will smell like laundry powder, and who knows how long it'll stay that way. When some people walk into your life, you just know they won't be around forever, or even long enough to matter. But others, they stick around for longer than you ever anticipated in the first place.

"I have to block out thoughts of you, so I don't lose my head
They crawl in like a cockroach leaving babies in my bed
Dropping little reels of tape, to remind me that I'm alone
Playing movies in my head that make a porno feel like home..."

Memorial of a stranger

At 9:15am, 15 minutes earlier than the usual time the court opens, court no.1 in the High Court building was already packed. At the entrance of the court room, I could see nothing but the backs of a dozen of very tall non-Chinese lawyers in their barristers' gowns or suits.

There they were, paying tribute to Mr Justice Colin Mackintosh. He passed away earlier this month in the United Kingdom from brain cancer. He was 58 years old.

I could hardly make out the words that the speakers were saying. Some 20 minutes later, when the memorial sitting was over, judges left through their special exits while the rest of the crowd came out the public entrance.

I lingered around outside and saw a few tearful women whom I recognise as the court clerks.

Hours later, I got given a copy of a message that was read out loud by Mr Justice Peter Line during the memorial sitting. It was a note that Mr Mackintosh wrote last autumn.

"Thank you from deep in my heart for your contributions to my life, for making my life in Hong Kong the joy it has been. So if any of you have any tears, wipe them away....

I have made so many good and dear friends here in Hong Kong. Some of you in particular have been so special to me that I feel, as I write this note, that it will be a question of me losing you rather than you losing me...What can be a greater tribute than to know that I am a better person for having known each and everyone of you. Please do not weep at my passing: just be thankful for my life.

All I ask of you is that you do not forget me, at least, not so quickly. Remember me in your thoughts and prayers, tell stories about me sometimes and laugh about me; and I ask you to accept my thanks in good heart...

The miracle of life is a circle of birth and death: it always has been and always will be. What we have to do is make the most of the time we are given...

If I have offended any of you either in my judicial capacity or otherwise, then I ask forgiveness. I am not perfect: I know that best of all. Let me tell you though, that upon reaching the pearly gates, if I'm lucky enough to get there, I shall ask for a voire dire before any judgement is made on my life. I will maintain that I was never properly cautioned.

Please go from here in good heart and make the most of life. I do feel I have been snatched from it slightly early, well, earlier than I and my beloved wife Jani had planned. I feel that I had more to do, more to achieve in life; more to do as a judge, as a husband and father, and hopefully as a grandfather, but there we are. The Grim Reaper does not work to order.

I have known for many months that my condition would be a difficult one to bear; that the risks were substantial: a bit like, I can hear the wags say, a bit like the chances of an acquittal before Mackintosh in the District Court.
...

I love you.
Remember me.
Goodbye
Colin

----

R.I.P

two more weeks

In exactly two weeks' time, I will stop writing for the Post. It 's not so much time for an eulogy but more about uncertainties.
Back to London I go to pursue something that I started almost three years ago. However much I have gained and learnt during my stint as a journalist, the decision to stay in Hong Kong in the summer of 2009 still feels like the greatest mistake of my life that has set me back.
Whether it was really a mistake hinges on my next job offer, at least in a simplistic way.
The past year or so was full of confusion and indecisiveness. The decision that I finally settled with is probably the best, and definitely the hardest. I hope I am not too naive to think that it will pay off when it may not.

Hong Kong is fiercely commercial. Money buys you happiness, full stop. Girls learn to be gold diggers ; old people who can hardly stand up straight scavange cardboard scraps for a living; people of all ages line up for hours to trade iPhones and ipads for quick bucks ; and now the retail chain that trades secondhand luxury products racked up the biggest IPO in the city's history, or something insane along those lines. Worst yet, the biggest selling tabloid newspaper in the city now routinely churns out articles promoting the worst traits of typical young adults of the city - not just being superficial but believing that it's the only way to be.

It has been demotivating to be on a blue collar wage. In the absence of good healthcare, it's damn scary to think that if I may be in a situation where I just don't have the money and die from otherwise treatable illnesses. It makes me wonder if I have been so naive all my life to not aim to sell my soul and make lots of money.

But then today, I saw through a court case where a men who, possibly suffering from untreated schizophrenia, shook his father and accidentally killed him because the old man bumped his head on something. The man was the primary carer of the old man, and was happy to look after him. But the family refused to send the old man to a nursing home so that they would not lose their source of income : the father 's disability allowance. The two men and the old man's wife just lived together in a shoe box until the incident. This kind of things is worth fighting for, and this is where society has failed us.

It's a very sad case. I was just glad to be in the courtroom so that I could put things about life in perspective.

crisis

I have been free from dramas for so long. Today, a self-inflicted crisis hit hard.

Memory of an alcohol -fuelled night out is hazy. Patchy recollections of what exactly happened and the moments that I can recall are unpleasant.

It's one of those "I vowed I would never do it" incidents that shake the core of all beliefs and values. Something that has so far been so close to perfection, and an object of envy is now tainted.
What more am I capable of?

The body tells you one thing. Your mind tells you another. Words of resistence were reduced to nothing.

I don't even remember how I got here.

Then there was an apology, but I don't know what it was for, and I don't want to find out.

There was a crisis seven years ago. (God it has been that long.) It was someone's quest for truth that made me wish as I drove aimlessly that I would just end it all in a fatal car crash. It plunged me to such low and kept me there for so long.
Perhaps because of that incident that I now manage to be distracted, to act as though it's just another Sunday.

There were countless hours in despair, searching for answers, taking in those judgmental stares unaccompanied by words.

Then there was my own quest for truth that sent me off spiralling down, for years.

Last night was unexpected, unintended and smack of resistance that just didn't go far enough. My interrupted stream of consciousness still screamed out loud, but the voice just gave in in the weakened mind. Whatever justification that I can come up with will never be good enough.

Would lies become the truth for as long as they are not revealed as lies ?

Five weeks into the inquest over the manila bus tragedy, the end is fially near.
The initially pointless excercise that did nothing but to put survivors and families of the deceased through pain again saw its first ray of sunlight today. This came afterbnumerous articles on the lack of cooperation from the philippines' government, persistent press release by survivors and gunman's younger brother's wish to be heard.
The evidence heard today probably didn't add much to the picture, but at least the court and the department responsible will cope slightly less crap from the public.
From not being sure whether the paper would entrust me with this job, to taking the initiative by passing a note to the coroner asking for transcripts thereby hearing my own name in open court for the first time, to filipino journalists telling me that they follow my stories everyday and the vice consul singling me out to blame (all for the same reason that they can't read chinese), I feel like I have come a long way just in the span of weeks.

It's exciting to be given this responsibility, to have stories of decent length and occasionally some as a splash. But all the late nights and chaos in the day have taken a toll on me.

Meanwhile, there's the same old troubles of making life decisions, the same fear, the same umcertainties. The life I want isn't one here, but the shortcut that leads me somewhere stable is.

Then there's relationship. I'm finally approaching my first one year mark, and not fretting over it. At least there's some signs that I've grown out of my commitment phobia. Still, it only takes one decision, one flight, to change everything again.

Lesson from Cairo

The recent trip to egypt was inspiring, thrilling and invaluable to say the least. Seeing the ancient part of the country was something I've been wanting to do for years. The temples and the pyramids were breath taking. Our ancestors' intelligence and craftsmanship make me feel like selection of the fitness has failed us.
But the most inspiring part of the trip was the somewhat lucky and safe stumble into Cairo amidst the mass protest.
I think I almost missed the chance to do a journalistic piece of work- my first in such a situation. It made me love journalism more, and see what journalism outside of this city can offer.
My lovely arab-american friend/colleague whom I ran into at the airport warned me of the protests. And he was so encouraging about my piece.
I don't think I am experienced enough right now to know exactly what to find out from that kind of situation, but being there writing a more or less descriptive piece while reading and watching just about anything I could get my hands on did start to give me some ideas.
The one uncle who has been rather critical of me said that if this is what I want to do, look outside of hk. He is right, and I already know.
I don't think I can live a settled, braindrain corporate life here.