Wayne J Mak

So I was standing outside a restaurant today...

And this middle aged woman steps out while I'm reading the menu and asks me what I'd like to eat.  If I had thought any longer I would have realized that this was a desperate attempt get a customer.  There was loud construction going on outside and when I walked in, the whole place was empty.  I asked her for a menu, looking for an excuse to leave the restaurant... the problem was I was shaky on the Cantonese word for menu.  So it came out rather strange and she looked at me with this look of, "you're not from around here" and this glare of annoyance. A second later, what looks like the owner walks in and with broken english, proceeds to explain the culinary options.  Having invested so much time in even getting into the restaurant and considering the options and I was in the mood for Japanese, I decide, what the hell.  I'll try this place. As I sit down the middle aged woman who had convinced me to come into the restaurant walks to the back where the cooks are and begins to tell them all how bad my chinese is.  And she was not nice about it!  How I wasn't even able to say the word menu.  She continues on for around 5 minutes.  Now, I'm rather pissed.  I'm sitting in this empty restaurant, I'm their only customer because there's loud construction going on outside and now she's insulting me very blatantly, because she doesn't realize I actually comprehend a ton of Cantonese, I just can't speak it. So as I'm slowly steaming at my table near the window, I suddenly realize something from "Way of the Peaceful Warrior."  I hear myself repeating it.  "Let it go," it says.  So I say it again "let it go..."  Steadily, my frustration drains and my emotions empty and something beautiful happens, I realize that I have a choice.  I can either stay frustrated, eat my meal and grumble away.  Or I can make light of the situation.  And what ended up happening was beautiful in a way. Another worker at the restaurant, an older woman, maybe in her 60s walks by and look out the window at the construction workers making the loud sounds.  As she turns back, I tell her in my best Cantonese, "it's very loud," and "it's annoying."  She seemed rather shocked, quickly agreed and continued walking.  She walked up to the first woman, the middle aged one who had mocked me earlier and told her, he told me in Cantonese that it's very loud and it's annoying.  The first woman asks, "you mean he said it in english."  "No, he said it in Cantonese."  I'm enjoying this interesting exchange as they continue on. My food comes.  Again, in my very best Cantonese I say "thank you very much" with a bit of flare.  She seems to be catching on. Finally comes time for the bill, I ask politely if I should pay at the register or at the table and she brings the check.  As she drops off the check, I explain carefully that I'm learning Cantonese and I begin talking about my background.  Both women start asking me questions about my parents and where they are from and what I was doing here.  I speak slowly so that I'm able to use a variety of words.  Also, I notice that I've improved as the words flow more easily.  In the end, they warmed up, started related where they were from and invited me back. I realized in this exchange, something really beautiful happened.  I realized the emotion I was feeling, I defused it and saw that there were many choices I could make in how I would react.  I took the path I rarely took before and I believe I made those people in the restaurant dramatically change what they had initially thought of me.  I hope that in that exchange I made them less quick to judge someone who cannot speak their language perfectly.

Part III - Slow and steady

I've started watching films in Chinese and speaking more regularly in Cantonese and I feel like I am actually improving.  It's slow, and it's hard to see but I find myself trying to work through complex sentences instead of resorting to english. I've started conversations with sellers in the fruit and seafood markets, in mcdonalds, and at a fresh juice stand in Shau Kei Wan.  I suppose one of the advantages of where I live is that most of the people here don't understand more than 5 english words.  My comfort level is rising.  This also indicates to me that I should start heaping on more challenges, to continue learning.  Slow and steady, I'll get there.

Doing my best: Part II

Woke up early this morning, talked to the other we're working with, fixed a bunch of bugs and chatted with my sister.  Check out her blog: www.slashgossip.com Went out for lunch and just got back and feeling kind of crappy.  Slept an hour on my couch, watched movie trailers and I'm about to leave the house to meet with the tutor. Keep going... :D

Doing my best

So upon Hiren's suggestions, I've been working my way through some difficult cultural barriers here in Hong Kong with a kick-ass attitude :).  First off, my cantonese is terrible and I live in a neighborhood with no ex-pats or english speakers.   This makes even the mundane tasks like ordering from a restaurant extremely difficult.  I can't read the menu and the waitresses are impatient so I have to struggle through each word to get my thoughts across.  It's been a good exercise though, I feel that somehow this will all pay off in the future, yet to be seen though.  Good luck, bad luck who knows... right? Secondly, connecting with people has been harder than I thought.  People in Hong Kong are a bit flaky and at the same time less casual than Californians.  This makes interactions a bit strange for me, but I'm forcing myself to see through the temporary flakiness to find the commonalities and push for the meaningful interactions.  After all, the whole point of my travels is to discover the intricacies and simplicities of human nature.  I will find those eventually, so I keep reminding myself that it'll be hard at the beginning. Reading the "Way of the Peaceful Warrior" helped (as suggested by Hiren).  I'm constantly reminding myself to just do my best and that each thing I work on, accumulates and turns into positive change.  Lots of incremental steps without staggering leads eventually to effective change. Anyways, just wanted to put those thoughts down.   Nothing deep today.  Just bought a basket so that I can get fresh fruit every morning (more fruits and veggies in my diet will be good nutrition and energy for me), figuring out money conversion issues (just signed up for Fidelity mySmart cash with 1% conversion fee :), been trying to figuring out how to get more exercise... stuff like that. Oh, and I will be having my first tutoring session tomorrow!  Cantonese and mandarin!  I'm very excited to finally be learning Chinese.   I can't tell you how excited I am.  I know it'll be very useful in the future.

Had a conversation with my phone...

Which went like this: *Ring!* I hit the snooze button... The phone replies, "Snooze on" So I snooze on... ^_^

Listening to...

Random quote

"Life is like a jar of jalapenos... whatever you do today may burn your ass off tomorrow" Edit: Everyday, I make 2 or 3 steps and slowly I make my way to the goal :)

Listening to....

Tracking Treasure Down - Gabriel and Dresden Beautiful Things - Gabriel and Dresden

Balancing quiet and intense

I'm trying to put together an intense, yet quiet lifestyle.  Intense in a creative sense and quiet in that I still am able to appreciate the subtleties of everything around me and focus on my work. I've started reading Gandhi's autobiography which I bought while I was in Delhi last year.  It's interesting how I can see his young self in myself.  How he describes getting married at the age of 13 and anecdotes of his time in England. Reading and running and meditation have really calmed me down and allowed me to focus on my long coding sessions.  It's kind of one of those truths in contradictions, intense yet relaxed.  Reminds me of Lao zi, which seems a world away now. After watching Slumdog, I've been listening to the soundtrack, and I Will Follow You Into the Dark by Death Cab...

A lot of coding today...

:-/