literally, the fragrant port

HELP!

2009-02-09T10:12:00.001+08:00

how do i get rid of the blank space on the side?

under "layout" --> "elements" it says i can click and drag, but i can't.

what now?

thanks in advance!

it was mild enough to think while i was walking today

2009-02-09T09:23:00.008+08:00

I. this regimen makes sense, let's see if i can keep it
3 times a week: 1 cardio, 1 "beach muscles", 1 back/abs aka core.

II. on the fact and fiction of living at yale

"One of the earliest things I remember from freshman year is a classmate talking about how her family — a longish line of Bonesmen — liked to watch “The Skulls” for giggles. In one sense, this was intimidating: what had I gotten myself into? Moments like this proliferate in the canon of Ivy porn; humble students are forever meeting imposing WASPy families and wondering whether they themselves can possibly belong.

In a more important sense, though, it was sort of disarming: So we are all big dorks.

Our narcissistic fascination with pop portrayals of Yale betrays a deep vein of dorkiness. If we were cooler, smarter, more naturally elite, less striving, we wouldn’t care. But we do. Accuracy tickles our vanity; flaws give us the opportunity to nitpick and feel superior, which we also enjoy. Seeing Yale onscreen — however far removed from reality — reassures us."

the full article at http://yaledailynews.com/articles/view/27557 (emphasis mine)

the writer got it spot on. this is what it feels like to be a "Yale man" in the age of meritocracy and egalitarianism. you have the grand privilege of observing the blue-blooded elites up close - and maybe get to know one or two of them - but you sense the irony immediately. though you fit the label, you are not one of the ones. yet you're somehow grateful, because being separated by a glass wall is perhaps better than being behind a concrete one.

III. if it's not impermeable manners that distinguishes us, perhaps it's this

a friend visiting from penn this weekend commented,

"all four of you think very deeply. i guess i'm glad i didn't get into yale, because life at penn is so much simpler."

he meant two things. the first sentence is self-explanatory.

by the second, he meant that at yale, there are all these social booby traps to circumnavigate. there is a thin line between class and douchebaggery. people are sniping all the time. it's not enough to land a job at goldman - that just means you're a corporate tool. you must be able to land that job, wax lyrical about the intellectual roots of modern economic conservatism, talk about nietzsche and 3rd wave feminism in the same breath, speak chinese or arabic, and groove to T.I.'s "whatever you like" while flipping cups and playing beer pong, all at the same time.

IV. speaking of which

Anytime you want to pick up the telephone you
Know it ain't nothin' to drop a couple stacks on you
You want it you can get it my dear
5 million dollar home drop Bentleys I swear (yeah)

I want yo body, need yo body
Long as you got me you won't need nobody
You want it, I got it, go get it, l buy it
Tell them other broke nigga be quiet

You ain't neva eva gotta go in yo wallet
Long as I got rubberband banks in my pocket
5 6 rides wit rims and a body kit
You ain't gotta downgrade, you can get what I get

My chick can have what she want
And go in any store for any bag she want
And no she ain't neva had a man like that
To buy you anything your heart desire like that (yeah)"

RUBBERBAND BANKS IN MY POCKET! this dawg ain't just loaded, he's a poet!

V. from majority to minority

going from well-bred and well-schooled to "i'm from singapore" "singapore? how cool!" is possibly the biggest lesson i've learnt in four years.

it is a shell you learn to hide behind without even knowing it.

i wish there were some magical country where the blair waldorfs of this world could go to to learn what i've learnt. i believe in affirmative action, you know.

yes we can!

2008-11-10T16:27:00.003+08:00

the most important win this week for me was this one.

victory is always sweet when the odds are stacked against you.

football is a funny game.

football is life

2008-10-02T23:10:00.005+08:00

there was once a boy who grew up in bolton, a little red dot on the map of england that was slight, but remarkable - it was the home of reebok. as in the guys who make reebok sneakers.

like many other boys, he liked football. he played it a lot. in fact, he liked it so much and played it so much that he got rather good at it. it was a combination of talent and hard work, as his coaches would say.

spotted by his local club's talent scout, our friend signed a professional contract, albeit a somewhat peculiar one. he was to fly to argentina to train at a school that maradona had set up (imagine maradona had aged gracefully, without the booze and drugs - this is just a story after all), after which he would return to play for bolton wanderers for a couple of years. a pretty neat deal for all involved, wouldn't you say? training with the hand of God himself, and a guaranteed spot on a professional club's roster. which self-respecting english lad wouldn't want that?

so far so good.

in the summer before he was supposed to return to bolton and play for the wanderers, our boy went on loan to arsenal. just for the summer. bolton thought he'd be able to learn a thing or two from playing with the gunners.

and learn he did. he learnt to play fluid, attacking football. he did little tricks and flicks. he even fancied a shot at goal once in a while. he had the time of his life. the skills he had cultivated over the years were finally put to good use. not that there isn't aesthetic beauty in sheer technique, but football is a sport after all - skill is nothing without results.

the summer at arsenal was fruitful in more ways than one. for our dear boy (almost grown up now) not only had a ball of a time, it turns out arsenal liked him so much they offered him a contract. now, given a choice between arsenal and bolton wanderers, it is clear which team any self-respecting english lad who happens to be a professional footballer would choose. no surprises with billy bolton-turned-balla: he wanted to sign the contract real bad.

there was, of course, a problem. the contract with bolton, the club who had spotted and signed him way before arsenal was even a distant dream. billy knew that he had to go on home and play for his hometown team. the glamour of reebok had not changed how bolton saw the world. he would be labeled traitor by his half-drunk moustachioed uncles and vilified in the local press if he so much as mentioned the possibility of moving to london to play for arsenal.

and so, head on home he did. it wasn't going to be so bad after all. he had followed the wanderers with all the keenness of a local lad, even when he had gone off to argentina. he never, no God forbid, considered himself an argentinian, or even a londoner for that matter. it would be an honor to pull on his own white jersey and blue shorts, he told himself.

"i don't really know what kind of football they play in argentina. it most certainly ain't the football you're gonna play as a bolton wanderer. just cos we thought you were one of the best bolton had, isn't gonna guarantee you a spot on the team.. not until you show that you can scare your opponents just by looking at them. not until you appreciate how hard it is to lump a perfect long ball down the field. not until you run like a terrier on ecstasy when you're playing defense, which is almost all the time, by the way. get it in your head: play like us, or you'll sit on the bench. i don't care how good you are, i just want you to do your part and keep quiet when spoken to."

it was a rather harrowing dressing down that billy boy got on his first day at training.

so with tears rolling down his reebok kit, he bit his lip and handed in a transfer request the very next day.

and who would have blamed him? arsenal were going to pay him twice as much, and the manager there seemed to like him. he had no doubt which team had more fun on the pitch.

football is life, and life is a beautiful game, if only you know how to side-step the old-fashioned tackles.

one lesson i've learnt

2008-09-17T09:27:00.001+08:00

if there's one thing i will keep with me for life after my first 3 months at work, it is this:

keeping your people happy is as important, if not more, than making money. (money being a metaphor for whatever your organisation's goal is.)

teach them, empower them, challenge them, and most of all, don't impose non-sensical rules.

and i guess first of all, hire people who want to be challenged, empowered and taught. these are the people you can get the most out of, because they want the most out of themselves.

never hire a monkey who will follow your non-sensical rules. if he accepts non-sense from you, he will accept non-sense from himself.

this is all. you heard it here first.

on flying

2008-08-09T14:38:00.003+08:00

i'll say it straight up: i like flying. not flying places, just flying.

from the childhood excitment and bewilderment, to the bravado of my biannual 24-hour jaunts, and now the short hops i take to make a living, i've always liked being crammed up in a seat next to strangers with no scenery outside save clouds and sky and nothing to do but read or watch tv.

childhood excitment, yeah everyone's been there and done that. but packaged food in too dainty portions can be pretty dreadful. as is of course, the annoying hour-long trip to even get to the airport, the interminable and inexplicable waits in line, and the rigor mortis that sets in almost immediately in cattle class.

but here's the thing, i like flying because flying clears my mind. on that hour-long taxi ride, i don't think about where i'm going - and what i'm leaving behind begins to fade. my luggage is in the trunk, but i left a whole lot else back home: my files, my engagements, the book i'm sort of reading but know i won't get to over the next couple of days.

i used to say, "airports and hospitals are the two most emotional places on earth". well, look closely enough and you'll see them. the people who walk briskly through the airport like it's a train station. no baggage checked, no free internet browsing, no mistakes at the "you can't bring water or cosmetics past this point" point. there are four uniformed staff who matter, the person who gives you your boarding pass, the person who stamps your passport, the person who scans your stuff with an x-ray, (and to bring it full circle,) the person who tears your boarding pass and returns you the stub. the rest are fake roadblocks. smile at them and say hello, they'll probably smile back.

people take the eurorail to see the continent roll past them. i take planes to see nothingness for as long as it lasts. you tried to call me? i don't think i got the call, i was on the plane. i'll send you the attachment in a couple of hours. oh i'll be on the plane, can i just look at it tomorrow? being "on the plane" is my antidote to connectivity. "on the plane", i can pray, or sleep, or read, or think. i can do those in any and no order, and you would be none the wiser.

you could say that the plane is just an accessory, and what i really crave is time alone. but sitting in a hot-tub or a well-appointed study is just not the same. the rituals of flying are cathartic in and of themselves. furthermore, time alone with the door shut and no one knocking, is a luxury for the important and self-important. the rest of us have to make do, and flying is our only excuse.

these days, i sleep on planes so often that i don't even open my eyes when the plane lands. i get woken up, sure, but i know we're going to taxi around a bit before the lights come on and the show starts again. so i hit the mental snooze button, and let my thoughts stir themselves back to life. i prepare to hit the ground running (which i now surmise must be an aeronautical metaphor), and make sure to grab the disembarkation form that i stuffed in the seat pocket in front of me - i'll fill it up while i'm standing in line at customs.

i like flying because it clears my mind. yes, that is several hundred dollars' worth of mind-clearing every week. but as long as i'm not paying, i don't begrudge the pilot his livelihood, and i'm sure he doesn't begrudge me mine either.

desert island cds, or the torrent equivalent

2008-07-11T20:41:00.004+08:00

as some of you may know, my laptop died a couple of months ago. it has since revived after consultation with numerous technological physicians.

what do you do when your computer comes back to life with nothing in its memory?

you build an itunes library, of course! (not before installing open office and skype, though).

for those of you who, like me a couple of years back, did not buy music because it can be downloaded for free, but did not download too much because it was hard to find what i wanted, your days of stagnant itunes libraries are over. check out azureus. it is the best thing since sliced bread and ipods.

i'm blogging now because i did a very rare thing about ten minutes ago. i started downloading elvis, frank sinatra and ella fitagerald. never would my alt-rock teen self have imagined i would ever attempt to acquire such music.

i've been d/l-ing like crazy the past couple of weeks, but sometimes, in the midst of all that partyzone music, one feels the urge to tell the speakers that they should be seen and not heard. and sometimes, you just want to slow dance in a burning room and revisit the memories of all those times.

so i've sold out, it seems. but you know, as bon jovi once sang, like frankie said,

i did it my way.
---
list of stuff i downloaded upon discovering azureus, in rough order. (this is the desert island part of the post)
1. all that oh-so-hot-right-now party music (lil wayne, timbaland, t-pain, akon, flo-rida, sean paul etc.)
2. the good stuff that never dies (radiohead, john mayer, muse)
3. disco rock (panic, franz, arctic monkeys, killers, fall out boy)
4. black music classics (kanye, fiddy cent)
4. my teenage rock heroes (foo fighters, rhcp, green day)
5. the height of brit rock (oasis, blur)
6. the classics (beatles, beach boys)
7. the singers who were known for their voices (what i talked about just now)
8. power pop hell yeah (weezer, fountains of wayne and, yes i dare admit it , 'nsync)

bands that should figure, but as this "revive your music collection" real time experiment has shown me, i don't really care for that much
1. coldplay
2. U2
take your stadium rock home with you. oh, i apologize, you guys actually do stuff outside of music that i think is cool - bono with angelina jolie, and chris martin with oxfam. or maybe that is exactly why the music isn't all to stellar.

stuff i will get in days to come:
1. all that jazz, the stuff a noob like me knows and likes (miles davis, john coltrane)
2. campy electronic music (danity kane, kylie minogue, pet shop boys and hottest group from sweden that is not abba, ace of base)
3. random one hit wonders that surface from my sub-conscious every once in a while (the middle, come on eileen, born slippy, two princes.. this is going to be hard to nail, but i'll get there)

first day at work

2008-06-23T21:15:00.002+08:00

pretty much what you would expect from a first day...

a few awkward silent moments in the morning with the rest of the interns, but we're starting to get to know each other..

we went thru all the administrative stuff, how to claim money, how to log time sheets, how to use the fax machine, and of course, most importantly for consultants, how to use powerpoint. watch out dudes, i'm gonna pwn you at powerpoint by the end of the summer.

cool fact of the day: if you get posted on an overseas case (as it looks like i will be), you can charge all your meals to the company and you get either 2 nights at a hotel or a round trip ticket free every weekend. the round trip can be for a trip back to spend the weekend at your sweeet apartment in hong kong, or to go anywhere you want (you pay the difference, i think).

all in all, a good first day.

i think i'll go reply some emails now and read up on the company i'm supposed to work on come wednesday. (i'm totally serious. i'm actually buying into this corporate thing!)

i'm ba-ack!

2008-06-21T21:47:00.002+08:00

since blogspot didn't remove my blog despite one year of inactivity, i have decided to see if i can resuscitate it.

one year later, very different circumstances.

adventures from hong kong, part deux. stay tuned!

week 8, sunday

2007-08-01T15:38:00.000+08:00

this post is dedicated to the guy who said that siew mai doesn't have prawn.

(i know the pic is blurry, but that's the best i can do these days. my camera is spoilt and i have to rely on my phone.)

fresh succulent prawn in siew mai and many other dim sum treats, courtesy of the laurel restaurant on the 5th floor of luo hu commercial city in shenzhen. at very affordable prices too! no wonder we had to stand in line for half an hour.

travel china: "it's just as good, but cheaper." isn't that a great tourist promotion slogan?

i agree that it's unfair for the commies in bj to distort forex markets by depressing the yuan, but as long as i can go to shenzhen-or-any-other-chinese-city and get made-in-china stuff for a fraction-of-what-i-should-be-paying, then devaluation can't be that bad a thing, can it?

week 7 tuesday + saturday

2007-07-22T03:07:00.000+08:00

last sunday, i ran down nathan road, thinking it'd be a great way to keep healthy plus it'd be a cool thing to do.

quintessential hong kong street, complete with neon signs and crazy traffic (it's not my photo - i found it on flickr.)

by the end of the run, i had inhaled a lot of carbon monoxide, dodged past a couple of buses, and tailed old grannies who wouldn't let me pass. i also had air-con water drip on my head a couple of times, signalling bad fortune for 444 years to come.

all in all, not very healthy, but i still think it was a cool thing to do.

since i was at tsim sha tsui and it was around 8 o'clock, i decided that i might as well catch the "light show", a daily spectacle which involves the skyscrapers along the island wharf performing a little song and dance to the oohs and aahs of tourists and bored locals.

it turned out to be the beginning of my week-long fascination with the bank of china tower.

i made that a link so you would click on it and find out more. please click it.

here's a video of the show. it is immediately apparent which one is the bank of china tower. it's the only building that's actually singing and dancing.

on tuesday, elgin, visiting for a couple of days cos he had to re-activate his china visa or something like that, asked to see the light show. so i accompanied him. i decided to take a picture of bank of china, just because.

artsy?

and then on saturday, lin woke me up from a nap and said he wanted to go to the peak. i've been wanting to go too, so we went. here's the view from the top.

bank of china on the right

so yeah, this is a tribute to my favorite building in hong kong. yay for bold, inspiring architecture. boo for bland indistinguishable skyscaper after skyscraper after skyscraper.

week 6, wednesday

2007-07-12T16:36:00.000+08:00

a string of unanswered text messages

"were outride near the fan" (1.09am)

"hurry by escalator" (1.11am)

"where the **ck are you" (1.13am)

and 2 missed calls later,

i am greeted with a pained icy blast: "you left me again."

it dawns on me that it is time to shift into profusely apologetic mode.

brothas gotta look out for sistas and it seems like mission failed, as she recounts the events of the past half hour. (i hate the word but here it is) - sketchy - guy tries to get inside her pants, and compadre for the night is nowhere to be found.

oh well. its all good now. she's a big girl. she took care of herself. but i guess its distressing anyhow, even after you've said no and extricated yourself.

it gets ugly out there. and i think i've barely scratched the surface.

---
on another note, it was an exclusive members' only establishment. that was probably the saving grace for the night.

that is not me in the pic.

week 5, saturday

2007-07-08T22:54:00.000+08:00

here is my 3-point strategy for surviving against the odds.

1. don't get carried away with your emotions. it is all about conditional probability, not luck.

2. quit while you're ahead. capture the peak of the sine curve.

3. never set a target for your earnings, because in trying to reach it, you end up losing the eggs that were already in your basket.

try guessing where i went this past weekend. (hint: portugese egg tarts)

week 4, wednesday

2007-07-04T02:24:00.000+08:00

thanks to this:

and this:

somebody you know is HK$88 richer. that is a very lucky number in chinese culture, by the way.

it's about S$17 and US$11, just in case you need to know.

i didn't even know that going to the races was a huge part of hong kong culture, until later that night when a friend chided me, " have you never watched hong kong dramas?"

to which i can only say, "no, i've never actually watched tv seriously. and not chinese tv, that's for sure."

also, last but not least, i have to state here, categorically and unequivocally, that horses run a whole lot faster than humans.

that's why they are fun to watch. and that's why horses don't pay horse money to watch michael johnson.

sorry for the anthro-centrism. this is hong kong, capital of chinese materialism, after all.

week 4, tuesday

2007-06-28T00:16:00.000+08:00

indomie with char siew

that, my friends, is ramen with roast barbecued pork.

and what's significant about this humble dinner dish, is that i cooked it all by myself.

i know, some of you are snickering: what? it took him all of almost 23 years to cook an entire meal for himself? and where are the veggies? how is that a whole meal? what a spoilt brat... born with a silver spoon in his mouth. home economically retarded...

but before you start dripping all that scorn, think about it this way: if your friend's toddler only started walking at the age of 5, would you laugh at him? would you ask your friend why it took his little baby so long to start walking? would you say, "haha, what a loser. psycho-motorly retarded...".

so, just as you rejoice with the late developing toddler, please rejoice with me as i lick my chops at some fantastic, tastilicious noodle and pork. i swear i enjoyed every second of it, from buying the char siew at the grocery, to scraping the wok clean with detergent. cheers.

pause

2007-06-22T22:29:00.000+08:00

hey, does anyone know why blogger changes the character spacing after i use the horizontal line?

help would be much appreciated! =)

week 3, friday

2007-06-22T22:06:00.000+08:00

it turns out that i'm not the only one bored at work.

some of the other kids have discovered a wonderful way to waste time at the office.

they post these haikus
on each other's facebook walls
which are pretty good.

here are some samples (there are no copyright laws in china):

thank God its friday.
tonight we should certainly
go out, like hardcore.

i was napping here
someone came in and saw me
and she was unpleased :(

we rocked ladies night,
and now im falling over.
one large coffee please.

procrastination.
why am i so good at it?
where's my IV drip.

(that made no sense to me either, but it prompted this reply:)

congratulations.
five syllable words make hai-
-kus easy to write.

(which in turn resulted in this:)

Hahahahaha!
I can't believe that you split
one word into two.

if you liked reading
the haikus that i've pasted
try it! like right now.

oh, the things we do with all these extra brain cells and minutes.

week 3, tuesday

2007-06-21T20:59:00.000+08:00

our first public holiday since we got here.

it's the day of the dumpling. as you may know, it is also the day of the dragonboat, in honor of a dude who drowned.

when it's time to play, it's time to hobnob. this time, we are on a yacht. yeah, no dragonboats for us - yalies always do it with style.

(said yacht belongs to yet another hongkong tycoon with links to singapore - their family owns wing tai, if you're interested.)

i could rub it in and tell you how cool it was, but let's let the pictures do the talking. they haven't been having much airtime recently.

no, that's not our yacht. i'm standing on our yacht, remember? but it's similar. just so you get the picture.

people getting fruit on the deck

the cabin looks like a hotel room

there's a downstairs too (that's a staircase)! with bedrooms and stuff

chilling on the roof

and some

drinking into the sunset

to the very last drop.

so even though work isn't going so well (i'm pretty bored), i should try to look on the bright side. it's not that hard.

week 2 - after the hiatus

2007-06-19T12:10:00.000+08:00

aight aight. y'all listen up good now, y'hear?

so the internet is back up and running and i'm dutifully recounting last week's highlights.

1. coffee with kor (adrian, the older brother, class of '04, the evil crimson empire)

mr moneybags rolled into town for some i-banking training. we had a nice chat looking out onto the paved hilly streets of afore-mentioned lan kwai fong.

"i've come to realize that many people leave home for the sake of career - more than i would have imagined."
"well, that's the world we live in today, isn't it? ... if you stay in singapore, you will always just be a singapore banker."

yes, the world we live in today shapes our encounters. it takes hong kong to bring us together for coffee from seattle.

2. the cavern

this club has the most awesome band ever. five africans playing hip-hop and reggae, and getting it down pat.

hey ya, where is the love, and even push it push it some more - that inner circle song circa 1993 - made the playlist.

"you got the moves."

3. random unopened place in tsim sha tsui

now, this is a story. we were walking around tsim sha tsui, looking in vain for some place to chill. it's kinda unwieldy travelling in groups of ten.

we pass this place playing english music! and hip-hop at that. but it says "members only".

but alvin is alvin, and he thinks he's an exception. he thinks there's no harm just asking. he thinks, what can they do to me?

so he pokes his head in, and guess what, his colleague from gold coast hotel is in there. (he fails to recognize her at first).

turns out, she knows the owner of this place, that is slated to open at the end of the month. for now, it hasn't got a license to operate yet, so the "members only" sign is there to qualify the goings-on as a private function - hence no need for a license yet. ah, legal loopholes.

so we get a group discount. holla!

4. high tea at the peninsula hotel

time to get all dainty.

5. baptismal service at the beach

some really inspiring testimonies. truly God works in ways we can never ever imagine.

week 2, thursday

2007-06-14T22:15:00.001+08:00

ok apparently someone reads this before he goes to bed. so i feel obliged to explain my absence.

we moved dorms last saturday and had to wait a while for internet to get set up. not surprisingly, i made a mistake filling out the application form - i am after all not the most technically literate person i know.

so now, i'll have to wait a couple of days, maybe more (because things don't just happen and because it's always better to set your expectations low), to get this all sorted out.

and in case you think it's lame that i can't blog unless i have internet in my room at night, think of it this way: if i get fired for blogging at work, my training visa will be revoked, and you might as well delete this site from your bookmarks.

-this post is presented to you courtesy of my roommate's correctly specified internet port.

week 1, thursday

2007-06-08T00:06:00.000+08:00

"when westerners socialize, they drink; in place of that hongkongers eat."
- my copy of lonely planet, on the chasm that separates oriental from occidental.

so we headed to a british bar in lan kwai fong after work today for yet another yale party. (turns out there were a couple of wellesley girls too, an even one from SMU.) you know, the usual, grab a drink, talk to whoever you see, find someone interesting, talk a bit more, get bored, scan the crowd, excuse yourself etc.

years ago, i feared the nightlife.

but that's the problem. it's such a broad brush. what's the difference between a swing party and a cocktail mixer? does beer contain grain alcohol? is it true that some drugs are not addictive? does it matter?

it's easy to run away. but the folks at lonely planet know something or two about anthropology.

after all, people are people people.

week 1, wednesday

2007-06-06T22:08:00.000+08:00

i committed my first faux pas today.

while chatting with the marketing director for sino's group of hotels, i said: "well, i haven't had much chance to explore the city.. you know, i'm kinda stuck here on the gold coast .. cos i work in this hotel, and i leave in the service apartments right next to it..."

and he said, "oh no. please don't say 'stuck' ..."

you see, the gold coast did not exist before sino came in, dug up some rocks and created a beach in 1993. and since then, they have, of course, been marketing it like crazy.

so i guess i need to show a bit more loyalty and pride in the company that is generously hiring me this summer.

---

for lunch, i did what i came to do. (i was not lying when i said i came here to eat dim sum.)

so, after 3 days, i've finally sat down to yum cha in a noisy, grimy hong kong restaurant.

needless to say, it was good. all that sodium and sugar and what not had better taste good.

week 1, sunday to tuesday

2007-06-05T23:39:00.000+08:00

it occurred to me that if i were to ever do justice to the noble profession of blogging, this summer would be the best time. two months of new experiences, only one roommate to bother me at night, and no homework. perfect for end-of-the-day introspection.

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sunday:

relieved that getting to the apartment didn't take as much effort as i expected (travelling, i have learnt, is all about bursts of concentration and lucidity at the right place and time), i start unpacking.

my nervousness about the other yalies is put to rest as i run into various people just before dinner, and the conversation over dinner just flows. it is amazing how much we have in common just by living in the same little connecticut-ean city.

we happen to be living in these smallish and pretty average apartments (by my standards at least - apparently these are top-drawer stuff in hong kong?). but the view is fantastic.

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monday-tuesday:

to continue where i left off, we are staying here due to the generosity of nikki and jeanne ng, two singaporeans working in hong kong. they are a scaled-down version of the hiltons: they are hotel heiresses. they both went to yale, and the internship is their version of community service. they serve the yale community by offering us excuses to live in hong kong. since we had nowhere to stay for the first week, they offered us these apartments by the marina.

there is a point to all this.

the point is, i am getting treated really well here. i got posted to the gold coast hotel (the rest are in other departments like leasing, sales, property management etc.), which is right next to our apartments, and everyone here - even the bellboy i spoke to - knows that i am the "yale intern". everyone i meet goes out of their way to make sure i'm taken care of, probably in fear that i will report them to the ngs if something goes wrong. of course, the irony is that i don't know the ngs personally, or at all. still, it is pretty cool getting to meet all the hotshots and collecting their namecards.

the greater irony is that even though we are all walking around as sons of privilege, we are getting paid peanuts. ok, it's not peanuts, but rent accounts for 70% or more of our allowance. there is a difference between privilege and purchasing power.

which brings me to my next point.

the purchasing power of the hotel guests obviously far outstrips most of the hotel staff. the hotel is a physical symbol of the divide between haves and have-nots. there is the guest area (the places you normally see) and the staff area. the staff area is a maze-like complex where an army of laborers toils to ensure that every part of the hotel is just so. staff must enter the hotel by the staff entrance, use the staff elevators, eat in the staff canteen, and must never, never use the hotel facilities. it is going to take me a while to get used to being surrounded by luxury but not partaking of it. (i guess it's like working for a bank and not syphoning some excess funds into your personal account).