On The Move…

Taken 9 Nov 2008

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I should probably also mention I’m back from Shanghai, having wrapped up last week on my nearly three month project there (which felt more like six).  The clients seem happy, they bought several more months of work.  I’m planning on a nice restful period of recreation and recovery.

Do you remember how much easier and more resiliently promising everything seemed to be once upon a time, years ago?  Sometimes it feels like you take a whole bunch of steps forwards, towards some vision of what an “adult life” might look like, with the requisite loosely-framed beliefs and inevitable responsibilities, hazy plans and daily effort, small triumphs and minor compromises.  I filed taxes in Singapore for the first time yesterday (thank God for the ultra-user-friendly e-filing).  Last week a group of us discussed the dynamics of arranged marriages in Indian culture and its more universal applicability. 

Then other times I feel almost perverse in my instinct to push away as alienated the norms of normalcy, growingly aware of the mismatch between the state of my mind and state of affairs, either imagined or otherwise.  Yet I occassionally experience in powerful flashes the strong suspicion that this isn’t it, can’t be it… hopefully.

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I’m still in Delhi, give or take a couple 6 hour flights back and forth.  I’ve actually fared very well with the pseudo four-day-workweeks, between fly-backs and a birthday holiday for Lord Rama.  We’ve switched accomodations, to someplace lots nicer, and with copious amounts of quite thoughtfully curated art everywhere–no insipid watercolors–in the public spaces.  I appreciate.

Came across an article about Adorno…  and now I really want to read me some Adorno.  It’s fun to recall the mind-boggling fun we had those days, trying to speed-read through the excerpted convolutions of Horkheimer, Heidegger and Weber in translation.  The titles of those books and articles alone signalled the mental gymnastics to come - Wit and Its Relation to the Unconscious, anyone?  Good times.

Today I told a funny story about an economics professor XW took a class with…  and then it occurred to me later that the professor in question had a Nobel prize, and several bestselling books, and worldwide name-recognition.  And there wasn’t anyone around to share in my contentment with this memory.  A small pity.

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Puff puff is now big enough to wear his diaper   Yay!!

The picture above of Puff-puff running after Jenevieve was taken the morning of CNY, just after the obligatory family portrait.  It’s nice to get to experience the occassion again after four years of missing it while away at college.

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I’ve started reading again, which is heartening.  In the space of two weeks I finally finished Freud’s Wit and its Relation to the Unconscious (an assigned book I never read while in college), then raced through Shopaholic and Baby, Freakonomics and The Tipping Point.  Those last two books have left me a little wistful about academia…  but that’s a topic for some other day, or year.

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Oh, and that’s twenty-six, today.  Hard to recall, or imagine, or grasp properly.

So… I’m currently in a Hanoi hotel, gaping in disbelief at the TV, which I’ve turned on for the first time in three days in the hopes of finding FTV.  Instead, I’ve chanced upon a National Geographic documentary called “Wild S-x” that made me gasp.  Really, my inner prude is thoroughly shocked!  They’ve covered, and very explicitly descibed (along with suggestive background music) the notable practices of about three dozen species, including Bonobo monkeys, snails and sea hares.  The wry narrator has used lines  like “writhing”, “giving new meaning to the phrase ’swinging in the trees’” and “shocking climax”.  Ugh. 

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Yes, so I’m in Vietnam and excitingly it’s my first visit here.  The catch is that I’m working on a case, so I’ve been running about non-stop doing interviews and checking-out price lists.  I’m not complaining though, although everything seems like a health hazard: the second-hand smoke, the hectic motorcycle traffic, the industry I’m investigating…

I want to go see the water-puppet show!  Apparently it’s a must-see, surprising and intriuging.  Maybe tomorrow, after we done the last of our planned interviews and site-visits.

Whew, I need to get some sleep.

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I finished Freud’s Wit and its Relation to the Unconscious as well as Sophie Kinsella’s Shopaholic and Baby this past week, and I’m fairly proud of myself of actually getting some reading in.  Now all I need to do is squeeze in a few more cultural activities and I’ll be a semblance of my old self   Although honestly who knows what I was thinking when I imagined that I might get to attend the opera or ballet at the Opera (directly opposite the hotel, I can see it from my window)??  Already I’m grateful that we even got to drive past Ho Chi Minh’s masoleum earlier while hurrying from one late-evening interview to another.

The pre-war architecture is beautiful, and I’m finding the city quite romantic and very picturesque, perhaps aided by the unsually chilly weather (I should have brought fluffier winter-wear!), and my admittedly selective vision and strong imagination.  I keep viewing everything through the hazy lens of a cinematographer dreaming about Indochine.  All of which I can easily see as perverse and astheticism of the worst sort (“ah, what charmingly decrepit alleys and crumbling French Colonial villas!”).

I’m thinking I must pick up a few glazed dishes and maybe a silk lantern or two while I’m here.

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The food here’s been pretty good.  I’ve only had the pho at the Hilton Opera Hanoi and I like it.  For restaurants I recommend Wild Lotus, Opera Club, Vine and Wild Rice (whose decor I’m in love with).  For bars and clubs I like Ibox (sp?), and Chic Mambo (more a cafe), as well as Funky Monkey.   For hotels definitely stay at the Sofitel Metropole Hanoi (the historic Opera wing is fantastic).

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I wanted to talk about nostalgia, and how nice its been to chat with people from college (K, S, R, and E), as well as visits by Kevin and Eric etc. etc.  Maybe next time.

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I have one fluffy now.  I call it “Puff Puff”…  perhaps I’ll say its name is “Puffin”, as inspired by Louis.  Puff-puff!!  I miss my fluffy pet.

It’s been a pretty eventful couple of weeks.

Starting from a month ago, which was my first free weekend in six weeks.  Too bad no one seemed to be free to do anything…  everyone either had prior plans, or work, or whatever, so I went to see Enchanted with my sister.  (Fun movie, go see it if you still can.)

Then everything becomes a bit of a blur, there was a memorable weekend trip to Hong Kong with colleagues, and a series of parties and fun nights out… but the important thing is I now have fluffies again!  Two lovely little white silkie chicks, hatched from the eggs I carried back from the US.  Regardless of the wild rumours that I’ve been hearing, I did not incubate these eggs with my body heat by having them strapped to me for three weeks (??), but instead used a very efficient Brinsea incubator with auto-turner.  Right now, the still-unnamed little puff balls are asleep (it’s about 2pm); they’ve developed a strange, house-pet sleep cycle – they are most active (and loudly demand to be played with) in the morning between 8am and 11am and in the evening after 5pm, which is about when most of us are at home to attend to them.  Which also mean they mostly sleep from noon to 5pm everyday, waking occassionally to water or eat a little.

Of course I’ve only recently discovered this odd schedule because I’m now on holiday break from Christmas through to New Year’s.  Lovely.  Earlier this week my parents took the opportunity to take a little roadtrip up to Malaysia, suring which I did little other than sleep, eat, shop and watch movies on cable TV.  Bliss.

The other main benefit of having a break from work is being able to catch up with old friends whom I haven’t met or communicated with in months.  I’ve made several happy long-distance phone calls and enjoyed a couple of leisurely meals reconnecting, reliving, refreshing…  all very much needed.

Happy holidays, and a happy new year.  May 2008 be filled with unexpected blessings, fulfilled desires and abundant joy.