Something meant to be shared 真水无香

How Do you know if you love the person -

        After a big fight, when you both calm down, and you are sorta forget what you were arguing about with him/her , then, that means, you love her/him.

Dear Yuan,         

          Finally, I came to realize that the friendship with you is not going to make me a better person or nurture my soul, after a careful consideration, I decided to break off from it and move on.

          From now on, you well-being and personal growth are no longer my business and interest. Goodbye to the friendship with you, forever. And thank you for letting me to accompany you through the journey when you needed a friend.

What a gorgeous Sunday!! I went to the pool side to top up my tan with Al… Can’t stop lovin’ it!!

          Bargain Culture – Bargaining is not something new to Asia culture I guess. However, I feel there is something bitter about the motive why China/Chinese bargain. From the simple stuff like buying some fresh fruits to more complicated ones, such as setting up a business, they like to bargain - they have to bargain- it has became a way to avoid being cheated, to make sure it’s worth a true value, and to win a battle.

          In my humble opinion, the bargaining is reflection of a few rather serious social issues in China society:

Distrust and dishonesty issue

          In this cruel and competitive environment, people start to cheat to gain. At same time, people who have been cheated became less trusting of others. And when people start to doubt how real is the deal, as effect, those people try harder to cheat. It comes to a point that no one will know what real measurement is anymore. We don’t really know what and who started this cycle, and this cycle created the distrust. This distrust reflects on how people interact with each other, reflects on how they deal with business. As a matter of fact, people who cheat others are more afraid of been cheated themselves. They know if they are capable to cheat, others might do a better job, therefore, no matter whether you are the one who is doing the cheating or the victim, this distrust and dishonesty grows deeply in each and everyone.  

Imbalanced give and take issues

          One of side effect of distrust and dishonesty is people start to discount other people’s good efforts. A good example of this - a hard working farmer wants to sell his apple at RMB10 per kg, which is a fair price. However, his customer thinks it should be only RMB5 (afraid of been cheated). After a round of hardcore bargaining, the farmer needs to at least break even, so he sold lower than it should be without any profit. He learns. The next time, this same apple, he sells at RMB20 per kg (to him, this is not cheating, it’s ‘clever’.), his customer asks for a discount as usual, and after another hardcore bargaining (he has to put up a show to convince his customers), he sells it at RMB15 per kg. See, he increased his profit and made his customer happy by distorting the actual price. This is not the end, consumers get smarter too, they realized there is a gap between actual price and given price, and they think these business people are too nasty, so they try to bargain even more. Business becomes harder and harder. As result, the price is no longer determined by market’s demand and supply but by manipulations. In the end, no one can be certain how much worth a product/service really is.

Overdosed Pride and vanished mutual Respect

          Chinese has a lot of pride. Sometimes it seems almost too much. I start to believe that being over proud is a sign of ignorance. The sad thing is the pride doesn’t justify the respect to themselves and others. In our thousands of years of civilization, Chinese culture is famous for its politeness and humbleness. You can’t really see these virtues anymore in modern Chinese culture. People used to push the boundaries, people like to bar-and-gain. To me, the saddest thing is they forgot how to respect themselves at lot of times. 

          See, these are chicken and egg sort of situations, I can’t really tell which one or which side started first. Indeed, it forms into a large circle, somehow sickly balanced. Somehow, it works in modern China, sickly.

          Think before you bargain. Be respectfully fair.

I finished this book during my trip to China. I loved his first novel called ‘Curious Incident of the dog in the night-time’, it was very unusually clever. However, this one is…rather ordinary.

It is about ordinary people, a dis-function family, at last - love of different kinds.

…Somehow, this book makes me to verbalize my thoughts in my head more often..

   I am very much convinced that Thai Airline has possibly recruited all the best looking Thai girls to work for them, mind you, I mean real women, and real good looking women! (I guess that’s one of the reasons that lady-boys are the only ones left in town..)

  They are all sweet, soft spoken and awfully polite. The guys are not bad too!

          I haven’t sat by the window on the plane for as long as I could remember. Apart from bothering the person who is sitting next me everytime when I want to pee or shouting over her to order something from the flight attendants, I almost forgot how beautiful it is. My flight was in the early morning, it takes almost 6 hours to Chengdo from KL. Putting Hed Kandi in my ear, I am all in my own world, Looking out from the window, Sun followed us with its warm and golden flow, snow white cloud right underneath the plane with all kinds of shape..  and that endless blue sky making me feel peace and clam… at that point .. I almost believed I’ve touched the sky.   

          My mind drifts off to this morning how I kissed Al goodbye. I will be away from him for a week. having myself in a journey alone, this is not the first time, I just like to find out how I feel about it everytime when it happens (the feelings affect by the purposes of the trip most of the time). I caught myself liking the idea of being away from him for a while. And I like the fact that I am not irrationally/over-emotionally attached to him, which means I am still very independent, still be able to cope any temporary separations, rationally. I like it, because it is like a little break from him (also a little break from me). I like breaks, in general, it’s healthy. But don’t get me wrong, we’ve been good, really good. I can be certain that we are together for right reasons this time. It’s just .. it’s just nice to see things from a distance sometimes. It helps me to think things better, to absorb things better, simply see things better and I am hoping the same for him.

          Working in a relationship is never easy. We both in fact still learning it after all these years been together. The good news is, it is worth the effort - a right relationship is the beginning of a family. I like to get things right at the beginning. 

          And this morning when I kissed him goodbye, no matter how rational I can be, I know I will miss him.      

Though it doesn’t have a spectacular story line, the way they made it was rather unusually interesting. Should check it out!

Me: Ok ok, I have a confession to make!

Stephie-MBA: Oh oh yes

Me: i have this fantasy about my guard, he is really cute and he calls me ‘madam’

Stephie-MBA: hahahahhahhaha

Me: he calls me that after very single sentence! Can you imagine this, I go "give me a massage, my shoulder is a little hurt" and he goes, "yes, ma’am!"

Stephie-MBA: haahhahah

Me: woo hoo! Perfect

Stephie-MBA: OH SHIT! hahah

Me: well.. it is just a fantasy

Stephie-MBA: tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk

Me: hehehe .. i am bring him out tonight ..hehe

Stephie-MBA: tsk tsk tsk smile

Me: and getting him a nice shirt

Stephie-MBA: u are bringing your guard out tonight ! tsk tsk tsk !!bad GAL

Me: I want to show him a completely diff world

Stephie-MBA: hahah.. yes

Me: be his sugar mummy for a night ; ) hehhe

Stephie-MBA: U LOVE THAT, DONT U?

Me: OH YEAH BABY!!!!!!!

Stephie-MBA: im just smiling as i read this hahah

Me: see, i dont care whatever he does, wherever he came from..when he says "yes, ma’am!" that really turns me on!!!

Stephie-MBA: haha

Me: i am smiling while i am writing this..

Stephie-MBA: ma’am!!! haha

Me: YEAH BABY!! BRING IT ON!!!

Stepie-MBA: u are such a notti notti notty gal

Me: I know.. sorry for been a bad role model..sigh.. i just cant control my imagination .. they are too wild to control! C’mon, just for fun, something diff, no monkey business, just the funky experience .. hehe.. even that turns me on !

Stephie-MBA: haha.. i think its all cool. Ok, ill see u guys tonight!