These videos sum up all my frustrations

This. THIS. OMG, Daniel sums up all my frustrations on the idiocy, naivety and hypocrisy of these people in this 30min video! I don’t know how he maintains his cool throughout this video. I can barely stay calm writing this really short paragraph!

I’ve mentioned the bias and outright lies in western media numerous times in my posts over the past few weeks (months?) now about the HK protests, and Daniel totally gets it. I’m so glad he takes the time out to make his videos. I also learn some stuff from him, especially around the US and what happens or has happened in that country.

He posted another YouTube video tonight, actually, specifically on the problems with media. Another interesting video, which could make you question the mainstream media in your own country, if you don’t already. Numuves has also done a video on this, so I really appreciate the time that these guys put in to create this content.

I really like how these guys present the other side of the HK story, which is so grossly under-represented in the western media. And they also point out the blatant lies that are going around, which most people are just believing as truth. Basically all the stuff that has been frustrating me to no end these past few months! Daniel also adds his own personal snide comments that make me laugh, which lightens the otherwise bleak mood that I’ve been in for what feels like ages now 😔

A new season will soon be upon us

I went to Uniqlo today to buy some winter gear. We’re starting to head closer and closer to winter, and I can’t ignore it any longer. I need to swap my summer gear with my cold weather gear. I’ve already started doing so, already putting away my shorts and singlets. But now I need to do it properly, as I definitely have no need for the lighter stuff now, unfortunately. Yet another reason why I miss SG, where I had perpetually summer weather 😔 I’m definitely more a summer person ☀️

I broke my vow to not check the news so often 😔 But it was the breaking news about Trump signing the HK Human Rights and Democracy Act, I couldn’t ignore it. So then that got me riled up again, sighhh 😔 Like I’ve said in a previous post or two, the only party who will be hurt the most with this bill is HK, while the US and China fight it out. And by the time people wake up to this, it will be too late 🙄

But I’m not going to get even more upset by talking about it. I wasted enough energy today getting annoyed with the arrogance and the ignorance of so many people. I’ve done too much of it as it is these past couple of months, and I want to move on and use my energy in a much more productive way.

C’mon, we can do this! 💪

I recorded myself speaking in Chinese today. I’ve recorded myself in the past, but all those other times, I was reading something, which is totally different to just speaking off the cuff. And O-M-G, I sounded awful! 😩 I wasn’t always right with my tones, and I don’t have that same level, measured way of speaking that native speakers do. I sound stunted, and my sentences don’t flow nicely. In short, I sound blah! 😕

I mentioned this to my teacher today when we had our lesson, and told her that I felt sorry for her having to listen to Chinese language learners as part of her job! Because if other people sound anything like me, it’s tough having to listen to us! 😆 Of course she was polite and said that I didn’t sound too bad. But I can tell that I have a lonnng way to go 😔

I kept the audio file of my attempt today. I’d like to continue recording myself every day and see if I can actually get my speaking to improve, even if I’m just talking to myself. But hey, don’t we talk to ourselves more than anybody else?? Aren’t we the best person to talk to?? 😊

So coupled with the SpeakerLite app that I mentioned yesterday, I’m hoping that I can continue to improve my speaking and listening skills 🤞 I know quite a lot of vocab, but now I think it’s a matter of practice and making it all come together faster and more easily. C’mon, we can do this! 👍💪

Productive!

I started reading this book today called Make Time: How to Focus on What Matters Every Day, which is full of tips on how to free up more of your time to work on things that are important to you. It’s really easy to read and has lots of practical tips. I want to start trying out some of them, especially the one on cutting back my news intake! As my recent posts show, the news has been a mental drain on me the past few weeks. It’s affecting me emotionally, and so I haven’t been as productive as I normally am. I definitely need to cut back. They have a ton of other tips, so I’d like to try out a few of the other ones too 😊

I also started using SpeaterLite, this app in the App Store that lets you listen to parts of an audio file over and over again. It just keeps looping that section of the audio as often as you like. And more importantly for me, it can also slow down the audio if you want. I am using it to listen to Chinese dialogue, sentence by sentence, at a slower pace, so that I can actually follow the conversation. Native speakers always speak so damn fast, no matter what language. So this double combo of being able to loop through snippets of a dialogue as well as the ability to slow down the speed is amazing! 👍 If I continue to use this app on a regular basis, my listening skills may actually improve 🤞

Here’s to increased productivity as we head into the tail end of 2019! 🤓

The irony and the hypocrisy of it all

The local district election results were finally tallied today, and the pro-democracy guys won by a landslide. Like I’ve said before, I’m not too fussed who wins, and showing your support for democracy through legal means is perfectly fine with me. What I do have an issue with, though, is the fact that this camp has been condoning the senseless violence that the protesters have been inflicting on innocent people “in the name of democracy”, downplaying it all, and then also creating lies and deliberately disseminating misinformation to continue to artificially inflate their cause. How can you continue to support these violent terrorists in your own city for your own political cause? Do you not have any morals?? 😤

And then the other thing that I don’t think people understand is that if HK continues to go down this “true” democracy route, then the tycoons who run this city will just plant whoever they want as Chief Executive, and the regular HKer is going to be shafted even more than they currently are.

Of course Beijing are fully aware of these guys and what they’re doing to the HK people, but because they have very little control over HK (despite whatever perceived threats people are imagining that China is encroaching on HK more and more 🙄), they can’t do anything about them.

And then not to mention the now withdrawn extradition bill. This bill was actually perfectly reasonable, but some scaremongering made it out to be this dreadful thing that would allow Beijing to just pluck whichever random HKer takes their fancy and have them sent over to the mainland for no reason whatsoever. The whole point of an extradition bill is to send criminals back to the country in which they were charged or convicted for committing a crime. And this bill was even harsher in that they had to be serious enough crimes that would warrant jail time of 3+ years. So again, innocent people and even those committing minor crimes wouldn’t be caught in this piece of legislation. It’s the big-time criminals, the murderers, the terrorists, the serious money launderers etc that the bill is trying to send back, rather than have them safely hiding in HK. But nooo, people want these criminals to stay in HK. Faaantastic 🙄

So basically, the way I see it, these rioters are fighting for the wrong thing. They would rather destroy their own city and hurt innocent people; harbour criminals; and then ultimately have the tycoons effectively elect the Chief Executive to continue to shaft them even more, all in the name of fighting for their supposedly eroding freedom – notwithstanding the fact that HK currently ranks third in the Cato Human Freedom Index. And that President Xi has said that he vowed to maintain the “one country, two systems” model, which no doubt was glossed over and virtually ignored 🙄

The hypocrisy and the irony of it all is just so frustrating 😤

Buffet lunch and stats

We went and had a buffet lunch with a few of N’s workmates today. Weekend buffets are a really big thing here, I don’t know why. I assume because they’re seen as good value, especially on the alcohol front, as quite a number of them have free-flow drinks, which generally includes beer and wine. We haven’t been to that many buffets while we’ve been in HK, but all the ones that we’ve been to have been pretty good 😋 Like I’ve mentioned before, the food choices here are just unbelievable 😱

The HK district elections were held today. I don’t care much for politics, and the only time I do is during an election – when the stats come out! 😂 And now that we’re in HK, it’s doubly fun, as I get to use it as a learning opportunity to learn some new Chinese words 😆

Polling booths closed at 10:30pm, but that just meant they closed the doors at that time. If there was still a queue at that time, they still let people vote. So that means they could only open the ballot boxes sometime well after that time. So understandably, none of the polling booths have finished tallying the votes – and some haven’t even started! I’m tempted to stay up and watch the stats unfold. I don’t actually care that much about the outcome, the process is much more interesting for me 😆

A late start to the day

It was probably around 3pm by the time we left the house today 🤣 Our brunch plans ended up being more like linner plans! We went and had Singaporean at this Singaporean restaurant at Central. The food isn’t bad, so I like going there whenever we feel like having some SG nostalgia 😊

After that, we just stopped by one of those bread shops on the way home to buy a few snacks for later in the evening, as our quasi dinner.

I wanted to do some decluttering around the house afterwards, as the mess in the house is starting to get on my nerves now. I decided to take a quick nap first before diving in. But that quick nap ended up being 3.5 hours! 😂 So much for getting any decluttering done today! I guess I’ll have to try and get some done tomorrow instead.

N decided to go to the gym tonight, while I just watched more polyglot videos on YouTube 😆 I did watch one annoying YouTube clip on the protests that came up in my feed, but it was filled with so much of the usual lies and misinformation that I couldn’t even finish the video. But rather than sharing that annoying video and effectively helping to spread the lies – there is more than enough other drivel out there that I don’t need to add to it – I thought I’d share this one video from one other guy who can also see through the western media veil.

And to end this post, I thought I’d share this video on pandas that came up in my feed, which cheered me up a bit, and distracted me from all the disappointing news coverage on HK 🐼 😊

Learning and timing

Today I learnt how to copy the audio from a YouTube clip and then turn it into an mp3 file 😆 I’m quite technologically challenged, always have been, as my interest in technology has always been rather low. And it’s even more pronounced now that I’m older. So as simple as this may be to some of you, learning how to do this was my achievement for the day! 👍

I actually created an mp3 file of snippets of Ode to Joy, a Chinese drama that I recently watched, so that I can listen to it on the go and imitate their pronunciation 🤓 I only pulled out about two minutes’ worth of audio, so if this form of study actually works for me, then I’ll add to it. But in the meantime, this current clip should keep me busy! 😄

And then we spent the evening at N’s friend’s place, where I met his wife and daughter for the first time. They’re actually moving back to SG, after being in HK for over 20 years. Perfect timing, I reckon. In complete contrast, our timing was completely off, moving here soon after the protests started 😔

Speaking of the protests, it’s been relatively quiet on that front over the past few days, which feels a bit ominous… So I’m wondering if they’re planning something even more sinister in the coming few days 😒 There are elections here on Sunday, and riot police will apparently be deployed at every polling station. I wonder just how they will react if the results don’t turn out in their favour. Like insolent teenagers again? 🙄 Let’s see if they can prove me wrong…

Feeing grateful

Yesterday I said I was felling better. Which was true, but that was emotionally. Today I physically started feeling better. I’d been feeling pretty rundown all week, with a sore throat, lack of energy and a headache, so I’d been taking it pretty easy. Today was the first time I’d actually started feeling somewhat normal again 👏 It’s such a good feeling! I always appreciate my health whenever I get sick. It’s something I take for granted too easily, but I really should be thankful for it each and every day that I’m well.

And today, I was also thankful for having moved to Asia and being able to understand China more and more. I’ve always been so blind to the country, having been bombarded with the usual western rhetoric about it for most of my life. But there’s actually more to the country than what the collective west would have you believe.

I was already starting to see a different side to China when we were first in SG, as SG is much more neutral towards China than the west. And so my western blinkers started to slowly be taken off. And now that we’re in HK, my understanding of the country has grown even more. And the escalation of these protests has probably accelerated my understanding more than if they hadn’t happened at all.

It’s not like information about China isn’t out there. It’s just that you actually have to care enough to look for it. And of course, the west (ie Google) doesn’t make it easy for you to find it 🙄 And to be honest, if I wasn’t living in HK, I probably still wouldn’t care so much, and continued to just absorb whatever mainstream media told me about it. But we do live in HK, and that mere fact alone has let me see things that I would’ve completely ignored before.

I have taken one positive out of these protests and I’m not so angry and frustrated about them today. The benefits of gratitude 😆

Feeling better

I mentioned the other day how I came across a few other people on YouTube who share similar views as me about what’s been happening in these protests. One of them, Daniel D, posted a new video that echoes exactly what I’ve been thinking for months now, and then some. He enlightens me every day with a little titbit that I didn’t know before, continuing to help me build my understanding of the whole situation here. And he’s much calmer than me when he talks about it all, and doesn’t get all worked up about the whole situation, so he actually is also a positive influence emotionally! It’s like he’s telling me: “It’s all messed up, I know, I totally get it, but hey, don’t sweat it. It’s not worth it.” So in a weird way, he’s also great to watch for that emotional support! 😆 But whatever helps me get through the stupidity and irony of all of these protests, I’ll take it. There’s so much more to it than what the collective west knows (or perhaps wants to know?), and what Daniel can cover as well, but hearing someone else (and others) express some of it is so reassuring to hear 🤗

I got a good start on my FY19 tax papers today for my Oz tax return, something else that, although painful during the process, is making me feel good. I’ll be up-to-date with my taxes soon! I can’t wait! 😊 Am I able to stay on top of the papers throughout the year so that come tax time, it won’t be as painful as this? Is that possible?? 🤔😆