Wish me luck

I guess I don’t look at knowing people as simply “networking” – frankly I hate that term (and I’ve written a blog post about that before). I try to keep an open mind when meeting someone new, no matter what context I’ve met them. I guess this approach works well – I now have friends I can count on no matter what circumstance  The funny thing about this is that I end up becoming very good friends with some of my ex-bosses. In the small industry I work with, they become friends and work allies for life. As a lot of them are more experienced than I am (that’s why they were my bosses!) they also share a lot of insights and experiences that are eye-opening to me.

Last Friday was the highlight of this experience

It started with a drink at GOLD by Harlen Goldstein – I was meeting my old boss from my ad agency days to catch up. CK was late and mentioned he had to head to another party soon and asked if I wanted to come along. I said yes and ended up in Chai Wan, on the top floor of a random building:

This is in an industrial building in Chai Wan

This was home to Hong Kong’s premier recording studio, Drum Music. The owners are foodies and decided to outfit their new studio with outdoor grill and an open kitchen to entertain friends:

We had a lot of wine and food here

The evening was spectacular – wines, conversations, food (gourmet pizzas, roasted chicken, perfect medium-rare steak to name a few) and I went home happy and full.

This is the type of experience that will only happen if you form friendships.

Prince Harry

A year ago today I started this space to document some of my thoughts and my art. In 1 year I’ve posted 27 posts and received 46 comments. 2010 was an interesting year – starting a new job , moved to a new home, flew to a lot of places, and adopted Harry home.

In 2011, I hope I can update this space a little more. I guess I’m just so overwhelmed by my new job that I’ve let a lot of my interests slide, be it art or writing. This year, I really hope I can learn to balance things out a little bit more

Forgetting the pain does not mean forgiveness. Forgiveness means you can accept what had happened, and still accept the other party(s) as equal before the incident had occurred. Therefore, I prefer to move on and cut people off who’ve wronged me if I cannot let go of the causes nor emotions. I don’t believe in the phrase “with time, things will heal” because they don’t. The emotions may fade but the scars are still there. To truly forgive, both sides must agree to the common goal of healing, and occurrences of that are very very rare.

On the other hand, making one self happy is one’s responsibility, not others’. No matter who or what has wronged you, it’s important that you go find a way to cope.

I’ve been going through some on-going dramas for some time. To elevate my mood, I change things that will make me happier – be it going back to muay thai fully engaged, or sitting at the hair salon for 5 hours:

As I’ve tweeted before, sometimes I can’t change circumstances, but I can change hair colours!

Blast from the past - circa 2001

The other night, Singleton and I had a chat over MSN. As one of my best college buddies, the two of us began an insightful conversation over creative education. A few years after completing design school, we are still working in the creative industry. Like many other discussion sessions between he and I (we are equally opinionated), we came to one startling conclusion: we spent years learning about breaking the box on an execution level, but there’s a big gaping void on how to be creative despite restrictions.

Let me backtrack a bit – When I worked on the NASA STS-115 insignias way back, the design brief from NASA and CSA is not an easy one and the restrictions drove us on. My partners and I (three of us total) spent many nights arguing over ICQ trying to figure out how to work around rounds of red tape previously unidentified. We took them as challenges, and we rendered our brain juices into solutions. We were successful in the end – seeing our intellectual property etched into aerospace history was the reward, abeit small in magnitude compared to other engineering feats. What I learned in that experience is simple: don’t hate the red tape, just wrap your thinking around them.

Design school taught me how to solve problems creatively, and now I apply the learnings to writing online communication strategies. A big part of that is to see the box, shaped by cultral, corporate compliance, technologies, budgets, human behaviours, then balancing my utopic vision against these everyday realities. It frustrates me when I see rockstar design instructors walking into a teaching session, showing slides like “F**K THE RULES”… truth is, many of these same rockstars probably lick their clients’ insoles on a daily basis in their day jobs, or worst, never had a important enough role in the creative industry to see the bigger picture.

If anything, food is a great conversation starter. In front of clients, food breaks the ice faster than any alcoholic beverage. Among friends, something as simple as “the best (insert food item here)” question will trigger hours of entertainment.

Heaven in a bowl: Vietnamese pho

Through Twitter, I’ve met a bunch of like-minded foodies. Our lunch tweetups are fun, eating anything from not too authentic Indonesian food to down-home cha charn teng goodness. The conversations are lovely around piping hot food. The best thing I love about these tweetups are that we actually learn more about each other, putting a face to an avatar. On top of that, I am glad I can meet new people that have no other intentions but to enjoy a great meal and each others’ company. Living in Hong Kong for a little more than 3 years now, I’m so sick of the whole “biz card swap / what do you do?” so-called networking ordeal. I just want to make friends sometimes.

The first time I’ve experienced a dramatic situation was when I was 15. I remembered hearing news of a tragedy and carried on my day until 2 hours later – I started crying when I picked up a paint brush to work on a giant painting for class. It seems this delayed emotional response hasn’t changed with age. After the dramatic episode last Thursday, I had non-stop nightmares that night. I spent the weekend painting hoping most of my emotions will come out but today, a song triggered a non-stop stream of tears.

I suppose this mechanic works to my advantage at times. The slight delay helps me deal with situations rationally before my heart takes over, stopping myself from performing acts of stupidity that I may regret later. On the other hand, it is a disadvantage because when a situation involves other party / parties, I may appear detached from the situation, which can lead to more hurt later.

The complexity of the human mind never cease to amaze me.

For those who are interested in the song, it’s Rachael Yamagata’s “Over and Over”, you can buy it here

The Dance

Most of the time, my mind is an intricate dance of emotions, reactions and rational thoughts. Some are solid substantial thoughts, others are transient perceptions that shift with time.

I went through a dramatic situation this week – this painting sums up how I feel about it.