Unbalanced Vision

I am sharing a happy birthday with this hot football player and this hot chef. By the way, this is my wish list, hehehe...

Poor piglets

Huge pumpkin to make a Jack-o-lantern

Organic seeds

Sweet tooth

Eat your humble pie

It's an unusual sunny Saturday morning in October at the wonderful Borough Market. Though over-priced and crowded, it's still a paradise for carnivores and vegetarians alike--I just hope to buy lots of fresh meat, fish and veggies home. The image of the pig heads reminded me of D's recent post about our swine friend. This picture is for you, D.

Two smoking barrels

Flaws are beautiful

Up the ladder

The mighty monster

Interior

High-end dim sum at Yauatcha Cafe

Some years ago I was sitting in HY's car as he drove me to some part of London. This was the first time I spotted this huge monster sitting by the road and river; it is hard not to notice the Battersea Power Station even in the evening. Its four white chimneys and mass size, and the fact that its near surroundings seemed empty added to its loneliness. I like this iconic building; perhaps London is rightfully called 'the Smoke' because of the power station. Looking from afar, we were talking about ways to use this derelict site: HY suggested converting it into a nightclub. This month the old power station was finally opened to the public for the first time. For the business-minded Chinese, what could be a wonderful and easy way to cash in some money? Easy! Let's invite some artists to display their work, set up a Michelin starred dim sum restaurant and sell entry tickets to a mysterious wreckage. People will come pouring in, for it's all about money under a veneer of art and citizen pride. Of course we happily gave in, and took a bunch of up close photos. I'd say this place could house at least fifty nightclubs, instead of one. The short film in the building depicted a promising landscape of concert halls, swimming pools, mega shopping plazas, apartments, restaurants, hotels, meeting rooms and lots more! Yesterday's power station is today's monument of consumerism.

HY and I are making baby steps towards owning our first property. I shan't tell you where it is, because advertisement increases its competition, and I certainly wouldn't want that. All I can say is that it's not next door to J. K. Rowling's humble abode. I've heard that after one has put down an offer, it could take up to two months till you sign the contract, and during that course of time anything could happen. These cunning creatures are called Gazumpers who lurk in the dark and steal your house/flat away from you. *practices punching Gazumpers in the air* Ever since I've stayed in the UK, I found out that there's a desperate culture of twenty-somethings trying to climb the first rung of the property ladder. People my age from Taiwan mostly live with parents, or rent a place before marriage. Well, when time arrives you just take the road to wherever it leads you. Our place once housed a granny; she appears to be clean and tidy, and likes flowery decorations. I am sure she'd be happy to hand it to us.

The verdict is out. What eluded the mother came to the daughter: this year's Man Booker Prize winner is Kiran Desai's The Inheritance of Lost. That's another book added to my reading list, but to be honest, the Anglo-Indian/Anglo-Bangladeshi experience is a life I cannot relate to, nor is it a subject that interests me. Brick Lane is still on the shelf waiting for me to open its cover. Multicultural voices and stories are gaining recognition in the British book market, such as works by Arundhati Roy, Salman Rushdie and Ben Okri to name a few, but something seems to be missing. What happened to the Anglo-Chinese experience in fiction? I am not talking about writers like Jung Chang, or the Guardian journalist Xinran, but a story about Chinese communities, about, or written by a Chinese born and bred in the UK.

Front cover

Mum wakes up early to clean the house, lazy dad wakes up late and reads the papers, what the hell!? (Well, the sentences make a good rhyme...)

Never give up

For those who are products of the 70s, does this look all too familiar? This is how I learnt my Chinese in elementary school in Taiwan; it's the Chinese equivalent of the Peter and Jane series: old-fashioned, and lacks creativity and a sense of playfulness. Today stereotypical gender roles only invites criticism, and who cares about paying respect to our former leader, Chiang Kai-shek; I even heard that our international airport named in honor of him could be renamed. I wonder if kids nowadays read about his 'heroic deeds'? In Lesson Eleven we learn about Chiang in his youth. When Chiang was young, he was very diligent. He would sweep the floor and help his mother with the vegetable garden. In the evening when Mum was sewing, he would study. (Good for you, nerd.) One day he went to play by a nearby river, and saw tiny fishes swimming against the stream. (Now you'd think Chiang is an interesting little boy who likes fishing, but no...) Chiang then thought to himself, even little fishes want to overcome difficulties, so will I. He grew up to become a hardworking politician, and did many great things. The End. (Well done, Chiang, your life has inspired me so much.)

1) Grow up you little people!
2) Films I am seeing at this year's LFF: Free Floating, The Missing Star, Short Films for Younger Audiences, Sketches of Frank Gehry and Our Daily Bread.
3) Plus Holbein in England and Rodin.
4) Hopefully I'll have time to squeeze this in as well: 'The Life of Galileo'.

S listens

Danger! Electricity!

Smoke gets in your eyes

Andy Lau look-alike adjusts his glasses

J comes too

My favourite architect and I

After a two-year stint in the city, my former flatmate S is ready to start her career on another island, and hopefully the ambitious lady will set up her own design studio in the near future, too. The leaving do took place at Smiths of Smithfields, an old meatpacking warehouse where designers + friends of designers drink and get merry--not too dissimilar from a meat market, eh? In an industry that values foreign imput, most of my Taiwanese architect friends have found jobs in London, and are pretty happy with the work environment. B likes his new regular lifestyle, whilst D just played his first five-a-side football. There was a landscape architect (or should I say 'starchitect') who looked like Andy Lau, and an interior designer whose current project is a huge banker's mansion near Hampstead Heath. As the night moved on, HY (what else) another starchitect joined in; I also got the chance to introduce a faraway rare visitor, my uni friend J to the black-suited gang.