It is another night that I cannot sleep. 

If guilt is an irrational outcome, I fail to find a rational way out in a shipwreck of which I am a passenger, that aggravates the situation. What I need least is a feeling of helplessness, what I need most is a compass that can cleave my way through this land of troubles and sea of sufferings. 

What else I can possibly say when the family is on the brink of collapse and there is nothing you can do about it. The sofa is in living room is occupied now with a sleepless mind. This sucks. I feel not humiliation in such case, unlike my brother who holds a rather traditional mind. I only feel helpless and disappointed. I say this to Dad a moment ago, this is very, unfortunate. The more you give thought on such thing the least you would come up with anything helpful to an outcome that has long determined. 

I cannot quite recall the last time when the family is on the brink of collapse. I was protected from this news since I was too small when they got divorced. This time I am no longer a kid, but the obligation and burden of a son draws me into this second unfortunate shipwreck. I do not only witness but also involuntarily participate in this. I instinctively consider this a duty, though I do not enjoy it, at all. 

The problem is that I notice there is a perceptible change of heart and attitude of mom toward us. This makes me suffer. The long-standing complication of this matrimony scares me, and I have never wished to assume a position to judge for who is to blame. Things go nasty. I just want to leave all these terrible mess behind. At the same time, it seems that I am irresponsible. But I can do very little.

They are still quarreling now. The light is off, but it is too bright to open my eyes. I am very tired, and sleep is not inviting. 

Under the shade of neron light shedding from the Bank of China tower, the familiar uneasiness that I thought I had overcome and put aside many years ago returned. I have not felt this sickness, which my limited language fail to capture, for quite a while. This is sick. A conversation I was having with an old gweilo whose banking career is as booming as his figure, seemed to be irrelevant. I was asking a gentleman who is entering into the legal industry some advice, and the significance of his words, vanished once I left the Supreme Court Road at Mid-Level. Glasses of red wine, tone of British English, bankers and lawyers laughters - bloody hell, after half a year absence at St. Andrews, I am totally out of place. I literally wanted to step back and take the first train home once I stepped in the reception. Well my pride did not allow me to. After a dinner with friends,  I walked through the half-empty PP,  squeezing myself into Admiralty MTR Station to catch a train home. It took me to cross the harbour, swish through the mountains and finally I see a jungle of obsolete buildings. A place where I truly belong to, however reluctant I want to admit in the presence of my St. Andrews Colleagues. I got off the West Rail with a crowd putting their head in their phones. Their faces were disfigured with exhaustion and listlessness. I see no purposes in their eyes in their mechanical bodies.

This evokes another trivial thing happened to me the other day - S whom I've recently made acquaintance with on a friend of mine's birthday dinner, asked me how did I celebrate count-down. She was skiing in Japan with her family. I replied her that I went to a local tea-restaurant with a childhood friend of mine. She uttered disbelief, and frowned with a mixture of doubt and confusion, as if asking: "Are you fxxxing messing up with me?" Honesty seems to the best policy only when it is convincing. I did not say much after that. To be fair, most of my 'friends' are either in Europe or Japan throughout the whole holiday. It is quite hard for them to understand that there are people working hard on the last day of the year and their presences are not counted by media, by government, or by anyone.

There are many questions for which I fail to find answers, though I thought I understood them and solved them well. They re-emerged. Dad asks me tonight how was the St. Andrews networking going - I was not in a mood to talk much about it. He tried to offer some advice to me and I cut it off, and I felt guilty for being rude to him. He, with his very limited education, is offering what he knows as the best to me. However I think he did detect a sense of frustration from me. The problem is that, I do not feel comfortable being with these people, these "elites". I do not live in the same world with them. They live in Tai Tam, Repulse Bay, and Mid-Level. I am the only one who take the MTR back to Yiu Shing House, a flat of 350 square foot, housing four adults. I have to do my reading and homework in my bed simply there is only one table and chair.

I could not help being enveloped by a feeling of guilt every now and then. Dad is struggling paying my tuition fees this year and the coming year. Do I regret declining the Law School offer from the CUHK, yes I do sometimes, especially at the high time of present economic crisis. But I am also convinced that difficult phase will pass and a good St. Andrews degree will surely take me a higher level than the short-term comfort of going to a local law school. The cost of the pathway to St. Andrews is so heavy to my parents that I could not help but reexamine and rethink my decisions I made a year ago. At the depth of my heart I still believe that it was a difficult, tough decision that ensures a great pressure to me and my family, however opens a potential of a better-off future ahead. But the pain and pressure causing to my family, to me, is insufferable. I know at the end of the day Dad will be able to collect the tuition fees I need - this is not the first time we walked into a tuition fees crisis. But the pain and cost bother me deeply.

Living in a new year and an old world, William Ng

Does a new year follow a new start and new life? British historian J.M Robert points out the arbitrariness of calendars and sees no necessary connection in the causation of the events in by looking at history in an annul manner. It is indeed unlikely that a democratic Hong Kong would arrive overnight or the Israel-Pakistani hatred be dissolved after midnight. Many of us are celebrating all the same. Even a five year old know that Cinderella the lady turns back into Cinderella the laywoman as clock strikes. Magic is transitory, so are celebration of a night, and pleasure. Life goes on. People still suffer and starve. It is, however a convenient time for us to pause and review the tumultuous past. Should there be anything that we hold firm about in the world of uncertainty, it is that the fortune of human beings hangs on a thread of the mercy of nature, as well as the will of human beings themselves. I am reminded again by the news on the last night of 2014.

What hit the headline on the first day of a new year fits as a perfect footnote to this point. 35 people were trampled dead in Shanghai Bund, as the jostling crowd was out of order and was after the bar-vouchers thrown from the building. A pleasant night ended up a nightmare. This echoes neatly to stampede happened in Lan Kwan Fong in 1993, Hong Kong. The British Hong Kong Government conducted an inquest into this event afterwards. This reflection laid ground for a better crowd control in years to come. Back in 2015 Shanghai, whether it was a mismanagement of crowd control that could be avoided, or an accident, an independent investigation is needed to ensure a lesson is learnt and thus reduces the likelihood of its repetition. However this will inevitably touch upon a question of police accountability and responsibility. Any suggestion of this sort in the Mainland can be seen and interpreted as a menace of national security. But an open review from the authority is significant in avoiding repetition of such tragedy. This is not an issue about national security and a pride of the administration, but how people in power value and respect human lives. This should be one of the many aspirations on the long catalogue of “Chinese Dream”. 

A lot more men-made disasters can be avoided if people in power take human lives more seriously. We should be pleased that at least we could make a difference in something, as there are circumstances under which we can do little about. My heart goes with the family and friends of the passengers and crews on the QS8501 flight. It is believed that it went into an aerodynamic stall as the pilot climbed steeply to avoid storm. It serves as a heart-ending and cruel reminder of human beings’ subjection to pure chance and randomness in life. People manage to muddle through, some by cultivating a faith in religion, some by deriving consolation from reading literature like Greek Tragedy. The story of Oedipus the King portrays fatalism at its best, with its dramatic storyline. This unexpected disunion of people comes as a sudden blow that has no detectable hints. There are around 100, 000 flights in the air every day. The percentage of accidents is still incredibly low. A live with unknown future in which we are all placed is no difference from Oedipus. Today, people living in developed world are in many aspects of life, entrust our lives upon those who do not know and never meet. From food and transportation we assume a comfortable position and take security and safety for granted. Despite an advancement and maturity of science and technology, a train of accidents in the air proves that human beings have never been so relied and fragile on such transportation, and never have we put as much faith as with our own lives in them.  

One may easily find as many reasons to be optimistic as being pessimistic about the future. The Guardian Editorial reviewed 2014 as a year riddled with troubles as it did with many other years in the past, but it also counter-balanced its editorial view with an article titled “Not such a bad year after all.” We can do little with things like storm and thunderbolt. But for things that we are able to improve and make a difference, do it in a resolute manner with gentle words.

It has long ceased to surprise many that poverty and pressure shortens life expectancy, and this strengthens people tolerance, if not frozens their sympathy into indifference to a matter of life and death as such. A tightening budget usually accompanies a loosening belt. Obesity is prevalent to the bottom of the society. A light purse comes long working hours and invites little sleep. All these symptoms as well as side-effect of poverty, ignored by the government and general public, are palpably riddled in many aspects of our daily life. Given the fact that my mom still works as a waitress in a Shanghai restaurant around the clock to for little more than the minimum wage, plus a two month holiday living at my tiny ripped room yearly, I am still, fortunately and regularly alarmed by how 60% of the Hong Kongers actually live. Not that I am rich now, but I am only free of the cage only at the tremendous expense of my mom and dad. And this is a good reminder and contrast to living in a bubble and mingling with blue-blood who takes elitist education and many other luxury for granted. 

Even one has a shelter (like a public estate in which I has been living since birth) in Hong Kong, which is an enviable luxury now, it is not that promising when it comes to health . It is quite complacently true that I have never encounter any rats yet and the frequency of cockcockes self-inviting themselves into my kitchen is still way less than Indian slums. To a flat that is directly opposite to two tall garbage bins, hygiene was maintained by daily meticulous clean-up (Thanks, dad and mom.) and so it has not been that bad. But what more invidious is the invisible second-handed smoke that wafts from my close neighbour and fill my lung. There is very little I can do.

Desmond did quite well tonight in learning a vocabulary table tonight, to the delight of me and Dad. We have finally made some progress after months. I hope a minor success tonight will repose more confidence in him, of which he has none, and to to whom is most important at the moment. 

In many ways I think Desmond is a better person than I am. He is more generous, selfless, and caring about his families. But he has also been a victim of my mom manifest preference to me since boyhood. He has handled it quite well but fails to hide his disappointment sometimes. 

Dad is grateful for my decision I can tell, I should say in what he will call a sacrifice, was beyond his expectation. Anyway I only have one brother in my life. Fate wills us to meet. I cherish such chance, and only see it as a fortune to have a brother of such great character. 

My academic work has long been put side since I left Adelaide. I have not read much for the past two weeks. Only Elie Wiesel "Night" and a few speeches. Having just started the Alain de Botton "essays in love", a light-hearted collection of prose revolving around his philosophical thoughts and his personal amorous experience. It does not bring many ideas in a way we see the world. But the way he wrote was indeed interesting and deserved to be learnt from.  

Long Live The Emperor!

Things have gone quite terrific for Mr Xi Jinping, as well as the Chinese people since he came to be the ruler of 1.3 billion populations. The CC Government is so much cleaner and more efficient. His anti-corruption campaign won him rounds of applauses from village to the capital, with a recent example of rounding up a Tiger Zhou Yongkong. The Chinese’s economy stays on prosperity – its booming prosperity enable more Chinese, than at any point in history, to afford a green card and immigrate to the US and other Western countries. Indeed a fine achievement as it is, serves conveniently as a beautiful echo to Mr Xi’s quote: “ In many ways the Chinese Dream is not different from the American one.” – most of the Americans prides themselves on their US passports, and so do the Chinese people. China has never been so stable and staunch before - Noises of demanding democracy in Hong Kong is stifled, and in the West, too. The whole world is desperate to do business with the Chinese. Money does not only talk, it also teaches one to talk properly. The “foreign devils” ’ve learnt some manners in the end to speak our language. The Opium humiliation is half-cleansed. They now know to stop using offensive language like human right, democracy, and freedom of speech to hurt a Chinese’s pride and feelings, but put on an ingratiating face like Mr. Cameron. Mr Xi’s remarkable leadership earned him an enviable title from the Time Magazine as “Emperor Xi.” Neither Mr Mugabe nor Mr Putin has such honour yet. The Chinese people have never had it so good. 

I feel compelled not be complacent about our great country achievement in spite of myself. China is still riddled with problems. Too many people are ungrateful for what they possess. Let’s take a recent example in Hong Kong. Few groups of students, who are no doubt the minority, has blocked the streets in the city’s financial hub since October to fright for democracy in a name of civil disobedience. This generation of young lads are greedy, and ungrateful. One has to put things into perspective: now young people have, food, shelter, iPhone, condoms, and facebook, something that their grandparents did not take it for granted. When they dear grandfather was still a virgin, he did not have anything as mentioned above but famine. It is good enough to have one stomach stuffed with food, but has one brain to stuff with democratic ideas, oversteps the mark. Also, a national uniqueness of the Chinese, is to be respected. Unlike many other countries, we are quite different. In light of Mrs Laura Cha, the HSBC director, and a senior advisor in the executive council to the city mayor, retorted this democracy nonsense incisively: even the black slaves took 107 years to get the vote in the States, why cannot the Chinese people wait a bit? We should welcome the great leap forward of an evolution from no election to a rig election. We should also celebrate that we are placed in a better footing than those unfortunate black slaves – there is neither slavery nor whipping in Hong Kong. Meantime one cannot stress enough upon how gracious and magnanimous Mr Xi has been to those students: it is reported that his emperorship is an avid reader, who is interested in the enlightenment philosophers’ works, such as Voltaire and Rousseau. He certainly did learn a history lesson in 1989 in Beijing, and applied the ideas of 1700s of Europe in 2014 Hong Kong. Instead of sending tanks to trample and soldiers to shoot down those obstinate Hong Kong students in the former British colony, whose insolent desire for democracy, Mr Xi prefers communication and diplomacy. A few patriotic thugs and gangsters bravely serve their countries: they were dispatched to reason with the students, with cleavers instead of guns. How lenient! Given such open-minded and liberal approach of Emperor Xi, as a patriotic Chinese I see little ground for being pessimistic about the middle kingdom’s future. We have a more civilized approach from a nation, which constantly boasts of its 5000 years brilliant civilization in the end. A lesson learnt from 1989.

The Chinese people are closer to the Chinese Dream than ever before under the new leadership of the blessed emperor. However, the harsh reality is that, we could only wish he was immortal on his throne. This worries me deeply. But from Stalin to Putin, the Russian proves a great tutor again. The Russian has just offered a potential solution of spreading the semen of their great Tsar, Mr. Putin, to preserve his eminent DNA in order to extend the greatness of Russia. Mr Xi should certainly take this into account. Whilst time is pressed, in the short run, Mr Xi’s daughter can come as an expedient, who directly profited the genius blood and went to Harvard, to come to inherit the family dynasty? Problem solved, Chinese dream continues, although the rumor has it that she was too attached to the America air to be back to her beloved country. It does take a bit of convincing and courage to take up the Chinese’s burden. But really I will not worry myself too much – it is said that there are many great brains among 1.3 billion. Since 1949, China has been a country producing strong leaders who make big decisions and are able to leave multiple lasting legacies. Mao’s the Great famine and Cultural Revolution. Dung the World Factory and cheap labour maker. Now we have Mr Xi, a fine maker of the Chinese Dream. Keep on dreaming and we have reason to hope for a better tomorrow.

We suffer all the same but the Past is still better?

Among few merits of taking a largely unplanned gap year is a freedom to choose to be exempt from current affairs, as a student major in International Relations. Keeping abreast of the news is a deeply depressing endurance of atrocity and absurdity that I have long stopped relishing. At first I fly into rage, at the appalling absurdity, and dreadful deeds practiced as a matter of course for many, and I learnt to rebuke and argue. It then steps into disgust beyond disguise, when there is readily a group of people trying to defend these behaviors with a catalogue of illogical gibberish, which can be seen as tasteless jokes at best, or backward inhumanity at worst. A mixture of disgust, and vestiges of anger, was finally grinded down into a complete disappointment and depression, when it is repeated like tide, coated with morality, and there is little you can do about it. And it becomes a disdainful silence. That accounts for my deliberate withdrawal from watching what is going on in the world, when I am allowed such liberty, especially with regard to my hometown. (Umbrella Movement.)

So I take refuge in the past – at least this year. Not that I wish to propose an idea that the past was better and people were happier, on the contrary, I believe that every generation and age has its own frustration in the face of different form of crisis. In Medieval Europe it would be hard to imagine that I could travel across continents in my life, let alone a much lower life expectancy. The pulse of my life would be dictated by harvest, plague and all sort of strange reasons inconceivable at present and insolvable in past. There is little ground to argue the past was better in terms of material, health and hygiene between the past and present. Leo Tolstoy, in his great work Anna Karenina, said that “there are no conditions of life to which a man cannot get accustomed, especially if he sees them accepted by everyone around him.” A continuity of human being and civilisation does rely hugely on such astonishing adaptability that serves as both blessings and curse. Human beings prove exceptionally tolerant under harsh, relentless situation, which serves as an obstacle of progress in many cases. If we can tolerate it, so be it, why change? As well as proving how insufferable lives have always been, Tolstoy’s telling quote also tells us our adaptability enables us to acquire happiness, outside of physical world. How much we possess is not the only force that determines how happy we are, neither nor how long we live, for it can be tedious and boring. It is also a matter of depth of life, and what we believe in. Life and happiness were discussed almost two thousand years ago by the Greeks, Chinese and other civilizations. In Iliad Achilles was faced two courses opened to him, either a long quiet life with little “glory” or an ephemeral life that marked his name in history. Confucius talks about the importance of practicing and clinging to virtues at the cost of life in a dilemma of moral crisis. These sages enrich the idea of what life and happiness is about, reminding us of an alternative yardstick of examining meaning of life.  It also reminds us of a perpetual situation of which we are plunged into, that we are forced to adapt and make difficult decisions as long as we breathe. We always suffer.

If the past and present are not necessarily better off or worse off on solely account of material progression, and people sufferings can be a matter of perception and self-perception, what is it that draws me to the past and makes me turn away from the present? People suffer in the past for all sorts of ridiculous reasons like us today, or many will argue that it was even worse. Sufferings wrench my heart, whenever and wherever they take place. Two things mark the differences between sufferings in the past and sufferings happening now. The past is handled logically, and tampered is with a consolatory chronological order with beginnings and endings. The present is messy and tumultuous. Secondly, reading the past I am an observant who shares little responsibility for what happened, whilst reading the news I am one of the many participants that is endowed with duty to shape our future.

I am sympathetic with the people sufferings in the past. The Russian Revolution was made up of heaps of skeletons, streams of blood and piles of corpse. I was working on this topic in my first year at St. Andrews, and I spent nights of research on such topic in the library to a point that I felt too depressed to continue. It was a pain of witnessing an unfortunate fall of the liberals and following ascendance of Lenin and Stalin, no doubt at the will of many Russian people, and at the expense of their lives too. I tried to extract and examine many strings of cold causation in that period, formed them into arguments, a process of extracting knowledge from it. Apart from this mechanical job, I seemed to hear voices of screaming and crying of those Russian people that night in the library, when I closed the book and put it aside. Pining so much hope on the promising future human beings, I cannot stress enough a power of imagination that enables to tolerate with so much misfortunates after repeated broken promises. Always hope for the better tomorrow, and it never comes. I have so much sympathy with them, but I am fortunate in one way that I was not one of them. I am only an observer that watches them with detachment. That is why I can endure reading the past. Whilst in looking at the news and present, I am one of the characters, no matter how trivial I am, in the tragedy that has been performing for thousands years.