Home Cookin' Dreams

I get tired of living away from my country. I'm tired of living in other people’s culture that doesn't accept me as part of it. I grow very tired of the pollution and crowded streets. Where is the grass? Where are the blue skies of my childhood? I dislike a city that does not embrace the word "weekend". Where is the joy if I can't have a Saturday off to do the needed relax and catch up on things that didn't get done during the week? How I miss my home country. I dream of the day when I will be home. The first thing I will do is get on my bike and ride it until I can't ride it any longer. The freedom I will have.

Two

This man was so cute I had to take a picture of him. He turned around just as I was about to press the button on my camera when he lifted up his arm. After I took the picture and put my camera down, I noticed he had two fingers pointing at me. At first I thought he was telling me in his local dialect of Longshen (Guangxi, China) that he didn't want his picture taken. I nodded my head and said okay. But those two fingers were persistent. Two, Two...then I realized after I had walked past him that he was asking for two Yuan for taking his picture. In retrospect, I wish I walked back to this gentle old man and but 5 Yuan in his hand because this picture (to me) was worth it.

Life's Grass Issues

I use to wish on green grass when I was younger. I wanted the future to come, I always wanted to be somewhere else and my dad would always coin the phrase, 'the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence'. He taught me to live in the now. If I couldn't enjoy where I was now I would never be happy with the future. If I was to busy looking for the future, I would miss it when it finally became the present. Well I have grown up and adulthood has finally solidified at age 25. I recently had a discussion with my dad about life and the subject and it played out like this:

J: To me now the grass is brown on both sides! I haven't seen green grass in a long time, I am surrounded by concrete.

D: Don't worry, Heavenly Father keeps you close to green pastures, you just have to focus on what is in front of you.

J: Yeah, I know but sometimes I wish I could just be a horse and live on it.

D: Yes, real grass is nice but horses probably need prairie grass.

J: Yuck

D: It's not too green, mostly brown.

J: Not if I live in Scotland!

D: The weather is not so good there.

J: Bottom line, I am not a horse and I can only look at it. I like green grass. It makes me feel happy. It's plentiful in Canada.

D: Kids eat it.

J:Ha ha!

Picture: North Stradbroke Island Australia, looking for grass.

SPCA Kittens

It's been way to long since my last post. I've been waiting for the right thing to add but it just hasn't come. But for the past month McKay and I have been fostering kittens from the SPCA here in Hong Kong. Our first Kitten was Mao Mao who was a beautiful tortoise shell coloured creature that loved to fight, fight, fight. I had a hard time giving her back to the SPCA but I'm happy to report has already found a permanent home. I wanted to be selfish and keep her to myself but our circumstance wasn't fair to the little cat. So now we have a new foster in our midst. Her name is Ducky. When we first took her home, all she did was meow which didn't really sound like a meow but more like a quack. This tiny ball of fur waddling around quacking, was just too funny. She sleeps, sleeps, sleeps all day long. This one is not a fighter but a lover. She loves to be pet, and soak in as much attention as she can get. Two very different characters. But lovable all the same.

Canadian Modernist Painters of Beaver Hall

In 1929, the Montreal Daily Star's Morgan Powell - clearly Quebec equivalent of Toronto critic Hector Charlesworth, who liked to bear-bait the Group of Seven - denounced paintings by the Beaver Hall women, saying they were "marred by crudity of colouring, harsh tones, and neglect of drawing." - Alison Gilmore

Quebec's Group of Seven - CBC Arts & Entertainment

Giant Buddhas

"I am now convinced that the Buddhist statues were not demolished. They crumbled to pieces out of shame, because of the west's ignorance towards Afghanistan".

-Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Iranian Film Maker


In the spring of 2001, Taliban leader Mullah Omar in a fatwa, gave the order to destroy the two Buddha statues.

"Why did the Taliban resort to such measures?" "They felt that the world had cheated them" countered Taysir Alony. "They realised that nobody was interested in the disastrous consequences of the economic blockade. Internationally, the Taliban were completely isolated. I believe that with the destruction of this symbol of Buddhism they wanted to set a political agenda. And I also think the international appeals and protests regarding the Buddhas made the Taliban ruthless. The world showed little interest in the fact that hundreds, yes even thousands of children in Afghanistan suffered from malnutrition or were maimed as the result of mines. Now, because of two old stone figures, the world reacted with cries of horror."

- Taysir Alony, Al Jazeera Correspondent

Giant Buddhas: A Film By Christian Frei

Where is the path?

Happiness is the object and design of our existence; and will be the end there of, if we pursue the path that leads to it...