“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.”
— Charles Dickens, A Tales of Two Cities

I fell more and more into a chaotic status lately. Seems I really do not know what I am going to do with my entire life. Ambitions and infinite desires are trapping me. Fears of embarrassment or failure are hindering me. On the flip side, emotion is catalyzing my temptations to overcome those coward thoughts. I yield to it not. I eager to prove not only to you but myself as well that I can be the best of the best. Still I’m far from it.

Standing on the fork in a road, this is where I am right now. I’m thinking of taking 2 or 3 days leave to lock my self in a silent room, button up everything in a tactic fashion which will lead my way at least in the next five years or so. The paradox is overall I like what I’m doing but the foreshadowed outcome is what be detested by me. Thrilled to the known future makes me lose faith and motivation. And unfortunately that’s the thing I am devoting now: to create “creative” designs for the solution. I bet my ass that a 12 years old kid can master this manipulation of building blocks after mostly three to six months training. Following this track, it is not such a difficulty to predict the scene 5 years later.

Why am I still hanging here? Again motivations. I swear before you my love and Almighty God that the single reason I can bear this out day by day is uncertainty. I’m not 100 percent convinced myself yet if I make a U turn. Although it is getting more and more pressing. After all the inner voices have screamed “No” for thousand times in face of the same question by Steve Jobs.

I have such kind of list, not a full-blown one but quite enough to keep myself busy in the next one and half years. It’s not even a guideline. With it in mind, I shall be disciplined and less volatile.

They are touching and historical moments. Moreover, this provokes the meditation to everyone of us, what will we become 30 years later? Memorized or vanished in vain?

Last but not least, show-off time:

Normal citizens are everlasting toys and pieces on the chess-board in eyes of politicians. I do believe this was not the first time that so what we called “western media” maliciously attack China. But why this special time our government jumped out in a fury and keep lodging representations for those insults? As nowadays, voices of dissatisfaction to government’s policies on controlling the inflation, dropping of the stock prices are getting louder and louder. The government needs to find a channel for releasing the potentially dangerous emotions to itself which will finally lead to a power to overthrow the regime. Especially in China, as so many dynasties were vanquished by their own people instead of invasions. No matter CNN or Carrefour they are only imaginary enemies can be made use of. Then our people will zero in on the “western enemies” together with the anger of disruption of Olympic Torch Relay.

Recently I read Bo Yang’s masterpiece “The Ugly Chinaman“. He noted that there was a priest concluding the very slowness of Chinese revitalization after the World War II. He pointed out its a vicious circle between the Chinese government and its citizens. The government was constantly busying on levying. It only served for a small group of potentates. They didn’t really care about most rest of Chinese. Normal chinese people were exploited and can hardly dispute. All of these were miserable but repeated again and again.

Definitely we shall at least love our country, that’s the very first prerequisite as a Chinese. There are lots of ways to show the faith. Just keeping ourselves away from mouthpieces if we need to think independently and take right judgements is probably one important step to get closer.

Now I am in a urge to write down something after I’ve dropped off my blog life again two or three months ago. The original stimulation was a result of reading my friends’ spaces. They have their lives and so do I. Those friends I seldom meet or never meet again since they resigned their jobs or I did.

But it’s of fun to peek at some other’s life occasionally. Although you may also criticize that I am in the end a lonely dummy. Never mind.

Bring back to the topic about my life. Yes I did something besides sleeping and eating. Let’s start from yesterday. I went together with Yuki to an alley near SuZhou River next to the Shanghai Railway Station. The Mo GanShan Road. If you’re a native Shanghainees like me, you won’t be very shocked by the first impression: a ruin and shabby street, not much different from what you can get just near the central station. But don’t defend yourself from it. After walking for another 200 meters or so, we’ve again impressed by something, but no longer the garbage treatment forge. Instead, they were beautiful graffitis on the wall. I did believe that they represented the very high levels of skills in China. They were crafted artistically subtle. At the same time, both sides of the road were occupied by small galleries which are free of charge. I have to admire that I weren’t really tuned into those mostly abstracted arts, like pieces from Yayoi Kusama, an artist unfortunately suffering mental disables.

As the centre of this road and it’s where the fame comes from is one abandoned manufactory building. Now almost every small workshop room in it was moded to a gallery. The area is called M50, named after No.50 of Mo GanShan Road. That’s exactly what you couldn’t expect: artists, visitors and fashioned gentlemen and ladies congested in a far less notable alley.

One thing astonished me was it seems this road is more famous among foreigners, they treat it as a kept land for weekend. Every gallery you can find more of them than local citizens. We native people are more busy on strolling around in business streets and shopping malls for weekends in parallel. In respect of arts, as usual, we’re still minorities.

Then looking back into last week. Several ripples here:

I bought my colleague a new Nokia E51. A really impressive gadget! Fell in love with this black steel and thin like a candy-bar handset. I’m seriously considering to get one as a substitution of iPhone. Also there are some side effects recently on S60 based models on their certificate hardships.

Secondly, another gadget related news was I got an IBM UltraNav USB Keyboard. It works perfectly with my MBP with the help of a handy plugin called Remap4Macbook which solve the problem that the keyboard doesn’t have a native “Windows” key (in OS X, it will be recognized as Command key which is quite essential for every application). IBM’s laptop keyboard is probably the most comfortable keyboard I’ve ever used from the T40 era. It’s more elastic and with snaps when you typing. As a comparison, Mac’s keyboard is too soft although I’m very much like its illuminated sensor at night.

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without color,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion,

Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom
Remember us - if at all - not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men