Kalunite.net

Sérieusement, j’ai assez de cette sobriété.

Me voilà de retour à Hong Kong depuis presqu’un an et je n’ai toujours trouvé rien auquel je me sens attaché. Je n’ai encore pas d’ami que je peux téléphoner n’importe quand pour aller se soûler la gueule ensemble. Surtout, je n’ai pas de blonde et j’ai un travail qui ne donne pas grande chance à rencontrer des filles. Il y a quelques filles au bureau et j’étais intéressé en une parmi elles. Malheureusement, selon mes collègues, elle a déjà un chum. En plus, je suis le dernier à devenir au courant aujourd’hui, alors que mes collègues l’étaient depuis des mois. À chaque fois que je rencontre une fille intéressante, je répète dans ma tête “Laisse faire” jusqu’à ce que j’abandonne l’idée d’approcher la fille. Je ne fais pas exception cette fois-ci parce que je sais que je ne ferais que le con, peu importe ce que j’essaie. Cette paralysie dublinoise (style James Joyce) est devenue une habitude que je manifeste sans faute; je suis frustré et je me sens à la fois impuissant à cet égard.

J’ai vraiment la misère à communiquer avec le monde de Hong Kong puisque je n’ai quasiment rien de quoi parler. Je étais parti pour trop long temps, il ne reste plus grande chose entre moi et les gens de Hong Kong comme sujet commun.

Il est vrai que j’ai entrepris la photographie DSLR comme passe-temps, mais ça n’a pas gros effet sur ma vie sociale. On m’invite à quelques sessions de photographie en groupe ou à certains événements, mais je ne fais jamais de nouveaux amis. Je ne sais jamais de quoi parler lorsqu’on n’est pas en train de cliquer le caméra. La plupart du temps, je garde ma gueule fermée et j’écoute à la conversation autour de moi.

Non plus ne puisse-je “retourner” à Montréal parce que ma famille est à Hong Kong. Et même si j’y retourne, rien ne serait le même. Mes meilleurs amis sont tous partis pour le boulot à l’étranger.

Je ne me sens ni hongkongais, ni canadien. Il ne reste plus de place où je peux “retourner”.

Si seulement je peux devenir un malade mental dès cet instant. J’écris ces mots ci-dessus en français parce que je ne veux personne à Hong Kong savoir ce que je resens. Oui, je suis bizarre comme ça. Laisse-moi faire.

I know. I have not blogged for a few months now. The same goes for most of my friends. It seems that being away from school does drain the very soul out of us. Everybody must be busy with something and has lost interest in blogging. Let me list some of the things you can be busy with:

1. Aimless browsing of Facebook
2. Ignoring the hundreds of Facebook requests that you get daily
3. Spamming your friends with Facebook requests
4. Playing a Facebook game
5. Reading Digg, Reddit, Engadget, or Slashdot
6. Starting/engaging in a flame war on one of the aforementioned sites
7. boys/girls at the office
8. your boss’ hot secretary
9. your boss/your boss’ hot daughter
10. game consoles (and games) for which you finally have the money
11. overtime work
12. cooking (because you are living on your own now)
13. laundry (same reason as above)

星期日行街行到腳仔軟。先係朝早同屋企人响荃灣兆和街嘅合發茶餐廳喫早餐，跟住我同家姐疙咗去如心廣場睇吓落成咗係乜樣。點知原來咩都冇，得間酒店開咗。隔離荃新天地又係未裝修完。結果唯有走去荃灣廣場行Jusco。不過一入廣場門口，就俾Wanko雞乸咁大隻字嘅「二折」牌嗍咗埋去。就咁樣就開咗市，家姐即刻搵到聖誕禮物俾阿媽同係Montreal嘅死黨同學。跟住再上幾層，喺間DVD/唱碟鋪搵埋老竇嘅禮物。Jusco嗰度反而乜都冇買就走咗。

第一回合完，就哽係食嘢補充能量。上次喺綠楊食越南河，發然仲有好多檔可以試。所以今日又番去綠楊，試另一檔唔知”Euro”乜鬼嘅（家姐溫馨提示：「係EuroGoGo呀。」）。啲意粉都OK，係嗰兩支奇異菓汁同橙汁甜咗少少。

補給完，我地就先分道揚鑣：家姐去銅鑼灣會合企鵝姐，開始佢嘅第二回合；我就去展開我嘅旺角探險。點解去旺角？因為我隻踎屎死咗。讀者一定諗：『踎屎死咗關旺角咩事呀？』。咁我就話你知啦。話說PCCW寄咗封信嚟話多謝我申請寬頻，所以送無綫踎屎，要去旺角挪。不過我點會淨係為咗隻踎屎去旺角丫。前世未迫過咩。其實我主要仲想搵OS X Leopard Family Pack，買番隻模型鉗，同撞吓仲搵唔搵到MG版F91。模形鉗喺烟廠街嗰邊好易搵。有個店員同我講有田宮兩款一貴一平，仲話貴啲嘅唔會咁易剪崩。我話「唔係啊嘛？剪膠咋啵。」所已最後去咗Modern買把最平嘅（50蚊）。隻F91我差啲搵唔到，得番一間有一千零一隻。原來因為唔好賣，好多鋪都冇再入貨。Leopard搵到我傻。出街前我就明知唔熟旺角，去中原地圖睇過信和中心同旺角電腦中心大概係咩位置。點知…去到旺角兜到我傻，嗰度啲遊客資訊牌又退晒色，都睇唔到啲街線，淨係睇到街名。Sino同MKCC又攪笑到冇牌嘅。攪到我問咗幾次啊sir先搵到MKCC。最後我見MKCC兩間有賣Apple嘅都斷Leopard嘅貨，知道冇機，就連Sino都放棄搵就去咗銅鑼灣join家姐同企鵝姐。去到銅鑼灣先發現佢地係搵我去破財擋災。家姐買咗對平平地嘅太陽眼鏡唔駛一個鐘就買咗兩件幾形嘅黑色casual恤衫自己著同兩條呔送比Montreal嘅朋友；咁就900蚊。跟住去睇吓有咩形戒指補番老竇唔見咗嗰隻。不過最後冇買，淨係睇咗款，因為我地唔肯定老竇手指咩嘥屎，刻咗名嘅話又冇得換；要等我地噠老竇其它戒指嚟度吓先。企鵝姐見我地攪咁耐，就游咗去第二檔睇衫，仲執到筍嘢。

之後就去咗SOGO睇玩具。原來我真係大鄉里，依家先知Sylvanian Family系列咁誇張嘅。酒店，水車，菓汁檔，你諗到就有。一傾之下，先知道企鵝姐玩得仲pro。佢嫌Sylvanian Family本身嗰幾款屋太細，所以用Hello Kitty嘅一款大屋代替。真係orz。我仲好奇想睇吓SOGO有咩Gundam貨，一睇之下先知佢食水深；隻F91我喺旺角買先168蚊，喺SOGO要259蚊。

行到攰，又到食嘢時間。去咗檔佈置得幾有越南feel嘅餐廳。叫咗牛肉河，燒豬肉檬，炸春卷，仲有招牌炸雞翼。每人70蚊左右埋單。

跟住家姐順便係藥房買牙刷，然後就分手番屋企。

番到屋企，由於眞係太攰，發生咗啲好hard plastic嘅事…

我好心急咁打開合F91睇說明書，見到呢幅嘢：

當時腦入邊嘅反應係『死嘞。唔記得買較剪添。』

Today I tried to withdraw money from my Canadian bank account at one of these neat Japanese ATMs that support, among others, the Plus ATM network … only to realise that I cannot recall my PIN - for the 5th fucking time. I tried only a second time because I was afraid the third time would invalidate my bank card. And why do I have such a high tendency to forget my PIN? It’s because I almost never use it. I almost always rely on credit card and web banking (the password of which is a lot more secure yet easier to remember than my PIN). Furthermore, as a security paranoid, I never write down my PIN and I don’t use any part of my address, telephone number, or birthday as PIN.

Thank god I remember the PIN to my Hong Kong bank account, which by chance is also Plus ATM compatible. So I withdrew money from my HK bank account instead. Problem solved.

It still bugs me that many banks still rely on 4- to 6-digit PINs though. What’s the biggest temptation for non-security-conscious people when creating such a PIN? I’m just guessing but I’m probably not far off: birthday or last digits of telephone number. Why haven’t banks switched to biometrics already? It’s more secure and more convenient than the PIN anyway. Border control at many countries already uses fingerprint (+ facial recognition between Hong Kong and China). Considering that some countries are paranoiac about terrorists, if border control can rely on biometrics to identify people, why can’t banks use the same technology for stuff that is not even immediately life-threatening? Cost does not seem to be a valid impedance to implementing biometrics at ATMs. Who says banks must replace all ATMs at once? Can’t they start by installing a new one at every branch (or the biggest ones) first, and slowly phase out the old, PIN-only models.

Am I missing something?

A short story of my life so far as a complete failure.

Here I am, sitting on a futon, in a 6-tatami (i.e. 9.72 m²) room, with my back to a wood column of the wall, in Hibarigaoka, a suburb in West Tokyo. Why am I sitting like this? It’s because I can’t afford to buy a desk and a chair. The room already cost me 112000 yen for the first month, and 56000 yen per month thereafter. I don’t get my own apartment; this is a house share; we are currently 7 people in the house, although 3 will have left before September. This is not even central Tokyo. The room smells pretty bad because we are both guys and neither of us seems to know how to keep things tidy. Right now, we have a couple of dirty socks, a bunch of grocery receipts, magazines, and a plastic water bottle scattered across the floor. As of this writing, I have a grand total of 86330 yen with me. This means I blew 213670 yen out of the 300000 yen that dad gave me, in less than 1 month. I still don’t have a job because 1) I don’t have presentable work experience, 2) there is no entry level job other than for native Japanese speakers, 3) there is no PHP job.

How did all of this happen? I don’t know. And I’m trying to get a clearer idea by writing. I suppose I have been showing signs of gullibility and eventual failure since I was in elementary school. You know how I agreed to immigrate to Canada? My parents told me there are no compulsory home assignments for school in Canada. “Oh really?”

Then it was time to get into high school. I ended up in the same private high school as my sister, because the school had good reputations and had turned into co-ed just a few years before. There were lots of attractive girls and I had an easy time getting decent grades. I enjoyed all 5 years there. Or did I? Puberty hit me and I have always wanted a girlfriend since then, but I never got one. Mom always told me “She won’t be your wife.” So I never bothered doing anything more than glancing from time to time at the girls I liked. What was I thinking? The day of graduation, I cried like there was no tomorrow, not with my friends, but at home instead. My instinct was probably sensing what was waiting for me in life.

Then came time for pre-university prep school, something that we call the cégep in Québec. As fate would have it, I ended up in the same prep school as my sister was, and got into the IB programme, just like she did. I should have learned earlier. What was I thinking? I came out with an IB score that seemed too high to be what I deserved. I didn’t really learn anything useful from the programme except the question “how do you know?” from theory of knowledge, which I use now and then while trolling Digg.com.

I made some good friends in the IB programme, and a few of us decided to study software engineering in the same university. I liked computer games and I’ve been sitting in front my computer all day in my free time anyway, so why not? What was I thinking? Unlike my friends, I failed to enter the co-op programme. I graduated, with decent grades, but just below the threshold for Distinction. To this day, I still get the chills thinking about artificial intelligence, compiler design, and database implementation. My uncle asked me for opinions about an ERP system that the family business was going to implement. I gave him very vague answers that amount to “I don’t know”, if anybody were to examine closely enough. Sometime towards the end of my bachelor studies, dad started an aluminium extrusion business. I’m leaving out all the details about the nice girls that liked in prep school and in university; I never do anything about them, remember?

Right after graduation from university, my father suggested that I take a summer break and travel around China instead of taking a job immediately. His reasoning is that I would not have a better chance to witness all the change that has gone through China after I start working. I agreed with him at that time, and took a roadtrip with one of my uncles through about 1/3 of China. I even took another business trip with another uncle to the US. What was I thinking? I missed the peak hiring season, and I had already started forgetting everything about design patterns, Rational Unified Process, and so on. Heck, even if I had not started forgetting, those little pieces of knowledge would have fallen out of fashion in the quickly evolving IT sector anyway.

Once summer was over, I returned to Canada with my family to finalise our retreat back to Hong Kong. We had to sell our house and our car, and close our bank accounts, among other things. Then one day, something broke in my head and I decided that I didn’t like Hong Kong and Mainland, and that I wanted to stay away from the mess that was my greater family. I told my family that I wanted to stay in Montreal. They didn’t stop me in my selfish fit of the moment. They left me with the car and my sister left me with her savings. They even helped me find an apartment where I can live after we sell the house, and the washing machine and stove to go with it. Mom and my sister were crying as they entered the boarding zone of the airport. Mom thought she wouldn’t see me again in her life. I was also crying as I drove “home”. WHAT THE FUCK WAS I THINKING?!?!?!

The next morning I woke up to realise that there is nobody to eat breakfast with me anymore. I cried like a maniac. I opened the refrigerator and I found the curry that mom had prepared for me; I cried even harder. It was absolutely heartbreaking. Even now I’m sobbing as I recall my experience. I could hardly call that home because I lived there alone the whole time. It was more like a big prison into which I banished myself. I didn’t even get in touch with my friends after university anymore. Some of them have gone to work in Seattle, another went on a tour in Afghanistan. I didn’t look for a job because my friend (my current roommate) invited me to do freelance web design and web application development. What a great way to mess up my career. Since we were doing freelance stuff, the chances of us properly learning new tools was a big, incredible, zero. The whole time we were using only PHP5, HTML 4.01, CSS, and JavaScript. And I suck at web design, I can’t even do Flash, ShockWave, or Director. I don’t even know how to use Photoshop. Who was I trying to kid, trying to be a web designer? The whole experience gave me another big, incredible, nothing to buff my resume with. At that point, I still didn’t have to try shrinking my resume to 2 pages because I actually had no valid, presentable working experience.

Soon, my friend decided that business wasn’t good enough in Montreal. He told me that we can make more money working in the financial sector in Japan. I agreed to come to Japan with him, partly because Japan is closer to home, partly because I had fallen for a Japanese girl that I met in Montreal and that I wanted to do something about it, namely, learning her language first. I couldn’t properly liquidate everything because I was busy finishing off existing projects. The only thing I managed to sell at a decent price was the car. Pretty much everything else were given away. I tried to sell the sofa at $100 and even took the trouble to deliver it. The truck rental wasn’t cheap, but I thought money from the sofa and the other furnitures I was selling would have covered it. Guess what? The buyer gave me cheque instead of cash like I had said in the ad and it bounced.

Closing the bank account was another disaster. I decided to leave the bank account open because I had to wait for the refund from the car insurance company. Turns out that the cheque never got into my proxy’s hand. So now I have the option to fly back to Canada just to close a bank account that has no money in it or leave it and remain a resident (which means I have to pay income taxes even if I don’t live in Canada anymore). I also emptied the safety deposit box without discontinuing it. Out of the stuff from the safety deposit box, I deposited the few $1000 CAD bills into the bank account before wiring everything back to Hong Kong, following the advice of another friend that it’s too dangerous to carry a couple thousand dollars in cash at the airport. I completely forgot that those $1000 CAD bills were in the safety deposit box was because they were out-of-print collectibles.

And now I’m in Tokyo, trying to miraculously reboot my life. It’s not happening. Dad and his business partner have intentions for me to succeed them in the aluminium extrusion business. What am I doing here getting an IT job for? What Japanese company is going to hire somebody who has graduated for over a year and who still does not have job experience?

I’m so stupid I don’t deserve to live. I’m a failure.

今日新大久保からひばりヶ丘に引っ越しました。すごく暑い日でした。さらに荷物が沢山すぎるので、二回往復しました。シャッツは完全に汗に浸っていった。

新しい家はハウスシェアです。今部屋が足りないから、この三週間は友達と同じ部屋に住んでいる。後ドイツルームメートは故郷へ帰るので、そのときもう一つの部屋がある。

Today I moved from Shin-Ookubo to Hibarigaoka. It was really hot today. Furthermore, because we had too much stuff to move, we had to do another round trip. My shirt got all soaked in sweat.

The new home is a house share. Since there is not enough rooms right now, I’ll be sharing a room with my friend for 3 weeks. After that, the German roommate is moving back to her hometown and we will have another room.

四日前に東京に着いた。ここは本当にでかい都市です。東京の市区だけでは全香港と同じぐらい大きさかも知れない。まあ、その感じです。

そして。。。昨日の朝は鼻血が出た。少し吃驚した。「大丈夫かなー。まだ三日でしたぞ」っとおもった。

もし文法が間違えば、私を改めて下さい。

I arrived in Tokyo 4 days ago. This is a really huge city. Perhaps just the urban area of Tokyo is about the same size as all of Hong Kong. Well, that’s the feeling I get anyway.

And then… yesterday morning I had a nosebleed. I was a bit surprised. I thought “Woh, am I ok? It’s only been 3 days!”

Here is my take on the origin of the Canadian “eh?”

The French keyboard layout.

When you want to type in French, the easiest way is to switch to the French keyboard layout, instead of using the Alt + 0XXX codes for the accented vowels and the c-cédille. However, once you switch to the French keyboard layout, some other keys, such as the forward slash (/), become harder to find, so we Canadians in the French speaking provinces often switch back and forth between the English and the French layouts. Sometimes, though, we forget to switch back from the French layout to the English layout. And this is what happens when you ask a question in English, while typing with the French keyboard layout:

“So you want to go to China Town tonightÉ”

You see that “É” at the end of the sentence? That’s what happens when you try to type out the question mark (Shift + /). In the French keyboard layout, that key combination gives you the e accent aigu instead of the question mark.

The sentence ends up being read as “So you want to go to China Town tonight, eh?”

And that’s how the Canadian “eh?” was born.

It’s been decided. I’m leaving Montréal and getting a job in Japan.

Update: the sale is over. Thanks for all of the inquiries.

Yesterday I finally caved in to peer pressure and joined Facebook. Immediately, I find myself disappointed by its Groups feature. Frankly, it’s nothing more than a huge mess, with a really bad signal-to-noise ratio. Many irresponsible kiddies create groups that are irrelevant and off-topic with respect to the group types. Why shall anybody suffer browsing through 300+ irrelevant groups just to find the proper ones about Ajax and Ruby on Rails? Stop the injustice!

If you feel the same as I do, you are welcome to take part in the protest and join the Facebook group I have created: Facebookers Against Irrelevant Facebook Groups.

How you can help the cause immediately:

• Right now the group is missing a proper logo. When you join, feel free to use your creative talent and contribute by uploading a logo of your own creation.
• Digg this story, or submit it to your favourite community news/bookmarking site. Please pay attention to proper categorisation.
• Invite your Facebook friends.

Hopefully the group can grow into a large enough number to get the attention of the Facebook administrators.