The over 200-year old trees on Gulangyu that were uprooted by Super typhoon Meranti were turned into works of art by Chinese artists. This trunk has been varnished and inscribed with Chinese characters that mean “remember” and its synonyms. It is also fitted with several speakers that play recordings of local people talking about their memories of the island.
Have a lovely weekend! 💕
T.
Daily Prompt: Varnish
Prince Albert National Park, Saskatchewan, Canada
She was told not to wait,
Not to expect and just live
As if the things that had happened
Never happened.
But was that even possible?
How could one forget —
Those eyes that smiled
Even when the lips didn’t?
The embrace that seemed
To promise to never let go?
The words that should only be uttered
By those who mean them?
She couldn’t.
So she waits.
And expects
As she remembers
Everything that happened.
Daily Prompt: Expect
There’s nothing exceptional about you,
Nothing that anyone will ever notice.
You can go in and out of any place,
And people wouldn’t even know you were there.
You may even laugh, but your laughter
Is always drowned by others’ louder laughter.
Your tears are yours alone,
The world never bothers to ask
What bring them to your sad eyes.
So now that your back is bent,
And your feet hurt when you walk,
You think no one will miss you
When you simply disappear.
No one will come runnning
To stop you from jumping
From that bridge
You walk every day
Of your lonely adult life.
But you have to know — you’re not exceptional.
Not even in this.
Daily Prompt: Exceptional
To be elastic is to be flexible, tolerant, resilient, to easily recover from depression or exhaustion.
To be elastic should be everyone’s goal.
I easily get angry, but I also easily get over the anger which sometimes annoys me because I think people shouldn’t just be allowed to readily forget the hurt they caused you. But that’s me.
I also get depressed so easily, but let me walk around a quiet park and give me solitude and let me have a good cry, then I’ll be fine.
Fuzhou Normal University
Jimei University
I like to think I’m “elastic,” but my husband doesn’t think so. He always tells me I’m stubborn, and maybe he’s right. But there’s one thing I’m 100% certain of — that both us have some “elasticity” within us or we wouldn’t still be happily married after 11 years!
Have a lovely weekend! 💕
T.
I think most of us, in our childhood, have dreamed of becoming popular. We wanted to be liked, to have the most number of friends, but as we grow older, most of us realize, we do not need that many people in our lives. We just need our real friends, and they are usually fewer than what we originally thought.
These days people, young and old alike, gauge their popularity by the number of “likes,” “comments,” or “shares” they get for their post in whatever social media platform they are using. I was genuinely perplexed one time when a student asked another student in my class, “How would you feel if you find out your best friend ‘liked’ the post of one of your friends, but didn’t ‘like’ yours?” I really didn’t think it should matter. But then again I’m “old.”
If you’re popular, you will never have peace. People will always want to get your attention or get something from you. (I heard about Ed Sheeran refusing to use a celllphone, so he can get away from people who are always asking something from him.)
If you’re popular, you’re an easy target for criticism from people who do not like your popularity. And there are always that kind of people. And if you’re the type who value popularity, most likely you wouldn’t like criticism.
The desire for popularity, like any other form of desire, causes suffering. If you want to be popular, better be ready to suffer.
Daily Prompt: Popular
“Beauty in things exists in the mind which contemplates them.” — David Hume
There is so much beauty and goodness in our world, but some people are more focused on what’s ugly and bad.
Even the most ordinary flower by the side of the road has its beauty. If you just learn how to stop and have a closer look, you will see.
May you find beauty in your world today. 💕
T.
Daily Prompt: Focused
This is the trunk of one of the many mango tress that line the roads of our campus. It seems this mango tree is dying even though its leaves are still very green. I don’t know if this has anything to do with the disastrous super typhoon that struck the city last year, or that this tree is very old.
I took this photo a week before I left Xiamen. Perhaps by the time I get back weeks from now, this tree shall have been replaced by a healthier-looking one. Like everything in China, old stuff can easily be replaced. Even trees.
Daily Prompt: Disastrous
Here’s a collage of photos of tropical fruits in a supermarket here in Xiamen. They are all imported from Southeast Asia; the bananas are from the Philippines.
I’ll be home soon. Then I can savor the taste of these luscious tropical fruits at a much cheaper price! Yay!
Have a great week ahead!
T.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Collage
Underneath the smiles
And the occasional laughter,
Lies hidden
The pain of burying
Words that cry out to be heard,
Acts that desire completion.
Some secrets are best carried to the grave.
“By understanding the enemy and yourself, you can engage in a hundred battles without ever being in danger.” — Sun Zi 孙子
This is good advice not only for those who have enemies but also those who battle challenges, temptations. Some of us don’t have enemies, but on a daily basis we are confronted with situations that test the firmness of our character, our grit.
As important as knowing what we are up against is knowing what we are and what we are not capable of doing. We need an honest assessment of ourselves and work from there. If we truly understand who or what we are up against, and we truly understand our strengths and weaknesses, we can be confident of not being defeated.
You can play with fire with the confidence that you won’t get burned. 😁
T.
(I’ve been rereading Sun Zi’s Art of War. It’s always an interesting read.)
The savage in you
Like to tickle me
To death – you
Relish seeing me squirm
When your hands start sneaking slowly
D
O
W
N
My arms, my waist
Then up the sides of my breasts
Where your fingers deftly move
Like a pianist’s hands on the keys
Or a wolf’s claws on its prey.
July 5, 2000
(Written 17 years ago when love meant something totally different. Sigh.)
Your roots savagely grow down
From you, growing faster and stronger
As they reach the ground
And later strangle you.
You from whom they came from.
If you could stop them,
Would you?
(Banyan trees are also known as “strangler figs” for their “strangling” growth habit. The roots descend from the branches and grow a pseudotrunk that makes it look like it’s strangling the main trunk. Unfortunately I don’t have a photo of a pseudotrunk although I’ve seen so many here in Xiamen. I chose these two photos for the way the roots seem to grow savagely from the branches.)
May you have a CALM week, not a savage one. 💕😁
T.
This is a ship music box that a friend gave me about ten years ago before he left China. It had been sitting in my office for years until one day a year ago, I brought my son to the office, and not finding anything else that interested him, I gave him this. It plays Fur Elise (Mozart never fails to calm him down) as the wheel goes round, and that was all that was needed to keep him in one place. So then I brought it home.
I never consciously taught my son to call it a music box. He knows the words “ship” and “boat,” but somehow he did not associate those words with this thing. One day, though, when he wanted to play with this but he couldn’t reach it, he grabbed my hand to try to get me to reach for it saying, “There!” And I said, “What is it? What do you want?” And he thought and later blurted, “Ferris wheel!”
That wheel DOES look like a Ferris wheel!
I corrected him, but that got me thinking about how we perceive things. I guess for him because it’s only the wheel that moves and it makes a sound as it does, that was all he could see. He couldn’t really see the ship.
Have a lovely Wednesday! 💕
T.
Daily Prompt: Wheel
Mango: my favorite fruit. The sweetest mangoes I’ve ever tasted were from the Philippines.
These ones are from a local supermarket here in Xiamen but they are imported from I’m not sure which Southeast Asian country. Or maybe they are just from Hainan.
Back home we would slice these green mangoes into strips and dip it into a mix of soy sauce and vinegar. It’s sour and salty and just thinking about it makes my mouth water.
I don’t have a picture of it here, but the Carabao mango or Philippine mango, locally grown in Zambales, is supposedly the sweetest mango in the world.
If you’re looking for something to satisfy your sweet tooth, try Philippine mangoes. 🙂
Happy Tuesday!
T.
This may sound very simplistic, but it is quite true: when I am stressed out, all I need is some alone time (not necessarily a quiet place, but a place where I don’t have to talk to anybody) and a bit of nature to to look at — flowers, trees, lake — and then I can recover. My problems may not be solved, but at least I’d have the energy and the clarity of mind to face them.
When people are unhappy about things, they want to cure themselves of this unhappiness as quickly as possible, and do things that most often just add to their unhappiness. I think we ought to embrace this unhappiness first before we let it go. And then we can look to nature to remind ourselves that everything is being taken care of.
“Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.” –Luke 12:27
I believe nature can help heal our unhappiness. We just need to spend time with it and be relieved of our worries by it.
“Nature loves patience: always remember that. It is a law given her of God Himself, who has blessed all those who are strong to endure.” –– Gogol, Dead Souls
May you find relief from all your troubles. 💕
T.
Dark roots,
Light roots,
Thick roots,
Thin roots,
Weak roots,
Powerful roots.
They have their own will.
They go where they want to go.
Strange roots.
The sky may be gray,
But you’re right here, next to me
I will be OK.
——
Have a lovely week!
T.
A KIND OF ODE TO THE DURIAN
They say you are
Thorny
Heavy
And stinky.
But when I see you
When I smell you
This tired and sleepy body
Jolts into wakefulness…
I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the smell of durian as much as my sisters HATE, HATE, HATE it. Like they say, “its strong, pungent smell either delights or repels. ”
Durian: does it jolt your appetite? Or does it jolt you into running as far away from it and as fast as you can?
Have a lovely week!
T.
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