Spontaneity #YOLO

Going somewhere without a plan makes me nervous.

Throughout this experience in Hong Kong, my comfort zone has definitely been challenged when it comes to just going with the flow of things. I am usually a planner, it makes me feel more secure to know what to expect, but what I have come to accept is that life will always be filled with surprises.

I am so thankful for my friend and spontaneous travel companion, Celeste. She is always down to do things no matter how last minute, even if it is not always accommodating to her schedule. Celeste has taught me much about giving up my grip on self-convenience in exchange for spending time with people...and I have now come to appreciate this blessing so much!

---

So this week's blessing is about meeting people. There are so many people in this world and most likely we will never meet them. If we happen to cross paths, we will pass one another without noticing or acknowledging one another. There are also the people we meet but it was a once in a lifetime kind of thing. We may not keep in touch and their presence may disappear in time or we might just remember that moment and person forever.

None of these encounters were particularly life changing but they made me think about life itself...and how big the world can be and small we really are.

On Wednesday, I had "planned" to do a day trip adventure to Fanling in New Territories. However, things did not go as planned and we ended up being very behind schedule. The sun was already setting and usually it takes more than an hour to get from Hong Kong Island to Fanling depending on the traffic and we found ourselves amid rush hour. By the time we arrived it was already night and because New Territories is out of the metropolitan city Hong Kong is famously known for, there is not much activity after hours. It is a simple lifestyle. Only a sparse number of street lamps give the sidewalk a dim tungsten glow with the occasional fluorescent light peeking through the windows and doors of homes preparing dinner. The sound of the steaming wok and clatter of dishes and clink of chopsticks echo softly in the quiet night. The town was ready sleep after supper.

Celeste and I wandered the streets aimlessly not really knowing what to do since we could not trek the heritage trail in the dark. Most restaurants and shops were closed and the people have all retreated into their private quarters. I think prior to coming I had this presumption that Fanling would be like the Jiufen-inspired scene from Spirited away: alleyways brightly lit with lanterns and food stalls steaming with fried delicacies...heh.

So as we attempted to navigate the sleeping town with the infrequent transit we were pretty much lost. At one of the stops there was a lady, small in stature that seemed to be confident that a bus would come our way. Usually I do not bother people unless completely necessary nor would I strike up a conversation for the heck of it...but today was the night to step outside comfort zones since my entire "plan" for the evening was already abandoned. I just kept repeating to myself: Nothing to lose.

We asked the lady about the bus and where it could take us. She ended up not being familiar with the place either but the innocent question led to a full on conversation about her and it was absolutely wonderful. The following encounters in Fanling remind me of this movie called Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close:



This boy meets random people along his search for a clue his father may have left him...and during each encounter he ends up just listening to their life story and that simple act of listening blessed each stranger's life. And he would conclude the conversations with a photo of each person. 'Twas a tear jerker of a movie.

Back to the lady. I do not recall her name but she was from the Philippines. Most Filipino women I come across in Hong Kong are maids or nannies, but she actually was a wife of a Hong Kong citizen. Although she wasn't working for a household she still had a very tough job (most people in Hong Kong have very demanding jobs whether it be high in salary or not). She had the night shift at the airport and would start her day around 9 PM. Her trip to Lantau island would take more than an hour and she would work for hours until she could come back home. She could not speak or understand Cantonese. Her English was still limited. All she really knew was how to take that one bus line, work, and return. She did not know much about the area she was living in either. I can only imagine how tough it is to live without a community. Regardless, she was so willing in all her capacity to help us figure our way around. We will never meet her again, but it was nice to have met her.

Later on, Celeste and I found ourselves in quite a sketch area. It got even darker and no one was really outside anymore. Heh, but #YOLO just kidding. So I was distracted by the amount of stray cats and was harmlessly taking a bajillion photos of them when Celeste whispered to me that someone was following us. Act normal. Act like we know what we are doing. So I kept taking photos. Heh...but then the man following us started talking and from there...#YOLO we began the conversation. I know this was probably not the safety environment or timing but I do not think this type of opportunity comes very often so instead of evading the situation, I welcomed it with open arms. The man ended up telling us how he was once a businessman in Norway but lost everything so he sold whatever he had left and moved to Hong Kong for a new start. He ended up starting a salmon import trade between Hong Kong and Norway and on his spare time he works for an animal protection non-profit and neuters the cats to control the stray cat population. Haha...it was grand.

That same night when we arrived back to Sassoon Road, there was a bunch of Hysan hall residents out in lot doing some kind of carnival. As of arriving in Hong Kong, one of the most intimidating situations for me is approaching the local students. They all speak English so it wouldn't be a problem communicating but I want so bad to converse in Cantonese but the state of my competency is embarrassing beyond measure so I never mustered the courage to ever talk to them. But since I was already on a roll with talking to strangers #YOLO. We didn't end up talking to them in Canto...but still talking to them was a big step for me. :') They invited us to come play with them for their fundraising event...gah new friends yay.

The following day Celeste and I went out to TST to celebrate Louis' sister, Elizabeth's graduation. Read about our adventure that day in the following post.

Celeste and I had the pleasure of meeting two more strangers. We were looking around LUSH, a fresh handmade cosmetics store and the store manager pretty much became besties with us. She also shared about her life and her aspirations to travel to California and improve her English. We got to connect over Facebook and hopefully one day our paths will cross again. Celeste and I headed back later at night and while waiting at the Queen's Way bus stop at Admiralty (as we usually do) and random man came over and started asking us questions in Chinese. I was taken by surprise and stumbled over my Mandarin, but because I knew how to help the man find his destination our conversation continued. Thinking back, it's hilarious how we carried the conversation the whole bus ride and the whole bus probably was eaves dropping and shaking their head at my ungrammatical sentence structures, but #YOLO. The man shared his life story as well and said he has a business trip in Hong Kong but he is from Beijing, China. He does not know Cantonese either but believes that Hong Kong is where all the business is at. He has to travel a lot and he has seen lots of places. He recommended many places to visit in China and shared how he was aspiring to learn photography and photo-editing. The conversation is now a haze to me, but I just can't believe how much he shared about his life. There are so many people in the world placing themselves in unfamiliar places in hopes to just get by in life...what is life anyways?

A song Irving had stuck in his head when I visited him in Korea...lol. It was the most random song ever but I guess it is somewhat relevant to the multitudes of people existing in this world...but individually we are so small in the true expanse of this universe...and to meet one person that can leave a mark on our lives, that is truly a blessing!