My New Blog Address (新網誌地址)

As a result of exhaustion of photographic capacity, I can no longer use the present blog. However, I have started a new blog under the name of El Zorro 1080. Its new web address is:
http://elzorro1080.blogspot.hk/
I'm truly grateful for your your previous support and regret to have to trouble those of you who wish to continue to view my blog to visit my new blog at the new address.

Newcomer to an Old Restaurant (老店新客)

I'm not one of those, like so many of my gourmet/gourmand friends, who'd go out of his way to seek out new places to titillate their palates. But piqued by the recent introduction of fellow blogger Peter Yau, I decided to risk my time and my money on a new venture. Fortunately, I didn't have to risk much of my time and not much of my money either.

How often does one dine under the gaze of the emperor?

Saturday Fun (星期六樂趣)

The religion and churches are supposed to  be about matters of the greatest import.  But I don't think there is anything in the Ten Commandment  which says that they can't carry a funny side too.

 
1.

After his baby brother  was baptised in church, little Denis sobbed all the way home in the back seat of the car.
His father asked him three times what was wrong.
But little Dennis wouldn't tell.
Finally, little Denis relented, 'That priest said he wanted us brought up in a Christian home, but I want to stay with you guys.'

To believe or not to believe (信與不信)

The stories amongst most of my friends as far as the Christian religion is concerned is that originally they were non-believers and later got converted. But I took a different path. I was baptized as a Catholic when I entered secondary school. I remained a Catholic for more than 3 decades. Then I tried to deepen my faith.

I started reading about religion especially the Christian religion: what do we know about heaven and hell, what the arguments for the existence of God are including what certain mystics  said about their encounters with God, the efficacy of prayers,  what the great ancient and contemporary theologians have to say about God, how the Christian religion developed in history and what we actually know about the old testaments and new testaments.

Delightful News from a Musician Friend (使人雀躍的音樂好友最新消息)

It was a really long time ago. I had just returned to Hong Kong from the UK and was living alone on the highest building overlooking Yung Shue Wan, Lamma Island, enjoying the silence, the solitude, the sun, the cool breezes, the unobstructed vista of sea and sky. Back then, the power plant there had not yet been built. There were not very many foreigners or even locals living there in that epoque and one met a lot of them on the 45 minute-journey to and from Lamma and Hong Kong. I struck up a few friendships. On weekdays and especially on weekends, we'd meet for meals, drinks and chit chat. One of them was young Dale Wilson, the son of a Baptist pastor then working in Hong Kong. He loves music. So do I and a few others.  We'd gather in the home of some fellow music lovers and listen to or play music together. We didn't have a care in the world. The only thing which counted was that the music, the snacks, the beers be good. It was a time I recall with fondness. Today, one of them, Guy,  has become a professional jazz guitarist and a Shaolin Kungfu coach and Dale has become a professor in musical anthropology at Columbia University in New York and a well-known jazz composer on the side and whenever he passes by Hong Kong, we'd meet and have a meal together for old times sake.

Saturday Fun (星期六趣味)

It's always nice to have friends, especially those who love to surf on the internet and love to pass on whatever it is they find interesting  to you. In that way, I'm truly blessed. Often when I'm racking my brain about what I should post on the Saturday or weekend fun blog, all I got to do to check my emails. If you're giggling sheepishly before quickly recovering your dignified composure or smiling your knowing smile and choking with laughter or wiping the tears off your eyes whilst doing your best to restrain the uncontrollable spasms around your abdomen area, you know that the true object of your your thanks should be my friends and not me. 

Just got the following from my friend. It's about the life of ordinary folks like me. They're in Chinese and should be more enjoyable that way because of the end rhymes. But they're not too bad in translations. Here they are.

1. 

Wish to get into the fast lane in your career rise? Split your hair in the middle.
  (中間分界，升職最快)

Another side to Central (另一面的中環)

Central sometimes seems little more than a heavy concentration of shadows and reflections.

 

But if it is, it's full of splits and divisions

Saturday Fun (星期六趣味)

It's often said that Chinese people have no sense of humor. I think that if ever that were true, then it's fast changing.  They can play on words too.

1.

The Chinese literature teacher asks his student to complete the following Chinese couplet by giving the starting line:  "Got money, willful" (有錢，任性)
Tiny Bright replies "No money, fateful" ( 小明回答:「沒錢，認命」。)

Man Mo Temple (文武廟)

Temples are always fascinating places. Maybe there's something in the human psyche which yearns for the kind of unconditional care and protection one receives from one's mother and one's father whilst one is still too feeble to fend for oneself. One remembers with fondness the intimate sweet smell and warmth of the female body as one snuggles in complete trust as close as possible to the smooth and soft bosom of one's nurturer and looks back nostalgically to getting the kind of feeling of complete ease and restfulness one receives as a vulnerable child and hopes that somehow, one may magically be blessed by such experience again from the gods, especially when one is facing a new personal crisis in which one doesn't really know what will or will not happen the following day, the following week, the following month or the following year.  Perhaps one has just met a potential new mate. Perhaps one is thinking about the impending school or professional examination. Perhaps one is thinking about a new job interview. Perhaps a member of one's family is about to undergo a major surgery or maybe the one about to go undergo the life threatening surgery is oneself. Perhaps one has just signed a contract the outcome of which may make or break one's fortune. There are so many uncertainties in life. Of course, one can always make or has already made all the necessary preparations. But as the common saying goes, "man proposes, God disposes." There is always an element of chance, of randomness, of luck, of fortune, of destiny which one is not and cannot be in control of. During such periods of confusion, of anxiety, of fear, of hope, one longs to recover a little the kind of peace of mind one feels during more "normal" times. During such times, what does one do? One prays to whatever gods one's culture provides for such purposes. Perhaps that's the reason why we still got all kinds of chapels, all kinds of churches, all kinds of temples, all kinds of mosques, all kinds of shrines etc although theoretically we have entered into the age of electronic information, of routine jet travel and of universal education which encourages us to think that our future should really be in our own hands.

So many coils of incense, each burning with the hope embodied by the prayer sheet or wish list in red, the color of life.