Finally finished the concept portion of the current project. Can’t wait to move into the development phase. 2 full weeks in Hong Kong, life here is, as always simple – morning exercise, work, sleep… a repetitive but somehow pretty desirable lifestyle, for one knows the repetition is all made towards a bigger goal.

The long chain of emails between some supplier and me has finally ended. Somehow I believe they have figured out the most appropriate way to handle things. I wish them luck with the authorities, and of course, all the best to them.

I believe there’s going to be lots of flying around in the next few months… of course it is all for the development phase of the project. Hopefully the climate at the destinations are slightly warmer.

CNY holidays start in a few days time. Good to hear that a friend is coming over to spend CNY too. Plus my girlfriend’s company, I believe it shall be both a fun (with friends), and romantic (with girlfriend) 10 days, a good recharge for the hype to come.

The following are some lovey-dovey pictures (can’t believe I’m doing this…)

Shopping at Gongbei over the weekend. I love this place, cos I can get YSLs for a dirt cheap price

Life in HK is quite slow moving these few days, primarily because it is a weekend and there really isn’t much to do other than eat, sleep and watch VCDs. Our guest Mr Rayboy is finding a lot of entertainment in watching the “Making of the Century” TVB serial I brought over.

Healthy lifestyle prevails, with bread and cereal after the morning runs and gym sessions. Managed to find 2 sets of fussball tables at the clubhouse, much to my pleasure. Time to brush up my long lost table soccer skills.

Learnt how to use the international calling card today. Really quite the idiot when it comes to mobile technology. Calling SG is still expensive, but at least calling China is cheap enough for me to chat occasionally with my little wife there.

As anticipated, life here can get quite lonely, thankfully I still have a flat-mate and a person to spend time with during weekends, which helps a fair bit in lifting the gloom here.

Work is hardly taxing here, simply because of the difference in efficiency levels and the autonomy granted to us. As long as we get things done, it doesn’t really matter if we are in the office or not.

I still have to learn how to pick a 4 leaf lock, cos apparently the management does not want to let us use the balcony (they are afraid we jump off from it, hahaha).

The following are pictures of me casual self at home :)

Should have logged on here on my first day, but life in Hong Kong is simply too eventful for me to take a break and sit in peace before my computer. Glad to have a nice apartment will sufficient fitness facilities to satisfy my desire of ridding my ever growing spare tyre.

The following are some pictures taken of my place of residence. It’s small (as all HK apartments are, but well furnished with a great view from the windows. Waking up for a routine run and gym session seems to have brought my health back to considerable shape.

Of the past 4 days, I spent a good amount of time in Zhuhai (China’s mini sin city). This is a place where hot chicks from all over China gather, proving the truth of the field reports in SB forums. The food and entertainment is cheap (compared to SG), and service standards are a good cut above the rest.

Food there is also a lot more decent compared to the really tasteless food in HK, or perhaps it is just that I am too used to the high levels of MSG used in SG food preparation.

Through the 2 night stay there, I found myself reverting back to old ways, with the only difference being; this girl really knows how to play the role of a girlfriend – Caring and sweet (although it may all be for show), it’s nice to have a little cuddly cuddly in a lonely foreign land.

I’ll probably visit her again (to try her cooking), maybe next week. Till then, it’s back to serious business here.

It seems like my patterns of visiting this haven of literary vomit revolves around the extremes of my little existence – the joyous pinnacles and blasphemous shit-holes. If my life had been a roller coaster ride for the past 4 years (as the oracle had so accurately predicted), the last 4 months was like a recap of the 4 years, except for the sheer difference in the magnitude of fluctuations.

5 more days before I leave this place to which memories no longer hold much significance, I am stuck between a myriad of dirty situations, some of which a ripple of my own stupidity earlier, and the rest a forced meal, gorged down my gullet by those I have been too nice towards.

A close friend likened this situation to that which we all know of (ORDing from the army). I am ready to leave this arena, to set forth to conquer new territories and reach beyond what this measly country of 4 million sun-standard workers could possibly provide.

Be it the tricks, the people, the entertainment or the achievements, I have reached my own limits here, after utilizing every ounce of my effort and every possible resource at hand. Should I want a life to get by, be happy with bowing to stupid clients and humoring women whose sole point of merit is providing their bodies, I can stay. But of course, I have grown so sick of such a life even living the next 5 days here seems like an infernal punishment.

Unfortunately, I have to stay for these 5 days, to wrap up the shit left. The administrative hassle of filing documents, making reports, finishing up projects from clients who do not have the slightest idea of what they want and what they need, packing my stuff because I have no home left here, drafting legal documents for those who made it such that I have no home left, distributing my belongings to those who have nothing to give in return, preparing the path for those who are left here but can’t do anything by themselves, SUCKS!

My feelings are those of an exploited slave, except that not only am I robbed of my body and time, but also my money, brains and soul. In what little time I have left here, these people will stop at nothing to leech from me every inch of life I have left, and if possible, continue to live off my efforts even after I am gone.

I wonder, is it kindness, morality or pure stupidity that has led me to obligingly follow suit with these fuckers. They are simply out to screw me (I don’t even need to revert to paranoid old me to see the blatantly obvious), and I am not avoiding the least, nor am I screwing them back.

What am I trying to do? To leave a good name with people who cannot, and probably will not contribute to my greater well-being? I sometimes wonder if a good deed ever pays off at all, and for that matter, even if you have lent a thousand favors to one person, why, when push comes to shove, would your interest even be a point of consideration?

Then it all dawned on me; people applaud you when you favor their interests, consequently condemn you should you finally decide that your own interests needs some protection and thus you have to discount a little of their profits. And here I am, remembering the first rule of “Rules of the Game” (a humble consolidation of 10 basic rules to live by in this civilization) – The only occupation left is Robbery.

Think logically, and one would come to understand that everything in this world has been claimed by a certain somebody. It is simple human nature to desire for more (only idiots and enlightened mystics desire for less, though in my opinion they are really the same; idiots only), and in wanting more from a pool that already belongs to everyone else will have you either;

1) Killing the rest and taking their share (like how you gain in RPGs),

or

2) Taking from others through force and / or tact, so that perhaps they think they have more but truly they have less at the end of the deal.

I would very much like to go for the first option, since it is both simpler and neater. You kill the other guy, take what he has, and there is one less person to fight for the share of gains with you (for sure, since a dead man is a most trustworthy one). Unfortunately, the people in power a long time ago made a smart move to safeguard their empires – to introduce this thing we call “Law”.

By dictating that no-one is above the law and having every stupid idiot below believe this is for the better instantly extinguishes all possibility of the first option’s occurrence. This leaves the idiots with the second option, an option so complicated to execute they would most probably just end up fighting amongst themselves. Good! Now that they are occupied with fighting amongst themselves, the guy in power collects money (taxes, legal fees, and in the case of the country I reside – CPF); money used to pay the guy who created the “Law” to see that idiots below may use the “Law” to continue their petty squabbles.

Keeping the above in mind, the current human population can be split into 3 main factions – The Slave-Masters (basically those who create the law and get paid for keeping it in place), The Slaves (the vast majority of sheep seemingly protected, in reality exploited by the law), and Criminals (a group ranging from unorthodox business people to terrorists, who don’t see the point in playing by the law).

I have played, in such a scenario, for the past 24 years of my existence, the pathetic role of “slave”. I was born to a slave family, my parents were slaves, and so were my grandparents and ancestors. This family line is a bit suckier than the rest. Most slaves know at least to bully slaves from other families to get more food. My family line seemed to have been stuck in an eternal domestic feud since before I was born. They are thus, the lowest of slaves – stupid slaves.

For the past 10 years, knowingly or instinctively, I have tried means and ways to depart from the position of stupid slave to normal slave. For a while, I thought being a normal slave was cool, for I was a little better off than my immediate counterparts – the stupid slaves.

However, as life strode past, it seemed more and more apparent that what I have fought for merely put me on par with the rest of my counterparts in the slave society. I was no better off in terms of living standards. I went through the same monotonous cycle of waking up, meeting more powerful slaves, serving them and going back to bed (while eating meals cooked by other slaves at times of hunger).

In my free time, I exposed myself to every from of slavely pleasure I could find, till there was none left, and when looking back, it is hard not to notice all these pleasures were really just put in place to try to make us forget we are slaves. In that moment of realization, I searched every corner of my social circle, only to find everyone else a slave, and better still, slaves who think they are free.

I cannot help but stare, speechless, at the light of truth. If there was truly good and evil, then it is obvious that evil had won the war a long time ago, and goodness is now a tool of propaganda to ensure the evil ones continue to rule our sorry civilization. I look frantically for a purpose (something I need more and food and water and air to keep myself alive), and find myself unable to justify anything that I have done, or plan to do.

Where is my place in this world where evil has already triumphed, and I have been taught, for 24 years of my life, to side with the good? Everything that I have done amounts to nothing more than a step of the hamster to keep the wheel rolling. Is there even anything I can to do right the wrong that has already been accepted as a right? Is there even a point, in righting this wrong, even if I have finally gained the power to do so?

Whichever asshole said “no knowledge is bad knowledge”, please stand out now and answer the questions posed above. While I can probably find a whole lot of fun deciphering the music code and astral-traveling the world like a crazy mystic, the truth is no amount of new knowledge would put me in a position to make a stand against those questions. The now calls for action more than knowledge, and yet I suddenly feel as if all the knowledge I have acquired is not even feeble in the face of this colossal challenge.

Action must be justified by purpose. Action without purpose is insanity. Yet at this juncture I seem to be doomed, till I find a satisfactory answer, to be devoid of purpose. Yet I have to take action, for life, and consequently for the birth of my own insanity.

I pray, for the very first time in my life, to be saved from this hell.