Wanchain's Space

I've met a few individuals on this trip. Most notable was the Chinese lady in Lisbon. On my first day in Lisbon, a Chinese lady accosted me in the lobby of the hostel. She asked me if I could speak Chinese. I said yes. Then she asked for my help in translation. I helped her communicate with the receptionist. The receptionist was so glad that I could help, because she was immensely frustrated with the language barrier that she had to use Google Translator. She said the lady should pay me to be her translator. The next day, as I was about to join a day tour organized by the hostel, she showed up, with her luggage in tow. She was bound for Madrid. She said she wanted to join me on the tour. I asked the same receptionist if they could squeeze her in. The receptionist was very hesitant to take her money, because she might miss her train if she joined this tour. The train ticket was expensive. The Chinese lady said she could take the taxi to come back, in case the tour ended ...

I did not know what to expect prior to landing in Lanzarote. I was immensely curious. I expected a similar experience as in Cyprus, thus I rented a car. This time, I phoned the car rental company separately to book a GPS device. The phone conversation was amusing. The guy took a long time to find my reservation. Once he did, I told him I wanted a GPS. He said, "How many would you like?" I said, quite firmly and loudly, "One is enough." Then he said, "For one day?" I said, "For the entire length of my car rental."  I could imagine myself renting one car with 100 GPS devices; one day for the GPS, and four days for the car. Arriving at the airport, I went to pick up my car. The guy helping me was either new to his job, or was permanently on training. After I got my car, I programmed the GPS to take me to my hotel in Arrecife. I was told that there would not be much parking at my hotel as it was in the city center. That was the same chall...

Arriving from Glasgow by train at noon, I checked in to my hotel next to the train station shortly after noon. Upon entering the hotel, I immediately became curious about this hotel, from the point of view of an investor, not a consumer. It is called Motel One, which gave me the impression that this would be a basic accommodation because motel is usually quite shabby. However, the style of the interior design is sleek and chic. It is a brand that is positioned at the top of the low-end market, with packaging that is at the bottom of the high-end market. The price point is therefore in between the high and low end markets. After dropping Why Why and my luggage in my room, I proceeded to the old town of Edinburgh, to look for The Elephant House, where Harry Potter was born. Upon entering the old town, I was immediately bombarded with crowds of tourists, souvenir shops, restaurants, and stunning historical buildings. It was a photography feast. The atmosphere was wonderful. I was ...

In the absence of a housewife this week, I swept the floor this morning. Sweeping is not an activity that I engage in often, as I prefer to get on my knees to wipe, scrub, and mop the floor. However, in order to cover a larger area, I swept. While sweeping, I could not resist from asking, why is there such a thing as house chore? And why is there such a thing as a housewife? Why do we need to sweep the floor now, only to have it dirty again later? Why do we have to repeat ourselves? I am sure, if I were to spend the entire day engaging in domestic activities, I would be able to come up with a book titled The Book of Questions. Then in fine print it will say, The Book of Answers will be sold separately. I had lived alone for over three years. I did keep my home very clean. But I am not housewife material. When I sweep, I sweep the same area four five six times, and then expect the floor to be clean forever. If you put a speck of dust on it, I will blow up, at you. There is no convenient...

I remember when I took the train from Frankfurt to Copenhagen, the train stopped at the Germany-Denmark border for the immigration officers to check the passengers. I sat in a room with an Algerian woman. I believe she's Algerian, because a Chinese passenger living in France spoke to her in French, and learned that she somehow got all the way to Denmark by train. She spoke only a few words of English. She told me she had lived in Canada for a few years. My impression was that she seemed well-traveled. When the Danish officers came to our room to check our travel documents, I had my back toward the officer, and I handed my passport to him over my shoulder. I did not turn around to face him. He did not bother to check my face against the photo on my passport. In fact, he did not even look closely at my passport. However, when he inspected the Algerian's travel document, he looked front back left right up down, and asked many questions. I almost could not stand how he sc...

When I started Facebook, the one and only quote I had on my profile was an extract from the Buddhist monk, Dogen Zenji's poem. In 2012, I carried that quote in my mind as I made my round-the-world journey. For many years, I kept that one and only quote as my favorite, until last year. It is no longer my favorite, although it still struck a special cord in me. The cord it struck in me was a deep sense of liberation. I had always thought it meant to be free, to be mobile, and to be limitless. Then this week, I realized, that's not what the poem meant! "Home" is not a place, but a feeling. I had tweeted it on May 7. Yet, I didn't link it to Dogen's poem until this week. The two lines in this poem mean, to always be at peace. Regardless of what goes on in Dogen's outer environment, his inner environment is always calm and he is always at ease. Now this interpretation sounds more Buddhist than the one I had for many years!

Different senses of humour have different personalities or styles. But the humour coming from the idiosyncrasy of a language itself is quite devoid of personality. It makes you laugh just for being the way it is. In an attempt to improve my English, I read a book** on rhetorics. One chapter teaches hyperbaton, which is the expected word order. In English, the adjectives follow this order: opinion, size, age, shape, colour, origin, material, and purpose. For example, you could have a lovely little old rectangular green French silver whittling knife. There is another word order called ablaut reduplication. The order is I A O. For example, pitter-patter of tiny feet, ding-dong of a bell, hip-hop music, wearing flip-flops, answering his insult tit for tat, etc. You don't wear flop-flips; you wear flip-flops. Another word order is that English sentences shall not end with a preposition. For example, you cannot shut up, so you up to shut. Or someone should tell you to "Ou...

If you can observe human behaviors with impartiality, it can be quite amusing. Your behavior would be different between the first time a hurricane visits you and the fifth time it visits you. Today my coworker came in to my room, looked at me very solemnly, and said, he wanted me to know that I was the best accountant he knew. If he had a company, he would want me to be his CFO. He had said the same thing many times prior. Each time I just dismissed it as a joke. Today, he was extremely serious. He had mixed emotions in his eyes as he said it. I roughly knew what triggered it. He was responding to the ever changing landscape at work.  This time, I was surprised to see that his reaction was quite a mixture of many emotions. I am still responding with inaction.  Psychological stamina.