Popped in and out of HK

I am writing this as I sit at Passepartout, fingers cold and struggling to type in a cafe in Hong Kong recommended by none other than Kylie, who seems to also have oversight of my trip even remotely from Singapore. I’m not complaining, though I set out with organic discovery of this city in mind.

I was already slightly fearful to come here alone, having known Hong Kong for its reputation of being fast and its Cha Chaan Tengs for speaking nothing but Cantonese, moving on to the next person if one would take a long time to decide (that’s me). For some background, the decision to come to Hong Kong was a confluence of a variety of factors, triggered by a challenging bump in my relationship with people around me:

• A desire in my spirit to reclaim my relationship with God,

• Changes in work and the direction I wanted for Spoilmrkt and Actualize CrossFit,

• A maturity in the change in mindset about my self-worth,

• Love from the people around me, and

• The realisation that I was never truly alone.
  

As though I was heard, Singapore Airlines sent me a notification of a promotional rate to Hong Kong, which I later found out that my mum would be going to, which meant that I could save some money on accommodation too. SCORE! I would have some time alone and the itinerary would not affect the Open events, perfect for me to also take a step back to observe if the processes we were trying to develop to run events would work.

Anyway, in Cass-style I arrived yesterday at 12 noon with abit of drama. I finally located the Airport bus to my hotel and as I was getting out my digital Octopus (transport) card to pay, the doors closed on me and the bus drove off. I felt so… lame. So there I stood, first in line to get on the next bus, while I sorted out the teams for the Open— it would take 15 minutes anyway. The bus arrived and I confidently took out my phone to Apple Pay (because I did link the card before), BUT to my horror, I did not set the card up! UGH. I quickly tried to transfer , whilst letting other people in the queue get up the bus as I stood there fumbling with the app.

I don’t know what happened but I ended up paying a little extra in cash as they had no change, and topped up the card anyway. But this would not be the end of my transportation worries. After a cup of coffee, I whisked off to Lion’s Peak, hoping to finish the trek before the sky turned dark— to cut a long story short, the Octopus app refused to accept any Apple Pay top ups, so I had to resort to a physical card.. but that also meant giving up some deposit in the digital card, and paying in CASH, which I didn’t bring out much of. I just felt so helpless at that point.

No matter, I proceeded my ascent up Lion’s Peak, following the instructions from a blog and asking people I met for directions in broken Mandarin and a smattering of English along the way.

The Journey to the Peak

As I walked on Lion’s Rock I found myself looking down at my phone instead of up and around at the surroundings. I was so distracted with the Open and things back home that I realised I wasn’t there for what I travelled to HK for— for God.

The goal was the peak, and throughout, I was texting and searching to find out how to get to the top. To spice things up abit, I even ran a length (that was flat/downhill) to get there faster.

As I did that though, I realised that I wasn’t spending time with God, but in the pursuit of a goal. So I took a step back, and refocused my energy. What if all the drama and the trek was a reminder for me to rely on God? Sure, focus is good and keeps you trudging forward, and we may get to the goal as intended, but is it in the way that God’s intended?

I tried to listen to the Song of Ascent in Psalms along the way, but almost dropped my phone a couple of times..

“Blessed are all who fear the Lord,

who walk in obedience to him.

You will eat the fruit of your labor;

blessings and prosperity will be yours.

Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house;

your children will be like olive shoots around your table.

Yes, this will be the blessing for the man who fears the Lord.

May the Lord bless you from Zion;

may you see the prosperity of Jerusalem all the days of your life.

May you live to see your children’s children

— peace be on Israel.”

Psalms 128:1-6 NIV

As I walked, a few themes surfaced in my head, which I will take the rest of this trip to put together.

• Nothing is permanent.

• Our hearts are deceitful.

• Boundaries aren’t bad
  

nothing is permanent.

Though this message is coming to me in a different form, it actually speaks the same through the verse that I was spoken through with since 2011.

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

Matthew 6:19-21 NIV

Every time I come to Hong Kong, I love seeing how tradition meets modernity in its architecture, yet sometimes I am perturbed at the randomness of the buildings, a mix of old and new, Eastern and Western interspersed. A quick Google Search did not give me the answers that I was looking for (probably need to ask dad), but it felt was though people who stayed there once did not give much thought to the planning of the city, and those that come after decided to fill the holes with their own ideas.

The lack of planning made me feel uncomfortable— because things that are temporal are uncertain.

I like to TRY to put permanence to my relationships and work, hoping that things don’t change— simply because I say that they won’t. Putting in man made structures of shareholding, company structure, changing language in speech to “i promise to” or saying “there’s no way this will end”… and expecting these to hold up permanence, was nothing but a pipe dream.

In fact, nothing is really permanent until an oath is made— for instance a wedding vow— but even that hardly holds water in this day and age.

our hearts are deceitful.

The heart is deceitful above all things

and beyond cure.

Who can understand it?

Jeremiah 17:9

Sometimes I find myself so mad at my heart that I wished I could rip it out. It makes me feel the best of things and the worst in just a matter of seconds. In relationships it flutters but can also wrench in anger and pain. If I was to “follow my heart”, I would do so many more things that I would regret— well having followed it before and looking back, I really was such an idiot.

If I let my butterflies determine how I felt about a workout that was released for the Open, I would have surely flunked early on.

Which leads me to conclude that the heart will make you feel whatever it wants, but it’s our response that matters. Feelings are ok to have, but they shouldn’t define or control you.

boundaries aren’t bad.

I think the misconception with boundaries are that they are punitive. It may be because of a boundary set on us earlier on in our lives when we made a mistake. But apart from law and order, boundaries must be set for healthy conversations. It’s a line for us to come back to say “hey, all of THAT happened because we didn’t follow what the parameters are. How can we do it better?”

I like to believe that boundaries are also empowering. It has a unique quality of freedom in restriction. Following a boundary is akin to saying, “I choose to honour the boundary set out.”

Boundaries seem to create defiance over here, until the pandemic hit of course — did anyone remember the unrest that HK was going through? Which eventually diminished because of the onset of COVID-19. Now I’m NOT saying that the pandemic was a boundary set on the world, but I’d like to think that there is a natural equilibrium that exists in this world. And that an upset will see something else come against it to bring things back to status quo. That’s why wars erupt, nations fall, and devastation occurs. And when things go back to normal, and we forget, the danger of slipping into disequilibrium will arise again.

I can’t help but think the freak fire in my home was a result of that.

//

P.S. writing this was the hardest to do with the Open going on! I am thankful though for the space AWAY from the buzz at the box to learn how to be disciplined in my time. In the past, the Open was BLACKOUT season for me— it was nothing but the Open for 3 (or even 5) weeks.

Yet now, I manage to get 2 new clients, complete 2 websites, do some reflections, and have a holiday despite it all. I am still learning to compartmentalise and prioritise, but I think I am making good progress:)

It's my last ay in HK and now I'm seated at Coffee Academic (is it ack-ke-deh-mix or er-care-de-micks)??