For The Present Moment

As you can tell, I changed the theme of my blog. 

An important point to note: I changed my website address too. You can no longer access the blog through forthepresentmomentqiadan.blogspot.com. 

From now on, the blog will be just be 'Tina's'. 

I have been wanting to revamp my blog for a while now. I have grew tired of the Arial font, the turquoise color wordings, and the background of Great Smoky Mountain. 

My mind still goes back to that magical place sometimes. I can still recall the snowflakes as delicate as fairies. I remember how I leaned against the low stone wall and laid my hands on some moss. It was moist and ticklish. I laughed. 

However, I feel like I have outgrew that season of my life. 

On top of getting a new look, I aimed to make the blog more reader-friendly. I have been receiving feedback from friends who read my blog about how the blog was hard to access from Facebook. The mobile version of the blog looked horrendous too. Even I was not interested to scroll through my own blog when it was displayed on phone. 

I spent the first half of the day customizing a new blog at Wordpress. Wordpress definitely offers better mobile version; however in the end, I still decided to come back to Blogger because of two deal breakers:

1. I can't embed videos in my post (unless I pay to enable more features).

2. The Chinese titles are italicized when they are shown as links. Eww! No!! Just no. 

    

Coming back to Blogger, I reconstructed the link address, changed the theme, fonts, and colors, updated my profile description, and renamed the blog. 

The word 'present' in the blog name 'For The Present Moment' meant both 'now' and 'gifted'. 

Winter 2014. I spent most of my days hiding in the library. I came across the novel 'A Tale for the Time Being' by Ruth Ozeki. 

It was a great book. Once I started reading it, I couldn't put it down till I was done with it. 

Then the big questions hit me: 

If I died, will anyone remember me? Will my stories be remembered? How can I show my parents what I have experienced at a foreign land?

That was how this blog was born. Drawing inspiration from the novel, I named this blog 'For The Present Moment'. There's a little bit of 'zen' taste to it.

Now, four years later, the idea of 'living for now' and 'living for the gifted moments' was no longer as appealing as it first sounded. The blog has recorded way more than that too.

Tina's is not an ideal name. Neither is the green, bleak background. 

However, that's all I have for now.

This season of my life is rather unsophisticated. There were many nightmares, idle days, insecurity, inferiority complex, and school challenges to deal with. What's ahead, I don't know. 

Thankfully, though I am weak, my savior is strong. My savior delivers and provides. God is truly faithful and good. 

The season has been long. But I have learned to be more patient with the bad days. Having a group of Christ-centered, supportive friends is definitely a great help.

It's late now. I should really be in bed at this time. 

I'm keeping the same Chinese name for the blog though. Maybe in the future, when occasions arise, I will tell you the story. 

Till then, sweet dream. 

Book Review & Reflection: The Corpse Walker

Book Title: The Corpse Walker: Real Life Stories, China from the Bottom Up
Author: Liao Yiwu
Translator: Wen Huang
Publisher: Anchor books (2008)


I am more than thrilled to be able to finally finish reading the book and write a book review about it.

The funny thing is, I wasn’t even planning on reading it before this. I didn’t know the existence of this book until I went to the annual international book fair at KLCC Convention Center during early June. In fact, I wasn’t looking for any book at that time when I visited the fair.

I randomly picked up this book from the piles while waiting for my friend who was looking at other things. I skimmed through the summary at the back of the book cover: interviews conducted by a wandering, independent journalist, 28 real life stories of normal people like you and me. Enough said. I was sold.

First thing first, this book is not for everyone. As a matter of fact, the content is intense and it can be rather negative if not received properly. It is for mature readers who are either curious about humanity or interested in seeing history from alternative perspectives. If you are reading this book merely to find evidences to support your political views or to find fault with the country’s policies, I am sorry to tell you this, but you are not ready for this book.

All the 28 interviewees in the book are people from the bottom class of the society. Some had bizarre occupations like transporting corpses by foot; while some of them are commoners who we see and deal with daily, such as the public restroom manager.

Leveraging on his personal experience, the journalist quickly engaged the interviewees and had them open up to him about their life stories. After listening to their experience, he reported on it calmly and truthfully, without any sugar-coating. To be honest, each and every one of those stories was so poignant and enticing by itself that no amount of fabrication would do them justice. The journalist was well-aware of this too, so he didn’t even bother to alter the language used by these bottom class peasants. Some might find the language in this book vulgar, but the rough language preserved the demeanor and temperament of those interviewees, who have been through lots of struggles and are still continuing to seek a better tomorrow.

As a newbie translator, I am amazed to find out that this is Wen Huang’s first attempt at translation. She did such a great job at making the content and language plain enough for native English speakers who know nothing about Chinese language or culture, yet she meticulously preserved the crude language, sarcasm, and dry humors of the interviewees.

This book highlights many social problems that we face, one of them being the high birth rate among the poor. One of the interviewees, the Migrant Worker Zhao Er, might not be educated, but he had the best words to address this issue since he was a “victim” of this problem.

“I have no luck with money at all. That’s my fate. But my dick is not willing to accept fate. That stuff down there is the only hard spot in my body. The more seeds I plant, the more likely it is that I can change my fate and fortune.”

I laughed out loud when I read these lines. Hey, don’t judge me too hard, okay? The description might be unrefined but it has a ring of truth to it.

There are so much more that I want to share about this book, but I think it’s best for you to explore it on your own first. I do have a hardcopy of this book. So…give me a text if you want to borrow it.