back to the big apple...for a week

as i sit in an Asiana Airlines business class lounge in Soeul, Korea i hear an announcement that my flight has been delayed for 20 minutes. it's 730pm now. boarding time at 750pm. so with the extra time to kill, i think back to the last time i was in new york and thought ide write about some random things in my head, at least until i have to go board my flight. got 19 minutes now...last time i was in new york was during xmas time. great time. there really is nothing more fullfilling sometimes than spending time with the people you love and care about even it it's jst to sit around and watch tv. come to think of it, i did that a lot when i was in new york in dec 05. i sat on the couch and just watched basketball games on epsn with my brother and my girlfriend sitting beside me. not a peep was utterred. just the presence of being together watching the game that i grew to love and sometimes cant live without. what more could i want? i have my family around me. my girlfriend who cares about me. and the game that has helped me think through my problems or escape them just by a simple dribble of a basketball on a hard-wood floor. family and the game you love (15 minutes until i have to go)...family and the game you love...this leads me think about why i am in asia. im not here bc i want to be here. im here bc i love my family, so much so that im willing to sacrifice what i love most (their presence) so that i can help them a little bit financially. thats the reason why im here in asia. so i can help my family. help them live more comfortably so that they dont have to worry about money, esp my parents. thats why im here. it's clear as day. hard to comprehend and accept bc im sacrificing being with the people i love so that i can help the people i love. makes sense? think about it? ill think about it some more too..but not now.. gotta go board my flight,. until next time world. keep whats true to you close and remember that sacrifices need to be made all the time. sometimes you're the one that needs to make them....p's

at work. boss isnt here. he's on his way back to nyc. dam i miss new york sometimes. i miss the humidity in the summer, the snow, the traffic, times square! i miss driving through times sq. i miss walking around midtown at night after going out and just looking at the buildings. i miss the queensboro bridge with the nyc skyline as you drive to the city....i miss my fam, my fellas...i miss the "non-asian" party scene. too many asians out here in hong kong! i miss the mixed crowd, the food. white castle, taco bell.

i miss the big apple sometimes...sigh

but will be in hong kong for a while. not sure wehn ill be back. comes with sacrifices of course, some of which i didnt mention above. but hk is the right place for me right now. nyc will be the right place again for me in the future. just not sure when exactly..

it's just reality. it's just the way it is. all things happen for a reason despite our inability to understand what that reason may be when it happens. same as the time my family went to the States when i was young. i didnt understand the reason for it, but now i do. after having gone back to my old house in the philippines (first time back in 16 years), i now understand my parents' reasoning for bringing us to the States - opportunity for a better life. on my trip to the old hood, i played basketball with a little boy not much older than me when our family moved to the States in '88. the boy was 9 or 10 years old. i asked him eagerly what he wanted to do when he gets to be my age. the little boy quickly said that he wanted to be a basketball player in the NBA. thats not surprising you may say. hundreds of millions of little boys in the world all want to be in the NBA. Hell, i wanted to be in the NBA also when i was a little boy. hell, i want to be in the NBA now! this little boy reminded me of myself when i was his age. all i could think of when i lived in the philippines was playing hoops. this kid was me 16 years ago! however, there is one startling difference. i went to the states. i went to high school and college in the states. i had my chance to try to make it in the big league. i played high school ball but just didnt have the talent to succeeed. i had my chance. i was led to the door, but i just couldnt quite open it. this kid may have it though, but whose going to lead him to the door so that he can get HIS chance to make it? maybe me. maybe not me. one thing's for sure though, i will help if i can, which is part of the reason why i think ill be in hong kong for a while. theres still a lot that i feel i can do out here - and not just at work.finance is one small step to a bigger more fullfilling task. i want to give back to my people. i jst gotta figure out how...

anyway. it sounds a bit too unralistic but i will try. i will try.

 So another entry, another long story, BUT in a different city...

Hong Kong Island. I wish i can show you a picture of the city. but i dnt have xanga premium so i cant. ha! Life has its twists and turns. This is my first time back in the Asia since I moved to NYC. It's been 16 years siince i moved out of Asia. 16 years! it feels as if it was jst yday that i packed my bags to join my dad in nyc. i was 9 yrs old back then in 1988. and now 25 going on 26. i would have never imagined life to have turned out the way it has for me. i grew up a carefree kid. i didnt have a care in the world, not even for my grades in school. heck, not even for the crabs and snakes that crawled and swam in river water that flooded my small Philippine village everytime it rained. Arvin and I used to love that shit! while my mom was worried about our house being flooded with dirty river water, Arvin and I jumped right in. sometimes the water would go all the way up to our shoulders. as a matter of fact, i remember arvin falling into a 7 ft ditch one time when the village was flooded. i dont know how he managed to get out of that hole. i didnt know how to swim (still dont) and neither did he (still doesnt)...

yup. life was simple back then. as you get older, it tends to get more complicated. We go to school, try to get good grades, learn some new information and get smarter, right? yes, but smarter in what sense? we go to school and enter into a system that teaches us the "values of life." but i say this, what value is it to us human beings to be taught to work hard in school, get good grades, go to a good college, graduate, get a job and makes lots of money? if you agree that that's the cycle we enter into as children and graduate out of as adults, then you also agree that at the end of the tunnel, the primary motivation and ulterior motive for school and "the system" is to make money.

at the end of the day, we are taught (either directly or indirectly) to equate success in life with monetary well-being. we are taught to strive to attain materialistic things because that will identify us as superior to our neighbor. that mind-set of "success" then trickles down to the rest of society. then the whole world is fucked, especially those people less fortunate than others; especially those people who dont have money to begin with. what choice do these people have when they dont hve money? this is what i mean when i say life gets complicated. as we get older we are taught to value money as a symbol of our status, ie the more we have the better we are than the next person. ignorance is bliss.

I say it again. ignorance is bliss. give me back the days of old when i was a little boy in the PI able to find happiness and comfort in the dirty, snake-infested, over-flowing river water. bring me back to the days of old when my only concern and worry is playing basketball with my brother and uncle and how early i can get up the next morning to play marbles with my friends outside...take back life as i see it now here in Hong Kong and all over the world where the first question out of every girl's mouth at the bar is, "so what do you do? where do you work?"; where practically every store at every corner at every block at every town in the city is a GUCCI store, or a PRADA store; where models get in for free, get free drinks and dinner at Dragon I to lure people into the club; where people with money talk as if they got a stick up their asses; where the girls laugh at every stupid joke so that they can get free drinks at the bar; where young women from the PI go to Hong Kong and enter into prostituion so that they can help their families abroad; where these same young girls lie to their parents about what they do because they know that it will be so painful for them to hear the truth....

This is our world. like it not. We now live in place where our values and morals come into question and are daily being tested. We live in a world where we bitch and moan about breaking a nail when there are others who starve and die every single minute of every day. If school and society teaches us these things, well then FUCK school and FUCK society...

Give me back the days of old where ignorance is bliss....

Oh btw. i dont know how i ended up talkng about this shit. i swear i started this xanga on a good note...im really not an angry person, just wanted to say what i see...

There's an emptiness inside when she is away, and a sense of completeness when she is by your side. To have something so special would be a fantasy for most, but it is reality for you. He gave you a gift that you begged Him for. You have a blessing that you've promised to hold on to for the rest of your life, and yet you unknowingly push her away and out of your life in exchange for the life you've wanted so long to get out of.

Trust is the foundation that held your relationship together. Trust is the foundation that holds all relationships together. You told her this the day you met. Her trust in you led to her love in you...And now that trust is gone. That glow in her eyes when she looks at you are now drops of tears that fall down her cheeks. She can barely look at you without crying. To her you are a stranger.

In desperation, you search for the words that will make it all better. You search and search but there are none. Your actions spoke louder than words can scream. You're helpless. Thoughts enter your head. You know she deserves better. You want to be the one that makes her feel beautiful every minute of her life. You want to show her just how special she really means to you. You want to be the one to console her now when she needs it most, but you can't. You're the cause of her troubles. You lost her trust in you. You're helpless.

You made a promise to yourself that you will never make her cry again. You even prayed to Him to give you the strength to never make her cry again. What else can you do but let her walk away, wish her well and finally find the happiness that you couldn't give her...with someone else? No matter how much it hurts you to see her leave, you must let her because you know she deserves better. You tried. But not hard enough. You had your chance to make her happy and you failed. What else can you do but let her walk away?

There's a sense of completeness when she is by your side, and a sense of emptiness when she is away. To have something so special was a reality for you, and now, a long gone fantasy to be had...