Loving You, 我爱你

Chinese New Year is coming, and I am busy cleaning the house again. I used to hate cleaning the house because I am not a neat freak, but in recent years, it gives me great pleasure to keep my room clean and tidy (although I should clean it more often).

Afterall, if I get my own place next time, I should make the effort to keep it clean and neat, is it not? My own room is a good place to start, although that is nothing compared to cleaning the whole house.

Which is why I really appreciate my maid, for helping us keep the house clean all throughout the year. That is why I can never understand why some tend to ill-treat or abuse their domestic help. These girls leave their hometowns in a bid to earn a better living for themselves and their families back home.

They probably get homesick during the first few months or so. Some of them may not be educated and can hardly speak a word of English. Instead of caring for them and helping them adjust, some just treat them as non-existent and hurl verbal and even physical abuse at them! Is it wonder why some maids fight back, and take revenge on the children?

If I am to go overseas to work, I will also like to be well-treated and made to feel like home. But then overseas or not, as long as they are humans (or even animals), they should be accorded the proper respect and treatment, and not abuse. There is no excuse treating anyone or anything in a “lesser” way without basic courtesy.

My new Legal Counsel will be coming in tomorrow and due to lack of space, I have now been shifted to around the middle of the office, in front of the Business Development department, where everyone can see me, instead of a small cosy corner. Not really a good place, in my opinion, as all the more I will be arrowed for just about everything and anything now. :-( But what to do? A small fry like me tends to get bounced anywhere according to others' fancies.

Just now during lunch my colleague and I were discussing about the movie Lust, Caution. Its written by this author called Zhang Ai Ling, who writes rather thought-provoking stories on the different aspects of love.

So anyway, the main female character (played by the actress Tang Wei) was actually in love with her senior in school (played by Wang Lee Hom), but when she had to seduce Tony Leung as a spy, she really fell for him in the end. My colleague was saying that in the book, the ending words are “A woman will always be a woman”, as in a woman treats love and relationships very seriously.

Quite true, is it not? It is almost impossible to ask a woman (a typical woman, not those wanton types) to have a physical relationship with a guy she has no feelings for, or never been in a relationship with. Which is why I can never understand how come guys can have one night stands or ask for sex all the time, even with strangers.

For a typical woman, she can never do that. It is almost impossible for a woman to sleep with a man then just treat it as if nothing happens. Just like it is almost impossible for a woman to start liking a man, then suddenly switch off like that and treat it as if nothing has happened.

Zhang Ai Ling wrote a few more books. There was one that was also made into a movie of sorts, called “Red Rose, White Rose”. My colleague was narrating to me the story, about this guy dating both girls, one called Red Rose, the other called White Rose. Half the book is on a first scenario, the other half on the second scenario, something like the Gwyneth Paltrow’s movie “Sliding Doors”.

The first scenario was when he chose Red Rose and married her, yet kept thinking of White Rose and what could have been. The second scenario was the other way round - he chose and married White Rose, yet kept thinking of Red Rose and what could have been.

At the end of the story, the message is that a guy may claim he loves this girl and marries her, but at the end of the day, he will forever be thinking of the one he did not choose, because in life sometimes, the one you like may be one person, but the one you end up marrying and have children with may be another person.

How true! Actually girls also behave this way. But for me, I can never agree to marry someone I do not love, wholly and totally, with all my heart because it will be only unfair to the guy if I agree to be with him and marry him, yet cannot reciprocate the love he shows me.

Because to me marriage is for life, so even though I do hope to get married some time within the next few years or so, at the same time I will not just settle down with anyone. The one I settle down with is someone whom I really love with all my heart, and vice versa of course. Someone I really want to be with and live with, carve a future with.

I am not sure if guys are like that, but one thing about girls, especially a highly emotionally strung one like myself, if we really like a guy very much, we will try to do things to show our care and concern, to make him happy, and even if he has no response or just a little response, it will make our day.

However, if it is someone we have no feelings for, no matter how much the guy does for us, we will somehow not be touched. Unfair I know, but such is the complexity of feelings. One can give so much to someone who never appreciates you, but yet not accept the one who truly appreciates you.

There was also another story by the same author, where the ending sentence is something like “The furthest distance is not how far apart two people are, but how close they are to each other, yet never know how much they love each other.” In the original text, it is “人与人最远的距离不是分开多久，而是在你身边，却不知道他有多么的爱你.” Beautiful!

A few weeks back, I was watching this Hong Kong series called “The Threat Of Love”. It has two series of 10 episodes each, a total of 20 episodes. Each episode is one story, but all the stories touch on the different aspects of love, between parents and children, siblings, friends, couples, homosexuals, etc.

A very heartwarming show. The first series is better though, more touching, the second is funnier. This is something like the movie “Love, Actually”, where in this society when one thinks people are incapable of love, they look around and find that love actually is all around them.

Let's hope I will have better luck this year when it comes to love! :-p