Today is my 27th birthday, I believe I should somehow write down something, but today I just feel blue and have no special feeling.
Then now I am having a retrospect in my mind how I lived the past 26 years.
When I was a tiny kid, I guess around 3, I loved drawing. Once I had drawn dozens of chickens (with a hen in front of the line) on the wall, my parents felt angry and hit me heavily (physical punishment was acceptable at that time). Then they bought me a set of crayon and note pad and I was only allowed to draw on the note pad. Then what I did when boring was drawing.
When I was a primary school student, competition started among classmates, mom & dad always told me studying hard was my responsibility, their repsonsibility were raising the family. In that age, I felt that I started to have desire in this materialistic world, I wished to have those fancy stationaries my classmates had, like Hello Kitty eraser, Melody note book, etc. I think the comsuming culture of children in that decade was highly influenced by Japanese culture.
It was my great fortune that I have a great daddy, at that period, my daddy introduced me to read a lot of local and foreign great novels, including Jane Eyre, Great Expectation, Love Education and Garfield comic. It aroused my reading interest. We visited library every Sunday, accompanied with my daddy and sister. My mom was a traditional decent housewife, she would prepare the meal for us at home.
When I was a secondary school student, my parent thought that I was too quiet and too shy, they encouraged me to participate lots of extra-curricular activities. It was honestly, quite different with other parents' practice. They suggested me to join the Girl Guide community. The girl guide activities did totally change my personality. I became a confidence person to offer public speech. In Form 2, I decided to join the life-saving team in school, I suddenly grew much taller in that summer as I kept swimming practice through the whole summer. My happiest time was in secondary school, I somehow enjoyed the school life, I studied in a girls school, our school motto is Brave, Gentle and Sincere. Mostly, our girls were brave, partically sincere but not gentle. We were as actice as boys.
Then, I found that my personality had great transformation when I had dating. I became much more girlish and sentimental. I seldom cried when seeing tragedies before, but then I usually associated my feeling to those movie characters and cried a lot. And I also found that someone you supposed he loved you will hurt you bad. They were different from family members, friends and classmates I met before in my life. I found I became more fragile and pessimistic, I started to hate myself at that moment.
It was my great turning point to meet my husband Jeffrey. He gave me a role model of how to live in optimistic way, his life was not smoother than anyone of us but his mentality and personal value was great. Surely Jeffrey is not a perfect person but he is flawless to me.
After we went together, I worked harder in my study, and lived healthier than before.
In 2001, I made a brave (or silly) decision to quit my fairly good job to study anthropology. Studying something you're interest in but no economic value seems crazy in Hong Kong, but I wanted to walk my path differently from others. At that year, I met lot of smart people and good friends. I had no income that year, but thank so much that my parent gave me some pocket money. I would not forget how they supported me to realize my dream. At that year, I grow a lot spiritually. I experienced what eternal happiness means, I put greatest effort in my study and cut all the material consumption. The feeling was just fantastic.
Now I had got married with my beloved husband, I still had a close connection with my parental family, especially my lovely sister, I recognize that my life is blissful and full of joy. Difficulites and painfulness only polished me to be a stronger person.