Mindfulness

I had a rather busy fortnight since my last blog, with hardly an evening dining at home and skipping most of the gym sessions, which was not good for the body and mind to start with. The most trying time came unannounced last Saturday, when after a long day ending with what promised to be a good dinner at ABC, which indeed it was, I decided to hail a taxi at the door of the club rather than call for one. It was past midnight when I boarded the taxi with a small suitcase which carried my personal effects together with the papers I had worked on during the day. The journey was uneventful and I got home, changed, showered and fell asleep as soon as I touched the bed. I got up just before 6 am and by reflex began to look for my phone which had served me for three years plus.  I must have disturbed Su in the process. She joined in the search and called my phone which was connected to voice mail. I was not unduly alarmed, assuming that I must have left the device at the club. We went back to bed for a little while before taking our Sunday routine, beginning with driving my EV to Ricci Hall for Mass followed by going to the club. We reported to the friendly staff what I thought had happened. They were very helpful but couldn’t find anything after a good 20-minute search.

I called my young IT friends with Su’s phone. Keith was busy with scouting activities and Windham was in Yuen Long, but both offered to help and suggested that we made a report with the Police for security reasons. Reality then began to strike home. Su tried her best not to make the situation worse and accompanied me to the Report Room at Cheung Sha Wan Police Station. In a rush I had left my I/D card and wallet at home. Well, the Police at the Report Room were more than helpful and handled our business efficiently. We then returned to Mei Foo, went home for my I/D card before going to the Polling Station to cast our votes for the next LegCo. Meanwhile, Windam offered to meet us around 3 pm at the Apple Shop at TST to buy a new phone. For various reasons and on Su’s advice, we had decided to acquire an iPhone this time. To cut the long story short, I spent some good money on the new device, acquired for the first time an e-sim card and left the shop, probably in about half an hour. In the past when I acquired a new phone, I used to allow it to stay a few hours or even overnight to enable the technical people to transfer data from the old phone to the new one. Now that the old device was not available, I had to rely entirely on Windam who returned to Mei Foo with me to turn the new iPhone17 into a workable device for my purpose. It wasn’t easy and I went through a sharp learning curve. Windham solved most of the problems in the following two hours and left to make dinner for Polly in Tuen Mun while Su and I began to prepare for our next function, which was a wedding banquet in Hopewell Hotel.  

It was then I discovered that we had failed to retrieve what was supposed to be the very important and indispensable Facebook Account that had lived with me since 2007. Instead, we had installed what I called a stop-gap account created in March 2022 when I thought that the 2007 account was hacked by someone in Nigeria and which had become disused after Su’s cousin helped me to restore the original account created in 2007. In short, this March 2022 account which I had used for a few weeks and which had been dormant since suddenly came to life and thrusted before my eyes the contacts or friends that I had collected in those few weeks and the activities I had with them, while at the same time I was ex-communicated with the over 1000 friends on the other account. Windham was upbeat and assured me that something could be done the following day or week.

I spent the next day – Monday – learning how to use the new device and repairing or updating some apps while Windham tried all his IT skills in stock to try to retrieve my 2007 account, but we couldn’t go very far. Tuesday arrived with new priorities. Su took me to Futian after lunch to put in a replacement sim-card for my China Mobile phone account. Mr. Chung had helped me open the phone account in July 2024 and I had pre-paid the necessary fees for five years. He was still very helpful and got me a replacement card at no cost. After the stressful experience, Su and I went for a great meal in a posh restaurant at Hi-tech Park before returning home, which was the good news. The bad news was that Windham and I spent the rest of the evening in vain trying our very best and with the assistance of another brother – Bernard – to retrieve the 2007 account. By 11 pm, we decided to call it a day and thanked Bernard for the immense help.

Wednesday came and I went for my medical, which turned out to be uneventful, but that would be another story. On my way home, I recalled Windham had said that he would need to disable or remove the data on the lost phone. I called Winham who presently took action and instructed Google to put in a programme on the lost phone that would trigger a mechanism to restore it to factory mode as soon as someone picked it up, charged it and tried to operate it. Moreover, a message will pop up to instruct the person to contact the owner, namely me.  So much for technology!

By now, and even as early as Tuesday, I am resigned to the fact that there are no obvious or logical means to retrieve the 2007 account unless the lost phone surfaced.  As I said, the account had contact details of over 1200 friends and I had got used to using it. This recently re-surfaced account had fewer than 300 names, but the numbers are growing gradually. It is indeed a practical lesson in mindfulness – one needs to learn to live in the present moment, to practice de-cluttering and to free oneself from attachments. Meanwhile, Keith who had been living with iPhone for long introduced us to some useful apps and we are still learning.

I will begin to write my year-ender soon; and I hope to talk to you again soon.