First of July

Today marks the 105th Anniversary of the Founding of the Communist Party of China and the 29th Anniversary of the Establishment of the HKSAR, amongst other not so prominent anniversaries. It became a public holiday for Hong Kong since 1997 and I still recall how I spent the evening of the handover of sovereignty, as I now recall, at my late friend Alex Kwan’s place somewhere around Stubbs Road, though the images were somewhat blurred.

I was planning to do a Part 2 of my Iceland trip, but I was overwhelmed by other events and the World Cup schedules. Besides, Facebook apparently didn’t like me quoting my personal website such that I had problems uploading my last blogs some of which ended up with a few photos that didn’t match what I wrote in the blogs. Meanwhile, the World Cup live broadcasts on TV were getting exciting and Su and I tried to follow some matches live at the KCC bar. Lat night, for example, we retired halfway during the release of the Sound of Music movie on TVB Pearl so that we could catch some sleep in time to get to KCC by 5am today for the match between France and Sweden. We arrived just before the first goal, had breakfast and so on, before getting back to Mei Foo. What a ritual! Yesterday, we bought more than two dozen canned beers from Wellcome at very cheap prices, which we planned to consume during the scheduled live broadcasts of the matches promised by Viu-TV in the lead up to the Final. We will see. We also recall the last World Cup matches four years ago when Su managed to make the super sound system work when a few PhDs couldn’t make things work.

Let me quickly recall, before memories faded, some parties or events we walked through since we were back from Iceland. First, we went to Louis Fung’s party marking the 100th day of his granddaughter around Yuen Long, under heavy rain and thunderstorm. It was fun. The weather had not been perfect since and I waded through lunches and dinners with various groups over a host of subjects, ranging from medical advice, old people’s homes, reunion trips and so on. I also accompanied Su to a ballet based on the thousand-year-old White Snake legend and a talk by John Mearsheimer on world geopolitics, focusing inevitably on Trump and his follies. Then there were the Masonic meetings and happily a Father’s Day lunch with Shirley’s family. We also went to two Rotary clubs’ anniversary gatherings, including one from my own club; and I had mentioned elsewhere that Su took me to Futian and nearby or specifically the Shenzhen International Museum of Art to look at the artefacts related to Yuan Ming Yuan.

I had lunch with four ex-classmates from St Mark’s School about a fortnight ago. I recall the red and black storm warning signals were raised during our meeting and I had to take my car back to Mei Moo after lunch. The other four were taken to safety by the driver of one of the four and all of them were of the view that at our age, we should refrain from driving for various reasons. Admittedly, I am one or two years younger than all of them, and I don’t feel like I should quit driving yet. In any case, I have just had my EV checked and I am about to renew my vehicle license and driver’s license.

Over the weekend, news broke out that a close friend and dear brother passed away after a brief illness. He was a close FB friend of Su too. They followed each other’s posts rather closely. We will go to his funeral this weekend and there will be a wake at Zetland Hall afterwards. I can’t help recalling the wake of another Brother Gordon I went to not so long ago and the wake of Louis Thomas that I couldn’t go to last month, not to mention the funeral of Patrick Yung who was a member of my Rotary Club.

But life must go on and in a few hours, I will go for a Peking duck’s meal with Su in Tsuen Wan West to savor and enjoy life.