CK Link - Theatre of Dreams for Calvin

CK Link (Sep 2008 Issue)

2008-09-06T00:44:00.000-04:00

My dear friends,

After a prolonged period of not writing to you, I'm writing to share with you some news in my recent nomadic life...

Updates? Well, quite a year of 2008...a few highlights:

A major news is that, after working in the US for almost 4 years, I have accepted a new position from my company (Nielsen) and will be moving back to work in our Beijing office. I'm glad that now "Beijing Welcomes You" (Chinese Olympic song) has become Beijing welcomes me.

Obviously, I can't miss out the Olympics. Personally, I'm delighted to have witnessed my country's best performance, and more rewarding, I was involved in a company project related to the Olympics. I'm proud to have been engaged, though I didn't contribute much to the Gold Medal counts, yet.

Having left my home, Hong Kong for almost a year, I'm also looking for my return during the Chinese National Holiday (first week of October).

A group of my AIESEC / HKUST friends are throwing together a 10th anniversary reunion in Macau. (Don't mistakenly think that we're heading there for the newly built casinos...)

Last but not the least, I hope to hear from you about your news and sharing, as well.

Please feel free to contact me via this email, MSN or Facebook at calvinc_hk@hotmail.

For those of you who are based in Beijing or HK, see you soon!

CK Link (Dec '07 Issue)

2007-12-02T00:10:00.001-05:00

Dear Friend,

It has been a looong time since I last composed the CK Issue; sorry for not keeping in touch!
Hope this note find you well, and like me, you are looking forward for the New Year/Christmas holiday seasons!

Obviously there are many updates since last time, I would like to highlight a couple of exciting ones:

1) Engagement & Wedding
- Cinde Wu and I got engaged in July in the newly formed European country, Montenegro (pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/calvinmcp/MontenegroJuly2007);
- We are now planning for our 3-city wedding: Jan in NYC (registration), next Fall in HK and Beijing (Ceremony & Banquets)

2) Our New Home
- After living in Manhattan for a year, we moved to Queens borough of New York City. We're enjoying our time living in a 2-family house!

3) Aug/Sep China Trip
- I went back to HK and Beijing in the end of last summer, and attended one of my best friends' wedding. Congrats again, Kenneth!
- Nothing better to see one's home soil, and more importantly our family members and my great friends in HK - a special thank to all the brothers who sent me back to Tuen Mun!

4) Old friends in NYC
- We were delighted see 2 of our old friends from our Beijing time, Cathy and Eugene, here in New York. We're excited to see Cathy moving to New York - welcome (back)!

5) Thanksgiving
- We spent 2 days and a night in Philadelphia for our Thanksgiving, and enjoyed our Thanksgiving meal there!
- I was excited to see my co-worker and her family members there. Thanks for coming out, Lauren!

6) March in Manchester
- For my first time, I stepped on the pitch of my most favorite football team, Manchester United's Old Trafford, the Theatre of Dream. My dream did come true in England . . .
- The sharing with my former colleague was wonderful. Great to see you again, Echo!

Upcoming trips
- Dec 13-15 in Tampa, Florida
- Christmas: still undecided, suggestions welcome (preferred shorter travel...)
- Late Aug-Sept 2008: Wedding in Hong Kong and Beijing! And the Olympics maybe...

And, btw, I am now using Facebook, please feel free to add me.

Thanks again for reading this and all the best!

What's Next?

2007-07-17T21:09:00.000-04:00

The advertising industry here in the United States is coming up with all sorts of innovative ways to insert commercials into the shows - it appears that a marketer can no longer just buy a traditional 30-second advertisement (or TV spots as they are called) and be satisfied.

Today, I "discovered" another alternative mean (not necessary brand new but was something different to me for sure) - TBS actually paused "Everybody Loves Raymond" and put in a promotional clip for the succeeding show. And the character in that promo actually said, "I'm sorry to interrupt the show...... let's return to the show." I thought it is quite a breakthrough. To me, the 5 second or so break away from the drama series was actually acceptable. My thoughts are - will it become a trend, work for everybody?

Full of Surpises in Montenegro

2007-07-10T14:50:00.000-04:00

A land of formerly Yugoslavia - I would have a hard time imaging myself paying a visit to it. I am glad that I did; despite being a rather small European country (pop. 700,000; adopted EURO as its own currency upon establishment as a newly formed independent nation, even though yet to join EU), the Republic of Montenegro, or Crne Gore, presented me and us a really nice break from the city life where we belong to somehow. I discovered a lot of natural beauties and the humble, welcoming and nicest people we met in the territory are definitely an unforgettable memory.

Of course, of all the great things for this past weekend, it has to be the life-changing event - We're now formerly engaged! A surprise to our families, to friends and even ourselves. Really excited and THE journey has just began...thanks for everybody's support!!

First Visa Holder in NYC!

2007-06-26T23:14:00.001-04:00

Quite an experience for me today - I went to the General Consulate of Montenegro in midtown over lunch to obtain my visa to the Republic of Montenegro (which is my exciting trip coming up in a week). It's a regular office building from outside, even though the location makes you realize that you must be in some sort of foreign missions (read: it is in the UN proximity). A brand new office but rather empty; there were two officers when I arrived and one of them was smoking! Pretty interesting cause you seldom see people have a cigarette in a restaurant or a building in New York now.

After a while, I was invited into the office and I witnessed a fresh visa sticker being pasted onto my passport - how many times would you imagine seeing it in action! And the consular was using the scissors as he was having a hard time getting that sticker out - quite a scene! Then, it came the most amazing part of all. I politely asked if they have a lot of people visiting their country from the US yet, the answer was - "You're actually my first visa issuance!" Wow, to put it into perspective: again Montenegro is a newly "born" country, it is only been a year old. I am very proud to be the first!!!

Serbia? Montenegro?

2007-06-22T23:38:00.000-04:00

It is interesting to see a nation building in action...not in the Middle East, but the Baltic. Republic of Montenegro, independent from the former Serbia and Montenegro, has just became one year old. And, I am visiting the country!

Like its name, Montenegro appeared to have quite some "black" mountains; the combination of mountain range with ocean color really reminds me home, as well. My upcoming trip will be quite a rough but exciting one. Though short, I will be able to get to Germany, and then transit in Belgrade and finally into the city of Tivat. Apparently, one of the only two major commercial airports they have in the country. From my girlfriend, everywhere is within 10-20 minutes walking distance. Amazing to imagine that the territory has merely the same population as my town back home - Tuen Mun, only a 600,000+ population.

Well, let's see if I can meet Vidic (from Manchester United) then!

Reflections from Bill Graham the Evangelist

2007-06-09T22:04:00.000-04:00

Flipping over the channels at home, I tuned into a program which did not really catch my attention in the very beginning - it's on WLNY, not one that I am familiar with (given my limited viewings). After watching it for a little while, I realized it was a recorded program from an event in Charlotte, NC back in May 31 on a celebration of the opening of the Bill Graham Library.

I knew I have heard of the name Bill Graham somewhere before and then I saw 3 former US presidents in the ceremony; then I knew Mr. Graham, at the age of 89 must be someone quite special. Oh! He IS the renown evangelist, Reverend or Dr. William Franklin Graham who has conducted numerous of crusades across the world, and possibly impacted many lives.

At first, I did not think that it would be a "spiritual" or "personal" show; but in the end, it reminded me there are so real people who are truly dedicated to their faith, and just simply trying to be a good man, a great servant to the God he/she believes in and want to be a kind man to his/her own family and the society, and even the mother Earth. I do not know much of the details of Dr. Graham's life stories, but I believe he probably is among those to be remembered, regardless which country, which political regime, or which race and ethnicity we belong to.

Lesson learned? I want to be a humble, common but good man who loves my family and neighbors. Hope everybody in this world shares this simplest gift to us, something likely we all possessed when we were first brought to existence.

After 6 Years

2007-03-18T23:49:00.000-04:00

It was 6 years before I took my first trip abroad, surprisingly and not, it was England. Not so surprising because HK was afterall a British colony, a lot of people have been to and will consider to travel to the United Kingdom; however, I personally did not plan to pick it as the first foreign country for me, it was rather like a co-incidence. I went to London and Scotland to attend an AIESEC international conference.

A week ago, for the second time, I had another chance to visit London and England. This time it was more a leisure trip as compared to the last. Though, I missed the chance to see 2 old friends from AIESEC - Dimitris and Evrim, I was excited to be still able to meet with 2 other friends, Jia in Manchester and Sue came in from Bristol.

The 2 most rewarding experience for me during this journey were, 1) to accompany my girlfriend for her first ever Europe tour; 2) to get to the Theatre of Dream, Old Trafford stadium/home of Manchester United Football Club.

Yeah, MUFC, my all time favorite in the country of elegance.

Manchester, maybe it's the time?

2007-02-25T23:21:00.000-05:00

After a long wait for 6 years, I am going back to England for my second time visit in the country. The UK was the first ever foreign country I visited back, outside China and Hong Kong. As much as I enjoy the English Premier League soccer, I did also recall so many good memories in the trip, including the fabulous bus tour in Scotland with our hilarious driver/tour guide.

In less than 2 weeks, I will be going to Britain from another direction; and I guess from a new perspective - after spending much much more time traveling internationally, and now being adapted more to the western life. And this time, I am considering if my time to visit my theatre of dream has come. It is a place so far but so familiar, where I grew up with from 1994 when I picked up the most favorite sport I have. Yes, it is Manchester United, arguably the best team in the English league, and in the probably best league in Europe, and the world.

Pre-New Year Adventure

2007-02-18T23:59:00.000-05:00

My Second Chinese Lunar New Year in the city, a very different new year...

This time I have my girlfriend, my own rental apartment and we made our own dumplings to celebrate the Spring Festival. The auspicious year of pig has arrived - to quite some people back home, a year to raise a "golden pig" (babies)!! There are apparently tens of thousand more people lining up for Beijing alone; even Hong Kong requires the visiting mainland expectant mothers (the recently hot topic) to provide proof of hospital reservation before granting access to them at the border - to avoid non-residents flooding the local maternal care resources.

Something very excited I did to "prepare" the new year was a road trip to Florida from New York - a 17-hour driving journey with my co-worker. Our flight scheduled to Orlando was canceled due to the snowing condition in the Northeast and we decided we want to look up in MapQuest and headed down to our client meeting, with a rental car. I missed a couple of times to do these kinds of roadtrip with my American roommate before, and who knows now the opportunity just showed up to me instantly. Cruising through DC and 10 states including New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Washington DC, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida, was an amazing experience even though it was tiring and the overnight driving was a little harsh.

Ching-lish in Beijing

2007-02-05T22:12:00.001-05:00

The Beijing City government looks determined to remove some of the funniest (well, could be humiliating to Chinese) signs in the ancient capital:

http://chinese.wsj.com/big5/20070205/chw170242.asp?source=email

Ching-lish in Beijing

2007-02-05T22:12:00.000-05:00

Life below zero...

2007-02-05T21:59:00.000-05:00

After the blessed warm December, New Yorkers are now struggling with subzero degree weather. Take today as an example, it is high at -4 degree Celcius while lowest recorded at -10C, and reached -20C with windchill in the day time.

There is one thing came in handy which we brought from China - long underwears, or "qiu yi, qiu ku" as they are called in Chinese. However, there was also something bad happened today. Not sure if it related to the cold weather, the subway got so frquently delayed. Both my journey to and from work were taking 50% more time for my usual commute. (read: that did make me missing the MTR, underground system in Hong Kong, which is always clean, fast and reliable)

I am hoping we can get some snows indeed - I think we deserve some snowflakes, to raise a little moral for people living in the Big Apple.

CK Link alive again

2007-01-29T22:30:00.000-05:00

Well, kudos to Dody - my blog is resurrected again. For certain unknown reason to me, I was not able to get my posts published ever since the new blogger was launched.

In the blink of an eye, my most favorite month of the year is approaching its end - the month I was born in, the month I have met my true love, the month I started my current journey, the month commences a year...

A different "sport" at the "Garden

2007-01-08T23:00:00.000-05:00

It is interesting that I had never been to the famous Madison Square Garden before, but I have twice the chance to go there this week. More amazingly, the first one being on last Saturday - I attended the Professional Bull Rider's first even in the Garden.

Frankly, I had no idea what professional bull riding means nor how it riders/the bulls score. But, truly, it was an enjoyable night and wonderful entertainment. I saw former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, a crowd of cowboys and bulls from probably country America, and of course the actual performance/competition was awesome, too.

Upcoming, I am expecting the Knicks game on Jan 10th, my first NBA in the city (second one in the US).

Biking in NYC

2006-12-12T22:08:00.000-05:00

After a long quest, I finally got a bike (a pretty nice deal from Craigslist) and started another new wave of life in the Big Apple - my cycling experience in the city!

This is also part of my pursue to kick off some exercises with the geographic proximity of my apartment to the magnificent Central Park. With this newly acquired used bike, I recalled my stay in Beijing when I rode my bike almost everyday to work and my girlfriend's home. It was a nice transportation vehicle and I did and still enjoy it a lot. Weirdly, this new "member" of my home also got to occupied a bedroom for its own. Practically, it transformed the room to be a parking garage now.

With this new toy, together with an ironing board and floor lamp/light I got from someone from Columbia University, my list of household goods is expanding again - now, of course the most awaited are still the sofa-bed, a dining table and some curtains for our living room. At the least, it is a target for us to accomplish before the holiday season...

Thanksgiving Holiday

2006-11-29T20:06:00.000-05:00

Interestingly, I spent my two consecutive (and the only two) Thanksgiving holidays in the US in Florida. I was working out there in Tampa last year; and enjoyed my first Thanksgiving meal with my roommate's family. This time, Cinde and I had a rewarding trip to three cities in FL - Tampa, Orlando and Miami.

As always, it was so nice to see our office campus (yes, it indeed deserves the name!) and the residence where I spent 5 months living on the water in Tampa Bay. We then departed Tampa and started our 840 miles of driving in Florida. Utilizing our two days of stay in Orlando, or rather like Disney parks...between smart usage of the fats passes and skipping proper meals, we cruised through the four main DisneyWorld resort parks there and got a brief taste of the theme parks. Surprisingly, that was actually my third Disney journey (second to this Orlando location, plus once in Hong Kong Disneyland). The fun part to me began on Saturday night when we drove across Florida - from the turnpike to I-95, it was nice and I guess I do miss driving. If there are a few things I would complain about living in New York City, it has to be the followings:
- Fewer Driving
- Far from the water, well, Ocean!
- So far from home (China & HK)
- Pricey fruits, esp those seedless grapes, a.k.a. CK snacks

Frankly, I enjoyed the vacation even though it was a little rush - we had early arrivals both ways given the peak season traffic. Now, a big problem and dilemma is: with only 3 days for Christmas and no vacation days left, plus the expenditures this month; how am I going to convince myself not to think of traveling again too soon...

Modernised Home

2006-11-18T22:54:00.000-05:00

As my girlfriend termed it, our apartment is getting more modernized - we have our cable TV, high speed internet and even a digital phone service! Indeed, I was enjoying my first ever English Premier Leage live game (Manchester United vs Sheffield United) this morning on Fox Soccer Channel. It's awesome!! Don't even need to mention the cruising speed and Wi-Fi at home!

Hi-tech life, here we come...

Shifting to new Online Album

2006-11-18T22:52:00.000-05:00

In order to make Google even a more successful enterprise, I recently shifted to support their new online photo management tool - Picasa; well, halvely kidding, though I do like this new online album. Check out some of my new pictures below:
http://picasaweb.google.com/calvinmcp

Living in Harlem, NY

2006-11-07T21:27:00.000-05:00

After a month of temporary stay in Jersey City, I moved to Harlem in Manhattan finally. It has been a unique and special experience for me so far - being maybe the few Chinese living among African Americans. Frankly, I have to admit that there are still cultural and ethnic issues and things that I am still not sure and aware of. Hopefully with the tenure for my lease, I would be able to figure out more.

Running quite some errands between Ikea furniture, Target store and Chinatowns in Queens and Manhattan, our home/apartment does look warmer and warmer. It is also a great experience to build everything from scratch and witnessing different things being setup one by one. With a few more important items, including Cable TV, High Speed Internet and Sofa coming in about a week or so, I am hoping the home to be even more comfortable and delightful. Then possibly the next step will be reaching out to Central Park, which is just 2 blocks away. (Though, I still have not been to it yet ever since I came back to NYC)...I will need a bike, too!

Adding Another State to my Profile

2006-10-21T12:29:00.000-04:00

After living in New York, Florida, Illinois and California, I am currently living in Jersey City of the State of New Jersey for a while. It is amazing since this is my first time living on a really high ground - 30th floor, i.e. the top of the apartment building. We have this gorgeous downtown Manhattan view from the windows, not to mention the space!

In about 2 weeks of time, I will be moving to a new place - a place which is only 2 blocks away from Central Park, and close to the metro line. That is going to be the first ever living quarter that I am responsible for my own since my graduation from HKUST. It is quite a process for viewing apartments, and handling all the communication and paperworks with my real estate agent. Now, the next step is going to be shopping for some simple furniture, and setting up the apartment - cable/satellite TV services, internet, etc...a nice feeling though, as that gives a real home feeling; and a starting point to my New York life...

From A-La Shanghai to Hongky Kongky

2006-09-30T07:19:00.000-04:00

After 3 months of working experience in Shanghai, I am back to Hong Kong yesterday. Frankly speaking, my previous Shanghai experiences were not too impressive; however, due to my new and old friends in Shanghai and also my relatively fruitful experiences in Shanghai and the Eastern China experiences, I started to like the city more. (Though honestly Hong Kong and Beijing still are my two most preferred cities in China!)
Professionally, it was great for me to meet with some local clients of my company in which helped me understand the media market and business in the Mainland; personally, I developed my interest (or I should say re-developed) in the Badminton games; thanks for my badminton buddies, I got to practise and exercise quite often and that became one of the highlights in my Shanghai time. Besides, credits to my local and foreign friends in Shanghai, I was very lucky to experience a new way of Shanghai life - and though Shanghai like other cities does have goods and bads about it, but my local friends introduced me a positive aspect of the giant city of China.
All in all, it is also good to return to home for around 8 days, to meet with family members and old friends before I depart for another long journey - New York City. I am also glad to be back during the Mid-Autumn Festival, in which means family reunion in the Chinese culture!

The Feeling to Nanjing

2006-09-18T08:46:00.000-04:00

Over the last weekend, another one was added to my list of Chinese cities visited. It was the bewaited Nanjing.

Before the trip, Nanjing is an ancient city, a pretty large city in China and it should reflect the wealth of the Jiangsu Province (among the richest top 3 provinces in China), as it is the capital of the province. A little about Chinese history, Nanjing is called, "Capital of 6 Dynasties" in Chinese; it was the capital of East Wu in the three Kingdoms period, Ming Dynasty, Taiping Heavenly Kingdom (rebellion group in Qing Dynasty) and the Republic of China. This is the place where Dr. Sun Yat-sen proclaimed the establishment of the first ever republic on the Chinese soil).

Frankly, our impression to the city was not so nice on the first day. To me, the city was smaller than I would have expected; it was not so clean and the traffic was horrible. However, I like our visit to the Old Presidential House where Dr. Sun used to work at. Surprisingly and not, it was the first place with a lot of KMT (Nationalist party) information and artifacts I visited in China. However, the night came and the second day's visit changed my ratings to Nanjing from 5 out of 10 to 7 in the end. We went to the 1912 bar street in downtown Nanjing on Saturday night and met the Boyz Band there and we had some good music. Then on Sunday, the exercises and touring we took at two famous tombs in the National Park was great. The view was great and I learned more about the dynasties, plus I enjoyed the walk/exercises we had there.

As a whole, I think there were also four other positive factors contributed to my final ratings:
- Cheap and great location for our hotel
- Very low taxi fares
- Great weather (provided that Nanjing is regarded as an "Oven" in China for its hot summer)
- Most important all, my tour buddies

Having said the above, I would still recommend anyone who has not been to Nanjing to do a weekend trip there. It is still worth my visit, though it is not the destination where I am looking at - I am still looking for my dream city in China where I can reside in...

2006-09-10T03:48:00.000-04:00

Bon Voyage, Tina!

One more month left in Shanghai lah

2006-09-07T08:41:00.000-04:00

Wow, it is unbelievable that I wrote the last message almost a month ago - recently, there have been badminton games after badminton games...haha; well, also different gatherings with different groups of friends. Interestingly, I always (and I like it) bring my various groups of friends meeting with each other. Thus, there are quite some cross-cultural interactions going on =P

In fact, I even played the first soccer game since maybe about 2 years ago; it was great to have a group of colleagues in the company to kick some balls together!

Counting the days and weeks left in Shanghai for me, it is only about 3 more to go. Gosh - I have only 3 weekends left. I am going to make use of one for my most favorite - traveling to Nanjing, one of the ancient capitals in China. Although, I heard mixed comments about the city, I still decided to go to just experience the city by myself. Of course also thanks for my friend MD Yeung to accompany me! I look forward to compare this South capital to my beloved North capital (Beijing)!!

It is sad as I also mentioned in earlier messages, to say bye to new people I met in a new place, and old friends who are in town, as well. But well, everybody will move on in life; and most importantly, I am going home to see my family for the National Holiday and I will be going to New York again, some other new lives are awaiting for me ahead!

Just wanna share the recent company slogan which I like very much - expanding our possibilities, to me, it is for both my professional and personal life!