Unfolding My $20 Heart

Before I begin, I would like to thank all of you who come here to read my stories. I have been writing at Blake Beyond Borders in varying degrees of regularity for nearly two years now and the support I’ve received from many of you has been outstanding! I have never found it easy to open up, but writing has lowered the gate and allowed me to live and connect more freely than I could have ever hoped for. In appreciation, here is a longer than usual (maybe too long) post about my week and learning to open my heart.

Monday (2014年3月10日) – Bed & Broadchurch

For the first time since arriving in Macau, I took advantage of my Monday off to do absolutely nothing. Exhausted by a weekend in Guangzhou, I stayed in bed finishing up the BBC series, Broadchurch. All of my guesses for the killer were wrong.

Typically Mondays have been reserved for administrative chores like applying for a bus pass or dealing with some new problem from the bank. I had no cash left in my wallet, but I figured I could live off of soup for the day. Fortunately, I wasn’t among the 10+ exchange students to have money stolen from their credit card, though to be honest, since I’m rarely able to get money from my own account, I’d be quite surprised if someone else managed to do it.

A personal record in slothfulness was achieved, but I couldn’t stand to stay in bed all day. I did laundry, mentally complained about the absence of dryers in a country with 100% humidity, and sent my weekly email to family.

Tuesday (2014年3月11日) – Date Day

Here’s that part about opening up. While I’ve shared many of my adventures, I still keep a very personal life. I’ve rarely talked outright about other people in case they would rather not be mentioned, but here I will take some liberty and exception.

I have fallen for a girl, literally on the other side of the world. Never before could I have imagined being able to open up to someone so easily, and that I should find such a person so far from home is admittedly intimidating. For the benefit of my readers in other countries, I hope I can satisfy you with only a short description. She is a petite local, 12 days my junior, with a fascination for Dr. Who and murder stories. She has made life in Macau considerably easier and much more worthwhile. On Tuesdays, neither of us have class, so it is our unwritten (until now) date day.

We had lunch at Paddington’s House of Pancakes where I ate an unreasonably large stack of –you guessed it – chocolate walnut pancakes. She had an assignment for her elective photography class to take pictures of moving objects, so we wandered Macau snapping shots of cars, buses, and pedestrians. Along the way, we stopped at an art exhibit featuring some dot fanatic, a tea museum, and one of Macau’s countless libraries. For dinner, we shared a meal at the Don Quijote Spanish restaurant in Taipa Village before heading over to the Galaxy to watch a movie. She picked out Rise of An Empire, the sequel to 300, and in exhaustion, I fell asleep before the end.

My attempt at snapping a moving object with an iPhone

After the movie/ my nap, we headed to a friend’s apartment to play Cantonese Mahjong. I’m still amazed at how nice some of the places are inside these decrepit buildings. From the outside, living standards seem downright depressing. The table was already in place to play, but my soon to be rivals were finishing up a late dinner. Although the games are rather different, I associate Mahjong with Bridge for having a similar history of being played by gossiping housewives. My quiet and concentrated playing style was out of place among the three chatty women I was against. Fortunately my knowledge of Cantonese curse words is rather limited. By some stroke of luck, I finished 45MOP up, a bit more than enough to cover a cab ride back home. In someone’s boredom, one of the bills I was given was folded into a heart, but it still fit snuggly into my wallet.

Wednesday (2014年3月12日) – Unchanged

My first class of the week, Organizational Change & Development, is on Wednesdays. The topic of the day’s three hours was Resistance to Change, and all I could think of was my passive resistance to learn anything taught off of pure white slides marked with black text. Truthfully, I’m being harsh. The material can be quite interesting and I do enjoy criticizing the equally poor group presentations in my notes. The greatest unmet need I’ve found while studying abroad is in teaching students (and professors) how to design a proper presentation.

Thursday (2014年3月13日) – Lunch with Tiffany

Thursdays start with Sales Management, possibly the most gut-wrenching class I’ve ever taken. The professor, in her characteristically loud voice announced that we would do some sales role-playing. I could have skipped out since attendance had already been taken, but I knew the exercise would be good for me. As much as I’ve learned on the topic of behavioural psychology, it’s something completely different to apply and, whether I want to admit it or not, the exercise was a good reminder of the importance of verbal and non-verbal cues.

Between classes, I had lunch with my girlfriend and Tiffany who asks if I remember her name every time I meet her (though to be fair, I didn’t know it the first two times). I couldn’t help but think that Lunch at Tiffany’s would make a good name for a post, except for its implied meaning.

My third three-hour class of the week usually has me nodding off or bloated with Coca-Cola to keep me awake. This week however, I started bringing green tea and it’s worked well at keeping me awake since. Because I sit with my group near the professor’s desk, I feel like I need to concentrate (or at least not fall asleep). Also, as the only non-Asian-looking student in the class, I feel pressured to participate more. Too bad it’s the only course without a direct equivalency back home.

I spent the evening in Old Taipa, still managing to make it to Portal Bar before the free drinks ended. A group of us were there to support one of the full-year exchange students on the open mic. The atmosphere of the bar was amazing: easy conversation, couches, and live music. As a late dinner, ten of us moved to a Thai restaurant to counterbalance the free beer in our otherwise empty stomachs.

Friday (2014年3月14日) – Hipster Macau

By Friday, my clothes were almost dry from Monday’s wash, but I still had to wear yet another damp t-shirt to class. I’m always at least half an hour early to Entrepreneurship and usually find my professor frantically going through emails for his day job. Class time was spent in groups, hacking out the details of our ideas and thinking about writing a business plan. It is by far the most interesting of my classes and the only one in which I can stay awake without the help of tea.

I had to finally spend my $20 heart to afford lunch and unfortunately I didn’t have the time to examine how it was folded. What followed was a nice afternoon date through busy and colourful Senado Square. Nearby, we stopped at a hipster 2^nd-hand shop and a bookstore where I picked up a Cantonese lesson book. So far I’ve made no progress.

My $20 Heart

We had dinner at Brick’s Burger, a gourmet bistro equivalent to The Works in Waterloo. For most of the meal, I was distracted by a French quote on the condiments organizer that was something to the effect of “If we do not give a value to life, then we will continue to value other things more.” I was stuck on translating it as “If we think of life as priceless...” but either way, I didn’t really like the quote.

The day finished at D2, a club in Macau. Two exchange students had won $1,000MOP prizes, so we made a night of it. I tried to stay relatively sober by only drinking beer, but others insisted on sips from their drinks, including the tequila bottle one of the winners had bought. For the first night since arriving, I managed to catch the free night shuttle back to the new campus. After midnight, the regular buses stop running and finding a cab willing to go to Hengqin can be tough. Usually the best solution is to stay up till the sun rises, but I prefer not being a zombie.

Saturday (2014年3月15日) – Moderately Productive

For those of you who think I’m having a little too much fun, I do in fact try to get some work done (though based off of the previous five days, your concerns were justified). I spent the day in the new library’s study room. It’s one of the few places actually open on Hengqin campus and it still isn’t too busy. Individual study rooms look out over a tree-lined lake and other eloquently designed university buildings, while far in the back you can see the gold-windowed Galaxy Hotel of Cotai. It’s a relaxing place to study, but already other students are moving in on the territory.  

It seems I've broken every rule on this list...

A large group of us split the bill at a sushi restaurant in the Fisherman’s Wharf. The area is beautifully constructed in a European fashion and sports a replica of the Roman Coliseum. At night, the lighted paths remind me of Venice, though without patio dwellers and classical music. Three of us returned to Old Taipa for some gelato – another area of a more European design, though aged and more genuine. Back home and still wide awake, I watched an indie film, The Kings of Summer.

Sunday (2014年3月16日) – Playing House

Keeping with weekend tradition, I spent the afternoon in the library, though with an extra guest. Surprisingly, it was easier to study with her there since I didn’t feel the need to check my phone for messages. Later, we went shopping for my Brazilian roommate’s birthday. We got him some wine and chocolates from a European grocery store then went for an early dinner of Vietnamese noodles. I love how diverse this place is! At the Venetian, we met up with two other friends and went to shop for groceries. I cooked them a late pasta dinner and we sat watching Iron Man 2 before catching one of the last buses. It was nice to cook again, even at the last minute in a cramped kitchen. It felt more like home.

Congratulations on making it to the end...

Well, that was rather longer than I intended, but I’ve fallen behind my writing quota and more of my posts lately have been philosophical and not narrative. If you’re looking for another post of this length sometime in the future, you’ll probably need to wait a long time. I’d rather keep them short, so you don’t get bored and quit reading halfway through, like me while editing. Recounting my week, whether in a post or in a letter, reminds me to be thankful for all that I have. I’m pleased to share the wonders of the world in my writing and exceptionally grateful for the people who actually read my work. Here’s to another two years!