Getting old

I must really be getting old. Judging by the posts I read, there is a lot of action out there in twenty-something land. Damn, all I have are memories... But that's cool... What else am I gonna say?!? Hahaha! Anyway, you know you're getting old when you can no longer say, "f*ck it", and get away with it. If I said that, my kiddies would revolt, I'd get fired, I wouldn't be able to pay the mortgage, blah, blah, blah. And things are starting to catch up with me... money, time, work... There are not enough minutes in an hour, hours in a day, days in a week, so on and so forth (another insipid phrase). Am I ranting? Aaargh! Oh yeah, a new profile pic to reflect a more somber mood.

: What's in a name? :
I am very adamant about allowing people to read texts freely within the context it is read... But I found out this may not be a very flattering situation for me and my name in China. My name in Chinese characters is written blossom-viewing 花見. But these innocent looking characters can be disasterous sounding to people who speak more than one language, specifically English and Chinese. Well, almost Chinese. In Mandarin, the name is pronounced Hua-jien. Not too bad, maybe even melodic. But in Cantonese, it sounds derogatory, not to the Chinese speaker but to the English listener. It's pronounced Fah-gin. I did a double-take when I first heard it.

"So how do pronounce this in Cantonese?"
"Fah-gin."
"Excuse me? Did you just call me f*ckin'?"
"Yeah, you're name is Fah-gin."

If I ever go to Hong Kong, I would never use the Chinese characters for my name. Can you imagine if they paged me at the airport or hotel? It would sound like, "Phone call for Mr. F*ckin'" Be happy its not YOUR name....