Let's Go Home

Well, wasn't I saying in the previous blog entry which was only updated yesterday, how pleased I was to see that Smug and Lily are now getting on better and more tolerant with each other? I think I was happy too soon, last night the two of them nearly had a good bitch fight, and what surprised me was that it was the usually cowardy Smug who started it.

And it was my fault. I was eating an orange while watching TV the other night and found two pairs of longing eyes staring at me and tails wagging like mad, usually I don't give them much junk food and look after my dogs well, but the idea of giving them a piece of vitamin C seemed like a good thing to do, so I peeled them a segment each. Lily gave the piece of orange a good sucking and played with it for a while to work out how to eat this slippery smellie thing, whereas Smug (who has had oranges before) simply turned her nose up and made it clear that she wasn't eating it this time, and just laid disappointedly next to the deserted piece of orange, so I gave it to Lily, who by then had eaten up her piece of orange, and as soon as Smug realised what had been hers was now going in Lily's gob (even though she didn't want it), she went all funny about it, she got up, looked at Lily, then looked at me, she restlessly paced around and jumped up the settie trying to bite me in my hand (seemed playfully, but still hurt), then jumped back down, only to repeat the jumping up and biting before jumping back down again, she did that for about 3 times, then she headed towards Lily, growling in a crouching position (bum up), as if she was picking a fight with Lily.

I was gobsmacked, because, right until that moment, Smug had clearly been wary and a bit frightened of Lily and always kept her distance. That miserable, scaredy face when she was corned by Lily when Lily first came to live with us a month ago, seemed so unfamiliar and distant now. Here she was, trying to declare war and reclaimed her place, the love of her owner (me) and, probably the lost piece of orange. She charged forward, and Lily wasn't having any of it, she stood up and woofed back, with eyes like a a pair of daggers. Shit scared, I knew I had to do something when Smug paced frantically around Lily, trying to work out the best angle to strike, I shouted at Smug, but that only made her even more mad, so, before she got even more worked up, I changed the strategy and clench my fist, pretending to have something in my hand, "O, look, what's this Smug, come with me to the bedroom, I've got something for you....." as I made my way to the bedroom, which was behind where Smug was standing. And the pathetic thing stared at me, her eyes were fixed to my hand as if she was trying to see through it, and rushed into the bedroom right behind me, so I grabbed her and quickly closed the door behind me, and smoothed her to calm her .......

I've since decided to keep dog snacks in every room in the flat.

I'm so glad that Smug and Lily seem to be getting on much better now, when Lily first came to live with us, Lily was terribly territorial, though she's a very sweet dog in general, her time at the rescue centre means that she's had to learn to stand up to other dogs and guard her own spot and nosh. Therefore Smug (who had came to live with me since she was 9 months old, and had only hung out with those fortunate and more tamed pet dogs) was shit scared of Lily and was miserable to start with with Lily around all the time. Cameras don't lie (says me), now at least they can bear to be quite close to each other without any tensions.

The two of them relaxing at home

A very happy Lily sitting nicely in the car, we took the dogs to the reservoir last Saturday, they both had a great time. Lily clearly wasn't so used to all this exercise and traveling though, she had car sick and threw up in the car and was quite poorly for the whole evening.

Lily's skin condition has improved a lot, at least she's not so greasy anymore, she still smells a bit though, so I have to bathe her quite often (at least once a week, sometimes twice). She's getting cheekier by day and copies some of Smug's tricks, like rummaging the dustbin, sucking all the yummy caesar off the dog biscuits and then spit the biscuits out. like when Smug first got rescued, she loooooved her biscuits, but now they're not good enough for her anymore. Also she's showing more affection and not so jumpy like when she first came a month ago. I'm so pleased with her progress.

Since having Lily, we have experienced a fair bit of prejudice from other people, (mainly the neighbours) they sniff, they tut, they frown, anything to make it clear that Lily is not a welcomed resident when they see Lily, some wouldn't even go in the same elevator as us when Lily's there. Even other dog owners aren't much more tolerant to Lily, they will happily let their dogs play with Smug (as no way she looks like a mutt now even though she is a retriever x spaniel) or poodles or Schnauzers, but they pull their dogs away if Lily goes anywhere near them like Lily's gonna eat them alive and then spit out green gunk. C'mon, why can't HK people accept Lily the mutt like the Americans have with Obama? Surely that's a much bigger step?

Since I adopted my new dog Lily from an animal sanctuary (CAF - Companion Animal Federation) a couple of weeks ago, no, actually, even before that, when I only had Smug (another abandoned dog that I rescued by chance), people often tell me how kind they think I am to give a home to ugly old mutts (in other people's eyes), and boy some really exaggerate, it's nice to hear people saying nice things about you and give credit to something that you've done. Every time people start giving these compliments, I can feel my body getting light, and my feet nearly off the ground, floating in the air like a real angel, the truth is, I know I am not as nice as they think, and I do tell them..... I think my compassions are strictly limited to animals, which I think, in this human dominated world, they don't really have a choice how they live, it's all up to human beings, that's why when I see animals in a bad way, I know the blame is on us, we are the ones responsible for putting them in such bad situations, so it's only fair that I want to do something to help.

A good example that I'm more of a devil than an angel, before I decided to join CAF (Companion Animal Federation) as a volunteer and to make regular donations to them, my mum said to me, "Why don't you go find an old people's home or children's home to help? I think it would be much more meaningful, animals are just animals, you know..." I retorted that I didn't think it's my fault that people don't plan for their future and don't have savings for when they're old, (in HK, old people's homes are mainly for the poor elderly with no or little savings), I disagree that people should spend all they have when they're young, then put their feet up and expect the government to take care of them, and then have youngsters volunteering to change their nappies, in HK, income tax is peanuts, we contribute hardly anything back, people have no rights to count on the government for everything. Over here, you either have to save up for your retirement, or you have kids, hoping that they will take care of you when you're old. So, that's old people's home ruled out. As for children's homes, I agree that orphans or abandoned kids are very unfortunate and do need as much help and resources as possible, unlike some of the elderly who created the bad fate for themselves, nobody asks to be born, especially only to be an orphan, they have no control of their misfortune. However, compared to animals in suffering, there are plenty of people around the world who feel the same and are willing to help an unprivileged group such as orphans or children in homes, they get far more sympathy and awareness than these poor animals, because people just generally think that animals are inferior to human anyway, what's so big deal that they suffer?

Of course, after my explanation, my mum called me stupid and evil.

Hence, I'm willing to be one of the minority who think differently. Right from the beginning I was clear that if I was to help a charity out, I will only go to an animal charity. I think that all lives should be equal, besides, even a human orphan who lives in a home can work hard and path a bright future for himself given the resources (talking about developed countries of course, not orphans in Romania, or Bulgaria etc unfortunately), nothing's stopping these children from turning their misfortune around, they can still be anything they want to be, but for abandoned or stray animals, even surviving is hard, what resources are there for these creatures? What future do they have? The government here is more keen to kill them all to be rid of the problem than to help. There has to be people who fight for the poor animals rights and to show them love.

I was called evil again this time by (An odd bloke that I know) (He He) Patrick one Saturday a few weeks ago, Patrick was giving me a lift to CAF (I usually help out at weekends), on the way we witnessed a traffic accident, a little child about 8 or 9 years old was hit by a van just before a traffic light, and was sprawled out on the road, just as Patrick was about to jump out of the car to help him (Patrick is a doctor himself), I stopped him, I pointed to an ambulance parked in the lay-by of the opposite lane, I said to him, "don't worry, he'll be in good hands any minute now, please just take me to CAF." He looked at me in disbelief, that at this moment, I still put my animals before human. When we were both over the shock, he jokingly called me evil. I did feel guilty for a while, but I felt ok when I read in the papers the next day that the boy didn't die.

So, I decided that I don't deserve all those compliments about me being an angelic, kind-hearted person, and you should see why.

Last weekend, I adopted another abandoned animal, but this time from a animal shelter (CAF), not through friends. Her name is Lily, a 10 year old mutt.

I have been helping as a volunteer at CAF for around 3 years. CAF stands for Companion Animal Federation. It's a small local animal charity not as well known as the SPCA. I support this particular one because unlike SPCA who will kill puppies and kittens and not very keen on having mix breed ones in the kennel, CAF will take in puppies and kittens, and they don't just keep the pedigree ones, in fact, half of the abandoned dogs there are mongrels, and I absolutely share this believe that all lives are equal, be it human, animals, adults or babies.

About once a week, I go to the kennel to bath and walk the dogs, just to give them that little bit of TLC. I've seen many sad stories as well as happy ones where the animals are rehomed, of course some not-so-lucky ones just die in the kennel.

Lily came to reside in CAF about 2 years ago, her owner had to move abroad and couldn't (wouldn't) take Lily along with her, that was the beginning of Lily's nightmare. She was already quite an old dog, and overweight too. Within a short period of arriving CAF, she got very depressed and wouldn't leave her cage or do any exercises. Also, she developed a skin problem which caused her skin to produce some sort of grease all over. On the contrary to the other dogs at the kennel who loose weight after being abandoned, Lily just kept ballooning until she couldn't walk. The staff there put her on a strict diet and I would walk her as often as I could. She was very stubborn, once out of the cage, she used to sit on the side of the road, determined not to move, like saying "see what you're gonna do about it". But I just couldn't give in to this big fat sausage, I would pull her, drag her, till she realised I was just as determined as her.

To begin with, I would drag her about 2 streets up the road and then go back, and even so every few steps she would have to have a sit down and catch her breath. Then every day we went a little further, a little further, after a few weeks, we started going out for at least half an hour for each walk. Amazingly, after several months, she seemed to start enjoy her walkies and every time I opened her cage, she would rush to the front gate, eager to go for a walk!

Needless to say, under this regime, she became a nice trimmed dog, and now she doesn't mind how long she goes for her walks and doesn't need to rest at all, she can't get enough of the outside world!

Lily has a very sweet character and she is very clever and takes commands very well. She is one of the dogs who like to keep the cage clean and would only do her business when she's released from her cage twice daily. I've always taken a very special liking to her from the start, and I promised myself that as soon as I got my own place, I would take Lily home with me. 2 years on, I have kept my promise, now that I have my own place.

It's a bit more difficult looking after two dogs, (Lily & Smug) but I look forward to life with these two monsters very much, I know they will enrich my life rather than being a burden.

The past week or so has been a real torture and a real drag, I was offered a job with a ballet company. (not as a dancer but to work in the PR/development department) In terms of financial gain, there was a bit of an increase, but to work in a ballet company seemed like a golden opportunity to a ballet lover like me, I just love this incredible form of art and would feel real proud to work towards promoting it and making the ballet group more successful. BEsides, compared to my current job in magazine production, this new job in PR seems fun and challenging. Surely it's a blessing for anyone to be able to actually relate themselves to their jobs and to do something that they enjoy and something that they have passions for?

So what stopped me from going for this dream job of mine? ------- The hours. I was told that this job involves some irregular working hours and overtime, especially whenever they have shows or special events going. I must admit I'm a lazy person and l love to be able to shoot off at 6pm everyday, and because I've had this stable, relaxed, routine working style for a few years now, every evening I get home at about 7pm, greeting by my pining dog, who seems to live for the moment I come home from work, to pounce on me and to give me a big cwtch. (my dog never licks me, she never licks anything unless it stinks!) The thought of depriving her of the luxury of knowing exactly when she'll be able to jump on me to greet me is just too cruel. I can picture her lying next to the front door in the dark when I'm working late in the new job, wonder why her beloved master doesn't come home the same time she used to.......

I just can't let that happen, this is the main reason that I turned down my dream job, and I know I'll never regret it, I know Smug will prefer me spending more quality time with her to a cupboard full of posh dog treats and toys (which the new job might enable me to get her) but seeing less of me.

Or will she?

I talked about an American presenter pronouncing the capital city of China - Beijing, incorrectly in my last blog entry (see How to pronounce "Beijing - is it a French word? ), I thought I should also talk about the way us Chinese speaking English, just to even out a bit.

As everybody knows, Chinese people very often have terrible problems pronouncing the "R" in any English words, sometimes we just completely leave the "r" bit out and pronounce the word as if there isn't an "R" in it. Just imagine a girl trying to tell her beloved boyfriend how important he is to her, but if she makes this mistake, it could end up like this:

"Darling, you know, to me, you're really really impotant....... " (Impotent)

OUCH!

Also, we easily mix up the "L" and "R". I personally have problems with saying REGULARLY, JEWELRY, RIVALRY ........... etc. I have no problem with "LOVELY" and "RUBBERY" though and don't get the two mixed up, haha.

I also find that most Chinese people can't roll their tongues like westerners do, not surprisingly I had a real hard time when I took Spanish for a year in college , the Spanish say the "R"s in a really exaggerative way and vibrate their tongue like mad when they pronounce it". I was so jealous of the English students being able to do it so putsy, I wanted to grab hold of their tongues and straighten them....

Another embarrassing Chinglish moment was, when I was waitressing (part-time) in a restaurant one night, an English guy kept looking at me and shouted "T, T, T", not sure what was wrong with him, I ignored him at first, but then when I went back to his table after serving the others, he was still saying bloody T,T,T to me. Looking down at the tea point that I was holding in my hand, I realised he was making fun of the way I said "Would anyone like some tea...." But instead of saying "tea", indeed I was saying "T", in a short cute way. I felt like pouring the remaining tea in the pot on his head. But at least from then on, I make sure I say it right and delibrately drag the "ea" bit as long as I can so that that sort of embarrassment doesn't happen again.

Like every one else, ever since the Olympic Games started on August 8, my eyes were constantly glued to the TV to watch some of my favourite sports. I found that the narrators/presenters of the local Chinese channels (TVB Jade and ATV) just talked too much drivel, and they surely didn't know what they were talking about and were simply making noises. So I tried the English channel (TVB Pearl) and got the impression that the "gwai lo" (foreign) presenters were much more professional and knew about their sports, so I stuck with the English channel. However, every time one of the presenter guys who speaks with an American accent mentioned "Bejing", I frowned, because he keeps saying "Bei-SHING", instead of Bei-JING! Now, it wasn't the first time I'd heard people pronouncing it that way, and I don't normally think much about it, but coming from a professional TV presenter is just a bit ridiculous and inexcusable because it's misleading, people who have been saying it right might now think that this idiot's version is correct.

The word "Beijing" is the English name for the Capital of China, it is actually the phonetic transcription from the Chinese pronunciation, because in Chinese, it is also pronounced exactly "Bei-Jing". (Two separate characters in writing which means "the capital situated in the north") The way this guy said it like a bloody French word or something, and there is no need to be smart about it when it's so obvious how it should be pronounced, why be creative with a city name when there is already an universal way of pronouncing it!??

I know with some country / city names, they can be difficult to pronounce, like some of the Welsh words, or some other Chinese places such as "Shanghai". Because in English, it's just one word, some people say "ShanGAI" instead of "Shang - Hai". I can tell you that it should be latter, because in Chinese, it is again two different words, and pronounced as "Shang - Hai". but to me, this is a mistake that is easily made, as in general, you just don't normally pronounce the "H" that comes after letter "G" in a vocabulary. That's totally understandable if you're not a Chinese speaker, and I'm happy with both ways of saying it.

It's just that if I was a presenter, hosting an important show/programme like the Olympic games, I would at least look up the dictionary and make sure that I know my country names, the sports terms and try my best with the names of the participants.

Like I mentioned in my first few blog entries, I used to prefer pure pedigree dogs and having a cross-breed dog like Smug (she's a cross Retriever and Spaniel) was just pure fate, basically an "accident"! But as time went, I got to know more about my dog, and because I was now a pet owner, I noticed things about dogs more, and became friends with many other dog owners and their dogs, my previous perception about "Pedigree dogs being the best and cross-breed ones are rubbish" is now completely and forever changed. I realised that cross-breed dogs are clever, they're fit (it is believed that they only inherit the best things from their parents, hence if a dog has crossed 4 different breeds, it has the best parts from 4 different breeds of dogs, so they eliminate the bad qualities of each breed). Also I find them extremely loyal and calm, definitely more stable than many rat size little dogs.

I would not swop Smug for any expensive pedigree dog now (so does that mean I now discriminate pedigree dogs ). I'm ashamed to say that, before, whenever I was asked what kind of dog my Smug was during our walkies, I used to say that she was a Golden Retriever, sometimes Cocker Spaniel. It depends, if the person who asked me had a retriever themselves, I would usually say she's a spaniel as I think they would kind of know what a retriever dog looks like and notice the difference between Smug and theirs. And if the person had a small dog or a spaniel, I would swing back to Retriever, as to them, a retriever should be big, and my dog is usually much bigger than their "rats on string", so it should be convincing.

About a year of having her, I started to tell people the truth, that she's a mutt, feeling a little inferior as I replied. And the reactions and responses from people just really really annoyed me. Typically they would looked quite surprised (because I must proudly admit that Smug does look very pretty and fit, quite a bit tidy looking than cross-breed dogs in general), then they would have this awkward smile and nine out of ten would coo, "Oh, she looks very nice for a mutt!" Or, "Oh, she doesn't look anything like a mutt, she's not ugly at all!", before they reluctantly put their snobby paws on my dog and start patting her, expecting me to feel happy and grateful about their "compliments" about my dog. Some even stopped their dogs from playing with Smug after they found out Smug wasn't a pedigree dog like theirs.

I try not to bite back or be horrible to these people, at the end of the days, what can I say, I used to have the same misconceptions about cross-breeds. I can only try to "sell" my ideas about them and how they are also sweet little darlings if given the chance, but of course, people aren't usually that interested or convinced about what i say.

Nowadays, when I'm asked what type of dog Smug is, I proudly announce that she's in fact, a "very pure, pedigree Mutt!"

Because I think mixed-breed dogs are a very special kind of dogs in their own rights and have many attributes that other breeds of dogs don't have. And it breaks my heart that many people would not dream of giving this particular kind of creatures a chance, it's usually the cross-breed dogs that get abandoned and become strays. That's why people generally see cross-breeds as scruffy, because they often have to live on the street, getting kicked by kids and becoming walking meals to fleas and ticks! I'm sure given a chance, any mutt can look good and smart, just like my Smug.

On a typical lazy afternoon yesterday, Smug curled up in a ball on the Settee, resting her head on my tummy. I looked at her for ages until she fell asleep, and it just hit me that the areas around her brows and her lashes are greying, although she acts like a little puppy, she is after all, a five year old dog now, from what people say about large dogs only live up to 12, 13 years, Smug is supposed to be nearly way half through her time ......

This sweet little thing sleeping soundly on my belly has given me over four years of her life, greeting me when I go home from work, doing daft things to cheer me up when I'm sad, being my only motivation for exercising (dog-walking), sharing my calories at meal times so that I can stay slim. She gives me absolutely her everything and never holds back, accompanies me during those lonely years after returning to Hong Kong from Britain, whenever I need her, she's there waiting to pounce on me eagerly. Sometimes mum laughs at the way she watches my every move so closely and intensely round the house, it's like she doesn't want to miss anything in my life, it's like she knows she has limited time..... She managed to turn our perceptions/prejudice towards mixed-breed dogs around, she manages to make us laugh every day. Every time I look at her, I'm so glad that I gave her and myself a chance four years ago, to love and to be loved.....

She looked so cute sleeping, and I happened to have my mobile phone on the Settee with me, so I took these pix:

Fast asleep like a baby

Waking up when I couldn't hold back smoothing her