小蝴蝶结又有心事。

很久没有放相片了。

今天在大围站接到爸妈，俩人见到我的第一句话都是：怎么这么瘦了？！
天啊，如果这句话不是从爹娘嘴里说出来，该是多么地雀跃人心啊！

今天的毕业典礼让我确定了一件事情，就是我真的不该参加的。
坐在台下的时候，并不是没有感触的。而更多的时候我只是在等待这一切的结束。

这个世界上有太多的事情我们都不明白为什么，却一直在做。
正如我们不明白毕业了为什么要穿着这么奇怪的袍子，我们只是穿上，告诉自己这样很好看。
正如我们不明白毕业了为什么要抱着一只熊，我们只是抱着也穿着奇怪袍子的它，告诉自己它很可爱。

或许这样的仪式并没有无懈可击的意义，
或许它最大的意义，就是让每一个身处其中的人都自愿为其赋予一层莫须有的意义。

翘掉了一整天的课跑回来,和Amelie在深圳的街上晃了一天。

从理发店出来，我们找了几圈都找不到一个可以舒舒服服坐下来抽一根烟的地方。最后只好买了喝的蹲在路边。

街上很吵，人很多。有一个乞讨的老太太站在我们面前五分钟后，无奈地离开。

那一瞬间，突然觉得很悲凉。一个活过大半辈子的老人站在两个蹲在路边吐烟的少女前，那是什么样的感觉？

我的话越来越少。

或许在我自认为忍受着旁人的“多话”的时候，别人也正忍受着我的“无话”吧。

每天干的最勤的事就是更新状态。
改完msn改抠抠，改完抠抠改校内，改完校内改twitter，哪儿都改了，还都改得不一样了，却依旧写不出什么像样的成段的有逻辑的文字。

其实我真的很久没有认真地写过什么了。
承认吧，对于装逼这件事，我是越来越有心无力了。尤其是有时候看到别人写的一些比较sentimental的东西，都会觉得…ewww. 不是我说，在诸如校内之地那么认真表达那么内的“内心”，Point是？

这两天整个人又浮躁了起来。只想趴在电脑前煲house，对学业没了念想，对文娱活动的欲望见长。这点看来我还是挺双子的，那么努力的状态我根本坚持不了，不出三个月，原形毕露。

最近上课讲一些我学过的内容的时候，脑子里会很频繁地闪现出一些本科的画面。比如考完accounting的大家一起去lg1边吃下午茶边大骂老师不厚道cash flow又没der平；比如那么多个在4楼泡图书馆的日日夜夜，我尤其记得桌子上两个计算器一瓶红牛一罐咖啡的那张相片，在我被偷掉的手机里，我有时候还是蛮努力的；还有很多个比如，我只是不想再拿出来煽情了。我想这是一种正正好的距离，让我在再想起那四年的时候，会相信它真的是生命里的四年，而不是一个遥远的点。有时候我也怀疑自己对科大的漠视来自何处，是因为它不好，还是那时候的我不好？是它令我变得不好，还是那些变化不管在哪里都会发生？

说了这么多其实只是想说，我还挺想科大的。虽然我们都知道这只是某类装逼人种的对过去不自控的追味而已。

所以，我又有什么理由不对明天充满期盼呢？当那么糟糕的过去都可以变成今天淡淡的，whatever。

“在我们漫长的生命历程里，可能，爱情会以很多不同的姿态在我们不同的年龄阶段出现。可能，你需要相信爱情但不能依赖爱情。
可能，还有很多比爱与不爱，更重要的事情。”

看到这句话，我突然明白那些所有在爱情里死去活来的人犯的共同的一个错误是，依赖爱情，却不相信爱情。

一年前的我，还沉溺在黑暗里，为那个被自己认定是“唯一”的人的离开而深陷绝望。

而事实是，现在的我好好的。

一个相信爱情的人，是充满希望的。她不会因为害怕再没有人可以靠近自己的灵魂而悲伤。也不会因为一段感情的逝去而停止让别人靠近。她对每一个停靠的人心存感激。

相信爱情，却不依赖她。或许，这才是年轻的好吧。

The Minimum Wage Bill:

Better, or Worse Off ?

“I don’t know whether a minimum wage standard will do any good to my life, but I do know that, what I’m earning now is merely enough to feed myself,” said John Lee, a trainee-level waiter of a Chinese restaurant in Tsim Sha Tsui, who is packing to go home after a long working day at 9:30 in the evening.

The Calling for Actions

Graduated several months ago from Form 3 in high school, John had interviewed four different jobs before he finally settled down in this restaurant. “I work 11 hours per day, six days per week. In terms of salary, it’s HK$20 an hour or HK$5300 a month,” said John, with an obviously discontented look. Given his calculation, apart from all necessary living costs and 1000 dollars’ domestic money to his parents, all he is left with is just 1200 dollars.

“I want to buy myself an iPhone 3GS, ” he said with a forced smile, “but it takes me five months to afford one.”

John is just one of the 200,000 workers in catering industry struggling for their lives. “Catering industry is the toughest one in Hong Kong, we work the longest and we earn the least,” Kelly Yip, a head waitress of a local canteen near the Tai Wai KCR station complaint to the reporter while she was at a break in the afternoon’s off-peak hour.

According to the <Quarterly Report of Wage and Payroll Statistics> announced in June 2009, averagely, waiters and waitresses earn HK$8140 monthly, work 9 hours a day and 26 days s month.

“In the dining industry, the hourly pay is unbelievably low,” said Yuen Fuk Wo, chairperson of Eating Establishment Employees General Union (EEEGU). “Things are better for those in the kitchen, since they have skills; but really awful for low-skilled workers”, Yuen added.

Considering the labor sector’s endeavor for years, Hong Kong Government finally submitted the <Minimum Wage Bill> to the Legislative Council for deliberation on July 8^th this year. In October, the temporary Minimum Wage Committee, constituted of scholars, representatives of trade unions, chambers of commerce and legal professions, started to hear voices from different groups towards the the bill and its details.

Mr Cheung Kin-chung, Secretary for Labour and Welfare, said that the Hong Kong Government would set and review the legal minimum wage level by adopting the principle of data, besides, it would also assess the impacts of the wage level on different sectors.

Co-existence of Doubts and Concerns

“Generally speaking, we’re supportive towards the bill,” said Yuen, the chairperson of EEEGU, “I believe it would help improving the current predicament they are going through.”

While the bill seems to be welcomed by the trade union, the employee themselves are viewing it in a more pessimistic way.

As to the Minimum Wage Bill, Kelly seemed not keen about it at all. “Nothing is going to change if the employers’ budget stays the same, they can cut down the welfare other than salaries, or simply hire less part-timers,” she stopped suddenly, “You’re not recording this, right?” Relieved after an answer of “no”, she added, “after all, they are the big boss, you have to leave if they ask you to.”

As the head waitress working full time, Kelly still needs to work 10.5 hours a day with an hourly rate less then HK$22, amounting to HK$6000-7000 every month. “In terms of hourly pay, the part-timers here earn pretty much the same, but they don’t have any of the other welfare, such as annual leave or else,” she added, “most importantly, their contract is a temporary and unsecured one.”

On the other hand, the possible rise in hourly pay from around 20 to above 30 is definitely hard to take for employers. Mr Choi, the boss of a Cafe de Coral branch near Sham Shui Po, complaint that it would be difficult for him to bear with such a big jump in hiring cost, especially when employees were usually inactive during work. “We will have no choice but to fire people to cut the cost in that way,” he said.

It’s also worth noting that the noncompliance of the Employments and Labor Law is growing widespread and not neglectable. “They just always know how to evade the rules,” said Kelly. However, when asked of more details about how employers could evade the rules, Kelly wasn’t willing to comment any more.

Yuen provided more detail on that. “It’s the government’s poor supervision that leads to the situation some small restaurants are not complying with the Labor Laws,” Yuen said, “Also, the enforcement and punishment is not effective enough. ”

Asked for the reasons behind these problems, Yuen said: “Simple. Breaking of the Labor Laws is currently defined as civil, instead of criminal actions. Therefore, even if being caught, the consequence is just not severe enough to prevent some unscrupulous employers from exploitation.”

Against this problem, the Legislative Council has recently discussed altering the issue to criminal jurisdiction. This act has been highly supported by several members of council representing the labors’ right.

Even though, doubts exist. Mr Anthony Lock, the president of Hong Kong Federation of Restaurants and Related Trades, said that once accused for delaying payments of salary, the actual responsible person often concealed themselves and made their scapegoats step forward. He doubts whether this act can really punish the right person.

Hearts of Controversy: How and How Much?

Although the Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions has proposed a standard of HK$33 an hour, Cheung said that talking about a specific level was a bit “premature”.

As the <Minimum Wage Bill> has been officially brought into agenda, several critical details are drawing extensive attention from various interest groups, such as “price” of the minimum wage and how should the standard be enforced.

The result of a public opinion survey conducted by Liberty Party shows that, 45 per cent of management echelon in small and medium-size enterprises (SME) favor the minimum wage legislation, 10 percent points higher than the opponents. Meanwhile, the survey also reveals that managements will have to fire 66 employees in average if the standard of minimage wage hits HK$24 hourly.

Based on this result, Liberty Party projects that 36,000 SME employees will become jobless, accounting for one percent of the total employed population; the unemployment will reach 171,000 given the standard of minimum wage is HK$32 per hour.

The result of this survey is remarked as “exaggerated and misleading” by Wong Kwok-hing, a member of both Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions and Legislative Council. “If the minimum level is set to be too low, it will just force people at the bottom who can’t maintain a basic standard of living to apply for more unemployment benefit, which will finally burden the whole society,” Wong added.

However, seeing from the recent debate among industries and citizens, the “price” of minimum wage is yet to be focused on. Barely on the definition of exact working hours, there have been complex disputes.

Mr. Wong Kam-Pui, president of the Hong Kong Institute of Human Resource Management, said that in the proposed regulations, there’re a lot of blurring areas on the definiton of working hours. For example, it’s not explicitly stipulated that how should the lunch hours, off-peak hours, business trip and stand-by hours be dealt with when measuring working hours.

According to reactions across all industries, the ambiguous calculation of working hours is the main concern of catering, building and travel industries.

“It will be a total ‘disaster’ for human resource management if the lack of unambiguous guidelines persists,” Wong worried.

“Of course I will feel happy if it really works and my wage is really going to increase. But who knows,” said John, the trainee in Tsim Sha Tsui’s Chinese restaurant. “I still need to work exhaustedly for 11 hours a day, six days a week. I still need to live my reckoning life. I’m not hoping for a drastic change.”

In his view, the minimum wage standard is never more important than how much domestic money he should turn in to his mom.

____________________________________________________________________

感谢我的南京日报同学cindy以及南方都市报同学eason给予的关于新闻写作上的技术性指导。
谈不上呕心沥血，但的确，对于现在的菜鸟级的我来说，真是太、不、容、易、了。

我想要很多很多的咖啡，如果没有很多很多的咖啡，很多很多的烟也可以。

香港的气温终于有要降低的预兆。总有很多同学问我，到底这里什么时候才会冷起来？我说我也不知道。待了四年多，对这里却并没有比别人更多的熟悉感。只是凌晨打开窗，空气里凉凉的，挺舒服。

这样的凉意，让人忍不住想堕落。

也只能总是告诉自己，已经没有时间再像以前那样把什么都弄糟了。
都说时间越久，本钱越多。我却觉得很多东西都在一点一点的没了。
未来已经那么近，我必须准备好，等它。

在标题栏发了5分钟的呆也没想出敲什么。罢也。敲不出标题的情况通常有两种：我也不知道自己要写什么；或是难过到极致。现在显然是前者。

只是在忙着编造一篇篇的英文博客的时候，在忙着罗列生词并贴上解释和例句的时候，在忙着做这种year0的时候才需要做的portfolio的时候，突然想来敲点什么。

忙起来的时候，会忘记很多事情。比如忘记日子已经这样没有意识地过了多久，忘记去关心很久没有联系过的旧友，忘记吃饭，忘记打电话回家，忘记看新闻，忘记目标，忘记曾经熟悉且迷恋的歌曲，忘记为了什么而忙，忘记自己为什么会选择现在的生活。

米兰昆德拉说，一个人越是对外界无感，越是只关注自己的一切。我想过去几年的我，便是活在那样一种状态里。活在一种巨大而强烈的内部矛盾里，甚至看不到自己的全图。关注自己是一件很累人并痛苦的差事。忙碌很累，但它让我学着把“自己”放下，这是多么的好。

生活就是这么回事儿，苛求无益。

http://thisismisschildren.blogspot.com/




Dont panic yet, it's just the product thanks to one of my f@cking stupid assignments. As I have to offer some evidence proving that I'm actually doing SOMETHING to improve my English, I spent a whole day to build up this English blog from ground. I just exhausted myself by blogging meaninglessly on a Sunday. 

I have totally no idea about how long it's gonna last as I'm basically a blog killer, but since it's already born, im just announcing it so that it wont end up with being browsed by only one human being (which will be my instructor hopefully) in its entire life. lol


friendly reminder: it's silly......it's not me......it's someone who need to blog as fast as she cud.....

but luckily, its not viewable for those in mainland, i guess? @@