Life of Modern Women?

I found this article when I was browsing and reading news on HK Yahoo. I'm pretty disappointed at the fact that 20% of Hong Kong people still believe that mothers should take care of the children's daily necessities while fathers shouldn't involve. I guess the coping solution to this dilemma for most women nowadays is to manage their limited time well between work and family.

But seriously, at least at this moment of life, I wouldn't agree to go through this splitting-up-the-time-into-two-parts thing.

The original post is located here: http://hk.lifestyle.yahoo.com/myself/career/article.html?id=art_49d1cd0d

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置身陰盛陽衰的辦公室
撰文：sir pan, 03/31/2009

現今社會倡導男女平等，但似乎是主觀願望，無論在工作上或者平日生活，總會出現不公平現象。根據婦女事務委員會(婦委會)早前委託顧問公司，於 2009年1月至2月期間，就性別議題觀念訪問了1530名15歲或以上人士，約20%同意「照顧子女的日常生活是媽媽的工作，不是爸爸的工作」，可見社會上「男主外，女主內」的觀點依然根深蒂固。已婚女性要工作更必須要比男性負起多一個角色，要兼顧家庭及事業。所以，時間管理方面需要更有掌握，否則吃力不討好，影響工作表現及團隊效率。

公私兩忙 管理時間要好

身為美容公司的市場總監Helen是最典型的職業女性，每天都忙得不可開交，她說：「早上我會回到位於尖沙咀的公司，它主要是提供女性護理療程例如 facial、水療及按摩等，通常我會與治療師們溝通、編排schedule，或者安排美容師做training提高技巧等，間中亦會和管理層商討舖內不同的事宜，有時細緻到如加添那種香薰、員工制服的加減甚至清潔用品都可能兼顧到，一直忙到大概七點鐘我就回家休息。」

有不少男士都不喜歡伴侶太過投入工作，甚至為伴侶超越自己而感到不舒服。對此Helen認為：「女性是需要工作的，否則會覺得生活苦悶又頹廢，但因為要兼顧家庭，所以要懂得如何分配時間。以我自己為例，星期一至五由朝早十點到晚上七點，都是工作時間，但七點半後我一定會在家，照顧小朋友及溫習功課等，直到十點他上床睡覺，每天我便是把握用當中那兩個半小時和他傾偈交流，因為只要一星期沒和孩子溝通，就會發覺他們變化得很快的了，哈哈！」

Helen亦坦然表示：「其實自己也不算是及格的媽媽，每天只有一點時間陪兒子，所以在週末、日我通常會盡量全日陪著他，公司員工都暸解我的時間表，也盡量不會在這些家庭日聯絡我談公事。」

現代社會傳統思想

上述調查亦顯示，「女性不應該做傳統男性的工作」如建築工人或消防員等亦觀念得到大比數認同。Helen則認為不論男女，大家都應該放開懷抱改變觀念，她說：「女性應該可以做到傳統男性的工作，雖然男人一般氣力較大，但發覺女性的忍耐力及EQ其實是會較男性高，可能因為女性的身體可以承受到分娩的痛楚，生過BB的女人都會知道那種痛楚是達到“十級程度”，我相信男人是會無法忍受的，所以就這一點已可以證明女性也能夠勝任傳統男性的工作。」

在社會巨輪下女性已擔當重要角色，面對女上司的管治下，男性應該如何應付？女性應該怎樣配合？是值得思考的課題。

Story | Puzzle Playing

The stack of paper keeps on towering. As high as the freedom tower. More information comes in, more things get piled up.

Why are the little things finding each other in the middle of nowhere and merging together and forming a scary hungry person? I know I cannot put the blame on anyone else but myself. Yet I can't control myself from stalking you. The little pieces of information about you and your life and your everything else are very tempting. They are destroying my good person. I wish I've little keys to open your multiple little rooms, then I can stop the action of creeping all over you.

Everything will be okay. Trust me and trust yourself. Bubbles will burst one day eventually. Then all the baggage will be dropped, down to no man's land and you'll be free.


03/22/09

Observation on Chest-Binding vs. Identity

As I recently got a chest-binder, I started to research about the garment online. Through going onto Chinese lesbian forums and reading blogs written by local lezzies, I knew in Asia (well China and Hong Kong are the ones I had closely observed personally) the chest-binders are targeted to and often worn by Ts [1]. However, when I googled through English-oriented search sites and came back with results that originated from Western countries mainly, I found the binders are more likely to be worn by transgender-identified individuals rather. This is really intriguing... I can't stop thinking if this is because most Western societies are years ahead in the LGBT movement, and people had gone way beyond the butch/femme role playing thing back in the 60s? Now there are much more classification on identities, such as futch, bois, etc, with new ones showing up everyday. Also transgender are not to be grouped with sexuality, but under gender rather. On top of that, I notice lots of individual would simply go under the grand umbrella of queer, or in fact they choose to not label themselves at all. I'm wondering if the difference on how people label themselves occured observed between the two cultures merely because Asia is still under development on fully-understanding gender, sexuality and related subjects? Or people in Asia are just more into the butch/femme scenes? And what about Chinese queer people, are they truly enjoying their labels of being either femme or butch?

With these question (and this topic in general) popping up in my head every morning, I can say I'm not happy with the binary classification within lezzies in China. If you must force me into the division of butch and femme, I would say I contain the quality of both yet not really both. I just want to be who I am, and I don't really want to stuck with a label. Life is hard to get by here in Shanghai - you would often get questioning looks, from your lovely group of lezzies themselves, wondering if you are T or P [4] or an alien. If I ever have an eye contact with you, I would silently say f*ck you in my heart.

Note:
1. T = in this context T doesn't refer to testosterone - but tomboy [2], the more masculine role within the pool of lalas [3]; similar to butch in English, yet does not necessary equal to butch in full extent (more close to baby dyke)
2. tomboy = in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, it is a term that's often referring to butch lesbians; unlike its Western definition, tomboy in this context does not hold the simple meaning of girls who dress like boys, regardless of their sexual orientation; it is also known as tb, for short, in Hong Kong culture
3. lala = 拉拉, a more casual word for lesbian in Chinese
4. P = the word/letter for femme in mainland China

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And to treat you for reading the entire article, here's a bonus - 2 digital illustrations dedicated for chest-binding.

traditional way of chest-binding with bandages

relative-newly-developed chest-binding tank tops

Typealyzer!!!

Through a blog post (click here to read) on afterellen.com, I discovered Typerlyzer - an online application which analyzes the persona of the bloggers by their writing styles. Go to http://www.typealyzer.com/ right now and insert the blog link.

Of course, the first link I ran through is my own. And here's the results:

ISFP - The Artists

The gentle and compassionate type. They are especially attuned their inner values and what other people need. They are not friends of many words and tend to take the worries of the world on their shoulders. They tend to follow the path of least resistance and have to look out not to be taken advantage of.

They often prefer working quietly, behind the scene as a part of a team. They tend to value their friends and family above what they do for a living.

I guess I should say that's wonderful?! And I'm not surprised?!

Blue Jeans by Ladytron

Yes this is another song by Ladytron. Another favourite of mine. A song from a while back.

Check out Ladytron here: http://www.myspace.com/ladytron