Country

Going on the plane heading to Dubai and then Hong Kong in 14 hours.

Munich is no doubt a city with a big past. The more I learn, the more I am stunned by her last 100 years of history. Or Germany as a whole.
No wonder Germans have such a mixed feeling with their national flag and their national anthem. When I watched the World cup with other Germans, many refuse to sing their national anthem along with their players on the pitch.
German flags are normally not hung around openly to avoid being too "nationalistic". The world cup period is an exceptional case.

Being ashamed of one's own country. This is not the case in France, Italy, England, or the States. You can see national flags flying around everyday everywhere. People are proud of their country. But shame is in Germany, and so is Hong Kong.

While I was watching world cup matches, I envy the fans for having a flag to hold on and heartedly cheer to. For my own world cup decoration, I have bought a multinational flag -- one with the national flags of all the 32 finalist countries printed on it. And when I was watching the games with German students, I wave the German flag.

I wonder when will I wave and cheer the five star flag heartedly. Football is easier. History isn't.

Germans admitted their past. Whether it is willing or forced I don't care, as long as history is allowed to show its faces as it once was, no more, no less. I wonder when will the Chinese admit our own past, let it be known openly, and move on with this memory behind.

The congress hall in Munich consists of an old centre building where Hitler once hold meeting inside, and two side wings made of transparent glass walls, the originals completely bombed during WWII by the allied forces. The new and old mixture signifies that they have had a painful past and now they are having a transparent government operating for their people.

Empty.

Empty.
Blank.
Stagnant.
Tasteless.

Broken.
Lost.
Gone.
Damaged.

Hope.
Faith.
Love.
Future.

I'm alone. More then ever. Nothing from the modernity, no phone, no computer. Big language barrier, german speaking hospital. Foreign place, foreign people. Living alone. Only me take care of me. No friends. No one to talk to. No relationship. No job, no duty, no responsibility. Me in the midst of nothing.

The problem is, with nothing around me, I don't know who I am.

Diary on 8-6-2006:
I'd rather return to my small little life in Hong Kong that even myself feel pathetic for it, then to live here in a vast foreign country with nothing interactive, or worse, living, at all.

P.S. This is not the kind of silly "retreat" - as they claim themselves are - where everybody switches off their phone and hide in some beautiful houses for a day or two, spending time mingle around each other, or do some worksheets, trying to "discover themselves".