Holiday season sends us the gift of family and friends getting together. These gatherings create happy, busy and memorable moments that wrap up a very dynamic year.
Traveling has become so common these days. In the 2nd week of December, our family of four spanned across four places, three time zones and two big countries. My husband and I had joy in visiting our siblings in Hong Kong. Siblings are gifts of our parents, and happy times with them are our gratitude to our parents. We also spent some time in Shenzhen. We literally walked from Hong Kong to Shenzhen, but the differences are apparent. At Shenzhen, we were amazed at the ubiquitous adoption of technology and presence of delivery folks everywhere. In the third week of December, our family of four is back to one place, one time zone and one country, as the children came home from college for three weeks.
How would you like to spend family time together? Regardless, memory is most often made when we try something new and maybe even silly. Such as trying new restaurant, waiting in line for over an hour to get a a take-out burger meal, or that my daughter patiently taking out my white hair one at a time. I enjoy doing normal healthy things together such as hiking, reading, going to gym, going to bookstores.
We had meals together, drank some red wine together, and enjoyed small chat around the dinner tables. The children had their own space too, often they spent time in their rooms, with their electronic gadgets, and they spent most of the mornings sleeping. For many years, I have tried, in vain, to get the family to play board games together; but it is just hard to counter the abundance of individualized entertainment. Call it YouTube or NetFlix effect, sometimes, it is not easy to watch the same family movie together on the same TV. And call it Internet influence, their world has expanded beyond the physical world and the world of books. I felt like Don Quixote fighting the windmills in my attempt to reduce the influence of the Internet, YouTube, NetFlix and the like. At the same time, these technology has powered the young ones to be smarter, learn faster, work more productively, and have a more global world view. I am still surprised on the progress made in the last few decades, and grateful that the platform is there for the young ones to do even more magical stuff in the upcoming few decades.
Taste of Life by Ms. Lisa Fong
方太的滋味人生
This is a book filled with words of wisdom from Ms.Fong (方太) and it inspires. Everyone in Hong Kong knows 方太. She has been appearing on TV shows to teach cooking in the seventies or eighties. She became an icon and has been the first generation of housewives sharing recipes and cooking tips with millions of other housewives.
方太 is now in her eighties, and is a happy old woman who continues to learn and grow. Her writings reflect so much energy, and so much love for her life, her family and friends. If you are looking for recipes, you would not be disappointed, but more so, I enjoyed what she wrote about important ones in her life – her parents, her children, her grandchild , her maids, her co-workers. I truly admired 方太 and her positive frame of mind towards life. I love how she thinks of life as the ticket to a theme park, and that since you are there, it is far better to enjoy the journey. How positive! And that she thinks of death as the gradual loss of our fitness and gradual relaxation towards unconsciousness. How wise!
Her success across multiple generations is her own making and no coincidence.
This book was recommended by a panelist in a career conference that I recently attended. The panelist looks super contented as a person, and seems to know exactly what her purpose of life is. Who would not admire having a North Star in a life journey? 
My third book on running, after “What I talk about when I talk about running” and “Born to Run”. Unlike the other two, this one is more a “how to” book from a Boston Marathon Champion.
Adrift : Seventy-Six Days Lost at Sea 
One day, I would come back to read it again and 
Pope Francis Ted Talk
You don’t need to know much about tennis to like reading “Breaking Back” by James Blake. James Blake is a retired tennis pro and is two years older than Roger Federer. He achieved a career high ranking at number 4 after surviving a freak-accident during practice in Rome, the loss of his beloved father, and a potential career-ending illness. James Blake provides detailed recollections of his professional wins and losses, his relationship with family and friends, his struggles to overcome life challenges. It is a story of his relationship with life and how he overcome the dark days, and arrive on the other side with a new approach to everything on the court and off. It is an inspiring read.
professional tennis in the 90s – those were the years when Pete Sampras was on the rise and Stefan Edberg was fading. It covers some matches of Pete Sampras and some matches of Stefan Edberg. Yet, this is not a book about tennis stars, it is a book about those lesser-known and their path towards college or skipping college to be a professional tennis player. The author followed a few up-and-starters (Jonathan Stark, a pro made it to the top 30s at one point; Ania Bleszynski, a Stanford college tennis player). For those who love stars, there is a chapter covering a conversation with tennis legends in the 60s and 70s (Rod Laver and Ken Rosewall), and there is a chapter devoted to Wimbledon.
w Cronin, is the riveting account of the McEnroe vs Borg rivalry through the Wimbledon and US Open Finals in 1980. Many would remember the 18-16 tie breaker in the fourth set of the 1980 Wimbledon final and until 2008, the 1980 Wimbledon final has been considered by many as the greatest Wimbledon final. The author recollected the two finals with detailed accounting of many points in those engrossing five setters, and in between those sets, covered the personality, the career and the relationship of the two players. Their rivalry, their friendship, and their contrasting style was unmatched until almost 28 years later as Federer and Nadal played that “heart breaking” five setters in the Wimbledon final in 2008. “Epic” is a reminder of the many great tennis matches, and that the sport is bigger than any players.
oliviatamccue 