Anson Chan and the Promise of the Basic Law

Last Tuesday, I received an email notification that Anson Chan was coming to UBC. The inner politics geek inside me started getting all pumped up and excited. She is one of the most powerful women not only in Hong Kong but also in Asia. For people like me who study these kinds of things (or at least try to study), she is one of those superstars you can only meet regularly if you have high level access to power or people with power.

On my way to the talk, I did not know what to expect. She surprised me in many ways. Her talk was candid and honest. Many of her opinions I agree with. We were advised to follow Chatham House Rules, which I will adhere to. I have no idea if I can even mention what she talked about but of course it would be about Hong Kong and what the future holds with the status of the Basic Law. Gah! This is killing me, as I usually spout things off-the-cuff (i.e. the other name for this blog).

Anson Chan giving a talk at UBC.

The whole time she was speaking, she exuded this air of intelligence, grace, frankness, and honesty that you rarely see in somebody in politics. I must say it was an interesting talk, illuminating and informative to say the least. The photo is very bad since I came a bit late and all the good seats were already taken. I wanted to move around but it didn't seem appropriate at the time. It doesn't do justice to her presence. On the other hand though, I can see how some people can be critical of her and her ways. She seemed firm on everything she said. Many have said that she is akin to Margaret Thatcher.

Oh thank God for Wikipedia. I don't need to explain a lot of these things. As usual though, don't take everything as is while reading the entries. Anyway, let's see if this blog gets blocked in China. Woot! My last one did and my only reference to China was because I was studying economic reform and transition.

New Blog, Trying to Find Time

I just did the one of the stupidest things I have ever done. I just deleted my last blog. It just went against everything I have ever done for the past 21 years. I am the type of person who rarely throws things away, for either sentimental reason, need to document my life, or just simple idiosyncrasies. Maybe that's why my closet or even my work desk is so cluttered. Oy!

Now that I think about it even more, it's bothering me. If I can only recover it. At that moment I thought I needed to remove any remnant of the past and concentrate on this one blog. Anyway, what's done is done. Time to move on.

This blog is also known as "Rants, Ramblings, and Whatnots V3.1". Three because this is the 3rd platform I used to create a blog. The .1 because this is the second blog on blogger with the same name. So by the power of deduction, the one I deleted is V3.0. Okay no more dwelling. No more dwelling. No more dwelling.

"Scraping the Fringe" just came from a moment of creativity when I started another blog at my university server, UBC. I will write about anything and everything under the sun. Most likely though, it will be about photography, travel, international relations, and my life. Sit back, relax, take a valium, and maybe some hallucinogenic drugs. It will help with reading the incoherence that is my blog.

By the way, I have another blog that documents one of the projects I am working on. It is called "The Search for the Better Portfolio". I am trying to promote eportfolios to the co-op program here at UBC, specifically Arts C0-op. I just started last week but I took care in creating it.