Scription

Here Are Some Excuses

You must be waiting anxiously for the Chronodex July-December version to come out, believe that I'm working on it and to be released definitely this week.  In the mean time, here's the excuses of being late.

Excuse 1: Obsession with Tri-Eye iPhonography

Can't stop, it is heavy, it is huge and it is fun.  Usually when people I met get interested in the monster, I got chances to take their "The Dog" photos.  Here's Claudia from Staedtler, whom I met in Shanghai a few days ago.  She is going to spend the next 6 weeks in China, it is a long trip.  Since I didn't go to Paperworld this year, I got good updates from her about Staedtler's new product release schedule from 2012 up to 2013.  She speaks fluent Mandarin coz she studied in Beijing some time ago.

And yes self-portraits is fun too with Tri-Eye, here's me in my own toilet.

I forgot to bring my shaver to Shanghai so I accumulated an ugly 5 days worth of beard, kids took fisheye photo of this begger just last night.

Yes kids, they are losing their teeths, in a healthy way.  Desserts are most welcome to them.

So excuse 1 the obsession continues everyhour, business or personal, it doesn't matter.  Here's Mr. Flury the inventor of Cyberclean.  Somebody said "I'm afraid of his nose poking me if it were a 3D photo".

Excuse 2: Shanghai Frequent Visits

We are going to have a new store coming up soon in Shanghai, our second store there (already 12 stores in Hong Kong and 6 in Taiwan).  Management is sending long emails coz they haven't seen my input enough, yeah yeah yeah I'm working on it, I don't want to hand in rubbish just to shut them up but seems like I have to.  Anyway, I'm confident my current composite of the Stationery section is interesting and strong, I just have to make it easier for people around me.  So, I am travelling there a week or two every month.

The last Monday I bumped into The Amazing Race season 21 first shooting.  They arrived Shanghai the same time I did, it was their first stop of the season and it was in Shanghai.  The camera men were super sensitive soon as I raised my iPhone, a few crazy fans were in Shanghai too, I saw them running around with the crew taking pictures and posting to Reality Fan Forum in real time.  Interesting encounter.

For a stay of just 5 days, the schedule was completely full, meeting after meetings.  Just so happened there was the 106th China Stationery Fair and I went there between meetings, not enough time to see but I got a sense that the show is nice despite the fact that import products are a little rare and usually arrives 6 months to 1 year later than the rest of the world.  Damn China import regulations and customs (sorry, don't ban my blog, I'm just saying it is not efficient).

Shanghai is definitely changing a lot and very quickly, IMHO it is one of the fastest changing cities in the world, after Seoul and Tokyo.  I managed to stop by some of the smaller shops and found inspirations every time.  Well, I just borrowed the toilet in this interesting wine cellar/bar, never had the luxury to enjoy a drink, must find time in June to do that.

Excuse 3: Experiencing for the Future Categories

Things won't be exciting at all if I were to order products from catalogs only.  Yesterday's merchanise makes today's sales, many lacks the vision to create a future category thus constantly being bugged by management for lack of 'concept'.  IMHO, the only way to create a future is to explore and experience as much as possible, inspirations will come.  We have so much to learn from other creative people.

Thanks to Petit Morpho, a tiny place which the owner is obsessed with organizing art/craft exhibitions, I had a chance to learn from famous Japanese rubber stamp crafting artist Ms. Tomoko Tsukui (津久井智子).  She has a pari of super steady hands and published several books (in Japanese) about rubber stamp crafting from erasers.  Ms. Tomoko works for the original rubber stamp crafting supplier Hinodewashi and came to Hong Kong for promoting the art.

2 weeks ago, I brought my kid to the event and learned some basic skills and it was great fun for both of us.

Ms. Tomoko carries a few boxes of her stamps, inkpad (she designed interesting sets of finger inkpads for accurate coloring) and signature stamps in various versions.  Why is there no man in any of these workshops and demonstrations?  They are probably playing with their cameras, iPhones or game consoles.  Oh perhaps their bikes....

Excuse 4: Ride Along

Social cause. Well, not as grand as it sounds, but I enjoyed the Ride of Silence 2012 event with a borrowed bike.  Yes that's an event with 80% male participants contrary to rubber stamp crafting's 100% female.  People close to me don't get enough of my attention and went sour sometimes, cut back or manage better I don't know.  I like the fact that we can ride together but in silence, for the same goal, well understood simple communications.  And I'm not talking about a bike ride only, figuratively rides to somewhere with companionship, just enojy the rides, explore without sourness.

Excuse 5: Researches

When a shop/place is good, you keep hearing things from people and you keep wanting to find out more about it.  What's the essense behind the apparent pleasant things you see?  People in their beta thinking mode usually cannot see deep enough, I prefer to find all angles from word of mouth, a visit and a time to sit back and think.

Fang Sou (方所) claims to be the best lifestyle store in China, many suppliers said great things about it, so I paid a visit there on a day trip to GuangZhou.  It is a bookstore with a fashion boutique, a stationery corner, a cafe, a home objects corner and an exhibition area.  Like it, although anybody with sufficient amount of money and connection can build one as easily, it is a noble attempt to composite such a mix especially in China.  It is a beautiful place to be.  I managed to stop by a few other interesting small shops in GuangZhou, all these researches help me to orient and pick the right sets of values to convey to customers when creating the next merchandise mix.

Excuse 6: Personal Projects

The best advice to a Gemini is probably "to focus", and I'm still meditating on it.  Leather projects for personal use and to gloat about are fun, creating something useful like GTD index cards and Chronodex to share with people is satisfying, blogging about products not available just yet is ..., ok some of these projects must go somewhere soon.

Excuse 7: Beautiful Hong Kong

Extremely proud of this city, such a great melting pot for many of the world-changing things to happen. Many wrote to me asking for interesting spots to visit, and I gave them a Google map if we have some common interests.  Some day our Tourism Board should have independent agents like me all over the place, equipped by the coolest map and stationery travel kit.... 

Excuse 8, 9, 10...: Skipped

Yup, I'm just giving you excuses, getting back to work now.  I hope you can have a sense of the "mess" I'm in.

It Was An Idea 4 Years Ago

Tomorrow our friends from Korea will come to help out on a Korean Stationery Fair in our shops.  I'm especially happy that Pony Brown's designer Mr. Oh and president Ms. Lee will come and meet our customers and press.

The significance of this fair to me is that it was foresaw 4 years ago and it became a reality finally.  At that time, I asked myself why we had no sourcing from Korea at all, nothing.  They have great products and reasonable price and why nobody ever built a network to get those great stuffs for our customers.  Since then a chain of events happened, many failed attempts and empty promises, poor communication due to language and culture differences, nothing worked for one and a half year.

I remember thinking, "it is impossible we cannot do it, it will work especially when everybody says it won't, I will get enough good stuffs and make a Korean Stationery Fair happen."  Well, thanks to those who care and those who don't care enough, they put in efforts afterall, this is happening now, not as elaborated as I imagined but it has come true and I appreciate all the small moves.  So what happened between nothing and now has a lot to do with tenacity and working out of ones boundaries, which I will share in a talk I will give to a university in Taiwan this year.

If you are in Hong Kong, come meet Pony Brown people this Friday evening and Saturday afternoon where I will also be there in Festival Walk LOG-ON store.  There are these 3 rubber stamps for you to stamp on your notebook, they are made specially for this event and for these 2 days only.  Don't miss it.

BTW, last Saturday was a great and efficient day I spent with my kid.  Bought him a pair of cheapest possible shoes, painted in color he loves, I'm yet to paint a crazy chicken on it though.  It was a creative day too, we explored different media for his homework.  I even had time to clean up my fountain pens and made a few sketches on my Traveler's Notebook.

Instayay - Hong Kong's Thriving Instagram Community, A Day With My Kid

Today is the 1st anniversary gathering of our very own Instagram community in Hong Kong, the 11th meet up since a year ago and going strong.  Thanks to the founding members and friendly IGers, even though I joined only 3 photo walks so far, I feel like knowing them for a long time already, probably due to the constant feeds we shared and "liked" on daily basis.

The weather today was unbelievably great, casual hiking in Cheung Chau island and BBQ was just the right thing to do.  I brought along my son and we shared a great time together, I thought he was bored but at the end of the day he said he was very happy, to be able to see a pirate's cave, play at the beach and meet new friends.  He was quietly enjoying the father and son outing, loving it.

My trusted combo "Polaroid 110A + Fujifilm back" often works magic, just that I failed to find more time mingling with IGers and take those "wow" shots.

What a great day to lay on a beach drinking beer watching my kid playing sand, no words can describe it :)

Don't be fooled by his look, he was tired outside but happy inside :)

Earlier the day when his schoolmate was around on the hiking part, they took pictures by the shore, each of them had a Digital Harinezumi.

Cheung Chau is a beautiful island, except for computer electronics, you can almost find everything in this tiny island, old and new, mostly very local.  Here's a fishing village.

You can almost certain that sooner or later, some of these images will be hard to find due to modernization.

The day before this trip, I got a sample Digital Harinezumi 3 for review, great timing.  I made a strap for my kid out of scrap leather pieces and both of us are proud of the outcome.

While everybody was having fun BBQing, we found this weirdo Ken laying on the beach in strange posture.  Later my son told me his butt was entirely exposed at the back, Ken is Ken you know :)

Stealing Time

Time is like an invisible bottle of water, at the very beginning you suck up every drop you need, soon you find that sharing is rewarding and fun, then it become your responsibility to share and you wonder how much is still available for yourself, at this point if you can't figure a way cut down the demand, you will either break down, give up yourself or you have to steal.  I steal.

Today I stole a few hours between visiting Dad in hospital and family time to walk in Central with my camera.  A few cups of coffee here and there, taking photos in back alleys and checking out some cool shops.  I found an old books and stationery store in its closing sale.  The owner is also stealing.  The time has ran out for his shop to mean something in a district where more and more galleries and cafes are opening and rent is high, luckily he owns the place so he is renting out the place so that he can rent another space to continue the dying business.  He is stealing time by economics.

(very old copy books, gummed labels which you lick and stick, short stories and Standardgraph pen)

(China Book Company owner selling HK$15 pairs of old scissors)

(calligraphy nibs, old pencils, cutters and scissors)

(grip developer)

(Chinese chess)

(kids scissors, erasers, glue, pen tray covered with moss, music books)

(photo album, all sorts of erasers, sharpners, learning cassette tapes)

(crowded in its last day, China Book Company)

(look, changes ahead in this street)

My Dad stole too, he stole precious business time and brought back juicy cold watermelon so that we could gather at late night as a family enjoying something together, that was before air conditioning was common.  He stole time to look for other potential buyers when others were still considering his price offers (Chinese painting).  He stole sleeping time in exchange for quiet studies of the paintings' authenticities.  He stole sleeping time from a doctor and 'friend' he thought he could trust when I was terribly sick.  He stole my attention in small chunks when he demanded complete silence in the house for his studies.  I learned from a great man to steal.

I hope to be able to write more often and not disappointing Scription readers.  Been to Vegas and Tokyo in the past month, will visit Taipei and Shanghai in March, bear with me.

Vintage Shop, Delayed Postage, Paper Plane

I don't know about you but I simply don't have the luxury to sleep much, life is too short I think I'm using up my time fast in this life.  Dad is getting better in hospital despite tons of worries in the past few weeks, my team at work is somehow mad at me for reasons I can't quite comprehend, Xmas biggest season for our retail chain is kind of stressful, etc etc.  But all these don't stop me at all to discover more.

I had a few hours of free time the last weekend and dropped by this very nice vintage shop called nLostnFound.  The owner Shirley opened the shop 2 years ago and has been traveling to collect interesting vintage stuffs for her shop.  We had a short conversation but I will definitely going back to interview her soon.  If you happen to drop by Hong Kong, do visit her shop and bring her anything owl related, it is her passion to collect owl vintage stuffs.  Do explore that area coz it is a new hip area full of gallery, select shops, and cafe/bar.  Some of the great shops there are Kapok, Monocle.

I got this cool corkscrew in the form of a huge key from nLostnFound.  Shirley was honest and kind enough to tell me that it is not really a genuine "1960's Germany vintage corkscrew", which I figured ahead from the replica features :)

Back two weeks earlier traveling in Shanghai, I found some nice stuffs.  Some of which was these washable kraft paper made pockets and document holders, durable and tough as your jean label/tag.

I also got a nice pair of scissors (I'm somehow collecting interesting scissors) at RMB 45.  It was labelled "Paris Church" but eventually I figured it doesn't resemble any of the Paris churches I found.  Moreover, the so called "stainless steel with titanium coating" is totally unacceptable.  Titanium or not it doesn't matter, the coating just came off pretty fast and every time I use the scissors my hand stinks.  Poor China products, sigh.

Here's something I'm proud of.  It was not about winning the Best Pilot Award AND the Best Design Paper Airplane Award for my kid.  It was a paper plane (I love paper you know) flying competition in his school and I was determined to make him proud of something.  So I Googled for supreme paper plane designs and found nothing interesting except one guide, The Paper Pilot, which costed US$8.95.  No regret for such purchase, it was a great guide and we won.  The reason I'm proud of?  My kid is proud of himself and his Dad :)

I don't know what the hack is that thing, but all of a sudden there are tiny caterpillars living on my wall, what are they?  Tell me if you know.

UNI from Japan just released new versions of their StyleFit pen barrels, absolutely lovely designs on the barrels.  I feel the sweetness already when I see them in person.  There are chocolate and ice-cream versions and I'm trying to put them in our stores soon.

Now here comes a very delayed package by post.  A dear old friend (by old I mean Scription's oldest reader Colin from Margate UK, 83 I assumed?) sent me this package months ago and it never arrived until a few days ago.  It was battered but I just love how it looks, handwritten, properly stamped and … battered.  Thanks to him, I got to read with my kid the letter he sent to him.  Lovely mail and I learned a lot more about his life adventures and Margate.  I hope I can meet him someday soon before he meet our dear Father (Sorry Colin, no offense), too bad my 2012 trip plan doesn't include UK.  Do check out Colin's new blog adventure.

Lastly, I promoted my Chronodex weekly planner for 2012 on Fountain Pen Network and seems like I've found new acquaintances.  An update of my bookmark idea, instead of having the bookmark in rectangular format in previous post, I trimmed off excessive part and it helps to reveal the content beneath.  If you wonder about the pens, they are made by Kaweco, the black on here is a new Kaweco AL Sport Touch, ball point at one end, stylus at the other.  I'm happy there are people out there perfecting their own life by sharing.

What Happened in 2 Months

Hong Kong is such an amazing place a lot can happen in just 2 months.  For those of you who don't follow my tweets or Instagram feed, I feel obligated to blast out what happened (Colin, I'm talking to you!).  Or to put it better, I want to share my colorful life with you because I know I won't have the time to go back and post tibits I wanted to describe in more details.  So here you go.

Had a privilege to be invited to speak in a conference in Basel.  Flown to Zurich on Swiss Air.

Before the conference, I had a few nice walk with conference attendees from different parts of the world, taking time to see and had coffee while journaling.  Visited stationery and lifestyle stores like Waser, Book Binders, Seven Sisters, etc.

One afternoon was particularly pleasant with nothing to do, so I cycled to all 3 countries sharing this lovely little Basel.  Between the border of France and Switzerland I had a couple of beers by the river and a nice chat with a fellow conference attendee.

After my presentation and the weather permitted, we went for the maiden flight of the newly made Cyberclean hot air balloon.  I was privileged to be on that very balloon, while the rest of the conference attendees rode on the other 9 balloons.  Champaign after that.

I stole half a day from the conference and met two persons I knew but never met before.  My blog reader Yvette who took me to Zurich to see stationery stores and bought me a nice pen, we had lunch in a famous restaurant Zeughauskeller, she showed me her lovely Traveler's Notebook and pens in brass pen case, we shared love in stationery and photography.  We talked about business and management near the end of the day as she is the head of a medium size company.  Since I'm a serious Treemap user, I arranged to meet the founder of Macrofocus Treepmap, Luc, in Babu's Bakery & Coffeehouse.  Interesting to see his other versions of Treemap and found that surprisingly the software's biggest clients are … I can't tell, but very interesting.  Thanks Yvette and Luc, I had a great afternoon with you even though it was very brief!

Visited Museum Tinguely amazed by his work, went up to 1291 meters Weissenstein mountain top to lunch afterward.

Chased by a cow there after showing her my Traveler's Notebook, literally chased by her and being laughed at by a 10 years old kid.

Before we left Weissenstein, I had 30 minutes laying on grass breathing clean air while looking over this beautiful country.

It was quite late that day but we managed to stop by Solothurn, a beautiful little town having a lot to do with the number 11… (check out my flickr feed by clicking the photos).  Fountains, churches, clock tower, cafe, etc.  Too short a stay but feeling lucky.

Back to Hong Kong from Switzerland.  Mid-autumn night playing with kids and lights and camera.

A cycling day with my Strida and Olympus PEN.

Worked a lot on Inkling campaign, which has a long queue of waiting list now as production speed is still slow due to their strict quality control standard.

Went with my modified Polaroid 110A (by Patrick Putze) to Ma Wan in Hong Kong, where an Instagram event in Hong Kong took place, check out Hong Kong Instayay keyword.

The Instayay group is getting bigger and bigger, lots of new faces I couldn't find time to meet.  Great to socialize with a very diverse group of people.

Oh I did take my Voigtlander 35mm too, stunning colors to capture in Ma Wan.

And it was the first time I saw my son so seriously taking photos with his digital camera, love that he enjoys photography as much as I do.

September was Switzerland, October was Korea.  For some reasons this trip was delayed to October and I couldn't change flight schedule but to accept a midnight flight to Seoul.

Rare in Seoul but it happened to me, bed bug bite in a decent hotel, luckily they moved me to a super nice traditional Korean style room, 5 times bigger but I was not so used to sleep on the floor with thin bedding.  Managed to find a lot of great stuffs to bring to customers in our shop.

First time to try Budae Jjigae (Army hotpot).  A type of hotpot originated from Korean War when meat was scarce and people picked left over food from US army base.  Yummy.

Met dozens of suppliers over there and found new masking tapes which quality finally catching up with Japanese MT Tapes.

Stopped by 10x10 cafe again, a must visit cafe even though the decoration is changed significantly from my last visit.

Finally visited Jetoy's very own shop, met the founder once again and had a real nice meeting and planned ahead for the coming year's collaboration.

Visited dozens of stationery and lifestyle shops, as usual.  Small world, I arranged a meeting with a Korean guy I met back in Switzerland, to learn more about his business in Korea.  Chose the Toycamera shop to meet.  Found in that shop selling a book with dozens of my Polaroid photos inside.  I agreed to let them use my photos for the book, for free, in return I asked them to send me the book but they never did!  Toycamera shop owner was nice enough to ask me to sign that book and I was happy enough.  And I bought the book.

Turned out there was a firework display in one of the night I stayed in Seoul, went all the way to get close to the firework and it was awesome, so many people.

Back to Hong Kong from Seoul.  Kid is having more homework, I invented some ways to help him learn English spelling, turned out successful and each round I would make a small booklet for the bunch of words he needs to memorize.  Eventually, I made a leather cover for those booklets.  My kid supervised me to make the leather book, and he specified a pencil holder too.  I named in "Spell(ing) Book".  Fun.

Cycling in Cheung Chau with kids, what a lovely day.  Ice cream, cycling, chit chats and of course Instant photography, this time with Chocolate Polaroid film.

Middle of October, after weeks of thinking about it, I finally took 4 hours (or 6?) to make this leather pen holder with strap for myself.  I followed a design from a Japanese company called 4GATS, I admired their design a lot but I couldn't buy it anywhere in Japan in my last visit in July.  Will import their products to Hong Kong, but I just had to own one created by my hand :)

More product sourcing, repeatedly, happily.  Knew Jac Zagoory's key pen for a while but finally saw it in person first time.  Great quality, good looking, but probably cannot arrive for this Xmas.

Couldn't join Strida gatherings, but managed to visit a bike store opening.  Met a serious biker who customized his Strida with speed drive, drop bar and Megahorn.

Got my hands on the Polaroid Z340 instant digital camera!  Love the look, hate the Zink prints.  Launch event with media on 23rd Nov.

Lomokino launched.  Got a sample but haven't tried to use it, I have low motivation to do that afraid of spending all my money in seconds.

Phew, a whole lot more happened, I guess these are just tip of the iceberg.  Better follow my tweets Colin! :)  BTW, finished reading the "Steve Jobs" biography and re-read "Why We Buy".  In the process of reading "Thinking, Fast and Slow".

Shelves and Shelves of Treasured Things and Stories to Tell

If I were to have my own place (gee it is almost impossible now given the high property price here in Hong Kong and I am probably too late, too unwilling to work my butts off giving my entire salary to mortgage), I would have all walls filled with bookshelves, custom made or genuine trays of the letterpress shelves, boxes and blackboards etc to build memories, concepts and ideas.

In these shelves/trays, they hold small chunks of memories though collection of objects and visuals.  Each object tells a story of my adventures, places I've been to and concepts coming from my little brain.  A real life Akashic Record of myself open to everybody.  I don't know what it means in front of God, or if it means anything to anybody, but at least being able to see those shelves of my life in my mind already gives me the basic grasp of who I am, that's what life is about isn't it?  To discover yourself.  Now I accept donations :P

Buddy Lee Guilt

It's a memory long buried inside my head and all of a sudden sprung back to life. Perhaps because of my kid's going to primary one officially today plus the fact that I happened to find 6 tiny little cute Buddy Lee figures from the back of my work desk today (Synchronicity).  I suddenly recall my mom brought me to a jean shop nearby my old home and bought me a pair of grey Lee jeans for school uniform, the image is so clear in my mind now.

There is also the guilt element in such strong memory imprint.  That pair of Lee jeans were ruined when I was playing goal keeper at soccer.  She sewn it back coz that was expensive.  Or was it a Texwood Apple pair of jeans?  I don't know, but the feeling is real, love.

 

First of September

Today is the first day of my kid's primary school year.  Sharpened his pencils, sharpened his Steadtler ABS color pencils (then it will be done by himself for the rest of his life), taught him how to pack his school bag according to the school time table.  Taught him to put heavy books closer to the body in his backpack, taught him to pull out the right stuffs from his backpack with eyes closed.  Gave him a Mandarin lesson, …. His mom did all the administration paperworks (gee there are a lot notices given by school!).  First of September, having some good feelings, having some bad as well.

One Photo Is Enough, I Guess

What a wonderful wedding day of my dear colleague's.  I only knew Geric for 4 months and we will have a lot to discover about each other, but here he goes venturing into a new leaf of his life.

(Fujifilm FP3000B, Polaroid 110A f4.7 1/60s)

It was an adventure for myself to witness his personal journey today.  With all the professional photographers there snapping shots at every angle possible, how could I compete?  I set off to do just one photo and I hope that was enough to contribute my share of happiness for him.

Thanks to a dear Flickr friend, who happened to be a dear friend of Geric, he walked me through what would happen in the ceremony at church.  A kind pastor also told me about my limits in such settings.  So there I go picked that one spot, mentally went through all possible obstacles (including the professional photographers), calculated the right exposure, laid on the floor waiting, and waiting for 30 minutes.  In that split second when the professional photographer was too busy doing his thing I took this shot.  It was pure pleasure and it means a lot to me, just a tiny way to be part of it.

Perhaps it was God who brought us all together on this day.  It took me nearly 3 years to find this person and I only spent 3-4 months with him.  But the stationery team loves you, please take us to another chapter as daring as you've set off to take this personal journey.  Love.