Episode 188 - Misty Forest

Another photo of the forest taken from the peak this morning.

The mist defamilarized the city for us by taking out its usual colours.

Episode 187 - Adding and Releasing

Adding and Releasing are 2 complementary application techniques in Taiji.

In the post on Spherical Power, I explained the technique of Releasing:

"Imagine you are a ball filling with air inside.............. If your force is directed to one side only, it will piece through the wall of the ball. The "air" is released, and you lose the power: you are in an unbalanced position."

What then is Adding?

In order to maintain the optimum position, the air inside the ball should be no more or no less. If more air is injected inside the ball, it will become unstable due to the increased pressure: You are in an unbalanced position.

Balancing oneself with 2 legs is not an easy task as one normally conceives - it is a result of continuous daily practice since we first learned to walk. Once this take-for-granted mechanism is disturbed, it is very difficult for a person to main his balance.

Adding and Releasing are useful tools for disturbing your opponent's balancing mechanism. One way to do it is to add air into the ball and then release it - an application technique applying the Yin / Yang Conversion Principle.

Episode 186 - Revisiting the Long Island

I revisited Cheung Chau yesterday. This time with Chiu Yin's friends and their parents who are also our neighbours.

The photos above were taken at the edge of the Vase Rock - one of the many interesting weathered granite along the path of the Little Great Wall.

The tour might have been a challenge to the kids as we walked a lot for the whole afternoon. Having said that, I do believe that they did find the journey interesting and enjoyable. They played along the East Beach, touched the weathered granite, and searched for the pirate's hidden treasure in the Cheung Po Chai Cave !

Episode 185 - Colourful Angels

"Angels are all around us, all the time, in the very place we live."

These are two of the Discuses I purchased from the pet shops at Prince Edward recently. The one in the first photo is a Red Turquoise; and the second one is a Pigeon Blood.

When they were first introduced to Hong Kong, Discuses were sold at very high prices. In the light of the profit margin, the tropical fish farmers soon acquired the skill to bred these fishes locally. Save for those newly developed species, the prices of the discuses have now dropped to a reasonable and affordable level.

Local people like to call the discuses the "Colourful Angels" and consider them to be one kind of Angle Fishes. While both the Discuses and the common Angel Fishes belong to the Cichild Family, it may not be correct to consider discuses as one variety of Angel Fishes. In any event, this is what they are being called here.

All the "Angels" hid behind the plants as soon as I released them into the fish tank. They even refused to eat anything in the first week and I worried that they would soon become angels. I tried to keep the environment quiet and treated the "Angels" with frozen worms. It worked! They are now swimming leisurely in the tank and will ask for food as soon as I walk close to the tank. Apart from worms, I also feed them with flake type fish food. I learned that the discuses can be fed with certain kind of hamburger - with cow's heart and shrimp as the main ingredient. That's why the discuses in some pet shops are so fat!

I keep some neon tetras with the "Angels" and they appear to be living together peacefully. Occasionally, the "Angels" would quarrel and fight among themselves - annoying but acceptable.

Episode 184 - Morning Fish Market

"There are many pet shops at the Prince Edward District, selling goldfish, tropical fish, coral fish, and aquarium products. ...........

"Apart from the shops, fish hawkers gather together in a nearby area in the form of a flea market, with locally bred goldfish and tropical fish offering for sale at a very competitive price. These hawkers arrive at the vicinity in the early morning. They leave early as well." - Episode 54 - Tiger Head



I and Chiu Yin visited the morning fish market today. We got up at 6 a.m. and took a cross harbour bus to Kowloon. We got off the bus at a stop near Prince Edward. After a 10 minutes' walk, we arrived at the fish market at Boundary Street.

The market starts at around 5:00 a.m. everyday. It is not a licenced market but the government has closed one of its eyes on this for many years. The sellers are self-disciplined and will leave before 8:00 a.m.

As you can see from the photos taken by Chiu Yin above, there were many fish sellers doing business along the street this morning and there were a lot of choices. Apart from common tropical fishes and goldfishes there were many strange fishes which we had never seen before (not even in books!). We also saw various kinds of tortoises and hermit crabs.

The prices of the "goods" were very attractive and there were a large number of buyers as well. The fishes were packed and sold in plastic bags.

You can get a good price if you purchase a large bag with over 20 tails of goldfishes or 100 tails of neon tetras or guppies.