My Home – My Friend

In a lazy Sunday morning, I woke up at seven o’clock rarely. I opened the glass sliding door, walked to the balcony and felt the early morning with cool wind. The nice smell of flatfish soup from the wonton noodles restaurant occupied my home - a little dwelling unit on the second floor of an old tong lau in Central. The view through the balcony and windows from my home can be divided into three parts – a narrow street, buildings and a small corner of the sky. It always reminds me of the long distance between Central and “nature”.

As same as every holiday afternoon, I sat on my bed, turned on the computer and put on my headphone in order to keep my mind away from the multi-noise - the sound from the radio, the background music of Candy Crush from my mum’s cell phone, loud scream of the Taiwan variety show from my father’s computer and the annoying noise from the nearly daily roadworks. They just like monsters and scare me every day. However, I had no choice because I did not have my own room. “Luckily”, an escape chance for me was coming very soon because my family needed to move to a flat of public housing.

After having a deep “communication” with my computer, the dinner time was coming. The view outside the window was still bright because of the countless large shop signs with dazzling neon lights. As what I have do every night, I took out and opened the mahjong table in the middle of the living room. Then placing the old newspapers on it as placemats. When the kitchen became silent with a familiar smell of fired garlic, it meant the dinner was ready. In most of the dinnertime, I looked at the naive graffiti which drawn by my sister and me when we were primary school students on the wall behind my bed. Rainbows, butterflies and stars with messy lines and coloring made me remember my delighted childhood. Regrettably, it was the time to say good-bye to my lovely rainbows.

àTaking Shower

At the midnight, the cheer sound and disco music from Lan Kwai Fong became louder. I turned off the computer, took off my glasses and lay on bed. Naturally, I raised my right hand and pointed to the little black dots on the ceiling. One, two, three…trying to count the “shadows of stars”. The piles of specks created many natural but abstract patterns. This image made me enjoy every night before falling asleep. I closed my eyes and thought about my future. I did not know where I will be one year later. The merely thing that I understood was I needed to leave my home no matter I agreed or not. Therefore, see you and thank you, my “best friend”. It was my pleasure to be here with my dearest family in the past eighteen years.