Blog talk and moving announcement

What I've felt like I've been walking on
for a large part of the last few days! ;b

As some of you may have noticed, something has been awry with this blog's "Labels" section for a few weeks now. For example, and for reason that I can't fathom, although I have personally only attached a "HKIFF" label to a total of fourteen out of -- including today's -- the one hundred and thirty-nine posts on this blog, the section of Blogger that's charged with counting such things appears insistent that their actual number is thirty-seven.

Additionally, although I have attached a "Mainland China" label on to only eleven of this blog's posts, the relevant section of Blogger has, again, decided to inflate the number -- this time up to twenty-six! At the same time, although the number of posts labelled "Hong Kong" and "Penang" respectively also have been artificially inflated by the Blogger machinery, it's true enough that there are more Hong Kong- than Penang-focused posts on this blog.

This is something that may strike some of you who are reading this as on the weird side. After all, as I have revealed on this blog, I not only currently reside in Penang but it also is where I was born, was raised for the most part, and is the part of the world which I consider to be my ancestral home; with at least one branch of my family being able to trace back its residence in this area by at least five generations in addition to my parents having been true blue Penangites years before Malaysia achieved its political independence from Britain.

However, the fact of the matter is that I've actually spent more years of my life outside of Penang than in it. For the record: These include a spell at boarding school in Britain, four years at college at Beloit (in Wisconsin, U.S.A.), eleven years or so -- spread over two separate spells -- in Philadelphia (also in the U.S.A.), two years in Tanzania, and another two years working in Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia's capital city) before I returned once more to Penang in August 2005.

And as far as Hong Kong is concerned...well, firstly, the cinema of Hong Kong has been a big passion of mine for some years now. Furthermore, at some point amidst it all, my love of Hong Kong movies got me starting to love the territory from whence they came and which many of them so lovingly and vividly as well as colorfully depict; and to such an extent that I not only took to regularly visiting Hong Kong but nursing fantasies and dreams of some day getting to live there.

To cut what could be a pretty long story short: In only a little bit more than thirty-six hours from now, I will be getting ready to board a plane that will send me on my way to making that dream into reality. Put in more prosaic terms: four days ago, I formally accepted a job offer that will see me start work in Hong Kong on May 2nd, 2007 (i.e., just three days from today!)!

As you can imagine, it was quite the scramble to find a place to live in time for that fast looming start date! But a place -- in one of those parts of Hong Kong which has been featured in more than one local Hong Kong movie, no less! ;b -- has indeed been found that should at least temporarily serve my purposes.

At the same time though, since it's minus a broadband connection -- until I arrive and arrange for that to be set up -- and other certain items, I foresee that it will be a while before I will have the opportunity to regularly log on to the internet from my Hong Kong home. (By the way, I just felt a shiver go down my spine as I wrote the phrase "my Hong Kong home" there!)

When all this is coupled with the pretty strong likelihood that I'll be using up lots of energy, nervous and otherwise, at work there and spending a lot of my time besides doing the necessary to feel like -- and actually become! -- a real Hong Kong resident, I think it would be best to place this blog on hiatus for at least a week or two. (Right now, my plan is to try to fit in one more blog entry tomorrow but the way things are or are getting to be (i.e., frenzied!), I don't dare to unconditionally promise that this will happen...)

With that, I'm off to do more bidding of au revoirs along with preparing and packing for the trip -- nay, move! -- post haste!!! And to those of you readers who are Hong Kong residents: Yes, I sure would appreciate any advice and tips that you think that is worth offering me with regards to working and/or living in Hong Kong... :b