Yalun’s Note: Following-up on my article on “So you Want to Be a Writer” where the suggestion was “just write!” here is what I sent to HK Magazine when I wanted to be a columnist for them. It didn’t get me hired, but it started a conversation. And that’s 90 percent of it. The below was an email I sent to some friends. I wanted to be like a Mitch Hedburg style standup comic. That didn’t happen. Oh well. I hope you enjoy. Some Thoughts, by Yalun Tu I wonder what it would be like to have three hands. You could juggle three balls and it would be really easy. Also, when you hugged someone, you could also pat their stomach. Do you ever pretend to compliment people but then secretly turn it into an insult in your mind? Like you say “wow, you’re as strong as an ox” but then you imagine a really weak ox, like, it can only bench 45 pounds or something? People in Hong Kong always get angry when other people ask them if it’s in Japan. I think this is because they’re worried it might be true and they’re embarrassed by the quality of the sushi here. I like the show “Heroes.” It’s about people that suddenly develop special abilities like the ability to walk through walls or super strength. Sometimes I wonder if there are heroes in real life. Then I’m at a restaurant and I see some guy trying really hard to open a ketchup bottle and I’m like “naahhhh.” I have a really good business idea. Consider these facts: Power Hour refers to a drinking game where you drink shots of beer for an hour. Tower of Power refers to 10-member horn-based soul band from Oakland, California. Flower power is a hippie slogan. Chowder power is a list of summer chowder recipes. I forgot where I was going with this. I don’t understand why most people think that robots only like listening to techno music. I would guess that most robots like smooth jazz because they play it in elevators, which is what I imagine the inside of a robot looks like. I’m surprised that Hong Kong protest marches often have more policemen supervising than there are protestors. I wonder if it’s going to be really confusing if the police ever protest something because nobody will know who’s in charge. I bet they’d probably get some security guards to moderate but then expats don’t listen to those guys. If you’re on the escalator on the moving walkway, do you ever worry that a giant might mistake you for some groceries on a belt and, if it turns out that you were a clearance item or something, you’d have real low self-esteem that day? Sometimes when I’m listening to music without words I’m worried that I’m actually at a karaoke event and everyone is just being really polite. A really good prank to play if you’re babysitting is to call the parents and say “I lost your child.” Then you need to pause for a while and say, “Oh wait, false alarm. I found him. He was in the knife drawer.” Another good prank is if a child is missing you call the parents and say “I may have information on the whereabouts of your child.” When they ask where he is, say that you’ll only tell them if they make you a sandwich. Then, when they go to do that, they’ll find him in the knife drawer. I wish I had a butcher. Nobody has butchers anymore. We’d be best friends and go everywhere together, assuming the only place I went was to giant freezers filled with meat. What would weird you out more, a blue cow or a blue horse? I say horse. The word “Guru” means a wise teacher and if you write it backwards it looks like it should have the exact opposite meaning: Urug. Yalun Tu is a columnist for HK Magazine. You can reach him at yalun.tu@gmail.com or @yaluntu on Twitter.
