Normally, people hate watching TV commercials. They will avoid watching commercials by pressing the fast forward button in recorded programs, change channels or go to the washroom in live programs. I can’t believe I watched nothing but commercials for almost half an hour today. I haven’t watched Hong Kong TV commercials for a long time. Although I watch TV programs from HK quite frequently, those program are usually commercial free. I am curious how the TV commercials in HK look like nowadays and what are the differences with those here in Canada. I downloaded a collection of HK TV commercials and watched it half-heartly this afternoon. Actually I am quite disappointed, out of the hundred or so commercials I watched, there are only a few good ones with a sense of humor or with artistic expression that is pleasant to watch. I always thought commercials in HK would be more interesting than those broadcast here. I guess commercials are just equally boring everywhere. Some commercials hire celebrities as speak persons, which I found quite this type of commercials often lacks substance and instantly turned me off. Ok, commercials with showering scenes by famous female stars are exceptions, but I still won’t buy those products because of the stars. Some commercials trying to be too informative, giving boring useless sales number to the audience so that they can forget in the next second. There is one clueless commercial featuring Chow Yun Fat with lots of weird visual imageries. It turns out to be the commercial for the new casino in Macau. No wonder the advertisement company can make an expensive commercial seems so meaningless, that is exactly the effect they want to archive. You can’t hard sell gambling in TV commercials. To my surprise, I found some ancient commercials from my childhood days still on air these days. The tag line of those commercials are part of the collective memories among people form different generations. Actually, I am more surprise those products are still in business. Who wants to by a product running an aging commercial?
What is a good life? I have been asking this question to myself lately. The definition of good life have different meanings to different people. Someone want to be rich and powerful, someone want to live simple and humble. At the end of the day, it comes down to the choice of life style. It is a known fact that happiness does not correlate with wealth. The pursuit of wealth may make other parts your life suffers. But on the other hand, money can fulfill many of your desires. One way out is to eliminate your wants like a Buddhist monk or convert your desires to intangible spiritual values that comes free like those religious people. It seems to me forgoing the wish for materials is an adjusted preference that people change their expectation when they realize they can’t achieve their original goal. Then they justify to themselves why the new goal is better than the old one by looking down on the things they once aspired to. I am turning middle age and I have done some reality check on myself. I know I can’t fulfill all my wants, so I have to discard some of them to keep myself in balance. I have decide what to keep and what to let go yet. But one thing is for sure, I won’t look down on the things I once like. I sacrifice some goals to archive some other goals. I should happy for those who can do what I can’t fulfill. The things I would look down on is those that I never had and never will have interest.
When I was small, I remember I used to buy those made-in-china black cover with red corner notebooks. The paper quality of those notebooks are not great, but I have wrote countless lectures notes on them and they accompany me through my high school years. Actually life is quite decent being able to afford those notebooks, some schoolmates only take notes on the back of a pack of staple d recycle paper. On the other end of the spectrum of notebooks, there is the the legendary Moleskine notebook used by Van Goh, Picasso, Hemingway, and Tom Hanks in Da Vinci’s Code. The report notebook bound on the top is a standard equipment for journalists portrait in classic Hollywood movies. Moleskine is made of very high quality paper. The elastic band holding the notebook when it is close gives a distinct look of a Moleskine. Moleskine is very popular among artists, writers and intellectuals. In the digital age, many people think PDA and laptops are going to make old fashion notebook obsolete. A Moleskine notebooks have a special aura that makes it a irreplaceable cultural icon. I just got my first Moleskine notebook today. Now the problem is whether the contents in my notebook worth the paper I write them on.
