me and my lil bro

I'm back in Hong Kong. I've been hanging out a lot with my 14 year old brother, who is the coolest 14 year old in the world, because I've managed to convince him that there's absolutely no shame in listening to Avril Lavigne.

I got a little worried when I came home after being away for so long and saw that he's been listening to the likes of Travis, Jet and Switchfoot(!?!). It was obvious that my sister had been corrupting him with her rubbish pretend / Christian rock ways. All was not lost though; he and I both agreed that Good Charlotte's "Keep Your Hands Off My Girl" and My Chemical Romance's "Teenagers" are unimpeachable rock ditties, both of which we would scream along to. Anyways, after much indoctrination in the form of forced listenings to my ipod during our roadtrip through the mountains of Sichuan, he not only randomly bursts into "Hey! Hey! You! You! I don't like your girlfriend! No way! No way!" in the middle of the day but he also does "Lil Mama and Avril Lavigne! Remix! Lil Mama and Avril Lavigne! Remix!" Likewise, instead of "you can stand under my umb-ba-rella, ella, ella,ey ey" I've heard him do "you can be my cind-er-ella, ella, ella, ey ey." Maybe that last part was just my fanciful imagination, but either way I'm way proud of him.

this is us on a good day.
Juizhaigou, Sichuan Province, China. This is supposedly the lake where Zhang Yimou shot the fighting and flying over the lake scene in Hero.
Jiuzhaigou, Sichuan Province, China. The water in the lakes and waterfalls at Jiuzhaigou are so clear and blue, it's unreal. But you really need to be an expert at the art of crowd-dodging because the place is packed with Chinese tourists.
Our extended family donated money to build a primary school in a rural village in Guangxi Autonomous Region in memory of our grandmother. There was pomp and circumstance at the opening of it. Boring speeches extolling the virtues of education, communism, charity, as well as lion dances, flagwaving, etc.