A place that is now a park in Wan Chai was where the Philippine flag was sewn. The first version of the Philippine flag that was waved on June 12, 1898 (the Filipino’s declaration of independence from Spain) was sketched by Emilio Aguinaldo. It’s only mentioned as Hong Kong…

I’m still trying to wrap my head around immutability in Javascript/React/Redux but I have found these resources that I wanted to piece together. Why you need Redux? This article explained it in a simple and non-technical way. The Data Flow An animated diagram of the data flow by using Redux: Source: Redux Essentials, Part 1: Redux Overview…

We don’t simply use one or two languages, we code-switch in three. — Working with locals in Hong Kong for two years now, I fully speak English to my colleagues. There was one thing, however, that made me stop and stare: it was how fluent they were in their numbers vocabulary. I first noticed that when I asked my Chinese colleague how the…

Stop yourself from being fully sucked into that black hole. — You’re probably miserable right now which is why you’ve clicked this. Despite the rejections, you aren’t giving up. …

Well, are you? — The night was young when overthinking struck. Flipping through Instagram stories, I watched as people go on their daily lives today. Some posted about things like milk tea, baking, a musical, and a lunch-out that made them happy. I paused. ‘Happy, oh that word.’ Smiling to myself, I briefly remembered…

14 Ways that Hong Kong people and businesses are adapting — Any government in the world can close borders, add fancy robots into its airports, implement mass testing, hire more front-liners, launch economic stimulus packages and distribute relief goods to its citizens for this ongoing pandemic. However, such implementations are useless if people are not able to cope with the new…

Living through a 2020 pandemic in Asia’s World City — January — March 2020 “Hey, what was SARS like?” That was the first question I asked my Hong Konger colleague when we were checking Hong Kong’s dashboard for Covid-19 cases in January. I told him my reasons for asking: I grew up in the Philippines where we only had 2…

They weren’t just unusual things, they were part of the Japanese way of life. — To see is to believe. For years, I’ve been reading and watching videos related to my favorite country, Japan. And when I finally went there, I was always left in awe at every direction. Here are 28 things I verified in the Land of The Rising Sun: You can pay…

I took advantage of one of the highly coveted visas and had a transit tour in the Land of the Morning Calm. — Visa applications are time-consuming and mostly costly when you have a weak passport. I am a Philippine passport holder so if I want to enter South Korea directly, I will need to apply for the visa. South Korean Embassy processes them for free (depending on where you live) or through…