Throughout September, I’ve had a mix of conversations with many different friends and acquaintances: A “congratulations” is often followed up with an “I’m sorry.” For those who don’t know, my grandmother passed away on the morning of the Mid-Autumn Festival, the same day that my first gallery solo exhibition opened to the public and that was the general theme of what happened in the last four weeks; having a vague comprehension that career-wise, things are going well, while at the same time, feeling numb and empty, that everything is wrong.

How has your July been? I hope you haven't melted in the heat wave!

On my end, summers have continued to be blazing where it's almost unbearable to even step out of an air-conditioned room -- I start sweating after just five minutes out on the street! A friend of mine recently said that heat waves in Europe are still better weather than summer in Hong Kong: our sweaty, humid, hard-to-breathe (even without masks!) summers last from late April and sometimes into mid-November! Fall is almost non-existent here. 

(and I need to stop using newsletters as a way to complain about the weather...)