happy birthday

Long long time ago, pei fell in love. With the greatest entertainer in the Chinese-speaking Asia.
A successful entertainer in Asia has to do everything: TV series, movies, song albums, commercials, and anything you can think of. Of course, the basic element of an idol is a handsome face. Andy Lau definitely has it. After 20 years, he still has it. His career never goes down, no matter how the political environment has changed dramatically in Hong Kong. He does not just survive. He rules. Everyone loves him.

In the early teenage, I collected things about him. I memorized all the lyrics of his songs (including both Mandarin and Cantonese). I saw all his TV series and movies repeatedly. I bought his posters for my walls, pictures for my wallet, and autobiography for my book shelf. He was my religion during those years living under the pressure of getting into the best high school.
In the late teenage, one night I was bored in my dorm room. My university is a small one. We had a pocket-size directory with everyone's personal information. The personal information that interested me at that boring night was birthdays. Why did we publically list our birthdays is beyond my logic.

When I was in teens, my memory of birthdays was impeccable. Anyone told me his/her birthday, and I would remember it. Even until now, I still remember birthdays of lots of my junior-high classmates.

That boring night in the college dorm, I flipped through the directory, only filtering in birthdays.
I found one person born on the exact same day as me. I found several people having the same birthday as my mom. I found one person born having the same birthday as Andy Lau: September 27.
You know, as a bored college geeky girl as I was, I went not so far to try to search for this person. It turned out he was not as far as Andy Lau who was out of my reach. So I got close to him and fell in love with him. The rest of the story is not the point of this entry, although it is a good story. Let's just say, Andy Lau's birthday has changed my life.

So you see, Kirua, I guess I can't forget your birthday, either.
This is for you, my dear friend. Happy birthday!
Should not be too difficult for you because it is now the beautiful autumn in south France. Even if you are awfully alone, you are luckier than me. My birthday is in winter, of which I had no choice. I believe your first birthday in France will not be worse than my first birthday in America.

I was in L.A. With Gina, who didn't remember my birthday that day. I was there with her relatives. At the dinner, I said I wanted a lighter because I wanted to blow off a fire for my own tradition. Until then, no one at the dinner knew it was my birthday. Which was actually kinda cool that I had a little secret going on. But it was not so cool that I could not convince myself that my day was happy and cool.
Once they knew, Gina and her cousin took me to make a head-shot sticker, a very popular Japanese thing at the time. Although it was super popular, I had only done it twice in Taipei. The one I did in L.A. was my third and last time. I am just not a Japanese kind of girl. Japanese fashion just does not blend with me well.

Candle blowing is a must. Go tell everyone that today is your birthday, and ask them to bring a candle. See if the number of friends matches your new age.
Call me, birthday boys. I will sing you a song.
Let's see if Andy Lau will call me. Too bad that he doesn't have my number. (Yeah, I wish.) (Even if I wish, it's not my birthday, and the wish would not come true.)