Tagged… for a meme that is actu­ally fun! Bar­bara from Home In France asked a few of us about the old­est objects we have at home. This turned out to be pretty tricky for me!

Indeed, I have actu­ally never really moved in Canada. Well, at least not “move” in the real sense of the word. In 2002, I showed up with no more than a back­pack — full of sum­mer clothes since we were com­ing back from South Amer­ica. I did go to France many times since then but I didn’t have much to bring back any­way. My clothes weren’t really Canadian-winter proofed, my books were too heavy and well, we didn’t have a CD play­ers so no point in tak­ing my music col­lec­tion (although I did copy it on my laptop).

So, find­ing four “old” things was tricky.

This is one of the only thing I brought from France: my pens and my pen­cils. I used to draw a lot, much man than I do now… and I col­lected all kind of pens, pen­cils, felt-tip pens, crayons etc. I put them all in a metal box (actu­ally, and old Chi­nese moon­cakes — 月饼 — box) and they are just fine. I brought my foun­tain pen from France as well. Mem­o­ries… I wrote all my uni­ver­sity exam with it. It’s a cheap plas­tic pen but I still use it to fill up impor­tant paper­work. I had to bring the ink car­tridge because I had a hard time to find them in Canada: they are pretty expen­sive. I guess Cana­di­ans don’t use foun­tain pens much. It’s a favorite in France! I We even had classes on how to use it. Ibought the Win­nie The Pooh pen­cil case in China. I know, it’s child­ish and blah­blah­blah but hey, every­body has a soft spot. Or three Win­nie The Pooh in the room. No?

This is one of the most impor­tant thing I owe: my immi­gra­tion folder. It starts with my work­ing hol­i­day visa appli­ca­tion back in 2004, then the per­ma­nent visa appli­ca­tion, then the landed immi­grant papers and finally, my first Cana­dian I.Ds. Just look­ing at it this after­noon made me think of how stress­ful immi­gra­tion was… and how much I sweat over these papers! I still remem­ber read­ing on the Cit­i­zen­ship & Immi­gra­tion web­site, dur­ing my weekly check on my appli­ca­tion process, the fol­low­ing mag­i­cal words: “A deci­sion has been made on your appli­ca­tion. The office will con­tact you con­cern­ing this deci­sion.” Oh, I was so excited! The lit­tle Win­nie notepad (yeah, Win­nie again, bought in China as well) had all my file ref­er­ence num­bers. I keep all that as mem­ory… And more will be added since I’ll apply for my cit­i­zen­ship this year!

These are all my Chi­nese study books that I bought in China or in France and brought to Canada. No com­ment on the “Inter­na­tional Marx­ist Review” book­let…! The small blue book is my Chi­nese dic­tio­nary. I have many but this one has always been my favorite… It’s small and yet very com­pre­hen­sive. I bought it in Nan­jing in 2000 and took it to every sin­gle exam I had (well, when­ever I was allowed to use a dic­tio­nary!). All the books have a lot of notes and high­lighted pas­sages… and occa­sion­ally cig­a­rette burn, cof­fee stains and choco­late crumbs! Most of them are in French but I also have a few in Eng­lish or Chi­nese. Find­ing Chi­nese books or books on Chi­nese his­tory in France was really dif­fi­cult and I had to track down a few books from small pub­lish­ers. They are quite unique.

And finally, this is my lit­tle beauty case. I got the blue van­ity case as a present for Christ­mas when I was about 12 I think… I have always used it as far as I can remem­ber, and took it with me every­where. Get­ting worn out though! I bought the small Tiger Balm pot in Belize (we used it against mos­qui­toes bites!) and it’s quite old… I just keep it for mem­ory, along with the blue Urban Decay eye­shadow that I don’t really wear any­more (past 18 years old, blue glit­ter doesn’t look that good)! You can also see my neck­lace and my ring. Feng bought me the jade in New Zealand (not China like most peo­ple think!) and I rarely take it off… I had loved the shape of it when I saw it and got it in Christchurch.

So, your turn to look for oldies!

Here are the rules:
All you do is to look in your home for the old­est objects that you own. Just your own pos­ses­sions . Then, take a photo of each object, and( if you like ), do a short descrip­tion of each . Pass on to four friends.

I’d like to tag:

• Max
• Encore Seraphine
• A Cowboy’s Wife
• Func­tion Of Time

Have fun girls!

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3. (5+5=10) Other Things About Me
4. Ten Things I Can’t Do (and really, does that matter ?)
5. The United Nations At Home