Tina To's Real Estate Blog

“Oh , we are experiencing the worst depression!”  ARE WE? ? ?

If you are Jewish and aged over 50, your parents may had been ran away from the Nazi Camp or forced to run away from homes.  If you came from China and aged over 50, you should have experienced the Cultural Revolution.  The point is if you asked those people, which period is worse, now or then?  What is your hinge?

Yes, we have a high unemployment rate.  Yes, a lot of people lost their homes because of foreclosure.  Yes, the government is keep on cutting budgets.  Yes, our economic growth is a negative figure or close to zero.   But how many years have our ancestors live a “simple” life before the Industrial Revolution kicked in?  Could we call those years the worst?  Would our ancestors said so?

During the 1929 depression, a lot of people hid themselves in the theaters and enjoyed the extra low ticket fee.  A lot of family actually felt those were the time they felt the closest as parents were jobless and had plenty of time with their children.  Can we still enjoy some of those side “benefits” today?

So, cheer up.  This is not the end of the world.  We are not at our worst period and so will not be tomorrow.

Thank you for checking in with my blog.  By the way, if you are thinking of making use this golden chance of low house price, low interest rate in San Francisco or Peninsular, feel free to contact me.  I have over 20 years experience helping people acquire their first home.

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In case you are thinking of what you want to send your girlfriends/ motherfriends

you may like to send this one.  I recieved this one from my friend and I think it is amazing.  Please click onto “rising mother of the year” to see.

rising mother of the year

When I received the notice to appear for jury duty, I would say why me again, why not strike the lotter but the jury?  Fortunately, not all U.S. citizen react like me and some, in fact, welcome jury duty.

As a self-employed person like myself, I would not get any compensation from my boss?  I am my own boss!!!  That may explain one reason why I do not welcome to serve my jury duty.  However, today, I attended my annual jury duty.  ( I mean annually because I never miss one in any one year.)  I roughly counted and do a quick statistic about the attendees. In total, there are roughly 140 attendants, only 14% of paid employees ( I do this by observation that only 2 persons in a 14 persons roll asked for jury duty excuse paper to be submitted to their bosses) and another 14% are seniors (also by judging from their outlook).  So the rest of attendees are either self-employed or unemployed.

Lucky enough, I was allocated to the courtroom right away with about 69 others.  Another 31 attendees out of this 70 were selected randomly into the panel for further questioning about their suitability to be the jury.  The judge read out the case, introduce the prosecutor, the defendant, and the defendant’s attorney.  Also all names related to the case were read and any attendants who claimed to be related to these people would be excused.

This was a criminal case and no matter what when the case had not be finalized, we swore that we would not discuss it.  But this case will be ended in one week and it was a small case “a car was broken in and the owner claimed to lose$400, nobody was injured and the suspect was caught”.

When the group in the panel was questioned about their previous experience of vandalism, 10 out of the 30 had and some of them had been vandalized more than one time but still claimed that they would not be biased by their previous experience.  Do you think so??  If I were them and I had time, I would say the same thing too because I wanted to help to put justice to the victims including myself.  However, when I was later chosen, I declared myself not able to be fair and would be biased by my beliefs.  I believe the police had made great efforts to catch the suspect and provide proof, I would drop dead if the suspect was proved innocent no matter what.  In that sense, I will not be a fair judge.  I have preoccupied idea already.

To guard democracy and fairness, the government spends thousands of dollars trying their best to provide fair judge.  Some people think that is a waste of public money, some not.  What do you think?

By the time I posted this article, it had been one month from my jury duty date and should not be interfering with the court decision.

Have you ever forgot familiar words or names or the location of keys, eyeglasses or other everyday objects?  According to the Seven Stages of Alzheimer’s Disease from www.alz.org, the Alzheimer’s Association, this is the typlical symptom of the Second stage of Alzheimer.

Recently I have read a book “Jan’s Story” by Barry Petersen.  Barry’s wife has an early onset of Alzheimer at age 55.  But during the early stages. Barry had not taken the opportunity to go to places where they always wanted  to go, do things that they had longed to do because Barry thought he still have “time”.  However, Alzheimer’s disease really do not have a timeline and full of unknown, the disease can progress suddenly without any warning.  Barry regretted a lot but who does not.  I guess regarding this, Barry is not alone.  We always put up things that we think we still have time, aren’t we?

There is also another debatable issue that despite Barry and Jan had married for 20 years and love each others ever since, Barry was encouraged to look for a new partner, another sole mate.  This would be extremely difficult if Barry was in the Chinese society.  Traditional Chinese values eternal love and that eternal love means loyalty.  Barry should not physically depart his wife not mentioning mentally.  Barry also spells out clearly the meaning of marriage that is there is love between husband and wife and they take care each others, be each other’s soulmate.   This is a pretty high standard to uphold and  I think at least 50% of married couples had not reached.  Many couples are together out of needs but not out of love.   At least this is true to one of my friends’. 

What is your opinion regarding this?  If you have time, I would recommend you to read this book Jan’s Story by Barry Petersen which will come out in June 15, 2010.  (The one I read is Advance Reader’s Edition , meaning not finalized in editing and I bought it from the   Main Library in San Francisco.)

Tina, although she was a rabel as a teenager, she actually is quite traditional.  She gives me a new angle of looking at parent-children relationship.  I totally agree with her that when our children uplive our hopes and will, we would proudly say, they are my sons/daughters.  But when they walk some weird path (at least from the parent’s point of view), she would call her child – friend.

Do you have a friend or have a son or a daughter?

When Tina’s only daughter told her mother she wanted to change into the male, Tina just asked her daughter to do more researches and discussed with her later.  Tina, is quite traditional in this area.  She considered changing sex was against the nature.  However, she compromised with her daughter’s decision.  And her daughter became her “friend”.

Parents:  Have you ever noticed the way you say “your” or “my” when you addressed your son/daughter with your spouse?  Let me give you an example.  When my son did something wrong, I would subconsciously, told my husband, “go get YOUR son”.  But when my son showed me his report cards with all As, I would say, “come, look at MY son’s results.”

How many of you are like me?  Picture below is My son and Your son.

I was inspired by reading the book “Journey of a Thousand Miles: My story” by Lang Lang.  I read this in Chinese version.

For those who are not interested in music, particularly piano, may not know who is Lang Lang.  Lang Lang is the youngest famous pianist in this century so far.  I am not going to summarized his story because you can check it out from his book by which I believe should be the English version and/or should be the original.

Lang Lang won the first place as young as 5 years old.  After he watched the cartoon “Jerry and Tom”, he could replay the background music when he was only 3 years old.  Before he could read words, he could read notes.  He was recognized and had been set a goal as “the great pianist” as young as he was 3 years old.  I said set the goal because this goal was not set by him but by his parents.  His parents had sacrificed a lot to help him to reach where he is now.  Aged 9, Lang Lang left his mother and moved to Beijing together with his father.  His mother had to stay at work in Sheng Yang to support them financially.  In order for Lang Lang to be further trained and reach his parents? Lang Lang’s? goal, Lang Lang’s father became Lang Lang’s full time supervisor – to supervise and gaurantee Lang Lang had practised to his maximum ability and strength.  Lang Lang had practised mimumum 7 hours daily, 7 days a week since childhood.  All Lang Lang has is piano practice and nothing else. 

Lang Lang is very talented but unfortunately to say, Chinese has too much political reasons to restrain his growth and development.  Lang Lang’s father finally took Lang Lang to USA and Lang Lang’s talents and efforts had successfully earn himself the scholorship into the famous Musical Institute at Philapdelphia.  He later became very successful and recognized by the world.  HOWEVER, WHEN HE WANTED TO RETURN CHINA TO PERFORM, HE HAD BEEN VIGOROUSLY REFUSED TO DO SO.  The reason is he had not earned enough competitions and was not famous in China.  In China, an artist’s role has to be realized by the number of  trophy that artist has. !!!

The real reason:  Lang Lang is not from a rich family.  He does not has any Chinese official to back him up.  In the strong sea of competition, not only in piano, or in music but in all areas, athelets and other competitors may be pre-selected already.  If Chairman X’s son has certain talent, the selective board should make him the first place and if only the first place can join the international competition, then he has to be the one and try all the streams to block other OSTACLE “Lang Lang” OUT.  As throughout this book, you will see Lang Lang had met many people (all are Chinese, a few even his teachers)  said “Lang Lang, for sure you will not win!”  trying to down put him, making him not to win.

I, myself, am Chinese but fortunately I was born and raised in Hong Kong.  I could not say that I have the best education, but I have the freedom to speak, to think and to act.  I bet Lang Lang, in some way, is quite disappointed with his ‘MOTHER” – China because only recently his talent and achievements were recognized.  China, actually, has the resources and abilities to help Lang Lang to achieve what he acheives today, but refused to do so despite Lang Lang and his father’s vigorous efforts.  I feel shame on this and the pain is, this has not ceased yet.

China has literally abandoned Lang Lang in his early years.  On the other hand, it is America who saved him and allowed him to be what he is.  This is many Chinese’s American dream and this is also many immigrant’s dream.

What is the difference between active, contingent and pending listings?

When a property put up on the market for sale, we call it an active listing meaning the seller is actively looking for buyers.

When sellers and buyers get into a written contract with an agreed price and terms and escrow has been opened, the status of the active listing will be changed into contingent.  At this point, there are still at least one condition that allow the buyer or seller to cancel the contract without paying any penalty.

However, if every term has been settled and it is only a matter of waiting for the funding to arrive (usually from the lender) or waiting for the seller to move out (when on the contract stated that the property has to be delivered vacant), or something else need to be done, then the contingent property is changed into pending.  Once the property is at a pening status, anybody who wants to back out or cancel the contract will incur some fee to pay.  Usually, it will be the initial deposit up to 3% of the total purchase price unless otherwise stated.

你不能決定生命的長度，

但是你可以控制它的寬度。

你不能左右天氣但你可以改變心情

你不能改變容貌但你可以展現笑容

你不能控制他人但你可以掌握自己

你不能預知明天但你可以利用今天

你不能樣樣勝利但你可以事事盡力

http://www.digital-currents.com/currentsnewsletter/20100304#pg3

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