Office politics manifests itself today on a minor scale. It's about an uncomplicated matter. A accepts lots of projects; B is envious and makes a criticism of A to C; and C repeats it to A, being A's friend; and A feels hurt. It might seem bizarre why B'd want to complain about A in front of his friend, of all people. In my opinion the criticism is not severe. It's more like one coming from a cynical scholar, a casual remark wanting to claim intellectual superiority.

Casual or not, I have my prejudices against Chinese scholars who like to openly look down on people. Dad might well be one of them, but he redeems himself with his reserved nature, preference for independence and lack of interest in competition. These people, the communicative and condescending ones, talk to you as though you are speaking like a child of five, always pausing awhile before making a reply and looking at you in a knowing manner through the corner of the eye. As such I think the generation of Chinese women in their thirties or fourties is not considered emancipated. Mum may even figure here as one who rebels against masculine indifference and condescension.

A's hurt and pissed off, but not afraid or vengeful. This sounds so much like the dream qualities a righteous, uninhibited hero, kind to the good and unafraid of the bad. Well I'm romanticizing a fair bit but romanticising is not necessarily distortion of truth; it only seems out of place when the setting of the story is not a drama. In reality A's indeed an exceptional character. He doesn't want to offend people; but work and progress is not compromised as a result, because he's disposed to working without being bothered by competition, wealth and positions. How cool it'd be to work like him - just work for work's sake. But that's close to impossible for me. To be like A is to show no partiality to people. He is friendly to anyone but doesn't display exceptional warmth towards anyone (he's single and doesn't seem to be in a hurry at an age of 31). Needless to say he doesn't form cliches. And that disables a lot of talks even if jealousy for his enthusiasm for work reaches any zenith. Therefore A's not as much as a principled and passionate hero than an exemplary chi4 zi3, the Chinese for a 'red kid', or a 'naked kid' - I'm not sure which (why is it that the British keyboard doesn't have double quotation marks??) - a person possessing the belief of a child in goodness (my understanding).

C's really apologetic. There's no need at all for him to convey that remark, and a lot of scholastic cynicism just reduces to pure spite in repetitions of such kinds of complaints. And C's disposed to be carefree and exaggerating. That sounds dangerously close to myself, except that I talk in a random and uninhibited manner in order to make conversation so that I or the other party (believe it or not, it's the latter most of the time) wouldn't look foolish. I dare say that's a highly unnecessary concern and has the most awful repercussions, but it's me. I must not talk. This is a line worth writing a thousand times.

Hope I'm not writing too much like Trollope now. His putting people under the microscope can get a little too far sometimes. Speaking of microscopes, I've been monitoring a reaction in the lab and can't leave because of need to maintain microscope focus (though not using that ill-fated objective this time). Therefore for the first time am writing blog freely and unabashedly during work hours .