Paljja

The closest English definition for paljja is "lot in life" or "fate."

I was thinking about this today because last night I went to the opening of an art fair here, which meant rubbing elbows with a whole lot of socialites, models, traders and other rich, beautiful (and sometimes, but rarely, both rich and beautiful) people. I don't spend a lot of time normally mingling with the uber-privileged (at least not in high concentration), so it was kind of interesting to see them all decked out, hobnobbing with each other and proclaiming weird art to be "fabulous, just magnificent." When I say weird art, I mean weird art - one life-sized sculpture was of a guy with a fro and a beard in a tracksuit, bent halfway down, with his pants pulled down in his backside, with a separate sculpture of a pile of turd beneath his exposed buttocks.

As glamazons in sky-high platforms and perfectly coiffed hair and exquisitely sculpted cheekbones walked arm in arm with much older men (sometimes debonaire, sometimes just old and gross-looking), my friend K actually exclaimed out loud: "Who are these people?? How do I become one of them?"

Then today at lunch, L and I were talking about our friend E's wife A - a tai tai in Shanghai who lives a life of leisure we all covet. And W emailed me proclaiming how much she is enjoying her freedom and time off, and how she doesn't ever want to go back to being a corporate slave.

So - paljja. I kind of used to believe that we are the makers of our own destiny - that if we work hard and don't harm others, God will give us good things. And I still believe that to some degree. But I also believe that we all have our paljjas - our "fate" - and some people's paljja is that they get to be a tai tai, and other's paljja is that they get to be an heiress socialite, and other's paljja is that they get to be extraordinarily beautiful (which makes life much easier on many levels). And then there are the rest of us average humans.

My lot in life was never to be a tai tai having long leisurely lunches with my other tai tai friends, comparing our diamond ring sizes or complaining about how our maids didn't clean the dishes correctly. My lot in life is that I will always need to work hard, make my own way, provide for myself, but that along the way, if carefully planned for, I can manage to stick in lots of fun stuff. Or put differently, my paljja is that I can live the life I want, but I will always have to work hard to make it happen. Which, in the grand scheme of things, ain't a bad life - don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining. I'm extremely thankful to God and the universe for granting me a fortunate paljja.

But let's just for a second consider the paljjas of the uber-privileged. On the online news today, I read about Kim Kardashian and her 20.5 carat engagement ring - obscene. And I thought: what exactly does Kim Kardashian DO? She does nothing! But she happens to have a bodacious body and a gorgeous face, so she makes loads of money doing nothing because people pay to watch her do nothing!

Living in HK, especially in Central, I am constantly surrounded by astounding wealth, which in HK, isn't a big deal. Because there's so much wealth in such a dense area, you end up rubbing up against it all the time - traders, business owners, models, socialites. And even though my own paljja ain't so bad, sometimes you just can't help but think: OH to be astoundingly beautiful, or obscenely rich, or even better - both!