Waddup amigos, Howdya'll do? Yup you guessed it! The greeting's a confluence of colloquial slang tapped from the veins of da niggas, latinos and country bumpkins! And that came from a Singaporean with an Indian heart hmmmmm.
Unlike an orthodox entry with events which run in progressive chronological order, this one begins with the most recent- My first run in a year. First and foremost, I wouldn't think that this life/energy-sapping activity qualifies as a run, but more aptly a jog because I struggled to make headway at nearly every point of the 2.4km. It was an even greater struggle under the torture of the searing heat and the absence of a pretty girl along the canal where i ran didn't help at all either. Damn! I should've jogged at 6 instead of 5. Nevertheless, this laborious activity served as an ignition to my weight loss/fitness gain regime as well as a reminder not to make fun of scantily clad endomorphics who effortlessly jingle their fats, esp on Orchard Rd. On the same day but later at night, I was at starbucks wheelock with a couple of friends and I noticed something, somebody peculiar. That person I am referring to is the girl who served us at the counter. Okay to satisfy the unspoken question which I know one of u is bound to ask, she looked decently pleasant. However, she seemed to have a laughing/giggling compulsion I swear. Her laughter/giggle spurts lasted through the period my friends an I made our orders.. in pure amazement. She even laughed when she walked to my table to clear my cup. Looney. Perhaps it couldve been induced by my descriptions of the cakes but I highly doubt so because she laughed at everything..uncontrollably.
In the week before, my mom has been receiving a myriad of calls from a mystery caller whose voice sounded like a 5 yr old. He perpetually called over the span of 1 week, requesting to speak with his mom, told a couple of lies which we found out of course and that he needed help to return to his hometown in Malaysia. Besides being an irritant, these calls fuelled ideas that he could just be a pawn in someones bigger plan to extort money or study the occupancy pattern at my home at various times which would aid in breaking in. Therefore, whenever he called, we would immediately hang up on him. I personally got slightly disturbed by the uncertainty that surrounded the security of my home yet psyched up for some break in action in the middle of every night. So, I kept beside my bed, in an inconspicuous area though, a 30 cm knife to slash the intruders to ribbons, and on the otherside, a radio which I would gladly hurl at any burglar with all guns blazing. Other weapons in my room include a metal rod, a boomerang, a dumbell, a slingshot, many other childhood inventions such as a blowpipe with thumbtack ammo and of course the ultimate fighting machine-myself. Unfortunately, while I was eagerly waiting to go all V for Vendetta on any intruder, none broke in. And I'm really disappointed because it was my childhood dream to hammer an intruder. But im pretty sure i'd get the chance one day.
A few days ago, I bought a pass for access to trains which run through the railway network of France. This is something my parents dont know about and prolly are against but i intend to sneak out to certain regions whenever I can. Although we'll be visiting most places in France as a family, I would definitely want to re-visit the cote d'azur(french riviera) but this time on a seperate trip on my own. I can almost imagine the exhilaration of setting foot on the beaches of Nice(ive very fond memories of) n St Tropez all by myself, where I can appreciate the natural beauty of the crystal mediterranean sea and beaches dotted with pretty girls without interruption. I have other adventures up my sleeve but none of which are concrete and will be finalised in the near future. Shelving this adventure aside, I'm sad to be away from all of you, as individuals and as a group, for the entire month of June. Especially Luke, whom we have little remaining time with, as u'll depart in mid-July. I'm confident you fellas will have a richly rewarding time nonetheless.
Time out.
-Kenneth Wong
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
Monday, May 29, 2006
Government
I've been reading this tedious political-philosophical book for the past month and I'm finally 20 pages to completion. Never knew that the great philosophers from Plato to Montesquieu actually saw politics and society to be inextricably linked and the lines are often blurred in their works. Discussion almost invariably starts from the individual, then to society, and then to the government vs the governed. What I've done so far is to kickstart your mental processes regarding these issues. Now, if you have the time, if not, nevermind, out of pure whim and curiousity I'd like to have your individual opinions and eventual stand on what form of government (it can be any currently known form of government, a modified one or totally new one you come out with) you think is most suitable for society generally and of course, pls substantiate your stand. Your comments are highly regarded cos I believe we're set apart from the common Plebeians and our intellect and reason reflect the Philosophes of the golden age of Enlightenment. So, dig in and thanks!
Monday, May 22, 2006
Things to do when Luke returns
1) Take my remote control aeroplane on its virgin flight.
2) Get to Sentosa on 4 and return with 2+2 wheels. Damn! We should've stolen the bikes the last time. It's one of those things money can't buy.
3) Getting drunk(I believe only one of us would and also way too easily)
4) Getting high(Yeah that's the majority of the sober ones/bastards)
5) Interrogating the drunk. We'll show you how to force someones heart out on his sleeve. Be prepared to get cannonballed into the Sea or Luke's swim pool.
6) Play cut-throat with dire consequences. Dire consequences.
7) Re-visit our regular table at Marche... and leave our mark behind.
8) Dinners. The dish of the month of June would be rainbow rice.
9) Gamble this World Cup, which also is The holy grail. At least even if u don't get rich, you wont die tryin.
10) Talk cock. What could be better said?
11) Check out UAN or Avalon or whatever you call it. Fanny might be in there. That fanny might just be in there.
Okay you fellas in da house, since the World Cup is within touching distance(Pun intended. refer to pt n0.9) 11 suggestions should be most appropriate..and of course, there aren't any substitutes. Haha Haha! Anyway, Luke and I intend to see how far our 200bucks can take us this World Cup man. It's time for dinner so I'll leave all you intelligent mofos with a very difficult question.. what is wrong with the following sentence? Luke decides to gamble because he wants to get from rags to riches. hmmmm i have absolutely no idea at all.
-Kenneth Wong
2) Get to Sentosa on 4 and return with 2+2 wheels. Damn! We should've stolen the bikes the last time. It's one of those things money can't buy.
3) Getting drunk(I believe only one of us would and also way too easily)
4) Getting high(Yeah that's the majority of the sober ones/bastards)
5) Interrogating the drunk. We'll show you how to force someones heart out on his sleeve. Be prepared to get cannonballed into the Sea or Luke's swim pool.
6) Play cut-throat with dire consequences. Dire consequences.
7) Re-visit our regular table at Marche... and leave our mark behind.
8) Dinners. The dish of the month of June would be rainbow rice.
9) Gamble this World Cup, which also is The holy grail. At least even if u don't get rich, you wont die tryin.
10) Talk cock. What could be better said?
11) Check out UAN or Avalon or whatever you call it. Fanny might be in there. That fanny might just be in there.
Okay you fellas in da house, since the World Cup is within touching distance(Pun intended. refer to pt n0.9) 11 suggestions should be most appropriate..and of course, there aren't any substitutes. Haha Haha! Anyway, Luke and I intend to see how far our 200bucks can take us this World Cup man. It's time for dinner so I'll leave all you intelligent mofos with a very difficult question.. what is wrong with the following sentence? Luke decides to gamble because he wants to get from rags to riches. hmmmm i have absolutely no idea at all.
-Kenneth Wong
Sunday, May 21, 2006
Whatever happens..we lose
Well, justin definitely made a point there. A very valid one in fact.. Life is the sum of all choices u make.. afterall..if u chose to bastard someone..there might come a day the bastard dat u bastardised cud come back to u and give u a shell-shock... similarly ..i do have an experience i'd love to share with no embarassment since it has already occured..there's a magician friend i know who was in my same company back in MP... he was the one who first introduced magic to me..but his obnoxious and oblivious behaviour kinda served as an annoyance which caused me to severe all kinds of contact with that ass. But guess wad?..he was the only ass who gave me a present on my birthday..and forced me to meet him with other magician friends...(despite me trying to avoid a meeting with him by lying dat i'm damn busy etc)..so i guess..dat's pretty weird..someone u dislike actually shows some act of grace.. the pangs of guilt is now upon me ...cus i still can't bring myself to tolerate his cocked-up character..haha..it's like people who dislike durians..they wun wanna bring themselves to try out a durian even if u tell them it's the most delicious shit u've ever tasted in this lifetime...when u dislike it..u dislike it..
And if we're taking time to process something (thoughts) which is happening now..and time is ticking..we are living in the future..but our bodies live in the present..and our minds are processing thoughts of the past..(since time is always ticking)...wow..
I tried cable skii-ing 3 weeks back...it was havoc..but if u're new..expect urself to juz drink seawater for an hr or so..haha..it's quite costly..$60 for 2 hrs..and i went to the cable skii park at east coast..the lagoon near the hawker centre...there weren't many singaporeans trying it out..to my expectations..(cus singaporeans are known to be too sheltered and society has engraved some form of fear in the minds-esp toward the exploration of new things).. anyway..lotsa ang mohs..and babes..u cud try it out ..and u shud..at least once though..it's fun..ur arms will ache..with ur back..the next day..(u wun break ur back from it dun worry..else u'll be a broke back)...oh yeah..u have to sign a form which explains that in case u die, they wun care..so expect a few dead bodies floating arnd =)
it'll be more of a relief if u see some bastards u hated to the bone floating arnd too...
i feel as individuals..brought up in this country..or little red dot..there's so much we haven't seen and dared not try..people are always telling u that work can be found once u graduate 9in the context of finding work in singapore) ..but they never tell u how sucky it is..and they leave u to die with the problem when u have found work..and most of the time..the people juz die with the problem..for the vast majority.. unless u have a mindset so positive that u can see a beauty in the drudgeries of the working world..one dat is so positive that it compels u to love and enjoy it till u die.. (wun it be better if u're a horse..like the one in animal farm?..clover was his name, was it?) when i mentioned dat i wud wanna work overseas to the professors in NTU during the tea session..they kind of assured me that work can be found here..and dat everything will be gd here... BUT wad they fail to realise is..we want to live a better life..then we can do the things we really want to do..much easily..or with less worries..cus life here is so competitive due to lack of resources..and we are compelled to juz slog it out in the doldrums...and end each day with a few hrs of sleep and then returning to the doldrums.. droning away
We all think we are so damn good on this island..dat when we go out to the world and flaunt our skills..people question if we're still starting out...perhaps within here..on this dot..the majority are so busy they hardly find the will or time to do things that they want..and can only idolise those who can.. or be envious of them..and then it becomes a dream again...transcient dream.. juz floats away
one more thing abt passion..is dat..when u have passion for something..sacrifices have to be made..and many do not choose to sacrifice things that they are comfortable with..and we always say we are not heroes..or legends...but dat's juz a lie... sometimes in life, u have to sacrifice somethings to get wad u really want...even if it's things close to u..or if it's things dat mean alot..for the greater good to gain some form of achievement.. (can be in a bad sense..or a gd sense..but we are talking abt positive and morally upright behaviour..no crusades after this yea..) and since we are all brought up in a comfort zone..we juz stick to this country to spend the rest of our lives...wad we know not off is dat..we can cross boundaries..and life cud possibly be better elsewhere..or perhaps..life elsewhere cud be the life we all want..but we do not even think abt it...and it is cast in stone..
when u play the see -saw with a really huge and enormous fatass bitch... there is no see saw....
only catapults..
I feel in singapore..wad happens..or any major consideration the government makes..we lose..cus it's always win for government..and loss on our side..how much we lose..is juz a matter of time.. perhaps..in any decision..there's always a factor of loss... juz how much are u willing to lose.. pyrrhic perhaps? even if u win?
Why do performers become great? cus they didn't give a shit abt wad the world thought of them and they lived in their own fantasy...and reality..juz wanting to do their thing.. if dat's the case..are they autistic too?..maybe everyone is..it's juz how severely autistic we are..so y put the autistic people down..
when hitler did the nazi salute...it was the same as a dog trainer commanding a dog to sit..hmmm..how applicable...
back to life being a sum of all choices..we all have to be thankful for the shit we put up and caused over the years that land us to this state... regrets anyone?
sleeping 8 hrs a day means u've slept 1/3 ur life away...shit..now we REALLY needa get a life...
i had a choir presentation today..but my hair was spiked..such dat i looked like a dragonball z character...and the church was like..giving me weird looks..weird them..they used to look down on me cus i always played wrong notes when i played church hymns..(who the hell plays church hymns when they are in army)...but now..it's ownage..and they have zipped it shut...
we can make a difference.. however life sucks..we have to stick to our mantra and wad we have set out to do..we have to do it with conviction and passion.. and remind ourselves dat everytime we falter or fall it's the lesson of how we get up dat's important.. cus it still points u in the direction where u're going..and the people we meet..are on their own journey too.. life is a discovery.. and discovery is all abt self...so guess where dat leads?
one more thing i have to add is..people at work give me the impression dat they think i'm childish..cus i mentioned dat before ur youth expires..it's best to try and open urself to everything and anything.. dat u want to..otherwise..there'll come a day..where u realised u haven't done much..or experienced much..vicarious experience is juz a brief feeling..not the ultimate experience..it's like a pirated good to the real stuff..
i kinda feel dat working adults seem to be dead once they have a family...they really "die"... their lives totally change.. and they complain that once they are married they can't do stuff...so i question them..y didnt u do it before u got married then..and then their reply was..time wasn't on their side..which was precisely why i told them youth expires ..though there's always a "kid in every adult"..
which drives me to conclude dat many of us do not actually spend some time on ourselves..to think..abt our lives..or think abt other things..juz think!!!...they didn't do dat..and so..they are spoonfed with info..and remain comfortable to being spoonfed..on being told not to listen to mp3s at work..i rebutted..but music keeps me awake and makes me less sleepy..besides i'm using the headphones so i wun disturb anyone...they said..it's the impression..i told them..it's the productivity...which is more important?..they were like..it's a regulation..i was like..do u believe u feel more relaxed and more alert when u listen to music..they agree..and i asked so why is there no one telling dat to the MD?...they are like..hesitant to reply..and they said..juz follow the rules and dun ask la.. which brings me to one question..in school..they tell u "no questions are dumb"..but they mock at u when u raise dumb questions.. but as adults..surely that kind of humiliation wun get u down wud dat?.. i mean..a question is a question afterall..it is a question of clarification.. and consideration.. and the best part..is dat..the act of not asking questions..juz means..we are brainless working zombies doing wadever we're told..and juz murmuring when we're unhappy but having no balls to voice it out or support a notion.. is dat why PAP keeps winning?..or is dat a fear dat we hold and feel it is necessary?
and when we ask too many qustions..people's most common reply is..there are many questions which can't be answered.. (where's the drive in finding truth?) exploration dies? wad can we discover if we do not explore?...
oh well..juz some muck i had to throw.. and i'm glad it's out..
-Elvin
And if we're taking time to process something (thoughts) which is happening now..and time is ticking..we are living in the future..but our bodies live in the present..and our minds are processing thoughts of the past..(since time is always ticking)...wow..
I tried cable skii-ing 3 weeks back...it was havoc..but if u're new..expect urself to juz drink seawater for an hr or so..haha..it's quite costly..$60 for 2 hrs..and i went to the cable skii park at east coast..the lagoon near the hawker centre...there weren't many singaporeans trying it out..to my expectations..(cus singaporeans are known to be too sheltered and society has engraved some form of fear in the minds-esp toward the exploration of new things).. anyway..lotsa ang mohs..and babes..u cud try it out ..and u shud..at least once though..it's fun..ur arms will ache..with ur back..the next day..(u wun break ur back from it dun worry..else u'll be a broke back)...oh yeah..u have to sign a form which explains that in case u die, they wun care..so expect a few dead bodies floating arnd =)
it'll be more of a relief if u see some bastards u hated to the bone floating arnd too...
i feel as individuals..brought up in this country..or little red dot..there's so much we haven't seen and dared not try..people are always telling u that work can be found once u graduate 9in the context of finding work in singapore) ..but they never tell u how sucky it is..and they leave u to die with the problem when u have found work..and most of the time..the people juz die with the problem..for the vast majority.. unless u have a mindset so positive that u can see a beauty in the drudgeries of the working world..one dat is so positive that it compels u to love and enjoy it till u die.. (wun it be better if u're a horse..like the one in animal farm?..clover was his name, was it?) when i mentioned dat i wud wanna work overseas to the professors in NTU during the tea session..they kind of assured me that work can be found here..and dat everything will be gd here... BUT wad they fail to realise is..we want to live a better life..then we can do the things we really want to do..much easily..or with less worries..cus life here is so competitive due to lack of resources..and we are compelled to juz slog it out in the doldrums...and end each day with a few hrs of sleep and then returning to the doldrums.. droning away
We all think we are so damn good on this island..dat when we go out to the world and flaunt our skills..people question if we're still starting out...perhaps within here..on this dot..the majority are so busy they hardly find the will or time to do things that they want..and can only idolise those who can.. or be envious of them..and then it becomes a dream again...transcient dream.. juz floats away
one more thing abt passion..is dat..when u have passion for something..sacrifices have to be made..and many do not choose to sacrifice things that they are comfortable with..and we always say we are not heroes..or legends...but dat's juz a lie... sometimes in life, u have to sacrifice somethings to get wad u really want...even if it's things close to u..or if it's things dat mean alot..for the greater good to gain some form of achievement.. (can be in a bad sense..or a gd sense..but we are talking abt positive and morally upright behaviour..no crusades after this yea..) and since we are all brought up in a comfort zone..we juz stick to this country to spend the rest of our lives...wad we know not off is dat..we can cross boundaries..and life cud possibly be better elsewhere..or perhaps..life elsewhere cud be the life we all want..but we do not even think abt it...and it is cast in stone..
when u play the see -saw with a really huge and enormous fatass bitch... there is no see saw....
only catapults..
I feel in singapore..wad happens..or any major consideration the government makes..we lose..cus it's always win for government..and loss on our side..how much we lose..is juz a matter of time.. perhaps..in any decision..there's always a factor of loss... juz how much are u willing to lose.. pyrrhic perhaps? even if u win?
Why do performers become great? cus they didn't give a shit abt wad the world thought of them and they lived in their own fantasy...and reality..juz wanting to do their thing.. if dat's the case..are they autistic too?..maybe everyone is..it's juz how severely autistic we are..so y put the autistic people down..
when hitler did the nazi salute...it was the same as a dog trainer commanding a dog to sit..hmmm..how applicable...
back to life being a sum of all choices..we all have to be thankful for the shit we put up and caused over the years that land us to this state... regrets anyone?
sleeping 8 hrs a day means u've slept 1/3 ur life away...shit..now we REALLY needa get a life...
i had a choir presentation today..but my hair was spiked..such dat i looked like a dragonball z character...and the church was like..giving me weird looks..weird them..they used to look down on me cus i always played wrong notes when i played church hymns..(who the hell plays church hymns when they are in army)...but now..it's ownage..and they have zipped it shut...
we can make a difference.. however life sucks..we have to stick to our mantra and wad we have set out to do..we have to do it with conviction and passion.. and remind ourselves dat everytime we falter or fall it's the lesson of how we get up dat's important.. cus it still points u in the direction where u're going..and the people we meet..are on their own journey too.. life is a discovery.. and discovery is all abt self...so guess where dat leads?
one more thing i have to add is..people at work give me the impression dat they think i'm childish..cus i mentioned dat before ur youth expires..it's best to try and open urself to everything and anything.. dat u want to..otherwise..there'll come a day..where u realised u haven't done much..or experienced much..vicarious experience is juz a brief feeling..not the ultimate experience..it's like a pirated good to the real stuff..
i kinda feel dat working adults seem to be dead once they have a family...they really "die"... their lives totally change.. and they complain that once they are married they can't do stuff...so i question them..y didnt u do it before u got married then..and then their reply was..time wasn't on their side..which was precisely why i told them youth expires ..though there's always a "kid in every adult"..
which drives me to conclude dat many of us do not actually spend some time on ourselves..to think..abt our lives..or think abt other things..juz think!!!...they didn't do dat..and so..they are spoonfed with info..and remain comfortable to being spoonfed..on being told not to listen to mp3s at work..i rebutted..but music keeps me awake and makes me less sleepy..besides i'm using the headphones so i wun disturb anyone...they said..it's the impression..i told them..it's the productivity...which is more important?..they were like..it's a regulation..i was like..do u believe u feel more relaxed and more alert when u listen to music..they agree..and i asked so why is there no one telling dat to the MD?...they are like..hesitant to reply..and they said..juz follow the rules and dun ask la.. which brings me to one question..in school..they tell u "no questions are dumb"..but they mock at u when u raise dumb questions.. but as adults..surely that kind of humiliation wun get u down wud dat?.. i mean..a question is a question afterall..it is a question of clarification.. and consideration.. and the best part..is dat..the act of not asking questions..juz means..we are brainless working zombies doing wadever we're told..and juz murmuring when we're unhappy but having no balls to voice it out or support a notion.. is dat why PAP keeps winning?..or is dat a fear dat we hold and feel it is necessary?
and when we ask too many qustions..people's most common reply is..there are many questions which can't be answered.. (where's the drive in finding truth?) exploration dies? wad can we discover if we do not explore?...
oh well..juz some muck i had to throw.. and i'm glad it's out..
-Elvin
The Past, Present and Future
After reading El's pensive entry about life in working singapore society, outside the comforts and familiarity of our circle of friends and what we're used to, I'm compelled to add in this entry. I was deliberating whether to mention this weird evening but Elvin's entry inspired me to. To me, a moment like this moment, when I'm holed up in my air-conned room seated on my swivel chair in my boxers and shirtless and translating my thoughts to text, is the quintessential rip in time between past and future - the present. The past came haunting me throughout this evening. I went out with 2 church buddies for dinner and pool. On the way to Carl's Junior, I bumped into an old family friend that became a bastard (I'll spare you the lengthy details) and had my dad renouncing friendship with him. He was a close friend who even went on vacation a few times with us and was one of those 'uncles' of mine so you can imagine the awkwardness. After pool, a damn irritating guy from my camp who seasonally hounds a few of us cos he doesn't have friends called me for perhaps the 10th time since I ORDed, but as usual I rejected his call. After that, something that I've been hoping since more than 2 yrs ago will not happen, happened - I bumped into the girl I bastarded. Luke and Mel would know whom I'm referring to. At least she's with her boyfriend who's this nice guy I know. It takes away the guilt but nevertheless, I was reminded of what it's like being a bastard all over again. Finally, on the train back, I shared the same carriage with this nice but dumb recce scout team leader who's from 4 SIR, the unit I was attached to for missions, and he was there side by side with me as part of the pre-ops forces in Taiwan for ATEC where we plunged ourselves into the Taiwan jungle with wild abandon. He's one of those guys you could depend on in the field but not as a regular friend cos he doesn't share the same wavelength as you; and this guy reminds me of the ironic and inequitable nature of army. As you can see, these separate events ganged up against me to deal me a quadruple whammy blast from the past. And El just gave us an insight of the frigid, foreign and pathetic working world and it's inhabitants. This is the future that most people land themselves into and my point is, don't let it happen. It's a quagmire out there which you get your soul sucked into and a cul-de-sac which stonewalls the progress of your very being, and thus, alternatives must be strategised along the way and subsequently adopted. So, this 'present' I'm living in now feels the most surreal I've been ever living in and I'm starting to wonder as I'm typing away what do we really define as the present - cos theoratically speaking, the present is continually moving on as time does, so what is really the present? And hence, is it just an intangible, infinitely minute unit in time when the electrons in our cranial nerves try to reconcile the very moment we're living in and recognizes it, but then again, it doesn't happen successfully cos no matter how quasi-instantaneously the electrons send their signals, it still takes a tangible unit of time to process that thought and by that time, the recognition of that particular present is delayed and you're no longer living in that same present. Hence, we are never living in the present but we're constantly living in the future. So, it's time to look forward, embrace what the future holds and most importantly live out our destinies though the future may attempt to detract, disrupt and destabilise. Live out your destinies, my fellow amigos.
Justin
Justin
Saturday, May 20, 2006
Art and Music
Hey peeps, it's been a long time since i last added an entry eh? After much of kenneth's persuasion i finally gotten the reins of my "will of a jellyfish" or kenneth's termed "slothful nature" and kicked it to a corner of my room. Thus, this entry exists. For how long, i do not know though. You guys must most probably be wondering "why the fark is Elvin so quiet these days?" and why i haven't whipped up any unbelievable stuff yet. Well, work at the bank is really very tedious and kind of brainless. It's very very very time consuming because every assignment given to you means extra careful checking and meticulous calculations because they mostly belong to the VIP clients.
the people at work are utmost boring, due to the lack of adventure and their lack of will to struggle for excellence or wadever they believe in. Perhaps wadever they have believed in has long vanished after many years of working and they now believe they juz wanna slack in the office and wait for the end of every month..like the NS regulars (just dat they wait for the 10th). They do not spend time doing things they like or want but instead complain of sever fatigue, which i do agree is tiring but there is the willpower we all possess which we all agree can be stretched far beyond the limits that we can ever imagine.
They were pretty shocked at the fact that i rush home to play the piano because i really wanna achieve some form of musical escalation and not be stagnant) and also at the fact that i practice my magic and cards till late at night. I believe there's a passion we all have for something/ someone/ anything. Which in my case i have discovered that passion is the most important aspect in whatever we do. If we have not passion but just an idea to be able to do something just for the sake of doing it, then it has achieved nothing for itself. I mean, our abilities are far numerous and we are the limiting factor to wadever we can do. isn't this true? pure sacrifice and sheer determination to excel spells it all for people at the zenith of their careers. I believe it's often mistaken as an obsession but it is really not if u enjoy every moment of doing something u really wanna do in the pursuit of making it excellent and perfect (in the process it becomes an art) . In this aspect of the arts, music or any hobby. could be a sport. a game. anything. seriously, i've never realised that there are so many billions of things to do under the sun and it's a sheer sin to complain that i'm bored. In fact, it's juz the mind being submissive to the laziness that's been embedded over the years which is accumulating like a blocked artery.
lately i've been repeatedly listening to lots of piano concertos and i agree that the piano is by far the most difficult instrument to master. It has become a great challenge to allocate the amount of energy to put into each depression of the keys juz to make the music sound more pleasant as individual notes played on the piano rather than the whole piece. Which actually means u can make even a short phrase of 10 notes sound so brilliant instead of playing a whole song! now that is pure skill. and to make it consistent.. purely discipline..to juz sit for an hr or so..to play juz 10 notes.. but at the end of it..the feeling of being able to achieve something.. is worth every minute and moment.. perhaps u might think.. i'm not so musically inclined and therefore this doesnt apply to me..but well..anything that u do in pursuit of excellence becomes an art.. even in fighting.. dat's y u have Sun tzi's Art of War..
Well.. even in cards i guess..i've shifted my focus away from magic to flourishes..because i felt that without proper technical mastery in card handling, it's not very impressive to perform magic just yet..and to develop and carve out the edges of my style is yet another feat to accomplish. Thus the shift. To provied technical excellence and style definition.. buying myself time..
Well, i'm glad that u guys are very avid readers and very learned enough to understand many things.. because people at work do not understand even simple daily conversations and the words i use. it has become such a dread to talk to them that i have to put my lousy knowledge of chinese into use. Albeit they all find it equally hard to understand what i'm saying. So either way..i'm not clearly understood most of the time which drove me into eternal silence whenever they held conversations. i'd juz sit and listen, well of course unless i'm fooling their asses.anyway..i've quite alot of malay colleagues.. and the young people working there (in our generation) are mostly chinese speaking. It's so difficult to even speak english to them.. and they'll convert wadever i'm saying to chinese..damn weird.. and they are always talking abt mundane stuff like prices of clothing, wad to eat.. and they always ask me abt my hobbies..why the hobbies i have are so different from other people.. perhaps their definition of other people are those confined to the working adults in the office or perhaps their friends who most probably are people who dare not try out new things or dare not believe in wad they can do before trying. And i guess it's pretty much juz us singaporeans. We are so caught up with society and fail to realise that there are other things we can do besides making money and comparing wealth. besides the society we live in also brought us up in this way.. why i can say dat so confidently is because abt 3/4 of the people in the workplace are always talking abt it..and since the vast majority are people in this category..it is quite substantial. Our country doesn't do enuff to support the arts.. and they heavily rely on the people to push up the publicity. they think the esplanade itself can do wonders juz by spending some money in building it. The people try..but they realise the industry has it's doors closed. Even in the media.. it's so bad..the situation here..the awareness..the people..the efforts.. even if we do so much..we still have barely enuff to eat..not to mention spend on other commodities..and most of the time we are forking the money out of our own pockets only to end up with the government's treasury. So in short..we are spending so that the nation can use our money meant for supporting the industry...for other purposes..
i can't really remember what i wrote before the entry was deleted by mistake..haha.. but it certainly had another half to it..perhaps i'll continue another time..
thanks for ur time spent reading this..
god bless..
-Elvin
the people at work are utmost boring, due to the lack of adventure and their lack of will to struggle for excellence or wadever they believe in. Perhaps wadever they have believed in has long vanished after many years of working and they now believe they juz wanna slack in the office and wait for the end of every month..like the NS regulars (just dat they wait for the 10th). They do not spend time doing things they like or want but instead complain of sever fatigue, which i do agree is tiring but there is the willpower we all possess which we all agree can be stretched far beyond the limits that we can ever imagine.
They were pretty shocked at the fact that i rush home to play the piano because i really wanna achieve some form of musical escalation and not be stagnant) and also at the fact that i practice my magic and cards till late at night. I believe there's a passion we all have for something/ someone/ anything. Which in my case i have discovered that passion is the most important aspect in whatever we do. If we have not passion but just an idea to be able to do something just for the sake of doing it, then it has achieved nothing for itself. I mean, our abilities are far numerous and we are the limiting factor to wadever we can do. isn't this true? pure sacrifice and sheer determination to excel spells it all for people at the zenith of their careers. I believe it's often mistaken as an obsession but it is really not if u enjoy every moment of doing something u really wanna do in the pursuit of making it excellent and perfect (in the process it becomes an art) . In this aspect of the arts, music or any hobby. could be a sport. a game. anything. seriously, i've never realised that there are so many billions of things to do under the sun and it's a sheer sin to complain that i'm bored. In fact, it's juz the mind being submissive to the laziness that's been embedded over the years which is accumulating like a blocked artery.
lately i've been repeatedly listening to lots of piano concertos and i agree that the piano is by far the most difficult instrument to master. It has become a great challenge to allocate the amount of energy to put into each depression of the keys juz to make the music sound more pleasant as individual notes played on the piano rather than the whole piece. Which actually means u can make even a short phrase of 10 notes sound so brilliant instead of playing a whole song! now that is pure skill. and to make it consistent.. purely discipline..to juz sit for an hr or so..to play juz 10 notes.. but at the end of it..the feeling of being able to achieve something.. is worth every minute and moment.. perhaps u might think.. i'm not so musically inclined and therefore this doesnt apply to me..but well..anything that u do in pursuit of excellence becomes an art.. even in fighting.. dat's y u have Sun tzi's Art of War..
Well.. even in cards i guess..i've shifted my focus away from magic to flourishes..because i felt that without proper technical mastery in card handling, it's not very impressive to perform magic just yet..and to develop and carve out the edges of my style is yet another feat to accomplish. Thus the shift. To provied technical excellence and style definition.. buying myself time..
Well, i'm glad that u guys are very avid readers and very learned enough to understand many things.. because people at work do not understand even simple daily conversations and the words i use. it has become such a dread to talk to them that i have to put my lousy knowledge of chinese into use. Albeit they all find it equally hard to understand what i'm saying. So either way..i'm not clearly understood most of the time which drove me into eternal silence whenever they held conversations. i'd juz sit and listen, well of course unless i'm fooling their asses.anyway..i've quite alot of malay colleagues.. and the young people working there (in our generation) are mostly chinese speaking. It's so difficult to even speak english to them.. and they'll convert wadever i'm saying to chinese..damn weird.. and they are always talking abt mundane stuff like prices of clothing, wad to eat.. and they always ask me abt my hobbies..why the hobbies i have are so different from other people.. perhaps their definition of other people are those confined to the working adults in the office or perhaps their friends who most probably are people who dare not try out new things or dare not believe in wad they can do before trying. And i guess it's pretty much juz us singaporeans. We are so caught up with society and fail to realise that there are other things we can do besides making money and comparing wealth. besides the society we live in also brought us up in this way.. why i can say dat so confidently is because abt 3/4 of the people in the workplace are always talking abt it..and since the vast majority are people in this category..it is quite substantial. Our country doesn't do enuff to support the arts.. and they heavily rely on the people to push up the publicity. they think the esplanade itself can do wonders juz by spending some money in building it. The people try..but they realise the industry has it's doors closed. Even in the media.. it's so bad..the situation here..the awareness..the people..the efforts.. even if we do so much..we still have barely enuff to eat..not to mention spend on other commodities..and most of the time we are forking the money out of our own pockets only to end up with the government's treasury. So in short..we are spending so that the nation can use our money meant for supporting the industry...for other purposes..
i can't really remember what i wrote before the entry was deleted by mistake..haha.. but it certainly had another half to it..perhaps i'll continue another time..
thanks for ur time spent reading this..
god bless..
-Elvin
Wednesday, May 17, 2006
In addition to Justin's post
'Multiply it by infinity, and take it to the depth of forever, and you will still have barely a glimpse of what I'm talking about.'
-Bill Parish/Joe Black
My most lasting of impressions and memories of Meet Joe Black certainly revolve around this quote above as it was used under 2 seperate ironic circumstances, by 2 different people as well as figuratively, 2 antonymous entities. Life and death are 2 polar opposite entities which are immiscible and suspended in an emulsion, though I'd like to portray life as the floating fluid as how can anyone be buoyed with death? Not me at least. I found this quote particularly interesting not only because it was splendidly said twice, but also its appropriate use in both scenarios . When Bill asked Joe about how death took its toll on mankind simultaneously, Joe simply fired this quote at Bill without attempting to further elaborate because it was ironic for life trying to grasp death, and more crucially, life cannot fathom death. Similarly, in the closing scenes of the show, Bill used Joe's line as a retort to his inquisition on what love was. Indeed, love is a quality and luxury that life can only enjoy and to an undefined extent, comprehend as compared to death, which to the end of time, will always be ignorant of. The encapsulation of these 2 moments juxtaposed to one another form a whole new moment, in a different light of course, in my mind. So, with yet another supporter/poet who comes in the name of John Donne, 'Death be not proud' and Life 1 Death 0. *Triumphant celebrations*....before I meet joe black hahaha haha ha oh no!
-Kenneth Wong
-Bill Parish/Joe Black
My most lasting of impressions and memories of Meet Joe Black certainly revolve around this quote above as it was used under 2 seperate ironic circumstances, by 2 different people as well as figuratively, 2 antonymous entities. Life and death are 2 polar opposite entities which are immiscible and suspended in an emulsion, though I'd like to portray life as the floating fluid as how can anyone be buoyed with death? Not me at least. I found this quote particularly interesting not only because it was splendidly said twice, but also its appropriate use in both scenarios . When Bill asked Joe about how death took its toll on mankind simultaneously, Joe simply fired this quote at Bill without attempting to further elaborate because it was ironic for life trying to grasp death, and more crucially, life cannot fathom death. Similarly, in the closing scenes of the show, Bill used Joe's line as a retort to his inquisition on what love was. Indeed, love is a quality and luxury that life can only enjoy and to an undefined extent, comprehend as compared to death, which to the end of time, will always be ignorant of. The encapsulation of these 2 moments juxtaposed to one another form a whole new moment, in a different light of course, in my mind. So, with yet another supporter/poet who comes in the name of John Donne, 'Death be not proud' and Life 1 Death 0. *Triumphant celebrations*....before I meet joe black hahaha haha ha oh no!
-Kenneth Wong
Life
Watched Meet Joe Black the day before and for those who haven't caught it, it's a show about Death and the lead happens to be Brad Pitt who plays Death with a capital D. However, the show is really about life. Each day is a blessing cos we wake up breathing and our heart beats to the rhythm of life. A fufilling life, albeit peppered with mistakes, led richly with no regrets at the end, was one that Hopkin's character led. He left behind a legacy in every sense for his family - a business and financial legacy, a legacy of good fathering under the umbrella of love, and most of all, a legacy of himself - a man who led a life with no regrets. Well, I hope that by the time death draws nigh and unleashes it's infallible grip on us, we can be that man.
Justin
Justin
Saturday, May 13, 2006
Last evening
Good morning amigos and here's a round, save Malik since you can't drink, to an even better week ahead! Nothing beats the injection of the lethal combination of tequila shots and rum into one's bloodstream for breakfast man. Of course, a deluge of H2O on the rocks or neat must indeed follow, in order to vitiate the imminent hangover unless you're looking to use that as an excuse to getta MC(only applicable in the UK as far as I know). Okay, to set the record straight, I am far from intoxication and more sober than all of you put together!
Anyway, the highlight of yesterday was spending the evening alone, lazing on my bed with music piped in from various sources such as my Ipod, the television downstairs as well as the incessant ranting of an inconsiderate neighbour. Don't get me wrong, I'm not lamenting but instead relishing this experience since loneliness after all, needs a friend too! Haha. Music, in general, has proven consistent in unlocking the mysteries and greater mysteries of my mind. In this case, the music which I listen to corresponds to a drug which evokes an array of indiscriminate emotions and at varied quantities too. Although commonly in opposition to rational thinking, emotion, at the appropriate yet indeterminable moment, can enkindle certain revelations, namely on life and humanity, for example emotion spurred deeper insights to defining love and what art actually is. On the other hand, I could just have been caught up in the raptures of a reverie the whole afternoon. Whatever the explanation may be, the end which indeed comes in the intangible of intellectual and emotional rewards, serves as a justification for spending this evening in bed as compared to an otherwise productive activity. While I lay down as sunset neared completion, I also saw the luxury of time I am currently basking in, inevitably dwindle where every evening of unadulterated personal time would be elevated to an activity of indulgence from a typical one in this life.
Haha okay, it's back to my bed... AGAIN! But this time to sleep as it is right now a few minutes to daybreak. Good night? or morning? Amigos para siempre.
-Kenneth wong
Anyway, the highlight of yesterday was spending the evening alone, lazing on my bed with music piped in from various sources such as my Ipod, the television downstairs as well as the incessant ranting of an inconsiderate neighbour. Don't get me wrong, I'm not lamenting but instead relishing this experience since loneliness after all, needs a friend too! Haha. Music, in general, has proven consistent in unlocking the mysteries and greater mysteries of my mind. In this case, the music which I listen to corresponds to a drug which evokes an array of indiscriminate emotions and at varied quantities too. Although commonly in opposition to rational thinking, emotion, at the appropriate yet indeterminable moment, can enkindle certain revelations, namely on life and humanity, for example emotion spurred deeper insights to defining love and what art actually is. On the other hand, I could just have been caught up in the raptures of a reverie the whole afternoon. Whatever the explanation may be, the end which indeed comes in the intangible of intellectual and emotional rewards, serves as a justification for spending this evening in bed as compared to an otherwise productive activity. While I lay down as sunset neared completion, I also saw the luxury of time I am currently basking in, inevitably dwindle where every evening of unadulterated personal time would be elevated to an activity of indulgence from a typical one in this life.
Haha okay, it's back to my bed... AGAIN! But this time to sleep as it is right now a few minutes to daybreak. Good night? or morning? Amigos para siempre.
-Kenneth wong
Thursday, May 11, 2006
Wanderlust and Beyond
Greetings to all ye faithful servants of this blog.
It's been a long time since I've done justice to this blog and yet to ravish you guys with the tales of my adventures over the past couple of months. I got back last wed and have been spending the last week trying to get used to the drone of familiar life back home which seems familiar yet altogether strange at once. I've been busy battling the wanderlust that has consumed my soul and dispelling it hasn't been easy. But I've come to terms with it. I've set my sights on the practicalities of the life before me for now and ambitions of Europe will wait. The elections and the politcal scene was one of those things that helped get me back into the swim of Singapore life. However, Singapore has never appeared so small before and I've never felt so confined within this little red dot before. The conflicts and uncertainty which have been swimming in my head for the past week have more or less settled down in my cranial recesses but nonetheless have been resurfacing from time to time. Question: Where does my life go on from here? Of course, it's university. Many do not realize that this is but the most superficial answer one can ever give. Indeed, university is but the semblace of where my life and all your lives are heading towards (for Luke, he's arrvived) - it's just the physical and tangible representation of where our lives are headed to. My question really means more than that. It really invokes a multitude of questions of where our mind, body, soul and spirit is progressing towards. I use grammatically wrong english here due to the fact that all these 4 components are empirically 1. In a worldly and mercenary sense, these can be replaced by 'what does the future hold?' and 'am I making the right decisions?' In my opinion, life is all about the progress of the human being. Basically, am I gonna become a better in every sense of the word? I feel that there must be resolutions set at this point of our lives to lay down some yardsticks to follow to improve ourselves and start envisioning the person we want to become in maybe 3 to 5 yrs time. And no matter what comes along the way, we should always stick to these yardsticks that we set and ensure that the pollution of this world does not serve as impediments to our progress and conscience.
Taking a step away from the philosophical gibberish which I couldn't resist spouting partly due to my long absence, I must say that I'm gonna disappoint some, particularly Kenneth who expects a mega entry of Gulliver's travels. I've kept daily journals of my sojourns in India and China and would be glad to let you guys read it, but why I ain't gonna post it is due to a couple of reasons: I'm just too damn lazy to do it cos of the volume and having to decipher my bad handwriting, and those are often tired and biased entries. But I'll fill you guys in on a macro overview of my 2 trips which consisted of 14 days to India ( S'pore-Calcutta-Delhi-Agra-Delhi-Mumbai-Goa-Mumbai-Calcutta-S'pore) and 21 days to China (S'pore-HK-Shenzhen-Shanghai-Zhengzhou(Henan province)-Xian(Shaanxi province)-Beijing-Jinan(Shandong province)-Shanghai-Hangzhou-Shanghai-Shenzhen-HK-S'pore).
Ok, let's start with India. The reason why you guys didn't hear from me during my 1 wk back home after India before China was because I had a bad bout of diarrhoea. It's my second bout of diarrhoea since the first one in India. This should give you a foretaste of the litany of unpleasantries sustained in India by yours truly. India's development is slow and steady. It still has a long way to go in terms of becoming a developed nation. The cities I visited are considered the richest in India and yet I see poverty everywhere and the incongruity of seeing beggars and squatters just across the fence of the Taj Mahal Hotel (the equivalent of our Raffles Hotel) was quite a mouthful to swallow. There are touts loitering everywhere vying to cheat the tourist dollar, people who stand around biding their time and waiting for opportunities to come by to get the next dollar for their next meal or smoke. My friend and I came up with a couple of games, one being 'who dares to open your map bigger'. If you open up a map or flash a lonely planet or look lost, chances are a tout will be approaching you soon enough. After a day of walking in sandals, your soles will be dyed pitch black under a layer of filth and grime. For many natives, their vocab does not include the words 'queue up and consideration' but instead 'jump queue and elbow and push that bugger' are words that sadly replace them. The calamaties that befell me include having maddening trouble with the bureaucracy, ignorance and indignance of the Indian system particularly at the Calcutta train station, having an inconsiderate family with a wailing kid sharing the train compartment with us, having acrimonious and sarcastic exchanges with carpet and handicraft dealers, diarrhoea, a signboard crashing on my calf just a cm short of smashing my skull, getting into a cab with 2 huge Singhs and arguing with them cos they were trying to cheat us and finally ejecting ourselves and our luggage outta the bastards' cab, and yes, the highlight being having shit surreptitiously dropped on my sandaled foot so that I could go back to the culprit to have it cleaned for a price - not only did I not do that but I turned and gave him the fly and said fuck you in his sorry face. If not for the bucket of shit he was holding that could potentially decorate my body, I would've chased him and given him a flying kick with my foot. The veneer of bollywood was something I never saw in India itself. These are just the major incidents and there were other minor ones I'm not mentioning so this entry doesn't implode upon its own length. However, there were redeeming points of my Indian trip such as the splendid historical sights (Victoria Memorial, Taj Mahal, Baby Taj, Agra Fort) and magnificient architecture (esp the gothic structures of Mumbai) I witnessed, the culture I experienced, the great local and restaurant cuisines, the dirt cheap political philosophical books I bought, the few decent people I encountered along the way that include both travellers and natives with the latter putting the glimmer of hope in my mind that India has a future afterall. Indeed, India is an eyeopener and a superb lesson in rough travelling which serves to make one tougher, more open-minded, independant, aware and does a +50 travelling experience. On hindsight, with the first-hand experience of India under my belt, I forgave the guy that splattered the shit on me. He deserves the understanding and empathy that we can offer cos afterall, he is throwing the shit that he yearns to clean up - how more pitiful can it get? According to Atticus Finch, you have to put yourself into his shoes to understand him. I might just end up being that guy if I was born under those dire circumstances. God is the merciful one who gave me this fortunate lot in life. He wasn't that lucky. Overall, India's still a rough and dirty place but for the more experienced traveller, it could be quite fun once you know the tricks of the trade and do away with unnecessary apprehensions.
China was a far, far cry from the Indian experience and boy, did I have a good time. First of all, my friend's dad has business links in China and hence privileges come with those links. These include a night of free hotel stay in HK, being received for dinner and sent to the train station at Shanghai, being chauffeured to a number of puke-inducing dinners ridden with the clanking of overflowing beer and chinese wine glasses held at expensive restaurants and private rooms at Xian, having an all expense paid day at Jinan including attractions, a night of free hotel stay, yet another puke-inducing dinner and even the insistance of having our mineral water paid for. The rich Chinese are spectacular hosts who spare no effort and cost to keep their guests entertained and happy and make painfully sure that the dinner table runneth over with all the delicious Chinese cuisine a Singaporean can only imagine. Being a good host to your guest is something the Chinese are very particular of and I'm pretty sure the less well to do will also be as good hosts within their own means. The general Chinese appetite, I must conlude, is big, even for the lower classes. The only difference is the type of food they eat. I visited way too many temples, pagodas, mausoleums, museums, archeological sites, scenic spots and attractions to mention but of these, the more significant ones include Shaolin temple that has tourists outnumbering the monks by like a few hundred times, the Yellow River where Chinese civilisation stemmed from, Terracotta Warriors, the magnificient Hua Shan (for the benefit of Luke and Malik, Shan means mountain), the majestic Tai Shan, the famous Baotu Springs, the huge and grandiose Forbidden City which we explored for a tedious 4 hrs, the huger-than-expected Tiananmen Sq, Badaling Section of the Great Wall, the famous scenary and silk factories and tea plantations of Hangzhou that bewitched Marco Polo, and of course Shanghai, the hub and epitome of nascent Chinese capitalism, decadence and hedonism. We travelled from city to city by train except to and from Shanghai. The trains are very modern and the soft sleepers are broken down into 4-men cabins ala cruise ships that are very clean and comfortable, with a couple even furnished with individual built-in screens for each bed that screen 5 movie channels. The weather at that time was perfect spring temperature and extremely pleasant as you can imagine. The modernisation of China has been extremely rapid over the past decade and believe it or not, the lesser cities as compared to Shanghai such as Zhengzhou, Xian and Jinan are very modern and the city centers are anagalous to our downtown areas. China is exploding with development and you constantly catch the whiff of paint and thinner along the streets, which is yet another harbinger of its constant transformation. It's amazing, I must say, how the commies are reforming their country so rapidly and I came upon the realization that the reason behind me being able to actually feel and experience this transformation so naturally, is that China is reforming every aspect of its country from mirco to macro, top-down to left-right to bring about such a significant transformation. Even the attitude of the Chinese is changing from the hardened communist to what it is now where you feel more warmth in the people and more efficiency and courtesy in the service. Sex shops lined one particular street in Zhengzhou and the Paulaner Brauhaus pub I binged at in Shanghai was redolent of a fun-filled western watering hole with a Filipino band playing tunes from Rolling Stones, CCR, Bon Jovi and J.Lo to boot. Liberalism is pervading this society and is even seeping through the ranks of the hardnosed commie government. One highlight of Shanghai was the ancient sex culture museum that I visited and that was cool with all the phallic sculptures, sex manuals, obscene artifacts depicting sex, dildos and more. But among all these, I must rank the food and esp the beer in China as tops. The different provinces and cities we went all boasted different cuisines and specialties and an abundant meal at an expensive restaurant with live top notch fish can't set you back by more than 15 bucks per head. The beer was the constant factor in the whole of China - it was constantly wholesome, refreshing, delicious and dirt,dirt-cheap (30cents for a 650ml bottle bought over the shelf). You could just bathe in it. We weren't so extreme so we stopped at making it a part of our daily diet. China has given me a whole lot of insight of where I came from and allowed me to at least grasp some understanding of Chinese history, culture and way of life first-hand. My friend did a fine job in helping me with these revelations along the way. But after all said and done, there's still one enigma that bugs me: why do the Chinese love to spit so much? Perhaps they have overly-active salivary glands.
So, this is it for my mega entry and for those who managed to sustain through this entry, thank you, for those who didn't, you missed out but it ain't too late to backtrack.
Ciao...
Justin
It's been a long time since I've done justice to this blog and yet to ravish you guys with the tales of my adventures over the past couple of months. I got back last wed and have been spending the last week trying to get used to the drone of familiar life back home which seems familiar yet altogether strange at once. I've been busy battling the wanderlust that has consumed my soul and dispelling it hasn't been easy. But I've come to terms with it. I've set my sights on the practicalities of the life before me for now and ambitions of Europe will wait. The elections and the politcal scene was one of those things that helped get me back into the swim of Singapore life. However, Singapore has never appeared so small before and I've never felt so confined within this little red dot before. The conflicts and uncertainty which have been swimming in my head for the past week have more or less settled down in my cranial recesses but nonetheless have been resurfacing from time to time. Question: Where does my life go on from here? Of course, it's university. Many do not realize that this is but the most superficial answer one can ever give. Indeed, university is but the semblace of where my life and all your lives are heading towards (for Luke, he's arrvived) - it's just the physical and tangible representation of where our lives are headed to. My question really means more than that. It really invokes a multitude of questions of where our mind, body, soul and spirit is progressing towards. I use grammatically wrong english here due to the fact that all these 4 components are empirically 1. In a worldly and mercenary sense, these can be replaced by 'what does the future hold?' and 'am I making the right decisions?' In my opinion, life is all about the progress of the human being. Basically, am I gonna become a better in every sense of the word? I feel that there must be resolutions set at this point of our lives to lay down some yardsticks to follow to improve ourselves and start envisioning the person we want to become in maybe 3 to 5 yrs time. And no matter what comes along the way, we should always stick to these yardsticks that we set and ensure that the pollution of this world does not serve as impediments to our progress and conscience.
Taking a step away from the philosophical gibberish which I couldn't resist spouting partly due to my long absence, I must say that I'm gonna disappoint some, particularly Kenneth who expects a mega entry of Gulliver's travels. I've kept daily journals of my sojourns in India and China and would be glad to let you guys read it, but why I ain't gonna post it is due to a couple of reasons: I'm just too damn lazy to do it cos of the volume and having to decipher my bad handwriting, and those are often tired and biased entries. But I'll fill you guys in on a macro overview of my 2 trips which consisted of 14 days to India ( S'pore-Calcutta-Delhi-Agra-Delhi-Mumbai-Goa-Mumbai-Calcutta-S'pore) and 21 days to China (S'pore-HK-Shenzhen-Shanghai-Zhengzhou(Henan province)-Xian(Shaanxi province)-Beijing-Jinan(Shandong province)-Shanghai-Hangzhou-Shanghai-Shenzhen-HK-S'pore).
Ok, let's start with India. The reason why you guys didn't hear from me during my 1 wk back home after India before China was because I had a bad bout of diarrhoea. It's my second bout of diarrhoea since the first one in India. This should give you a foretaste of the litany of unpleasantries sustained in India by yours truly. India's development is slow and steady. It still has a long way to go in terms of becoming a developed nation. The cities I visited are considered the richest in India and yet I see poverty everywhere and the incongruity of seeing beggars and squatters just across the fence of the Taj Mahal Hotel (the equivalent of our Raffles Hotel) was quite a mouthful to swallow. There are touts loitering everywhere vying to cheat the tourist dollar, people who stand around biding their time and waiting for opportunities to come by to get the next dollar for their next meal or smoke. My friend and I came up with a couple of games, one being 'who dares to open your map bigger'. If you open up a map or flash a lonely planet or look lost, chances are a tout will be approaching you soon enough. After a day of walking in sandals, your soles will be dyed pitch black under a layer of filth and grime. For many natives, their vocab does not include the words 'queue up and consideration' but instead 'jump queue and elbow and push that bugger' are words that sadly replace them. The calamaties that befell me include having maddening trouble with the bureaucracy, ignorance and indignance of the Indian system particularly at the Calcutta train station, having an inconsiderate family with a wailing kid sharing the train compartment with us, having acrimonious and sarcastic exchanges with carpet and handicraft dealers, diarrhoea, a signboard crashing on my calf just a cm short of smashing my skull, getting into a cab with 2 huge Singhs and arguing with them cos they were trying to cheat us and finally ejecting ourselves and our luggage outta the bastards' cab, and yes, the highlight being having shit surreptitiously dropped on my sandaled foot so that I could go back to the culprit to have it cleaned for a price - not only did I not do that but I turned and gave him the fly and said fuck you in his sorry face. If not for the bucket of shit he was holding that could potentially decorate my body, I would've chased him and given him a flying kick with my foot. The veneer of bollywood was something I never saw in India itself. These are just the major incidents and there were other minor ones I'm not mentioning so this entry doesn't implode upon its own length. However, there were redeeming points of my Indian trip such as the splendid historical sights (Victoria Memorial, Taj Mahal, Baby Taj, Agra Fort) and magnificient architecture (esp the gothic structures of Mumbai) I witnessed, the culture I experienced, the great local and restaurant cuisines, the dirt cheap political philosophical books I bought, the few decent people I encountered along the way that include both travellers and natives with the latter putting the glimmer of hope in my mind that India has a future afterall. Indeed, India is an eyeopener and a superb lesson in rough travelling which serves to make one tougher, more open-minded, independant, aware and does a +50 travelling experience. On hindsight, with the first-hand experience of India under my belt, I forgave the guy that splattered the shit on me. He deserves the understanding and empathy that we can offer cos afterall, he is throwing the shit that he yearns to clean up - how more pitiful can it get? According to Atticus Finch, you have to put yourself into his shoes to understand him. I might just end up being that guy if I was born under those dire circumstances. God is the merciful one who gave me this fortunate lot in life. He wasn't that lucky. Overall, India's still a rough and dirty place but for the more experienced traveller, it could be quite fun once you know the tricks of the trade and do away with unnecessary apprehensions.
China was a far, far cry from the Indian experience and boy, did I have a good time. First of all, my friend's dad has business links in China and hence privileges come with those links. These include a night of free hotel stay in HK, being received for dinner and sent to the train station at Shanghai, being chauffeured to a number of puke-inducing dinners ridden with the clanking of overflowing beer and chinese wine glasses held at expensive restaurants and private rooms at Xian, having an all expense paid day at Jinan including attractions, a night of free hotel stay, yet another puke-inducing dinner and even the insistance of having our mineral water paid for. The rich Chinese are spectacular hosts who spare no effort and cost to keep their guests entertained and happy and make painfully sure that the dinner table runneth over with all the delicious Chinese cuisine a Singaporean can only imagine. Being a good host to your guest is something the Chinese are very particular of and I'm pretty sure the less well to do will also be as good hosts within their own means. The general Chinese appetite, I must conlude, is big, even for the lower classes. The only difference is the type of food they eat. I visited way too many temples, pagodas, mausoleums, museums, archeological sites, scenic spots and attractions to mention but of these, the more significant ones include Shaolin temple that has tourists outnumbering the monks by like a few hundred times, the Yellow River where Chinese civilisation stemmed from, Terracotta Warriors, the magnificient Hua Shan (for the benefit of Luke and Malik, Shan means mountain), the majestic Tai Shan, the famous Baotu Springs, the huge and grandiose Forbidden City which we explored for a tedious 4 hrs, the huger-than-expected Tiananmen Sq, Badaling Section of the Great Wall, the famous scenary and silk factories and tea plantations of Hangzhou that bewitched Marco Polo, and of course Shanghai, the hub and epitome of nascent Chinese capitalism, decadence and hedonism. We travelled from city to city by train except to and from Shanghai. The trains are very modern and the soft sleepers are broken down into 4-men cabins ala cruise ships that are very clean and comfortable, with a couple even furnished with individual built-in screens for each bed that screen 5 movie channels. The weather at that time was perfect spring temperature and extremely pleasant as you can imagine. The modernisation of China has been extremely rapid over the past decade and believe it or not, the lesser cities as compared to Shanghai such as Zhengzhou, Xian and Jinan are very modern and the city centers are anagalous to our downtown areas. China is exploding with development and you constantly catch the whiff of paint and thinner along the streets, which is yet another harbinger of its constant transformation. It's amazing, I must say, how the commies are reforming their country so rapidly and I came upon the realization that the reason behind me being able to actually feel and experience this transformation so naturally, is that China is reforming every aspect of its country from mirco to macro, top-down to left-right to bring about such a significant transformation. Even the attitude of the Chinese is changing from the hardened communist to what it is now where you feel more warmth in the people and more efficiency and courtesy in the service. Sex shops lined one particular street in Zhengzhou and the Paulaner Brauhaus pub I binged at in Shanghai was redolent of a fun-filled western watering hole with a Filipino band playing tunes from Rolling Stones, CCR, Bon Jovi and J.Lo to boot. Liberalism is pervading this society and is even seeping through the ranks of the hardnosed commie government. One highlight of Shanghai was the ancient sex culture museum that I visited and that was cool with all the phallic sculptures, sex manuals, obscene artifacts depicting sex, dildos and more. But among all these, I must rank the food and esp the beer in China as tops. The different provinces and cities we went all boasted different cuisines and specialties and an abundant meal at an expensive restaurant with live top notch fish can't set you back by more than 15 bucks per head. The beer was the constant factor in the whole of China - it was constantly wholesome, refreshing, delicious and dirt,dirt-cheap (30cents for a 650ml bottle bought over the shelf). You could just bathe in it. We weren't so extreme so we stopped at making it a part of our daily diet. China has given me a whole lot of insight of where I came from and allowed me to at least grasp some understanding of Chinese history, culture and way of life first-hand. My friend did a fine job in helping me with these revelations along the way. But after all said and done, there's still one enigma that bugs me: why do the Chinese love to spit so much? Perhaps they have overly-active salivary glands.
So, this is it for my mega entry and for those who managed to sustain through this entry, thank you, for those who didn't, you missed out but it ain't too late to backtrack.
Ciao...
Justin
Tuesday, May 09, 2006
The handphone
Havent blogged for some time due to a lack of blogworthy content... today however, was a pretty interesting day. After school, me and celeste(my study partner) decided to go to the city cause she needed to buy a present and i needed to get some things myself... after a long and tiring day of shopping, we returned to college square, desperate for sleep to find that the present she had bought and her handphone were not in her possession.. This led to much distress on her part and also led to us not being able to get any sleep. To make things worse, when we called her phone, it went straight to voice mail, leading us to think that someone had stolen it and removed the sim card... We took the next tram back to the city.. On the tram, some ruffian asked if he could see my 8800 and i bluntly said no... anyway... me and a very upset celeste reached the city in abt 15 mins. We rushed down to the store we had last been in and fortunately, the security had kept the items safely... The reason we couldnt call the phone was that the store had no reception.. hhahaha.. anyway.. a very pleased celeste then treated me to a waffle with melted chocolate and strawberries and max brennars, which was extremely good... went for dinner at a vietnamese place after that... After dinner, she had to go for some compulsory tutorial thing since she is under 18... Anyway.. I was heading back to cs myself... Which was when i ran into a beggar just outside borders.. I see this guy pretty often hanging around that area... I have even given him some change before... He is one of those really polite guys who thanks people, genuinely enough, even when they decline to spare him a few coins. I felt sorry for the guy, especially since it was raining and pretty cold. I gave him a couple of coins and continued on my way... less than twenty metres down the way i started feeling bad for having given him so little. I'm sure he could have enjoyed a nice hot cup of coffee if i had given him a 5 instead... On the other hand though, i didnt want him to become leechy, esp since i see him quite often... Stuck in indecision, and at a traffic light, i pondered upon my next move under the falling rain... Then the light turned green and i continued along my way.... I really wished i could help that guy more, but couldnt do it for my own good. Sometimes these choices are pretty hard to make... Anyway....
I have got a few tips for doing housework, which might be esp useful to kenneth, since he is gonna be roughing it out on his own in a few months time. These are from personal experience...
1. Do not crack an egg too hard on your kitchen table.
2. Do not try to toast an egg without frying it.
3. Do not spill washing powder on your carpet.
4. Do not use your stove fire for heat. It WILL melt your kitchen hood.
5. Do not attempt to dry 2 laundry loads in the dryer just because it fits.
I hope these help to smooth your transition to the complete independence. Gotta go do some reading now... Havent done a thing the whole day. Cya guys soon...
I have got a few tips for doing housework, which might be esp useful to kenneth, since he is gonna be roughing it out on his own in a few months time. These are from personal experience...
1. Do not crack an egg too hard on your kitchen table.
2. Do not try to toast an egg without frying it.
3. Do not spill washing powder on your carpet.
4. Do not use your stove fire for heat. It WILL melt your kitchen hood.
5. Do not attempt to dry 2 laundry loads in the dryer just because it fits.
I hope these help to smooth your transition to the complete independence. Gotta go do some reading now... Havent done a thing the whole day. Cya guys soon...
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