Low standards

"How bout keep expectations low (shd be easy since youve got a reputation for it) ."

Thanks WL. *wry grin*

...

On other news.......some Singaporeans at Brown University organized a forum on what it means to be a Singaporean in a globalised world. Guess what they called themselves? BUM - Brown University Merlions. Like wassssaaaaaat?

Ashiki India

HOPE. Is it in the hands of China's industrialists, America's foreign policy-makers, or India's village women?

I don't need to,

be either or,

old or young,
male or female,
giving or taking,
scared or brave,
quiet or playful,
carefree or reflective,
secretive or open,
trustful or skeptical,
Singaporean or South-East Asian,
ethnic Chinese or China chinese,
religious or spiritual,
God-loving or atheist,
harmonious or ragingly opinionated,

have to choose to be one or the other all the time,
I can be one or the other sometimes, or both.

Scared

I don't want to be hurt again.

I don't want to cry because of sadness.

I don't want my heart to feel physically wrenched.


Update: Late night musings and an overactive mind. Pushing forward.

Everyone hates Google's mandarin name

Everyone, is referring to my colleagues and I.

谷歌 (pronounced as gu3 ge1), literally means valley song.
What has it got to do with search engines?

Xiao V has said she will boycott to e-搜. Yeah, guge is so lame...没劲...

1. My ex is: the first boy to whom I said 'I love you', actually meant it.

2. Maybe I should: own a backpackers hostel in an exotic south-east asian country. I heard young, nubile cute guys flock there (both!)

3. I love: everything about nature. Even vicious snakes and birds that poop on me while flying. How convenient...and no worries about dirty toilets. And finding stuff/ places - wayward places, getting lost and all.

4. I don't understand: why people treat the people who love them most so shabbily or take them for granted. Why demographic labels are so important and why I have to stop in my tracks whenever I see a cat.

5. I lose: sense of time all the time and never am on time. And I actually like losing it and not be on a schedule all the time.

6. People say I'm: should reveal my more contemplative side. But can you handle it? Can you handle it yo? And there are some people whom you just love to bitch slap that smugness of their faces when they prove you wrong.

7. Love is: something I assiduosly avoid or it's a matter of 'you show me yours and after that I'll show you mine'.

8. Somewhere, someone is: multi-tasking and switching between computer screens, wishing weekend to be tomorrow.

9. I will always: have my imagination and have trouble doing them justice when describing them

10. Forever is: after you close your eyes for the last time. Or falling and falling in my dreams. Or while waiting for a surprise/ bad news.

11. I never want to: stop learning or discovering things.

12. I think the current US President: is controlled by a bloody german. (I swear! Have a video to prove it!)

13. When I wake up in the morning: I will trick myself into staying 1 more minute in bed. And another and another and another......

14. My past was: quite uneventful. Though I wished I had more guts to travel alone.

15. I get annoyed when: people play games or manipulate each other. Where do you find so much time???? I'd rather read a book.

16. Parties are for: laughing, getting drunk then doing silly things. Not in that order.

17. My dog is: not yet mine, cos I've never owned one, not even a soft toy one *pout*

18. My cat is: walking around the street somewhere. They are ALL my cats. I will molest your cats.

19. Kisses are the best when: stolen. Or when the giver intends for it to belong only to me.

20. Tomorrow: I have to start doing proper work to make up for all the blogging today, but I'll probably be doing the same thing tomorrow. Blog to procrastination.

21. I really want: to know which came first - 'ow' or 'ouch', if plum blossoms grow into plums and learn how to 'break up'/ say the truth/ confess with some friends or to learn how to tell them to shut-the-fuck-up when they say something discriminatory with an -ist behind (sexist, gayist, ageist, labelist). And to also swear less, (looks at previous sentence), oh yah, that.

22. I have low tolerance for people who: who only call me when they want something and call themselves my 'friends'.

给我机会疼妳

I would say I have the best of both worlds. Being the only child for most of my teenage years because my sister had already moved out. Yet, now when we both know better, enjoy each other alot more, especially after skipping most cat fights.

Not living with her wasn't a situation by choice, but it's over, everyone's shed enough tears about this. 一秒的安慰, 是那思念的滋味. When I was in college, found out through my aunt my sister's address and started writing letters. At that time email was not yet de rigeur (till today my heart skips a beat when I receive something handwritten). We exchanged plentiful cutesey stickers, envelopes, scented papers with plenty of angst, regret, all those lost years. We never judged each other for our choices. She would, as big sisters always do, tell me what she thought best in the gentlest handwriting. Now, I would insist over the phone that she stop being such a pushover and visit the parental units more :P

She has her own family now, her own life. Letters are less frequent, so are the phone calls. But we always end up talking for a few hours everytime we get a chance. Though I have to say, my sister and I are not the typical type of sisters. We're not related by blood at all. We're treated differently by our parents, not because she's adopted and I'm not. Simply because, well...my sister wants simple the kind of happiness that did not fit in with what my parents thought was best for her. That, we're exactly the same - just wanting a life that is totally ours. With all its imperfections, misaligned lines and smudged colours.

The only kind of jewellery I wear are the ones given by family. Before I came to Shanghai my sister gave me a pendant with three tiny diamonds for Christmas. First time I carefully took it out to wear, the necklace broke. Was so painful losing the pendant I just had to get it replaced. I must have went to four to five Lee Hwa outlets before finding the same one. This year, she gave me an Anne Geddes santa baby - creepy as hell having a baby looking figure sitting on my desk - but it's still within sight. While her present is still in my drawer unsent...

Yesterday, aunt called, my sister is pregnant again. She didn't want to tell me till she was sure. 一秒的安慰, 是我爱妳的滋味. The last time her joys and pain was only through letters. This time, I'll be able to be there.

weird ways to commit suicide #990 & #991

#990

Stand between closing doors of the subway. Let it open and slam the doors close on you. Don't move till you're concussed and brain is mashed.

***

#991

Stand barefooted and get Shanghainese women in their power stilletos to step on your feet till you have to eat enough valium to put yourself out of misery.

Hongkou, Shanghai

Is suddenly looking not so ulu. Bloody 50RMB back from Hongkou after 12midnight is a bloody killer, but this place is a friendly surburb hidden, the key word is hidden. Hidden from crowds, and more importantly a sense of sincerity in Shanghai can be felt on the streets. Walking along dimly lit streets with friends that enjoy walking. Making friends with playful kittens and shopkeepers that squeeze the feline till it couldn't squirm or scratch; relegating stories of how she picked the then-pitiful critter up. Numerous roadside stalls selling chinese satay, noodles and other what-nots. Mini-road bridges and fairly old buildings. Some still casting their magnificent colonial vestiges of yesteryears, others keeping secrets of the inhabitants that have lived in them all their lives - but all awaiting a certain doomed destiny of modernization. Hongkou is like easter morning, many colourful surprises waiting to be found.

Then there's also this, which I maintain is small and not worth paying for entry unless there's a movie screening held concurrently (of which the selection has not failed me yet). Caught half of the screening which portrayed ordinary lives of Shanghainese who were born there, grown up together and still share the same kitchen. Telling it through change of relocation due to urban development into commercial properties. The director wanted to document these authenticity before Shanghai turned into Beijing (city centre full of commercial buildings, losing its distinct character). Reminded me of my conversation with a Beijing cab driver, who like all cab drivers, paint vivid tales of the ordinary man on the street. He shared with me that he was staying one and half hours out of Beijing, only the expats stay in the matchbox like apartments in within city centre. Seems like asian cities all around are facing the same problem. What to keep and what should be new? In its bid to look every like the 'modern', first-class city it should be; someone had callously or conveniently forgotten to turn back to see if they had left crumbs to enable other someones to walk backwards.

I've always loved old buildings, it has cracks to keep it listening out for stories for years.

"I have been thinking about my future recently, and the girl I'm gonna marry. Maybe you are the best choice, even though I've never met you. Things are so funny, I never met you, but sometimes, I feel I trust you."

5 years of conversations, but what is this??????? *faint*

Just being

Being too nice has it's disadvantages. Most of the time giving in doesn't matter, at other times it is a symptom of being taken for granted.

Being soft and not screaming at people all the time doesn't mean that I don't know what I'm doing or who I am.

Being with you means I truly enjoy your company. There's no need for manipulating me into doing something that you want because I'm usually up for anything unless it involves wads of cash which i don't have.

Being quiet and not giving opinions-which-should-be-right, cloaked in the shadows of well-meaning advice, means that I don't want to impose what I've figured suits the way I want to live my life or my choices on you.

Being like the willow tree in the storm, bend when needed to but never breaking.

Bitching

Ever had one of those days you get so irritated with your girlfriends and inane ramblings about relationships (friendships & relationships). I'm guilty of it too, but mostly I catch myself bringing it up 'cos I have no idea what else to say to people who don't want to worry about the 'world'. Not how to create world peace per say, but focusing on itsy bitsy pieces of our lives just amplifies our discontent. I dunno why the fuck I'm so bitchy about this.

drinking milk tea?

Drank chai and sweetly condensed milk tea, some blended by a variety of local & graded ceylon tea leaves in India. Amidst humid coffeeshop, breakfast served with my favourite idli and masala thosai (luckily my repertoire of Indian food has since expanded), with busy men in sarongs clearing table, yet never too busy to tip me with a smile. Sitting on squat stools outside leather bag store in Myanmar drinking from small plastic cup, savouring a variation of Ceylon prepared in a style that reminiscenced teh tarik in Singapore. In Singapore itself, teh O siew tai, teh tarik, teh alia, teh latte. All the previous British colonies banding together, ingeniously concocting their own musk and distinct siap-siapness (tannic aftertaste); smorgasboard of old and new.

There's still darjeeling unexplored. Dignified Mariage Feres untouched and plenty more teacups left to be unveiled. 27 should be the magic number. Maybe spending one year or two to just drift aimlessly in a vaguely forseeable distance towards somewhere.

Surprise Invitation

A surprise because I surprised myself by inviting my parents to come Shanghai to live with me for a week. Considering how fiercely I guard my space (and gawd knows how much space I need for my ridiculousness & fantasies) from them, it's not something I would have thought to do.

Yet, there is space, and there is space. Physical space. After moving out, I have made alot of decisions. Learnt to say 'no', have decent conversations (mostly I have to curb my perverted joke tendencies) with strangers, paid my own way to a lone holiday and dealt with loneliness & chaos (sometimes turning away both on any single day) and with many plans more to run away to distant lands as soon as time lets me (of course this means minimal savings). All these the parental units know of and amazingly have not disapproved. Perhaps like all Chinese Singaporean parents, they too, feel that getting a degree & job is the passport/ gateway to adulthood. Note: it is not adulthood yet. One only becomes an adult when roles are reversed and it's your turn to wipe your parent's ass.

Mental space. Guess the recent CNY trip was also a milestone to our relationship. Openly introducing someone whom I have no formal relationship with, yet enough to set inner parental alarm bells ringing at 'red alert', without much trepidation. All they had was a fair bit of warning not to fall in love easily thatsall# I had expected them to give me long talks of the follies of getting pregnant and evil europeans/ westerners. All I got was weakly veiled stories, which were supposed to set me thinking towards the lines of finding a nice Chinese boy (from mom, dad doesn't care, refer to explanation below). Lack of the normal medicinal-cocktail of advice forced down my throat. Nice.

#Dad is a true-blue feminist. He thinks females should be well-learned, independant (financially & mentally), form their own opinions and be respected. So the 'falling in love' part comes in because he's worried his daughter may drop her life and run away with a knight in shining armour (who may just turn out to have a nasty non-female respecting disposition underneath his armour, or someone really stupid. Though methinks it is more likely his daughter does more rescuing and polishes her own blade). Having said so, my dad is close to 60, born in an era when women in Singapore haven't been fully emancipated with education. So if he can respect women, there's no reason for me not to stick a camel's foot into guys' arse or pluck out strands of hair one by one till they are bald if they disrespect women right? *evil laugh*

Ok, digressing here. Invitation was sent out via internet texting on April 6. Followed immediately, in record time, a phonecall from dad. Normal suggestion of dates, with a footnote confession that 'evil' european boy was staying with me for two months. Think dad took it pretty well after I told him "Don't worry, 我有分寸的". Plus, it's only for a week. Can't be that bad right? Right?

You are my home

I miss you

She called my cousin to bring her to the beach yesterday. If I were there, it would be me.

She called today to ask to come for spring, but I had already promised my friend she could live there when her apartment expires.

I heard my dad ask if I still remembered them in the background when she was talking to me. I remember. I remember and it all washes over me. I'm supposed to be by your side now as you age; when you can still remember me. There were times I was really sick and didn't tell you because I didn't want you to worry. Surely now you wouldn't tell me that you missed me, as you too, would not want me to feel guilty for living away from home.


You are my home.


peas of a pod