I¡¯m on CA 1302 at this moment, an Air China airplane heading to Beijing with about a hundred other people, half of whom must be farmers, judging from their mannerisms and muddy shoes and clothes. They must be seizing the post-peak period to travel for cheap to Beijing for their first holiday at age 60 (and above). The plane has just taken off after an hour¡¯s delay at the Guanzhou Airport ¨C this happens 40% (and counting) of the time, according to my experience in flying within China in the past 5 months. The flight gets delayed, and the plane turns into a Noah¡¯s Ark of sorts, with the rural creatures breaking out from their buckled seats and fidgeting and clearing their phlegm-ingested throats loudly like there¡¯s no tomorrow. Yes. Welcome to China. This is the place I¡¯ve abandoned Singapore to call home for now. It¡¯s strange I¡¯ve not missed home since I got here ¨C or maybe I just haven¡¯t had the time to ¨C I¡¯ve still been working non-stop. But I don¡¯t mind it, because coming back to advertising is bring me back to all the things I love. And the fact is, in advertising, you¡¯re in playschool all the time ¨C you get paid to play, and you learn from playing. There is just such a diverse range of things to do, and the curious and impatient Ida Li is never bored. Her short attention span becomes an asset rather than an encumbrance. Being unusual is the norm here, and crazy, wild, ideas are worshipped, not despised. If it sounds like I¡¯m enjoying myself, it would be ungrateful for me to affirm the contrary.

 

The farmer next to me who¡¯s contorted himself in no less than 40 configurations since we got on the plane has just grinned at me, baring nine brown teeth and a gold crown. He asked me why I was writing so much ¨C I¡¯ve been writing for 2.5hours now, various letters and on an assortment of paper. I must give the old dude some credit ¨C he turned on the light for me at the beginning of the flight when he saw me frantically scribbling away in the darkness. After which, he has adopted an attitude of reverence towards me having seen that I was writing in some foreign gibberish a language that was beyond him (I¡¯d think that even Chinese would¡¯ve been beyond him) and must be an enlightened being. The other farmers are much less meaningfully engaged ¨C they¡¯re talking at the top of their voices, alternating their cacophony between loud talking and giant moaning yawns (the farmers must sleep at sunset).

 

--

 

There¡¯s a perverse charm about freely catapulting spitballs that crash land just 2 centimeters from you, litter arranged in random but abstract fashion everywhere around you, and children¡¯s freestyle urinating in the streets, not to mention the occasional whiff of funk one would catch, emanating from mysterious sources attributed to ¨C my best guess ¨C both biological waste and otherwise, and at the most unexpected moments. It¡¯s often hard to requite the most breath-taking scenery and awe-inspiring grandeur of the architecture here (from the shiny, avant-garde buildings, to the Great Wall of China ¨C just in Beijing alone) with the breath-stopping smell of mouths that aren¡¯t well-acquainted with toothpaste, or the general uncivilized expressions of the Chinese, especially when everything you see in every other province reminds you of just how much history and culture they once had. It is lamentable that a people who were once very great have been reduced to mere rich barbarians by the Cultural Revolution ¨C the demise of which left a great vacuum that left the people vulnerable to the assail of Capitalism. Now, the Renminbi defines the renmin.

 

But the world is imperfect. The insomniac ¡°rich city mouse¡± is certainly worse off than the ignorant farmer who sweats like a horse, then eats heartily and sleeps like a log all through the night.

 

C'est la vie.

 

 

Sha'anxi Day 1 | Trustless in Xi'an

On this trip, I lived in with a local host in order to "get into the groove" of how the local Chinese lived their lives. My host was a great lady in her early 30's, and was happy to extend hospitality to me because I was recommended by a trusted friend. She shared her RMB800/month flat on the ground floor of a very old building, with two girls from her village. They were here to look for jobs and would serve as my hosts on my Xploring forages in the next few days. The place was clean (more spartan) and quiet. There were nice, new buildings in Xi'an as it is a rapidly-developing city, but those would be too expensive for the average person living in Xi'an. Xi'an is probably best known for being home to the terra cotta warriors. Since this was the case, tourism was likely to be one of the major sources of revenue for the city, an a credible indicator of how the economy was affecting it. Therefore, I requested that my young hosts bring me there for a survey. I squeezed my way on to the public bus (it's the cheapest for locals) which took eons to reach the train station where we would essay to find a bus to take us to our destination. People littered the station, and no less than five touts made a beeline for us, fiercely demanding that we take their bus to our intended destination. Each one denounced the other operators' tours as being inferior, or simply, a tourist trap. I was disturbed by their high-pitched business haggling, which irritated my senses. Was this what it was like to be Chinese? One had to make up one's mind in a split second who was telling the truth, or risk being taken advantage of. I could imagine what it's like for any Chinese ¨C the safest mode is to assume everyone is guilty unless proven innocent. I was tempted to fall back on default mode ¨C trust no one, but then I wouldn't meet my objective for being there in the first place. Finally, I trusted myself to follow a bus that was boarded by the most number of tourists and went on my way.

--

Sha'anxi Day 1 | China Guide Extraordinaire: Zhang Ai Ling

In a bid to interact with some locals, I went out and got a museum guide. Dressed in the museum-issue uniform and practical black canvas shoes suited for walking (unlike other guides), Zhang Ai Ling asked me not to laugh as she introduced herself ¨C she shared the same name as a famous writer, but felt herself far from being literarily-inclined. She was adamant that I not take a photo of her, citing the previous case where a tourist photographed one of the guides and photoshopped her into an online porn star as justification. No voice or video recording of her was allowed either, as she wanted to preserve her professional exclusive rights to any information she dispensed (that intellectual piracy is a problem in China is an understatement). Within minutes of talking to her, one found out that she was a university graduate who majored in map-drawing, and had very strong views about a lot of things. She was married because all her friends were married and she was bored. I asked her if marriage was about true love, and Zhang snorted, "It's not about love, but about being in a family.." She spoke of her husband with disdain, which suggested she looked down on him for not being much good at managing the few roles he had compared to the overwhelming number of roles she played. Zhang speaks of her duties as mother, wife, daughter, museum guide, friend and everything else with a sense of aggressive pride, and this sense of pride lapsed into joyful pride only momentarily - when she was talking about her son and the joys of motherhood. Here was the Chinese alpha woman. She has all these balls up in the air, and will drop none of them. She is in control, and loves it that she is. Even the sun won't stop her. When I asked her if she used sunscreen, she curtly replied that it was of no use ¨C she had to be in the sun because of work and no amount of sunscreen would work on her. But neither was she bothered - pulling up her skirt to flash a bit of skin 10 tones lighter to prove her point, she matter-of- factly stated that when winter came around again, she would regain her fairness. So I got the sense: her darkness was only temporary ¨C winter would unleash the fair-skinned woman underneath she knew for a fact existed. I asked her why there were so few foreign tourists here and she said nonchalantly that the economy had affected the Western countries and the tourists had stopped coming. However, the locals were still furiously spending money. Zhang said that there was no recession inland, the government was rich, and the Chinese had savings that they could use even in times of recession. From the way Zhang spoke of the Chinese spending power, one got the impression it was as resilient as the terra cotta warriors.

Zhang's other Golden Eggs:

• Some people are gambling using the stock market in a "flailing the arms" sort of way because they have lost some money, which makes them worse off (she thinks they're fools).
• Zhang is snobbish about immigrants who are from outside the city ¨C says they're usually hooked on vices or are morally corrupt and have messed-up personal lives
• She is in enmity with the plastic bags of the world for doing what they have done to the environment. There is no greater evil than plastic to her.
• The only moment she exhibited interest in me was when she suddenly hit on the idea that I could give her some information or play some role in getting her "very bright and outstanding" niece a scholarship to study in Singapore.
• Beams with pride when talking about her son, saying she wishes nothing for him except to be happy and have a decent job and family, and not turn out like his dad.
• She will never regret motherhood ¨C it is the happiest part about being alive.
• There's no need to think too much about things ¨C that's the key to being happy.
• She finds herself a lot more fortunate and happy than her friends, two of whom imagined their way into Depression (they're fools as well ¨C what's there to worry about?).

--

Sha'anxi 1 | The Values of Muslim Street

There is a Muslim street in Xi'an, which is where Chinese-Muslims paddle their wares and sell Halal food. There is relatively little religious freedom for various religious groups in China, so it's surprising that Muslims are allowed to openly go about their business here. I didn't expect to see so many well-dressed, ridiculously trendy fashionistas sashaying down this street, but was told that they were college students (Xi'an is home to the most number of good universities for this area that's further inland), many of them ¨C rich. This might partly explain why sales of major skincare brands have exploded over the period of the recession here in Xi'an.

A lot of girls who were originally from the provincial city itself are known to be arrogant, oftentimes looking down on immigrants.

They are also known to be incredibly full of themselves, hence the slogan emblazoned on this enamel cup serves a warning to all:

"A bit of sunshine, and I'll rot."

In other words, pay the young lady a compliment, and she'll go bad.

--

Sha'anxi Day 2 | Gatherings with Friends

My host decided I should meet with her friends as a means to appreciate the fabric of Chinese life as lived by the locals themselves. I spoke with a young mother whose ambition to become a doctor was crushed when she didn't make the certification exams. She has come to contend with her newfound-calling of being a mother of a fretful and hyper-active boy in a troubled marriage. Her desire is for her child to live a life of meaning. I conversed with a lady in her early-thirties who was about to make a career switch to become a full-time social worker rescuing vagrants and drug-addicts who exist in piles at the Xi'an train station. Her hope is to be able to change the world, one person at a time. I met up with a young couple who studied in Xi'an, fell in love and decided to work and live here. They have just registered their marriage and are heading for Australia in the next couple of months so the young man can pursue his dream of becoming a newscaster. The young lady's desire is to be a good partner to her man, and experience a whole new world with him ¨C I'm not sure there's an ambition outside of her man.

The food was not sufficient to distract me from the fact that everyone seemed to have gotten over some personal obstacle. There is an undeniable pulse that throbs with hope that tomorrow will be better, and tomorrow will bring advancement, not necessarily in the form of money.

--

Sha'anxi Day 3 | The Child Protege, the Town, and the Village

8-year-old Lian Fei Le plays the piano, dances, gets 100% scores on her essays and can tell you something about anything under the sun. She's never seen Beijing, but speaks with the quintessential Beijing accent and exhibits the emotional maturity of a 28 year-old. I get goose pimples listening to her speak, but was told she was typical of the children of this generation (I'm feeling very old and plain right now). She sometimes gets a 98% grade on her essay, and that is not acceptable to her, as long as someone else did better. Lian lives in a very comfortable (though not luxurious) home, and is the single daughter of parents who are both teachers. She enjoys visiting her granny, who lives in the village 20 minutes away by bicycle. In fact, she used to live there. Lian may not live in a China 1+ city, but she certainly has the intellectual sophistication and talent that matches or exceeds any kid who lives in a tier-1 city.

Lian's mother, Xiao Ping, says she does not have many expectations of Lian, and that Lian is a voracious reader of her own accord. But she wished Lian was slightly more reserved in airing her opinions (although, ironically, she taught Lian to speak her mind in a bid to allow her the "freedom of speech" she herself never knew as a child). Xiao Ping sometimes uses harsh tones on Lian when she steps out of the line Yet it is from the proud beams that show on Xiao Ping's face when she talks about her child that we know her child is everything to her ¨C and Lian knows that. When her parents quarrel, she would side with her mother!

--

Sha'anxi Day 3 | The Simple Life

Life is good on the tier-2 city of Hu. An about two hours away from the bustling and chaotic city of Xi'an, this sleepy town is seeing the signs of urbanization, with a spanking new hospital sitting in the middle of town that signals a boost to the level of healthcare townsfolk will have access to. The roads are well-formed in this part of town, and the homes that reveal themselves behind deceptively decrepit-looking buildings and doors with outdated designs are out to surprise. The living is good in this town. It might be a tier-2 city, but homes are spacious, and furnished nicely with comfortable, modern furniture and a complete array of local-make electrical appliances. There doesn't seem much to do in terms of leisure, and I'm told that hiking up a nearby mountain, or a day in the nearby water theme park (if you were in a family way) would form the core entertainment there was in this town.

"The town will change. I'm sure it will bring more convenience and more things to do in one's leisure time, much like in the city. I've never thought of moving out," says Xiao Ping. "As the town develops and people return to the smaller towns, we will be able to enjoy the comforts of the 'big-city life' without the pressures and living costs of the 'big-city'. Why should I move?" Xiaoping has never been too curious about living anywhere else. She's happy to live here where life is predictable, and enjoys her life as a teacher, mother, wife and daughter. Xiaoping lives minutes away from her mother-in-law who lives in a nearby village, and the family visits the old folk every week. Just minutes away, though, life is already so different. I'm about to find out more.

--

Sha'anxi Day 3 | Le Village Chinois

Life has improved drastically for people living in the village who often live on what grows out of their own backyards. Villagers in the second village I visited are not rich, but live in a spacious environment. Simple but delicious home-cooked meals are the mainstay, and the only electric fan in the house will be in the guest room. In the heat of summer, no one uses fans. The wind, apparently, is bad for health. Some houses don't have piped water. Those that do might get polluted water piped to them. Pollution affects people without their realizing it, but they certainly realize the irritation that swarms of beetles and mosquitoes cause them when evening comes.

--

Sha'anxi Day 4 | Hu District

I walked into a bridal shop in Hu District, where at least a dozen young women were scattered around waiting idly for their next bride-to-be to walk in. They were none too excited about the fact I was foreign, but were willing to indulge me since there weren't any customers in the shop. There was an occasional woman who walked in to enquire about make-up/hairdo services. The fact they were willing to open up to was different from Xi'an, where people are generally guarded. I spoke to a young mother and several young, unmarried ladies. The general impressions were: They'd have left for the bigger cities if not for the fact that they've chosen to marry and bear children. Failing which, they're okay with the trade-off ¨C drew my attention to the fact that many big-city folk were returning to the smaller cities after they've made some money, to settle down and buy homes here. What's the point in moving out now? They predict infrastructure would improve by leaps and bounds, and the town would get more interesting when urban sprawl has spilled over. They seem knowledgeable about a lot of things. They know much about skincare (understandably), are curious about what's going on in the world (would like to travel if they have the means), and are concerned about their weight. Marriage circus ¨C marriage seems to always be triggered by a few friends getting married. Suddenly everyone feels the need to be married because there's no one to hang out with if everyone's married and you aren't.

--

Sha'anxi Day 4 | An Adventure with a Garnier Salesgirl (and her village-mates)

Nothing like doing store checks in Watsons and picking up young, innocent Garnier beauty consultants on duty. I was chatted up by Huang Ya Li at Watsons as she was trying to sell me Garnier's cleanser for oily skin. One thing led to the other and I managed to get her to exchange phone numbers. We met up for lunch a few days later, and must've managed to win her trust for she ended up bringing me to her home to Íæ ("play" ¨C which I've come to appreciate as the equivalent of "hang out"). Her room-mate was there (also a Garnier salesgirl), with another fellow-villager who'd just arrived from their hometown. Yu Han was to stay here temporarily and try to find a job in the city, and this was the norm for girls in this age group ¨C go to wherever you have friends you can bunk with while looking for employment. So we hung out at her place, which was both stuffy and exceedingly filthy, because she said she was so busy working most times there was no time to clean the place (she and her room-mates, one of whom was overseeing the sales for Garnier for the whole of Xi'an).

Fact is, I didn't believe they ever cleaned it ¨C there were empty plastic bottles strewn around the place, a waste-bin in the room that was just spilling over with rotting fruit peels and empty food wrappers. My hosts wore their shoes into their rooms and didn't care if you wore shoes on to their beds. It occurred to me that a lot of the girls who look trendy and fresh might in actual fact live very sloppily (even dirtily) at home, with a questionable sense of hygiene. That said, for an income that is at least RMB 2000 a month, they certainly could bear to spend ¨C the decrepit toilet had foreign-branded personal care products stuffed into the water pipe. When asked if she used Garnier because she was given a special staff price, she said, "No." I wondered if she bought it because then it helped add to her sales performance over any given month.

My hosts and I hit it off so well that I was invited to a home-cooked dinner, but after seeing the condition of the kitchen, I decided I was happy to admit I was a coward, and turned down the offer. The main mode of entertainment was the Internet, from which my hosts proudly showed me presentation after presentation featuring photographs of their very-scenic hometown. Despite wanting badly to see my travel photos as they wished they were as widely-traveled as me, the conversation would always veer back to, "In the south of Sha'anxi, we have these mountains/rivers/ valleys too, etc." It was evident they loved their hometown, despite having come so far to Xi'an to seek change to their lives. They pressed me to visit, and said they'd be happy to play host to me whenever I decided to come. Looking at the slideshows I couldn't say it wasn't a tempting offer. I wondered what it was like for them to live in a tiny pig-sty in the city when they could possibly be living in better conditions back in a tier-2 city or village.

The Garnier girls set up a QQ (Chinese equivalent of Skype/MSN) account for me because they badly wanted to keep in touch with me. I also helped give them English names with good meanings that fit their personalities, which thrilled them. It occurred to me that many things about me were a novelty to them just because I didn't know anything about them, and they didn't know anything about me except I was foreign (hence "exotic"), and it was an opportunity for them to explore a different world through my eyes ¨C right from their room. I learned a lot ¨C Garnier sales have sky-rocketed over the recession period, their best-ever in the Garnier's history in China. Many fashionable and wealthy-looking young ladies littered Watsons when I was there, and Huang confirmed that there were indeed many college students who were buying expensive skincare products. She certainly had no idea what the recession was because the sky-rocketing sales testify otherwise. When I was about to leave, the Garnier girls gave me a cheap multi-battery charger and a free Garnier umbrella as pledges for our newfound friendship.

When I returned to my host's place, she was amazed that I'd spent an entire day at a stranger's home and came away from presents from them. This was unheard of amongst the Chinese themselves, since they didn't trust each other.

--

Post-Sha'anxi | Of Humanity and Humility

As I was speeding away from Xi'an on an airport-bound taxi shared with three strange Chinese men, I was seized by discomfiting emotion. I had spent barely a month living in China, of which barely a week was spent in Xi'an. I needed to find out what the root of this mysterious, overpowering sense of loss was. And then it dawned on me¡­I'd been inhaling deeply the scent of Chinese humanity, and I was hooked, as a new lover was, to every breath, every word of her beloved. Wave upon wave of sentiment assailed me and ¨C rendered incapable of any form of resistance ¨C I tried to find my voice in the myriad of memories that engulfed me. How could I ever describe the look of wonderment in the village girl's eyes as she watched scenes formed a few seconds ago ¨C herself, child-playing ¨C on my digital camera? Was the town mouse better off than the country mouse? If so, why were the farmers content to indulge in their mundane, back-breaking work day after day, when their young people had given up the peace of village life in exchange for the wily lures of the big city? Socrates once said, "As for me, all I know is that I know nothing." Likewise, there are many things I fail to understand even after coming face-to-face with China in Sha'anxi. But coming to terms with my ignorance, perhaps, is the beginning of humility, and a journey of unimaginable discovery.

So I've lived here for quite a while now.

I went through my petitions list that I sent to all my friends before I came to this place, just to see how many - of the items on the long but exhaustive list - have come to pass.

It was astounding to see that almost all the items I had been asking for had been answered. Can anything be more perfect? I can only thank the One who brought me to this place and made my path straight for me.

Yes. I say "straight" despite the fact that I've met many teething pains, such as:

- Ending up in a local third-rate (read: horrendous) hospital with vertigo and being fleeced for being "laowai"
- Throwing away my keys, then failing to be patient in finding a proper locksmith and getting a bogus one (whom I couldn't communicate with - he was obviously "wai4 shen3" and spoke Chinese with the most bizarre and exotic accent that rendered it beyond comprehension) who killed the entire door and failed to fix my door handle and lock properly, and who made me pay heaps for this crap job that caused me tremendous anxiety, embarrassment and frustration
- Feeling on the edge every day on the job for the first 3 months.
- Having to pay a quarter month's rental for a duplicate period of housing when I was in hospital.
- Buying a phone that cost RMB400 more when I couldn't put other SIM cards in it - and I didn't know this.
- Having my final milk tooth fall out during breakfast on the morning I was due for Xi'an and 2 meetings with Clients. (I did eventually end up going to one of the Client meetings and entertained my Clients with my muffled mumbling. It's hard to look serious with cotton pads saturated with saliva in your mouth.)
- Fapiao fiasco. A big portion of my salary can only be redeemed with official government-issue fapiao from restaurants and laundromats. How many times can I fine-dine and do laundry a month? Everyone around me buys fapiao, which is increasingly rare given the fact that the government has recently changed its format because of the number of companies making counterfeit fapiaos, no doubt. I live by faith that I'll have enough fapiao to meet the quota each month, failing which I don't get my full pay.
- Many other little legal loopholes that are increasingly made obsolete, but have implications on me because of the fact my employment contract was drafted before legislative changes.

But there have been so many more things that I've been able to experience and learn through these experiences. If there're 2 things that China has taught me, they would be 'humanity' and 'humility'.

Humanity

People here just live with imperfections in their lives. They are fleeced by doctors without ethics in hospitals, because these are profit centers. When they get their ears chewed up at work in their manual labors, they go to a hospital, but fear getting treatment, because they know the doctors will exploit their positions of authority to enforce additional treatments they might not need. They would sooner bleed to death than pay to receive treatment - because they couldn't afford it.

They face lies everyday. No one is trustworthy, and even your friends and family would exploit you for one reason or the other. This is the souvenir from the Cultural Revolution, sure as Mao Zedong's portrait hangs above Tiananmen Square. You get ahead by exploiting the next person. Faced with lies everyday from all directions, one learns to disengage and learn self-protection by trusting no one - that saves an awful lot of time, and insulates you from the harsh realities of the environment you live in.

Humility

It is possible to be content with very little. To watch the padi grow in the fields. To live by the sunshine and moonlight, and mountain songs. We'd eat of the produce of the land, and cycle through the padi fields that yielded the harvest on our tables. It would be impossible to ignore the harmony of the various cycles of life that brings forth andn supports the existence of man. Rivers flow, and mountains sing of the grandeur of creation. The sun rises, and it sets again. People live and people die. And it is the setting the Guilin fisherman finds himself in. Whoever was it who said life was a stage? The fisherman finds himself both a player, and part of the backdrop. Rich tourists think they play the lead, beholding nature's splendor as it is laid out before them en chine. But their experience of China's natural treasures is at the mercy of the mercenary locals who live in enriched poverty. No one is better than the other.

The world in China alone is vast, and to behold such vastness puts humility in one's soul, for one comes to realize just how significant one is, when the sun sets over the rolling mounds that make Guilin's bumpy complexion, and the great beauty that is reflected off the waters that fill the padi fields cannot be bought with all the wealth in the world. It cannot be possessed by any one person, but in when the lowly man raises his eyes, he is able to take in the beauty for that moment in time. The green of the rice plants astound, and to sit and gaze in silence, to attempt to soak in and remember the shade of green that met the eye, was sacredness.

How could one not be humbled by such great beauty? How could one not be humbled by the authority, the honor of being spectator- no, participant - to nature's glory, in China?

Yes, China.

I once despised this country (and will admit that I am fearful of it though my existence at presence relies so heavily on it even now), but it has opened its treasure troves to me, begging for love and understanding. Its many faces, stern, and tender all at once, endearing one moment then hateful the next, renders me helpless one second, and exhilarates me the next. I cannot decide if I love, or hate it. And for the way this place makes me feel, I cannot help but be humbled - I am lost in its arms.

I'd like to try to sum up all the things China has become to me in a single paragraph.

I'd like to clarify my emotions where China is concerned.

But I'm at a loss for words when I try. I'm frustrated that I fail to articulate myself, and all the words that somehow find themselves in my musing border on being ponderous and clumsy.

And for want of a better way to express myself, I must needs end.

It's been years.

I remembered I'd a blog when I thought about how I was to keep in touch with my friends in view of the impending exodus. I felt I should revive this blog, although I wasn't sure if I was going to allow people to read it freely although it seems a feasible idea - now I even get to upload pictures here, which I never got to do years ago when I started this.

Revisiting this blog was a journey - a journey to see how far I had gone, and how much I had changed.

I'm pleased to see I have moved along quite well, and am prepared to enter into a new stage in my life, just as I'd started this blog when I was about to move out from the stage of my life in Taipei.

Here's to a new life, and a resurrected blog!

 

Dear A., Thank you for the utterances of appreciation, both for my reply and my perspective on the matter of faith. In between filling in the blasted Timesheet from Hell invented my beloved company to hold us accountable for every minute we spend on the job and waiting 5 blinking hours for the webpage to load every time, I decided to fool myself into enjoying it by pretending I’m actually writing to you and only doing the Timesheet thing in between when I so remember. I’ve not filled the T from H for a month or so, so you can imagine what pure torture means at this point. I’ve to go back to each receipt, look at the date the expense or time incurred, and guess at what I’d been up to 4 weeks ago. It’s a wonder, at the rate we live our lives, that we can remember anything that happens the day before, much less what happens 4 weeks ago. It makes me wonder if I have a bad memory or that I have been filling up my days with inane, senseless activity that is time-consuming, and mind-numbing so much so that I’ve lost track of what I was doing. A friend told me about a book he’d read lately on the “Continuous Partial Attention Syndrome”, which was about the multi-tasking world of today where one could be typing an email, listening to the radio, watching the tv, having a phone conversation AND an internet messaging at the same time, while working on a project and wolfing down a burger. Scientists have found that by doing this, we actually end up less productive, although the impression is that we’ve packed more into our time. It reminds me of the Japanese meal I had today. It was a set meal, and consisted sashimi, smoked lotus root, udon, futomaki and other sushi, and fruit. I had the feeling I had so much to engage me in, so much so that lunchtime conversation had been compromised (my companion had also ordered a set meal and was busily attacking hers – she had a heftier job on hand: smaller portions, greater variety). I felt that I was eating a lot. Yet, for some strange reason, I hadn’t felt satisfied at the end of the meal. I think this is a great allegory for the “Continuous Partial Attention Syndrome”. You’re doing so much, and yet, nothing seems to get done. You don’t particularly remember any dish. You only remember you were engaged. Tragic, innit? And here I am, typing an email to you, listening to music, and trying to submit my Timesheet (from Hell). The irony of it all. By the way, I went to bed at only 4.15am this morning, only to wake up 3 and a half hours later to rush to work. We’d a business pitch today. An important one – the first one of the year, and I worked on it till late. I got half a day off from my boss, but I didn’t come back to rest. Sat down instead to finish some administrative work and write to you. I felt I was in the mood to write, you see. It might be the jazz, it might be the time of the night, or it might be the whole sleep deprived psyche that makes is conducive to the waxing of lyrical. Do you get this way sometimes? When you don’t get enough sleep? I thank you, in turn, for your discourse on faith, which I thought was immensely interesting as well. But I have to say, unlike you, I refuse to let another human being get in the way of something I deem good (why should he get in my way? He is only human, and destined to fail but for divine intervention – just like me) and worthy of worship. The issue always boils down to one thing: faith – and a living one at that. Faith is the substance for which we hope, though it we cannot see. There is no way to rationalise it. And once you’ve felt it for yourself, you know it to be real. I could convince you with the most eloquent of words, but they would count for nothing if they were not said out of love, or out of a highest regard for Him who presides. For all the ones that claimed they had faith, yet stumbled you in your youth and discouraged you, the apostle James says to them, “Show me your faith without works, and I’ll show you my faith by my deeds.” In essence, the culmination of faith in a person results in a dramatic change for the better, the absence of which suggests (though it doesn’t confirm) the absence of faith – a living, active, exercised, robust, faith. We can all be given gifts, but those who like their gifts and choose to use it will reap consequences different from those who received the same gift and rejected it, thought little of it, or failed to see how they could be of use. I am a peaceful contrarian of establishments, but a contrarian nonetheless. I would think we are similar in this respect. But it is this lack of respect for the earthly systems of administrating justice and righteousness (for they have all failed in their ways) that propels me to lift up my eyes to the Ultimate Bar. For without what was set in place from the beginning, we would not have had a notion that what we had was lacking in any sense. We wouldn’t be able to criticise it against the Ideal. So I reach for the stars. Or rather – the One who made them. Do you still deem “joie de vivre” an apt label pour moi? I rest my case. We don’t have necessarily have to agree to make great friends. By the way, you might be interested to know that I have recently started attending a counselling course. I’m being groomed as a counsellor, that is, not that I’ve been found suicidal or anything. So I attended my first class last night. I was half an hour late for class, and when I arrived I found myself surrounded by a sea of rather uninspiring people. I realized that one didn’t need intellect to be a counsellor, and I told this to my dad this morning, to which he replied, “It’s the stupidest people who make the best counsellors.” I thought about it. His rationale was that they were so un-intellectual that they could sit there and listen, they do not try to impose their views on anyone. They wouldn’t get emotionally involved with the troubles that belonged to someone else either because they probably wouldn't think they were there to solve the problem (which is really the right way to approach counselling). It was instantly against this that I felt that I was ill-qualified to be in the class for I, for all my joie de vivre, have very strong convictions and values that I tend to urge people to adopt because I’ve seen how they have served me well. I make the worst kind of counsellor also because I find that I am more apathetic that empathetic, which is obviously the nobler quality of the two. My only consolation is that 50% of the course grade will be based on 2 solo assignments, which means I don’t have to work in a group, which I can do, but is not of first preference. That is a cover-up, actually. I am not good with group work. I either become the ultimate slacker/procrastinator, or the ultimate soloist. I wish I wasn’t a person of such extremes. I’m discovering with the passing of each minute that I’m not really suited to counselling. Ah, speaking of extremes. Does it not seem like I sometimes write never, then when I write, I go on forever? It never rains but pours, they say. Pour some, A., soon, if you will. Yours, i.

Went to watch Lei Yu - or what they've contemporarily named Thunderstorm - last night.

We seem to be improving as a country. The show was full. Barring the fact there were the usual crowds of pretentious people, the gl-bts one'd expect at the scene, there were sufficient of the 'leftovers' (read: cultural appreciators - the old-timers) and the occasional mavericks like Poo and Kids. This means we are, for different motivations, trying to be a more culturally appreciative nation. And the effort's appreciated. By me, at least.

It was obvious that not many were there for the love of theater, or knew how to appreciate it because after it ended, no one discussed it, like the task-oriented people we are who more concerned with finishing a viewing, then moving on to the next task - getting home.

You don't get that from me though.

Unfortunately.

I've paid for my right to critique the efforts. And in a short phrase, I'd give it only a 6 out of 10. The highlights were evident - the character, Da Hai stole the thunder. He had presence, and depth. He played his role well, and seemed to ooze chemistry and energy to compensate for the sluggishness of his counterparts. For the simple reason that the Director wasn't able to handle the climaxes in the story well. The pace turned out blockish, at best, and it was either speeding, or road hogging, according to the blocks, that were the Acts of the play. There was insufficient milking of the twists in the plot, and most characters came across as one-dimensional. Worse, they were like sand - awkwardly placed in a plate, with nothing to tie them together except for the fact they're on the same plate, or play.

The quality of the acting, I feel, or the lack of it, reflects badly on the Director, whom Dee said should've been responsible for actor immersion in the era. He feels they feel like a frayed tapestry because the Director hadn't done sufficient characterisation and immersion, and there was a general lack of understanding on the actors' part of the background. I don't know if that's the root cause but I agree on the symptoms. Needless to say, we all hated to death the prologue and the epilogue of the play. Contrived, and plain bad acting. They should just scrap the scenes if they couldn't find the actors who could carry them off, because the playwright's intentions're good, but the Director's inability to handle them magnified the weaknesses in an inherently poor execution.

The script, on its own, saved the entire play. If not for the sheer brilliance of the plot, and the emotionally-wrenching subject of family, there's no way I'd have given a 6. The cast covered its function by, err, at least communicating, or at least reminding me what the story was about.

I already read the book. And I remember what gross brilliance it was, how gritty it made me feel on completing it, and, much as I hated it, I had to applaud it for its mastery of emotions and the marvellous set-up of the dysfunction, embellished with meteorological symbolism that was expert in milking emotions that were already created by the plot. Yes, I can say I resent how the story makes me feel, but I have to salute its genius.

If I ask myself, could I have pulled off directing or acting in this play? I'd say acting, perhaps, not directing, simply because I've not been trained. But were I to have the chance, I'd sure as hell do tons of research to understand the era.

Now critique aside, I can't deny I got something out of the night - but this's only because I'm revisiting it, I'd've gotten the same if I'd read the book a second time. The themes were interesting. That of karma, the lost state of humanity, destiny, parenting, and obviously, sexual immorality - without which, the entire play would have no anchor.

Life is a cacophony of consequences, the results of decisions we made, set against time.

If anything, the feeling Lei Yu gave me is very similar to the feeling Infernal Affairs gave me - that of a never-ending bad karma that victims, struggling as they do, are thrust deeper into the abyss of a never-ending limbo, with no light at the end of the tunnel, sending sin into deeper recesses through successive, yet regressive generations.

Very gritty.

There is a hapless and helpless apathy that entwines in a way that deepens the sense of tragedy. It raises the question of whether one can break out of the chains of never-ending consequence, and whether, if one had done right by their children, and done right by themselves, that all this would've been prevented. That in turn raises the question of how it would be possible to have known what consequences would come about, and whether knowing, in itself, would act as a strong-enough deterrent of current actions. And, in the first place, how would it be possible to find out what was wrong, or right?

How apt an ending, then.

Almost all the characters who played a hand in creating or receiving karma either killed themselves (electrocution, no less), or were driven to lunacy - except for the main initiator of sin, the father, who started it all by first sleeping with his maid. He alone remains oblivious to the state of affairs through self-delusion, and, till the end, is clueless about why the dark, murky mess happened. I can actually say he's "blissfully unaware" of the sin that he's passed down through generations, or the fact that it was due to him that they had to suffer the consequences of his previous sins.

Damned children.

Damned from ignorance and a false hope in the possibility of earthly "happiness". It is then no surprise that the only characted who exhibited some sense of wisdom (Da Hai, no less) was the only one who was spared the knowledge of the great wrong - and was the only one who had a chance at a life. This is a thesis against the mindless leisure of the rich and aimless. We see the same mess created by the French monarchy and the bourgeois (remind me again the "whys" behind the French Revolution). Left to their own will, they are incapable of saving themselves - never mind money, power, status and good looks.

So I rest my case.

If it's provoked thought, then it was good for something.

I wrote a letter to the Empress over the weekend because Loverbabe came over to my place, and she came up in conversation again.

It never fails, when someone has made an impact on your life, that you can't stop talking about that person, or recalling fondly all the things that person has been (or is) to you.

It occurred to me that we are the product of life's experiences, and there's nothing that influences us more than the company we keep.

It's very clear, talking to me, that my influences are predominantly, Dee, the Empress, Big Beard, and Cubes. Of the 4 nominees, 2 are female, and 2 male. The 2 females have startling similarities, that I have only noticed lately, are strikingly similar. I guess certain qualities in people are hot buttons for me - a rather cold demeanor, and the ability to distance oneself from people, and the expression of emotions, which I feel is, many times, corrosive. Yes, I have a corrosive personality, something that sometimes destroys whoever I touch. Something that injures whoever I touch.

There are levels of acidity.

On days when I'm filled with joy from above, the alkalinity neutralizes the acidity in me, and I come across as rather pleasant to people, even refreshing, and thirst-quenching.

I think that's the way we were made to be, if only I would seek that neutral disposition more, and in a more dedicated way.

It says a lot, of the 4 Greatest Influencers, 3 of them are Christian.

I only wish one day I would be one such influence in someone else's life.

I was cleaning out my shelves today, and I found some of my old watches that didn't work anymore.

Chancing upon my these artefacts of time when I'd forgotten they existed surprised me. 2 out of 3 of those watches were given to me by Dee. If not for the fact they were given to me by Dee, I'd have thrown them away immediately.

My question is, what do you do with things of sentimental value who have completely lost their primary purpose? Or were their main purpose in quantifying this thing called "sentimental value", and their role in being keepers of time, secondary (or unnecessary)?

Being the sop that I am, it's not surprising that I stashed the bag of old watches into another one of my Tupperwares that I stashed away in an obscure corner, thrusting dead time into their new cycle of obsolescence.

I know what I'm waiting for. I'm waiting for the day when I chance upon them again, remembering for an intant this familiar struggle, so that I can go through the entire decision process again, and hoping that I can at last sever the emotional ties with that bag of time - that bag of dead time.

How much, is sentimental value worth? Is it worth real estate space in a room that is becoming claustrophobic with the accumulation of sentimentality? And doesn't the accumulation of all this sentimentality result in an oversupply situation? Meaning, does sentimental value drop in its worth when there's an excessive amount of it?

I don't have an answer.

And the pile in my room keeps growing.

Am at Loverbabe's for popiah and am using her new Lenovo laptop, which seems pretty good so far. I mean, it's got a camera built-in, but I've come to think that it's a hygiene factor on computers.

Where've I been, really?

In the time I've gone missing, I can't quite remember the events that have flashed past oh-so quickly, but there was a part of it, 3 weeks, that I've spent in Italy with Kids. It was awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Although it was strange that I no longer feel, feel the wonder of being in another country, the wonder of being in a strange land. It's no longer the way it used to be.

I used to be happy, to want to get away. To yearn to return even before I left. To yearn to belong, before I even arrived.

I think I've grown staid, and started to grown too comfortable. In Singapore.

And I fear this state I'm in. This lethargy, this unwillingness to upset the equilibrium that I am in.

I don't feel young anymore.

And I don't know whether if it's because I've started work. I don't know if it's because I've ceased to care about discovery because my work is all about that. Something has died in me, and the wonders of the world wring admiration from me easily enough, but that's all I am willing to give on acquaintance.

The question perhaps, should be, how should I be feeling?

How do things change?

And why does change terrorize me?

I think I know the answer.

It's not the change itself that frightens me, but the fact that I had failed to see it happening that gets to me.

I used to hang on to that hope that one day I'd spread my wings and fly, fly, fly out of Singapore. It used to be that hope that kept me going.

But somewhere along the way, I've traded it in for a vacuum - a limbo of ceaseless activity - meaningless, dark and suffocating.

At this same time in the evening every single evening, the neighbor's kid practices her piano.

It's funny how I always get taken aback when the notes start to drift through the still air of the night, into my room, since it happens every night, and I'm conscious of it. But something like that (maybe because I'm distracted) still is like a cool breeze that blows against my face when I least expect it.

It's the same song every night, and the notes could be totally unemotive for all I knew, but something about the suddenness of the music notes soothing the restless silence of the night is just such a welcome break, against the chaotic peals of childish laughter from the monsters next door.

The only problem is, something this beauteous is always ruinous of the equilibrium of tranquility I thought I'd attained for the evening.

This is always so quickly upset when the piano starts to play, and the memories of the things that once were flood my mind again.

I wish my sentiments weren't such a slut, so easily seduced by the semblance of music in the neighborhood - why, even the sound of mahjong tiles played on a table is sufficient to wring the appreciation of commonplace beauty from me! - because I miss the walks of solitude around the neighborhood that have since become fatalistic for me.

There's something very naive about the beauty of my neighborhood in the night.

Kids and I always used to take walks together around this neighborhood whenever she was back for a vacation. And I can see this becoming a regular feature once she's back for good in a few months.

How time flies, she is soon to graduate.

We used to observe the passage of time when we took our walks and observed that certain houses in the neighborhood had been demolished, or were undergoing construction, or had whose construction had been completed. Those signaled the passage of time.

There is so much to learn from observing a person's house, his front yard, and his back yard. How our possessions tell a story of the kind of people we are. Consciously, or unconsciously. Just like how people choose the cars they drive.

I suddenly come to the realisation that the kind of information I'm letting on about myself could prove fatalistic in time. But I don't think I'm in control of the situation - I read like an open book anyway, there's no need to hide the little person inside from that attention - who's givng me any of that anyway?

What a lot of waxed lyrical. Or lyrical wax.

Which is it?

Whatever it is, it's amazing - all this started with some notes I heard in the night.