Archive for March, 2007
right before i stepped on the plane, i felt this sense of panic. pure scary cold panic. i couldnt focus on anything - the attendant asked me for my boarding pass twice, and i heard her, but i just couldnt comprehend what the hell she was saying. i had to shake myself out of my thoughts and peel all the fright off my skin before it became clear what it was she wanted from me. boarding pass…? what? oh.. right. right.. right. um, boarding pass. uh, here.
before the plane took off i tried to watch my newly-torrented episode of Heroes, but once again i couldnt concentrate. it was the weirdest feeling, i didnt know what it was that kept disturbing my train of thought - but i felt as if i should be putting everything away and taking out pen and paper and working out the solution to some problem, instead of sitting here watching fucking Heroes. but how could i?? i didnt even know what the problem was!
the problem, along with its solution, only came to me when i was watching Deja Vu. y’know, that Denzel Washington show about going back into the past to stop crimes before they happen.. yea that one. at some point in between the stewardess refilling my glass of diet coke (yes i am going to die from aspartame poisoning one day) and my 2nd bathroom trip, i just suddenly knew i had the answer to my dormant problem. it wasnt a Eureka! or a Yatta! moment - no jumping out of seats or any bulbs lighting up.. but it was a new, quiet, contented peace of mind that let me know i could breathe once again.
to linger a little on the subject of randomness (which is now a touchy topic with me) - i guess it can be said that it was due to chance that i decided to watch Deja Vu and subsequently got the solution to my problems. see the thing is, on my flight to HK, i saw in the inflight magazine that they would be showing Ho Yuhang’s Raindogs on my flight back. needless to say i was ecstatic, because Raindogs is a movie i want to watch badly but have not been able to obtain till now. but then when i boarded this flight, i found that Channel 23, the channel that’s supposed to be showing Raindogs, was not working. what the..?! frustrated, i switched to Channel 5, which was showing Deja Vu. and watching Deja Vu was how i got my epiphany. chance? fate? i dont know. but thank you, Cathay Pacific Airways for having a wrecked Channel 23.
i feel like i’ve grown a little bit older. i understand things now that i didnt understand 3 hours ago. for instance, the fact that there are just some situations beyond my control, situations that i have to learn to move away from. and that i cannot be such a perfectionist and expect everything to be all hearts and flowers, or the way i want them to be. shit exists, pasts exist, mistakes happen. i finally understand, but most importantly, i finally accept.
right now, half the plane is bursting into laughter simultaneously. they’re all watching this comedy, and they’re all laughing like crazy. i dont mean laughing like a soft chuckle behind the hand; i mean full-on, belly-wobbling, uproarious, bellowing laughter. i’m a little bit jealous that i cant partake in a slice of their happy pie. because i dont know which comedy they’re watching. i guess i could ask them, but i’m lazy to, and i dont want to interrupt their entertainment.
and besides, i have my torrented version of Heroes. yatta!
6.13pm, CX 724.
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some photos from the weekend :
toilets on the street in Causeway Bay - no need to pay 20sen wan
an umbrella maker’s stand on Peel St! oh, the quaintness of it all! the orange sign says, ‘Ho Hee Kee Umbrella - in Hong Kong since 1947′. above the sign are newspaper articles and awards certificates for the umbrella maker :O
an old man happy to be sitting around in socks reading newspapers
i am Clark Kent
at the carnival in Central!
Martian terrorising Sylvester -____-
cute or not the giraffe!!!
awwwww
more addictive carnival games
=)
March 20th, 2007
you know how they say, ‘i felt like i had the wind knocked out of me’ - well that’s as succinct and as precise as it gets.
we all need an identity. i’ve never been the sort of person who allows other people to tell me what i am. but right now i feel like the slice of lemon floating on the surface of my diet coke. i feel like one of the few hundred gossip and fashion magazines on the white shelves directly opposite me. i feel like any face on the street, like some girl on Friendster. what’s the word for it… random. random is the word. you know how everyone likes to say they’re random? “i’m totally random,” they will exclaim. or “i say the most random things!”. well, i hate it. dont fucking tell me i’m random. dont fucking say i’m random. i was not a product of chance, and i am most certainly not your random chick.
no one is random. no one is that disposable. no one is “just a..” anything.
March 19th, 2007
this time, i did not leave behind any mobile phone chargers (may last year) or used underwear (two weeks ago) in the Merlion City. what i DID leave behind however : a newly-purchased Jaga Jazzist tshirt and Amir Muhammad’s Lelaki Komunis Terakhir, the former being a lovely yellow colour reminiscent of lemons and the latter being a discovery so amazing i swear it felt archaeological. both items are in Dodgy Tim’s bag, and i will probably have to bribe him to get them back. because he’s dodgy like that!
pictures from the past 4 days :
going mad at Max Brenner. chocolate debauchery!!!
the original Milo Dinosaur (the drink ah, not me ah..) and the original Friendster act-cute angle
Joo Chiat Road, where the best popiah and the best durian puffs in the world can be found
bicycle stunts that almost killed me
HAHA!! dont play play ah!!!
hehe me and Phua Chu Kang’s colleague
emo-ing outside my hotel room
HAHAHA
damn cute ducks!!!
me and the damn cute ducks
me and Ming’s gigantic dog
me and Ming’s gigantic teddy bear
me and Ming doing ballet on grass
koi ponds are good places to meditate next to, especially if there is a tree behind you and a fish net to your left
the COOLEST ice cream flavours in the world - teh tarik and pulut hitam!
okay the end. gotta teman Martian watch some movie. if i dont, then he’ll sulk at me. and we dont want that, do we!
March 17th, 2007
The first time we were introduced to Orked in Sepet, she was a spunky 17 year old on the edges of a starcrossed relationship with a Chinese DVD peddler. Then we saw her in Gubra, all grown up and married, but to a person she didn’t love.
In Yasmin Ahmad’s latest film, Mukhsin, we see Orked again, but this time we are brought back to her childhood. In this third movie, we are whisked away from Orked’s problems with her husband, distracted from her fleeting encounter with aforementioned DVD peddler’s brother, and lifted gently away from her timeless love with Jason.
In Mukhsin, we are narrated the story of Orked’s first ever love. Because, as the tagline of the movie goes, everyone has a first love story to tell.
Orked is 10 when she meets Mukhsin, who is 2 years older than her. After trying and failing yet again to fit in with the village girls who spend all their time playing brides and grooms and other saccharide girly games, she goes to the field to watch the boys play ball. ‘Pick Orked to play with us,’ say the boys to newcomer Mukhsin, who is in town only to visit his aunt over the school holidays. ‘She can play like a boy’. Not believing this, Mukhsin throws a ball at Orked in an attempt to suss her out. In true Orked spirit, she flings it back at him defiantly. From that brief interaction, the simplest and most innocent of loves unfolds.
To adults, young children’s puppy loves are always a small and negligible speck in the grand scheme of things, but Mukhsin succeeds in taking this small speck and magnifying it into an all-consuming emotion that spills into infinity. We are drawn into the believability of Orked’s and Mukhsin’s nervousness as they toe the fine line between friendship and love, and their little displays of warmth towards each other remind us that sincerity still exists in this real world of cynicism and ulterior motives. From the screen, these two children reach into our hearts and push us backward into our own experiences of a time when we knew nothing but blissful innocence.
As audience, we can’t help but be moved as we watch their adolescent relationship blossom. It is a bud that blossoms into another bud, never becoming a flower, yet you know that things have changed and will never be the same again.
Besides the main theme of young love, the movie also deals with secondary issues. One of them is the duality of human nature. Mukhsin has an older brother, who in any society would be dubbed the ’sampah masyarakat’ individual who is beyond change and does not deserve help. But we later see that he has deep-rooted issues he doesnt have the capacity to control, and at the very core of his being is simply a childlike yearning to be loved.
We also have Orked’s neighbour, who is a typical gossipy ‘kampung aunty’ who hurls caustic remarks at her neighbours. However, she cuts a sorry figure by the end of the movie, having her own problems to face as well. After witnessing the length of her sad tale, we simply cannot find it in ourselves to go on disliking her. Instead, we symphatize and we finally understand why she is the way she is. In the words of Yasmin Ahmad who wrote and directed this movie : “I don’t want anyone to hate any character in Mukhsin. In the end, even the bad neighbours can be worthy of love. God wants us to forgive.”
On the other hand, her good guys aren’t perfect either. Just as the bad guys have their hidden redeeming qualities, her protagonists have flaws as well; as seen in Orked’s family who rake up debts so big that their furniture is repossessed. Even the kind and jolly Kak Yam, always friendly and comforting, has a tendency of harbouring narrow-minded thoughts.
Mukhsin is also a film about second chances. Subtle events in the movie such as the return of Orked’s cat and the arrival of new furniture at the end underscore the beauty and unexpectedness of God’s grace. Just when we think we should stop hoping, He gives us another shot at making things right.
As always, there are feel-good messages in Mukhsin about racial harmony, this time analogized in the form of melted chocolate and cow’s milk. When asked about her strange method of making ice cream, Kak Yam replies : “I do it like this so that there is the bitter taste of chocolate, then the separate sweet taste of milk, but ultimately also the bittersweet taste of chocolate mixed with milk. That is when ice cream tastes the best.”
The chalk message on the blackboard in little Orked’s room reads, “I prefer playing with boys”. But while her little declaration is seemingly displayed for all to see; she writes it in Chinese, so that all may not understand. The movie, however, is nothing like that. It lays everything out so honestly, that even a deaf person watching it can immediately discern the humanism in each and every scene. While I was watching the movie, I thought it was pretty amazing that Mukhsin won over the judges at the recent Berlin International Film Festival, seeing how the setting of the movie is so quintessentially Malaysian and the subtitles don’t really reflect the dimension of the scenes. But then I realized that the messages in Mukhsin - love, forgiveness, communion, hope and sacrifice - are universal. One doesn’t have to be Malaysian to appreciate the inspiration behind Mukhsin.
If Sepet was onde-onde and Gubra was kuih lapis, then Mukhsin is white rice. Freshly cooked, fluffy, white rice put on a plate and disantap with clean fingers. Yes… that would be Mukhsin.
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okay that’s my poorly-written review. sorry ah very long winded. some other blahblahblah that did not fit in : Sharifah Aryana who plays the young Orked is an excellent child actress that i cannot wait to see more work from. Mohd Syafie carried his role of Mukhsin well enough - his shyness and awkwardness came together nicely to produce a very sincere and real 12 year old. the keroncong music was such a special touch! and i loved the cameo scenes with you-know-who and you-know-who! it was so beautifully dreamlike and surreal … now i want to ride bikes and fly kites in Kuala Selangor paddy fields. sigh!
(note : i wish the pictures were mine but they are not. photos courtesy of Grand Brilliance and Media Prima)
and i oso want to put up this pic of Yasmin Ahmad coz it’s very funny :
March 15th, 2007
after one too many of those ice cream wafer bar things you find all over Orchard Road, i figured i’d recuperate from the dairy overdose by eating something totally wholesome and carbohydratey. but alas, the gods of healthy eating do not smile down on me; as destiny would have it, i found myself inadvertently walking past NYDC. what is NYDC, you ask? “a dessert lover’s paradise on earth”, says a glowing Straits Time review on their wall. well, I’M a dessert lover! paradise on earth sounds good to me. and indeedy, their Cookie Monster Mudpie does not disappoint.
i told myself i wouldnt bring my laptop to singapore. 4 days is a short time - it should be spent in the company of my wacky friends in singapore instead of exasperatedly hunting down free wifi. but i took a look at my planner and started to panic - the end of the month is too close for comfort! must. finish. everything. i. have. to. do!!! even if it means sitting in a Dessert Lover’s Paradise On Earth (got free wifi also, yay! but no electric powerpoint, boo!) staring at a gazillion word documents and typing away frantically, when i could be wading through the bowels of Chinatown (which i love) or exploring the little shops on River Valley Road. sigh. maybe next time, singapore, maybe next time.
oh and look! the ice cream vendor i took a photo with last year is still around! i took a pic with him again :
at this point i just need some inspiration. i’ve been having some kind of mental block lately, and it’s not helping my productivity any. sigh! where is my muse?! it’s certainly not chocolate anymore. i hit Max Brenner for some chocolate debauchery last night with tim after catching Yo La Tengo (which was an awesome concert btw), but instead of feeling inspired all i wanted to do was sleep.
and so i slept, and i had a weird dream. it was weird because it wasnt weird. had it really happened in real life, it would have blended in perfectly with everyday occurences. it just wasnt dreamlike, you know? when i woke up, i thought there was no way that could have been a dream - it was too normal and too precise. no hurtling down endless spaces, or driving fast cars with strangers, or going home to a place that i know in my dream as home but is not really home. there was none of that. it was all very sensible and probable. i even reacted in my dream the way i would react in real life. so i woke up thinking that i was just remembering something that happened last week or something. but then when i was more lucid i realized that no, this never happened in real life. it was all in fact just a dream. so why do i feel so invaded?
dont know lah. im just glad that this time i remembered to bring money to singapore. the last time i was here i forgot to bring money, haha. and did i mention that i have achieved something that i never would have thought was possible?! this is : i came here for a 4-day stay with 1 backpack. that’s it. just one. and … only one pair of shoes.
i am a new woman!
March 13th, 2007
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