Trivial

The trivialitites of my life, without which would mean a hollow emptiness:

Buy new sandals/winter jacket/underwear for the daughter because we are going back to Singapore this weekend and winter will almost be at our doorstep when we return.

Buy necessities for the trip because I am now used to certain German toiletries. One example is the Proschmelz toothpaste (which removes plaque effectively!) as opposed to the Darlie one I grew up with.

Mental note to self not to acquire new summer clothes to strut around the Lion City as hot summer days here in this country have become almost non-existent.

Get a prepaid data plan for Singapore while I resist the temptation to have one in Germany. I am a living contradiction.

Prepare my body with smoothies and salads (in vain because I have been ditching that diet in favour of a bout of carbo indulgence: pasta soaked in homemade pesto or shrimp noodles drenched in hae bee hiam) before stuffing my face with greasy deliciousness.

Anticipating grudgingly the clinging humidity that awaits me, us.

Can't wait to see my family and friends. I really do miss them.

I certainly did not expect this spur-of-the-moment frivolity would bring tears to the eyes. Writing is indeed an evidence of love, as beautifully explained by Anne Lee Tzu Pheng in this interview excerpt:

Q: What inspires you? In life and in writing.

A: Love. Because it makes you want to give, and learn, through giving, how to receive. Love is at the root of creative writing: writing is a giving of yourself to the Other, to the world through expressing the human. Human beings need to know what they are, what their world is, and the writer uses language to open up, to activate, both the desire to know and the things worth knowing.

 

 

Lamenting

I was lamenting to friends it takes far too long for editors to reply these days and a brief discussion ensued if sharing my writings on social media wouldn't be more effective and faster. I am all for sharing good stuffs. Other people's good stuffs, that is. As the friend puts it, 'You are a young writer with an old soul.' I can't agree more. I am a young writer who is still in search of her own voice and style. I have a lot to learn and like a grandstander, I crave for applause, not from friends who are often too kind to criticise, but from experienced writers who possess the expertise to cast my lesser writings to the bin and said no to the face of my email. Mostly, I starve for criticism to improve and be better. I do not want to swim in my little well and fantasize that I am good enough because I know I am not. I discover however a rejection is also a form of criticism. A wordless silent kind of criticism. A recent rejection is living proof of that theory. It doesn't feel good to be rejected of course but at least it spurned me on to work harder in order to gain the acknowledgment I yearn. This is the path I have chosen and no matter how rough and long the path may be, I cannot turn back or it would be a sort of betrayal and lie to myself and my family.

But why do I need someone else's stamp of approval on my works? If the simple act of writing sometimes brings tears to my eyes and a shudder down my spine, isn't that good enough for me? Yes and no. Yes because I am grateful beyond words that I find joy while writing. It really does feel like an inner calling, nevermind the cliche (ok, it makes me flinch a little writing that) And no because maybe I feel people-pleasing is the way to go in this attention-seeking world and I am part of this superficial age and it simply feels good to be acknowledged. Apologies, I just can't help being contradicting.

Still I refuse to believe Bukowski's

'if you have to sit there and

rewrite it again and again,

don’t do it.'

even though I love his raw honest writings to bits.

 

Rhyme of Intolerance

She puts the eggs, carrots, apples into her bag.

She tries to count her cents to round up her change but got snapped

Because she isn't good with numbers and the ways of this western trap.

Face to face, she senses the all-too-familiar indifference and like a tight cord around her neck it wraps.

What has she done to receive such ungraciousness yet again, is something she can't get.

Out of habit, she pulls at her headscarf and with a silent sigh, returns to the solace that is her child and pet.

 

 

A touch of the old

I am shoe-crazy. My heart beats for anything called boots, ballerinas, sneakers, oxfords, brogues, heels. They give me a joy which I refuse to sacrifice for the well-being of my bank account balance.

Only recently, I gleefully took the lid off a shoe box and in it was a shining new pair of penny loafers. Sleek leather with a smart look. When was the last time I wore penny loafers? Possibly at least 20 years ago! This old trend is now new again. I love their androgynous aesthetics and wish I could wear the shoes right away (thinking, wrongly again, they would make me look more preppy than Alexa Chung). And did I tell you the shoes were on sale?!

I was eager to show them off to the world. But to my gut-wrenching dismay, I learned that as my feet slipped into the shoes, the particularly stiff leather would give me blisters. Very bad blisters. I wasn't going to return them however. No way. I scoured the net for clever advices on breaking in classic loafers the painless way and found one: wear the shoes with socks at home until the leather softens. Your feet gets the royal treatment without any blistering notes. Perfect!

That's what I have been secretly up to in the mornings while I prepare my breakfast, cook and go about my daily chores. The leather is indeed softer now but it's not yet an everyday flat and certainly not ready to meet my bare feet just yet.

Even so, I am patient.

That same day I received the shoes, I stared at them for a long time and then lovingly put the timeless classic back into the box and hid it (from the man. Hehe...) in my cupboard, like a hoarding squirrel.

Solitude and creativity

Karl Lagerfeld said this in Lagerfeld Confidential:

'People who do a job that claims to be creative have to be alone to recharge their batteries. You can’t live 24 hours a day in the spotlight and remain creative. For people like me, solitude is a victory.'

And recently in Brain Pickings, Bukowski was quoted:

'When failures gather together in an attempt at self-congratulation, it only leads to a deeper and more, abiding failure. The crowd is the gathering place of the weakest; true creation is a solitary act.'

Which inspires me to dump more quotes on solitude and creativity:

Organizations for writers palliate the writer’s loneliness but I doubt if they improve his writing. - Ernest Hemmingway

Artists work best alone. - Steve Wozniak

One can be instructed in society, one is inspired only in solitude. - Goethe

Without great solitude no serious work is possible. - Picasso

I love my me-time but that doesn't always translate into productive work. Tsk tsk tsk.

A rejected work

I bought an old issue of Der Greif only because I know a particular local editor's work is in it. And I am not disappointed. Just her poem alone is worth every penny I paid. It blew me away by capturing love with its soulfulness and grace, another evidence of this writer's wisdom and creativity. I read and reread the poem again and again and was of course extremely inspired to be just like her. Well, we all have our heroes, don't we?

Greatly motivated, I, too, wrote a poem (what else) and submitted it to the same magazine. Naturally it wasn't accepted after a long wait of many months. That would be too good to be true. Yet, I wasn't all that disappointed. I have somehow learned that, yes, to see my writing in print is absolutely thrilling, but even if it doesn't get accepted, that does not and cannot take away the joy of bleeding my heart and soul and expressing them in the right words and ways which the mood then feels fit. Writing makes me feel alive. Getting published does not.

So here I am, very pleased to share with you this poem:

Two sides of a coin

White is the silent snow soaking up sounds, and the oriental concrete jungle bustling.

Black is the numbing hole smothering, and the crowning glory selling out not.

Green is the red hot passion dwindling, and the tree of family living on.

Blue is the mighty and poison pen inditing, and the gay cotton clouds floating

Red is the green-eyed monster clawing, and the fiery chilli padi battling.

Yellow is the invisible wall of discriminating, and the undertone of my skin glowing.

Orange is the fake tan and bleach blonde exploiting, and the warmth of Chinese New Year treats reminiscing.

Violet is the decadence and decay resurrecting, and the warpaint on my face tingling.

Grey is the grunge gone dead, and the blank canvas of my glad rags screaming.

Silver is the currency warring, and the armour of my tender soul defending.

Gold is the rags to riches hankering, and the innocence and laughter of my child inspiring.

 

Mom with foreign background

Lee Ang's Pushing Hands not only evoked a strange sense of warmth and familiarity, it also left me deeply touched, with the memory of the film still vivid and fresh in my head even after many days of watching it. It probably has something to do with the third-generation child who's born to Chinese and American parents, which resonates with me naturally because of my daughter. An innocent scene of the child-actor refusing to use chopsticks and requesting for his usual American food instead of eating his Chinese meal touches a raw nerve with me.

Sometimes a tinge of sadness wells up inside me at the thought that my little girl will probably not get to know the culture which her mother grew up in. Ancient Chinese tales and folklores such as 花木兰 (Hua Mulan), 屈原 (Qu Yuan), 后羿射日 (Hou Yi She Ri), 司马光 (Si Ma Guang) would seem as alien to her, as would stories of Roman gods and goddesses to me. While she speaks and understands the Chinese language, it does not necessarily lead to culture identification on her part. Her increasing pondering lately on why she has to speak a different language with me is a sign that she is beginning to question her identity, at the tender age of 3 years old. Her refusal to speak the language at times and her insistence that she is German when told she is also half Singaporean both alarmed and worried me.

Efforts can be made to keep her in touch with her other heritage through traditional stories, poems, songs and food. But without the additional influence of school, television, cinema and radio, I fear it's going to be an uphill battle.

With her recent keen interest in the English language, I can only hope that she would eventually adopt an open mind towards mommy's culture and the Chinese language and could flick the linguistic switch wherever she is and whenever she wants.

"If you’re an immigrant family and your kids aren’t as interested in their roots as you’d hoped, don’t despair till they’re at least thirty." - Vampire Weekend mom

There is hope.

 

Endless wants

I had the idea that the moment I put on this pair of boots, I would instantly be transformed into an impossibly cool and badass rock chick, a heroine of some sort with a killer sense of fashion, turning heads and incurring the wrath of many jealous women. Just because I own that pair of must-have boots.

Nothing of that sort materialized of course when my feet were encased in the moto boots. When the glossy image of an anorexically slim model parading in the boots and the real-life image of stumpy legs in the same pair collide, a trainwreck kind of collision happens. Aside from the mild disappointment, the boots did grow on me. While obviously I won't look half as good as the models with the boots, they exude effortless chic nonetheless and I was almost sold. Until I examined the shoes and discovered the workmanship left a lot to be desired. Untidy seams with one or two white bits on the black leather. My nagging suspicion that the product was manufactured in China was confirmed. For that price tag, I promptly and gladly sent it back without a second thought. It's another story though if they are on sale. Haha!

Imagine I could barely contain my glee when the boots finally arrived. I've been hankering after them for too long. Almost a year to be exact. Not to mention the great lengths I went to to get my claws on them. Desires are nourished by delays, indeed. Naturally I was deeply disappointed that I was left with no boots to show for and no more boots to pine for.

But very quickly, I found another object of desire:

 

TV rots your brain!

'No, my lowest moment came on Monday night, when... I realized that, with seventeen episodes to go, there was a good chance that I wasn’t going to make it.'

The above totally captured the mortification I was facing while bingeing on a Taiwanese drama many years ago. I wasn't ill then and it was the weekend. And the best part was, I was crashing at my best friend's which means no funny looks or questions from my parents though my mother is a bigger TV addict than I am. I thought I could hit the stop button and go home in the evening because it's a work day the next day. Needless to say, I thought wrong of course. Not only did I not go home, I stayed and finished the whole season, all 31 episodes of it. I just couldn't put a brake on this crazy ride. It was the wee hours by then. With a brain that was foggy and almost dead, I called in sick the next morning. Definitely not something which I am proud of...

What I find interesting is, TV addiction manifests itself regardless where we are: Asia, Europe, America... Someone out there right now is watching, or worse, bingeing on a drama as I type. With TV studios and stations churning out new and great (damn!) series all the time, how do we find time to devour these must-sees? I am awfully jealous of those who can afford that luxury, particularly those who have to juggle work and family. These are the super humans, the immortals.

But why do we all feel guilty about watching our favourite shows? Does TV make us dumb and really rot our brain? As one commenter put it, we wouldn't apologize for reading a good book in one sitting so why should we be embarrassed about spending a few hours a week on a good show? A good point there and one which I would gladly use as an excuse to go on another crazy ride! Haha!

 

When getting in bed with the government

A jaw-dropping opinion on the corruption in China still leaves me in shock days after I heard it:

'If you want to be a civil servant or government official, you have to be greedy and corrupted. If your inspiration is to be an upright and honest official, you will unfortunately not go very far because such unwelcome work ethics stand out like a sore thumb within the government sector. With corruption so deeply embedded in the 5000 years of China history, the main motivation for choosing a political life is power and greed, not to serve the people.'

I have no way of knowing if this view is representative of the Chinese public but if every Chinese citizen were to have such sad mentality while accepting corruption as a normal way of life, even mounting a herculean effort to battle the rampant corruption and to save this country would be utterly futile and hopeless.

Examples of the widespread corruption:

'...Fighting corruption would require Chinese government officials to live like monks, and nobody joins the Chinese government in order to live like a monk.' - The Alantic

'....one party secretary in a poor county received repeated death threats for rejecting over 600,000 Renminbi in bribes during his tenure.' - Wikipedia

'In fact, the police stations in Chongqing were actually the centre of the prostitution, gambling and drugs rackets. They would detain gangsters from time to time, and sometimes send them to prison, but the gangsters described it as going away for a holiday. The police and the mafia were buddies.' - The Telegraph

Some other interesting articles on the topic: here and here.