A wondrous-sounding word can be totally fabulous and nebulous at the same time, like "fate".
Someone called it "magic".
It is kind of "fate" that the topic of "fate" can be brought up for three times within three days. What sparked off this discussion among us? What sent a tingling to our hearts?
It may be clad in the disguise of "chemistry" when fate revs in between lovers or just, close friends. Yet it is more often than not depicted as an obnoxious excuse for one's resignation to his or her failure, when one heaves a sigh:"It's my fate. Nothing to do about it."
May a wondrous-sounding word be more negative than positive to begin with? Or if it is so, is it its "fate"?
People past their prime years tend to believe in fate, after knowing that personal strength and perseverence have so little to do with the general "trend" along which the Earth is spinning. They believe that certain restrictions are unquestionable and unquestioned, that you can do nothing about it so you'd better make yourself scarce. They believe that though you know something is wrong and righteously should be corrected yet no possible forces can push along the change. They believe that there are certain things one can never aspire to, in the face of his or her fate.
These thoughts are bat off like annoying flies by young people. It is pessimistic! It is fatalistic!! Thus it is STUPID!!!
The only difference between the young and the old (apart from the degree of oxidation) is that the young have a brilliant future before them whilst the old have a brilliant future behind them. Maybe that is where the curb is, where there comes these two opposite sets of mind when "fate" is concerned.
Aspiring young people hate the word.
From this definition of the feature of the "young", I am, distressingly, not qualified to be one of them. Of course, I do not literally believe in "fate", like people who seek fortune tellers and palm readers do; and all my "superstitious behaviours" are restricted to doing some online quizzes about "who is your perfect match?" and publishing my "astrological sign" on Facebook or having unconsciously let my grandpa decide on my name based on "which of the five elements is missed in you".
But I never deny the existence of "fate", which someone alleges to be "chance", which I take in with a grain of salt.
You can be born rich or poor. Isn't that sort of the simplest form of the nebulous concept "fate"? How could you possibly know anything about it when you are just floating in the fabuous amniotic fluid in your mother's womb, licking fingers? You may say, parenthesis is not important, rich or poor, there are people who make a bonanza out of life against all odds----they changed their fates. But what is to say about those who are born paralysed or deformed due to his or her mother's gross neglect of pre-natal care, say, chain-smoking, or more heartrendingly, a child born with AIDS? What is that magical force that dumps them in the mishap, if not fate?
Again, it sounds pessimistic. Why blame something that you cannot control on "fate", and sit there crossing fingers instead of taking some concrete actions to "make a change"? It is a catch-phrase we all like, isn't it? "Change we can believe in" has become an adage which lit up many desperate Americans' lives in this horrendous economic torrent, hasn't it? Once I scribed it neatly on my whiteboard as a motivator, didn't I?
Aren't these testifying that people are by heart defying against their "fate"?
Not exactly.
Those who admit the presence of limitations and restrictions due to their fates are not necessarily those who strive for nothing and complain day after day in utter idleness. People can be back in the shackles over and over again without being deterred, but the shackle is there. There is no denying about that. You can be unfazed by it at all but it refrains you from going beyond the limit which is possible for the others who are limb-free. Of course, whether the others take the advantage of their merits or just waste them is another story. But given the same circumstances, we can say that one has a better "fate" than the other, a more promising destiny laid ahead.
We live in a world with rules binding us. The rules are set favouring a certain group of people, yet disadvantageous to the other, though in a certain system of so-called "relative fairness". This "relativity" is where the gap is, maybe not a big one, but certainly one that can be felt. Admitting to "fate" is not equivalent to succumbing to it, nor is it comparable with "restricting the dimension of your dream", since in the first place, the dimension of your dream is pre-restricted. If you want to go beyond the boundaries, go ahead. But the extra work against odds is needed.
That is the objectivity and authenticity of fate.
That is how fabulous the nebulous concept can be. However, there is another form of fate that I believe everyone (except those serious-cum-realistic jerks) wants to acknowlege its existence----the fate of love (given that the love is not founded on materialistic needs or carnal desires). Certain people meet and fit in each other like jig-saw puzzles; they just look at each other and know that they are M.F.E.O. (made for each other). And they attribute it to a certain "magic", of which I am more than willing to acknowledge, too.
Still not convinced?
Still feeling ambitious to change your situation, which according to you has nothing to do with your fate?
Here comes the final touch to give my preaching of "fate" a tone of finality.
Those admirably tenacious souls, if you want to fight against the odds and believe that nothing is more overwhelming than one's will power, go ahead to desire and aspire and change your "situation" (not fate, see?) I believe the hard work will be paid of due to this rule of "universe":
"If you aspires something too much, the whole universe will conspire to help you."
But after all, even if that is true, isn't it "fate"?:P
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By the way, for those who want to explore more about the "fate of love" or that peculiar "chemistry", I strongly recommend you to watch the movie "Sleepless in Seattle". It weaves part of the tapestry about the "love magic".
Friday, July 17, 2009
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Smoothie
When you make a smoothie, you peel the fruit, crush it and blend it in a food processor, until all the contents are torn into shreds, no longer recognisable.
My mind is like a smoothie, oozing, full of shreds waited to be put into place.
Events are coming out like bamboo shoots after a rain. My organiser is no longer a free-for-all----the time when all invitations were politely accepted and righteously scribed in the notepad was gone. In fact, I do not even bother to note down the things I need to do in an organiser. Being "barren" for almost three weeks, the last entry still loyally keeps the tasks supposed to be fulfilled ten days ago. Ten days later, the entry is still up to date since none of those glaring tasks has been completely fulfilled, and I am tired of erasing all the contents on 01/07/09 just to refill exactly the same contents on 11/07/09.
By now I have put down two outing requests, with grave solemn and prickling pain. Every time I decline an invitation is no different from finding a pathetic excuse for a committed plunder, heart beating fast, mind reeling, feelings chaotic.
And all around me is a potpourri of confusions and contrasts. At the same level in my block, there are girls who drool over Japanese/Korean stars, shouting "my Jamada Ryousuke!", "my Kim Jeong Hoon!", "my やまだ!" while there are also those conscientious ones studying at the lampside. There are girls who shuffle to the canteen with unkempt hair and clothes while there are also those who industriously do all the job of home-cooking in the kitchen. There are girls who are scolded by boarding masters for untidy rooms while there are also those whose rooms are "cleaner than clean".
I am neither here nor there, just like the title of Bill Bryson's travel book.
Sometimes I join the former and shout "my 현중!" to cover the voice of "my やまだ!", but I have never cooked anything for my meals, not even instant noodles, not even when there is no smoke in the pantry since we use an electric stove.
Sometimes I study by the lampside, combing my mind and doing wonders, but I have never won a single prize for "the cleanest room", though I have sincerely promised to keep my room clean if there is a prize for "the dirtiest room".
I am thus stuck in the middle, neither here nor there, like Bill Bryson the geek.
That is also why my mind is like a smoothie, oozing, contents no longer recognisable.
Still, I assert myself to be sensible, only with a tinge of self-denial.
My mind is like a smoothie, oozing, full of shreds waited to be put into place.
Events are coming out like bamboo shoots after a rain. My organiser is no longer a free-for-all----the time when all invitations were politely accepted and righteously scribed in the notepad was gone. In fact, I do not even bother to note down the things I need to do in an organiser. Being "barren" for almost three weeks, the last entry still loyally keeps the tasks supposed to be fulfilled ten days ago. Ten days later, the entry is still up to date since none of those glaring tasks has been completely fulfilled, and I am tired of erasing all the contents on 01/07/09 just to refill exactly the same contents on 11/07/09.
By now I have put down two outing requests, with grave solemn and prickling pain. Every time I decline an invitation is no different from finding a pathetic excuse for a committed plunder, heart beating fast, mind reeling, feelings chaotic.
And all around me is a potpourri of confusions and contrasts. At the same level in my block, there are girls who drool over Japanese/Korean stars, shouting "my Jamada Ryousuke!", "my Kim Jeong Hoon!", "my やまだ!" while there are also those conscientious ones studying at the lampside. There are girls who shuffle to the canteen with unkempt hair and clothes while there are also those who industriously do all the job of home-cooking in the kitchen. There are girls who are scolded by boarding masters for untidy rooms while there are also those whose rooms are "cleaner than clean".
I am neither here nor there, just like the title of Bill Bryson's travel book.
Sometimes I join the former and shout "my 현중!" to cover the voice of "my やまだ!", but I have never cooked anything for my meals, not even instant noodles, not even when there is no smoke in the pantry since we use an electric stove.
Sometimes I study by the lampside, combing my mind and doing wonders, but I have never won a single prize for "the cleanest room", though I have sincerely promised to keep my room clean if there is a prize for "the dirtiest room".
I am thus stuck in the middle, neither here nor there, like Bill Bryson the geek.
That is also why my mind is like a smoothie, oozing, contents no longer recognisable.
Still, I assert myself to be sensible, only with a tinge of self-denial.
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Oh, Rainy Day!
Many things can happen on a rainy day:
You can put on your hoodie, and crouch like a grizzly bear, walking with a slightly forward-leaning gait to shun the downpour.
You can switch off the air-con, open the tear-streaked windows, and use a petri pish to collect fresh rain water.
You can wear a pair of water-proof sandals, walk in the rain, splash the ripples with your feet and roll your unbrella like a mushroom's lid.
You can jump onto the first bus to come, wherever it goes, seek a place near a window and spell out on it the name of the person that you miss.
You can gaze out of the window at a crossroad, watching how people with raincoats loitering with aplomb, people without as wet as a drenched mop.
You can wave at an automobile that passes, if you think someone you know is sitting inside.
You can observe how the neon lights shine in the rain, light being reflected and refracted countless times.
You can sympathise with the vendor selling baked potato on the street, the gleam of the coal dimming with time.
You can covet at a supermarket, where lots of people seek refuge in, where there are trails of dirty footprints on the "welcome" carpet.
You can give a cursory look at a teenage couple, hiding in a telephone booth to shield the rain, and getting closer and closer "as a result".
You can text a message on the phone, reminding your mother to take in the outdoor shoe rank or the bamboo pole hanging outside the balcony.
You can prick you ears and hear a ten-year-old shouting, "Hey! Come down and play! Play water!"
You can gaze at the mini-television screen in the bus, wish to see your idol pop out in an advertisement.
You can rejoice in the diminishing sound of the rain: Finally I can get off the bus!
You can dash off the bus to the nearest Seven-Eleven or Marks and Spencers, browsing for a warm drink or a gag gift that might come into handy someday.
You can insert a coin and collect a trolley, then roam into a multi-storey supermarket.
You can gawk at a bag of wasabi flavoured green beans, and warn yourself never to buy it again before throwing it into your trolley.
You can queue in front of the cashier's counter absent-mindedly and suddenly realise that your CH3COOH partner is queuing behind you. So you do not look back.
You can take the same bus home, or a different one, and unfortunately overshoot your stop.
You can do many many more fabulous things on a rainy day.
Let's get going:)
You can put on your hoodie, and crouch like a grizzly bear, walking with a slightly forward-leaning gait to shun the downpour.
You can switch off the air-con, open the tear-streaked windows, and use a petri pish to collect fresh rain water.
You can wear a pair of water-proof sandals, walk in the rain, splash the ripples with your feet and roll your unbrella like a mushroom's lid.
You can jump onto the first bus to come, wherever it goes, seek a place near a window and spell out on it the name of the person that you miss.
You can gaze out of the window at a crossroad, watching how people with raincoats loitering with aplomb, people without as wet as a drenched mop.
You can wave at an automobile that passes, if you think someone you know is sitting inside.
You can observe how the neon lights shine in the rain, light being reflected and refracted countless times.
You can sympathise with the vendor selling baked potato on the street, the gleam of the coal dimming with time.
You can covet at a supermarket, where lots of people seek refuge in, where there are trails of dirty footprints on the "welcome" carpet.
You can give a cursory look at a teenage couple, hiding in a telephone booth to shield the rain, and getting closer and closer "as a result".
You can text a message on the phone, reminding your mother to take in the outdoor shoe rank or the bamboo pole hanging outside the balcony.
You can prick you ears and hear a ten-year-old shouting, "Hey! Come down and play! Play water!"
You can gaze at the mini-television screen in the bus, wish to see your idol pop out in an advertisement.
You can rejoice in the diminishing sound of the rain: Finally I can get off the bus!
You can dash off the bus to the nearest Seven-Eleven or Marks and Spencers, browsing for a warm drink or a gag gift that might come into handy someday.
You can insert a coin and collect a trolley, then roam into a multi-storey supermarket.
You can gawk at a bag of wasabi flavoured green beans, and warn yourself never to buy it again before throwing it into your trolley.
You can queue in front of the cashier's counter absent-mindedly and suddenly realise that your CH3COOH partner is queuing behind you. So you do not look back.
You can take the same bus home, or a different one, and unfortunately overshoot your stop.
You can do many many more fabulous things on a rainy day.
Let's get going:)
Thursday, July 2, 2009
A Recreational Remembrance of "Golden Monster"
"Golden Monster" was my primary school classmate, a friend I would fondly remember of. He got this epitaph because of the Chinese character "yellow"（黄） and "gold"（金） in his name, also partly because of another fact that he is a boy----a popular one with a strong character, thus would befit the title "monster", though the more tender side of him will be discussed later.
I thought of him today when the memories of my primary school "parting messages" came into my mind. It was customary in my hometown that graduating studenst should get a collection of "parting messages" from their classmates. In that stage of life, most of those messages were definitely not about the sorrow and bitterness of parting which we now so easily relate to when talking about graduation. Those messages were mostly tongue-in-cheek jokes about one another----a lot of fun could be made on any respect of a person: his "exotic" looks, his habitual actions, his off-tune singing, and of course, his future "partner". "Golden Monster", the popular and charming casanova, of course, never escaped from what was inevitable for him:D:D:D Now let me bring you into the world of this interesting "Golden Monster".
In Primary 1 and 2, "Golden Monster", the nondescript-looking boy with a medium height, was just a vague form in my memory. I did not remember him participating in those games like catching, seek and hide or "three-word-phrase", which a lot of boys joined with girls. Not yet did he rise to fame at that point of time, when more talented, eloquent and versatile boys were getting all the attention.
The time when I for the first time closely got to know him was in Primary 4, and it was all but pleasant experience. By some sort of "luck", we attended the same writing tuition in the same education centre. We both took other lessons in the centre. He was artistic and played the accordion well. I was far from artistic but took the electronic piano course nevertheless. Then it came to writing tuition. We became adversaries soon after a few lessons simply because I did not like the shape of his face, which was a bit gourd-like and displayed an amazing resemblance with the Chinese character, "wind" (“风”）. That was a strange shape which I called "feng face".
Since then, the battle started. When my composition was praised in the class, he would give that kind of "constipated look" and stuck out his tongue to make a grimace meant to be annoying, yet ended up being amusing. When his writing was read out as the exemplary piece, I just did the same, changing the tongue part into a derisive pout. Sometimes my sister joined the battle, too. For example, one winter day, we managed to triumph over him and his gang in the snowball fighting; a narrow victory, but an appaudable one.
His fame began to rise in Primary 5 and reached a climax in Primary 6, for the reasons unbeknownst to me. He lived in the residential area of a "Police Officer Educational School";my house was just next to his with a solid wall apart, since I lived in the residential area of a "Political Laws and Management School" just adjacent to his. The funny thing was, he became the "King of the child" in his area and had many followers, predominantly girls. He could sing and dance exceptionally well, true, but except that, I could find no other commendable areas other than his neat, elegant handwriting. He is poetic, true, with a bit, no, a lot of narcissism, but that did seem to inspire me why some girls would like to stalk him in P.E. lessons, and flush=.= He was flamboyant to the point of clumsy, I have to say, especially when he performed the "superman dance" with Jay Chou's "Half Beast"（半兽人） in our last music lesson and in a moment of fancy and clumsiness, fell and ripped open his superman cloak.
He had an English name, Roy, and a dog with an English name, David. This may shed light on his grasp of English, which was quite good but not as good as me, except in oral----he was yet another rhetoric speaker. That might account to why many girls were infatuated with him: his honey words. That was just a speculation, though, since I knew by instinction that he was quite upright. Back to the dog. David was a typical Peking dog with a lovely and furry face and a waving tail. It was exuberant for the most of the time and not in the slightest feared to meet new people, including me. His previous dog was put to painless death after an indigestion accident. Roy cried for many days for this. That was one of the moments that I found him not quite like a "monster", which was in the first place, an epitaph only.
When the graduation was coming, I could not remember very clearly those anecdotes because another "monster", Double Swe, urged me on getting into the foreign language middle school, a local elite school. I finally got the chance with a top score in the diagnostic examination and secured a place in the school with an insecure mark just above the cut-off point. However, not as fortunate as me, Double Swe did make it in the diagnostic exam due a passage written in the wrong tense. Golden monster, on the other hand, appeared quite off-word with all the fad of getting into the top school, but he had his own ambitions, which I only knew of later, maybe too late.
After graduation, I only met my primary school friends once in a free-ice-cream-provided cafe. "Golden Monster" and "Double Swe" were both in the gathering, appearing with quite fashionable clothes that were so different from my school's dressing style. They looked older than me, for sure, though in fact both were supposed to call me "Big Sis".
After the gathering, our connection was broken as I moved houses several times and changed my phone numbers along the way. It was not until I graduated from the foreign language school that I began to seek my long-detached friends.
At present, my friends are faring well on their journeys of learning. Double Swe get into an elite senior high school with a high score in the admission exam while another friend, GY, will possibly get into a good university by DSA with his mathematical prowess.
Golden Monster, of course, find his own way. After one year of junior middle school study, he moved to Shanghai with his family to get a better chance in university admission. When we talked on the phone three years ago, he challenged me on the spelling of "individual", which greatly bemused me. Our voices all had never changed. That is the magical part about it, no matter how old we grow.
When I come back this December, I will have already reached the "legal adult age" in China, so will they. What will become of us then, when all of us scattered in the different parts of the world reunite? Poking fun at each other? A possible occurence.
And just think about it that I dedicated one whole post to the honorary "Golden Monster", my childhood "arch foe"...
I thought of him today when the memories of my primary school "parting messages" came into my mind. It was customary in my hometown that graduating studenst should get a collection of "parting messages" from their classmates. In that stage of life, most of those messages were definitely not about the sorrow and bitterness of parting which we now so easily relate to when talking about graduation. Those messages were mostly tongue-in-cheek jokes about one another----a lot of fun could be made on any respect of a person: his "exotic" looks, his habitual actions, his off-tune singing, and of course, his future "partner". "Golden Monster", the popular and charming casanova, of course, never escaped from what was inevitable for him:D:D:D Now let me bring you into the world of this interesting "Golden Monster".
In Primary 1 and 2, "Golden Monster", the nondescript-looking boy with a medium height, was just a vague form in my memory. I did not remember him participating in those games like catching, seek and hide or "three-word-phrase", which a lot of boys joined with girls. Not yet did he rise to fame at that point of time, when more talented, eloquent and versatile boys were getting all the attention.
The time when I for the first time closely got to know him was in Primary 4, and it was all but pleasant experience. By some sort of "luck", we attended the same writing tuition in the same education centre. We both took other lessons in the centre. He was artistic and played the accordion well. I was far from artistic but took the electronic piano course nevertheless. Then it came to writing tuition. We became adversaries soon after a few lessons simply because I did not like the shape of his face, which was a bit gourd-like and displayed an amazing resemblance with the Chinese character, "wind" (“风”）. That was a strange shape which I called "feng face".
Since then, the battle started. When my composition was praised in the class, he would give that kind of "constipated look" and stuck out his tongue to make a grimace meant to be annoying, yet ended up being amusing. When his writing was read out as the exemplary piece, I just did the same, changing the tongue part into a derisive pout. Sometimes my sister joined the battle, too. For example, one winter day, we managed to triumph over him and his gang in the snowball fighting; a narrow victory, but an appaudable one.
His fame began to rise in Primary 5 and reached a climax in Primary 6, for the reasons unbeknownst to me. He lived in the residential area of a "Police Officer Educational School";my house was just next to his with a solid wall apart, since I lived in the residential area of a "Political Laws and Management School" just adjacent to his. The funny thing was, he became the "King of the child" in his area and had many followers, predominantly girls. He could sing and dance exceptionally well, true, but except that, I could find no other commendable areas other than his neat, elegant handwriting. He is poetic, true, with a bit, no, a lot of narcissism, but that did seem to inspire me why some girls would like to stalk him in P.E. lessons, and flush=.= He was flamboyant to the point of clumsy, I have to say, especially when he performed the "superman dance" with Jay Chou's "Half Beast"（半兽人） in our last music lesson and in a moment of fancy and clumsiness, fell and ripped open his superman cloak.
He had an English name, Roy, and a dog with an English name, David. This may shed light on his grasp of English, which was quite good but not as good as me, except in oral----he was yet another rhetoric speaker. That might account to why many girls were infatuated with him: his honey words. That was just a speculation, though, since I knew by instinction that he was quite upright. Back to the dog. David was a typical Peking dog with a lovely and furry face and a waving tail. It was exuberant for the most of the time and not in the slightest feared to meet new people, including me. His previous dog was put to painless death after an indigestion accident. Roy cried for many days for this. That was one of the moments that I found him not quite like a "monster", which was in the first place, an epitaph only.
When the graduation was coming, I could not remember very clearly those anecdotes because another "monster", Double Swe, urged me on getting into the foreign language middle school, a local elite school. I finally got the chance with a top score in the diagnostic examination and secured a place in the school with an insecure mark just above the cut-off point. However, not as fortunate as me, Double Swe did make it in the diagnostic exam due a passage written in the wrong tense. Golden monster, on the other hand, appeared quite off-word with all the fad of getting into the top school, but he had his own ambitions, which I only knew of later, maybe too late.
After graduation, I only met my primary school friends once in a free-ice-cream-provided cafe. "Golden Monster" and "Double Swe" were both in the gathering, appearing with quite fashionable clothes that were so different from my school's dressing style. They looked older than me, for sure, though in fact both were supposed to call me "Big Sis".
After the gathering, our connection was broken as I moved houses several times and changed my phone numbers along the way. It was not until I graduated from the foreign language school that I began to seek my long-detached friends.
At present, my friends are faring well on their journeys of learning. Double Swe get into an elite senior high school with a high score in the admission exam while another friend, GY, will possibly get into a good university by DSA with his mathematical prowess.
Golden Monster, of course, find his own way. After one year of junior middle school study, he moved to Shanghai with his family to get a better chance in university admission. When we talked on the phone three years ago, he challenged me on the spelling of "individual", which greatly bemused me. Our voices all had never changed. That is the magical part about it, no matter how old we grow.
When I come back this December, I will have already reached the "legal adult age" in China, so will they. What will become of us then, when all of us scattered in the different parts of the world reunite? Poking fun at each other? A possible occurence.
And just think about it that I dedicated one whole post to the honorary "Golden Monster", my childhood "arch foe"...
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