that garden

I thought maybe we could create this garden together. somebody told me of this place seven years ago, and it was hidden somewhere in my memory. and then, i was reminded of it again one month ago, in a dream. in the latter it was winter, but in that room with you, it was warm and cozy.

so i went around singapore, snapping pictures sporadically, hoping to capture glimpses of this dream that burns in my heart.
the images are mere shadows and are not complete . but we will continue searching for the secret treasure, and hoping against all hope that the impossible can be attained.

the anniversary of a secret

how long can one hold a secret? i just realize that i am approaching almost the first year anniversary of its birth.
it came into being somewhere in august last year.
i never told it to anyone, and i am glad that it is still in my heart, and the Heavens have given me the patience to sustain its being. otherwise, without the latter, i fear an explosion, of my mind and heart.

i am hoping that this will lead to something elusively beautiful. I am believing that God will be my loving ally.

i saw two cats running wildly across the road moments ago, from my room's window. it was half hour after midnight. i want to have the energy of the night. i was talking to a friend in the car this evening and she told me that when she couldn't sleep, she would do stuffs like blogging. i was suddenly filled with a sense of nostalgia for the days in ann arbor, when i would go to bed at 4 am, always doing anything, like talking with friends, writing, or just playing ping pong or pool.

i want to be more awake at night. the latest i slept this week was on wednesday at 3 am, when i came home a bit buzzed from just a bit of red wine while partying in " Butter Factory" so far one of the coolest club i have been in singapore. i loved the graffiti-like designs all around. i loved the spirit of freedom they induced within me. after that we had some of the most delicious chinese food in town in a 24 hr coffee shop. there are times when i fell in love with life in singapore. that night was definitely one of those days!

tonight was sweet as well. a bunch of us went to the beach to chill. it is always nice to be near the sea, laughing, eating and talking.

"pictures of an exhibition"

so i signed up as a photo assistant to darlene ( the girl blowing the balloon) , a photographer from nyc. she was here for two weeks with her friend julia.
it was cool, because i was assisting in a work that was born of love, improvisation and great fun. it began with darlene's idea, and then we worked towards it, using resources available here in singapore.
first, darlene took portraits of people who walked into the bookstore she was shooting in, together with the objects they brought that best represented them.
after that, she hung these portraits in another exhibition space. and positioned the objects in an enclosed area, where there was a video camera capturing the movements of people who entered that area.

it was fun trying to build frames with plywood,spray white paint on plants,books and slippers, blow up white ballons, running around doing errands for the photographer, listening to them talk about their beautiful lifestyles in new york city, and of course, laughing with them.

personally,the whole week's experience had been kind of dreamlike and intense;intense because of the need to meet the opening date of the exhibition. on the closing night, my dear friend,ben, sang some opera music with me accompanying him on the violin. it was a nice way to end the whole event- with music, which includes Bach's soothing aria "Schlafe mein Liebster" which also means "Slumber Beloved."



on the last night before they left home for nyc, we had steamboat in chinatown and it was julia's first time having it! and then, ben and i introduced them to cactus juice, which turned out to be quite a refreshing experience for them :)

inspired by late night wanderings in woodlands with a friend

the winds are carrying me, to new places, new hopes, new directions. it feels different, all of a sudden. i am still on the same island, here in singapore, but somehow, there is a breadth of fresh air suddenly being blown in my face. maybe it's because i started chatting with him. i am in love with his presence. well, i am not romantically attracted to him. furthermore, he is gay. but being with him makes me feel that every detail, every experience is refreshing. people can make such a difference to your life. it's not the place, it's not the food. it's people.

i just want to fly. i suppose i don't need to do it physically always , in order to have an adventure. i want my ideas within my heart, my soul, to soar into the space ahead, to create something for myself and others. i want to enter a foreign land with these mad thoughts within me, to break out of this cage that is imaginary, inside and outside me.

thank God we have people to do it with ! i have allies! i have loving, supportive associates that will journey into this place of freedom, grace, beauty and madness.....with me.

these days, i am dancing in my heart, quite wildly. i don't really want to go back to being that tamed lion i sometimes am. i want to stay in the jungle, in the wilderness forever, always trusting that an ethereal way will be provided. we will fight and free ourselves from silly oppression of any sort, and from victory we fight.

pardon me for this sudden euphoria.

tiny fantasies

the wanderlust is back to haunt me a bit. I am now reading Che Guevera : a revolutionary life ( by Jon Lee Anderson) after being inspired by the movie "the motorcycle diaries". I also start thinking about Jack Kerouac's "On the Road" which i read three years ago. Thanks to them, i fantasize about being on the move again, going places, even relying on odd jobs to sustain myself. for now, i will stay in Singapore . but for a few weeks at the end of this year, when i will probably take a break from violin teaching, i want to take off travelling in Asia,encountering interesting souls along the way. I am thinking korea, india, or tibet, places i have never been. will it ever happen? we will see!

for now, i will live and exist in the world of Singapore, approaching life here as a nomad, always yearning and longing for the heavenly homeland. I don't know why, but this mindset actually allows me to enjoy life here, because every single day is like the continuation of this journey upward bound, with surprises and challenges delighting me along the way, sporadically, beautifully. it is liberating,
I remember C'S lewis saying that if we aim at heaven, we will have earth thrown in. i don't remember the exact words though. Nevertheless, this approach also frees me from the rules and legalistic mindsets that used to stifle me in the past.

it is a different experience from many years back, when a significant chunk of my memories in Singapore was mired in depression, helplessness and endless worries, and when the perpetual feeling of never having a sense of belonging plagued me.

when God promises His children double restoration for all the things they have lost, He really surprises us no end.

good news: i bought a digital SLR canon camera on Monday . i had fun playing with it this afternoon!

bad news : my mountain bike that i had for years was stolen today.

memories

yesterday, ben, a friend from my german class, told me about a dream he had two days ago, he dreamed that he was in a place, and he suddenly felt oddly and intensely connected to the universe. he is not religious or anything, but he felt that there was a huge creative power guiding him. he started to point at something in space, and out popped something, like a work of art. he did it again and out popped another one. whatever direction he started pointing, something amazing would come out of it, even though i was not given the visual details of these products. during that time, he was also very much aware that he was dreaming.

i felt quite inspired so i did two mini pencil drawings of his dream this evening, but i don't think it really captured what he initially conveyed.

besides practicing german together, i like jamming with him on my violin. we did it yesterday, together with another pianist friend of his. Ben is an opera singer and i think our sounds go quite well together. i am sure there's more fun and experiments ahead for three of us and we plan to meet next sunday again.

two weeks ago, near to midnight, my friend brought me to her church because i begged her to play on the organ for me since i hadn't heard the sound of the instrument for ages. we had to walk through a pretty deserted area before we arrived there. not only that, after we reached the building, both of us had to climb over the walls like midnight thieves in order to get inside the hall with the organ. it was fun and suspenceful doing that. tianling played mostly Bach on the organ and i was just there, listening. it went on for about an hour or so. i was like in a completely different world, just alone with the music. it genuinely felt like a sanctuary, faraway from the urban culture i had been living and caught up with these past 8 months. after that, we had to climb over the walls again and started heading home.

it's nice. it's nice when your friends bring you to their dream worlds.

to begin with

A playground it shall sometimes be,
this land, this home,
filled with a sense
of the unreal, the mysterious,
the unanswered.
Every color has its tale,
a story that amazes me
with its brutality and fervor.
Indulging in the coziness of
empty halls, mansions and gardens,
I begin to sculpt
with the clay I chanced upon
in the nearby woods,
dreaming that one day,
a statue of an angel
would come alive,
startling me with his dance.

that moment

It is what I remember
that drives me out of the tunnel
into this wide open space
with autumn leaves and used cigarettes
combined to give me a feeling
of nostalgia
for that moment I imagine I did
spend with you.
Your face seems elusive
and yet so filled with goodness.
Did we ever enter that alleyway
where the silence
enveloped us, asking us to
pause, to think, to turn away
from the gaze of the outside world?
Or did we actually ignore it
and continue following the noise
of the traffic ahead of us
forgetting our feelings,
disguising our thoughts
only to churn them out
in violent graffiti
in yet another silent alleyway.

let's see

howard zinn says in one of his writings." The way that society tends to classify us scares me. I am a historian. I don't want to be just a historian, but society puts us into a discipline. Yes, disciplines us: you're a historian, you're a businessman, you're an engineer. You're this or you're that. The first thing someone asks you at a party is " What do you do? " That means, " How are you categorized?"

i think there are a variety of roles we can play in this life, in the society we are in. we are not bound by the characteristics of our profession, our work. i label others, and others do the same to me. we do this in order to get an understanding of who another person is. but it would really be nice if we also free ourselves at the same time from the limits of that definition. then i think we are also free to explore other aspects and dimensions of our personality. it would be a dream life ( for me), to switch from one role to the other and back again, effortlessly, and yet still retain the essence of our identity. it's an ideal to be attained, unless of course one day, i think differently.sometimes, i find it hard to get outside of the mould that i have inadvertently created for myself and therefore, fail to listen to the inner desires to try this or that. i supposed it has something to do with rigidity. once i get comfortable with one "label", i will sometimes think myself crazy for wanting to do things that have little to do with that label.

yet, sometimes, the desire gets so intense that all i really want is to forget about the fixation with definitions and follow that voice. i will see where these desires will lead me and whether i will actually listen to any of them!

hello

i bought many dvds this week since they were on sale in HMV. "Sideways", "Lost in translation", " The motorcycle diaries", " Finding Neverland", and "Mostly Martha". I have watched all of them before except for "Mostly Martha". I was feeling nostalgia for certain sentiments and moods they evoked even though i don't have vivid memories of the story details. Films speak to us differently at various points in our lives. I am curious to know what associations , thoughts and feelings would arise now when i watch them again.

around 8 months ago, i lost my wallet in Ann Arbor ( USA). I remembered losing it after watching "Kung Fu Hustle" in Michigan Theater. I never got it back even though I did search frantically everywhere. Yesterday, a Michigan grad student emailed me and told me that he found my student card lying in the alleyway behind the Theater. after such a long while, i don't really care about the wallet anymore, with the money ,social security card and all that, but it's nice that something of sentimental value like the student card had appeared there and Paul Griffiths, the guy who found it, had offered to sent it to me by mail.

kids thrive in the imaginary, it seems. i have been teaching this five year old kid, Grace, how to play the violin. her mother wants me to get her interested in music and the violin. it has been quite a challenge to keep her still, and make her play notes on the instrument. i realize that the best way to communicate with her is through the use of fictional characters, role play and imaginary situations. For example, it is hard to make her play the whole of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" in one go, especially when she finds the new notes very difficult. the only way it seems is to tell her a story about a family of stars that have somehow descended from the Heavens, and have landed themselves in her violin case. she has now to give a concert to the stars, to keep them entertained, especially mummy and daddy stars. that's when she begins to play through the song a little more enthusiastically and excitedly. i am still learning her language in this whole process!

feelings

i miss being in the USA....already. i miss being in a liberal environment. i think i am saying this because i just came back from visiting my relatives for the Chinese New Year celebration. it was like entering a world that has grown foreign where i feel like a reluctant stranger.to be honest, i do not have a sense of belonging. i never really have.

it's okay. i am quite nomadic so it's fine for me not to feel that i don't belong in my own home, my own families, my relatives. sometimes, traditions, certain people or even we ourselves make us feel condemned for being this way. the thing is, i have always sensed this even when i was younger and there were times when i felt guilty. but i have learnt today, not to feel condemned. i am learning to be free. i don't want to justify myself to others anymore. ( " There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus!!" ( Romans 8)

the mental and emotional connection was missing. this evening, i felt like a wraith without sight of anything concrete, anything tangible.

these are but my honest feelings. i can no longer hide them. i want to get out, to a place where i truly belong again, and i believe i will find it!

or maybe, there is a change of perception that can help me when such feelings emerge. maybe that is something i need to learn as a person , about ADAPTATION or submission.

we will see. ...and i believe that "the truth shall set me free" once again! Praise Him, for giving me real joy, peace and HOPE all this while. It's really awesome to fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen! " For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen...is eternal."

sharing with you

a beautiful poem by Gary Snyder, an American poet :

We are free to find our own way
Over rocks-- through trees--
Where there are no trails. The ridge and the forest
Present themselves to our eyes and feet
Which decide for themselves
In their old learned wisdom of doing
Where the wild will take us. We have
Been here before. It's more intimate somehow
Than walking the paths that lay out some route
That you stick to,
All paths are possible, many will work,
Being blocked is its own kind of pleasure,
Getting through is a joy, the side-trips
And detours show down logs and flowers,
The deer paths straight up, the squirrel tracks
Across, the outcroppings lead us on over.
Resting on treetrunks,
Stepping out on the bedrocks, angling and eyeing
Both making choices--now parting our ways--
And later rejoin; I'm right, you're right,
We come out together. Mattake, "PIne Mushroom, "
Heaves at the base of a stump. The dense matted floor
Of Red Fir needles and twigs. This is wild!
We laugh, wild for sure,
Because no place is more than another,
All places total,
And our ankles, knees, shoulders &
Haunches know right where they are.
Recall how the Dao De
Jing puts it: the trail's not the way.
No path will get you there, we're off the trail,
You and I, and we chose it! Our trips out of doors
Through the years have been practice
For this ramble together,
Deep in the mountains
Side by side,
Over rocks, through the trees.

where am i?

it's nice to get out of the comfort zone. it's not a cozy experience, of course. but every time you do something unfamiliar, something that you have never felt like doing before due to many reasons, like doubts and fear of failure, you feel that you have grown a little. that's how i sense bits and pieces of my experience in singapore have been like. anyhow, i have been here for about five and a half months, and i am still in the process of figuring things out. it's nice to get perplexed and then finally receiving the clarity at the end. there's a lot to learn in this journey both back home and into the future.
my desire for this new year is to have the opportunity to try out alternative ways to handle any situations, as opposed to the familiar ways i have been used to. another thing. i am quite a passive character at times and i want to take more initiative this year in certain aspects of my existence. well, many things are easier said than done!

nevertheless, we continue on the path.

Narnia, The New Year, and Kids

Happy New Year everyone! I had a good week just chilling, partying and spending time with friends and family, not to forget taking a seven days' break from scooping ice cream. I hope you guys experienced an awesome week of celebration as well to usher in the year 2006.

I also watched "Chronicles of Narnia" last week. It's definitely a relevant movie for me to anticipate the days ahead. I haven't got to read the book by C.S Lewis, but i would love to now that i have watched the film! The storyline is very simple and predictable. It does not really have the complexity of "Harry Potter" or "The Lord of the Rings". Yet, it is exactly the simplicity of it which is powerful. As the title tells us, the story is about the witch , the lion and the wardrobe. It is also about the adventure of four beautiful kids who inadvertently entered the land of Narnia. At the end of the story the good gains victory over evil. We all know what was going to happen at the end, yet i enjoyed every bit of the battle, the tears, the joys and the sweetness that comes after the victory. There is emotional satisfaction that comes with it.
It's a dreamland beyond the wardrobe, yet the psychological connection with the kids going through the wilderness of Narnia, battling evil forces, dealing with their own vulnerabilities, weaknesses and the occasional conflict between reason and instinct, is compelling. Many times we do not enter the wardrobe because it's not logical, just like the older siblings, who felt that way in the beginning. However, once they followed the voice of the youngest child, Lucy, their enchanting adventures begin!

Certainly an encouraging movie for dreamers.

And of course, it's good to know that kids, like Lucy in "Chronicles of Narnia", sometimes see more than we do.

Liebe

When I gaze
into your blue eyes,
my heart quivers
and leaps
into the air
and longs to surf
the waves
of the ocean
that lies beyond.
My language to you
is as foreign
as yours to me,
yet I long to
unravel the secrets
in your heart
so that we can speak
words
of oneness.

ice cream moments

some fun-loving people from the part time crew i work with at haagen dazs. we had a christmas party two days ago. but too bad our manager had to work the full shift and had to stay behind the counter most of the time.

asking randomly

can we respond to diehard pragmatism with surrealism?

can we overcome certain social conventions that limit us with truths from heaven that set us free?

maybe.

definitely.

certainly.

or maybe i should watch princess mononoke ( by hayao miyazaki) the second time.


P/S; i think Abdul Halim is right though. it is probably better to have sympathies for both, ie pragmatism and surrealism.
i was, however, referring to pragmatism in its extreme form. i assume that we calculate and reason too much in excessive pragmatism leaving no room for the fantastical, instinctive etc. and life can become quite dry and sterile. it's always good, however, not to be biased against both in their moderate forms.

looking

next to where i work , there has been an ongoing outdoor photography exhibition by a French guy named Yann Arthus Bertrand along the street of orchard road. it will be here to stay for a few months .
All his images were captured while he was flying in the helicopter. He went to many countries and offered glimpses of a variety of cultures, some radically different from our own.

it's nice to have somebody reminding me to look at life, including our earth, from a different perspective. things can look very different and surprising! everytime i take a short walk to the ice cream parlor from the mrt station, the images accompanying me have the effect of bringing me to another train of thoughts. well, of course, the novelty wears off. the first time i saw the photographs was almost two months ago. however, the mental reminder will always remain.

i realize that i have been looking at my circumstances and life horizontally most of the time. the scenery has become too repetitive and stagnant.it will be nice to climb, or soar a little higher than where i am usually, and look down, taking a bird's eye view. strange, it always takes another person to remind me of that. i don't really do that automatically.

then, when that happens, we might live, breathe and walk a little differently from what we are used to. well i supposed it's a MAYBE. or certain challenges might have different answers. an issue that produces despair might look magically hopeful again.







or we can also try out other angles, not just from a bird's eye view, just to have fun.

his color, his lines

last saturday, i went to zouk (http://www.zoukclub.com.sg/) with dor win. it is one of my favorite dance clubs that just re-opened after about a month of renovation. as i was dancing away in velvet underground, i spotted one of Keith Haring's paintings on the walls. everytime i look at his works, i get some kind of fresh energy. few days ago, i chanced about a book about Haring in borders and bought it at 19.95 singapore dollars.


















and then, i have some words :

as i see him and his lines,
i sense a love so untainted,
a dance so bold and wild
and a voice
so honest.
i crave to participate in
his rhythm,
to break away
from this nauseatic cage
of organized sounds,
to leap once again
into a maelstrom of
eternal youth, of joy
and of sweet mania.

mum & dad

last weekend, my family went to a restaurant called " out of the pan" for dinner. one habit of my dad's is sketching people around him on whatever piece of paper he has.







my mum doesn't draw, but she can certainly cook. this was prepared by her one week ago for the family. it's vegetarian and organic, the kind of diet my parents live on.

bits and pieces

hung out with with Gerard and Song Ann last sunday. we drove to holland village and sat at the Gelare Cafe for hours. i had gelato waffle and a little cheescake, a refreshing change from haggan dazs ice cream at work. after that, we headed over to Thai Express for dinner and i ate curry noodles which i personally felt were not spicy enough. then we continued chatting till ten at night. it felt awesome just being able to talk and listen ceaselessly, sitting in the middle of holland village and sometimes giving one another odd ideas for life. it also gave me an opportunity to steal more than two cigarettes from them. coffee talk is fun . it's safe. you propose an idea, imagine the scenario, but never really facing the consequences.i also get to learn more about politics and music from Song Ann and Gerard respectively. they asked me about comparative literature which i majored back in college. i had a difficult time defining it to them. the strict definition eludes me everytime i try to explain it to somebody. Oh dear!!


i love the SMRT trains in Singapore. Traffic here is getting too heavy, and traveling in a car makes me feel sluggish and irritable. Taking the train is like stepping on the elevator to anywhere you desire. It's fast, efficient, clean and minimalistic. There are cool advertisements to gaze at, those above the windows, and the ones underneath your feet. Besides, I love reading on the train. I can also stare at different kinds of people,furtively.....but not voyeuristically. Clean, Efficient, and Fast. That's an aspect of life i like about Singapore. However, at 8.30 in the morning when i sometimes get on the train to town, it feels different. It's overly crowded with people rushing off to work. it makes me feel like a faceless and colorless digit, especially when i have not gotten my caffeine fix.

last week, i bought these blue marbles while walking around little india with a friend. they only cost one singapore dollar. however, besides gazing at them occasionally, i don't really know what else i could do with them. let me know if you have any ideas.

childhood

during lunch today, my grandma showed me how my mum and uncle looked like when they were kids.

i prefer working at haggan- dazs in the weekends. for the first time, i worked on a sunday.the streets of orchard road become more vibrant with different sorts of colors. there are many more people to serve ice cream and smile to. it is better than standing around, idling in a weekday morning, and trying to occupy ourselves by sometimes eating and re-tasting the ice cream in front of us. most of the customers in orchard road are tourists. seeing them in their casual outfits has definitely stirred the nomadic spirit within me again. i want go traveling again. but first, i want to travel in my own country. God knows how many interesting places and corners i am ignorant of. i want to get myself a bus guide soon, and start wandering around on foot as well, taking photographs.Is this place a labyrinth, or just an uncomplicated world filled with straight roads? i will find out soon.

last saturday, i did get out of my country just for a day, the first time since my trip to Shanghai. i was asked by a friend of mine to perform, along with some others, for an annual event held by the singapore bible college. we played mendelssohn's lobegesang and psalm 52 in a small ensemble to accompany the choir. we played for the Malaysian audience in johor bahru.it was really nice to re -connect with old friends in the ensemble i have not seen for ages. The picture above is my violinist friend playing with his own shadows.

i love Rachmaninoff piano concerto 2. i still can't forget the concert early in october, when the ad-hoc orchestra i was in accompanied Tedd Joselson (an American pianist living in Singapore) as he gave his wild interpretation of both Rach's piano concertos 2 and 3. He made me fall in love with the music again. There is definitely a difference between merely listening to it on recording and actually playing the music. Joselson has such an erratic and unpredictable way of playing that i find very appealing.at the same time, he also helps connect me with the music emotionally. so today, i read up a bit about the piano concerto number 2 online. It was actually composed during the recovery phrase of Rach's depression and was dedicated to the psychiatrist who successfully helped him. well, that is the official view. There is an alternative family report which suggests that the secret inspiration behind his music was actually the psychiatrist's daughter and it remained a "shadowy presence during the composer's subsequent married life." This report is regarded with skepticism by scholars. However, i do wonder if it is possible for Rachmaninoff to compose this piece without having the feeling and agony of having fallen helplessly in love with somebody? There is also another interesting website, whereby a person creates digital images as he hears the individual movements of the piano concerto. The images are kind of wierd. However, the process seems interesting to me. Check it out at http://www.parkenet.org/jp/contests/series/o0.html

this is where i dream, write and think. it's safe here.


sometimes, hiding behind a mask makes me feel protected and secure, and even unchallenged. but there are times when i wish i could just reveal that little secret within me. i guess we all have our secrets. there are just so many ways to keep them. while idling, we can always go enter the chambers in our hearts and surprise ourselves.

u know, i used to have really wierd dreams while i was in ann arbor. they seem to have become a little too normal lately here at home!!

Quidam

will watch it with my sister and her friends tonight. just click on the title to see what it is all about.

ice cream

i have grown to like the variety of ice cream flavors in haggan-dazs. i work there part time now, few hours a week. when i was a customer, the flavor i used to go for was always macadamia nut. i never explored other options. but now, i get to taste rum raisin, panna cotta raspberry ( the latest flavor of the month), midnight cookies and cream, strawberry cheescake, branded cherry etc. my favorites are those that contain alchohol and nuts. what don't really go well with me are sorbet flavors.
how do these weekly hours of serving ice cream in haggan daz influence my life in the future? i am curious to find out too.

the very apparent effect is that it constantly makes me crave for ice cream , especially at night .

that's good. it makes me look forward to my next shift, which is this coming Friday.

check out http://www.haagen-dazs.com/

Yesterday, i was reminded to be thankful in a sermon.
That brings me back to one of my favorite verses in the bible " be joyful always, pray continually and give thanks in all circumstances." ( 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18) It never fails to inspire me, especially during trying times.

i guess i know it is important to be thankful. but somehow, the words of the pastor have challenged me to increase my thankfulness. According to him, being thankful helps us deepen our appreciation for the existing elements in our lives. Consequently, this appreciation increases their value. Wouldn't it be nice if Christ can help broaden my perspective, allowing me to give thanks for the seemingly trivial details that i have always taken for granted? In the new testament, Jesus always seem to see the value in insignificant things and people( from the societal point of view). Instead of seeing the lack in them, He sees the potential in them. He has what we would call " eyes of faith." I have the desire to rely on His eyes, to see the miracles, the magic in the mundane. There are interesting possibilities in one given moment in life, but if only I could see them!!

My desire is that a heart and attitude of thankfulness would be a natural and spontaneous response to the situations in life, instead of it being a conscious and deliberate effort. But I supposed a conscious act becomes a habit, which ultimately becomes natural, like breathing? i don't really know. All i know is that it refreshes the mind to have this feeling!

There are dreams to be fulfilled, desires to be met and obstacles to be overcome. But won't it be helpful to begin the foundation of our journey with a feeling and perspective of thankfulness?



( a garden in Shanghai)

i hear you

The road led me to that
strange encounter with you.
The beauty you produced had
allowed me to travel to a world
that I would like to know better
and to live in.
Away from the distractions,
and away from the demons of prudence,
we journeyed towards a wild adventure of
passions, desires and forbidden yearnings.
Then I start remembering the sorrow
in your melodies,
which haunt me in a deep way
and it makes me realize
how much more seductive this sadness sometimes is
than the happiness that lies around me.

written, 4th October 2005.

tom's midnight garden

In one of her entries (http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=jinganlin) Katie Beth talked about re-reading "Pride and Prejudice". That got me inspired to re- read "Tom's Midnight Garden", one of my favorites as a kid. Katie wrote that "as you get older, the way you understand a book changes as you use new eyes to read it." That is true. i remembered crying when i was nearing the end of the story at the age of 10. Last night, i did not cry. However, i was still able to connect with the magic i felt as a 10 year old child. it's about a boy who was sent to his uncle's place to avoid the measles that his brother was having at home. That was when he discovered the midnight garden, a place that only existed in his reality and in the characters he encountered in the garden. Our conventional sense of time and space is challenged as we enter the place with Tom, only if you allow it. It's in there that he found his playmates, especially the girl, Hattie, whom he was terribly fond of. Therefore, during this stay at his uncle's home, which was otherwise boring and mundane with no friends to play and connect with, he found his adventures all at night, when everyone was fast asleep.

Up till now, i remain in love with the imagined reality of the midnight garden. The story also strikes a chord with me given that i have such die- hard nocturnal habits. Tom's garden was not perceived by his family, but only by the people he played with and those who chose to see it. In that place, time becomes a non-entity, and reality comes alive! Love, connection, work and play become one.

At first, Tom was hesitant to enter that place when the clock struck "thirteen". At last he gave in to his instincts.
The door " was not locked, he found; only bolted. He drew the bolt, and, very slowly, to make no sound, turned the door knob.That's when Tom found the moonlight, and "it flooded in, as bright as daylight."
It's nice to read the story. It gives me the courage to listen to my instincts. Quite often, i see this bolted door in my life, and a gleam of light coming through. i never quite do much about it. The next time i see it, i hope to push it wide open and go for the bright moonlight.

Maybe one day, the imagined will become real.




( image from an exhibition by brian gothong tan)

the dance of shermaine

and so sher and i decided to wander around orchard road after our gigs on sunday. i happened to have my digital camera with me :)

the sound of silence

three nights ago, i went to bed at 2 am. then woke up suddenly at 5 am. couldn't go back to sleep so i filled a paper with some words, after which i slept again into the very late morning:


Pebbles fill the sky
one psychedelic night
that drives me to ecstasy
and then
back again,
to earthly sanity.


LONGING

Madness, i sometimes long for you.
In you, i see no rules and
no lies.
In you , i see a freedom without boundaries.
The music i hear,
is structureless and tribal,
yet true
in its innocence.
i continue to long for the day
when I could party with you
again,
into the night that sees no day,
and into the days that see no end.

My grandma (dad's mum) has five daughters and eight sons. When the whole family gets together, it is a riot! Usually, it's only during Chinese New Year that everyone comes together for a celebration. This evening was my grandma's birthday. Been away for 6 years, it was overwhelming to encounter so many familiar faces again. it's regrettable that I am not fluent in hokkien/taiwanese ( a chinese dialect) and therefore, not being able to communicate well with my grandma, who only speaks the latter. i can only ask and say simple things to her like, " happy birthday"," so how is everything?", and " do you still play mahjong?" and....that was about it. Many times, help will come from the translators around me.i hope to do better!
Actually, I was never really too close to the family on my father's side. i thought that when i attended the birthday party tonight, i would still feel quite a bit like a stranger, since I was away for 6 years. But surprisingly, I was able to connect with my aunts and nephews like never before. I felt more personable with them than I was 6 years ago. I never imagined I would laugh,joke and tell personal stories I had in the states with five aunts around me on a table, but I actually did.It was quite a family reunion.

i want to remember

i hope that the spirit of shanghai will remain with me. i went there with minimal expectations, thinking that it was going to be predictable. but i was wrong.i had been to several cities but nothing beats the intensity i personally felt around me in shanghai. now that i am back, i want to be able to remember that intensity and have it close to me. i want to remember the excitement, the boundless enthusiasm, the youthfulness not only of the young, but also the old. i also want to remember xi-an and its free-spiritedness. i want to remember the youths breakdancing in public and the street musicians playing in the muslim quarter. The Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang (秦始皇) and his Terracotta Army, together with other historical attractions in the city, transported me into a chinese past that sometimes seems strange and even bewildering to me.
most importantly, i want to remember the journey i had with my mum, and how healing took place in my relationship with her, in spite of the sporadic difficulties that came between us. i want to remember each time i went to Christ for help ,He answered my prayers. and that no matter how far i have at times fallen short, He heals and has already forgiven me.

Dancing horses. that is how i see my trip to xi-an and shanghai.






and of course, the journey with my mum continues.....

flying to china with my mum in two hours' time. will be back later next week.