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.

Running not away

for some issues,the road to healing is nothing really complicated. i told myself to keep walking straight, and to fix my eyes on the unseen. sometimes, when i saw the underground tunnel, i was afraid to enter. i was afraid of walking alone, and not being able to get out again. but it was not the case. i did walk out, and i saw the crystal river, with trees lined up on both sides. i ran to touch one of the leaves and felt that wonderful sense of hope again.

i cycled to the beach. it was nice to be next to the sea,listening to the sound of waves and gazing into the boundlessness. once again, i fell in love with freedom.

jazz night

i met up with gerard, yunfeng ,luke and hanyu on thursday. some of us ate char kway teow at far east plaza. since it was my first time meeting gerard after a few years, i was trying to get used to his language initially. luke said that we were like venus and mars.it sort of amused him just watching both of us communicate.i mean, we both spoke english, but somehow, our wavelengths seemed to meet at awkward points that turned out really funny. gerard is a musician and is sometimes filled with bizarre imaginations and humour that it takes some time for me to understand him.i mean this in a good way, and i really enjoyed my conversations.i told him that maybe he should be a filmmaker.

in the evening, gerard brought some of us to the jazz bar in boat quay. it was beautiful. the japanese lady playing on the piano was just amazing. there were also the bass guitarist, drummer, and another female singer. to be honest, i don't listen to a lot of jazz, and the latter has never really made a strong impression on me. yesterday was quite different. it's just the way the japanese pianist played her music. she was very bold and experimental. i was also very drawn not only to the way she connected with the sounds but also other players on stage. she certainly got me a little more curious about jazz.

improvisation is a good thing.

xi'an and shanghai

my mum and i will go traveling in China soon, in the first week of september. if it all works out, we will spend 3 days in Xi'an( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xi'an)
and 2 in Shanghai(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai)
one seems like the city of the past, and another is like the place of the future.what would it be like to go from one to another, in less than 3 hours?
i remembered going back to USA from a two week vacation in Europe few years ago. it was like returning from a different era, a different time in space. it felt very odd. the architecture and atmosphere in Europe certainly provide a very strong and intimate sense of history. At that time, i wasn't quite sure which place I would like to belong to ( imagine if i have a choice). i felt torn.
i wonder if there will be a stark contrast between Xi'an and Shanghai since both exist in the same country? i suppose being in either place allows us to appreciate both the distant past and modernity a little better? or maybe traveling there will alter my assumptions & impressions about the two places completely.
i don't know. i will find out in september.

anyway, i don't feel too well today. i couldn't sleep last night. the latte i drank yesterday evening kept me awake.i am re-learning my lesson about caffeine intake in the evening! besides, i have a very bad sore throat. everytime i am out of the house, i have a lot of deep-fried, barbecued or spicy food. they taste so good that i can't stop eating!so my mum made orange juice and chrysanthemum tea to sooth my throat. just for today, i will rest content with home-cooked food.

love in the time of cholera

i just finished reading the book, Love in the Time of Cholera, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. It was about a man, Florentino Ariza, who fell deeply in love with Fermina Daza. However, circumstances did not allow them to come together, and Fermina got married to another man. Her husband eventually died, and it was fifty-one years, nine months, and four days since Florentino declared his love for Fermina. Florentino remained in love and would do whatever it takes to be with her again.
In real life, the majority of us will not wait and endure 51 years to be with someone we are in love with, especially when life keeps throwing impossible hurdles. i supposed some may perceive his waiting and romanticism as foolishness. Perhaps there are other more worthy goals, and dreams worth fighting and dying for. Well, personally, i did feel sad for him throughout the entire story, because no matter what he did to get closer to Fermina, there would always be insurmountable obstacles along the way, including Fermina's indifference.However, at the end, even though Florentina only got to spend time with her after her husband had died and when she was old and withered, i was surprised by the transcendental joy in him.i didn't quite comprehend the infinity of his love for Fermina. Maybe he could have many other great things in life or a good marriage had he given up on Fermina , since he had risen to become an influential businessman. But it was poignant to see that in spite of how old and unattractive Fermina had become, no joy seemed more complete, more soothing and purer to Florintino than the reality of just being next to Fermina and talking to her.
Each and everyone of us has something to wait for. We all have different desires, dreams and visions. Therefore, the meaning and manner of waiting are unique for each person. We give it our own definition. Sometimes, the world may not agree with what we are waiting for, but some of us continue to wait. Of course, doing it lazily and passively does not get us anywhere. i feel that magic happens when we wait with hope and action. From the story of Florentino, i am reminded that waiting can be such a beautiful thing!

when i first came face to face with david i was rather nervous. i didn't really know what to say. i admit that i am just not that great with kids and haven't got a chance to hang out with them too much. but i have always liked to smile, and so i started smiling to david. at first he was a little wary of me , but gradually, he grinned back. and then i began making funny faces, and before i knew it, i began to like and feel comfortable with the language i was using to communicate with david. there were not many words involved, but it was definitely an interesting and fun language, with laughing, funny faces, and all that.
david is Shermaine's one year old son. i saw my friend for the first time after 2 years.the friend whom i used to travel, play music and go crazy with is now married with her one year old child and giving him her complete devotion as a full-time mother. it was a refreshing & novel feeling, just being around the two of them together.

at last,i feel mostly recovered from jet lag.took me longer than i expected!

it's my country's 40th birthday this coming Tuesday!

& so my dad was thinking of expressing some good wishes, graffiti style........

sleepless in singapore

This space lies before me, as usual.
I used to see it as a haunting entity,
ready to engulf me with its hollowness.
But now, the emptiness within it
excites me no end, and inspires within me
the desire to seek new possibilities.
Sometimes, I see strange objects that
seem out of place,and other times,
I allow my own body to enter this space,
to feel my connection to it.
That is also the moment when
the desired sense of belonging comes
into existence,within that space of
perfect nothingness.

5th of August '05

jet-lagged

i finally got home two nights ago. quite a number of things happened along the way. first, when i arrived at narita airport in tokoyo,i had my passport missing. a flight assistant went back to the plane and finally found it for me. i must have become too carried away by a conversation with a japanese lady sitting next to me. when i got back the passport, i walked a good 20 minutes in the airport to a gate that appeared really empty. I thought i had missed the flight. But later I realized I mistook the seat number on my ticket for the gate number! the gate was supposed to be just a few seconds away from where i came from! and so i hurried back and managed to get on the plane during the last call. i felt really foolish and it was certainly no fun walking the distance with a heavy backpack and two violins.
When i arrived at the singapore airport, my parents weren't there to pick me up. they had thought that my arrival time was the next day. so, i ended up calling my dad and waiting for them to arrive. after half an hour of waiting, a security guy came up to me and informed me that i might had taken somebody else's luggage( that closely resembled mine) by mistake, and i actually did! this person finally came up to me and we finally exchanged them. so, it was definitely a good thing that my parents didn't come earlier and bring me home with the wrong piece of luggage.



very strange to be back home. the lobby of the condominium, the kids' playground, the swimming pool, parking lots,etc have all been renovated and so things don't look quite the same. my parents haven't changed much though, looking and feeling as happy and contented as before. my sister and i still have many things to talk about and share, after spending more than 2 years apart. it's the second day, and things feel familiar, yet unfamiliar. i have been mostly awake late at night and very early in the morning. in the afternoon and evening, when everyone else is busy and alive with their activities, i rest in my dreamworld. even during the waking hours, my body is totally exhausted from a tedious 20 hours' journey.many things i am seeing and feeling seem like blurry and unreal images to me.

hopefully, my schedule will get back to normal soon!

packing, packing , packing.......i hope i will get to complete it before my flight on sunday!

has anyone been to the wave field located at the north campus, especially at night? i wish i could just stay there and play all night long.

mango madness

quite a long day today. went to the matthaei botanical gardens with beth and kasha this morning. after that, i spent the entire afternoon moving 13 boxes to the postal office (with some help) and filling out overwhelming number of forms for them to be shipped back home. the cost amounted to US $509 !! and then i had dinner with yoshi. when i came home, beth invited me to play a quick game of ceiling tennis with her.

yesterday, i went out with ray, hemanth and sudipa from the coops. we ate at mongolian barbecue and i really enjoyed the mango madness drink i was having. so did ray.we also had a lot of fun playing with the digital camera belonging to hemanth.

it all started with a girl eating green beans with rainbow decors this morning

adrien, a french guy living in the coop, told me about gloubi-boulga. it's a french recipe.

just a while ago, i was wondering a bit about "lines", and started googling the word. then i chanced upon this website about the Nazca lines. Check it out at http://www.crystalinks.com/nazca.html
very intriguing indeed !!

words from the last paragraph of Oracle Night, by Paul Auster:
" I had my face in my hands and was sobbing my guts out. I don't know how long I carried on like that, but even as the tears poured out of me, I was happy, happier to be alive than I had even been before. It was a happiness beyond consolation, beyond misery, beyond all the ugliness and beauty of the world. "

what is there?

Imagine....that i can look at the world through a psychedelic perspective. what would it be like? imagine that i could do it without the assistance of marijuana, or any external tool, but just through my own eyes. or would it just be a futile and foolish experience?

imagine that what i see....is only a glimmer of what lies underneath and beyond. imagine that there are many more layers to uncover. sometimes, i feel helpless, not really knowing how or where to look. other times, i feel that i am seeing things that would want me stay in that moment indefinitely, like the feeling of being in love.

i was reminded yesterday morning of the reality of the cross. what does it really mean to me now and in the future ? how will my heart respond to it at this current stage? if there is a mirror that could reflect the realities in my heart, would i really want to face it? would i be contented to see what is in there or would i draw back with disappointment and even pain? i am not certain. maybe i will know soon, or later.