Thank you

By the way, thank you for the jokes/prodding to cheer me up during the recent funk I've been in. I get into funks every so often. And the funnies bring a smile to my face. It's the best gift in the world.

I'll get around to posting some of the funnies I've received in my Livejournal some time (probably during this long Bank holiday weekend).

Language/Love

Through this dude's website, I found out that Americans are going Chinois.

I'm constantly surprised by the number of people that speak Mandarin, so much so, that it has ceased being a "safe" language of gossip in an Anglophone land. More than once, we have been startled by the white man's grasp of Mandarin. Like when a German boy understood my housemate saying in Mandarin that he was good looking. Or the time a guy shopping in Safeway turned to me and commented on my Mandarin accent when I was commenting to my friends how tall he was.

Reading the article about Americans learning Chinese, I am filled with shock and shame that so many people want to learn Mandarin, while I myself had rejected my own mother tongue.

It was 1992. I was 10 and about to leave my first primary school (which was a Chinese primary school where the medium of instruction was Mandarin) to move to a new school in another town. I had the option to go to another Chinese school, or go to a government school(where the medium of instruction would be Malay, our national language).

I had balked at going to the Chinese school. How I hated the unpronounceable chicken-scratches Chinese characters! But my dad had put his foot down.

Over the years, I have come to appreciate my dad's decision and be grateful for his firmness on that point. It would be embarrassing not to be able to speak what is supposed to be my native tongue, when non-Chinese masses are flocking to learn it.

And yet, thankfully enough, most Europeans don't expect me to be able to read and write Chinese. They're usually surprised when I say I speak, read, and write Chinese, even when I admit that I do all three badly, and get all excited about it (Duh, I'm Chinese!).

To be honest, I rather think that this crazy enthusiasm for all things Chinese is a bit of an overkill, although I am of course happy that the language is spreading.

And the truth is, I'm more of my daddy's girl than I'm usually willing to admit publicly. I am more influenced by him than I perhaps care to be. But, for all his flaws, he gets many things right. (I love him) One of the things he was right about is being able to speak Mandarin/our dialect and to preserve our cultural identity.

I actually spoke mostly Hainanese and Hokkien with some English until the age of 3, after which, my parents spoke to me entirely in English except for my dad's valiant efforts (until today) to get me to speak my dialect Hainanese.

While I will never speak proper Hainanese (although I can understand a significant part of the conversation), I have resolved that my child(ren) will speak Mandarin. At the same time, I want my kid to be fluent in as many languages as possible.

I believe that languages are important, and I'm a deep believer in learning many languages. I think being multi-lingual is good for mental and creative development, and is also useful in life.

In my early teens, I had come up with a language policy for my kids (yes, freaky, I know):-
- if I married a Chinese guy (whose Mandarin can be assumed to be better than mine), he will speak to my kid in Mandarin and I will speak to my kid in English
- if I married a native English speaker (English or American), my husband would speak to my kid in English, I will spend some time in China to polish up my Mandarin and speak to my kid in Mandarin
- if I married a non-Chinese speaker, and a non native English speaker, then depending on whose spoken English is better (likely to be mine), then that parent is in charge of speaking to the kid in English. In addition, my husband would speak to my kid in his native tongue and any other languages he is fluent in (likely to be several if he is European), and I will speak to my kid in Mandarin

***

For a girl who says she's not marrying and is likely to throw babies at walls if they throw tantrums, I sure think very carefully about child-raising issues and have many plans for my non-existent kids.

I guess the fact is, loathe though I am to admit it, at some level, I DO want to get married some day. And having kids wouldn't be too bad an idea either. My denial is born not entirely out of the fear of being tied down, but more of the fear of being tied down by the wrong man, or for the wrong reasons. I am afraid I won't find the right man, who will make it everything worthwhile - even the loss of my freedom. Worst of all, I am afraid that even the Prince I eventually choose will turn out to be a Frog after all. Not, because I chose wrongly, but because there is no Right choice, simply because all Men are actually Frogs.

I have no need for a Princely man. All I am hoping for is someone who will not betray me, who, despite the storms and whirlpools to come, will not make me regret taking his hand.

If I kiss you dear Mister Frog (and promise never again to eat frogs' legs), will you be my Prince?

To meet again

As promised, here is the picture. Now tell me it doesn't look like it's two people having sex! (especially if you don't know the title of the sculpture)

Contradictions

I usually say that I used to have a crush on Sam. He had been in my A-level school and we were both involved in a fund-raising musical production -- him acting as a gangster in the musical, me involved in various supporting backstage roles. When I had discovered that my housemate was his long-time childhood friend, I was like: NO WAY!! and told her that I used to have a crush on him, because it is a simpler concept to explain.

The reality is slightly more complicated.

Yes, the boy piqued my interest because of the Chao-Ah-Beng role he played in the musical. And because of that, one day, as he walked past the desk I was studying at along one of the school corridors, and we silently acknowledged mutual recognition, I wondered idly: What kind of person would he be like? What would it be like to be his girlfriend?

I was in a relationship. With a boy I loved. We had shared our dreams, and spoken of a future together, marriage, and kids. And I was Happy. As far as I was concerned, reality was that Boy and I were going to have just the one relationship - each other - and marry. Infidelity, disloyalty, unfaithfulness, or breaking up didn't cross my mind. I loved this boy and wanted to be with him.

And yet, that day, when Sam walked past, a part of me asked: I wonder (just wonder) what it would be like to be with someone else? Him (Sam), for example.

And when I realised that I would never know (because I thought Boy and I were going marry), I felt a tremor of disappointment. Not because I wasn't in love with my Boy. Not because I was longing for Sam in particular. Nor because I was discontented or unhappy with my relationship, or wanted to rove. But because I had a question. And I would never get the answer.

You see, I've always been greedy. Greedy for life. Experiences. The heights and depths of emotions. The breadth and distance of horizons. Greedy for when how why what.

I have said it often enough, that I read blogs because, regretting that I only have one life to live (and one is too little), I want explore all the possibilities that I myself have missed out on, by vicariously living a million lives, and looking through a million pairs of eyes.

That day, the deep contradictions inherent within a relationship was brought home to me - that love, which is liberating, joyous, and life-giving, was at the same time limiting, restricting, and life-denying. That day, Sam became the embodiment of life's contradictions.

It's not an easy concept to explain in one sentence. Definitely not a dinner table conversation topic. So usually, I just say that I used to have a crush on him, although it has very little to do with him specifically at all.

I have come to realise that it was a good thing that Boy and I had broken up. I think that otherwise, with time, I may have come to resent the fact that I have not lived enough of life, and channel my resentment (unfairly) towards him. I have grown and learnt many lessons these past three-and-a-half-years. And while it's true, I will never know how these years would have been like with him, and so cannot definitively say for sure - nevertheless, I suspect that the life I've had without him is the more enriching one of the two possibilities within contemplation. Because I have undertaken an important journey and learnt some lessons that fits into my personal growth needs at the stage of life that I'm at.

It's strange how life throws you for a loop -- there is good within what seems bad, and bad within what should be good. In life, you just can't win.

Motifs (edited)

This weekend, I finished reading Haruki Murakami's Norwegian Wood.

It was, as Steve said, an unsentimental love story. Fortunately for me, I didn't feel like throwing it at the wall. I did, however, cry nearing the end of the book.

I wonder, because it is not very clear to me.. does Watanabe end up with Midori then?

I liked the book, and I'm glad I read it.

For a girl who is perpetually restless, wants to see the world, do a gadzillion things, and try virtually everything once, I can be surprisingly inert.

I haven't read many books over the past few years. And for about six, seven years now - I have been stuck in a kind of literary, philosophical, and emotional limbo.

Throughout these years, only a few books spoke to me and resonated with my own life and feelings.

A quote from one of the books "Unbearable Lightness of Being" (not the most appropriate one, but somewhat relevant):
"When people are fairly young and the musical composition of their lives is still in its opening bars, they can go about writing it together and exchange motifs . . . but if they meet when they are older, like Franz and Sabina, their musical compositions are more or less complete, and every motif, every object, every word means something different to each of them."

I sometimes don't know if I am in limbo because of the books I read. Whether, I let the motifs in the same books I read delineate the boundaries of my world.

And so, I think my obsession with the same few books is stunting me. My inertia is unhealthy - I have a tendency to eat the same food over and over again, or re-read the same author, books, genres. In that way, I get stuck in a rut. It is only when you challenge yourself that you grow. It would have been too easy to have picked up another Milan Kundera book (I have only read "Unbearable"), but I deliberately bought books of authors I had never read before. I wanted to introduce new motifs into my musical composition.

And, what I really wanted to say is, I'm glad I did that.

French onion soup

Because I lack inspiration, I may not write (here) for a while

But, like a genie, I will leave you three things (because magic things come in threes) -

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, a good friend's favorite poem which I have recently re-discovered on my blogging trails

A beautiful, bittersweet Chinese song

A funny and cute Jamaican song introduced to me by my Dudette at work

I am off to seek my light.

Meanwhile, I hope you are happy.