Appassionato

Omens: earth is tipping over on me

Categorised as Personal, School & tagged with dream.

Statement: My physical ability to balance myself is currently in negative pro­por­tion to my age.

In other words: The number of times I have been stumbling or tripping over air has been increas­ing dramatically.

Story #1: During my two years working at a homeware store, I would stumble several times every workday that my workmates would be con­stantly watching my steps.

Note: I was wearing plain flat-heel shoes.

Story #2: I went out with my friends one day during this recent holiday and they lost their count over how many times I was stumbling that day – again, in flat-heels.

Note: when you put a balance-challenged human being on ice, you see more than just “stumbles”. Be ready to crack-up at some exciting full-body collapses.

Con­clu­sion: In flat-heels, one foot would con­stantly “interfere” with the other foot so I walk better on high-heels.

Unfor­tu­nately, I had to alter that con­clu­sion. Yesterday, I slipped on this stone staircase in school. As I slipped in the middle of the staircase, I landed on my lower legs (not knee) on the sharp edge of a step so I got myself two big bruises. Is that a one-time thing? No. Because I just did it again today.

Start of new semesters seem to be unlucky for me. I remember on the first day of last semester, I had a water-leak in my bag in the first class that almost murdered my cellphone. (It survived, but still suffering hard from some weird side-effects.) Later that day, the bus broke down when I was about a 40-minute walk away from home. But I was too tired to get up and walk. The start of this semester was char­ac­ter­ised by the two “trips” I had in these two days and I lost my cellphone in the last class today too. For­tu­nately, someone picked it up and handed it in to the school. I was saved.

As a pessimist in the aspect of super­sti­tions. I define these “signs” as omens. I recently had a dream… The setting was one of those dark, narrow European streets in the 19th-century times. (As a believer of rein­carn­a­tion, I almost wanted to call it my past-life.) I was happily walking hand-in-hand with a lover until the doctor diagnosed some illness I had which meant I would not live past the age of 18. (As in, I would die sometime while I was still 18.) I mourn for that sad girl with a sad fate who might’ve been the 19th-century me.

Let’s see if I will live to see the light of my 19th birthday. Omens, omens, omens… *screams*

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

Categorised as Literature, Rants & tagged with asian, books.

I feel like I’m hosting a book blog at the moment, con­tinu­ously blogging about books I just finished reading. Well, it’s just in the holidays and during this holiday I decided to get back into reading English novels because it gives me more thought into different issues rather than the “lovey-dovey” Chinese online romance novels I was obsessed with over the past five years or so.

Anyhow, I finished reading Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See last night at 2 am. It was a great book. I cried at certain points and through­out the entire final chapter. Call me a water-tap if you wish but it was that touching. However, the details of foot-binding made me cringe as I placed myself as the character in the story.

This past tradition of foot-binding disgusts me. According to the novel and what I heard before, girls of families of reas­on­able social status bound their feet when they were around six or seven. The aim was to have a set size of no longer than the length of a thumb (7 cm) and this was how feminine beauty was judged by in the past China. Toes were bound to the heel and they balanced and walked on just their two big toes. All the bones were meant to be broken even­tu­ally and through this process one in ten girls died. Since the flesh was bound together for the rest of their lives, it stank. To overcome that, they used arti­fi­cial scents, of course.

Now to me, that’s something seriously wrong with the men. They got turned on by terribly mutated 7 cm feet because well… Women swayed “beau­ti­fully” on their “lily feet” and with such feet it was impossible for them to run fast or run away from their husbands’ homes.

In terms of gender inequal­it­ies, I know it exists through­out the world and to a greater extent in the past times. But to look at it from a more modern point of view, this masculine superi­or­ity idea that most Chinese men (being a “zodiacist”, I say Sagit­tarius in par­tic­u­lar) still holds is crazy. Foot-binding is an example, but that’s outdated. There’s this thing about how the guys may or may not have sex before marriage but, they would expect their future wife to be a virgin. Along with that, how pale white skin normally con­not­ates physical weakness and obviously, that’s one part to the defin­i­tion of Asian feminine beauty. I don’t think I’m ugly, but I get annoyed when the Asian guys back in high school used to refer to me (mockingly) as “black girl” just because I’m darker than most other Chinese girls. (It didn’t kill my self-esteem so much though because they weren’t the best looking males either. ) But seriously, they need to grow up. Move along with the global trend towards gender equality and with that… Tanned girls are not ugly! >.<

Saving Fish From Drowning

Categorised as Internet, Literature & tagged with books.

There we go. I just finished one of the most boring novels ever–Saving Fish From Drowning by Amy Tan. It was really not exciting. I don’t recommend it unless you have a lot of time to spare but one should make his/her own decisions. For me, the best bit to the book must be this quote right at the start:

A pious man explained to his followers: “It is evil to take lives and noble to save them. Each day I pledge to save a hundred lives. I drop my net in the lake and scoop out a hundred fishes. I place the fishes on the bank, where they flop and twirl. “Don’t be scared,” I tell those fishes. “I am saving you from drowning.” Soon enough, the fishes grow calm and lie still. Yet, sad to say, I am always too late. The fishes expire. And because it is evil to waste anything, I take those dead fishes to market and I sell them for a good price. With the money I receive, I buy more nets so I can save more fishes.

- Anonymous

I find that incred­ibly amusing. Sadly, I did not see that tie in with the rest of the story. Perhaps because I was bored and didn’t bother to analyse like I would have for an English exam but all in all, I wasn’t too engaged in the story until I was about four-fifths of the way through.

I am proud I managed to finish it though. For I also found a bookmark left in the first one-fifth of the book by the person who borrowed it from the library before me.

Off on another topic, would anyone meet up with Internet friends? I mean, you see the news reporting stories of people getting kidnapped and raped by “friends” they met over the Internet. Doesn’t that intim­id­ate anyone? But then I also learnt from school that the media gives off wrong impres­sions of crime rates to the general public, espe­cially about “street crimes” like homicides and rape because that’s what viewers are inter­ested in. So, what do you say? Better safe than sorry? What about the numerous other cases of good Internet friends meeting up to become “real life” friends?