Hey ho I'm leaving today, have set up a new blog at http://www.backpackerpam.blogspot.com
Happy holidays everybody! Will be back at the end of July.

You can't rave about Beijing because it isn't the most lovable city but certainly fascinating, perched between tradition and modernity as cyclists co-exist along the road with big luxury cars, high-rise buildings and banks growing rapidly as hutongs are being demolished. The traffic is bewildering, you must learn to dart across the roads. Walking along the streets, one must be always be sharp enough to spot the glistening glob of phelgm but you know it's unavoidable, all that evaporated spit. Sometimes at a corner, you see a group of old men engaged in a game of chest. You sigh in relief knowing how the taxi meter is so slow, unlike those that skyrocket in Singapore, sometimes you try to talk to the cabbies since the best way to know the city is to ask the taxi driver, but failing to catch the heavy accent, you just murmur in agreement like an imbecile at everything he says. The Forbbiden City lies in the heart of Beijing, the irony of its name will strike you when you visit the palace grounds and push around for a glimpse of the empress's bedchamber, cursing at the hordes of tourists who trample and even spit in the palace grounds and wishing you were the only one in the extensive grounds, fantasizing how a hundred years ago it'd have meant instant decapitation. You can't think of China without Chairman Mao, whose dignified gaze looks directly at the Masoleum where his body rests in Tiananmen Square; Mao memorabilia sold all over Beijing- cigarette lighters, caps, singlets, little red books, keychains. It would be a crime not to mentioned the Great Wall, and the invasion of tourists in this age, not Mongolian barbarians and like a great snake, it meanders through treacherous mountains. They say that the Chinese eat anything and the food lane somewhere near Wangfujing holds testimony to this, the air was pregnant with smells and greases, of fried starfish, ducks' blood, goats testicles, scorpions on a stick, slimy tentacles of sea creatures dangling from the stalls.

Will in China from 16-30 May, spending a week in the capital, about 4-5 days in Shanghai and the rest in Tianjing and Suzhou. I'm excited about seeing the Great wall, the Forbidden City and just walking along unfamiliar streets, everything that will be new, strange and surprising, shopping for Mao paraphernalia, and the train ride from Peking to Shanghai. Armed with a new camera without the battery charger, an alien suitcase and clogs that don't fit as well as they used to. I board in less than an hour's time. Goodbye for now!

Post-exam life hasn't been as exciting as it ought to be, though there were fun moments like camping at Sentosa, laughing, splashing and swimming in the sea the next morning, the toilet catastrophe that wasn't funny then but hilarious on hindsight, the best massage I ever had in all my years. Days are spent at Takashimaya basement two promoting stuff. It's quite hard being confined to a little booth when you're right smack in the heart of the food hall, food paradise. It hasn't been all too bad, kinda interesting to watch how people tick and the whole variety of behaviours displayed, I can actually rattle off my sales pitch in Chinese, I like talking to the woman next door who sells traditional ice cream and ocassionally, I take a few extra paces to drool over the Goodwood durian cakes and puffs. I've learnt more about myself, the pay is decent but I don't like the boss, blind biased boss, and should I ever become a boss one day, I won't be full of this inflated self-importance, obsessed with wanting deference to authority. In fact, this stint really reminded me of why I found secondary school such an oppressive environment, monster teachers who relished in awarding you demerit points, insisting on you wearing socks of a certain length, shoes of certain colours and all other crap rules.

I leave for China in less than a week's time and I'm quite lukewarm, not exactly jumping up and down with excitement. Maybe it's because I haven't given it much thought and the later trip is really overshadowing the China trip.

I'm gonna wash that man right outa my hair,
I'm gonna wash that man right outa my hair,
I'm gonna wash that man right outa my hair,
And send him on his way.

If a man don't understand you,
If you fly on separate beams,
Waste no time, make a change,
Ride that man right off your range.
Rub him out of the roll call
And drum him out of your dreams.

Oho! If you laugh at different comics,
If you root for different teams,
Waste no time, weep no more,
Show him what the door is for.
Rub him out of the roll call
And drum him out of your dreams.

You can't light a fire when the woods are wet,
You can't make a butterfly strong,
You can't fix an egg when it ain't quite good,
And you can't fix a man when he's wrong!
You can't put back a petal when it falls from a flower,
Or sweeten up a fellow when he starts turnin' sour

If his eyes get dull and fishy,
When you look for glints and gleams,
Waste no time,
Make a switch,
Drop him in the nearest ditch!
Rub him out of the roll call,
And drum him out of your dreams

I went to wash that man right outa my hair,
I went to wash that man right outa my hair,
I went to wash that man right outa my hair,
And sent him on his way.

 

 

You know you've been sucked into an absurdist drama when, at 10.30am you haven't had proper dinner, well dinner comprised of a chocolate waffle at 5pm, so you go down to the sandwich dispenser only to find that everything's out of stock due to high demand from overnight muggers camping in the arts forum. Desperate for food, you actually head towards McDonalds despite your virulent anti-fastfood sentiments, thinking of the fish burger you last ate when you were in primary school? secondary school? but it's closed and dear old Ronald with his plastered smile beams at you. Then you walk to the all time reliable supper hang out and gobble up nasi lemak. Close to midnight, a phone call comes in, one that you've been looking forward to all dayy but whole conversation takes an unexpected turn, voices rising and unecessary agitation before simmering down just as your phone battery dies.

You make an oath to yourself to get your ass out of campus by 1am but the magnetic pull of your notes make you a prisoner and the charismatic Olivier, Almereyda, Brook and Kurosawa. Cramming chunks of paragraph in hope that you'll be able to reproduce them for the 9am paper, while despising yourself over such study methods, you tax your poor brain cells and at the back of your mind, you relish the thought of shoving all these notes into the dustbin at 11am after you hand in the paper. That everything will be shredded to bits, bidding good riddance to the Bard and the residential Bard expert in the department, pardon my irreverence. It will all mean nothing in a matter of few hours and yet now, you try so hard to internalize them, make them part of you so it'll flow like magic from the tip of your pen. But no rest for the wicked, as new content has to be crammed for the 1pm paper the next day.

Your shoulders and neck give way around 2.30am, a million pins pricking and your kind fellow neighbour who is lost in a sea of chemical equations, offers to give you a massage. You're restless and peep at what the other souls are reading, one is squinting at his articles on apartheid and 20th century history, and you think aha, very familiar terrain and that'll be something to sign up for next semester, to re-live the joys of history class in JC. Hiccup fits kick in at 3.35am, you're still in school and reluctant to go home 'coz you don't want to waste money on cab, midnight surcharge+calling cab. And at 4.15am you're weaving out such a sad sad story, being the author of your own absurdist drama.

She takes a cushion that a thousand other bums have set on, renouncing her standards of hyper-hygience.

Exit.

 

Let her not be a slave to time. They say that old habits never die. Procrastination and sloth, she acknowledges, are her tragic flaws, despite the annual New Year resolutions, the end-of-semester-oaths and unecessary dockings of A to A-. She blame it on the endless distractions and everything but herself; convenient clicks that drag one’s mind deeper into the endless whirlpool of cyber infinity, no more sustained re-reads and linear reading as her restless attention span leads her to another page. Whether it is voyeurism, pseudo-philosophizing, or an attempt in literary criticism to deconstruct blog personas, she doesn’t know but she knows certainly, that these pursuits arrest and hold her captive so that time stealthily slips pass.

Maybe there is a streak of sadomasochism and the desire to self-flagellate, although she claims to be an unwilling participant in 17 hour essay writing marathons that see her squinting at the screen, despairing over the incoherent ramble of words and a convoluted thesis, cursing Judith Butler whom she would rave about under other circumstances, googling every half an hour for updates on the new pope, enduring the 4am cold wave that passes through the arts forum, starving and reduced to buying food from the dispenser that pops out a mushroom and cheese toast, drinking 50 cents milo, naming herself on msn as “P: committing mental suicide”. Chronicles of an undergraduate who jokes of being a full-time girlfriend, part-time student. It needn’t be this way, she says.

 

*

 

It was her first kidnap attempt, only that there was no ransom involved. “Operation greener pastures”, was the euphemism that the accomplice preferred to use. The journey to and fro was unforgettable; she was duped into believing the horror story of a man who murdered his entire family in a house on Malcolm Road and that headless spirits haunted the place. Genuinely spooked, she pleaded with the incorrigible story-teller to stop but the later insisted on carrying on, with the unwanted dramatic effects. But her fear soon dissipated as she was enraptured by the beauty and dignity of old colonial houses, some distorted trees that could be easily personified as hunchbacks, enchanting gardens and meandering roads, dense forests that probably housed snakes and other creepy crawlies, old-fashioned fonts on signboards, soft yellow lights radiating from the inside. The familiar childhood envy came back. If I could be rich, what kind of house would I have and how many rooms would there be? She wondered if living in such an estate bred creative inspiration and fertilized the imagination. Who were the people who lived there, these Mr Darcy-types in modern day Singapore? It was one of those car rides that she wished, would go on longer and one of those moments that would be locked into the memory bank, stitched onto the velvet tapestry of the relationship.

 

Lily-livered and faint-hearted, preferring to contemplate wild, untamed nature from a safe distance, her heart did a few somersaults before sinking when she saw what they had to cross. But she galvanized herself in the name of love and by not wanting to betray the accomplice, screw your courage to its sticking place, the voice said. The grass blades stood tall and proud, this was a place where no sane mortal would thread, darkness shrouding the whole place including the targets, like a blanket, making them look anonymously grey. They took brave strides, cutting through the grass, the itch became increasingly unbearable as the vicious blades poked and mosquitoes feasted on her blood. The efficiency of the operation was jeopardized with her uncontrollable hysterics. One was claimed but then subsequently rejected. The accomplice discriminates on the basis of colour. She is single-minded in what she wants. Down they went again, even further this time in search of the perfect one, she secretly cursing because by this time she was scratching and almost tearing her skin apart due to the itch, but she went down in the name of love, fragments of Moulin Rouge songs playing in her head. It was easier the second time. The accomplice rejoiced, but alas there was a defect. The accomplice discriminates on the basis of physical appearance, desiring the perfect skin. She pleaded compassion, offering to nurse the chosen one back to health. Off they drove, exhausted but tickled. She loved it that her accomplice was such a maverick, and so much more. She loved it all.

We watched a documentary on Maya Lin in class today, the Asian American architect who designed the Vietnam war memorial and the Civil rights memorial. She won some nation wide design competition when she was a postgraduate student at Yale. What struck me on a really profound level was her design of the Vietnam memorial, stark simplicity, no frills. I don't know what material it was made of, but it was a kind of shiny black glossy stone, the kind which you can see your reflection in. Now, all the names of those who died in the war were also inscribed in alphabetical order. Her message was simple, clear and honest, that when you strip away the politics, the military, the national rhetoric, war is ultimately about the numerous lives sacrificed, people slain, grieving families and emotional wounds. Innocent lives slain and degradation. Military aggression and massive killing machines, all that in the name of freedom and liberation. It reminded me of my time in Pretoria and I came across several monuments around the extensive gardens in front on the Union building. Can't remember what events they commemorated but one of them was errected in honour of all the police officers who died serving the country. There were thousands of names imprinted and facing them all was a very overwhelming and psychologically painful experience, you don't necessarily know them but when your eyes rest upon one particular name, just any one name is pregnant with significance and meaning. But back to the Vietnam memorial. The documentary flashed footages of people weeping. Those who died, lives truncated, aspirations and dreams dashed, a love one shattered. Misguided patriotism and fervour and at the last moments was there that flicker of recognition of it being all a sham, a life reduced to a pawn, pawns being used in a game of chess by self-serving politicians?

But the main point of the documentary was about the controversy that came with it, contestations and the battle for representation. There were some who thought it was offensive, black associated with humiliation and shame, others wanted the memorial to be about glorifying heroism and military valour using the conventional emblems of soldier/gun/helmet sculptures, others thought it didn't do justice to the war veterans' effort, others scorning the fact that an Asian American woman's design was chosen. It was quite interesting how the whole issue errupted into something more than just aesthetics, of people wanting to have a stake in certain affairs and feeling that they should be the rightful authorities to judge, decide and intercept something. Glad that I had the opportunity to watch this in class. It also made me think about how architecture encapsulates some emotional meaning in a physical form, something that I'd like to be more sensitive towards.

*

Dug out an old recording from my CD tower- Vladimir Horowitz, Live in Leningrad 1986, as I was searching for the Op. 53 Polonaise. It's a recording that I bought when I was in St. Petersburg in 1998 for 7 magical days, under some Russian label. I just listened to it and although it lacks clarity at certain places, there's something amazing and energetic in the playing of a 82 year old man. Imagine how charged the live performance must have been. On an aside, there's also a little story surrounding the Op. 53 Polonaise. I remember being in a cafe that had a piano, (if I remember correctly, this was the cafe that Alexander Pushkin often frequented) and there was a Russian girl playing the Polonaise, albeit the very slow tempo, there was something heartfelt and genuine in her rendition of the piece, something very very surreal about listening to Chopin in a St. Petersburg cafe with a famous history. I do yearn to revisit St. Petersburg and go to Moscow.

During my travels, I often get overwhelmed by the sense of history, a spirit that pulsates through the air, buildings having stood the test of time and witnessed changes, upheavals, outliving its people and inhabited by old ghosts. Faces bearing traces of some legacy, individuals being part of a wider collective historical consciousness.

Riddle of the day: I want to run away from ran.