I am taking Cantonese classes - tutoring sessions in the mall's coffee shop. Two hours each time, while I'm trying to concentrate on hearing the difference between high level and mid level to high slanted tones.
"High level. Mid to very high. Mid to not so high." Etc. Etc.
I don't think I'm an amazing student or anything, but I do think I try hard.
I do my homework, I've made flashcards, and I try to stay awake for my tutor as we go over the words yet again. And more importantly, I've gotten to like the sound of Cantonese.
But still, my tutor never seems very happy with my progress - and I feel like a lazy American person.
I do have an appreciation for my tutor as I've become one myself- I've started tutoring a Korean businessman who wants to improve conversational English. The challenge really is to keep up a conversation. After a bit of trial and error as he did not want to discuss Obama; politics; economics; the financial crisis; Korean beef; hobbies - meh; being in Hong Kong - well the food was good...
I found that what we could talk about was tv. Specifically, The Office, which he enjoyed but did not find that funny. So more specifically, the jokes from the Office - which I never realized, were actually pretty complicated.
How do you explain a double entendre? It made me feel like those high school days when the teacher laughed hysterically while reading Shakespeare plays, "Bite your thumb, get it?" "Explore a country, get it?" and the students would be sitting in sullen silence.
"Mmm... that's what she said? all right well, that's Michael Scott's way of .. uh. well. trying to put things in a context of a woman. For example... he says, I need two guys on this... that's what she said? haha? Get it?"
:sullen silence:
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
sputnik
I just finished reading Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami. I mostly caught bits and pieces of it while I sat on the bus going back and forth through Hong Kong. When I finished it, I was also on the bus, swaying back and forth in my seat in the upper level. We were going up a large mountain, and we were about to reach my favorite part of the ride, a certain moment of view, where the city building lights are behind me.
It is a view that needs a soundtrack, but usually I don't have any - just the sounds of the tv in the front wall, tourists chatter, Cantonese, and occasionally the clicking of nail clippers (I've noticed that people really like to use commutes for that)
Sputnik Sweetheart is a lonely sort of love story - well, not love but rather obsession. There is the struggle of obsession, love and the loss of self. The plot is rather suspenseful, or at least has urgency. One of the main characters disappears, and so through half the book, the reader is trying to make terms with a character's absence.
I've gotten used to it when reading Murakami's stories, or maybe it's just that my brain is so tired that I'll accept anything - but his resolutions or explanations are always fantastic or extraordinary. And not to ruin the story - but it's the same for this novel. A disappearance that has no earthly reason, but is a combination of the "impossible". And even - this part was what made me wonder most - the idea of being abandoned by the self, a complete solitude - so then is one existing or non-existing?
There is a passage about the strangeness of the satellite name "Sputnik" - "Traveling companion", when in actuality "lonely little lumps of metal spinning around the earth in their own separate orbits. From far off they look like beautiful shooting stars, but in reality... each of us is locked up alone... When the orbits of these two satellites happened to cross paths, we could be together. Maybe even open our hearts to each other. But that was only for the briefest moment. In the next instant we'd be in absolute solitude. Until we burned up and became nothing."
It is a view that needs a soundtrack, but usually I don't have any - just the sounds of the tv in the front wall, tourists chatter, Cantonese, and occasionally the clicking of nail clippers (I've noticed that people really like to use commutes for that)
Sputnik Sweetheart is a lonely sort of love story - well, not love but rather obsession. There is the struggle of obsession, love and the loss of self. The plot is rather suspenseful, or at least has urgency. One of the main characters disappears, and so through half the book, the reader is trying to make terms with a character's absence.
I've gotten used to it when reading Murakami's stories, or maybe it's just that my brain is so tired that I'll accept anything - but his resolutions or explanations are always fantastic or extraordinary. And not to ruin the story - but it's the same for this novel. A disappearance that has no earthly reason, but is a combination of the "impossible". And even - this part was what made me wonder most - the idea of being abandoned by the self, a complete solitude - so then is one existing or non-existing?
There is a passage about the strangeness of the satellite name "Sputnik" - "Traveling companion", when in actuality "lonely little lumps of metal spinning around the earth in their own separate orbits. From far off they look like beautiful shooting stars, but in reality... each of us is locked up alone... When the orbits of these two satellites happened to cross paths, we could be together. Maybe even open our hearts to each other. But that was only for the briefest moment. In the next instant we'd be in absolute solitude. Until we burned up and became nothing."
Sunday, January 4, 2009
suitcases
I left New York a couple weeks ago, without much fanfare or tears - in a car filled to the ceiling with all my material possessions. I forgot to look back at the skyline and say goodbye, but it may have been because I was too preoccupied in preventing myself from being suffocated by my things. I had a stuffed dog balanced on my head, a potted plant in my lap, even my legs were curled under and stuck holding a random box in place.
I came back to New York later to fly to Hong Kong out of JFK. My brother volunteered to ride the bus up with me and then drop me off at the airport. It should have been a simple enough thing, but unfortunately, I discovered a whole corner of things in the apartment I'd forgotten to pack. We spent all night packing and stressing over what to throw away, while everything else was packed and tied up in plastic duane reade bags.
In the morning, as we got to the airport, we ended up abandoning more and more things, like a trail through JFK.. a nearly full bottle of febreze, the bottle of Gain, a box of cereal, clothes hangers... my fake snowboots. It made me feel like a refugee or one of those pioneers headed west, leaving things one by one at the side of a river.
I said bye to my brother.. it wasn't a very sentimental goodbye, mostly because I had to watch him stumble for a subway with plastic bags tied to his arms and strapped to multiple duffel bags, while balancing 2 pillows I refused to part with. sorry sorry.
---
I had bought a huge suitcase from Chinatown for my move. It was the biggest I'd ever seen; I could probably have lived in it. Even though Chinatown had failed me so many times, I figured the suitcase was just so big it had to be a good bargain, and besides how could a suitcase really go wrong anyway. The saleswoman promised it was good quality. She made a big show of zipping every zipper and pulling all the straps and showing off the pockets. There was even a combination that would lock the zippers into place.
It was the zipper lock that really persuaded me, I'd never seen one before - although afterward I was told that almost every Asian suitcase has a zipper lock and it's not really that special of a thing. hmph. I should have known better.
By the time I got to HK airport, when I pulled the suitcase off the luggage strip, a wheel fell off and bounced across the floor. Looking closer, the sides of the suitcase were coming apart, the seams were open and part of the fabric holding the top together was gone.
I was disappointed, but thought maybe the zipper lock could be redeeming. However, on opening the suitcase, nothing would get the combination lock to open. On the bright side, one thing that was lucky about it being so cheaply made was that I was able to pry open the zippers from the lock with a pen. Rawr. *shakes fist*
---
I like Hong Kong - it's always felt like a kindred city somehow. I think the landscape is really lovely, and the lights - well it's why I liked the city so much in the first place. And I get to see and hear the ocean everyday, I never would have thought that possible.
I've even gotten to like the sound of Cantonese, which I am currently learning. I'm determined to become good at it. If most urgently because I have to be able to order my own hui lan shan. (mango pudding shake with crystal jelly or sago... although I'm not really sure still what sago is).
motivation.
I've tried to compare Hong Kong to impressions of other cities in my past... and it's hard to do. I thought of London, a city that wanted to kill me - with the constant grey weather and opposite street ways and crazy cabs (here in Hong Kong they do have opposite streets, but there is a polite cute noise that indicates when the lights are changing - and also signs on the road with arrows to let you know which way to look)...
Seoul was easy to get to know, but a somewhat snobby/intimidating one (but maybe that's just because of the crowds of Korean girls with high heels and Lv bags and identically made eyes is just naturally intimidating)
I guess that's one thing about living in a foreign place - a new place, is that there is nothing from the past that I really can relate it to. In a way, comparing it to the past or what's familiar is not doing it justice. Instead it's like discovering a new word, a new definition has to be made. It's a strange feeling, but a kind of wondrous one.
I came back to New York later to fly to Hong Kong out of JFK. My brother volunteered to ride the bus up with me and then drop me off at the airport. It should have been a simple enough thing, but unfortunately, I discovered a whole corner of things in the apartment I'd forgotten to pack. We spent all night packing and stressing over what to throw away, while everything else was packed and tied up in plastic duane reade bags.
In the morning, as we got to the airport, we ended up abandoning more and more things, like a trail through JFK.. a nearly full bottle of febreze, the bottle of Gain, a box of cereal, clothes hangers... my fake snowboots. It made me feel like a refugee or one of those pioneers headed west, leaving things one by one at the side of a river.
I said bye to my brother.. it wasn't a very sentimental goodbye, mostly because I had to watch him stumble for a subway with plastic bags tied to his arms and strapped to multiple duffel bags, while balancing 2 pillows I refused to part with. sorry sorry.
---
I had bought a huge suitcase from Chinatown for my move. It was the biggest I'd ever seen; I could probably have lived in it. Even though Chinatown had failed me so many times, I figured the suitcase was just so big it had to be a good bargain, and besides how could a suitcase really go wrong anyway. The saleswoman promised it was good quality. She made a big show of zipping every zipper and pulling all the straps and showing off the pockets. There was even a combination that would lock the zippers into place.
It was the zipper lock that really persuaded me, I'd never seen one before - although afterward I was told that almost every Asian suitcase has a zipper lock and it's not really that special of a thing. hmph. I should have known better.
By the time I got to HK airport, when I pulled the suitcase off the luggage strip, a wheel fell off and bounced across the floor. Looking closer, the sides of the suitcase were coming apart, the seams were open and part of the fabric holding the top together was gone.
I was disappointed, but thought maybe the zipper lock could be redeeming. However, on opening the suitcase, nothing would get the combination lock to open. On the bright side, one thing that was lucky about it being so cheaply made was that I was able to pry open the zippers from the lock with a pen. Rawr. *shakes fist*
---
I like Hong Kong - it's always felt like a kindred city somehow. I think the landscape is really lovely, and the lights - well it's why I liked the city so much in the first place. And I get to see and hear the ocean everyday, I never would have thought that possible.
I've even gotten to like the sound of Cantonese, which I am currently learning. I'm determined to become good at it. If most urgently because I have to be able to order my own hui lan shan. (mango pudding shake with crystal jelly or sago... although I'm not really sure still what sago is).
motivation.
I've tried to compare Hong Kong to impressions of other cities in my past... and it's hard to do. I thought of London, a city that wanted to kill me - with the constant grey weather and opposite street ways and crazy cabs (here in Hong Kong they do have opposite streets, but there is a polite cute noise that indicates when the lights are changing - and also signs on the road with arrows to let you know which way to look)...
Seoul was easy to get to know, but a somewhat snobby/intimidating one (but maybe that's just because of the crowds of Korean girls with high heels and Lv bags and identically made eyes is just naturally intimidating)
I guess that's one thing about living in a foreign place - a new place, is that there is nothing from the past that I really can relate it to. In a way, comparing it to the past or what's familiar is not doing it justice. Instead it's like discovering a new word, a new definition has to be made. It's a strange feeling, but a kind of wondrous one.
Monday, December 1, 2008
December
It's the beginning of December,
which means that I haven't written anything in 2 months.
By now I've realized that if I don't write for awhile, my speech pattern
starts to deteriorate, and I forget to enunciate words and everything that comes out of my mouth is just garble + half thoughts + falling sentences and ends with a ...
My family are usually the first to point it out to me, "What?" "What are you saying?" "Are you speaking?"
So here I am... ready to ramble.
I've been taking the train to D.C. to visit. The past couple of times, I've fallen asleep. No one ever bothers to wake me, and so when I wake up the train is deserted. It's a really disconcerting feeling, being left behind.. and I always shake awake with mild panic of apocalypse or ghosts or my life was a dream.
It had bothered me that people wouldn't take the time to wake someone, but then maybe they think they're being polite, or maybe it's concern that the sleeping girl is actually dead, and it'd be so messy to have to deal with a corpse and who wants to bother with that.
Thoughts like that have made the city has seemed less charming to me. It's hard to explain, but there's an essay 'goodbye to all that' by didion that describes it so well. There's a part where she says that New York is like a playground, a fantasy world - and how can one "live" in a playground, one is merely 'staying'.
And it's true, only with new york magic could a couch be a bedroom, that curtains are walls, a 4th floor walk-up is fun (saves money for a gym), the mice that run along the floor are pets, a hotdog and pretzel is a meal, and chicken with rice may as well be a banquet dinner.
Not that there haven't been beautiful things either - 5th avenue, Times Square electricity, ballet sequins, chinatown egg tarts and milk tea...
I wouldn't say that I'm getting jaded, but I think the Pollyanna in me has gone somewhere else to live.
which means that I haven't written anything in 2 months.
By now I've realized that if I don't write for awhile, my speech pattern
starts to deteriorate, and I forget to enunciate words and everything that comes out of my mouth is just garble + half thoughts + falling sentences and ends with a ...
My family are usually the first to point it out to me, "What?" "What are you saying?" "Are you speaking?"
So here I am... ready to ramble.
I've been taking the train to D.C. to visit. The past couple of times, I've fallen asleep. No one ever bothers to wake me, and so when I wake up the train is deserted. It's a really disconcerting feeling, being left behind.. and I always shake awake with mild panic of apocalypse or ghosts or my life was a dream.
It had bothered me that people wouldn't take the time to wake someone, but then maybe they think they're being polite, or maybe it's concern that the sleeping girl is actually dead, and it'd be so messy to have to deal with a corpse and who wants to bother with that.
Thoughts like that have made the city has seemed less charming to me. It's hard to explain, but there's an essay 'goodbye to all that' by didion that describes it so well. There's a part where she says that New York is like a playground, a fantasy world - and how can one "live" in a playground, one is merely 'staying'.
And it's true, only with new york magic could a couch be a bedroom, that curtains are walls, a 4th floor walk-up is fun (saves money for a gym), the mice that run along the floor are pets, a hotdog and pretzel is a meal, and chicken with rice may as well be a banquet dinner.
Not that there haven't been beautiful things either - 5th avenue, Times Square electricity, ballet sequins, chinatown egg tarts and milk tea...
I wouldn't say that I'm getting jaded, but I think the Pollyanna in me has gone somewhere else to live.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
bandaid
My only thought about work right now is that it has become hazardous.
I don't mean to be a complainer... (=.=) I guess I've had hazardous work before: A sore back from carrying extensive loads of laundry across town, having strangely protruding forearms from coldstone days, to burning my hands holding hot plates while waiting for people to move food out of my way. "Please sir, be careful it's hot" thinking "%*^%$^$% SIR move your stupid bread bowl out of the way before I burn you on purpose. Rawr."
But I thought once I transitioned to the professional world, that manual pain was supposed to be over. But no, if anything now, I have a more vicious enemy. One that is ever-present. Paper.
Currently my hands are wrapped in band aids from freaking paper cuts. And it's not the cute little kind, but the gaping gash kind - the manila folder kind. Been shaking hands with edward scissorhands? no.. unfortunately not. *wistful* johnny depp. But yea I have paper cuts on my palms, under my nails, the tips of my fingers... it's like a game or a competition for attention, and I lose because I can't decide which parts of my hand I value more.
My one consolation is that the bandaids are cute... they're hello kitty, and I remember when I bought them I'd (stupidly) wished that I'd have some purpose to use them. I even tried wearing them for no reason. But now at least my wish has come true, and my hands are very decorated.
I am a little disturbed though that everytime I get cut, the first thing my mind registers is panic, the agh i'm bleeding and oh no the documents! i haven't bled on the documents right?!
then pain is registered second.
I figure this is the mini-revenge of the trees. Every week I'm sure I'm responsible for printing through a forest.. I imagine all those walking trees from Lord of the Rings - marching through New York and burning everything down..
And in the broad perspective of things.. my job is to be the boat person who takes them into a new life... and the cuts are their revenge that they're not being made into the page of a novel or a love letter, but a page of a document to be thumbed over. So I'll take it. at least the bandaids are cute.
I don't mean to be a complainer... (=.=) I guess I've had hazardous work before: A sore back from carrying extensive loads of laundry across town, having strangely protruding forearms from coldstone days, to burning my hands holding hot plates while waiting for people to move food out of my way. "Please sir, be careful it's hot" thinking "%*^%$^$% SIR move your stupid bread bowl out of the way before I burn you on purpose. Rawr."
But I thought once I transitioned to the professional world, that manual pain was supposed to be over. But no, if anything now, I have a more vicious enemy. One that is ever-present. Paper.
Currently my hands are wrapped in band aids from freaking paper cuts. And it's not the cute little kind, but the gaping gash kind - the manila folder kind. Been shaking hands with edward scissorhands? no.. unfortunately not. *wistful* johnny depp. But yea I have paper cuts on my palms, under my nails, the tips of my fingers... it's like a game or a competition for attention, and I lose because I can't decide which parts of my hand I value more.
My one consolation is that the bandaids are cute... they're hello kitty, and I remember when I bought them I'd (stupidly) wished that I'd have some purpose to use them. I even tried wearing them for no reason. But now at least my wish has come true, and my hands are very decorated.
I am a little disturbed though that everytime I get cut, the first thing my mind registers is panic, the agh i'm bleeding and oh no the documents! i haven't bled on the documents right?!
then pain is registered second.
I figure this is the mini-revenge of the trees. Every week I'm sure I'm responsible for printing through a forest.. I imagine all those walking trees from Lord of the Rings - marching through New York and burning everything down..
And in the broad perspective of things.. my job is to be the boat person who takes them into a new life... and the cuts are their revenge that they're not being made into the page of a novel or a love letter, but a page of a document to be thumbed over. So I'll take it. at least the bandaids are cute.
Saturday, August 23, 2008
hitmen.
The other day I was walking through Chinatown buying groceries when an old Asian man hit me on the arm with his fist for no apparent reason. He'd been walking toward me on the sidewalk. When it happened his face expression was impassive, like what it isn't normal to hit a girl's arm? Why can't I hit you on the arm HA. It was somewhat of a punch except that he was weak and the only thing that hurt about it was that his fist was pointy and thin, so it felt like a hard jab.
I was too shocked to do anything or say anything. What had just happened, I turned my head and he was still strolling along. I didn't feel like being the immature one making a big deal about something so "normal". Why did you do that?! Why why? and so I stared at him strolling and wondered how it would've been to throw down my grocery bags, rice wine and the bloody chicken all over the sidewalk.
Instead, it made me think of a month or so before when I was on the subway platform at City Hall. Again, nothing out of the ordinary, I had just gotten off the train when suddenly the girl behind me kicked my back. It didn't really hurt because she'd tried to do a fancy wheel kick or something - the kind where the foot goes past one's head. When I turned in shock, I saw that she'd almost lost her balance. She was a black girl, my age, and looked profoundly normal. She was wearing a t-shirt that had sparkly writing in script across the chest, and I tried to remember vaguely if I had the same shirt, and did it say Princess or Miss or ??.
"Bitch!" she screamed as she walked by. "Try looking at my face you bitch!" In the next moments, I was screaming back blindly and tossed my bag down (very intimidating I’m sure.. it had a panda on it). “It’s too ugly! %^78#$%. COME BACKKK AWRRRR.” And as she turned her head, she looked at me as though I were the insane one. And so I picked up my bag and tried to walk calmly to the other end of the platform, as though this was all very normal interaction.
I don’t know what’s happening. Do I inspire violence? Maybe there’s a hit on me… *knock on wood*. but FINE wannabe martial artists bring it.
I was too shocked to do anything or say anything. What had just happened, I turned my head and he was still strolling along. I didn't feel like being the immature one making a big deal about something so "normal". Why did you do that?! Why why? and so I stared at him strolling and wondered how it would've been to throw down my grocery bags, rice wine and the bloody chicken all over the sidewalk.
Instead, it made me think of a month or so before when I was on the subway platform at City Hall. Again, nothing out of the ordinary, I had just gotten off the train when suddenly the girl behind me kicked my back. It didn't really hurt because she'd tried to do a fancy wheel kick or something - the kind where the foot goes past one's head. When I turned in shock, I saw that she'd almost lost her balance. She was a black girl, my age, and looked profoundly normal. She was wearing a t-shirt that had sparkly writing in script across the chest, and I tried to remember vaguely if I had the same shirt, and did it say Princess or Miss or ??.
"Bitch!" she screamed as she walked by. "Try looking at my face you bitch!" In the next moments, I was screaming back blindly and tossed my bag down (very intimidating I’m sure.. it had a panda on it). “It’s too ugly! %^78#$%. COME BACKKK AWRRRR.” And as she turned her head, she looked at me as though I were the insane one. And so I picked up my bag and tried to walk calmly to the other end of the platform, as though this was all very normal interaction.
I don’t know what’s happening. Do I inspire violence? Maybe there’s a hit on me… *knock on wood*. but FINE wannabe martial artists bring it.
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
tombstones
current life-
Begin narrative here (I am practicing my format for billing time at the office. We are to keep "narratives". *Note the use of action verbs and succinct diction and style.)
1) fall out of bed. (on certain mornings - go to the gym.)
a. if at the gym - congratulate self and run for a little bit. think about the possibility of achieving "running high" but remember sadly that usually the only high i get from running is when i stop.
b. on uncertain mornings when not at gym - sleep, congratulate self on not having to shower (haha joking?)
2) dressed and pressed. walk to work. laugh at the people on wall st, and then sadly realize that i am one of them. "i am your people!" inevitably end up sprinting because I am late.
3) glide into lobby like the serene professional I am, attempt not to collapse on floor from loss of breath.
------ work ------
4) come home. the end - i can't write succinctly and i'm running out of action verbs.
It's the 2nd week of work and it still feels like a game, some strange large illusive mind-trap. An alternate version of me - one that's dressed up, so much taller (heels as transforming?), and gets to have an id card with a snapping string thing.
My favorite thing about work is the office view. It's like being in the sky, constantly flying. I could see myself agreeing to stay and work for free, just for the view. It's that amazing.
I would say something about corporate world and games and the stakes being "getting to keep my soul", but it's too early to make fun yet.
On the theme of narratives and souls - I pass a cemetery and church on the way to work. It's a beautiful church. I used to try to hold my breath whenever I walked by it - but I don't have that great of lung capacity and it would just earn me really strange stares from people around me.
So now, I just take my time and walk through it, read the tombstones - the ultimate succinct narrative complete with action verbs. I don't mean to be morbid - it just has become a good way to set my day, like a cheaper replacement for coffee. And more poetic too.
Begin narrative here (I am practicing my format for billing time at the office. We are to keep "narratives". *Note the use of action verbs and succinct diction and style.)
1) fall out of bed. (on certain mornings - go to the gym.)
a. if at the gym - congratulate self and run for a little bit. think about the possibility of achieving "running high" but remember sadly that usually the only high i get from running is when i stop.
b. on uncertain mornings when not at gym - sleep, congratulate self on not having to shower (haha joking?)
2) dressed and pressed. walk to work. laugh at the people on wall st, and then sadly realize that i am one of them. "i am your people!" inevitably end up sprinting because I am late.
3) glide into lobby like the serene professional I am, attempt not to collapse on floor from loss of breath.
------ work ------
4) come home. the end - i can't write succinctly and i'm running out of action verbs.
It's the 2nd week of work and it still feels like a game, some strange large illusive mind-trap. An alternate version of me - one that's dressed up, so much taller (heels as transforming?), and gets to have an id card with a snapping string thing.
My favorite thing about work is the office view. It's like being in the sky, constantly flying. I could see myself agreeing to stay and work for free, just for the view. It's that amazing.
I would say something about corporate world and games and the stakes being "getting to keep my soul", but it's too early to make fun yet.
On the theme of narratives and souls - I pass a cemetery and church on the way to work. It's a beautiful church. I used to try to hold my breath whenever I walked by it - but I don't have that great of lung capacity and it would just earn me really strange stares from people around me.
So now, I just take my time and walk through it, read the tombstones - the ultimate succinct narrative complete with action verbs. I don't mean to be morbid - it just has become a good way to set my day, like a cheaper replacement for coffee. And more poetic too.
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