像青春一樣, 一個人的運是會耗盡的.

When you are losing on the mahjong table, all you could is to 守 - until the time your luck returns. No one knows when. Every tile you play will make you lose, whether they are a safe play or a risky one. When you are doomed to lose, you will lose even you make no mistakes. The question is how long one can hold onto it and how patient one could be.

就算失收　始終要守.

Charles and I believe that every one has their own quota on love.
I want to know mine.

ANG LEE and me

I can't believe that it is one the website: http://bc.cinema.com.hk/zh/focus.jsp

The first question was asked by me!! I was too nervous and mumbled a lot! Gosh! Who wouldn't be nervous when they had a chance to talk to such a big figure?


問：
My question goes to Director Lee, I'm very interested in the process of adaptation, how do you manage to add so many details and so many colors to the story?
李：
其實這是一個很漫長的過程，adaptation的第一步是Larry McMurtry做的，他是比原著作者名氣還要大的，寫西部的專家，小說裡有的他完全保存，女人的部份他加了很多新的戲，他把情節很出色的描出來，結構也把拉出來，拍的時候我有很多意見，所以我跟他們改寫，我跟著兩位大師學習，自己也做很多研究，到懷俄明那地方考察，與當地人談，學習牛仔的東西，對我幫助最大的除了他們以外，就是照片，還有文學方面；我最不要看的是西部片，因為對我來說是一種障礙…… 做這個片最有意思是它是一個“period piece in a timeless place”，在這個地方你好像看不到時間，外面的東西好像跟它沒多大關係，但它是一個period piece，一個古裝劇，這個東西很難把握。
_________________________________________________________________

I place the bet today. Waiting...

It's really hard to define 義氣: stand by you and back you up all the time? guide you and be there whenever you need them? counsel you and stop you from doing the wrong thing? Well, it's even more difficult to find and English equivalent. All of the descriptions depend on 'actions'.

義氣 is defined by actions and redefined by not taking any, which is 沒義氣.

Am I just too demanding on my friends? 'Friend' is already a term ambiguous enough. Claiming to be one and really acting to be one makes a hell of differences.

Let's look at the literal definitions of this elusive term (extracted from http://www. dictionary.com)

1. A person whom one knows, likes, and trusts.
2. A person whom one knows; an acquaintance.
3. A person with whom one is allied in a struggle or cause; a comrade.
4. One who supports, sympathizes with, or patronizes a group, cause, or movement.

Most people interpret the term by using the second definition! Can't you even see?

I like my friends, all of them. I believe that mutual likeness and likeliness are the factors that initiate a friendship. Comradeship has become extinct in today's society. Back in war times, men are willing to die for each other, sacrificing their blood and body. Typical examples would be D.H. Lawrence's Women in Love and Johnnie To's Election.

Gay people just focus too much on the artifacts, on the surface, nothing deep down could grasp their attention, even the way to define 'friends'. Someone just alerted me on msn on the term "義氣" - gay people are women, they don't know such a thing. Very right.

This week is going to be my reading week. I hope I can pick up some books I want to read but yet I don't have time for. I guess I will write a few articles, short ones, not academic, but insightful.

The food of today is: 鍋貼

Movie reviews

1. Me and You and Everyone I know - B++
2. Scary Movie 4 - D
3. My Date with Drew - B
4. The Omen - C-

After 6 Easts of GM, I finally got home at around 9. I bought my breakfast at McDonald's (known as M-C-Donald, according to someone). Yet, the coke was spilt over the entire breakfast case. Whatever. 好的一餐, 不好的又一餐.

Before I fell into a long coma. I asked myself: Why would people love me? The ultimate big question. People around me are all dating, which does not bother me at all. I am happy for them, just that in certain tiny split of seconds, the sense of loneliness would irritate me. 我心眼少, 想法多. After I have finished the new chapter on my thesis, I finally have the time to experience the pleasure of this tiny pain. Such kind of time is a luxury in life.

"Nobody ever died of a broken heart. You'll get over it." (Written on the Body, Jeanette Winterson)

My sister is in love. They are sweetly in love in their apartment I have not yet visited. They have a world of their own. She told me they have a common goal of working in Taiwan. Common goal, another luxury I have not yet shared and found with the one for me.

27. Looking into the mirror, things have changed. 我老化了. 老化 is different from 老. 老化 means decaying, a loss of something which you can't retrieve. 老 simply means not young. I am 27, still very young.

He knows how to drive and has a good taste of living. He is in love. He is caring, independent, sincere and mature. He is in love. He wears Dior Homme and makes a reputation of being so. He is in love. He manages to find another one to stop being the third party in a relationship. He is in love. He has been suspected to have an affair. Numerous breakups were said. He is still in love. He decided to dump his boyfriend because he thought he deserved someone better. But they are dining tonight with him tonight. He is in love. He has been finding the most simple mode of love, but ending up moving from one person to another. He is in love, I guess. He loved another one besides his boyfriend and lied to others that he has never been serious with him. He is in love, I guess. He works in IT, looks young (he is young). He is stylish and looks Japanese. He is in love.

As a 27 man, I do seem to lack many things - I don't know how to drive, not to mention owning a car. I don't have savings in my bank account. I don't have a stable and foreseeable future with a well-paid job (even my mom is worried about it). I don't dress up, in fact, i gave up dressing up. Fuck it, you know I despise such materialistic measurements on how one should live. I only have countless books and DVDs at my home. I don't even know what I should do with my studies after I'm 30. I was told to support my family and looked for a well-paid job. Money is not my concern. It has never been. It is just a point of nuisance to me.

I seem to have found myself after I started my studies all over again. This self I believe I have is never agreeable by outsiders. Either I am really myself, or I am the one that others seem to expect me to be. I am happy and desperate at the same time. Enjoying my solitude and in need of something to be complete.

自問自己幾好　
有怨不報
離別我　離別好
自問健康幾好　
眼看得到強健到　
明明吞了剃刀　
都要上路

情人離開　
仍然永遠記得進步　
情人難保　
我已很堅強　
於谷底　玩跳高

可惜好想咳一聲　
卻又咳不到　
有話講得出聽不到　
要告不告　
要吐不吐　
難道為掛念你患上感冒　

原本想狠狠咳一咳　
卻又咳不到　
有罪然而無被告　
你怎麼不見人　
我太長情　
或太疲勞　
或者太用腦　
或欠擁抱

Coming out on 29 August 2006. Awaiting.
From Publishers Weekly: Starred Review.Reviewed by Lily Tuck

One of my favorite Haruki Murakami stories is "The Elephant Vanishes"—part of an earlier collection published in 1991—in which the narrator watches as an elephant in a zoo grows smaller and smaller until finally the elephant disappears. No explanation is given, there is no resolution, the vanished elephant remains a mystery at the same time that the narrator's life is changed forever.Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman, Murakami's new collection of 25 stories, many of which have appeared in the New Yorker and other publications, also describes these epiphanic instances. In the title story, a character who is half deaf, alludes to a John Ford movie, Fort Apache, in which John Wayne tells the newly arrived colonel that if he actually saw some Indians on his way to the fort that means there weren't any. Everything is a bit off—including of course the blind willow trees whose pollen carry flies that burrow inside a sleeping woman's ears—as in a dream, where explanations are always lacking but where interpretations are plentiful. In "Mirror," the narrator sees someone who appears to be both himself and not himself in a mirror and then finds out the mirror does not exist; the disaffected woman—a lot of Murakami's characters are handicapped or incapacitated in some physical way—in "The Shinagawa Monkey," loses her own name; in "Man-Eating Cats," the narrator's girlfriend disappears and as he searches for her finds that "with each step I took, I felt myself sinking deeper into a quicksand where my identity vanished." Murakami's stories are difficult to describe and one should, I think, resist attempts to overanalyze them. Their beauty lies in their ephemeral and incantatory qualities and in his uncanny ability to tap into a sort of collective unconscious. In addition, a part of Murakami's genius is that he uses images as plot points, going from image to image, like in the marvelous story "Airplane," where, while making love, the narrator imagines strings hanging from the ceiling and how each one might open up a different possibility—good and bad. It is clear that Murakami is well acquainted with the teachings of Buddhism, western philosophies, Jungian theory; he has a deep knowledge of music and, also, I have been told, is a dedicated, strong swimmer. In his stories, he roams freely and convincingly through all these elements (and no doubt many more) without differentiating to create a world where cats talk and elephants disappear. In the introduction to this collection, Murakami writes how, for him, writing a novel is a challenge and how writing short stories is a joy—these stories are a joy for his readers as well.Lily Tuck's most recent novel, The News from Paraguay, won the 2004 National Book Award. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

I am very tired recently. Finishing my chapter, I decide to take a few days off and recharge myself. There's always something I want to do apart from my research. Perhaps, write a few short articles and try my luck by sending them to Senses of Cinema.

I just don't want to communicate with people. For those whom I have been talking with, don't worry, I will keep finding you. For those who occasionally jump into my life, sorry, I need a break, a break-through. Don't wanna either clarify or explain myself. If you know me, you get it. I am not worried if communication would break down because I should not have communicated with them at the first place. I just get back to the intensity of zero. I have nothing to lose.

“黎耀辉，让我们重新开始。”

Happy Together 6 in 1 Ten Years' anniversay Edition.

I bought it finally!

Only twats and lunatics would buy such a commdified item. Yes, it's me!

Discomfort and jealousy just possessed me for the whole afternoon. I could not think of any ways to relieve myself. I bought a couple of DVDs and VCDs (some films I have seen but now I would like to write about them during the summer - I decide not to idle anymore in July and August). When I was about the pay at the cashier, the huge red box caught my gaze. Yes, it's you.

I have seen the film for more than 8 times on cable. It's the best of Wong, I would say. The Europeans and Americans are too focused on In the Mood for Love and 2046. I believe my eyes and my taste.

I also got mom to Commerical Bookstore to buy a few books with her HK Bank credit card, which means I have discounts on them, and most importantly - I don't need to pay. I plan to read a lot during the summer. My starting point is Umberto Eco's The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana. At p. 75 (out of 458 pages).

My recent favorite song: 戀愛盲 (梁漢文)


愛情有幾何於身邊穿梭　
最後留下我　不
為何全部都因我　
心眼小　想法多
如沒法像最愛的那個
寧願白白讓對象遊蕩過　


好友多全部有事也會找上我
到閒來無事似熟人路過　
不為何其實都因我　找愛戀　
怎預我全沒秘密最後變成姊妹　
慰問我

Woke up at 6 something. I slept for a slightly more than 3 hrs, and I turned in bed. I was awake. I knew I couldn't get back to my dreams. I decided to wake up. What's good to return to nightmares and let them continue to haunt you?

I resumed the never-ending chapter of my thesis, hoping to fully shape it as the first draft by this week. I had McDonald's hot cakes for breakfast, bought a spinach and cheese pizza for lunch, a pack of Kent M-3 and a caramel machitatto at Starbucks. On my way home, it suddenly rained. I was soaked wet. I felt refreshed. Today is my vegetarian day to mourn the death of my adorable grandma. I wonder if she has enoug money down there. Maybe Hell is also as capitalist as our existing world. So far we have not burnt anything for her. It's hard to live on earth and in hell with no money, I conclude.

有時候 有時候 我會相信一切有盡頭
相聚離開 都有時候
沒有甚麼會永垂不朽

5:41am, 5 June 2006. Still awake.

Having read too much Deleuze and Guattari, my head was on the edge of explosion. I bought the DVD of Il Mare and watched it again just now.

Two people with two years apart falling in love with each other. How romantic.

"Il mare" means the sea. The sea carries the horizon with it. You see it from a distance, but when you near, it disappear. The finite simply isn't there. Il Mare is always my top 10 favourite films of all time. I used to have its soundtrack but I forgot where I put it. It's simply romantic. It has one of the best smoking scenes in the contemporary cinema (the best is Nicole Kidman as Virginia Woolf smoking hand-rolled cigarettes in The Hours; the second best is the end shot of Andy Lau smoking with a bald head and dressed as a monk in Running on Karma).

I can't wait to see the Hollywood adaptation.

There is only one word that can describe her music - Ethereal. The spirit of her music is not the song, but her voice. Her voice carries the song, not the other way round. I never like the lyrics in her songs. They have no meaning at all. Yet, the chemistry of her music relies on this meaninglessness. If the words are too solid and too out-spoken by themselves, the ether will be ruined, but not maintained.

If she doesn't say anymore, we can give up our ears - a body that could detect no more sound.

Everybody is going to Thailand!

Three pairs of people I know are going to Thailand this weekend. I also want to go. I have never gone for a trip with my friends - that's strange. I did it with my family. I did it with my ex-es twice (one bad trip and the other average). I had working trips (half work; half play). I went to the States with my classmates when I was year 1.

I want to go to somewhere and when I depart, I don't know when I am coming back. I want to see the world and experience life. I want to try different food and listen to another language. I want some companions.

My life these days are okay, if you ask me. There's no serious work and no bad news. But people like me always try to pick the bones from an egg. I still feel stressed, believe me? haha. I hate appointments. I hate deadlines. I just want to do whatever I do and go wherever I go. I am a very ad-hoc person.

My sleeping problems come back. I could not sleep at all at night and wake up very very very late every day. I have dreams, very bad ones - either me dying or someone else. Gosh, what is my own unconscious doing?

My parents suddenly went to China today and my sister has moved out. I should enjoy my peace, but it seems that I am not. When I am at home, I am either doing my thesis or smoking. Sometimes, I want to do both, sometimes, neither. I just want to go to somewhere else with someone, now.

Have a nice trip, you all.

Jean Anouilh's comments on the first production of Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot in 1953: "Nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes, it's terrible."

Nicholas Wong's comments on his own life since 1979: "Something happens, somebody comes, somebody goes, it's still more terrible."

A scene of the play (p.68):

Estragon: (having tired in vain to work it out). I'm tired! (Pause.) Let's go.

Vladimir: We can't.

Estragon: Why not?

Vladimir: We're waiting for Godot.

Estragon: Ah! (Pause. Despairing.) What'll we do, what'll we do!

Vladimir: There's nothing we can do.

好, 我等............

From Jacques Lacan (Four Fundamental Concepts of Psycholanalysis), p. 103:







"When, in love, I solicit a look, what is profoundly unsatisfying and always missing is that - You never look at me from the place from which I see you. Conversely, what I look at is never what I wish to see."

Can it be more true?

A Quote from Roger Phang

He pushed the affirmative further, by saying:
"Every law is specific. NO law is not specific. Can you tell me which law is ambiguous, except the Basic Law?"

The Atonement of Debaters

One of my achievements (at least I am proud of it) in St Joseph's is helping the school win the championship in Singtao Interschool Debate Competition twice, consecutively. Although I could not claim the victory and all the glory solely on my own, I did make an effort. I spotted the kids and raised them and passed all the days with them. I MSN-ed with them any time of a day (sometimes in late night, in the morning, or during free lessons), going through the arguments and guiding them on the right track. It's tough, very tough.

Today, we lost. As an ex-staff of the school, I felt obliged to going and supporting my kids. I made the history and I want to see its repetition, but we lost, unreasonably. I am not saying we can't lose. We can afford losing because we did lose. Yet, losing without a good reason is equivalent to the deprivation of dignity and hard work. I have to stress that failures bring positive results, sometimes, but as a 27 year-old man and as their ex-teacher, all I could say is we deserve to win and we need to insist on your ourselves.

Why did we lose then? Simply because of a bunch of experts who have no expertise in debating AT ALL. It's a shame for the Lions Club to gather such professors and doctors who are experts in the field of the motion but with no knowledge of debating. These kids debate more than you guys masturbate! Get a life! These guys are very colonial. Not surprisingly, Lions Club is a former British organization, claiming to be charitable and serving the community. This, I can't deny. Yet, being a cynic. I should proclaim - fuck your charity work, and give me some common sense.

When the announcement was made, my heart sank. I am still emotionally tied to my former work place because I loved my kids and I still do. Seeing my kids win is more than anything else. Success doesn't come easily for a 27 yr-old. So, I switch to seeing the success of other people, which makes me happier in return.

Whatever, I don't buy their comments. Kids, you have to know how to distinguish noise from a voice. Ignore the former and listen to the latter. Crappy people are everywhere, haunting us. We have to accept this. We will encounter more of them in our future.

Three years ago, I was teaching an elite class in F.3. I taught poetry, debating, film studies and the short story of Haruki Murakami. That class of students was simply amazing. I showed them a film called The Emperor's Club, in which there's a line and I want to dedicate it to the panel of adjudicators of tonight's seriously over-run debate:

Ignorance can be cured but stupidity lasts forever.

Kids, let's go to Harvard some time later. You will keep shining. Don't worry.

JOKE 1

Quotation of Nich Wong (Cite me if you're going to use it! Don't steal it!):

Ex-es are like ghosts, better invisible than visible, better not seeing than seeing.
The first line you say to a ghost (through a psychic), or to an ex (hopefully without a psychic)s, is probably the same:
"How are you doing there?"

Joke: To catch up with the previous line. The story goes like this:

A teacher is teaching a student English.
"Remember to say 'How are you doing?' when you meet your friends!" said the teacher.
"Then what will they answer?" the student asked.
"They will probably say 'Me? Good!'" the teacher replied.

But the student is too stupid that he remembers only partly of what the teacher has said. He repeats the followings in his everyday practice:

"Who are you doing?"
"Me? Good!"

Wong Kar-wai at Cannes Film Festival, May 2006

伶仃
並沒有想等的口訊　叫孤獨有節目　差點開心到哭讓我屈服　有甚麼都覺得心足只恐拒絕便折福寂寞也許都只因我　太揀擇過路人　怎可能誘惑滿腦空白　怨地呼天也講資格想因某人哭濕過手帕 我問良心　(瞞著良心)　為免孤獨誰都合襯　偶爾更寂寞都不要緊　再別疑心　(無謂疑心)　閉起這雙眼才能親一個吻　然後多麼渴望原來某君極深得我心 只怕難捱的是我　甚麼手也拖　將更難過　這點我最清楚　伶仃得我這一個　或者總好過　做情侶　然後我自己卻未愛過 然後大家互相對坐　都不敢對望然後發現他也未愛過

Masturbation Theory

Let me make one bold assumption - Everyone loves themselves most. What I am going to do is not to prove this statement (as I believe it can't be wrong anyhow / it is true to a certain extent), but I want to illustrate why and how we end up like this.

The key act that leads to this assumption is that we all have masturbated. As I have quoted in my previous blog, Marquez says that sex is the possible consolation one can have when s/he doesn't have love. Then, if I am allowed to further, masturbation would be another piece of condolescene when sex with others is not even a possible choice. The basic difference between masturbation and sex is distinct - you do the former all by yourself (sometimes with various visuals) and the latter with another person (or sometimes more than 1 person, or with other objects in the case of fetishism). Supposedly, sex can sublimate the participants on the emotional level through coporeal embodiment. Upon organsms, each of them will feel more attached to each other in the way that their souls tend to detach from the coporeality and they would feel that they merge together on a surrealistic level. It is often heard that good sex leads to better relationships. I guess it's the merge of the souls during the post-sexual stage that makes this happen. Now, what I want to make clear is that it's not the agents you have sex with that brings one to such an ecstatic level, it's the orgasm(s) that one experiences.

Orgasms also occur in masturbation. Then during the precise moments when sexual climaxes occur, whose souls are going to emerge? It's even more obvious - the soul of oneself will engulf and merge with itself. It's self-destruction in a sense but also a form a construction in another. One loves oneself more as his/her soul merges with its own. Then here comes another question: if two individuals love each other more and more just because of their ever-improving and satisfying sexual activity, then will masturbation come to the same result? Yes and no. No because masturbation to some people is a rather standardized activity, which undergoes the same time, place and procedures. Another insider-point-of-view, however, suggests that masturbation is organic itself since it involves emotions and feelings intiated within the body. In other words, such things are usually out of our control. We can control how our hands hold a fork and knife, or how we can move our feet around when dancing. But we can never control our heartbeats, breathing and when (not) to sweat. In other words, the excitement and sublimation brought by masturbation cannot be controlled and guarded. It is in this sense that masturbation is organic and ever-changing. This ever-changingness, therefore, brings us differences and we, human beings, yearn for differences and variations, which, in return, push us to perform an action. It is also such a nature that we keep masturbating and hence we love ourselves more and more. In short, masturbation makes us more narcissitic. For people who are lonely and out of love, they may find it more difficult to find a new one as they unconsciously love themselves more and more. Self-loving is a form of self-protection. Being out of love can prevent oneself from being hurt by an outside agent. For people who are in love, which means they may have constant sex with their partner and sometimes when their partner is not available, mastubation may come as a 'consolation', they would double the degree of self-loving but they just do not notice it. The reason is simple, they have a partner already. The partner acts as a shield to cover the self-loving action and their attention is directed towards the partner instead of the self. When they break up, they theoretically experience a double loss - the loss of the partner and the loss of the self. The second loss appears because they put their self into the partner in a romantic relationship. They are forced to withdraw their self from the outsider back to him/herself and they are not used to doing so because they tend to place the self into another person. Is it not what all of us do in love? We take out our 'self' and put it into another corpus. And thanks to this double loss, they need time to recover. A short while is needed to mourn for the loss of the partner. Yet a long period of time is required for the loss and the return of the damaged self, depending on how much of your 'self' is put into your partner. This explains why some people move on more quickly than other people. For people who find a new partner shortly after a relationship, they are rather self-absorbed and they did not really devote a true self into another person.

This masturbation theory will make more sense in two incidents. First, when we were young, when we still did not know masturbation existed, we were overjoyed almost every day. We call them the good old days. Once masturbation is carried out, the desire and the sexual drive introduce us to the possibility of romance and being fulfilled by another person. This initiates the vicious cycle. To simply put, happiness exists in the pre-masturbation days in the sense that the sense of loss is ruled out. That explain why we all want to go back to our childrenhood (this excludes the possibilities that some particular traumas have happened to some people when they were children). Second, monks living in solitude are peaceful. I always question whether they are allowed to masturbate. I guess not. They are excluded from the sexual and hence the possible loss of the self and other becomes impossible. This is how they transcend themselves to a non-sexual and non-material world.