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.

City of Prostitutes

I recently had a friend visiting me from somewhere. I forgot where he came from as I did not pick him up at the airport. All I knew was he spoke a different language. Anyway, I took the opportunity to show him around my home city known as City D worldwide. In the underground train, he asked me what activities the people in City D usually did. I shot him a blank gaze and answered: sleeping, eating, clubbing, working, wasting their time and having sex. He then laughed a bit and looked into another direction, avoiding my sight. I wonder why he laughed and looked away. Is it that the people in his hometown have a different lifestyle? Or is it because he thought the people in City D wasted the time of their own lives in a trivial manner? Or did he just laugh at the point that we had sex to kill our time? I did not show my discontent towards his reaction. I just imagined things.

Fifty years from now, the government would have banned having sex (before they could do anything about smoking indoors). The government makes this stunning decision not because of the prevalence of a particular fatal bug that could spread to other individuals through different sexual acts, but that the city residents are diagnosed to be more and more lonely and isolated with the accumulation of sexual activities they engaged in. Medical practitioners claim that many people in City D do not fuck for a reason. This is what the report says: “Participating in various modes of sexual activities (including masturbation), to people of different sexual orientations, has become a daily habit for people living in City D. 87% of the respondents stated that they regarded having sex equally common and habitual as brushing teeth, showering and talking on the cell phone. 79% of them do have sex more than once a day, if not as frequently as they talk on their phones. When asked about why they had sex, an alarming 97% of interviewees could not give a solid and logical answer. They either gave a pass to the question or answered that they did not believe there was a why because they presumed it was what most people were doing and hence there was nothing wrong about it.”

The report goes on like this: “City D residents should be alerted that the purposeless but habitual sexual activities are strongly linked to the increasing cases of suicide caused by depression. The government has been trying to educate the public about the treatments and prevention of depression but the hideous linkage between the mental illness and the sudden rise of post-sexual emptiness is neglected. In order to strengthen the social unity to better the economy of City D, we need to have citizens who are more clear-minded and determined in all aspects of their lives. Therefore, evident with the data provided in this report, such a vague concept on the motivation of any sexual activities could do nothing but harm the progress of the city and it is suggested that having sex (both indoor and outdoor) should be banned.”

The government listens to the opinion given by the medical professionals and enacts the law. Anyone who violates this law will be castrated – the men will have their dicks cut off while the women will have their vaginas sown up. The residents in City D do not rebel, but a month after the law is passed, they do find it difficult to get used to living with one regular habit forcibly removed from their daily schedule. Since they do not consider having sex as a part of their civil rights, there is no massive protest and demonstration. They just take it as another case similar to the previous ban on selling poultry (both edible and inedible) in order to stop the bird flu virus from contaminating the city. Successfully, a few months later, they residents replace having sex with another leisure activity, classical Chinese calligraphy. The government is very happy about the positive response of the public and its cooperation with the city planning. However, its economy does not progress rosily as predicted. There is a huge number of prostitutes out of job and every day they line up outside different government offices to apply for social aids and bankruptcy. The news in other cities also report the situation and the government in City D is mocked at. The government admits that they have underestimated the number of underground whores in the city and suggest all the whores should form a union to come up with more concrete policies on how the government can offer help through different means. Since most of the whores are better at dealing with genitals than the brain, it is reckoned that it will take ages to negotiate with the government officials. During this period, the government has spent billions to provide the unemployed with urgent financial needs and the deficits have reached its new high. City D is now a more united city, but the people are not any happier or cheerful even though they still spend most of their time in eating, drinking, sleeping, working and Chinese calligraphy. The city itself is getting poorer and poorer and they start to worry that they could not eat what they like, liquors will become more expensive, they may need to work over-time to keep their jobs. At times when the financial situation is at risk, high culture stuff like Chinese calligraphy will become a luxury and useless. They are prepared for the worst. They will probably miss the forever-satisfying entertainment by putting their own genital into another’s body when they do not even have a dime in their pocket. This could only happen in their imagination but not in the reality. Having this thought, they will only become more devastated. Depression is bound to come back.

The train finally arrived at the station and I told my visiting friend that it was time to get off. I would bring him to see other places in City D, a place I did not know whether he liked or disliked. All I hoped was that he would not laugh and look away again like he did on the train. It was such a despising act on our local culture. To show a visitor your own city that he does not find amazing is definitely a waste of time. Don’t worry. I am used to it. Wasting time is in our daily schedule.

明年今日 - I know I will still be the same

若這一束吊燈傾瀉下來 或者我已不會存在即使你不愛　亦不需要分開若這一刻我竟嚴重痴呆跟本不需要被愛永遠在床上發夢　餘生都不會再悲哀 人總需要勇敢生存　我還是重新許願　例如學會　承受失戀　明年今日　別要再失眠　床褥都改變　如果有幸會面　或在同伴新婚的盛宴　惶惑地等待你出現　明年今日　未見你一年　誰捨得改變　離開你六十年　但願能認得出你的子女　臨別亦聽得到你講再見
在有生的瞬間能遇到你竟花光所有運氣到這日才發現　曾呼吸過空氣

I don't know this song can be such sad with her voice.