ARTS in Gwangju Biennale - This should be what happens in our West Kowloon. Screw capitalism.

APWN (Asian Pacific Writers' Network) - Special Edition on Hong Kong writings. Check out the following sites on my selections:

http://www.apwn.net/index.php?/writing/more/fingernails/
http://www.apwn.net/index.php?/writing/more/the_lunatics_penis/
http://www.apwn.net/index.php?/writing/more/hymen/
http://www.apwn.net/index.php?/writing/more/the_evolution_of_beard/
http://www.apwn.net/index.php?/writing/more/city_of_sameness/
http://www.apwn.net/index.php?/writing/more/suicide_with_mcdonald_suk_suk/

Also, check out the Leslie Cheung poem, which I think is poorly written. I have no idea why people are so obsessed with this woman named Agnes Lam. Everything just flows over the surface in her works. There's no space for imagination either. She tells you everything and she does it in the plainest and most straightforward manner as one can possibly do.

Coming back from the Korean trip, I gave myself at least a week of rest, by which I mean totally no plans, no unvoluntary work, no deadlines and simply live the day the way I want, with coffee and cigarettes.

The trip was rewarding. Earned some money, ate some good food and met plenty of good people, who, I feel, could influence my future a little bit.

I guess the rest is a bit like post-travel syndrome. I skipped some classes and seminar, including the one given by Lin Xi. I got an email asking me to go back in the workshop session, not because my assignment looked good, but just that he thinks everybody who has handed in their work deserves a chance to keep their seats in the course. This means basically that he has not really looked at all the assignment, nor spent the time screening the best 30 candidates. His laziness is a bit disappointment to me, yet also turning me into a lazy student for a week. Laziness is catagious, I conclude.

I managed to get the English version of Tao Te Ching from HMV. It's on my desk. No one knows when I will flip the pages, as usual.

Finally, thanks a lot, Jason, for going to Korea with me. Your companionship has made the trip more fascinating and funny. I hope you also gained what you intended there. Good luck with your PhD proposal. I always back you up!

Crazy Bitch(es) - Cunts are everywhere
For fuck sake, could you just leave me alone.

Tonight, I received such an email from such a person. Could the world function once normally for me?

Dear Mr. Nicholas Wong, How are you? I am Sandy Lam, a private psychologist in HK. You don't know me yet. In fact I am a good friend of Vivian. Something went wrong between you and her. She told me something happened last week. So I want to solve problem for both of you. About Vivian. She only wants to be your good friend and I feel sorry that you dislike her. She is sweet and lovely and many boys like her (I know). Sometimes she just does what she loves. Please forgive her. According to my advice, she should not send any email to you as you're so furious. I know the whole thing is her fault. However you're not mature and unable to handle the problem. You didn't state your feelings and I feel regret that you can't speak your own feelings to her but only shout loudly. I hope you will discuss questtions or problems with your friends or family. I don't want to tell you what you should do.You can do whatever you think that is right as you're adult. I am forty and have two children. Sometimes my kids fight and I just let them solve the problem by themselves. You may call her to discuss any question or problem if unsolved. God bless you and wish you have a good life! Regards
Sandy Lam

This is my reply:

Dear Sandy
It's rather perplexing to have received your email concerning Vivian Siu, your friend. Since I don't understand why she needs to bring in something else to step forward to solve the problem when she is the whole cause of the problem, even though I understand that your ultimate aim is the so-called relationship would be 'at peace' from now on. I truly appreciate your kindness and motivation. Yet, there are a few things I would like to refute, or clarify, so that you would be able to obtain information from both sources rather than taking sides.
First, you stated that Vivian is your close friend and you are a private psychologist. I assume then that your expertise would help her not only analyze her problems, but also lead her to recognize she is the root of the problem. I am not sure whether Vivian is your client who is under regular therapy sessions carried out by you, or you just chat with her casually as a soul mate. However, I would like to suggest you should direct her to someone professional since she presents herself to me as a psychotic since the beginning.
Her appearance was rather annoying, irritating and I should say, a nuisance. Forgive my language if it is too provoking. She started off as a helper of a magazine that my friend and I were working. Yet I started receiving emails from her totally unrelated to the work business. I have asked kindly to stop, but it was she who chose to continue and induldge in her own fantasy.
The most provoking incident was that she intervened my personal space. She came to the campus and disturbed me during an academic conference in university. I was compelled to leave the venue and she simply stalked me, from Central to Causeway Bay, then to Wan Chai. My sister and father were there to tell her I was very upset being stalked by her and stated very clearly that I would not have interest in being a friend of hers. This happened this May - and I am not sure if she did tell you this. Her emails simply keep showing up in my mail box since then, and she even came to my university once to wait for me. She also dropped things I did not ask for into my pigeon hole at the department office.
In short, I have kindly warned her that her behaviours have caused me significant amount of annoyance and I would like her to stop at once. Yet, as stubborn and shameless as she is, she chose to continue. Respect is for people who have a sense of dignity. However, Vivian has just gone too far and trepassed my bottom line. Therefore, I chose to confront her in a rather violent way. There's no officially right or wrong way in this matter. She appeared and disturbed someone's life as she liked it. By the same token, I would just like to inform her my feelings in the way I wanted. I assume normal and mentally-healthy people do not approach people like her, by being a stalker and constant nuisance. I have my social life and she also has her own. Yet, when I refuse to incorporate her into mine, from your email, it seems that it would be my fault by not stating my purposes clearly. I did state my preferences clearly yet she rejected to admit them. I wonder on what grounds should I be submissive to this woman who came out from god-knows-where in this planet.
You also wrote that I am not mature enough in speaking honestly to her my feelings. It's really a sarcasm to me since my furious response, I assume, could successfully convey my feeling - that is, fury. She just did not get the kind of response she wants to get and there is no other worse reason for you to stand up for her to suggest that I should stay at peaceful terms with her. I would like to pass this message one last time through you, as her good friend. Peaceful terms are impossible, because I don't want to be related to her, or even to her friends anymore by any means.
There is no way I would call her ever again to discuss the so-called problems, because she is the ultimate origin of the problem. Sandy, could you not recognise it? If a stranger keeps stalking you and disturb your everyday life by sending you emails and giving you things you don't want. No matter how many times you have signalled your wish, she still stays and behaves in a stubborn way. Would you be such reasonable, still? I may sound like a kid to you; however, you are in position to question my maturity. On the contrary, by being a professional private psychologist, you merely hear the story from her side and make judgement This leaves me some doubts concerning your identity as a sender in the sense that whether you are giving her/me friendly advice or professional one?
If you are concerned about how upset and stressed she is when being rejected and confronted by me such vigorously, I guess you are also obliged to understanding the mental health of the person being disturbed - that is ME - professionally. I would not like to talk deep here on this topic since it's very personal matter. All I could say is that I am also affected. So, my question is: why do I need to be disturbed and affected by someone I entirely don't know and still need to reconcile? Reasons and respect are for people who make sense and comprehensible. I am just afraid Vivian is not one of them in my mind.
And I would like to stop here. I hope I could allow you to know another of the story and my true feelings. As I stated before, I would like her to leave me alone from now on. Therefore, would you kindly enough to pass the message to her. By 'from now on', I mean 'forever'. There is also no need for you to reply me once again to further explain things or even to correct my attitudes because I believe I only live up to myself and people whom I care about. Call me egoistic, if you wish. Shall I receive any more emails concerning Vivian Siu from whoever, I would talk to my counsellor in my university and since you informed me that you are also a psychologist. I guess I would leave the matters for my counsellor to deal with you professionally.
Best
Nicholas

Susan Miller的十月prediction真的很準. 她說水瓶座的人在這個月會很忙, 但同時亦在相當的回報. 誰想到十月一日就收到Karawane的e-mail, 說我那篇陳年村上春"樹"詩會在他們的十週年刊登出. 嘩! 開心不已!皆因連自己也忘記投了稿到那裏去. 回想起還是多得上次去了趟New Mexico, 從而得到他們的小冊子. 現在Karawane 已成為University of Minnesota的出版刊物, 雖然是本Student-run的journal, 但我已很高興了. 只可惜我不能參與一連串的相關活動. 期待十一月尾寄到來的complimentary copies.

Xu Xi 也終於回覆了我, 想不到她一拼吞下了我五首詩和一個短篇故事. 當同僚問起我時, 我也不好意思的告訴她真相如此. 可惜的是只是internet publication, 希望他朝有日會In print 啦. APWN Special Hong Kong Edition: New Writers.

尚有一個星期便要去conference了. 前晚收到了email,問我可否做discussant. 好驚呀!怕出醜. 出發前還是要做多些功課. 翻一下関於National 及 Cinema 的書, 但仍尚未收到那些要我discuss的papers. 卜街!快手D啦!!!! 最好笑也是那個叫June Lam的PhD, 做我Panel的Discussant. 真的不知她對Gender有何理解. 她喜歡在自己的blog post 論文, 成百鳩幾頁! 用下個屎忽諗嘢啦! 如此的品種也可以PhD畢業, 兼做Abbas的學生!頂! 人在做, 天在看. 還是那一句: Stupidity lasts forever.

十月就是這樣的忙, 好！但走之前還是要去看看杜琪峰的<放、逐>.

近來我再忍受不了一些蠢人, 為什麼硬要一些高智商的去遷就一些低智商的?

記得那次和Vivian Siu 吵架的十七分鐘內, 她有這樣說: 究竟你是否那些很低能和儍的那種人? 我聽了後說了近三十句粗口. 對於一些不make sense 的人, 我採用的態度會是: 鬧爆你!!!

現在的大學生是文盲的, 不喜歡看書但又要扮下知識份子, 那次tutorial要討論Women and Romance的関係, 事前已經叫每人準備一些東西, 那些女子, sigh, 一些說平時少看愛情小說, 其中一個就帶了中學時代那本簡化版的Pride and Prejudice. 若Jane Austen知道, 我想她也會破例, 有儀態的說一句: What the fuck!

近來的確有點失常, 做什麼也提不起勁, 睡也睡得不太好, 還是多得樓上的裝修師傅.

前幾天逛了HMV, 買了Julian Barnes的 Arthur and George paperback. 決定給這個作家多一個機會. 很久之前已讀過他的作品, 有些看得明, 有些則一頭霧水. 但心想他既是各大學Postmodernism的必教作者, 定必有些詭異之處. 就是這個不憤氣的理由, 便拿去九十元去買了這本五百多頁的小說. 不要問我幾時會看, 我的書在我家中是要排期的, 大慨這也十分香港吧! (但當中極有可能有書插隊, 這便是已鋪了塵的Margaret Atwood's The Blind Assassin). 我其實又有幾多時間看leisure reading? 我的論文己在遠處召喚我.

昨晚花了差不多四個多小時完成了林夕老師的功課. 因為我上週缺課, 要做些什么實在不知道. 但亦是出於不甘心的理由, 随手拿了些歌來把詞重填, 誓要入選最後三十人名單. 原本很想用Both Sides Now 填廣東詞, 但實在太難了. 填了四句已用了五十分鐘. 頭兩句是這樣的:

清早氣味似足你
而美得戴妃亦歎氣

後來是怎樣己不太記得了. 於是便再那另外一首歌來填. 我選了一首廣東歌, 希望用已有的歌詞去幫我把字的音調拿揑得準確些, 而arrangement方面又要夠moody, 夠戲劇性, 於是我便選了關淑怡的<進化論>. 效果不太差, 填得也比較爽, 雖然也有沙石, 但也頗接近我期望的後果.

孤寂 百年 問有幾多頁
春樹 化泥 挪威井裡堆
隨指尖去追朔 前生中幾次轟烈
無心不動 花瓣要摧
緊閉雙眼不再追

萬般苦寂 待拈花帶領
活色高潮 未及蓮花高超
你落泊嗎 未慶祝也罷
一生之差 在理解 豁去這個我

穹蒼虛幻 殞落於風沙
絕色花樣 眉毛濃黑一雙
你尚愛嗎 就要懂愛吧
呼吸一生 便叫好 死都不該有疤

春風尚不息 檢討我生
輕挑吹我的前塵
奇蹟未降臨 伊美交戰一世等
慧根不小心整理 出錯得很有可能
餘温欠過誰人 只怪身體不敏感


填完之後, 還是覺得有點對Both Sides Now不住的感覺, 於是便隨意地填上了國語詞. 是這樣的:

小時候說我不成器
只撒嬌愛吃巧古力
整天都呆着看電視
要學摺紙飛機

媽媽老了的長頭髮
雪白得閃爍會說話
永遠記得: 要快樂呀
照着自己步伐!

要不是她我不會走 我不會笑 也不會叫
長大的時候沒有說
說了不該說的 多錯

要不是她我不會走 我不會笑 也不會叫
長大的時候不懂愛
愛了不該愛的 很多

最後想說說對The Departed的感覺. 看後對馬田史高西斯的印象依然不變, 他永遠是和觀眾鬥長命, 鬥耐性. 我已經不恃着看過無間道的港人身份去看這齣電影, 但也是講得它很不濟. 除了cast大和多, 粗口也很多, 甚至比爛口的我和那些真的黑社會還多. 前半部故事很鬆很散, 完全沒有張力. 演員的表現也不是傳媒褒得那么一流, 最好的還是Leonardo, 其次是Mark Whalberg, 搶戲非常. Jack Nicholson只是一般, 有些刻意, 不夠自然, 我個人選擇還是Al Pacino. 至於Matt Damon,他可以收檔了, 那個角色換了是Edward Norton, 我想整套戲就會多了個可取之處. 最不知所謂的還是(冚家鏟)結局, 連Matt Damon也無謂地被殺. 誰是這種政治與道德正確的結尾? 這還是多此一舉. 美國影評人給了個A-, 以我的taste, The Departed最多也只可以贏過C+. 相比之下, 詭絲可好看一點, 沙石還是有, 導演不濟和成本不夠很容易給觀眾看出, 但勝在有新Idea. Scorcesse 和 Nicholson的提名, 我想可能是發夢吧！Leonardo 和Mark Whalberg 則比較有機會些, 前者男主角, 後者男配角. 人家Clint Eastwood 宝力未老, 越拍越好. Mystic River, A Million Dollar Baby 是上乘之作, 而你啦？ The Aviator and The Gangs of New York.........

人人都說期待Leonardo及Matt Damon合演的西版無間道, 我還是想聽他們合唱<無間道>多些.

Hair kills.
We also kill our hair, painlessly.
Every month I go to the salon and trim my hair. Is my hair part of my body or non-body? I assume for every single bit of my body, if removed, would cause me pain. Why would something totally incapable of causing me pain grow and attach to my head?
Cutting it even has a sense of 'coolness' inside. Listening to the sounds of the scissors and seeing how the blades tidy up the ends of my hair ease me with the feeling that I am organized, and at the same time, less disorganized.
Pulling one's hair is even more painful than cutting it. That's why I told my masseur. So, sometimes, it's better to get rid of things than holding it to prevent a potential pain from tormenting me.
Hair links. The tiny string of silk that links up the living and the dead (as in the film Silk) is a threat. It is a connection of revenge, hatred and love, always misunderstood and mistaken.
The hair is also the grotesque. It blocks the pipe and comes from a monstrous body with an ill-boned frame and a contourless face. It's deformed and damaged, yet it's exotic and erotic. It's foreign and familiar at the same time. It's not just hair. It carries more than ordinariness with it (see Nicole Kidman's coming film, Fur).
Hair and fingernails still grow after one dies. Hair outlives us. It last longer in this physical world than us. When our body stops functioning, the hair takes its victory and prolongs our sense of living in the world, though not noticed very much.

Current reading: Considering Alan Ball, (ed) Thomas Fahy. (MFC, 2006). I have turned to non-fiction and documentaries from fiction and dramas. It's hard to find a good fictional book and film now. When would I finish my chapter on the ear? It's the worst thing I have worked on. Fuck work.

Songs I wish to hear on 9 Oct, though I know the possibilities of some of them below are very low:

1. 戀愛盲 2. 三千年開花 3. 找我 4. 新聞女郎 5. 零比零
6. 九九九 7. 不愛就不愛 8. 重新做人 9. PG家長指引
10. 瀛寰搜奇 11. 性情中人 12. 錯先生
13. 流離夜雨...雨中花 14. 好朋友 15. 呼吸 16. 某月某夜
17. 零時十一分 18. 不願一個人 19. 501 20. 步步高

My gut feelings told me that he would sing....
One song of Danny Chan, or maybe a song of Ho CC... just my guess.

September is the dullest month - may God (not that I believe in his existence) take away this month from now on. I could detect the smell of autumn a few weeks ago. It was so pungent that I couldn't avoid breathing in the sad air. Nostrils are like ears, and unlike eyes, always open and exposed for invasion. Not that the air is sickening, but memorial, like the smell of your mother's pillowcase and the clothes one just gets back from laundry. It reminds people of events, in the past, with a certain sense of nostalgia in it. No wonder there are people covering their nose and mouth with their bare hands in streets.

I will be heading off to Korea in October. Probably, this would be the last academic trip in years. So going with someone I know would be a credit and it could put a supposedly wonderful end to my whole study plan these two years. I couldn't stop asking myself What's next? The future, my future, precisely speaking, becomes more elusive and yet daunting. Mid-age crisis, I would say. Doubts just accumulate, as debts. We all have detbs, don't we? It's just the matter of whether we have more doubts than doubts, or vice versa.

I started rethinking my academic goal these two days. I was stunned to discover (one can't lie to oneself) that I am bored with it, to the extent that I am rather fed up. Yes, I'm writing something interesting, yet how profound could it be? Or shall I ask Is it rightly written? Not yet, not soon. Would I be able to survive like this until the day I retire, let's say 60?

Going to class alone, and leaving the campus also alone. At home, sitting in front of the computer, either surfing on the meaningless websites, or writing my thesis. I finally submit myself to the whole theory on how machines alienate people in their everyday life. If lucky, there would be one movie night and two volleyball evenings per week (provided that the games are enjoyable and the film is not crap). Or I will be browsing websites of famous universities overseas to check out what departments and programmes they are offering, dreaming as if I would one day step my foot on their campus.

All these things happen in a cycle. Everything in life is just a cylce, very Buddhist. This is why my life becomes duller and duller. With all the things I need to write in my head, there's a chaos, a mess. My life is chaotically dull, and I become moodless, which I find is also a special mood at the same time. So now, I can establish moodless=moody. Whatever crap theory it might be.

Too lazy to go to a computer shop to buy a writing pad so that I can write my blog in Chinese. Yes, I am lazier to learn how to type my mother language. I bought a horrible aroma oil from Franc Franc, yet, I am too lazy to get a new one, which smells better. Laziness comes from moodlessness, which in turn comes from alienation. So many thoughts on my future, but so little things have happened to signal me.

Classics suck!!!

One mystery always on my mind: I really don't understand why people praise Hitchcock and Shakespeare like god. I've read and watched their works. I think they're tremendously tedious and the pace is far too slow. I grow up in a world where speed and efficiency count most. Such stuff, for me, is already not of my concern and interest. Same for other 'gods', including my forever hates, Jane Austen, Daniel Defoe, Jonathan Swift and many others.

Vertigo sucks. This is what I find on http://www.imdb.com:

There is nothing more to say. For me this is the best Hitchcock. I loved Psycho, Rear Window, North by Northwest, but this one tops them all. The story is so great and I almost can't say anything about it without spoiling it a little (What's so great about the film? The story could be told in 50 mins, but the director spent 123 mins to tell it). A couple of things I can say are that John Ferguson (James Stewart) is afraid of heights due a thing happened a while ago. He is asked to spy on the wife of an old friend of him. John once was a detective so he knows how to do that. The wife, played by Kim Novak, is acting a little strange lately so it must be in her benefit. Of course he falls in love and this is only where the story starts. (Injured and impotent policemen has always been a theme, even now. So what's so special about it? Falling in love with the subject is definitely a cliche) You will never be bored. (Sorry, I've been bored since the beginning) The acting from Stewart is good as always and Novak is great. Hitchcock does a great job with his directing, but that is something we all knew before watching the film.(disagree) There are some nice camera-tricks which I liked very much. The score by Bernard Herrmann also does a great job supporting the whole atmosphere of the film. This is one of the best Hitchcock's and you just have to see it. 10/10. (I give 1/10)

If it's not because of the course work, I would not even waste my time on this. Now, you wanna know my taste. This is what I call wit and wisedom:

Haruki Murakami: "The first time I did a book signing was in Princetown. Fifteen people came. It was [the] most peaceful hour of my life. I spent the time trying to remember all the train stations in Tokyo".

The British can always handle a light-hearted but warm romance very well. Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill, Love Actually, and this one, Imagine Me and You.

I first saw the trailer of this film back in February, in Alberquerque, New Mexico. I was the only person in the threatre waiting for Capote (or Good Night and Good Luck) to begin. The massive hollowness of the theatre and my personal hollowness (as usual) just made me feel much deeper for the film as it normally would.

I finally got a chance to see it tonight and I like it a lot. It's not just a film about love at the first sight. The beauty of the lesbian romance is the portrayal of how a person follows her heart to leave her husband and be with a woman. Nobody gets hurt in the end, and nobody wins. Just that someone falls in love and someone falls out of it.

It's sweet, funny and romantic. That's what I asked for. Everything in a British romance just appears too romantic in the film - the florist, the sky, the walls, the shops, the interior of a home and the exterior of the city. Yet, when you actually get there, it's not exactly how they appear on screen. Very strange.

I don't have a love life now, but I do have a 'like' life. I am still looking for my le flash.

The name of the film comes from The Turtle's Happy Together. Ironically, Wong Kar-wai's Happy Together is about a gay couple being unhappy together. Lesbian romance is always more romantic than gay ones. Sigh, gay men are just too melanholic because they always think about "imagine me and me".

Me and you and you and me
No matter how they toss the dice, it has to be
The only one for me is you, and you for me
So happy together

I think I am going to be real busy up to the end of the month:

1. A Cock and Bull Story
2. Naked World (Documentary)
3. Sketches of Frank Gehry (Documentary)
4. Elizabeth I (HBO film)
5. Fabulous: the story of queer cinema (Documentary)
6. Kicking and Screaming
7. The Joy of Life (Documentary)

Shit, there is still no news from anything I am hoping for. 小產 again?

It's always fun to hang out with these ppl (including ah dam, ah ta, charles, andy, kevin, carol, maggie tb, ah ha). We always meet at different sorts of tables (drinking table, GM table and food table), we just say a lot of bullshit. But it's really fun. For many times, I have laughed into tears and could not stop. Those were the happy days. Even now when I am bored (usually in the bus), I will recall what we have talked and laughed about. We have our secret language and codes. Shit, I miss GM.

What's wrong with this little crazy cunt? Can't she just leave me alone? I think I should go to "DA SIU YAN". I'm gonna fight back this time. Too much tolerance for this piece of shit. She's really pushing her luck.

This is the latest email of her. She is just FUCKING INSANE!!!!!

Dear B, your new nickname/ do you like it? not mean you're low-B :) i think u have many things to do. e.g. write some poems / know more people / travel / movies to me, you seem forget something ....... 1. a clear target 2. a real dream to work for 3. try to do more to contribute yourself to the society 4. stop listening too many pop songs ~~ 5. never think too high of yourself. it's a common mistake. i can understand. but you should be mature & wise. appreciate others and learn from them. never think " i'm quite handsome / clever / attractive" etc. other people will think you're a naive / low-B one. so always keep in mind that " what can i do to express my real talent? " " do i speak something useful/ inspiring to others? " i just hope you will grow up and never be silly.

This Is My Life, Rated
Life:	3.6
Mind:	4.8
Body:	5.3
Spirit:	2
Friends/Family:	2.7
Love:	0
Finance:	1.8
Take the Rate My Life Quiz

I guess the total score one can get in each category is 10.

Rate your own life at http://www.monkeyquiz.com/life/rate_my_life.html

The Lake House - Can time be really on time?

Adaptation is such a painful experience, and watching an adapted film is even more torturous. il mare is one of my all-time-favourites. The romance and the 'romantic' lies on the plot - how could two people falling in love with two years apart, without interacting with each other. It's a rather spiritual mode of yearning. It's all about romance in the modernity - all about alienation and most importantly - the possibility of allowing oneself to indulge into such an 'untouchable romance'. We all love the ones we could not get. Isn't this film saying exactly the same thing? Just that it talks about two people from two different temporalities.

The American adaptation sucks. It ruins the original mood and affect. The 'untouchability' is ruined and rewritten. Both films have a very nice 'lake house', of different achitectural and structural meanings. The Korean one is really built on the shore, serving as an end of a long walkway extension. The house has a name of its own - 'il mare', meaning 'the sea'. What is there is the sea is the horizon, which you can see, but never touch it. When you think you reach the horizon, it's not there, but you see another line ahead of you as another new horizon.

The American house is more pro-father. It has a tree planted in the middle. The father is the centre of the family, forever there, influencing the residents (his son). This is nothing special, but too obvious. "Are you crazy? That is a glass house. You have no privacy", one character says in the film. Yet, it's a glass house. You can see the view from within, but never touch it as well because you are separated by the glass. Also, who is there to watch you anyway? The privacy is laid out so clearly without any concealment. The only regret is that there's no spectators, very lonely.

The Korean one has more long shots. It is the setting and the art direction that shape the mood of the film. The American one just has too many close-ups (not to mention the sparkless acting and interaction between characters). Kate and Alex (Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves) just talk too much to each other. They are visitors of instant chatroom who occasionally sending each other massive emails rather than people really living their lives with two years apart. The romance is technologized and globalized. The human touch is not more to be found.

The story is quite drastically rewritten upon adaptation. There are too many unnecessary and annoying characters. You see the film and you know who I am pinpointing. The most 'mysterious' is the ending, which according to the time theory, they would not have been able to meet. Kate is crying at the mailbox, hoping Alex can get her mail, thus escaping from her death. It is Feb 14 2006 in Alex's time and Feb 14 2008 in Kate's time. If t stands for Alex's temporal signifer, then Kate's is always t+2. So why could Kate, after crying, stand up, turn around and meet Alex? It does not make sense.

Kate knows Alex in 2006, so t+2 = 2006. In other words t = 2004. They would only meet when t = 2006 (t+2 = 2008). Temporally speaking the plot is flawless. Yet, Kate can appear in 2006 and 2008 at the same time because she is always two years ahead. The privilege of a person living in the present is the existence of him/herself in the past. However, one should question why Alex can trepass the preset t and t+2 notion to appear all of a sudden in 2008 in the end.......

United 93 -- A+

Oh, my god. When was the last time I felt there's a film that deserved an A+? May god know. The terrrorists who hijacked the plane sought help from God perhaps as many times as I do now. United 93 is a shocking, stunning and delicate film - all the merits should go to the scriptwriter and director, who happen to be the same person, Peter Greengrass (Bourne Supremacy).

Oliver Stone's World Trade Centre is also coming out in Hong Kong. When two films are done on the same materials, comparison seems inevitable. Yet, merely judging from the trailer of Stone's and United 93 (as a film - I know it's unfair yet I am pretty sure). United 93 would win many upper hands for a number of reasons.

The film is not about heroism and Americanism, which I believe are what Stone's film want to portray. United 93, as the name suggests, is a story about an airplane while World Trade Centre is not a story about the buildings (or twin towers), but about two policemen volunteering to rescue the people trapped in the building after the disaster happened. There is only one character in 93 - the plane and that's why all the passengers, crew members and even the pilots have no names. No one can remember what they are called (At least I don't).

(to be continued)

A relaxing Sunday morning - all about memories

What a rare thing to do on a Sunday morning. Having slept for just 2-3 hrs, I went to South beach with Adrian. There wasn't much sunshine (there wasn't much money in my wallet either), but just lying on the beach in the tolerable heat, reading "8 por" magazines is in fact quite a fun thing to do. He brought the latest issue of Men's Uno. I flipped it over. Gosh.

There was Mr. S. 3 whole pages on him. Youth and talent count most in our society. The article said he just got the blah blah blah award in the States for his composing flare. Wow. Brilliant. One day, I wanted the reporters to call me and have an interview of me. I dreamed on. Back to Mr. S, 這人已經升了上我的神檯, 我想我一世也會供奉他, 崇拜他. I am an athiest, but I'm always attracted. The seduction and lure of youth and talent is a very dangerous deception, one on the outside, the other inside. Song of the moment: Janice's 愛才. (last nite in M Bar, I thought about the question: should I be happy that a person 想識我, or 賞識我?)

Flipping a few more pages, I saw my ex-colleague in St Joe. God, what's wrong? I can't stand the way education as commercialized as such. It's ok to commercialize the school, but the teachers? Come on! Teachers are never good fashion models. Even if they wear Martin Margiela topdown, they only look like twats from the wanna-bes in American Next Top Model (male version). Everybody has their own goal. So long as they don't get into my way, I am fine with it (though I'll grumble on). There's an ad of Joseph Li, with the narcisstic photos of himself, about how his courses are scheduled in the coming school term. There are words: "Joseph Li and his PhD team". Fuck all those PhD. I would not want to work for such a shallow guy if I have a PhD. Knowledge is noble, but selling it by 'claiming' that you have it is cheap, very cheap.

It's Alfred's birthday today. Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday to Alfred (from Ah B), Happy Birthday to you.

This should be the new course I will be tutoring:

CLIT 2014
Feminist Cultural Studies
Lecturer: Dr. Gina Marchetti
Year 2/3 Level / 6 Credits / 1st Semester / 100% Continuous Assessment After World War II, so-called “Second Wave” feminism ushered in a new era of cultural critique. In the United States and Europe, feminists looked closely at the established institutions of beauty, women’s work, motherhood, romance, marriage, and heterosexuality. Building on related radical traditions, socialist feminism, third world feminism, lesbian feminism, among other voices critical of the patriarchal order, began to be heard globally. This course looks at the feminist critique of culture from film theory and psychoanalytic studies to the feminist intervention in cultural studies, postmodernism, and queer studies. Topics covered include: the social construction of femininity/masculinity, gender and performance, the beauty myth, the myth of romantic love, gender outlaws, women warriors, melodrama/the “woman’s film,” and female emancipation in the socialist imagination. Examples include clips from Hollywood films (e.g., All that Heaven Allows, The World of Suzie Wong, Mulan), European cinema (e.g., Ali: Fear Eats the Soul), Hong Kong cinema (e.g., He's a Woman, She's a Man, The Mistress), novels (e.g., Shanghai Baby, The Woman Warrior, Hong Kong Rose, Foreign Bodies), new queer cinema (e.g., Boys Don’t Cry, Far from Heaven), socialist/post-socialist cinema (e.g., Salt of the Earth, Portrait of Teresa, and Woman/Demon/Human), feminist experimental film (e.g., Daughter Rite), television (e.g., Dallas, MTV), popular music (e.g., Madonna), and the theatre (e.g., The Vagina Monologues).
Selections of Chapters or Exerpts from the Following (subject to change):Ien Ang, Watching Dallas: Soap Opera and the Melodramatic Imagination
Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity
Jackie Byars, All That Hollywood Allows: Re-Reading Gender in 1950s Melodrama
Michelle Citron, Home Movies and Other Necessary Fictions
Dai Jinhua, Cinema and Desire: Feminist Marxism and Cultural Politics in the Work of Dai Jinhua
Eve Ensler, ed. The Vagina Monologues
Molly Haskell, From Reverence to Rape: The Treatment of Women in the Movies bell hooks, Black Looks: Race and Representation
Sheng-mei Ma, The Deathly Embrace: Orientalism and Asian American Identity
Gina Marchetti, Romance and the Yellow Peril”: Race, Sex, and Discursive Strategies in Hollywood Fiction
Tania Modleski, Loving With a Vengeance: Mass-Produced Fantasies for Women
Laura Mulvey, Visual and Other Pleasures
Linda Nicholson, ed. The Second Wave: A Reader in Feminist Theory
Janice Radway, Reading the Romance: Women, Patriarchy and Popular Literature
Adrienne Cecile Rich, Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution
Gloria Steinem, Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions
Sue Thornham, Feminist Theory and Cultural Studies: Stories of Unsettled Relations
Naomi Wolf, The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women
Mayfair Mei-wei Yang, Spaces of Their Own: Women's Public Sphere in Transnational China

End of August, another attack of the menustral syndrome. I already missed my period last month, so I am less prepared today than usual. Perhaps driven by loneliness, I added back several people and deleted them all over again on my msn. There's one still remaining on the list - Mr. S. I guess I am tied to him as Boku is magneted to the ears of a girl he knows in Murakami's Wild Sheep Chase. He is always the one who could give me advice and talked about my academic path with me. He's really talented. Maybe subconsciously, I just want to be him. I don't, however, rule out any possibilities of jealousy hidden in the attraction.

He said something right. I just don't need to explain what I'm doing to the laymen. Sadly enough, I counted the people in my lives - 95% of them are laymen, so what can I do? I still have 1 year to go for my studies, after which I still have no idea what to do. To continue or to work? Mr. S said we have chosen the path of knowledge, which is very noble. Yes, it sounds grand, but it's also very lonely as well. One thing I am different from him is that he is really connected to the people working in the academia, media and the cultural hub. I basically know nobody. His talent is just at least 10 times more than mine. Maybe, his fate is better predetermined than mine as well. Looking back, being a 27 man, I still can't guarantee a better living for my parents. They have both done a lot to raise me as who I am. I just feel bad that I can't do anything much to return at the moment. If I am to go further academically, they may be dead already when I am able to secure their standard of living. By that time, only words of regret will remain forever in my heart.

It's a noble yet lonely path. How long should I keep walking? Frustrated.

Course to be tutored: Feminist Cultural Studies

Waiting for some news from Korea conference, Scope, Senses of Cinema and Xu Xi. Could the editors of scope and senses work faster? I am going to withdraw my submission anyway if I don't hear news from them within the first 2 weeks.

Ok Ok Ok. That's the end of my teaching life. I hate spending my time with kids that have no hearts to learn. I hate those Band 3 Kids. Just trash. Sorry for being too mean. But they are nothing but trash. You may say I am not a good teacher, yes. I can only teach smart kids, and make them smarter. For those trashy ones, sorry, no one can help you. Your life is so fucking over. Form 1 kids who don't know how to spell: shoes, black, white, neck, front (do not know the meaning of 'in front of' and girl).... what have you done in the previous 6 years? Don't cry when you get your HKCEE results because you simply deserve it.

Original dictation passage:

She is a slim, middle aged woman of about 50. She has long, wavy hair. She is wearing a necklace and she has her hands clasped in front of her. She is neatly-dressed in a black and white spotted blouse and a smart skirt. She is wearing black high-heeled shoes.

She is average height. She is a teenage girl. She has fair, curly hair with a bow in it. She has her hands by her sides. She is untidily-dressed. She is wearing a dirty, plain tee-shirt, old, baggy trousers and a pair of sandals.

Look at the following dictation passage of a F. 1 Band 3 kid:

She is a sleep, middle-eged rm for
She has long hair, She is wearing a necklace and she has her hand caps in front of her. She is neatly-dressed in a back and wited sbteed. hang and a smant girl. She is wearing back Ih heeled shoes.

She is averes hates. She is avteivn girl. She has cveon awe hair, with blow and eat. She has her hands by her sides. She is unthird dress. She is wearing a dirty, play T-shirt, old, blgay chites and pandy of studos.

My comments: What language were you writing in? Terrible.
32 mistakes --> 32x3. The dictation received 4 points out of 100. Fucking TWAT!

Besides this fucking twat, there is another cuntishly stupid girl. She is such a quiet girl, so shy that she only speaks one word when you ask her 10 questions. Maybe she is deaf. This is her work. I will praise her for being creative in making a new era of education more challenging to teachers:

She is slime, middle-aged womam, about 50. She has long wavy hair, She is _____ a _____ and _____ her hans ____ in form fo her. She is ______ dresser, She ____ in a bark and wither ____. is a ______. She is _____ shoes.

She is ____. She is a ____ girl. Sha har ______, Clavy hair, with u with _____. She has her _____, She is undirty deresser. she is a _____, _____ Isiter. old, ____ and a hair of c_____.

After reading the following news, I can't help posting a new entry for two of my most hated artists in Hong Kong:

【東方日報專訊】關心妍(新聞 - 網站 - 圖片)（Jade）前晚和鄧麗欣(新聞 - 網站 - 圖片)（Stephy）為葉文輝（啤梨）的演唱會作綵排，Jade收到啤梨送的Melody卡通公仔睡衣，但她嫌款式太老土 (What a tasteless gift! But does that mean Jade doesn't think she's 老土????? She definitely is!!!!)，Jade不諱言偏愛性感的透視喱士睡衣 (No, thanks. You can give it to yourself!!!!)，更不介 意和啤梨十指緊扣唱情歌 (YUCK)。

中国女排 is over?
周苏红 has torn her lingament! Sigh... I guess the team could not make it to the top 3 anymore in this year's 大奖赛.

The following is my 名单 of the official players:
Setters: 冯 坤 宋妮娜
Spikers: 杨 昊, 李 娟, 楚金玲, 王一梅, 张越红
Libero: 张 娜
Middleblockers: 刘亚男, 薛 明, 徐云丽
Back 2: 李 珊

Just let 李 娟 and 楚金玲 substitute 李 珊.

李 珊 is lucky this time. Cherish the chance and stop being lousy!

Also, as I predict, the top 3 team of this year's 大奖赛 would be as follows:

Champion: Brazil
First runner-up: Russia
Second runner-up: Italy
Fourth place: China
Fifth place: Cuba

話事人 and Everyday Life

Johnnie To's Election 1 and 2 are stories about electing the 話事人 within a triad group in Hong Kong named Woo Shing Society. It seems that 話事人 is only concerned in the circle of criminal activities and underground gangsters; yet, it's not entirely true. In our everyday life, we can't escape from the notion of 話事人 as well. Anson Chan and Donald Tsang are both competiting to be the next 話事人of Hong Kong in 2007. Whoever wins or loses can't certainly be predicted; or does it really matter when most of us believe neither could possibly make a big change in HK. Not speaking about politics, we all want to, or need to be a 話事人 in some occasions as well, not that we need to be the 'person-in-charge', but it's all about us being the one and the only one.

When Big D (Leung Kar-fai-) proposed to co-chair the Wo Shing Society with Lok (Simon Yam) at the end of Election 1, he was hit numerously by a huge piece of rock. The same crisis also appears in Election 2, when Kun (Lam Ka-tung) proposes to sit for the election against Lok by the side of the lake. Both men exchanged glances and let the silence tell the audience to reveal the hidden tension. The message is obvious - no man would allow anyone to compete with them. We all want to be the one and the only one. Isn't love also about this as well? Who would allow a third person, or even more, in their relationship? I am talking about love, as the pure passion, a sort of committment, by excluding sex as the simply seduction driven by lust. Lust allows multiple participants - the more, the better (simultaneously, or not). Love, however, heads for the oppposite direction. We don't allow any competitors in our romantic relationships. We won't (and can't) literally remove them by making use of a piece of huge bare rock. Sadly, we have to admit that there's nothing we could do. Electing a 話事人 in any organization is always wrapped up with a result, an ending, by which one is elected to be the winner while the others will be doomed to be losers, who could not do anything anymore, but admit that it's in their fate.

One of my close friends has resumed his relationship with his lover after a temporary breakup, all because of the over-understanding and misunderstanding of a third person. Though they are now officially 'together' again, the hatred directed against the third person, the competitor of being the one and the only one has never gone. I am just tired of doing all the counselling since my patience has recently run dry in almost everything. I'd better save some time and energy on my own rather than lecturing others about their points of view, not to mention mine is not always justified. All we can do is: ask ourselves if we could possibly handle another 話事人 in our relationship. If such a person really turns up, could we dare to eliminate him/her like Lok in Election? If we can't, perhaps the only solution is not being a 話事人 ourselves as well. At this moment, a line from a song appears in my mind: "據講戀愛　都只不過是氣氛". We are engulfed in the romance for the sake of romance. The first person and third person are merely titles with empty meanings. 話事人 is also one of such titles. When you could extract romance (and power within a group or an organization), why bothers having a title? All titles are stigmata, for which a mad person would go for.

"Every lover is mad, we are told. But can we imagine a madman in love? Never." (Roland Barthes, A Lover's Discourse)

29/7 at PP
An unusual day. I woke up at 5 something in the afternoon, and started writing. I put off my plans of seeing a film with Sam, well for two purposes - slowing things down and to focus on my work. I wrote very smoothly and everything has started coming into shapes. I finished my work at around 1 something (AM!), then I headed for PP, with a mind still filled with the ideas and thoughts I was writing about in front of my laptop. Drinking and smoking - and eating dim sum. It's already nearly 6am. When I was on my way to go to 7-11 to buy a pack of Kent M3, I suddenly recalled what Shirley Kwan said in her concert video footage - "What about now?"
I thought of the meaning of what she said for a while. And I sighed.

A new film by the director of Eternal Sunshine on the Spotless Mind.

The Science of Sleep:
http://www.apple.com/trailers/warner_independent_pictures/thescienceofsleep/med.html

I finally saw 鬼域 tonight. Sigh... I heard mixed reviews from some people around me, so I decided to give it a try. My comments? It has made the common mistakes that almost 90% of the Hong Kong (crap) films do - the director does not know how to tell a story: 說故事說不好. Acclaimed directors such as Wong Kar-wai and Stanley Kwan also have this problem. Most of the HK films only have a storyline, or even a concept, meaning they know what and when to start and what and when to end. Yet, what is between the opening and the ending is total emptiness. 2046: going to the future is exactly going back to the past; 桃色: mixing the human world with the ghost world and present the blend from the perspective of pornography, or seductiveness; Isabella: knowing a mature man by breaking the incest taboo. The concepts are all fabulous. Yet, remember, audiences do not just watch the first and last 10 mins of the movie. We need to stay in the cinema all the way through. I felt very uneasy when wacthing 鬼域. Reasons are as follows:
1. 李心潔 is a poor actress. Her acting simply slows down the pace of the whole film. She talks too slowly, with too much heart in every single line. She is reading the dialogues, yes, but the character does not speak at all;
2. Poor editing. In the abandoned world, most of the setting change are done by fading out, which means there is really no connection between them and the directors do not know how to transit from one scene to another;
3. Poor dialogues. If you rewatch the whole film again, you will realize 90% of the dialogues in the film are rubbish. They do not push the plot further. 劉兆銘 has asked 李心潔 to leave the abandoned world because it is dangerous for her. He requested as many times as 李心潔 repeatedly mentioned that she did not know how to leave AT ALL. But they still dragged on. 李心潔's daughter has declared twice they have reached the 'transit' in order to let 李心潔 go back to the human world. So, where exactly is the transit?
4. Lack of depth in characterisation. The only key characters in the film are 李心潔 and her daughter. The others... I am sorry. They should be eliminated from the editing room;
5. No Plot. I have troubles following the scenes after 李心潔 has taken the elevator to the ground floor. There are scenes after scenes fully decorated with digitalised visual effects, but why those scenes? I have seen enough of 李心潔's frustration in those scenes. I am, however, more frustrated than her. There are at least 30 mins in the film with no storyline, but just visual effects bombarding the audiences.

The climax (that the little girl is 李心潔's daughter) doesn't work for me. It's too obvious. The anti-climax works a bit. Pang brothers are too aggressive to imitate M. Night Shyamalan. Those who say 鬼域 can be compared to The Sixth Sense, The Unbreakable, Signs or even The Village, please read the scripts of these four movies and read the script of 鬼域 . I believe the script of 鬼域 does not have more than 25 A4 pages.

I have questions though:
1. I understand the things we abandon in this world will go to the abandoned world. The so-called 鬼域 , a dimension of ghosts, is just a dimension of things that we leave behind. Then, why would these things be recycled and suddenly disappear and be turned into ashes?
2. If the dimension is merely about abandoned things, including ghosts, or dead people who have no one to worship them, why are there walking spirits on the bridge and hanging zombies on the trees? How are they abandoned? Is it really Hell or a world of abandonment?
3. There seems to be two 李心潔s in the film - a fictional character and the writer 李心潔. If the happenings in the abandoned world are written by the author, why would the non-existing fictional character wake up in the bed of the real author and they can both each other?

P.S. please don't use 繾綣 anymore. It has been a cliche. Yes it was cool when 周禮茂 used these two chinese words to write a song for Shirley Kwan. But it was in 1992. I can't believe 14 years later, there are still people thinking that this term is romantic.
________________________________________________________________

Recently, I have absolutely no mood for anything. Writing: bad; volleyball: bad; pool/snooker: bad; communication: bad; sleeping: bad; tuition: bad; organization: bad; creativity: bad; temper: bad; singing: bad. BAD BAD BAD BAD BAD.

All I do these days now is like 鄭秀文 in 我左眼見到鬼: "eating, drinking, sleeping and watching TV"

Today I decided to go out: wanting to eat at HO HUNG GEI, but I needed to share a table with two other men (who also came separately). I looked at their eyes. Weird change of gazes. At that point, I realized that people who eat out alone have strange looks. Then I went to GUM潮. I jumped into Joseph and Alpha (my two ex-students). They ate with me and then I convinced them to see the movie with me (even though I bought a ticket for myself already beforehand in UA Time Square - Seat I 2). We went to play snooker after the film. When I was having my most lonely times, there are always my ex-students with me. Is it a sign that I should go back to teach? I know I won't. Please don't make me do.

To Jason:
The quote is from an interview done by James O'Higgins titled "Sexual Choice, Sexyal Act"

J.O'H: I'm reminded of Cassanova's famous expression that "the best moment in life is when one is climbing the stairs." One can hardly imagine a homosexual today making such a remark.
M.F.: Exactly. Rather, he would say something like: "the best moment of love is when the lover leaves in the taxi."

1. Bisexuality immediately doubles your chances for a date on Saturday night.
2. Don't knock masturbation - it's sex with someone I love.
3. I don't think my parents liked me. They put a live teddy bear in my crib.
4. I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. . .I want to achieve it through not dying.
5. I took a speed-reading course and read War and Peace in twenty minutes. It involves Russia.
6. I was thrown out of college for cheating on the metaphysics exam; I looked into the soul of the boy next to me.
7. If only God would give me some clear sign! Like making a large deposit in my name at a Swiss bank.
8. Interestingly, according to modern astronomers, space is finite. This is a very comforting thought - particularly for people who can never remember where they have left things.
9. Is sex dirty? Only if it's done right.
10. It's not that I'm afraid to die. I just don't want to be there when it happens.
11. Love is the answer, but while you are waiting for the answer, sex raises some pretty good questions.
12. Money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons.
13. Not only is there no God, but try getting a plumber on the weekend.
14. Sex between 2 people is a beautiful thing; between 5 it's fantastic ...
15. Sex between a man and a woman can be absolutely wonderful - provided you get between the right man and the right woman.
16. Sex without love is an empty experience, but as empty experiences go it's one of the best.
17. The difference between sex and death is that with death you can do it alone and no one is going to make fun of you.
18. The good people sleep much better at night than the bad people. Of course, the bad people enjoy the waking hours much more.
19. The only way to be happy is to love to suffer.
20. 'To YOU I'm an atheist; to God, I'm the Loyal Opposition.
    
    

ASAP

Just now, I had a conversation with a friend on msn. I asked him if he's dating. Yes, he said. Then he asked me the same question. I answered, 'As single as possble.' Another asap.

I was trying to clear up the websites I bookmarked on my browser. I discovered my sister's blog. She wrote an entry on my grandma on the day she passed away, a very touching piece. I didn't prepare to cry today. I did, anyway.

I woke up at 3 today because I stayed up to watch the whole football match the previous night. Then I hurried back to the library and did my research. Going into the library when the sun was still there and coming out in complete darkness always gives me a romantic feeling. It also makes me feel that I have worked for a 'whole' day. Then I went to a bookstore to buy a copy of Superman Returns for my student on Wednesday's tuition. Honestly, I prefer not to do it anymore. Going to his home for lesson just reminds me of the days I worked in SJC. What the fuck.

I was trying to call up some friends for dinner, none of them was available. In fact, I just called two. I gave up then. I am not the kind of dine-out-for-five-days-a-week person. I seldom eat out with my friends now. In the past, I used to call Atom, Tommy Lo or Charles. Now, I don't anymore. I don't know why. I did try hard to figure out what to eat alone in Causeway Bay. I gave up again. I just went to Sogo and bought a Japanese ramen and some mircowave curry potato balls (I don't know what they are called) and went straight home to cook.

People say I have many friends. Very wrong. Whoever says this proves that s/he is not my friend. I spend 80% of a week's time alone (including my bed time). The remaining 20% goes to family and volleyball nights. Waking up every day, eating alone, thinking of what to eat alone, when to see a movie alone, buying vcds to watch alone, sunbathing alone, swimming alone, shopping alone. The world seems to constitute of many dimensions, in each of which only 1 person lives all by him/herself. Seriously speaking, my phone could not ring for days.

The other thing I hate people say about me is: 'you are 花心'. Someone said this last week. I deleted him from my msn at once. Charles said I over-reacted, which I could not deny. But I was pissed off. Saying things to me as if you were not is another ridiculous thing in the world, similar to the fact that I needed to pay HK$240 to apply for the non-means loan from the government (why do we need to pay money to loan for more money? Doesn't the act that we applying for money signify that we don't have any more money?). Another person on my msn said tonight: 'I don't think you want a long term relationship.' What can I say? I simply replied: 'fuck off.' Go on to stereotype me. Whatever. I was clearing up my friendster and msn these days, deleting people by a number of criteria. I don't need such people in my life anymore simply because they don't need me at the first place. Usual chit-chat and meaningless conversations nearly fill up most of our time. I just can't afford any. In fact, there isn't any in mine. Maybe I do really scare people away.

July

My missions in July:

1. Stop spending money
2. Stop spending money
3. Stop spending money
4. Stop spending money
5. Stop spending money
6. Stop spending money
7. Stop spending money
8. Stop spending money
9. Stop spending money
10. Write the new chapter for my thesis - Will Self's Cock and Bull, in relation to D&G (Deleuze and Guattari's deterritorialization and reterritorialization of desire) and Ovid's + Kafka's Metamorphosis.

Shit. I need to give tuition next week. I don't know what to teach at all. Sigh. I don't wanna go back to the secondary level. Crying~~

In response to Kerr's lastest xanga entry (I tried to leave a comment there. After I typed in everything, I realised I needed to have my own xanga account. Stupid):

As I always believe, Kerr, Time is never on time itself.

We, as human being, like other incidents, are always either (too) early or (too) late for the right moment of time, simply because time itself is never on time. Time, in this sense, is both the first and third agent to make things happen. For something to take place, an agent and an object are necessary; the time that comes on time is a catalyst and the ultimate circumstantial factor. That's why we have a thing called timing. Time, as an agent, is different from time, as a concept. How many times have we said that Nicholas is not really Nicholas, or Kerr is not acting like the Kerr I know. We, as beings, may act different from what we are supposed to have been. There is a presupposition and a verification - to be justified by the actions of the present in comparison with our memories of the past.

Time, in this way, will also deviate and misbehave.

She taught me how to play mahjong. What an elightener. She has always been adorable and worry-free, and will always be. In memory of her (1918-2006).

我過去那死黨早晚共對各也紮職以後沒法暢聚
而終於相約到但無言共對疏淡如水
日夜做見爸爸剛好想呻
卻霎眼看出他多了皺紋
而他的蒼老感 是從來未覺太內疚擔心
最心痛是 愛得太遲
有些心意 不可等某個日子
盲目地發奮 忙忙忙其實自私
夢中也習慣有壓力要我得知

最可怕是 愛需要及時只差一秒
心聲都已變歷史 忙極亦放肆
見我愛的見雙至 要抱要吻怎麼也好
偏要推說要等一下次

我也覺我體質仿似下降 看了症得到是別要太忙
而影碟都掃光但從來未看 因有事趕
日夜做儲的錢都應該夠 到聖誕正好講
跟我白頭 誰知她開了口 未能挨下去
己恨我很久

錯失太易 愛得太遲
我怎想到 她忍不到那日子
盲目地發奮 忙忙忙從來未知
幸福會掠過 再也沒法說鍾意

愛一個字 也需要及時只差一秒
心聲都己變歷史 為忙未放肆
見我愛見的雙至 要抱要吻要怎麼也好
不要相信一切有下次 相擁我所愛又花幾多秒
這幾秒 能夠做到又有多少 未算少
足夠遺憾忘掉 多少抱憾 多少過路人
太懂估計 卻不懂愛錫自身 人人在發奮
想起他朝都興奮 但今晚未過 你要過也很吸引

縱不信運 你不過是人 你想很遠愛於咫尺卻在等
來日別操心 趁你有能力開心
世界有太多東西發生 不要等到天上苦困

Just got the email from a girl called Emily Fung. She happened to bring me the bad news about the Canadian Chamber of Commerce Short Story Competition. I lost, not even on the honorable mention list. I was quite confident indeed, yet it proves I am not up to that level. I planned to do some reading tonight. Now, the mood is gone. I just want to do nothing.

What is Southern Comfort?

It is the wine that Mr. Chow taught me to drink with 7-up, all the way back in the summer of 1999. Venue: California in LKF. Since then, every now and then, it has been the standard drink I order in bars.

It is also the name of a film I wanted to see for a long time. I finally get it, thanks to Roger. I will watch it tonight.

I jumped into Atom accidentally in the new HMV in CWB. We went to Pokka cafe for a tea. I have not seen him for a while. Some time was needed for warming up the conversation. We talked about YI HEY, well actually only I did.

Two great discoveries:
1. Roger helped me buy the DVD of Happiness (1998) in the States. I used to have the Vcd but it's nowhere to be found at home now (perhaps it's because of my sister who has a habit of displacing and re-placing stuff, especially my treasures - books, vcds, dvds and cds). I wanted to watch it again simply because of Me and You and Everyone I know. Both films have so much in common - about people living in the postmodern world, a lonely and alienating life and every one of us has deep down something bizzare, either sexually or habitually. I've never seen a movie as disturbing yet humorous and appalling. I highly recommend it. You can get it in HMV.

2. I bought the magnificent The Faber Book of Smoking, edited by James Walton at Page One.
It has all the passages from speeches, essays, screenplays, novels, poems, whatever in print that concerns cigarettes. Some of the passages are amazing, such as:

"because non-smokers were becoming increasingly irritating, and the only way I could distance myself from them was to light up"

From Martin Amis's London Fields (1989): "On the wall was a sign bearing the saddest words Keith had ever read: NO SMOKING."

Thank you for smoking.

So pass like this the best dating nights in this month. Nothing caused a big change, or brought a huge surprise. There were, however, some small ones - yet foggy and did not lead me to anywhere. Perhaps, that's the best my luck could do with me. Not that I can't survive alone. Listen, those who are strong-willed and who think I am too dependent on romance. Love is very much like a sunny weather. It makes our days better by creating a cheerful and positive environment. When it rains, life is still livable, but time is intensely heavy.

July... Am I really meant to travel after 7 July?

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.