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Sunday, April 12, 2009
I have (finally) outgrown Avril Lavigne (at 21 years old)so check out my new blog at www.smellslikedeespirit.blogspot.com.
3:25 AM
Tuesday, April 07, 2009
Set off at 8pm, Thursday night after workTook the cheapest train to destination. Train reeks of the real China. Sat in a hard seat, with a man sleeping underneath, for 13 hours. Heard the song "北京欢迎您"countless times before reaching. Moments of "mouth open" amazement that we survived the overnight train ride. Checked into a youth hostel, thus authenticating myself as a true blue backpacker. Saw Chairman Mao's large portrait on red building. Dared housemate to lick a stone pillar in Temple of Heaven. Also licked stone pillar in Temple of Heaven. Ate Quan Ju De's Peking Duck. Just the Duck. Ran around Tian'an Men to get to queue. Queued for 1 hour to see Chairman Mao's mummified body. Saw his body for less than 1 minute. Licked a marble carving in Forbidden Palace. Tasted like marble. Climbed to the top of Jin Shan to see the whole of Beijing beneath our feet. Watched the sunset and took a trishaw from Qian Hai to Hou Hai. Licked The Great Wall of China. It tasted huge. Wasted time at tourist traps. Saw some unimpressive role-playing and a disturbing con company. Suspected that the Water Cube is made of PVC, but nonetheless, looked impressive on the inside. Tried to call McDelivery but was rejected because could only provide the address as "Bird Nest/ National Stadium". Ate two fried bugs at a food street for a dare. Suddenly thankful there are things such as chilli powder and salt, and that they are aplenty on these critters. Walked the longest corridor of the Summer Palace. Recorded a voice-dub for fun in Movie World, the sets of shows such as My Fair Princess. Played hand-Chapteh at the carpet grass in the Bird Nest. Got electrocuted a little when running across the Bird Nest. Ate Da Dong's Peking Duck. This time, we added drinks but they tasted bitter. Felt hot and bothered by the weather. and Beijing's resemblance to Singapore. Hummed "北京欢迎您", sometimes sang it out loud, for the longest time. Only knew that 1 line out of the entire song. Slept on the upper deck of a good train from Monday night. Expensive, but good. Was packed like sardines on the subway in Shanghai on the way home Tuesday morning. Reported for work 1 hour later. Ended this post with a cliched line such as "We came, we saw, we conquered Beijing."
11:46 PM
Thursday, March 26, 2009
11:14 PM
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
 Got bored after having to draw the outlines of skyscrapers, so did this. Okay, time to rest my eyes from the computer!
11:39 PM
Sunday, March 22, 2009
 Shanghai Shenanigans Part 6-放屁三月下扬州 There's a saying that goes "烟花三月下扬洲" (which means March is the best time to look at flowers, because it's kinda foggy, creating a mystic vibe.). I wonder if that phrase was of any use, but we spontaneously decided to go anyway. In the end, we saw flowers, climbed weird rock formations in a garden, ate Shi Zhi Tou (狮子头)meatballs, one kick ass soup dumpling each, engaged in a staring contest with old ladies while fighting for tables in a restaurant (phrase that comes to mind most often: The Fast and the Furious), took the Chinese bullet train, squeezed with a few thousand others on the way to the platform, rode on a bus that drove on a highway that looked to go nowhere, climbed a 9 storey pagoda, and refused to go into the main attraction of Yangzhou- Shou Xi Lake (瘦西湖) because of the high entrance fee. The highlight though, was none of the above. It was our hotel room, or should I say motel room, which was the most intriguing of them all. Our bathroom has no door. The shower cubicle shares a door with the toilet bowl cubicle. There is a curtain outside the shower cubicle, in the main room, that can be raised for one's viewing pleasure. There were 5 of us- three girls and two guys. Before you let your mind wonder though, nothing happened in the night. We were too tired and too old. Something else happened though, and on a very high frequency. We farted, and farted good. While others come to appreciate the wonderous nature that surrounds the ancient town of Yangzhou, we were standing near the hotel room doorway, smiling sheepishly to each other when we felt one coming, and sometimes, one joker will say,"I'm going to fart" and let a wet one rip. By the end of the trip, I could have sworn we've become much more acquainted than before. And so, the lesson is, disgusting things make people get closer. Take it from me, I make friends better when we have sleepovers. Therefore, we brought out our worst in Yangzhou, but Yangzhou brought out the good in us. On the above photo, there's a girl in the red vest smiling. That's Yan Jing, one of our friend's friend from Shanghai. She has been taking care of us a lot, and has been going out of her way to help us. This trip was supposed to be a trip for her and her university friends, but she asked us along anyway. She's just fantastic. Our "老衲". I'm already thinking of where to bring her to eat when she has the opportunity to come to Singapore. Really grateful and thankful for her presence. She gives hope to mankind, and I'm not stretching it by saying that.
10:03 PM
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Shanghai Shenanigans Part 5- How cool is cool?When there's no work to do, I've been surfing ffffound.com and looked at plenty of uber cool pictures.     Maybe, if I've been to this website before I did my Graphic Communication module, things may have worked out differently. Oh well, it's been 2 semesters, so I'll stop beating myself over it. Art's so random and unlimited. So cool. This week, I discovered that Singapore is not far enough- not for me at least. You know, sometimes people migrate somewhere to escape from their reality back home. Well, I've got nothing much to escape from, but this feeling of freedom from all the rubbish at home makes me high-kinda (even though I've not much rubbish back home). This morning, I was squashed (packed sardines-like squashed) in the public bus on the way to school, with some stranger's elbows poking me, and I was hanging on to dear life as the bus flung its passengers from side to side. But there I was, smiling. Taking in these tiny adventures and challenging my comfort zone. That's the excitment of life, right there, in that 2RMB bus. Today though, I collected for myself a pile of rubbish. Don't ask. My housemates and I came to a conclusion that I thought too little and they thought too much. Don't worry though, nothing drastic happened. And right now, in hindsight, I do think that I face a prevalent problem of thinking too little. My philosophy of "there's always a solution" doesn't quite work sometimes, because it neglects the pros and cons of each viable solution to any problem. At least the pile of rubbish is not big (I wonder why I even bother to collect it in the first place), and therefore, not growing (I hope). Therefore, I think that I need to start thinking just a little bit more that what I deem necessary and be more sensitive to my surroundings. I love my housemates (family). I really, really do. I feel blessed for having them right here with me, listening to my words and having the patience to explain their point of view. My housemates kick ass man. So, in this fifth week, I'm contented.
5:51 PM
Monday, March 09, 2009
Roads.Highway Tunnel from Pudong to Puxi *sounds are just mindless conversations
10:35 PM
Before I start off, I would like to say “Hello MUMMY! I love you too!” (Today, my mum called me because she thought I had a hard time with my housemates from my previous post. Asked her if she read till the end and she said she didn’t have time. So she reads my blog. Cool eh?) This week marked my 4th week, and concludes my first month in Shanghai. Over here, I’ve been leading the city dweller’s life, but this experience is still significantly different from the Singaporean urban lifestyle. For one, the gap between the poor and the rich is striking and in-your-face. I see beggars shivering in the winter rain, people who come from rural towns with their baggage and clothes that stick out like sore thumbs, and the local Shanghainese. I learnt that Shanghainese people refer to people out of Shanghai “foreigners”, or 外地人.This classification is to distinguish themselves as superior to the other towns, since Shanghai is one of the most advanced cities in the country. If you think that’s bad, they were merely following the footsteps of the people in Beijing, who refer to people out of Beijing “百姓 (commonfolk), because they feel that they’re nobility for living in the capital. People who live in Guandong also join in, calling the rest of China “穷人” (the poor) and themselves “富人”(the rich). Now before I point the finger at these locals and accuse them of being snobbish, I myself have a confession to make. I discovered that I’m no better, along with the rest of these people who stick their noses up the hazy air of Shanghai. One morning, Joyce, Felicia and I took the public bus to school. It wasn’t crowded, so I sat in one corner, listening to my iPod and watched the roads fly by. The bus stopped, and up came two passengers. It was a man and a woman, both dirty and their hair in a mess. Their clothes looked dusty, and their faces were dark, like they haven’t had a bath in days. They were carrying a huge bag of stuff, and suddenly, all eyes in the bus were on the two of them. On instinct, I clutched my bag tight. The man beckoned the woman to sit on an empty seat, which was next to this young man. She refused, and so that man sat down instead. Immediately, I could feel the young man tense up. He fidgeted in his seat, grabbed something in his bag, and started to read. In the meantime, the man was looking up and down and the young man. He moved. Immediately, I craned my neck to look, as they were seated 2 seats in front of me, at the space between the young man and the older one, wondering if the older man is trying to rob the young man. I got down the bus shortly after, thinking to myself how sad it was that I couldn’t help myself from making such an assumption based on appearance. How sad for me, as a human, to feel that way at another human, and how sad for humanity, for the entire bus was feeling that exact same way too. Finally, how sad that I would say so much now and not done anything at all! Yes. This world is selfish. But then again, there are instances where people help out one another in times of difficulties. The following example, however, cannot be compared to the above, because it’ll be like comparing apples to elephants- while both can exist as living things, they are as different as heaven and earth. This is the following example. Felicia was told, one rainy day in her office, that she had to collect “Fa Piao” (发票), which are official receipts. This system of collecting Fa Piaos is just like claiming money from receipts, but in China, Fa Piaos are claimable, not receipts. You can get fa piaos from all licensed establishments, and for anything too. Food, transport, phone, groceries, taxi rides- anything. We never knew what Fa Piaos were, but it didn’t take long before we had to know. First, Joyce has to collect fa Piaos on food to be able to get a portion of her pay. Without that amount of fa Piaos, she cannot collect that amount of her pay. For her though, it has to be for food, like her daily meals. Nearly one month later, Felica’s company, who conveniently forgot when she started her internship, told her that she has to collect 2200 RMB worth of fa piaos for food and living expenses for the month of February and March. 2200RMB is no joke. It’s about S$400, and March is already here. So she rallied everyone she knew (people in the Global Immersion Programme) to help out. Before we knew it, fa piaos of all shapes and sizes and amounts have come pouring. (and I discovered I need Fa Piaos too after telling my boss about Felicia. He said, “Eh, you need to collect fa piaos also leh. You know anot?” So much for laughing at her predicament.) It’s gratifying to see a seemingly impossible task being solved just like that with the help of our fellow citizens. At least it can instill some hope into mankind. But then again, I did say I was comparing apples with elephants. Well, all I can say is, I’d probably not be like Kevin Carter (http://africanhistory.about.com/b/2006/04/12/Lthe-journalist-the-vulture-and-the-child.htm) , because I don’t have his guts. Like I said, the world is selfish.
10:32 PM
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