To Live

Here's a quick one before I go to sleep.

Today, we watched the 2nd part of 'To Live' during the joint lecture. There was this poignant bit where the boy (Youqing)'s parents packed a tin of dumplings for him and sent him to school though he's so tired. In school, he was killed when the district chief's car knocked down the wall while he was asleep on the other side. At his grave, his grieving mother opened the pack of uneaten dumplings (still perfect albeit a little brown) plus another bowl of freshly cooked ones and implored her dead son to eat, and thereafter to have a good sleep, because he had never had a good night's sleep when he was alive. It was at this point when I noticed many of the students brushing tears from their eyes. It was indeed a moving scene, the quiet melancholy very tastefully done without histrionics.

Then, another scene of note happened towards the end of the film, where Fengxia (the protagonists' daughter) was giving birth in a hospital run by ridiculously young doctors, who reigned supreme because of their socialistic fervour rather than medical expertise. Worried, Fengxia's family brought in an aged professor of obstetrics, who had been labelled as a 'reactionary' and jailed, to see to Fengxia's delivery. The family then made a tragic error by buying 7 buns for the straving professor, and to add fuel to the fire, pumped him with water after he's eaten the buns (they later said 7 buns become 49 (7x7) with the water). Thus, when Fengxia suffered serious internal bleeding after giving birth, the hapless young doctors could do nothing while the professor was totally bloated and knocked out. We were all panicky as we watched the family running to and fro, between the gasping Fengxia (who's dying from loss of blood) and the similarly gasping professor (who's 'dying' of overeating). It's really a tragicomic moment. It's funny because the situation's so absurd. The professor who could save Fengxia having gorged himself with numerous buns because he was starving as a result of persecution by the young doctors who were too useless to help Fengxia. Tragic because we see a life - a new mother that is - ebbing away and no one could do anything. It's a moment where you don't know whether to laugh or to cry because you realize the whole situation's so ridiculous, and it's the most memorable bit for me in the film.

The well documented painter

Today I bought 2 inner painting snuff bottles from this cny fair.

They are small bottles with paintings inside them, where the painter has to insert a small calligraphy-like brush through the small neck and make those fine drawings.

This painter had a whole series of certficates and newspaper cuttings of himself pasted all over his store, and he showed me a photo he took with Goh Chok Tong and a listing of himself in some 'Who's who in Chinese Art' book. He was very eager to show how famous he is with all these documents.

Anyway, I picked a snuff bottle with cat pictures, and he said he could write my name in the bottle on the spot. Well, I certainly was thrilled, so I wrote my Chinese name for him. Then, being kiasu, I asked him (half thinking he might charge me extra) to write my English name too, which he gladly obliged.

Seeing how nice and obliging he was, I picked another bottle with crane pictures, and asked him to write my Dad's name. He wrote using this super thin calligraphy brush with the help of a magnifying class.

Then, the cheapo part of me kicked in and I asked him if there's a discount since I'm buying two. He seemed very scandalized (but he didn't lose his cool) and he said how can a master artist like him give a discount (yes, he actually called himself da4 shi1).

Okay, guess I should have just kept quiet and pay up for the pieces of art with gratitude and awe. (But anyway, the bottles were not too expensive lah, he had a huge range and I got the lower end ones)

Then, as I was leaving, I asked him if he resides in Singapore. He said he lives in America, and being the document lover that he was, he immediately pulled out his green card to show me as proof :) What a funny chap, but he really has great skill and patience to do such drawings.

PS. There's this strange anonymous person that's tagging a lot on my CBOX. I wonder who s/he is...

I love The Phantom of the Opera

The Phantom of the Opera main theme

Angel of Music

Think of me (Christine's big break. Lovely coloratura at the end)

All I ask of you (An incredibly lovely song. When Christine (Emmy Rossum) sings, time seems to stand still)

Masquerade (The people celebrate joyfully, unawares of the massive catastrophe that is to follow)

Music of the Night

Will Ferrell's version of Music of the Night (he is such a nutcase and a comic genius!)

CNY and 'music therapy'

Okay, first things first.

I shall proudly declare to the world that THIS IS MY 80TH POST! Ok. 'Nuff said.

At the CNY concert in school today, the Chinese dancers did a good enactment of peacocks (or rather, peahens!). My colleagues and I were reminded of the ‘arch of the back’ of the woman in Maya Angelou’s poem. Something only a woman can carry off.

Just done with spring cleaning. I was assigned all the doors of my home to wipe. As I did the work, I played Beethoven's 1st piano concerto on the stereo. Great, invigorating music to go along with the grueling work. It really kept the spirits (and my arms) up and going. I've always found music touching at various points of my life. I remember the warmth I felt listening to the brass instruments while playing for the first time in a combined orchestra during a music camp in JC. I remember always listening to Bach's Bradenburg Concertos to cure my headache when I was young(er). I remember feeling very emo(tional) one day years ago, and as I played Chopin's A flat etude on the piano, tears just kept streaming down my cheeks because the harmonies were just so lovely....the list goes on.

BTW, now that I'm done with the spring cleaning, I've changed the disc on the stereo to Chinese oldies by Feng Fei Fei (this Taiwanese singer who always dons a cap on stage. and her name means 'Phoenix Fly Fly' in English btw) to please my parents. One should not blast symphonic music at your elders all day.

Happy CNY to all. May you all have a good rest from the hard work and go back to school/work refreshed next week!

The Ultimate Mother Tongue Regression

This morning, I was writing a note to my mum and I realized I've forgotten how to write 'fridge' in Chinese!

I was trying to write the words 'bing1 xiang1' and I had to look up the Chinese dictionary for the 'xiang'.

That's how much my Chinese has regressed!

I remember vividly my final Chinese lesson in Sec 4. Our teacher was giving us a pep talk on scoring well for the O Levels and she said if we passed our Chinese, she would be our 'mo4 dai4' (final) Chinese teacher.

Well, I did pass and so that was the last time I'd ever attended a Chinese lesson.

That was in 1997, and ever since, there hasn't been an occasion when I need to write anything longer than a sentence in Chinese :(