Girl and City

You know how some people manage to look good when they eat without even realizing it? Be it the cute way they nibble on their drumstick or the intensity with which they lick their spoon, they are oblivious to the picture of contentedness they paint in the eyes of their onlookers.

I am not one of those people.

Don’t get me wrong, I am aglow with euphoria whenever I am called upon to ingest something delicious, but I am not exactly a picture of serenity. And the aftermath of my euphoric state is never a pleasing sight.
There is just no denying it. I am not a graceful eater.

I recall coming across some “Who wants to be a princess?” TV show a while back (that’s probably not the real name but, geez, it’s not like I watched it), and they were at some sort of picnic. The voice-over was commenting on the fact that most of the ladies had chosen to eat salad, but were having trouble appearing graceful and refined while trying to stuff large pieces of lettuce in their mouths.
This led me to wonder what foods are easy to eat while retaining the utmost lady-like behaviour.
Salad? Although socially favoured by the ladies who are weight-conscious, apparently not.
Chicken? Unless it’s skinless and boneless, not.
Pasta? Carbs? Are you crazy? And red stains are remarkably noticable, especially if you’re wearing summer colours.
Steak? What are you, a cow? (No pun intended.)
Finger foods? If there aren’t any napkins, are you going to lick your fingers or wipe it on yourself?
Sushi? Chewing large sushi rolls tend to make you look like a chipmunk, even if you are a supermodel.
Potatoes? Unless they’re cut with straight edges, they can easily roll off your plate (or around your plate when you’re trying to cut).
So, after much pondering, I have decided that the only remotely easy thing to eat is fish meat (without any bones). Fish is tender, making it much easier to cut than chicken or beef, and it doesn’t taste like sandpaper (the way skinless, boneless chicken tends to). It’s also very classy (unlike eating potatoes – just potatoes), and you can eat in small bites. If it is a steamed fish with little sauce, it likely won’t stain and won’t contain much sugar (and no carbs!).

Too bad I don’t like seafood.

I’m suddenly buried in so much work that I want to shoot myself in the foot just so I could have some time off. The only thing getting me through the day is emailing back and forth with BaseballBrownieBoy.

On the topic of old computers…
Him:
i am sitting in my cube, totally dying here
i cant believe its monday morning
worst time of week ever.

i am working on this program and like once a day my computer will just restart on it own
and like they gave me the worst computer ever made
its like at least 8 years old and like dying, so it takes 10 mins to load

Me:
You write like a retard. Did I tell you that? I had to use a retardation
translator to understand your email. But I guess I can forgive you -
university has made all of us dumb.
Having computers that old should be illegal or something.

On the topic of girls…
Me:
So many girls I’ve met are so emotionally weak, it’s
disgusting. I don’t know what to do with them. I want to slap them
around with a big fish and be like “dude, stop being such a GIRL.” This
is probably why I’ve had more male friends than female ones since
forever. But I can’t do that here anymore, because guys don’t want to be
my friend. Because I’m a girl and they’re sexist bastards and they just
want a GIRLFRIEND, not a friend. Even though I may be the most amazing
friend they ever have, but it’s not like their dicks care. So I’m stuck
being friends with girls who are crybabies and live for their
boyfriends. Yuck yuck yuck. I want to shoot myself.

Him:
no guys want to be friends with girls
its just…no
girls are basically good for 1 thing to us
well 2…either getting some from that girl or having that girl introduce us to other girls to get some from
i think thats how the male mind works
actually im sure
(more…)

Last night, I saw Stardust with my new boy of the moment, SeriousChinaBoy. After he partied with my friends and I, I felt that we really bonded, and couldn’t wait to talk to him again. I’d called him a few days after, and we decided to see a movie after my exam. But that seemed too far away (I am not a patient woman). Today, I’d lugged my laptop to a bustling coffee shop with the intention of getting some reading done for my Philo exam. Instead, I added SCB on MSN and ended up suggesting he come see a movie with me.
By the time he got there, it was already dark. It was depressing to realize that now it’s dark by 9, which means summer is almost over. The movie was good, and the little excursion made me realize that I definitely feel different around him. Maybe it’s because I feel like he needs me, and that in itself is enough to peak my curiousity. Why do I always go after people who need me (friends and boyfriends)? Why can’t I go after someone who’s emotionally stable? Anyway, all I know is that I make him happy. This, coming from a guy who’s been depressed for two years is a pretty big deal.
(more…)

You know when you see a brown blob on the ground in the distance but you can’t make out what it is? And as you get closer, you wonder, is it a wild rabbit? Am I lucky enough to be afforded a glimpse of these shy creatures? At the thought, your pace quickens, wanting to see it up close before it darts into the bushes. But then, something’s not right. It’s not moving. Maybe it’s just a pile of dog shit, you think instead. Deflated, you return to your previous pace, but you are still staring curiously at the brown blob, hoping for the rabbit.
But finally, when you are finally close enough to discern the shape, it turns out to be just a pile of mud. Neither rabbit nor dog shit. Just a pile of mud.

And then you realize that that’s kind of what life’s like. At first, you’re optimistic that your life will be something special, that despite what the jaded have whispered in your ear, you’ll end up with the rare fate of living a good life. The life of a cute, wild rabbit. But as you live on, you start to assume the worst. Maybe you’re not that special. In fact, maybe there is no such thing as a good life. Maybe life is stinky and gross and horrible. Like dog shit.
But finally, when you’ve lived long enough, you realize life is just a pile of mud. Neither here nor there, and nothing worth speaking of. And when you realize this, it doesn’t really surprise you, but you feel foolish nonetheless. Foolish for ever thinking that it was going to be anything else. Foolish for having gotten your hopes up, and then down, only to be disappointed by something so mediocre it wasn’t even worth your noticing.

Like that pile of mud.
(more…)

I’ve started being indirectly exposed to the underbelly of Asian culture, and the more I see of it, the more afraid I am. Perhaps it’s because my idea of Asian culture has always been based on my parents’ moral teachings and conservative ways. Perhaps I just haven’t seen enough. Either way, what I’m learning now is that there is something very scary to be found in the shadows of Asian culture, like a dragon with gleaming red eyes peering from the darkness.

Simply put, there was just no light. My life and future were pitch black, and I couldn’t see anything at the end of the tunnel. [...] now I could clearly imagine myself turning up dead in a gutter somewhere and I didn’t even really have the energy to laugh it off. [...] I wondered which would be better – to work as a prostitute to live, or to die rather than work as one? I’d say the latter answer would be the one chosen by the healthy mind, but then again, there’s not really anything healthy about being dead. Anyway, they do say that women who are sexually active tend to have a better complexion. Not that I cared if I was healthy or not.

Bleak reading, right? The entire book (Snakes and Earrings by Hitomi Kanehara) is just so. Depressing doesn’t even begin to describe it. It’s a short read, took me less than an hour, but it felt like I’d been sucked into a black hole and then spit out and I’d missed months of my life in between. The entire story of Lui is strikingly dark, beginning with her fascination with Ama’s forked snake-like tongue. I don’t know if the shock factor is what appeals to the people of Japan today, but I do know this book was a hit the moment it came out.
And here we are clamoring over Harry Potter.

It isn’t the first book of this type that I’ve read – this type being the shocking post-modern realism of emotionless sex, confused teens coming of age, overflowing with sadism – Beijing Doll is another such story (though with much less acclaim) based in Beijing as opposed to Tokyo. I received the same jolt of shock when I first read Beijing Doll (though it’s not nearly as gruesome).
The books have something in common though: a dreadful bleakness approached with an apathy that feels like all emotion has been sucked away from the world. Things happen to these girls but they feel nothing. Nothing, except the occasional sprinkle of hate, but more often than not, even that’s too much emotion for them to hold. Their characters are all so ghostly. So mysterious and so ghostly, as if they’ve embraced the fact that their existence counts for nothing and no one would notice if they slipped away into the night and never came back. Most of the time they’re anticipating death, if not hoping for it. Suicide is never really an option – which is unsurprising, they seem too apathetic to even end their lives – it’s more like they’d wish that the darkness would just swallow them up.

Dark as it is, it makes me curious to find out why the underbelly of Asian culture is shaped so. Why is there all this apathy and hopelessness? Is it surrounding these young girls in particular? Is that why prostitution has become an unspoken element of their lifestyles as opposed to a profession? How can they view sex in such a passionless way, and why is it (and everything else) so joyless? What turned them into these lifeless shells, these ghosts? And what happened to the strict moral teachings and conservative innocence? Is morality now merely a facade for the sake of tradition but has already lost all meaning? Or are these shocking acts just a rebellion against the over-conservative culture? But surely, this is not “liberalism.” This self-degradation and self-loathing seems more like the result of a struggle to find the new moral code, a clash between the old and new views of morality. That’s what one of my friends said anyway. But when I read these books, all I feel is blackness. In this blackness, there are no emotions like regret and guilt, pride and dignity. In this blackness, morality ceases to exist completely.
In this blackness, there is only emptiness.