i know nothing about what i thought i knew.
written: 12:01 a.m. on Monday, Oct. 10, 2005

One:

One fine day I found myself looking at my SMS inbox and my fingers methodically pressing 'delete' and 'yes' when asked to confirm the erasure of the text message. One after another, and the next, and the next, until my scrollbar got longer and they were all gone. I've long since got into the habit of using the 'reply and delete' function and I really wish I hadn't. And even though text messages are still mankind's most preposterous modern-day invention, I still feel the tiniest prickling of sentimentality and I can't decide if that is more preposterous than text messages as a means of communication, or maybe these two are inter-related and I'm only denouncing SMSes because they were pretty much all I had. So now they're gone and I'm finally left with nothing.

Two:

I keep thinking about this and I think it's crucial that the guys I date have a standard of Chinese that's at least as good as mine. Since my Chinese is pretty shoddy, you'd think that this requirement shouldn't be too hard to fulfill; except, no, I'm picky and elitist and I want a guy who is effectively bilingual and his written English must astound and equally important, he must be able to string together a coherent sentence in Chinese without resorting to: 1) English phrases; 2) Singlish; and 3) the generic way in which the average Chinese Singaporean speaks Mandarin. By the looks of things, however, I'm thinking pessimistically because the people I've come into contact with either have good English and bad Chinese or bad English and good Chinese, and 99.99% of them can't speak proper Chinese (I've found a Singaporean who can speak proper Chinese though, and that's Janice from my LAWR tutorial group). Everyone is flawed in many ways, and all I'm asking for is for you to be less flawed in your languages. Is that too much to ask for? Taking the average ang moh pai Chinese Singaporean male into consideration, with his wide array of ignorance of the beauty of the Chinese culture and his disdain for all things related to his own culture, I'm guessing, yes. So now I'm saying, to fuck with it, I'm getting a dog.

Three:

I had a dream in which I was packing my suitcase and leaving for Taipei by myself, but it was only for a week. And a discourse with a man about the significance of Taipei; the phrase 'cultural identity' was floating around somewhere, and I guessed it before he said it out loud. The atmosphere was romantic - not in the boy-girl love sense - and important and meaningful, it played like an arthouse film where minimalism trumped Hollywood's anorexic and obsessive fixation with bombast, and when I woke up my sense of loss was as palpable as the coldness of the air-conditioner on my skin.

I am unreasonably and inexplicably drawn to that city, so that I can abandon New York forever if it means I'd get to live and experience life in Taipei. Why is that so? My old apartment, the one in which I grew up, had a toilet that was a lot dirtier and less well-furnished than even my Geylang HDB flat's; the toilet bowl in my grandparents' apartment can't flush properly and so you can't throw used toilet paper into the toilet bowl, but into a dustbin instead (for that reason alone I tried very hard to refrain from taking dumps when I was there); when I was there last December it stank of dog shit in practically every single lane that I walked through; drivers don't bother stopping for pedestrians at zebra crossings and crossing the road in itself is more of a health hazard than inhaling second-hand smoke; there are, quite frankly, more fugly guys than hot guys (but to qualify that, the hot guys there are really hot); shopping is even more expensive over there than in Singapore; law and order is haphazard and sometimes non-existent as compared to Singapore; and it has everything I want in a city that Singapore does not have.

Liberty and freedom and free speech and a gay movie hitting number one at the box office and undubbed Hokkien films and interesting people and distinguishable fashion and perfect Mandarin (distinguish Chen Shui-bian's native Taiwanese accent which is even more horrible than the generic Singaporean accent, believe it or not) and open criticisms of the government and its policies and political satirical shows on mainstream TV, liberty and free speech, I'm tempted to mention a free press too but I think media competition over there has got rather out of hand and it's hurting the quality of their news report; Taiwanese news stations report the most ludicrous and unimportant things you can possibly conceive.

I don't know what my point is, except that the short dream about me leaving for Taipei (even if it's only for a week) and seeking my cultural identity is the best I've had in ages, trumping even that ridiculous one in which I had a 36/50 for my Torts test (which would be an A if I were still in JC; not sure about now).

I really miss Taipei.

before sunrise // before sunset


Previously:
- - Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2017
I'm moving. - Sunday, Jul. 11, 2010
In all honesty - Tuesday, Jul. 06, 2010
What I want for my birthday... - Sunday, Jul. 04, 2010
On Roger's behalf. - Friday, Jul. 02, 2010