eulogy.
written: 12:19 a.m. on Tuesday, Jun. 06, 2006

My 11 days in Taipei only confirmed one thing: Staying here for the rest of my life will certainly drive me insane. I had headphones on for the majority of the flight back and so it was only until I was waiting to get off the plane that I heard, pretty clearly, the conversation between the three girls sitting behind me. I don't even know what they talked about but it doesn't matter because I balked - seriously balked - at the atrocious words that came out of their mouths, masquerading as Chinese, and the ridiculous mish-mash of English and Chinese words. At the airport, I asked a salesgirl at some cosmetic store if she knew where the jackpot thingy was. I heard her perfectly fine the first time round, but I paused and it seemed like I didn't comprehend when in fact I was trying to get past the exceedingly bad English and stop correcting her grammar in my head.

I hate the Singaporean accent. I think in proper English but when I speak English it's tainted by the Singaporean accent and I hate it. As hilarious as the Taiwanese are when they attempt to speak English, it's a fact that they are at least taught how to enunciate words correctly. Simple words like 'shopping', 'Toyota', and 'statistics'. We place emphasis on all the wrong syllabus and it sounds funny, even incomprehensible, to a person who knows the correct pronunciation of those words. To be quite frank I hardly missed Singapore at all while in Taipei, and when I did I mostly missed my bed, and one thing I definitely did not miss was my ears bleeding when service people talk to me, or when I walk down the streets and catch snatches of other people's conversations.

I don't know why I feel this way; I just do. I need to leave.

And one day, I will.

**

In other news, Taipei is the best place ever.

You know, living there for, oh, half a year perhaps, will do wonders for my Chinese. I actually seriously enjoyed speaking Mandarin to people who speak it so beautifully - my cousins, relatives, random sales people.

And the cute guys are super cute.

I will save the long-ass updates for some other time. I'm pretty tired. I reached home in time to watch Desperate Housewives, after which I hung around in my brother's room and talked to him and my mom, and now my bed is a bloody mess and I am not looking forward to cleaning up my room, and needless to say I'm not even letting it fully sink in that I'm really, REALLY back in Singapore, when the only thing I wanna do now is to get as far away as possible.

Or just, you know, to Taipei. God I love it there so much.

I mentioned how odd a concept home is in this entry. I certainly didn't know how odd it truly is. I kept thinking that those 11 days could've been my life, if only. How strange it is that one decision is capable of altering your life forever, even more so when you weren't mature enough to have a say in said decision. And yet, what are memories worth when you don't quite remember much? I walked down the lane where I used to live and I couldn't locate my old apartment, the same apartment I called 'home' for the first few years of my life. If 'home' is such a liquid concept, why does it even matter? Technically, Singapore is my home, but I didn't feel anything apart from irritation when I saw the 'welcome home' marquees at the airport that blinked at me whilst I was having my passport stamped. I suppose, then, that I have no choice but to resort to an annoying cliche: Home is where the heart is.

Easier said than done. I don't know my heart, let alone where the fuck it is. Can my heart really be in a place that repulsives and irritates me more than anything, especially if it's a place to which my passport tells me I belong?

All these pointless pseudo-ruminations really boil down to one thing: I wish I didn't have to leave. I wish I'd never left. I wish, so much, that I could call myself a Taipei local without lying through my teeth.

This isn't making any sense. Maybe another time.

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