Categories
Book Reviews Fiction Linguistic

An Afterthought: El Búho Que No Podía Ulular

Uff.  Finalmente, I have read a story written in Spanish (just yesterday).  Ironically, it is not as Spanish as I would have expected.  It is a story of an owl banished from his own kind and has ended up being lectured by the ghost of Benjamin Franklin together with the rest of the founding fathers of America in ghost forms.  Coincidentally, this entry is published on the US’s Independence Day.  ¡Qué casualidad!

I have always wanted to read stories in Spanish.  Given my level of deficiency (I pondered hard if I shall use ”˜proficiency’), I shall realistically start with Spanish books written for the infants or young teens.  But I have seen too much and my mind has long been corrupted by the earthly vices and spices.  These books are simply not as appetizing.  I cannot even bring myself to read “Hairy Porter”.  Since our classmate is so kind to lend us a Spanish book called “El Búho Que No Podía Ulular”, or in English, “The Owl That Could Not Hoot”, I have decided to give it a go.  I was so determined that I would not publish any entry in my website until I have finished with the book.  This explains why you have not heard from me for quite some time.

Fortunately, this book written by Robert Fischer and Beth Kelly is thin.  And it comes with three stories.  That means, even though I have read one story out of three, I felt as though I have achieved something.  Systematically grinding through the vocabulary and the different verb forms was tedious.  Technology is a double edged sword.  The online resources and offline applications have helped me a great deal in finding what each word or even a sentence means in lightning efficiency.  But I do not find myself making an effort to memorize the meaning and the usage.  I end up looking up the same word again and again.  I suppose if I had a Spanish mama, I could always ask “¿qué significa sonreír?” or “¿qué significa suspirar?”  If I was to invent a new technology to help the Spanish learners, I would create a Japanese lookalike Spanish Nanny Robot.  An attractive one no doubt.  I could ask, “¿Qué significa sonreír?” and she would reply, “It is smile, sweetie”.  Or I could ask, “¿Qué significa suspirar?” and she would reply, “It is sigh, sweetie”.  How cool is that?

Back to the story, it starts with an owl that is unable to hoot.  He can say “why” but he cannot say “who” (the hooting sound of an owl).  Because of that, he is asked to leave the habitat.  Soon, he meets a duck that cannot say “cuac” and instead, he says “cuic”.  The two loners, or rather outliners, have then decided to team up and see what the world has to offer.  Their first mission is to study in a university and become a doctor.  Upon realizing that it would take longer than their lifetime to obtain a medical degree, they have decided to embark a journey of searching for the purpose of life.  This involves interviewing random people on the street and finding out what they do for a living.

The owl that can say “why” naturally does most of the talking.  The duck takes note.  After interviewing hundreds of people, they have come to the conclusion that most people do not like their jobs, yet they do not wish to switch.  They do it for the money and the only time they are happy is when they are not working and on vacation.  The duo further concludes that people are happy when they are spending money.  And they observe that most people do not own what they have.  What then should one do with his or her life in order to be happy?  A typical American story, I suppose.

One day, the owl hears a voice that leads them sneaking into a national museum at night.  Inside a gallery where the portraits of the founding fathers are hung, the owl sees something extraordinary.  All of a sudden, the portraits become empty and the founding fathers have materialized in front of the duo’s eyes (?!).  The ghosts of the founding fathers then lecture the duo on how America was originally founded as a place of equality and freedom and how they are disappointed that the America today is all about making and spending money.  I honestly do not see how this is linked to an owl that cannot hoot and a duck that cannot say “cuac”.  At the end of the story, upon hearing the wisdom of the founding fathers, the owl is enlightened.  And he says, “Libre … es lo que soy”, which means “Free, is what I am”.  Perhaps the moral of the story is that we should not see through the lens of social norms on what we are not capable of doing.  Instead, take the opportunity to break out of the mould and be yourself.  We may stand to gain so much more.

I used to think that I write weird stories.  Those who have read my manuscript for that writing competition would have agreed with me.  But this story is weirder.  If I was to rewrite the story, I would turn this owl that cannot hoot into a hero.  I would bestow some bizarre disasters upon the rest of the owls like the attack of the toxic toads.  And our hero would return to this habitat that rejected him and save the day.  Everyone would worship him and begin to say “why” instead of “who”.  The most beautiful owl in the forest would fall in love with the hero and they would live happily ever after.  Oh, before that.  At the altar, when the priest asks, “Do you take this owl as your lawfully wedded wife?”  Instead of “why?”, our hero would finally able to say “who?”  I think it is darn funny.

Humor aside, there are some good takeaway points from this book that is onto its 40th edition (gasp!).  Below is my favorite.  I too feel that the root of many of our problems today could have been solved by filling our life with love.  That way, we leave no space for fear and hatred.

«Aprendiendo a amarte a ti mismo»’, sonrió Franklin. «Y en la medida en que te ames a ti mismo, podrás amar a tus vecinos, a tus amigos y a todas las demás personas que hay en esta gran nación».

My attempt to translate the above extract is as follows.

“Learning to love yourself,” smiled Franklin. “And as you love yourself, you will love your neighbors, your friends, and the rest of the people in this great nation”.

On a side note, while it is not possible to linguistically memorize what the book teaches, I have noted down all the adverbs that ends with -mente for my future reference: profundamente (profoundly), bruscamente (abruptly), sucesivamente (successively or ”˜y así sucesivamente’, which means ”˜and so on’), detenidamente (carefully), desesperadamente (desperately), fijamente (attentively), rápidamente (quickly), únicamente (solely or only), tristemente (sadly), apresuradamente (hastily), constantemente (constantly), fríamente (coldly), repentinamente (suddenly), tímidamente (timidly), lentamente (slowly), amablemente (amiably), actualmente (nowadays and not actually!), alegremente (happily), completamente (completely).

Categories
Memorable Events

One Milestone Down: Participate In A Writing Competition

My sister commented last Saturday, “My brother has many milestones [that he wants to achieve]”.  OK.  I don’t have that many.  But participating in a writing competition is certainly one that is high on my list.

I wish I have studied literature, instead of engineering.  Having said that, I am not sure if I would be any good.  Or if I would hate the subject so much so that I would not want anything to do with it.  If I could write novels for a living, that would be ideal.  But I also know that such business has no place for an average writer.  Hence for now, I stick to what makes a living – writing business documents.

Every working evening, I drive from my workplace in the east to pick up Cynthia in town.  In my car, I often listen to the radio.  One evening, while listening to the radio, I chanced upon a writing competition organized by National Arts Council sponsored by Singapore Press Holding.  I checked the deadline and I have two weeks left.  There are two genre categories: Short Story and Poetry.  In the category of Short Story, there is a word limit of 5,000 while for Poetry, there is none.  Immediately, I thought of Iliad and Odyssey.  I don’t think I am good at writing poetry.  If I was to submit one today, it would look something like this.

I saw a plane today
Flying by my office window
I thought about my buddy
Who used to call me Willie

I cannot recall when
My buddy left his job
I sort of miss the days (and I sort of hated too)
When he called me Willie

We used to take a walk
After we’ve filled our stomachs
He would tell me stories
And I would tell him mine

Now that he’s not around
Well, no one calls me Willie
I saw a plane today
In it I thought I saw my buddy

Not very convincing, is it?  So I stick to the Short Story category.  5,000 words is quite doable.  Each blog entry of mine has an average word count of 1,000.  All I need to do is to write 5 entries at one go.  Hence, if you notice, I have not been productive in blogging for the last two weeks.

Since I only have two weeks to submit my story, I wanted to choose a topic I am comfortable with.  I thought about writing something similar to that “Sea Turtle” post, which is one of my favorites.  I have this idea for a long time.  Instead of sea turtle, it is snail’s turn.  But I got stuck in the research bits.  I reckon it would take ages in order to study how snails behave, how fast or rather slow they move, what they eat, and etc.

The next thing came to my mind was the Dooku series.  Avid readers may recognize this character that is by and large inspired by the things I observe at work.  I renamed the character at the last minute because Cynthia told me that Dooku is a character in Star War.  Writing the story only took a day or two.  Editing it took ages.  Need I say, I feel so relief after I have submitted my manuscript for the Golden Point Award 2011.  At the submission counter, the lady who received my entry was helpful.  She checked through my documents making sure that everything was in order.  When she looked at my application form, she gasped.  Is everything OK, I asked.  Yes, yes, she replied.  She then told me that the title of my work warmed her heart.  How I wish she is one of the judges.

After I have stopped working on my story, I took a look at the quality of work from the winners of past years.  God oh God, the quality is super high!  I am so glad that I wrote without knowing what I was up against.  Since the chance of winning this Golden Point is super slim, I would like to take this opportunity (rather than wait till the result is announced) to thank the few who agreed to provide feedback on the initial draft in such a tight timeline. It is a humbling experience and I have learned a lot out of this.  So you know who you are, thank you, thank you, and thank you.  Even if I don’t win this competition, I have a polished story that I am proud of reading again and again.

Japanese writer Murakami once wrote the following words.

“To put it in the simplest possible terms, I find writing novels a challenge, writing short stories a joy. If writing novels is like planting a forest, then writing short stories is more like planting a garden. The two processes complement each other, creating a complete landscape that I treasure.” – Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman by Haruki Murakami

I find writing short stories a challenge, writing blog entries a joy.  To extend his analogy, writing blog entries is like taking care of a pot of plant.  It may be tiny, but it has its charm in its rawest form.  Writing blog entries is a joy to me because most of the time, it is write-and-forget.  In writing a short story, I have to think about how the pieces flow to each other, the consistency of the overall plot.  I have to clinically vet through the words to see if improvements can be made, mistakes can be corrected.  It is spontaneity of writing a blog entry versus the meticulous crafting of a short story.  I lose quite a bit of spontaneity when I edit the story too much.  But refining the story does make the final product looks more professional.

One commented that my short story reads differently from my usual blog entries.  My short story does not have the same level of readability and lightheartedness.  It is a valid observation.  Immediately I thought of Madeleine Wickham.  The books written under the name Wickham are not as engaging and entertaining, despite the fact that they appear to have a higher artistic value.  However, the chick lit written under Sophie Kinsella – by the same author, I literally worship them.  Or perhaps I have read Wickham writing as Sophie Kinsella before she writes as Madeleine Wickham.  So I would say, the stuffs written here in this website tend to be lighter and have the elements of entertainment in mind.  When I write a short story, I am often more ambition in tackling some of the tougher topics in life and mask them under the characters of my story.  At least that is my intent.  I suspect there is a fine balance somewhere.  The next story I write, I may be nearer to the bull eye.  Who knows?  If I keep on doing it, I may hit the sweet spot some day.

I am happy to have participated in a writing competition.  And I take suggestions on what I should do next.

Categories
Reflection

What Does Corpus Christi Mean To Me?

Try this out the next time you and your partner have an argument: Hold his or her hands while you argue.  I first heard about this idea from Wedding Encounter years ago.  Holding someone’s hands or even hugging that someone while trying to be mad at him or her is, believe it or not, very hard to do.  There is something special about physical touches.  And that extends beyond the scenarios of confrontation.  Couples, siblings, parents and their children – those who are in constantly physical contact grow to be more like each other.  Yes, there is this ‘couple-look’ when two people from different family backgrounds become similar in gesture and look.  It is as though the regular act of touching someone facilitates an exchange of positive characteristics between the two.  I am not suggesting that you should all of a sudden go out and hug everyone you see.  We have to be mindful about something called cultural norm.  When I was working in Malaysia, I found that the people in general are a lot warmer.  Guys and girls, they like to hug each other.  Or perhaps I was blessed with warm people around me.  What I know is that I do enjoy getting hugged once in a while.

To me, this idea can be elevated to a spiritual level.  How so?  While it is easy to have physical contact with our loved ones, how do we have physical contact with God in today’s world?  We could say, God is everywhere and similar to love, we cannot see God but we know God exists.  Well and good.  But can we touch something we cannot see?

Catholics faith has quite a few mysteries.  The transubstantiation of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ is one.  The bread would taste the same after the transubstantiation.  So would the wine.  But during the Eucharistic celebration, the bread and mine is made holy.  If we believe that the bread does become the Body of Christ, the act of consuming the bread – to me – is a powerful physical contact with divinity.  Now, what do I get out of this?  To be more like Jesus would be a good start.

Last weekend, Catholics around the world have celebrated the Feast of Corpus Christi, or in English, the Body of Christ.  In our Church, we have a guest priest to deliver the sermon.  He seems old and he has a caring voice.  I wish he could speak louder because the kids at the back of the Church were yelling non-stop.  Once in a while, I come cross good sermons.  Recently, I have started this habit of writing down a good sermon for my future reference.  And for sharing too, because I reckon some of you may be able to benefit from it.

The story started with the priest being assigned to India.  In his spare time, he looked after the honey bees.  Every day, he took out the honeycombs, cleaned them up, and removed the moth eggs if any.  According to him, the honeycombs can be eaten away by the moths if left unattended.  One day, while he was meticulously cleaning the honeycombs, he felt something knocking at his knees.  Because bees do sting, he carefully put down the honeycomb before finding out what it was.  It was a lamb.  Since then, every day at the same hour, the lamb would come up to the priest and they would play with each other.  This went on for quite some time.  It was soon known to the community that our priest has a new friend – a lamb.

One Easter morning, the priest did a round of making sure that everything was in order.  Inside the kitchen and from a distance, he saw a meat dish with a decoration that resembled a sheep.  His heart sank.  As he approached the kitchen table, he saw balls of cottons surrounding the dish.  The priest smiled to the cook and said, “You nearly got me there.  I thought it was a mutton dish!”  The cook replied, “Father, it is your lamb.  We do not want to tell you because we know that you would not let us.”

It was meant to be a day of celebration but the priest could not help but feeling down.  The mutton dish was delicious, judging by how delighted the dinners looked.  The priest could not bring himself to eat that dish.  I can only speculate the conflicts on his mind back then.  Towards the end of the meal, the priest took the last piece of mutton.  He ate it with gratitude and reverence.  At that point, he realized that he would not have felt the same had he not had a special bonding with the lamb.  The relationship he had with the lamb has triggered this sense of gratitude and reverence.

The question back to us is: When we receive Holy Communion, are we filled with gratitude and reverence?  This is an important question because how we receive the Body of Christ says everything about our relationship with God.  Think about it.

Categories
Diary My Favorite

I Welcome My MIL With “Teary” Eyes And Other Encounters

Last Saturday I woke up with my right eye red.  I suspect that has something to do with the intense online gaming I had the night before, not entirely sure.  Cynthia and I woke up early on a Saturday morning because her mother was due to arrive in town.  At the airport, while Cynthia was waiting at the meeting point, I looked for a pharmacy to buy some eye drops.  If you were to ask me, eye drops should be sold in bulk.  How often do you wake up in the morning, look for a bottle of eye drops and find that duh, it has expired?  So I grabbed two bottles at the counter and made my way back to the meeting point.  I wish I could lie down and apply eye drops.  Instead, I bent my back backward, tilted my head as far as I could.  Right first, and then left.  It was more misses than hits.  By the time I was done with the exercise, my eyes were soaking wet and my face was in a total mess.  Cynthia was poking fun at me and we had a good laugh role-playing the scenario of long-time-no-see in the airport.  Cued to perfect timing, before I had a chance to clean my face up, my mother-in-law appeared from the gate.  Cynthia greeted her first with a big smile and a hearty hug.  I bettered Cynthia.  I greeted my mother-in-law with a big smile, a hearty hug, and on top of that, with my teary eyes and my tear stained face.  Now, that was embarrassing.

Yesterday’s Spanish homework was to write a joke.  My Spanish is so poor that it itself is a joke.  Nevertheless, it is often the effort that counts.  I used my Saturday story as the material for my Spanish homework.  Before I could reach the punch line, the entire class – our teacher included – laughed out loud.  I wish I was that funny.  Instead of “farmacia” – which means pharmacy – I said “francia”, which means France.  So in my Spanish version, while Cynthia was waiting at the meeting point, I went to France and bought some eye drops.  Consider all things, this farmacia-francia blunder is still not as bad as the guess-which-country exercise we did in class not too long ago.  Each of us was given the spotlight to describe the people of a nation in Spanish and ask the classmates to guess which country the people come from.  I wanted to pick a country whereby her people are not as warm as the Spanish people.  But instead of frío (means cold), I said feo.  “Feo?!” they screamed in disbelief.  “Feo,” I insisted.  To my surprise, no one could make a guess.  As soon as I recalled that “feo” means ugly, I wanted to bury my head deep into the toilet bowl.

One time, Cynthia brought me along for her girls-night-out.  I wanted to decline but since she has been joining my all-guys-events online and offline, it seemed only right that I participate in hers, or some of hers.  To be frank, that evening, I felt strange as the only guy on the table.  My presence had substantially stripped out the depth of what would-have-been a fruitful and detail analysis on men in general.  I wanted to chip in but I would feel bad turning my back on half of the population in this world today.  It is true.  Men, in general, are not that smart.  Our brains may not be in our heads all the time.  But we have a role to play in the propagation of our species.  One girl asked another, “Why did you break up with your boyfriend?”  Filter off all the frustration and confusion, all the emotion and debates, it appears to me that the breakup has something to do with the guy not bonding well with the girl’s family.  That is an inspiring piece of information.  Lucky for me, I love my mother-in-law as much as I love my own.  And I shall remember to bring along eye drops the next time I pick up my mother from the airport so no one could claim that I love my mother-in-law more than my own.

It must be hard to imagine that I am a man of few words, given the fact that I write thousands on a weekly basis.  Last Sunday, Cynthia has handed me a wonderful opportunity of being alone with her mother because of a social appointment of hers.  Well and good, I had this mental picture of having a relaxing Sunday lunch and the restaurant inside the bookstore Borders came to my mind.  I could read a book while my mother-in-law could browse the books as we waited for our food (note: it rhymes!)  The restaurant is still plagued by its signature slow service and if it was not my mother-in-law’s sharp eyes in spotting a 1-for-1 promotion, I would not have known that the restaurant has been rebranded to Robert Timms, an Australian themed restaurant.  Initially, I wanted to order a plate of salad and my mother-in-law, pumpkin lasagna.  Because of this 1-for-1 promotion, I can now pick a main course and my mother-in-law, prawn pasta.  Eat more with less!  I scanned through the menu items.  It read: Stout braised Kangaroo loin, braised crocodile casserole, along with names that I could not even pronounce.  Kangaroo and crocodile meat selling in Singapore? The last time I tried kangaroo meat was when we were in Melbourne.  That was not a pleasant experience.  Kangaroo meat does not taste like chicken (there is a myth that says all unknown meats taste like chicken).  It had no taste.  Cynthia described eating kangaroo meat as “eating shoes”.  I do not disagree.  My mother-in-law was in good spirit and she asked me to try crocodile meat.  If I was still going after her daughter, I would have showed some courage and ordered the braised crocodile casserole in a heartbeat.  Too bad, Cynthia said “I do” close to 12 years ago.  So I ordered half a spring chicken instead.  My mother-in-law was shocked that I could finish up half a chicken on my own.  In Indonesia, half a chicken can feed a family.  The spring chicken dish served at Robert Timms was somewhat cold.  I was not surprised.  Slow service, low food quality, some not too good things never change even when a restaurant changes its name.

My right eye is not that red anymore.  But I still game as hard in the evening.  Some good things never change either.

Categories
Book Reviews Fiction

Hotel Iris By Yoko Ogawa – Beautifully Ugly, Dark And Shocking

I do not suppose what Ogawa wrote is unrealistic.  At times, we read in the news about some women who are victims of domestic violence but yet, they have a tendency to return to the very same man who bestows such violence upon them.  I have read the story of Natascha Kampusch and had a glimpse of the kind of sick things some men do behind closed doors.  I have also read that some couples enjoy S&M and derives extreme pleasure from extreme pain. Mixing these together, we have “Hotel Iris” – almost.

A young girl who works at the front desk of a hotel is seduced by a much older man who appears to be mostly timid and loving outside his house, and someone quite the opposite when he is alone.  The love affair has then turned into a strange game of S&M.  How can a young girl be seduced by such a monster and be convinced that this is OK and that she is shamelessly ugly?  Ogawa has indeed taken a brave move and she presents to the readers the psychological and emotional journey of a young girl in first person view: Her longing to be away from her demanding job at the hotel, her longing to see this old man who does strange things to her body while showering her with words of love and tenderness, and her plunging into the point of no return.  Ogawa’s writing style is neat and elegant.  Deployed to this rather dark and ugly topic, the story reads almost too beautiful.  I must say, it was a strange feeling reading “Hotel Iris”.

Like one reader has pointed out, “Hotel Iris” is very different from “The Housekeeper and the Professor“.  Had I read these two books without knowing who wrote them, very likely I would not have thought that they come from the same author.  The writing style is the same though.  Since I like Ogawa’s writing style, I enjoy reading the two book just the same.  I look forward to reading more of hers.

Categories
Announcement

15 Pairs Of Transformers 3 Tickets To Giveaway!

Note: Due to the overwhelming enthusiasm on Transformers 3 and I know some of you are eager to know if you will need to book next week’s tickets (when TF 3 opens), I am closing this contest today (Jun 24).  Winners will be contacted by email.  Thank you for your strong support and participation.  Stay tuned for more contests!

That’s right!  I woke up one day and found a stack of movie tickets to giveaway, courtesy of STAR Movies VIP Access.  15 of my lucky readers in Singapore will be watching the highly anticipated Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon on 28th June, The Cathay, at 6.45pm, in 3D, with a partner of your choice.  Yes, three Dee!  The story goes something like this.  One night I was fast asleep.  All of a sudden, one transformer crashed into my bedroom, woke me up, passed me an envelope and said, “This is good stuff!”  Before I could yell, “Hey, where in the world is Megan Fox?”  It turned into a table lamp and jumped off the window.  I opened the envelop and found 15 pairs of tickets.  Good things must be shared.  Hence, this contest.

To enter the contest, all you need to do is to drop me an email at with your name and submit your answers to the 4 questions below.  You don’t need to get any of the 4 questions right to win this contest so please don’t waste time and Google for the answers. I am looking for genuine attempt and creative answers.  My hope is that I can extract some of the outstanding ones to share on a latter day.  Something like I rub your back and you rub mine.  OK?

This contest will be closed on Jun 25, 2011 (Saturday). Winners will be contacted via email on the next day (Sunday).  Unless there is an overwhelming response, tickets will be handed out on a first-come, first-served basis, with priority given to those who have taken a moment and answered the questions.  If however the response is much higher than expected, I will turn this into a lucky draw with the same priority applied.  Are you ready?

  1. Which planet do the Transformers come from? A) Azeroth, B) Krypton, C) Cybertron, D) The Moon, or E) Qo’noS.
  2. Why can’t Bumblebee talk?
  3. When you learned that Megan Fox is replaced by a 24 years’ old 5 feet 9 Victoria’s Secret model as Sam’s new love interest, what was your first reaction?
  4. In my drawing below titled “Autobots versus Decepticons”, which side is going to win and why?

*     *     *     *     *

OK, one more thing to share.  With the launch of STAR Movies Pack, you will stand a chance to win a Subaru Forester 2.0X, a family trip for four to Dreamworld, WhiteWater World, and SkyPoint, Gold Coast Australia, amongst other fabulous instant prizes when you subscribe now.  More details below.

STAR Movies Pack includes: STAR Movies, STAR Movies HD, STAR Movies on Demand, and FOX Family Movies (Available on StarHub TV)
Promotion Period: 14 June – 14 August · Promotion Price: Free upgrade or $4 off your monthly subscription (valid for the first three months only) · Key content highlights: Avatar, Toy Story 3, Knight and Day, The A-Team, Date Night, etc. · For more information, please visit: www.starhub.com/smpack (LIVE from 14 June – 14 August) · To subscribe, call 1630 or visit any StarHub retail outlet

Categories
Fantasy & Sci-fi Movie Reviews

X-Men: First Class – Not My Cup Of Tea

I have a few issues with the installment of this new trilogy.  Considering the fact that “First Class” is a prequel, I am unable to reconcile how, say, McAvoy and Fassbender’s characters are going to grow up and become Professor X and Magneto that we are familiar with on a big screen.  I took a look at McAvoy and compared him with Patrick Stewart.  Nah.  I took another look at Fassbender and thought about Ian McKellen.  No way.  Is it important that the casting should somewhat reconcile with our mental expectation?  I would think so.  Star Trek has done a pretty good job in choosing their casting when the prequel was made.  McAvoy and Fassbender are good actors.  But the disconnection with the existing X-Men films is a bit too much for me to take.

From the story point of view, after the climatic ending of “X-Men: The Last Stand”, I doubt a prequel could top that.  And it does not.  The ideas of mutants against the humans, teaching the mutants to control their power and one super mutant wanting to take over the world – these ideas begin to sound old to me.  Who cares about the ability of creating whirlwinds when we have already seen what Storm can do?  Who cares about a stripper with wings of a housefly when we have seen a human boy with angelic wings?  Havok shoots beams from his chest but hey, we have already seen how Cyclops shoots beams from his eyes.  A boy who screams that enables him to glide in mid air with artificial wings?  Maybe the movie is not doing the comic books justice.  Or maybe it is what it is.

If I am to look at “First Class” as a standalone movie and to remove most of the mutants who are unimportant to the story, the film does offer more background on the friendship between Professor X and Magneto and who they are.  The linguistic ability of Magneto (or rather Fassbender) is charming.  Seeing a younger version of Professor X flirting and chatting up with girls is unexpected, but refreshing.  Hence, it is the drama bit that I enjoy watching.  What is disappointingly missing – besides more depth in Professor X’s romance would be nice – is the transformation of Magneto: the transformation from a mission of personal vendetta to a mission of one mutant (and his recruits) against the world and the disintegration of a friendship.  In one scene, a man was down on the beach.  Magneto could have had him teleported out for medical care.  Why the hurry to disappear from the screen?  That emotional part of a human, or rather a mutant, is missing.  And I am left with an empty feeling wondering if I still want to see more.

The good news is, “Second Class” and “Third Class” – if at all the rest of the installments are so called – are likely going to beat “First Class”.  It is likely that I will get to continue watching this trilogy, because Cynthia is a X-Men fan.

Categories
Book Reviews Non-Fiction

Lion’s Honey The Myth Of Samson By David Grossman – A Mostly Imaginary Piece Of Work

After reading “Lion’s Honey”, I did some research on the author.  He is an Israeli, an established writer as well as a political activist.  This explains quite a few queries lingered in my mind after reading his book.  There are only very few places when Grossman subtly touched onto modern politics.  Here is one.  I am quoting the text here because quite possibly, I like this aspect of the book the most.

Yet there is a certain problematic quality to Israeli sovereignty that is also embodied in Samson’s relationship to his own power.  As in the case of Samson, it sometimes seems that Israel’s considerable military might is an asset that becomes a liability.  For it would seem, without taking lightly the dangers facing Israel, that the reality of being immensely powerful has not really been internalised in the Israeli consciousness, not assimilated in a natural way, over many generations; and this, perhaps, is why the attitude to this power, whose acquisition has often been regarded as truly miraculous, is prone to distortion (page 88-9) […] This is connected, without a doubt, to the very real dangers lying in wait for Israel, but also to the tragic formative experience of being a stranger in the world, the Jewish sense of not being a nation ‘like other nations’, and of the State of Israel as a country whose very existence is conditional, whose future is in doubt and steeped in jeopardy, feelings that all the nuclear bombs that Israel developed, in a program once known as the ‘Samson Option’, cannot eradicate (page 90).

Majority of the book is not about politics.  His interpretation of the Samson story may run against the grain of the familiar Samson in the Hebrew Bible (his own words).  As a Catholic, I would say that his interpretation runs against the grain of the same story in the Christian Bible as well.  The way Grossman breathes life to a local hero (or “judge”) and his surrounding characters extracted from the Book of Judges prompts me to reflect upon how we Christians breathe life to Jesus.  Because I am not used to reading the Old Testament in such fashion, I find that Grossman’s interpretation of Samson is highly imaginative at best, controversial at worst.  What do I mean?  I will get to that in just a moment.

First, to put things into context, I refer to the Catholic Study Bible’s guide on reading the Book of Judges.

There is one overriding theme that dominates the Book of Judges: the sin of idolatry leads to punishment; but if the people of Israel turn back to the Lord, the Lord will deliver them from their enemies … Into the theological framework of “sin-punishment-cry for help-deliverance” the deuteronomistic writers have incorporated various stories that relate the deeds of local heroes.  For the deuteronomistic writers the unity of all the tribes is an important concern; thus, in their historical schema, these heroes become leaders for all Israel.

The Book of Judges documents a number of heroes.  I must admit that the story of Samson is a peculiar one.  He does not lead all Israel as a warrior, nor does he liberate the people from Philistine.  Victories he has scored over the Philistine are personal.  There seems to be no reason to include Samson into the Book of Judges except in (15, 20) when the writers wrote: Samson judged Israel for twenty years in the days of the Philistines.  To understand its theological value, one has to read this biblical story in more detail.

Grossman’s “Lion’s Honey” dissects the biblical story word-by-word.  Some discussions – for good reasons on my end – I am finding it hard to concur with the author.  For example, in the Bible, after the woman being told by angel that she was going to have a son, she relayed the message to her husband and said, “A man of God came to me […] he said to me, ‘You will be with child and will bear a son.  So take neither wine nor strong drink, and eat nothing unclean.  For the boy shall be consecrated to God from the womb, until the day of his death.'”  And because she mentions about his son’s dying day, Grossman has gone into deep reflection and written pages of explanation on what has driven Manoah’s wife to add these words.  To me, it is simple.  Because the angel says so.  And she is merely relaying the message to her husband.  To Grossman, one of his many interpretations on this particular phase is that ‘Samson has been deposited within her for safekeeping and she knows that things that are deposited must, in the end be returned’, among many emotional turmoils that Grossman has imagined.

Grossman describes Samson as an artist, starting from his episode with the lion’s honey.  Or rather, honey from the lion’s carcass.  Grossman has gone in great length on how Samson would feel scooping honey from the lion, sharing honey with his parents.  Grossman wrote:

Take a look at him: a he-man with a little licking boy inside.  (How astonishing and poignant, this gulf between enormous physical strength and an immature, childlike soul.)  He walks and eats, walks and licks, till he gets home to mum and dad, and gives them the honey, “and they ate it”, apparently straight from the palms of his hands.  What a marvelous sensual scene!

Personally, I would not interpret this a as ‘marvelous sensual scene’.  Samson is bound by a vow to eat nothing unclean.  He is not faithful to these vows and has contacted with a dead animal, even eats food from it.  My discomfort with “Lion’s Honey” is not only on how Grossman dramatizes the story by imagining ‘[Samson] playing with his parents, touching them and dancing for them and laughing with them like any normal person, with the honey dripping, flowing down a cheek, sliding to the chin, being licked up, as the laughter swells to the point to tears …’, but also how some of the crucial interpretations such as the breaking of vow have been omitted.

There are controversial interpretations on the Samson story too.  When the wife of Manoah said, “A man of God came to me (13, 6)”, I would interpret the message as it is: an angel appears.  But Grossman offers a different perspective.  The phrase ‘came to me’, to his tradition, also means copulation.  Hence, to follow Grossman’s lead, the wife may not be barren as mentioned in the Bible.  A stranger copulated with her and impregnated her.  Fast forward to the part on Samson’s death, the Bible wrote: Then they brought him down to Gaza and bound him with bronze fetters, and he was put to grinding in the prison.  According to Grossman, the verb ‘to grind’ in Hebrew carries a clear sexual connotation.  Hence, to the author, Samson may well be used as a stud bull when ‘everyone brought his wife to him to the prison that she might bear a child by him’.  I do not read Hebrew.  This interpretation is beyond me.  I would interpret this part of a story as a simple act of punishment and would not further analyze on how Samson was punished in the prison.  In short, I am happy with the direct meaning of ‘grinding’.

The most disturbing interpretation of Grossman is perhaps the part on Samson having to entertain the Philistines.  The passage on the Bible is simple.  It wrote:

When [the Philistines’s] spirits were high, they said, “Call Samson that he may amuse us.”  So they called Samson from the prison, and he played the buffoon before them.  When the people saw him, they praised their god.

According to Grossman, it was a sex act that Samson has performed in front of three thousand men and women.  This is a disturbing interpretation.  I would rather stick with the understanding that Samson was given to clowning and joking that somewhat triggers my mental association to the story of Jesus being put on a purple robe and a crown of thorns (Mark 15, 17).  I am finding it difficult to add so much texture into Bible that can hardly be verified or cross referenced to.

For better or worse, because I have read “Lion’s Honey’, that has prompted me to read this part of the Bible in greater depth.  Grossman’s book does by and large offer insights to the story of Samson.  Some reviewers have mentioned that the Samson story is their favorite in Old Testament.  As for me, mine is the story of Elijah.  Paulo Coelho has done a great job in breathing life to Elijah in his book “The Fifth Mountain”.  Grossman has also attempted to breathe life to Samson.  Unfortunately, that has left a strange aftertaste.  To close off this entry, I would like to share the theology of the story of Samson according to Catholic Study Bible.

The activity of the Lord gives us an indication of the theology that is in the background of the story of Samson.  The Lord is responsible for Samson’s birth, for Samson will be the Lord’s instrument in defeating the Philistines.  To defeat the Philistines is also the reason that the Lord is behind his marriage to a Philistine woman (14, 4).  The Lord gives Samson strength in his encounters with the Philistines.  The Lord responds to Samson’s prayers: for water (15, 18) and for vengeance (16, 28).  That the Lord is active in all that Samson does is clear.  We can wonder about a chosen hero who has a weakness for women, but it is clear that his bedroom exploits, though not explicitly condemned, are not approved of by the authors.  Indeed, his downfall rests upon his inability to say no to a woman.  Also operative theologically in this story are the consequences of breaking a vow.  Samson is a Nazirite, but fails to live in accordance with their code and suffers as a result of his disobedience.  At the same time, even his defeat becomes an opportunity for the Lord to gain victory over the Philistines.

Categories
Diary Reflection

On A Night Of Insomnia – A Little Diary

Every night, the moment my wife slips out of my embrace is the moment I am briefly woken up, if I am asleep by then.  That happens all the time because living beings do not stay still when sleeping.  Do they?  One time, I observed my dog back in Hong Kong.  I think he dreams.  He would snuggle into a heap of blankets mom and dad have put together, feeling all comfortable on his bed.  Another moment, he would sleepwalk to my dad’s bed, rest his body on the cold hard floor, and closed his eyes falling back to sleep.  Once in a while, he would wake up, walk to the front door, make some scratching sound, growl a bit (someone outside?), and then head back to his corner of the living room, sip some water before returning to his heap of blanket – just like I do.  Not the scratching and growling bit, but the drinking bit, and perhaps the peeing bit.

Cynthia often tells me that I do spring out of the bed at times, make some strange body motions, and speak some random words before heading back to bed.  I often deny such absurd behaviors of mine.  Like she often denies the fact that in extremely rare occasions especially after a long tiring day during our holiday, she is capable of  snoring, however light and gentle, barely inaudibly and certainly adorable her heavy breathing may seem.  Lucky for me, I have once recorded her dreamy symphony.  The next morning, I played the recording back to her.  And we had a good laugh.  She has yet to have caught me doing such weird stuffs on camera.  Hence, for now, such a claim is still a myth.

Fish do not stay still when sleeping.  When I was young, our family was used to have a huge water tank full of gold fish.  I cannot recall if fish sleep with their eyes closed.  I have this fascination with fish inside a fish tank.  Fish mating is one of the most beautiful things to see on earth.  I could stare at fish all day long.  I could trick my fish to kiss my fingers thinking that I was showering them with food.  And when I did shower them with food, some got so excited so much so that they would leap out of the water.  Heck.  My dad’s friend could trick my fish to surface and he would then exhale cigarette smoke onto the eagerly opened mouths of my gold fish.  Then inhaled his cigarette and let go a long slow stream of smoke into the sea of open fish mouths.  Rinse and repeat.  What does nicotine do to fish?  I do not want to know.  Cynthia does not have the same level of fascination.  People say that opposite attracts.  Since I am not a dog lover, I think that makes us even.

Turtles, on the other hand, sleep motionlessly, to my best knowledge.  So motionless that one of them died in my home because none of us remember to feed him with food and water, after his long hibernation.  We were used to keep birds too.  Birds are so active that I am unsure if they ever sleep.  I have seen them dosing off.  That was about it.  I could not tell if a caterpillar sleeps.  It either eats or stops eating.  When I was young, my dad would bring home some caterpillars found at the rooftop of the cinema he worked in.  He would then breed the butterflies using his Japanese doll glass container – a wedding gift of my parents (that Japanese doll to be precise).  It was magical to see a caterpillar turning into a butterfly.  My sister and I would hold the butterflies in our hands and we would release them from our seven-storey tall apartment.

Dogs, fish, turtles, birds, and caterpillars.  Some move during their sleep.  Some I do not know.

Last night, the moment my wife slipped out of my embrace was the moment I was woken up, quite permanently so, at least for that night.  I tried to go back to sleep but I could not.  The noise from the street seemed to have magically amplified, as the time entered deeper into the early morning.  Not a single moment of silence.   I thought of renovating my home with thick soundproof windows; I thought of renovating my home with new cabinets and a fresh layer of paint; I thought of the dust we have to deal with and I have to clean up; I thought of the what, when, how, and soon, it became more tiring trying to sleep.  I thought of moving to a new home that has complete serenity.  But where in Singapore do we have such serenity?  I got out of the bed, retreated to the living room, and now what?  I pictured myself inside a plane, like I was a week ago.  Now what?

I finished reading a book recommended by one of my blogger friends.  The book is about a Jew’s interpretation of the biblical story of Samson.  While as a Catholic, I do not disagree with the author on theological ground, I must say that his interpretation borders on being imaginative at best and far fetched at worst.  Maybe he is right, reading the scripture in his perspective.  Maybe the word ”˜came’ in Hebrew does have a sexual connotation.  Hence when the angel came to Samson’s supposedly barren mother, his mother was in fact impregnated by a stranger.  Maybe the word ”˜grind’ in Hebrew also has a sexual connotation. Hence when the blinded Samson was imprisoned, the locals offered their wives to him hoping that he could perform the miracle of getting them pregnant, treating Samson like a ”˜stud bull’.  Maybe it is also true that when Samson was called to entertain the crowd in the temple, he was asked to perform sex acts.  Who am I to argue with a Jew who reads the bible in Hebrew?

After reading, I tried to sleep again.  But my mind was filled with a film staring Samson in a Eyes Wide Shut style, with my eyes wide opened.  To be honest, I spend more time reading the New Testament than the Old Testament.  To the Christians, Messiah has come.  Old Testament is there to foretell the coming of Christ and Christ is here to fulfill the scripture.  To the Jews, the Messiah has yet to come.  And our New Testament is not at all relevant.  Still, the Jewish author’s interpretation of the story of Samson has kept me awake.  I got out of the sofa, dragged my tired body to the bookshelf in another room, and dug out the Catholic Study Bible.  I read in depth the writing structure of the Old Testament and how the books were organized, the theological value of the Book of Judges (judges are heroes who were significant in the Israel history before the era of the kings), and in particular, the chapters on Samson.  I read the Bible slowly, and in greater detail, including the study notes.  Fortunately the story of Samson is not long . I sought peace in my faith and peace has fallen upon me by four in the morning.

Do you believe in spiritual food?  I felt so refreshed after meditating on the scripture.  One friend of mine once told me that he meditated one hour in the morning every day before going to work.  I used to think that such action would put any sane person to sleep, unless you are a saint.  Come to think of it, maybe spiritual refreshment for the soul works with the body too.  Not during wee hours, for sure. Perhaps during daybreak.

I still could not sleep so I pondered: What would I have done if I was on the plane?  I have got another book to finish.  But the topic is heavy.  It has something to do with psychology and how our brain works.  Cynthia would have switched on the in-flight entertainment.  I took out one of the Blu-ray discs that I have been wanted to watch.  It was a Cantonese movie, a two-hour show.  My reasoning was that I could get bored and tired watching a movie and however little the number of hours left before seven, I could at least catch some.  Besides, I have so many unwatched discs that are no longer funny.  Why do I keep buying when I am unable to consume them in time?

I was wrong.  The movie was engaging, heartwarming and wrenching at the same time.  The movie is called “Break Up Club”.  I bought it during my previous Hong Kong visit because Fiona Sit is staring in it.  It is extremely hard to find good and recent Cantonese movies in Singapore.  I miss my mother tongue immensely.  How the actors behave on screen, all the little quirky movements, the dramatic dialogs, and the facial expressions, they struck my inner core like no other languages do.  I laughed and cried with the actors.  I was more awake every passing minute.  Despite the fact that it is not a perfect film, it perfectly warmed my heart.  And it perfectly failed to put me to sleep.

By six, I retired to the bedroom, where Cynthia was fast asleep.  I might have caught half an hour of nap before the alarm clock rang.  Added to that half an hour of nap before my wife slipping out of my embrace, I had one hour of rest and a bunch of activities in between. Insomnia is a strange experience.  Some time during one to six, I felt as though my consciousness has left my body. Will I be rewarded with a solid eight hours of sleep tonight?  I will have to wait and see.

Categories
Book Reviews Fiction

A Wild Sheep Chase and Dance Dance Dance By Haruki Murakami

By pure chance, I bought both “A Wild Sheep Chase” and “Dance Dance Dance” in HMV during sales on the same day.  Also by pure chance, one of my blogger friend, JoV, once dropped a comment here implying that the stories of these two books are linked.  So before I headed to my holiday, I frantically researched online on which book comes first.  It is “A Wild Sheep Chase” followed by “Dance Dance Dance”.  I read Sheep on the plane and Dance during my holiday.

If you are into the literature of Murakami, reading these two books enabled you to witness an important juncture a writer has encountered in his writing career.  Sheep is the last of the Rat Trilogy, the only one from the series that the author was comfortable in having it translated into English.  Dance was written after he has gained international recognition.  Straddled in between is Norwegian Wood that propelled Murakami to the international fame.  Now you get the picture.

Sheep is unlike some of the Murakami books I have read.  The beginning two-third of the book reads like a detective story.  A page-turner with plenty of dialogs.  The story involves a main character who takes life as it is, seldom plan or have a dream for anything; an ordinary girl with extraordinary ears and she works in three different jobs at the same time; a professor who is obsessed with sheep; a friend who has disappeared a long time ago suddenly contacted the main character via mails.  The story is, for lack of a better word, a wild sheep chase.  According to the narrator, sheep was unseen of in the ancient Japan.  And like – I suppose – dragons and unicorns (my interpretation) – such creatures could be seen as deities.  In the book, there is this notion of sheep-made-man and becomes all powerful or even man-made-sheep that becomes something I am not sure how to put in words.  Because of my Catholic root, such notion appears to have a religious reference, especially when Christ according to our tradition is portrayed as the Lamb of God.  Interestingly, Sheep has no further exploration on the topic of religion.  Only a borrowed image to turn Sheep into a fantasy, and a comedy.  I have thoroughly enjoyed the first part of the book even as I might have questioned the literature value within.

The turning point is the last third of the book.  I suspect that is also the turning point of Marakami’s writing style.  There are more internal dialogs within the main character.  The author’s sense of the surrounding has been heightened and sharpened.  The plot becomes dream-like – a signature writing style that exhibits in his later books.  When the story was ended, I wanted more.  As far as the Rat Trilogy is concerned – Rat being the name of the runaway friend – the story has ended.  But there are far more open questions left behind.  That is when “Dance Dance Dance” comes into the picture.

Unlike Sheep, Dance does not begin each chapter with a title that foretells what is to come; unlike Sheep, Dance does not have the plot progression based on a set of clear and defined clues.  In fact, I would describe Dance as a wandering adventure.  For a majority of the plot, I have no idea as in where the story is heading, and I doubt if the main character does.  The main character (now has a name) is in search of someone he loved (also now has a name).  It starts with vivid dreams that lead him back to Dolphin Hotel, a hotel that is featured in Sheep.  I can see there are a fair bit of parallelism between the two books.  The role of his friend Rat in Sheep is now taken over by his old classmate Gotanda.  The hotel, now being rebuilt, is still the center of the story.  The symbol of authority has morphed from mafia gang into police force.  Some characters from the past have made an appearance in Dance.  Dance is still a detective story at the core, but the plot becomes more subtle, more surreal.

The overall mood of Dance is dark.  In terms of character development, I in particularly like the relationship between the thirty-odd-year-old main character and a thirteen-year-old girl.  It could have gone wrong in so many different ways because knowing Murakami, the topic of sex is always on the table.  Fortunately, the author has threaded the moral boundary as close and careful as he can.  Majority of the materials turn out to be a good inspiration read for the teenagers, even for adults.  Here is an excerpt on a troubled teen regretting on the things she said and done to the one who is now dead.  The narrator is the main character of the story.

I pulled the car over to the shoulder of the road and turned off the ignition.

“That’s just stupid, that kind of thinking,” I said, nailing her with my eyes. “Instead of regretting what you did, you could have treated him decently from the beginning.  You could’ve tried to be fair.  But you didn’t.  You don’t even have the right to be sorry.”

Yuki looked at me, shocked and hurt.

“Maybe I’m being too hard on you.  But listen, I don’t care what other people do.  I don’t want to hear that sort of talk from you.  You shouldn’t say things like that lightly, as if saying them is going to solve anything.  They don’t stick […] It’s not a question of manners; it’s a question of fairness.  That’s something you have to learn.”

Yuki couldn’t respond.  She pressed her fingers to her temples and quietly closed her eyes.  She almost seemed to have dozed off, but for the slight flutter of her eyelashes, the trembling of the lips.  Crying inside, without sobs or tears.  Was I expecting too much of a thirteen-year-old girl?  Who was I to be so self-righteous? […]

Yuki didn’t move.  I reached out and touched her arm.

“It’s okay,” I said. “I’m very narrow-minded.  No, to be fair, you’ve done the best that can be expected.”

A single tear trailed down her cheek and feel on her lap.  That was all.  Beautiful and noble.

“So what can I do now?” she spoke up a minute later.

“Nothing,” I said. “Just think about what comes before words.  You owe that to the dead.  As time goes on, you’ll understand.  What lasts, lasts; what doesn’t, doesn’t.  Time solves most things.  And what time can’t solve, you have to solve yourself.  Is that too much to ask?”

“A little,” she said, trying to smile.

“Well, of course it is,” I said, trying to smile too. “[…] Life is a lot more fragile than we think.  So you should treat others in a way that leaves no regrets.  Fairly, and if possible, sincerely.  It’s too easy not to make the effort, then weep and wring your hands after the person dies […]”

This is quite a long excerpt.  But I like how the two interacted.  And there is an important message for us too.

Besides the main character’s relationship with Yuki, I also enjoy reading the love story between Yumiyoshi – the hotel receptionist – and him.  I would not go in great detail here.  It is equally beautiful that requires patience to appreciate.

In closing, both books are not to be missed and have to be read one after another.  Sheep first, then Dance.  It is rare to spot an opportunity to witness the turning point of a writer’s career.  This is one.