Everyone needs a little love.

So.

I am in Taiwan. Which kinda explains my MIA-situation currently. There are changes in my life that i can't really talk about now; shifting thoughts and life plans - changing mindsets and life goals that seem to be altering the planes i am at. But more importantly, i am home although so much things have changed.

It's funny how warm everything seems when the family is present. In Penang, there's only the four of us ever since the death of my Grandma. Relations on the paternal side is dead cold - unlike the maternal side where bantering occurs on a daily basis and i share secret jokes with the cousins and aunts. It's funny how when i was in my teenage years, i resented my parents for plucking me off Taiwan and placing me in Malaysia without my permission (but really, why would two adults need permission from their child?) - causing me to surf passed through my schooling life with disgustingly unfamiliar emotions and alienating concepts of what it's like to be sociable or to be truly happy. Those years shaped my unrealistic perception to live life to the fullest but of course, having matured from those so called "dark ages" in which my pampered, spoilt self constantly cried over  - i am now more enlightened, more forgiving and tolerating of situations.

But new situations arise, and i have to learn to cope with them. Perhaps i have met with one of the hardest yet. I dare say i have not fully accepted the facts but i am, coping albeit slowly with the changes i have to make in order to accomodate new situations and new knowledge. Sigh.

I will try to update more often but i foresee another 1 1/2 weeks of MIA-ing before typing away my thoughts again. After all, time with the family is precious and soon when i start working, i might not even be able to come back to my family as often as i want.

Hope the holidays are serving you right. (:

For now, Good Night.  

Not Malaysian enough for you?

I have just finished my examinations recently. I am now back at home, in my sunny island of Penang, Malaysia. There are many others like me, people who went overseas to study due to the better prospects and so-called 'better future' that our parents wish we would have. Why? Because Malaysia is essentially a racist country which does not support multi-culturalism, but Malay-ism. But we are fine with it, are we not? Even if we have accepted this sad fact - the other fact is that we continue to love a country who continuously seek to reject us, and label us as "pendatang" (roughly translated as newcomer or one who came to a place). We continue to call ourselves Malaysians and gush about the greatness of Malaysian food and places worth seeing to our foreigner-friends, telling them it's a must come place for a good, relaxing holiday.

And then

I read this on facebook. She's one of my acquaintance, and seeing how she is also a fellow undergrad, i do not understand why such language is needed to express her opinion. Hasn't she learn enough knowledge to sketch up a sophisticated argument that would justify her words? Her subsequent comments say this is not about racism, but about maintaining the peace of the country. But is it your peace that you are trying to maintain while disregarding the oppression and suppression that have been done unto the other races? As long as your life is good, your race's life is awesome and prospering, the two other races can be stepped on and discriminated? We have been having inequal rights and working twice or thrice the amount you "bumiputras' have been working just to make sure our lives in this country is not as demeaning as you hoped we would have been.

It angers me that such insensitive words can be spoken in such public domains. Why is it that people never learn? Yes, there is such a thing called "freedom of speech". But freedom of speech is no longer freedom of speech when you reiterate words that is meant to insult, hurt and offend others. Would you like it if somebody posted about how "Malays are dogs"? I believe you Malays who are reading this would be on flames now ( I sincerely apologize for such an unrefined comparison, but this is how i feel when i read the above comment). By reasserting your opinion in such a crude way, don't you think you are being a little (that's an understatement) self-righteous. The universe is a big and mysterious place. What makes you think your opinion is solidly 100% right?

For those of you who don't know Malay, what she is basically saying is;

Wahai idiots! If u guys don't wanna get hurt, then stop all ur stupid rally thingy! Are you so stupid?!! You guys didn't attend school??!! Police won't act that way if u guys are not wrong! Bastard la! U cause trouble to people la! Don't like to live in Malaysia, just leave the country! We don't need people like u guys, embarrassing urself to the tourists! Seriously! Chow la go back to china, India! We don't welcome you all here anyway! B+B=Bersih Bodoh (Stupid Bersih)!! Indeed u r!! Blah la!! Blah!! Please leave Malaysia!! Leave! Just leave!! Stupid!!!


1. What is the point of this entire status other than to inform Facebook how stupid you think these Bersih supporters are. But what are you basing our stupidity own? A rally that seeks to emasculate the government?
2. You tell us to go back to China and India, but you do realize that most of us are fucking born here, have never stepped foot in China and Indian right? You do realize that from the very first breath we drew till today, we are as Malaysian as you? Although i don't fucking pray to Allah or don't practice the practices you Malays have, up til today, all i have is utmost respect and empathy for your religion, your race and the privileges bestowed upon you by the Constitution. We are not PRCs. Malaysian Indians are not the Indians coming from India, you should fucking shove this fact up that silly brain of yours that we are of the same. Please step out of this country, visit both China and India and realize that our cultural difference is as wide as the equality that Indians, Chinese and Malays have in Malaysia.
3. And why are we embarrassing the tourists? Have you asked any tourists if they are embarrassed? If they are, then what about the Occupy Wall Street protests? What about those happening in Europe, in Middle Eastern? What about those people that are fighting for their rights in different countries? Are protesters all nothing but an embarrassment?
4. And if we indeed leave, you do realize that there will be at least 50% less workforce in this country, who do you suggest would generate the economy then? You?
5. Might i add that it has always, always, always been about race for your people. Categorically splitting us up, always asserting how 'bumiputras' this and that, how in forms we always, always, always have to put which race we are in, how every formal, legalized administration is racially coded and processed. It's not about race? Shall i be childish and say, you guys started the whole "race" thing, while you reply with a "did not!"?

The biggest joke is that people like you don't realize how much we "outsiders" - who actually have equally as much rights as you - love this country. You do not realize the patriotism that we have, and how we defend the name, Malaysia when outsiders give retarded comments (just like the one you just gave) and ask discriminating questions to us. And even worse, when people raise the issue of racism, we give a polite smile and just say it's the way of life here. It's every human's basic right to demand for equality, to want equality - modernity has taught as that much. Did you Malays like being under the British administration back then? You guys like being colonized and being treated as  second-rated citizens? If you guys did, then why did you guys fight for the right of an autonomous country? Hell, WE all fought for a free country. And just because we are now free, you seek to impose an internal colonization on the people of Malaysia just because you think we are "pendatangs"?

You call your status a freedom of speech, but rather, through your "freedom of speech" right, you seek to revoke the "equality rights" on the other races because, why? You Malays stepped foot here in this country first? Then you are wrong. The indigenous people were here first. The country is not even yours, its theirs. And even your people have taken their rights away.

Good job, for one who seeks only the right for yourself, but represses the right of all others.
You sickened me.

Death and Dominique Sarron Lee

I don't know him at all. He was a friend's close friend, and at most i could only call him an acquaintance. Said hi a few times, spoken lightly once or twice. That's it. The passing of a person is never easy, what more the sudden passing of a peer. The problem with us is that we are only beginning to live the adult life; the life of pertained freedom, of dash-able dreams, of a kind of liberation that only those who have passed the 21 mark understands. We are only beginning to live. Who would linger on deaths? We hear about deaths of elderlies - sometimes thank God for bringing them to a safer haven, others, cry ourselves to sleep in the nights. But. Eventually we move on, accept deaths as a fact of life; inevitable and eventual.

But the death of a peer, of someone close to our age is never easy. Never part of the norm in a society where the norm is craved, desired, maintained. The kind of deaths that is unexpected, sudden, abrupt - very much like the cutting of a string. You don't know what hits you. Hell, you still don't know what hit you after processing the fact that he is no longer here. These kind of deaths are the most traumatic, most searing.

Death is supposed to be celebrated. 

We celebrate it through rituals; more precisely, funerals. We commemorate their living, their breathing legacy by keeping them in our memories, tucking them in the tiny corners of our hearts, trying to memorize every significant moment possible, trying hard to not forget their scents, their sense of being. We squeeze our eyes tight, let the roll of memories slide in, let them run as we replay scenes after scenes of movements and expressions; scenes that are no longer here, no longer possible. We cling on to keepsakes, wish that through the grace of a higher power, he is happy 'somewhere out there' and that through our own palpable, still living presence, he remains in us. I guess that's our coping mechanism. That's the prerogative of the living. 

Deaths, are after all a beautiful disaster. Beautiful in its mystery, in its unfounded terrains and enigma. It's the one landscape that science can hope to traverse, but never in actuality. It's a taboo you see. Somethings in life, are just not crossable. Deaths are one of those. They remain sacred and pure. Untouched by modernization, globalization, transnationalism and whatever -ism/-tion that had happened over the centuries - they remain a junction that is to be kept private and sentimental, traditional and unemotional. We can only hope that there is a good place after deaths, but in reality we know nothing other than myths, lores, faiths, beliefs and abstract convictions that hold together the entire notions of the nether regions. 

Which is partly why it remains a disaster, because losing someone is not like losing your phone or laptop or any commodified item that essentially means nothing. Losing someone is irreplaceable. It means never calling that person at 3 am anymore, no more random texts or greetings that is intentioned to annoy or lighten up the mood, no outings, no conversation, no shared dreams, no shared fears, no swapping of secrets, of gossips, of news, of updates, of laughter, tears, disappointments, anger, fear, insecurities, triumphs - of everything and anything. Zilch. Zero. No. More. That's the finishing line. You can't do anything anymore, even if you want to, even if you trample the ground, throw a tantrum - you remain ignored; death remains calm and collected. You are left in the mess of emotional rides; death is still, tranquil. You - reel from your regrets and transgression, from taken-for-granted moments, passing opportunities, missed words, unspoken actions - these are your regrettables. These.

Remain.

A disaster in your life. But don't. Don't focus on all this. Death should not be burdened by your guilt or remorse, by your desires or needs. Go to a non-place. Wail over all that has passed, hang on to the sentiments boiling in your heart and let it be. But never, ever cry over regrets because i would like to believe that he understands you better than this. Because amidst all the silences, he would have understood what you didn't say, what you didn't do and the gaps between your laughter and tears. 

Death is one parcel of life. 

Unfortunately, it is also a parcel even i daren't open. But we can try, because inevitably we all sail towards the same destination. So, when the sun rises tomorrow, know that every in every death, a person lived and was loved, a person loved and was imprinted into lives of those who mourned his passing. 

You can leave but you can never replace the taste of your home.

I am finally going home after three years of absence.

May 2nd, i await you with bated breaths. Year 2 is coming to an end. Sophomore year will end in approximately two weeks, and this is the deepest pit i have fallen into so far. I am torn in between wondering about the point of my existence in life, and the point of me enrolled in a university, getting a degree. There're so many points i am trying to churn out from my head that each time it blinks back at me in blankness, i get this wave of frustration and desolation which threaten to push me over, bury me, and eventually suffocates me. Why did i arrest the reasons i worked so hard for during my A levels? I remember the burning dreams inside me to leave the island of Penang, to discover a world out there - now that i am here, what am i discovering? 

I feel as if i have been too wrapped up in my own judgmental biases and cocooned fears that i am beginning to turn blind, unable to see the true meaning behind living, and life in itself. These thoughts foam around me, turning disgusting and oppressive, but what am i to do? What am i to do? I am still searching, still groping in the dark, still struggling with the conflicts inside me - between what i want to do (the thing is, i don't know!) and what i thought i wanted to do. My bestfriend says to just keep going, i will figure it out eventually. But each day, i get older; each hour, time turns placid and cold; what if i figure it out one day too late, a lifetime too late? Ah. The wonders of over-thinking. I do that. All the time. 

So, what am i doing here? Why am i studying things that make me question the very existence of life, of making me rethink my ideologies and perceptions, of opinions and matters, of expectations and ideals - they are being remade every day, like the crushing of waves onto sands, forcing them to erase their imprints prematurely -

What. am. i doing here? 

Vow

At the very end of the day, what is love?

I have been packing my room lately; two rounds of packing that amounted to one medium box, one small box, and a big bag of clothes. I am getting used to packing my life into boxes that seem so transient and temporary. It reflects my current life that showcases no permanence, no stability, no rootedness (except in the family and friends sense). All in all, i think life is all about the impermanency. Moments make us, yes, but it is the uncertainties between all which will happen that form who we are too. The unknowing ending, the unseen arrangements of things, of fates intertwining, of life in itself - it is this sense of unmapped terrain that makes me fear the most.

A lot of people commented that The Vow is an okay-movie, that they were disappointed. But, of course you are. You are disappointed in the happy ending that never happened, you are disappointed because you got reminded that life bows to no one and at the end of the day, life can screw you over and still owe you no apology. That even the greatest love has to give it all up for what is perceived as the 'greater good'. Essentially, The Vow packed it all up into boxes, that sometimes leaving is the course because even if you had built your life around someone, every individual is essentially still an individual. People shouldn't get together just because they think they are happy in love; people should get together because they bring out the best and the worst, and the in betweens out of each other. That getting together is a way of drawing out the potentials that are inside all of us. Love should never be enclosing, it should never be a garden of fenced up perimeters that seem to deter.

Love, love, love.

My 21 year old mind is only beginning to comprehend the outer layer of what life should be about. I am only starting to understand what i seek, what i thought i wanted and the whys, and all the other various questions that i cooked up in my brain - and at 3.42am, i am marveling at the inconsistencies of it all. At the same time, i marvel at the definite that will come tomorrow. Because life.

Just is.

There shouldn't be expectations or propagandas, ideologies, ideals and implanted ideas that serve to destruct our notion of happiness, standards in living (not 'of') and whatever nots that come with them. The mass media has broken something in us. They have fed us too many notions of lying truths and surreal reality that we have now become junkies of some sort. So yes, don't expect my ramblings in the middle of the night to make much sense or to flow coherently. They won't.

Heartbreak

"Stop being in denial"
"I am not"
"Yes you are and you know it"
"So"
"So get out of it live your life stop moping that's so"
"Yea what"
"Dont whatever me you know its for your own good"
"Just leave me alone"
"He made a cut didnt he"
"A deep one"
"You dont want to say anything you keep quiet and have that silent tears of yours"
"You think you are so sad"
"That love is a man made emotion and its beneath you"
"What"
"And just because he made a mark you sank into this hole you cant get out of"
"Get a life"
"Let me help"
"No"
"Youre not alone"
"Yea everyone has that love story they cant forget"
"Its not about forgetting"
"Its thinking you knew him so through and true but"
"Turns out you were wrong"
"Dead wrong and"
"You never knew him not once not thrice but through out"
"The entire relationship"
"Thats what"
"Thats not the end of the world you know"
"No its not but it almost made my end of the world"
"Almost"
"Yes"
"Just give me time"
"Time"
"Yes"
"You cant bounce back after a day of realizing that your whole ideology has been a fraud, an illusion"
"Its not about me not moving on"
"Understand that"
"Its coming to terms that i lived a lie for a year"
"So give me time"

The Alternative

I want to be rich.

I want to be extremely rich. I want to be surrounded by richness; which is why i am always in this insatiable state of wanting to travel, wanting to be on the move, to go to places i have never been before and to see things i have not the chance to see before. I don't care much about living in a big mansion, or having the big things. You might think that i already have all that, which is why i am throwing these words freely now; even so, i don't mind giving them up to go for the alternative lifestyle of adventures and uncertainties, of not knowing what comes tomorrow, of waking up in a foreign bed, in a foreign place with a foreign culture that i can never get comfortable to. I don't need a solid roof, i don't need a sturdy table for me to pen my thoughts down; all i need is the breeze and the sea and the occasional mountains and rain - i am complete.

Travelling to me is not one that is fulfilled by 5 star hotels and first class flights. I want to cringe when i look at the state of the dorm toilet, i will frown when i look at the yellowed bed sheet and i will turn away in disgust when i look at the state of my room. But all that is not in the abstract of my essay. They fade away because the main points are not how i sleep or eat, but what i see and smell. I itch to know the bigger world, to travel to more places than ever - i feel like i am coming closer to my dream as i grow older, having more control over my own life and desires, learning to be bolder and more individualistic (not conforming), not caring about the world and love (that's another story for another day) and just smiling at the world head on. So, i want to walk for miles in a day, discover the crooks and cranny of a small town, smell the freshly baked pastries of the local bakery, i want to sip coffee, feel tired and refreshed all at the same time and i want to continue walking to places, never stopping, never allowing myself to be confined so myopically in one place. I want to go to a beautiful place and get lost there.

I want to get out of this consumptive society i now live in. This society where their (the majority) idea of 'the life' is of marriage, kids and a stable house (and if lucky, a car). Where maintaining their bodies are more important than heavenly sighs of good food, and that smoking is more gratifying than slowing down to help the old and needy. I need to leave this place where people look but don't see, hear but do not listen and talk seamlessly through lies and fabricated truths that mean nothing, nothing, nothing, where their idea of loyalty is being physically involved with another girl while emotionally attached to their girlfriends. I need to abandon this city's notion of happiness - where buying 10 dresses are better than giving things away, and fake compliments are like breathing; sigh.

I need to leave, live - i need to do both.