by | | Random
Leaving Tokyo after five days of non stop stimuli. Comiket was an eye opener on Japanese manga production and distribution. Indie authors set up booths to sell their work and network with publishers. I was personally attracted to the unique customized little print books. I bought a little seasons print book which is the size of my thumb. They are not mass printed and can only be bought from the creators themselves who make and sew the books.
When I purchased their merchandise, I feel I am supporting their artistic creations in a small way. Maybe one day they will become world famous, but for now they have a little wooden table that they set up once a year to meet prospective buyers and their fans. I got some folders and key chains. I saw a cat comic ezine using real pictures of cats infused with comic style dialogue and I just had to buy one for 500 Yen.
I love and hate Tokyo. I love visiting here but I don’t like the claustrophobia that comes with being in such a highly congested city. There is almost no personal privacy – there are people everywhere. No hidden nooks, everything I do including typing this post on my phone is in full view of everyone. The moment I speak in English they know I am a foreigner and they hand me an English menu and greet me in English.
The distinctions between age, gender and districts is so apparent that it is totally opposite to what I prefer which is a classless society like Australia. Men and women behave in total different ways and the answers are always expected. I noticed they announce the closing time to no one but just by talking to mid air – it is a daily habit and part of their job procedure and they follow the “automation” process by doing their job. It can get really weird. My taxi driver made his own sounds by announcing “cho cho cho” when reversing as his car did not have the reverse sound. When a girl dropped her phone she made an announcement by remarking, “oh oh oh!”. Not to forget, entering and exiting even the most tiniest restaurant is always followed by a loud announcement greeting. I jumped a few times because the directed attention is so awkward but I am used to it now.
The train is still announcing stops and instructions. There are signs everywhere on what to do and what not to do. “Please switch your mobile phone to silent mode,” the instruction behind the chair says.
I think if I stay here long enough, the rigid-ness and procedures will drive me insane. I believe Japan is a war state and they are geared this way due to their history of warring for limited agricultural land. They had to have a subservient class of peasants who will do what the Master says. Hence, written instructions and laws began. Now, with modernization, the culture hasn’t changed but the execution of obedience now is more so in the daily lives of people.
It’s amazing how there can be no dustbins and the streets have no litter in Tokyo. The public toilets in the train stations are magically clean. The populace is in a state of massive obedience to the law at the expense of their own personal individualism by being considerate to others around them.
Time to munch on my chocolate cake with an extra “gift” of a wet disposal towel from the convenience shop in case my mouth is smudged with chocolate sauce…
by | | Dance, Random
I am walking and dancing as I walked through the office building complex. I ordered my coffee and flipped my wrist like a bachata movement like how a girl lays her hand on the shoulder of her partner. But there is no partner holding me. I am holding my wallet and taking out notes to hand it over to the outreached hands of the lady at the counter. I flipped my hand backwards as I zipped to close my wallet like another dance move before slipping it back into my bag. I glided a cross the floor to the music of Prince Royce singing in my mind as I picked up the warm coffee paper cup. As I opened the glass doors, I am pushing into a spin outwards towards the open air alfresco area. My feet start to move to the rhythm of the bachata music in my head, as I spin in circles and walked on pavements after pavements, up and down the stairs. To the security counter, to the automated elevators. I am working to the music and my movements are no longer under my control. My body is responding to the music, and the music had conquered my soul. As I wrote my email replies I moved my fingers to the music like tiny dance steps walking on the keyboard. I spin my chair and reached outwards to grab a glass to fill it with water. I am one with the dance and music through all my actions and even writing this.
by | | Random
“Kiss me this way,” he whispered as he gently nudged my lips open with his tongue as he swirled around to meet my tongue against his. “Follow me,” he said as his minty breath exhaled into my chest. I breathe him in everyday, and the days after since we last kissed at the river at dusk. It all happened like it was yesterday as I watch other couples standing by the edge of the water feature of a casino resort doing exactly the same. I dream of kissing my lover under water as we twirl against each other submerging into the crystal depths. We are both fully nude in a lovers embrace as we sink deeper and deeper to a place that no one knows where we are. Twirling and embracing in circles after circles. While we twirl and tug against each other with the strength of our tongues in the depths, my long hair wraps us into a black cocoon. We are breathless and finally conjoined as one entity. In our metamorphosis, we finally meet at the heavens bridge that connected the dream world and the real world. On that red bridge, he finally appeared to me as my knight kneeling on one knee. It was a proposal. A proposal to be conjoined together for this lifetime. Accepting the golden key in his hands, I tied it to my necklace. From this black cocoon, we merged together as butterflies.
We are finally free at last.
by | | Random
Entering my nightmares again
Who brought me here? Will anyone who loves me bring me to the point of insanity?
This curse is hard to bear
I just want get rid of these chains
Sanity or love
I would choose my sanity
I still want to live.
by | | FlashFiction, Random
Is a word I had came to identify with. There is nothing inside me but endless pain. The pain of not having adequate love. The pain of being neglected. The pain of being abandoned. It’s only pain and nothing else.
The pain sends sensations down my spine and churns my stomach. It grinds my teeth, and my tears flow without control. My feet turns cold as my chest tightens.
I start to sob. But sobbing does not dilute but adds to the pain as the sadness overwhelms the pain as it merges into a forlorn pain. The longing and aching of wanting to be held.
I rock myself, trying to calm down. There is no one to pat me on the back, no one to hold me. I rock the tension away as I feel the tightness of my chest going down all the way to my ankles. I rock both ankles and close my eyes, imagining being inside a rocking boat with a strange lullaby.
I try to calm myself down and tell myself that the pain will disappear soon. I will be happy tomorrow. I will see the sunrise and my friends. I will see another beautiful day out in the cliffs by the sea. The world is magical, I assure myself. Pain is just one of the pleasures in life and I should enjoy this pain.
Maybe pain had made me insane, for its my tool of pleasure now.
by | | Random
It’s official. I have jet lag, as traveling east ward results in adjustment issues. Being up at 5am and ordering MacDonalds is not fun when what I crave is local yellow noodles in hot shimmering curry broth with helpings of juicy chicken. Writing so much more although as I obviously can’t go out at this hour, or call anyone to talk to. But being up at this hour is like facing the dark soul of the night, and questioning of what if (i stayed in London and never came back…), and what not (what if I am a stripper). I may be writing much better at the time of the night, but it is at the expense of cutting my soul strings. Yea, and some identity confusion erupts too. Am I who am I? Am I living a lie?
Whatever. I am trying to live more and more authentic to the natural flow of what humans are meant to do (paleo diet), but the closer I get to the answers, the more disconnection I feel that the current social construct is only creating discord and artificially contrived modes of what is “right”. The school system is definitely a unhealthy machinery churning out blanks instead of thinkers. I had been pretty much home schooling myself and learning what is outside the class room than what was taught in school. I merely used school is a guidance stick to find my way. Not that school is obsolete, but the world is changing too fast for any syllabus to keep up, and one has to seek for their own truths.
Another thing I realised after traveling, is that the media loves to blanket and sugar coat everything. The real thing is when you get to ground zero and explore the terrain and get first hand encounters with local people, and interact with the environment. Greece was paradise despite the euro crisis, everyone is lazing on the beach, there is no poverty or homeless people. London, despite all it’s prosperity, contains the coldest people I ever met in the world (yea, we are talking about worse than New Yorkers). I talked to more Aussies than Londoners despite being in London.
Lastly, about putting the pieces of Chinese History together, one has to visit: Taiwan, Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong and definitely the British Museum. By piecing the different pictures of what each country portrays about contemporary and ancient Chinese history, you will find that you will know less and less about the Chinese culture as there is so much, but so much knowledge has been lost, it is a real pity. Comparatively to the French, who had preserved their culture (their palaces, relics, fountains, fashion, stories), the Chinese Culture is still a big mystery.
End of jet lag ramblings.
by | | Her, Random
Is my favourite city in the world. Walking through a live history book. Finding hidden streets and nooks. Lovely espresso and soft instrumental music. This is my new paradise and I am loving every moment of it and I don’t want this to ever end. Although I am alone I feel so alive and energized. Can’t wait to come back again.
by | | Her, Random
I love literary London and walking along Bloomsbury streets where writers once lived and made history by writing books that left a lasting impression on the human consciousness. I would like to go on a similar tour like this in Hangzhou, China and learn about what inspired the literary Chinese to create Butterfly Lovers and Madame White Snake.
It is unfortunate that I have more knowledge about the western world than the eastern world although my family originated from the east. I could blame communism and China’s closed doors policy for that gulf but I hope in future more interest and preservation of the Chinese culture will be explored.
I am officially exhausted after three days of hyper excitement. I have finally collapsed in bed and admit defeat for exploring too much in a short time. They said that the writers in Bloomsbury had relationships in triangles but lived in squares. The tour only proved novelists were wacky, and poets drove lovers to madness, editors pissed everyone off. We ended the tour in the British Museum, which was the former book depository.
Amazing how they kept every copy of every book printed in the gardens. Now books are electronic now and it is not necessary to store hard copy books. I joke with my dad sometimes if William Somerset was alive would he have imagined that people are reading his books on electronic readers.
There are about 55 000 books published each year online (I think this are the numbers but correct me if I am wrong). No library in the world can store so much books but now, everything is stored on the cloud depositary. The cloud may be humans best invention to date. Imagine the number of forests and trees being saved. Imagine so much information is available in a swipe. I love this world we live in now where information is so accessible.
*Daydreams
by | | Her, Random
I have a very strange idea walking around the streets of inner London, a very strange crazy idea. I want to write a contemporary history walking guide. One with audio podcast and reading materials in the form of chapters. Similar to lonely planet, tourists can download each chapter for a dollar, and maybe another dollar for the audio. They can plug their earphones into their phones and listen to the audio while they walk around the city and follow in the footsteps of the audio guide. They can press the pause button if they want to spend more time on one attraction.
I wish for something like that for lonely travelers and I am surprised no one has done that? Everything is going electronic now and soon tour guides will not be needed when one can listen to the audio guide at their own one and pace.
I spent hours every night reading about Greek history and trying to figure out the meaning behind some of the monuments and statues I saw, which era they are form and why they are made. But there is not much information no matter how much I read as its too ancient and even tour guides do not really know why, but offer theories to the location of the Atlantis and ancient cities that lie beneath their current city. I wish I had an audio guide while I looked at the attraction so I don’t have to spend too much time reading and figuring things out. Tour guides were too expensive in Greece and rare.
I feel that London is now my favourite city in the world, followed by New York and Paris. I love the artistic and cultural history of the city and it is as if I am walking through a history book exploring little nooks.
I had not slept much for two days as I am so excited for London. I wake up before my alarm and can’t help but read about the city. Admittedly, I am tired of traveling at this point having probably covering about 20 000 miles in less than 8 months. I am on the plane every alternate month and I am starting to miss the stability of having a fixed home. This year I had been to Paris, Sydney, Penang, Hong Kong, Indonesia. The trips mostly are my getaways to finish my novel deadline and I am happy to say that I had finished writing my first complete novel and it will be ready for publication by end October.
I would think that authors below the age of thirty are few, as our young energetic bodies can’t stay still with such intense marathon focus to complete 80 000 words with a single goal of a narrative that makes sense with a start and an end. To combat this fidgety aspect of my personality, and my hyper active nature, I travelled to write. Most of the better parts my novel are written when I travelled. In total, the Red Hourglass was written in these countries over 4 years :
New York: 3000 words
Subway scene, visited twice in 2011 and 2013
Sydney: 5000 words
Romantic scenes
Madrid: 5000 words
Inner monologue of main character
Penang: 5000 words
Rewrites of protagonist love interests
Melbourne: flashes and snippets
Initial beta stage of figuring out if I was writing a thriller or fantasy novel and I settled for a thriller.
Hong Kong: initial research stage for sequel
Of course I won’t take another four years for the sequel but a year at most. I personally feel that the first novel is the hardest as the fundamentals and background has to be solidified before the sequels can be written in the same universe. I am excited to write the sequel soon and I can’t wait.
by | | Her, Random
Hollow narrow mellow
Beats of uneven drums
Crash fall inwards
Ghostly images
His face
void
