喫茶店

Do you remember our childish dream of owning a café someday? I do. I still hold on to it. That dream of yours, is a dream we all share. When life becomes too much to bear, I go back to it. I see us together at a table, sheer curtains like waves beating upon the walls.

I can be happy like that.

Greatness

I said that of the billions of humans that populate this planet, not all are meant for greatness. If everybody thought they could be somebody more than what they really are, then nobody would be here to live an ordinary existence.

People find my unpopular opinion rather... Unpopular.

What is wrong with an ordinary existence? Have you ever asked yourself why you want to be extraordinary and not just ordinary? What made you into this egotistical bastard that could only live with perfection, that could feel a slight touch of happiness only through your achievements-- GREAT achievements? Why do you have to be better than everybody else.

The real question to be asked is this: when we attain greatness, who benefits and profits the most?

Ourselves, of course!

Just joking. You didn't think I'd actually believe that.

Let me clarify what I mean by greatness. It is wealth, influence and material success. This definition is largely influenced by the fact that I am an Asian raised by Asian parents in an Asian country where Asian relatives constantly reinforce the notion that material wealth = greatness = happiness. I have but one thing to say to that: fuck all of you. In a more civil manner, I suppose I should calmly tell you that I disagree with your rigid way of life, but why would I? I'd be met with a slam on the table, a slap on the face and some old geezer angering himself into a stroke.

About who would benefit most from our greatness: Family and Capitalism.

Family because our wealth is their source of luxury. Capitalism because it has successfully enslaved another once innocent human being into ensuring its never-ending regime of exploitation. Greatness as an achievement now means that we are not the exploited slave but the slave in a suit that exploits those who are naked.

As I said, my unpopular opinion is unpopular.

Upon graduation, my family expects me to earn as much as my great father does. Well, wouldn't it be a lovely occasion to be disowned in three years time when I thank them for the money splurged on my education but I really just want to be an ice-cream peddler.

Filial Piety

Parents: How is University?

Me: How is University? HOW IS IT? HOW IS IT, YOU ASK? What do you think? Since you are so smart and know what's best for me, surely, you know how things are going, right? Why bother asking, then?

In case you cannot come to a conclusion on your own because you refuse to accept the fact that your child is leading a miserable life weighed down by your expectations and your tendency to romanticise your child's every decision, every second of existence, every achievement and every single failure, then I, as your beloved child, shall let you know directly that I am as unhappy as I can be and I have never known true happiness. If I have, I must have forgotten it and I owe it to your upbringing.

I must thank you for one thing however, and if it is one thing I am grateful to you for, I am thankful that you beat me into playing the piano. When I cannot write with my hands, I can at least play with them.

Right, I was in the middle of explaining to you how University is going for me.

I hate it, as I do with most institutions that are erected solely for profit into tricking foolish pigs like you to fund them while also selling them the soul of your flesh and blood that you love so much in promise of a prosperous future. I say, if you don't believe in Heaven, then don't believe in Universities. Unfortunately for me, you innocent lamb, you believe in Paradise. Do you not see the similarities between those false beliefs?

Yes, this is what I learn in University. You do not like it, you say? Then that makes the three of us, now, doesn't it! But of course, the decision to have myself chained up and chipped away wasn't mine to make, it was yours. You gave me freedom to decide on the place I would be confined to and the methods of repression I find least repulsive, but I would hardly call it freedom, only coercion. Inevitably, there was no other way you were going to be proud of me, if I did not die for you, every single day.

Do not cry for me, but yourself. Your sacrifices are all for naught; your hopes and dreams were used to deceive you.

Parents: Huh? What did you say?

Me: University is fine.

日常生活

嫌いよ。全てが大嫌い。

私の一生の意味は何、夢は何ですか。大切な物、全部はどこへ行きましたか。今、何も大切じゃない。毎日私は起きて、食べてそして飲んでいます。でもよく目を開けての時、私は死にたい。

ピローさんはとてもやさしい、だからも一度目を閉めて、それから寝てください。この世界は本当に恐いです。

Belong, Not

I come home and step into the society I was born in, grew up with, but they ask me: are you local?

Am I?

Aren't I?

"but you're... Different."

I suppose it can only mean that I come from a plane of existence known only to me, that I have lived 20 long years inside a world of my own creation and have developed into an odd two-legged creature who hasn't a place in what's known as the real world.

But is it necessarily a bad thing? I sit now in a wooden pondok erected out of place on a slope surrounded by oil palms for botanical research purposes, the cacophony of human chatter and shrill laughter behind me, in reality.

There are ducks waddling in the pond after the rain. It is hot again.

The Troubles of Going to the Cinema with a Friend

There is no need to make plans with somebody else when you want to go to the cinema for a nice movie or two, or three, or four... But, if it's a horror movie, it's only fun when you have somebody to hold on to and pretend-cover your eyes with.

 These days, my bank of movie partners have gone bankrupt, save a person or two, since I am living at the edge of civilization while most of the populace remain to populate the already populated places. With assignment due-dates closer together as we traverse through the semester with dying hearts, no serious persons in this university town would agree to go out for a movie. 90% of them don't even eat properly when slaving off on their essays. Thus is the educational system we are coerced into funding. By the end of my three years, I will except myself to live as usual with my unpopular opinion of the world while I sell ice-cream by the beach in Fiji. But of course, I will more likely be living in a studio somewhere in the Netherlands because my partner doesn't aspire to be an ice-cream seller on the beaches of Fiji. If I can't be an ice-cream seller, then I haven't another clue what I am going to do with my life. Ahh, who would hire me? I am 25% fluent in Japanese, 10% fluent in Dutch and 1% fluent in German. 

Enschuldigung, I have sidetracked. But ah, troubles are still troubles! 

... This entire post has been made irrelevant because my choice of friends are on point. I can always count on my horror movie buddy (yes, I really do have one) to say yes and we'll be on our merry way. Luckily, the distance that separates us isn't as great as I thought it would be and there is a mid-way meeting mall that is convenient for the both of us to commute to. Ah, this must be one of the most gleeful discoveries I have made since coming to Semenyih. 

"Gehen wir ins Kino?"

"JAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

I need more friends like that in my life. Or at least, I need to be physically closer to the other horror movie buffs I know that willingly flock to the latest screening. 

Instant Noodles

Marketing schemes are targeted towards potatoes like me. I deliberated between a pack of RM5 noodles and a pack that costed twice as much, plus a few cents. Sesame oil, ooooh!

They smell the same and taste quite alike: instant cancer.

There, I have splurged unnecessarily on an expensive pack of instant cancer when I could have bought 10 such little plastic sacks of the same disease. I try not to buy them at all in an effort to lead a healthier lifestyle, but as you know, I am trying to die. It doesn't seem to work though, dying. Ah, death is as equally difficult as life! Both of them despise me and I am accepted by neither, but rejected by either.

Anyway, my longevity has begun to annoy me. What, long-life? I am only 20? That may be so but I have had enough of functioning as a material subject and not being alive. I breathe, my heart beats, blood still flows and I am warm-- yes, yes, those are signs of being alive but it is automatic and I cannot control it. Well, I may be able to hold my breath for a minute or so before my body starts gasping for air on its own selfish account. I suppose I am just as selfish as my body is, and that, we cannot accept.

If I keep on eating instant noodles everyday, which I will not because they are disgusting and taste like factories, salt and wax, I might eventually have to suffer an insufferable hospitalization and beg for somebody else's kidney. Nah, I don't want that. By the time I've eaten enough instant cancer, I'd be 35 with a career and could actually try living, in my spare time.

Occasionally, I enjoy myself and I see how marvelous it is to be alive and well! Ho... Well...? Alive, but well? That is relative. We shall leave that for some other entry. For now, just buy the cheapest noodles stacked on the shelves because they are noting but cancer in cheap wraps of ideology.