Hookups.

Yeah, I said it.  Eek.  Makes me cringe.  Not so much the idea of it, but those concerning me.  For some reason I decided subconsciously that it would be fun to facebook stalk a few of my past hookups, including the not-so-hot ones.  And boy, they are seriously not-so-hot.  I thought that after a few months or so, I would be immune to the vomity feeling of seeing the person again, in photo or in person.  But even though it has subsided, it still makes me shudder.  How dare I be easy??  Upon reflection, that me is not the current me, at all.  There are several factors that can be held responsible – alcohol, freshman-ness, wanting to fit in… but ultimately, it’s me.  Those factors all make up who I am, and blaming any separate entity is still blaming me.  We’re always influenced by different things, like a model that takes as factors all the random shit that’s out there in the world, and processes those to give some kind of visible result.  Anyway, the point is that I should have known better.  But there is no use wrestling with past memories.

Thoughts

It’s saturday afternoon.  The weather is crappy, as usual, and i’m stuck in the room with tons of shit to do and no motivation.

I wanted to write a post dedicated to my hair.

It’s long.  It trails down past my shoulders and ends just below my chest.  It’s a dark shade of brown,  but when it’s sunny outside it glistens with specks of bronze… is what i would have written on March 15, 2008 at 8:17 pm. Seeing these unpublished posts makes me… procrastinate.  Not like I don’t have an exam tomorrow or anything.

Insomnia

There are times when I lie in bed, twitching around to find cooler spots for my legs, swtiching on the aircon to turn it off after 3 minutes, shivering, and thinking about really mo liu things. Like really embarrassing moments in my early teenagehood. Or things that make me angry or frustrated. These memories rev me up even more and I cannot bring myself to calm down and sleep. So that is why I end up wide awake, laptop on lap, downloading audio recordings of the latest Economist. Hoping that listening to those will lull me back to sleep.

You know what just happened. I spent the last ten minutes or so trying to download these files and somehow I managed to not find them. My technoawkwardness never fails me. Great. Let’s give it another ten minutes and see if it will work.

Okay I really don’t have much to write about. I mean I could if I wanted to, but not sure if I want to go down that path of going on and on about… me. Because what the hell, nobody cares. Therapeutic? I guess a little bit… okay so while I was tossing in bed (no lewdness), I was thinking about Island School. Oh those concrete playgrounds and twisty buildings… every classroom and every corridor filled with memories of teenage awkwardness. Perfect to think about in the twilight of sleep. It seems my friends’ recollections of those days are all very rosy, but I cannot remember much more than just… awkwardness. Seriously, that’s the best word to describe my secondary school years. Or maybe my existence in general. Haha…

Anyway, I was thinking about how all the white kids hung out together and all the Asian kids together. And there wasn’t much else other than those two, so I guess it was pretty simple. Actually I’m pretty sure there were a few Hispanic kids somewhere, and a few more Jewish kids, but they all tended to fit in the white group. Come to think of it, it must have been more like Asian and non-Asian. Yup, group all the non-Asians together as white. And all the Asians as Chinese. I think I was pretty content being Chinese, didn’t really think about it too much. Maybe it was good that we never had to deal with the additional pressures of race and culture on top of academic concerns. Good that we never worried our little heads about our history and heritage and complex diversity, and simply focused on classes, clothes, sex, music, college, you know, the things that really matter. But on reflection, I kind of wish we’d talked about that stuff. Confront our differences, and not see things so simply in black and white. Asian and non-Asian. Because as much as we tried to ignore it, the ever persistent white superiority loomed on us all throughout our youth. Who can deny it? We were in a former British colony, taught a British curriculum by mostly white British teachers, and following Judeo-Christian holidays. Of course we were victims of white supremacy. Was I ever ashamed of my Asian heritage? Perhaps. But being Korean usually demands that you be excessively proud and embracing of your nation, so I don’t think I ever felt ashamed, so much as… victimized. Without knowing why exactly. The world seemed to be a great place for white people. Hong Kong especially. White people were waived the requirement to speak Cantonese, the language of the locals, and whites simply were treated better. Feared, almost. Growing up, I observed these things without really understanding. And these observations formed a fuzzy cloud, one that I never really bothered to tear apart. If I had realized back then that we lived in an imperfect society formed on the basis of one mistake after another, perhaps I could have survived my teenage years with one less fuzzy cloud. Things were not as rosy and perfect as people made them out to be. We live in a society built by white people, who actually built it on the backs of slaves. Why do the white trash in Hong Kong not realize this? They make Hong Kong their home, yet refuse to utter a single full sentence in Cantonese, unless they are mocking the language. And refuse also to teach their kids, who most likely will spend a good portion of their lives here. Take responsibility. If you want to make this place your home, you need to be willing to blend in to its culture. What I see now is no better than a continuation of the colonial era, in which you fuck the local women and demand that the residents speak your language. Have some damn respect. Some humility won’t be too bad, either. Stop glorifying your history because it is tainted with the blood of racial injustice. Fucking white bigots.

Am I racially intolerant? My answer is of course no! I am merely critical of a small yet obnoxious group of white people in Hong Kong. But we need to find a way to educate these people. To help them.

It seems my audio files have finished downloading. I’m actually quite excited to listen to these. More with random bedtime thoughts later.

august 27, 2008

Brothers and sisters

How have I changed over the years?

I am starting to learn that being intelligent is not about criticism and skepticism.  It’s about being able to listen to other people’s opinions and not be quick to judge.  Nobody wants to feel disapproval.  Everyone, at least in the inside, wants to be appreciated and righteous and important.  Intelligence is about acknowledging the other person’s good qualities and honestly appreciating them.  And just listen.  It’s so easy to judge, but it shouldn’t be.

Education allows us to form opinions on things.  Is it ironic, then, that as I reach the end of my higher education I am finally learning to do the opposite when it comes to people?  Nobody can pass judgement but God himself.  My role, my obligation, is to owe nothing to anyone, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfiled the law.

Toes… not on the ground

These diaries and blogs… you turn to them when you are lonely.  I don’t know what led me here, or even how I remembered that I had an account and a password and all that.  But I’m here.  Found a draft of something stupid I wrote when I started this thing a while back.  Clicked on the PUBLISH button, cus what the hell, I’m not important, nobody cares that my shit is on the web.

I NEED something.  I need not to be floating and hovering.  I need direction, direction that I can control.  I need someone to understand me.  I need sleep.  I need to know what is going on.  I need things to go my way.  I asked God to be able to let go, let go of control, of obsession over worldly things, and to trust in him entirely and unquestioningly.  Ask and it will be given to you, he said.

So what is going on?  Why am I here?  Why did I choose to be here, and not somewhere else?  I ask myself that every time.  If you can’t deal with it, THEN LEAVE.  There are hundreds of others waiting to be here, and they’d do a much better job.  Just leave.

I had so much to say when I first started writing, but now I don’t even know what I’m thinking.  I used to write so much.  Paper was my best friend.  Every time anything eventful happened I would quietly store it away in a little compartment in my brain, so that I could open it up later when I got home and tell everything in writing.  So what happened to that?  I don’t write anymore.  Something just switched off inside, and now I can’t find that compartment.  I feel as though I’ve lost a part of me.  Like a big chunk of my heart has been torn away, and I am left with only half a heart.

My life just isn’t quite right at the moment.  Well, why else would I be writing, when I have only half a heart?  People with half hearts only write when they are discontent.  I just don’t know what I’m doing.  Why I get up in the morning, why I go to wherever I go.  That period of time just before I fall asleep is the happiest part of my day.  The muscles loosening, the consciousness leaving slowly… when I can forget everything and enter into a place where I don’t exist.  Where people don’t see me, or know my name.

And as always, writing helps me.  It has always been my best friend and it helps me to overcome little depressions every once in a while.  I feel the energy coming back, starting at my toes, through my knees, slowly, slowly, all the way to the top of my head and every one of my fingertips and every end of my very long hair.  I am ready to be normal again.

The Beginning

What is this? Another version of Xanga? There is a valid reason why I gave up that shit. I closed it down because I have a disorder. Well, it wasn’t a disorder until pseudo-scientists decided to get some press attention and started naming every single human condition in the world a fucking disorder. Too bad there is no such thing as ‘order’, as much as we look for it in our chaotic lives. Anyway, the disorder I got diagnosed with is the one where you can’t stop writing. I write everything. Everything that comes to my head I write, and if I did not need to succumb to the physical needs of living (going for appointments, eating, sleeping, hand hurting etc.) then I could write forever, for thoughts never stop coming and I would never stop recording them.

I always carry with me a well-functioning pen. So when I am alone and things are especially inspiring I can write away. Paper isn’t as important, as the world is made up of surfaces, waiting to be written on. If you absolutely couldn’t find a scrap of paper or a notepad or a paper cup or a white seat cover or an old receipt, there is always your skin. Fuck what they say about ink poisoning and such bullshit; there are so many other ways you could die. So really, all you need is a pen. Very occasionally I forget to bring one, and I’d like to say it ruins my day completely but I do have a life so if I forgot to bring a pen I’d go find a person to talk to or something. But I’d much rather be writing. People don’t listen to you as patiently as paper does. Paper soaks up all your ink as long as there is space, and it doesn’t judge whether what you’ve written is cool enough or original enough or funny enough or even moral enough. Probably the reason why Ginny sold her soul to Voldemort in the form of a diary. Stupid girl, but I understand her.

So it’s fine for me to continue suffering this ‘disorder’ as long as I keep it to myself – my thoughts, my paper, my pen – but one day I found this thing called Xanga, which probably is Voldemort in the form of something apparently innocuous, because once you tell it your thoughts, those thoughts are no longer yours. It’s shared with all kinds of people, some of whom don’t even know your name, which is all right, but when people who think they know you read them, they fret like it’s a big deal. I write about things that make me upset. Oh shit, Slki, you need fucking counseling, you’re depressed. Just because I’ve never told you about some things, it doesn’t mean they weren’t always there. I’m starting to sound like a bitter angry disturbed girl, but people do need to stop assuming they know everything. Myself included, but oh well, who is going to forgive me for my faults if not myself? So this public writing thing, not so sure if it’s going to work out.