Mid-Autumn Festival

In my earliest childhood memories of the impending Mid-Autumn Festival or sometimes more plainly known as the Mooncake Festival, I remember a coffee shop bedecked with wire framed glass paper lanterns for sale to celebrate the season. Even the market vendors would be vying for a piece of the pie at the morning market. Each year, if the lantern from last year did not survive storage or went up in smoke in a tragic candle mishap, my mom would bring me to this coffee shop to get a new one. I can still remember the delight of seeing so many different kinds lanterns in all hues of the rainbow casting their wondrous colours on the walkway. Rabbits, horses, goldfishes, ordinary animals to mythical beasts like the phoenix and dragon, you name it they had it.

Paul had this image which inspired this post, it's not the same lanterns in my childhood memories, but the imagery comes close.

During the season, the Rukun Tetangga would organise a lantern parade for the kids in the neighbourhood. Everyone would be comparing their lanterns in a kiasu attempt to outclass the other. Being kids, the bigger your lantern, the more awe and envy you would inspire. My mom of course would encourage no such thing, so yours truly's lantern was always somewhat lacking in size. I think at one point, my mom no longer encouraged the buying, she actually learnt to make them herself, but for some reason, she went no further than making star-shaped ones. I think this was one of my very first lessons in humility. After a while, I learnt not to mind that my lantern did not have all the fanciness of a bought lantern, it was special in its own way. Nobody had the same design.

During the last few years, when I had the chance to return home for the season, I noticed the same coffee shop no longer sold the lanterns which had become a cherished sight in my childhood. In fact, try as I might, no where could I find the same sight again. Market vendors have stopped selling the traditional wire framed ones. In their place were the cheap foldable paper ones. But even that is beginning to see a decline. What is becoming a fixed fashion are mass manufactured, battery operated plastic ones, in all garish designs, from ridiculous manga comic characters to David Beckham. Yes, you read right, DAVID BECKHAM. And God forbid, some of them could actually emit music. Maybe I am just nostalgic, but these current forms of lanterns did not appeal to me at all, though I remembered at one point of time in my childhood I had one (before my parents trusted me with real candles). They just did not hold the same feel for me.

For some reason recently, I had the urge to get one of those wire framed ones. Though a rare sight, you could still find some if you looked hard enough. However to my dismay, they look so poorly made, I couldn't bring myself to buy one. The original lantern makers took more pride in their trade, and I guess it went with them as time claimed them. Somehow that made the season look more like a time to reflect than to celebrate for me. To mourn for a past that was lost, to mourn for a tradition that is in its twilight. What I would give to see that familiar colourful sight again.

The Secrets We Keep

This is a continuation on the acquaintance who died in a road accident. Well sort of. A friend of mine told me his friends were trying to locate his ex and they had wanted him to be at his funeral. However the funeral came and went, and I guessed they failed in their little quest.

Yesterday, immersed in boredom, I casually harrassed a friend online.

Me: Sien sien sien!!! (Bored bored bored!!!)
Friend: A little bit la... How how how?
Me: I know... let's talk about you. Tell me about your dirty history!
Friend: Like what? My ex just died...

I think my jaw dropped. All this while they were looking for him and he was right under my nose. Turned out he knew of his passing but had on purpose avoided the funeral. The deceased's mother had knew about them and that the relationship had ended badly. He felt he didn't need to be there to further aggravate the situation. Pretty sensible of him though personally I felt it wouldn't have really mattered. Funerals are for the living. A message to tell us to keep living... well, until it's time to stop anyway.

It makes me wonder how many stories go untold in our lives. From what I can see when death comes, 50% of us live on in what other people know of us. Like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle kept with different people, requiring them all to come together to see the whole picture. The other 50%... well, becomes pure speculation. We can write a memoir on our lives but it still will not fill in all the gaps. Just like how this journal is just going to be just a portion of the person who writes it. Just an interesting fact that I recently read, the dead outnumber the living. There are more dead people through the ages than there are currently alive. That's how many untold stories there are.

Space Filler

Just three things.

Firstly, an old acquiantance died recently in a road accident. From what I heard he was driving back from Penang with his boyfriend in the car with him. Car skidded from a busted tyre and the resulting crash fatally flung him from the vehicle, though the boyfriend survived. Don't know how much of it is dramatised by gossip queens, but it was said that he died in his boyfriend's arms. I must admit I can hardly remember how he looks like, having never seen him for a few years at least, though I recalled him being a rather boisterous, cheerful person. I can count myself as lucky because in all my 26 years of life, I have only lost two friends, both I can safely say are not close to me. Despite that, it didn't stop me from contemplating on his death but I guess being human, we're drawn to reminders of our own mortality. After watching all five seasons of Six Feet Under, it had sort of made death seem like a very common thing, which it is in fact. Rest in peace, Michael.

Solid stone, is just sand and water, and a million years gone by.

Secondly, after being 'conned' into getting my mug professionally shot and retouched, I uploaded the result in my profile site. Something which came as a relief for some of my close friends who had been badgering me into replacing my six year old picture. Incredibly my heart count quadrupled in less than a week's time, most of them from new people. I am half flattered and half disgusted, at how much importance gay men place importance on fleeting physical appearances. Making me even more disgusted are people I have known from the past were among those joining the fray, including a particular narcissistic buffoon who thought if he were given a chance to do me, would blow my mind and my entire perception on sex. Christ. I would keep him in mind if I ever consider sex with hairless simians. Of course this is nothing new. Still, it doesn't stop me from feeling bothered and dismayed. Oh well, for those who thought I was attractive to their eyes, thanks anyway. I would rather prefer it if they saw more than just that.

Thirdly, after a long time of resisting, I have finally caved in to being superficial. I went on diet just so I could work on getting those torturous 'six packs'. Not so much on vanity's sake, but just to prove I can do it. I did not set a particular time span in achieving this. It is however, beginning to become an irritation. Living alone doesn't give you much time in preparing your own food, and the difficulty in finding suitable food outside to sustain the diet is frustrating. I am pleased to say though, it is showing some results if not much. Good luck to me.

These Streets

In case any of you are wondering, no, my blog has not turned into an obituary site. I can't help it if two significant personalities died within such a short period of time. And no, I am not joining the fray of some pointless hype of mourning someone I hardly know. Unlike what I used to do back in Livejournal, I am not even writing a short obituary for the deceased anymore. I respect Steve Irwin for his contributions as a conservationist, though I wouldn't quite agree to his crazy penchant for pissing off rather dangerous animals. I think he deserves to be remembered for his legacy of educating the younger generation on nature.

That aside, a snatch theft just happened right in front of my office just now, much to my horror. I kind of heard the commotion and then saw the two robbers fleeing past my window on their motorbike with a whole mob of angry men in pursuit on foot. Sad to say they didn't manage to apprehend them. It wouldn't be the first time I witnessed something of this sort. Despite that, it never fails to give me a chill every time. The one who made the snatch actually went at his victim with a knife. A stun tactic to get the victim to let go of their possessions. The victim, a lady who works next door was not really seriously hurt, just a minor cut but still, I just think these bastards are going too far. How many times have we heard about people dying after being seriously hurt by such robbers and I wonder if the police are doing enough to put a stop to this menace. It took the police more than half an hour to arrive at the scene. HALF AN HOUR! What were they thinking, that we need counselling services? Doesn't inspire much confidence either to see that over half of our police force look as if they spend their time eating instead of fighting crime.

Some smart alec suggested we should draft the territorial army to assist the police. Just the other day I saw several trucks carrying army personnel. Guess what? They were just as fat, if not fatter than our boys in blue. Seriously, in the event of a real war, these guys are practically walking target barrels. Meanwhile, I think I will feel a lot safer carrying a weapon in my pocket whenever I am on the streets. My boss was mumbling where was his shotgun when he needed it. Left me speechless.

In Memoriam

Steve "Crocodile Hunter" Irwin
1962 - 2006