ZHONG GUO REN

… Wong Kar Wai.

If I were in NYC, I’d be there right now

.

p.s.

this is the same set of escalators used for Wok boarding.

I just took a Colorquiz. The results, as always, are eeriely correct.

Mom woke me up with a phone call this morning. She told me to call her around 10am, when they finish having dinner, so that I can say hi to my grandma. They finished dinner at 9 instead. After a bit of semi-conscious slurring in Fujianese with my grandma, and wishing my mom a happy mother’s day, I tumbled around my bed, read a bit, and then went back to sleep.

I didn’t sleep that well last night. Didn’t get to chat. I ended up reading chat logs from the past week. It wasn’t as good as the real thing.

Your Existing Situation

Insecure. Seeks roots, stability, emotional security, and an environment providing greater ease and fewer problems, but is either unwilling or unable to exert the effort.

Your Stress Sources

An existing situation is unsatisfactory but he feels unable to change it without cooperation; the need for understanding, for affectionate give-and-take remains unfulfilled. This not only depresses him but makes him irritable and impatient, producing restlessness and the urge to get away from the situation, either actually or, at least, mentally. Ability to concentrate may suffer.

Your Restrained Characteristics

Circumstances are restrictive and hampering, forcing him to forgo all joys and pleasures for the time being.

Your Desired Objective

Feels the existing circumstances are hostile and is exhausted by conflict and quarreling. Wishes to protect himself and hides his intentions to avoid exposing them to attack, so that they will be safer and easier to achieve. Careful to avoid stirring up any opposition which might endanger his plans.

Your Actual Problem

Anxiety and restless dissatisfaction, either with circumstances or with unfulfilled emotional requirements, have produced tension and stress. His attempt to escape from these consists of creating at least an outward semblance of peace by refusing to allow himself to be involved.

Your Actual Problem #2

Needs to protect himself against his tendency to be too trusting, as he finds it is liable to be misunderstood or exploited by others. As a result, he adopts a critical and stand-offish attitude, being willing to participate only where he can be assured of sincerity and trustworthiness.

Jeri has been writing a lot more than I have, so I figured I should keep up with my own journal as well.

Saw Mean Girls With Miguel and Maria-Laura tonight. Surprisingly good movie, but my friend Jinn is correct, there is a strong jailbait flavour to the movie (although not as strong as New York Minute). Lindsay Lohan is 3 years younger than me, and she’s like, rich and accomplished. (this is her 5th movie)

I guess I shouldn’t feel too bad. According to the rule, the other person’s age must be half your age plus seven

. I turn 21 this July, and Lindsay turns 18 (OMG! We’ve the same sign!). My lower limit is 17 and a half, so Lindsay just made it.

But still, it feels kinda wrong.

Changing the topic here, I was talking to Jeri the a few nights ago, and was reminded of how good the writing in Lolita is (oh god, this is not good…) I planned on buying The Short Stories of Vladimir Nabokov today, but they didn’t have it at Trident, so I got Vintage Nabokov instead.

I re-read parts of Norwegian Wood last night (it was sitting on my nightstand). I really liked the bits in the middle, the conversations between Toru and Midori. I was in Porter Sq. on Friday, and I tried to go to Sasuga to get a copy of it in the original Japanese, but I found out that they moved all the way to Waltham. Sigh.

I got a dingus in the mail the other day, and now I can send files to my phone from my laptop; I’m still working on having it work the other way around. Once I get it going, I’ll post my ongoing collection of phone-cam snaps of Vespas in the city. By the end of the summer, I want to make a collage of all these Vespas.

watch gnomeo & juliet online

where can i download star wars: episode4 – a new hope movie

dvd movie yip man 2

I finally watched Spring Subway tonight. It was very good. The score was really good. Cinematography was also superb.

The reviews are unanimously good. It’s nothing earth shattering, but it makes me feel good to see such a polished film coming out of China.

Jeri told me she saw Green Tea (Lu Cha) at the DC film festival last week. She didn’t say much about it though. Before reading the reviews, I already envisioned it as one of the image-heavy type of movie — really beautiful shots, brilliant colors (thanks to my man Christopher Doyle), but rather light on the storyline. Judging from Jeri’s response, as well as from the reviews, I guess that must have been the case.

I haven’t seen Green Tea yet, but I bet the sky above Beijing must be stunningly blue in the movie; it definitely was in Spring Subway. However, that is simply not true

: the sky is Beijing is nasty. At least, that’s how I remembered it.

Even though I do like the polishness of these movies, somehow, I feel like it is only exposing this one side of China. This article also made a similar comment. This is all consistent with the impression I got from my last visit to China (Shenzhen, December 2003). There is this emphasis on presenting the shiny and the new in Modern China. Everything is brand-new and everything is chrome and glass. They sure look nice, but as my mom says, “these are model homes, if someone really lived there, it wouldn’t look like that”.

I have this image of a woman I saw in Hong Kong stuck in my head: I was with a friend, looking for some hair product at a cosmetics store. While queuing up for the checkout counter, this woman standing at the top of the line just kept on talking to the sales girl, going on and on about her SK II purchase. I knew she must be from China, she was speaking loudly in Mandarin. “How often do I put this on?”, “What happens if I forgot to apply the cream?”, etc.

Just as I was thinking to myself, “Oh, yet another one of these clueless mainlanders, fresh off the boat”

, I saw the price tag on the cashier’s display: nearly HKD$4,000, which translates to just about $500 US Dollars.

Satisfied with the answers to her questions, she picked up her purchases, turned her heels and strutted out of the store with another girlfriend of hers. She couldn’t have been in the store for more than 15 minutes.

I know it’s just a rip-off of jackass, but seeing this at 2 in the morning makes me homesick. The escalators are in the same neighborhood as where I live in Hong Kong.

I went to Chinatown and picked up some DVDs for cheap. The images in Hero still look stunning on my dinky little TV.

The storyline of Infernal Affairs 3 made more sense this 2nd time watching it, but compared to the original, it’s just not as good. Maybe it’s because they didn’t get Christopher Doyle again as their visual consultant.

I also picked up Leaving me loving you on VCD (it’s cheap). I got it because it’s supposed to be really beautifully shot, it’s a movie that will make you fall in love with Shanghai. I’ve never been to Shanghai, so I bought it to see how it looks like.

Verdict: The cinematography is only so-so, and it didn’t change my perception of Shanghai at all. I’m a fan of Wong Faye, but just like Okinawa Rendez-vous (oh, seeing that movie was a horrible date experience!), it’s just fluff. She was excellent in Chungking Express and she’s also in 2046, which Wong Kar Wai has been making for years. Hopefully it’ll be good.

Picked up another Chinese movie: Spring Subway. I’m not done with it yet, but this movie makes Beijing look good

. In reality, it’s all smoggy and nasty, with all the pollution from the factories and the sandstorms from the Gobi desert, but so far, the movie feels very modern and polished. They call this the “sixth generation” of Chinese cinema. Zhang Yimou (from Hero) is the “fifth generation”. I don’t know of any other directors from the previous generations.

I went to the Asian Supermarket with my Korean friend Jinn this afternoon. I learned that the word for flower in Korean is goht

— what a harsh sounding language!

I bought tons of ramen — I grew up with Damae Itcho and that’s why I go all the way to the Chinese store to get them. They’re nothing special, but I just like them.

Jinn, like Deanna before him, wouldn’t believe me that adding cheese to your ramen is not gross

.

Ce matin, j’ai pris mon dernier examen. Le resultat n’est pas si bon. J’espere que je ne vais pas la rater.

Finally took my last final this morning. Algorithms. 6 questions, I think I got one question completely wrong (it’s false

, not true

, doofus!), and part of another one wrong. Sigh. It really frustrates me that it takes 2 hours for me to do an exam (mid-term, or final), but he can probably example to us the answer within 10 mins.

Oh well, looking forward, at least I’m done

with this semester.

There is still lots of bureaucracy to deal with until I can get the paperwork straighten out so I can legally work this summer, for money.

Money. L’argent. Dinero. 金钱 (I hate simplified Chinese characters)

That’s not gonna stop me, though. I’m still gonna be in the office on Monday. Maybe Erik will pick me up on his Porsche.

I’m going to see Anthony this afternoon. That should be fun.

Spoke with Jeri for the first time on IM yesterday. Within 10 mins, we started talking about renzhi (人治) and fazhi (法治). We’re oh so

sophisticated.

In an attempt to make more friends, on Wednesday, I went to the monthly French Meetup at Trident with my friend Dan. It was pretty fun. Mostly older people though. Met this guy who also goes to the Japanese meetups. Maybe I’ll go next time.

I bought a copy of Norwegian Wood again last night. I got my first copy of the book when I was in high school, but it’s in Hong Kong now.

I read about half of it this afternoon. It really is as good as I remembered it. I found an excerpt of the original Japanese on-line and tried reading that for a bit as well.

I wanna get a copy of the Chinese translation, I first read that when I was 12 years old. Of all the versions of the book, I think it’s the Chinese translation that moved me the most.

I’ve been listening and recording shows off

I hope this doesn’t make people think I only listen to chick songs.

P.S
I got the US edition of the book. The cover is hideous compared to the British edition (see right). I miss buying books back home. We get the pretty British / Australian edition of books.