Second Time's the Charm...

So here's a little something for someone to ponder:


It's a clue, just like the title. Devious...

By The River Piedra...

Reading Paulo Coelho's works has always been like embarking on a mental and spiritual journey for me. Although I have only read 2 of his works so far, and having another tucked safely in a box somewhere, it is all the same an enlightening journey of discovery and self-assessment paging through his prose. I first landed on his most renowned title, The Alchemist, months after I heard how great it was - even Madonna was mesmerized by his novel. Although I didn't have such dramatic response after finishing the book, it was nonetheless one of the most touching story I have ever read. Touching in the sense that it moved me to the deepest core and got me thinking about what I really wanted out of my life, and much more...

Not surprisingly, reading By the River Piedra... was no exception. Although the story revolved on a different background and culture, it was all the same a great story about the same things Coelho emphasized in The Alchemist - the courage to realize one's dreams, not being afraid of desiring happiness, and having it.

The major difference in this book is religion: how Mr. Coelho conveyed the image of - as well as the concept of embracing - God, His/Her mighty presence in such beautiful ways (and no, there is not typo in this sentence). I am not trying to endorse his views on the subject, nor am I judging his interpretations to be right/wrong, but I find them peculiarly... truthful, in many ways.

And it was told a story towards the end of the book, a tale that touched the very endings of my nerves - I was reminded of how noodle and I sometimes bickered over petty things where the cause of it all was ironically nothing but one's thoughtfulness for the other, and vice versa:

"A boy and a girl were insanely in love with each other," my mother's voice wa saying. "They decided to become engaged. And that's when presents are always exchanged.

"The boy was poor - his only worthwhile possession was a watch he had inherited from his grandfather. Thinking about his sweetheart's lovely hair, he decided to sell the watch in order to buy her a silver barrette.

"The girl had no money herself to buy him a present. She went to the shop of the most successful merchant in town and sold him her hair. With the money, she bought a gold watch-band of her lover.

"When they met on the day of the engagement party, she gave him the wristband for a watch he had sold, and he gave her the barrette for the hair she no longer had."

I am sure that this little tale brings different meanings for different people who reads it. Won't hurt to ponder what it means to you...

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Italized scripts are excerpts from BY THE RIVER PIEDRA I SAY DOWN AND WEPT by the great Paulo Coelho.

Memoirs of a Geisha

It was a surprisingly relaxing day for us at work today. There was first the company annual "lunch" - usually we hear of dinners but very seldom lunches! Since the boss also invited some of the big shots from our main customer in Taiwan, so we had it at an equally big-shot seafood restaurant. And the food was gloriously delicious! Every dish of them - be it fresh sashimi, king crab, abalone, lobster - every one of them was prepared in ways I have never savored before. Ooh la la! There was even plenty of beer and Gao Liang (58% alcohol) on circulation. And it was barely 3pm on a workday! Coming from our excessively thrifty and calculative boss, that was really a surprise. There were five tables altogether and each costed NT$8000+ minus the drinks! Imagine. To top it off there was the KTV after the meal! Might as well call it an off day :P. But the highlight of the day wasn't sitting on the couch smelling of cigarette and listening our KTV King-and-Queen dominating the mics singing 85% of the songs, it was this:


Yes, it was one of the long awaited movies since 2005 that I have wanted to watch. My only regret is that I have not read the actual book, prior to the threatrical adaptation. The rumours were rather accurate - that the movie wasn't phenomenal but all the same it was worthwhile.

For ZhangZiYi was spectacular in playing the role of Sayuri, even though I have expected slightly more from her... but I really give her credits for the dance scene - thrilling, chilling and totally captivating. Also glad to learn that she has improved much on her command of English :). Nevertheless, in my very humble opinion, ZiYi's performance may potentially be the highlight if not for the over-powering presence of Gong Li as conniving Hatsumomo, which is something to behold, really. I remember this actress from previous mandarin movies I watched long ago, but her performance in Memoirs showed that experience truly maketh the (wo)man.

Ken Watanabe delivered a good one too as The Chairman, though not as memorable as his performance in The Last Samurai, while Michelle Yeoh is ever the elegant Datuk Michelle Yeoh. But amidst these seasoned actors, rose a star child who played the role of Chiyo (young Sayuri) with whom I am very impressed. Her innocence and expressions gave the movie a notch higher on the emotional appeal and hers are the eyes that can melt the coldest stare of a ruthless general or trickle a tear from a heartless man. In the scene on the bridge that sealed Sayuri's fate with the Chairman's, little Suzuka Ohgo proved that she has the potential of a rising star as well as more chemistry with Ken Watanabe than what ZiYi had for the rest of the movie.

Memoirs is not merely a biography of a Geisha. How I perceive it, it also tells the different kinds of men who every woman will have to face throughout her lifetime. She will always attract people like the Baron, who has a huge weakness for beautiful women and thus showers them with exquisite gifts albeit with ulterior motives. Then there'll always be a Mr. Nobu for her - a gentleman who's perfect in every way and good-husband material, but to whom her heart just doesn't belong, even if he would give the world up for her. And there'll always the one with more kindness than all the rest combined, or the quiet man who will love her unconditionally behind corner of her shadows. If fate allows it, she may discover her destiny with the good men whom she dearly loves, or, more unfortunately, intertwined with those like the Baron.

And as men, it is inevitable that our knees buckle and our hearts stir at the sight of beautiful women. It is engraved in our DNA, something passed down from our forefathers. But that doesn't warrant us to act like the Baron, nor justify intentions like his. Gifts we can spare freely, and they don't have to be worldy things but could be small gestures like treating her well and respectfully, giving her equal opportunities, offering assistance when it is in need... (though I have to say offering to be called upon *even at night* to have a chat is not what I have in mind here :P).

Fans of ZhangZiYi will be delighted with this place called HelloZiyi.us. This girl is garnering more and more fans worldwide!

Spoiler's ahead:

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During the supposedly most touching scene with Sayuri and the Chairman in the end, despite the obviously fake tear at the corner of the man's right eye, I was already breathing in the moment while imagining how the emotions between the two lovers would be transformed into words flowing from Arthur Golden hands into the book. But my friend next to me whispered, "Didn't he already has a wife and children?"

Man... that was really potong the steam!

New Year's Resolutions

Soothsayer has beaten me to coming up with the blog entry on his new year's resolution(s). It's already the 9th day into 2006, I guess it's time or never. Though he's is but a sole proclamation of his renewed way of handling, or speaking to so to speak, idiots, mine do not include such (I'm luckier not to have that any idiots, or am I just more tolerant in that scale?) but just a few seedlings of what I have in mind.

A couple days' ago I confided in noodle and told her that I have a strong feeling 2006 is going to be different. Different in the way that you feel renewed and want things to happen. Particularly, things that have been bugging at the back of your head and you thinking maybe it aint so bad putting it off just a little bit more, just a little bit more... (like the song from Play)

First milestone is of course, this little baby I have here. I went through 2005 with so many thoughts and things to write about - somehow just couldn't have the time to record them but have the time to finish reading 12.75 books. It was nice when I have noodle - my other real, and of course most important baby :P - around for we'd have such mental discussion and arguments at times. I even nicked her the "walking google", 2nd in-line to the real thing :). Though my thoughts may just be ramblings, commonplace proses of my mundane life or even just rubbish like that from Soothsayer's little idiot, it shall be my own pensieve, a well of things to be kept for remembrance and a tracking device for everything happening in and around me.

Second of all is something the average joe puts off so easily, day in and day out. Average-joe-no-more, I told myself when I enrolled into a gym with noodle just a few weeks back. And even if I am outstation, I will look into the local gyms wherever I may be. Things could've been so much easier if not for my lousy pes planus problem (of course, that may very well be an excuse - a painful one!) that makes it hard for me to jog, which I kinda like - the jogging, not the pain! So by the end of 2006, 10kgs off the scale? Hmmm, maybe make it a liiiitle bit more realistic - 5kgs, for I am not delusional :p. Period.

Next is something much closer to my heart. For I feel that I have gone through so many years without really getting close to the people who matters most to me. My mum particularly, for her I miss the most when I away from my hometown, and my dad who has always been a fortress which I cannot, or dare not or haven't tried hard enough, to enter. Yeah we do talk on the phone, but I have never confided in them. Except, for the that very night that changed my life forever as I live it today - that rainy night when I expelled my Other from my life, and followed my heart all the way to P.D. without a blink of thought. I want change, I want to be closer to them. And I just don't want to spend my life away just working for the money but to spend more time with noodle - my love, my heartbeat, my closest friend and confidant - not just being away and virtually there but yet not at all, esp. in times of need, security or just having plain dolly fun.

And Noodle promised me a visit to the spa. I dearly hope that it is going to be in this year round. Otherwise, I would just whisk her off one day to one and get ourselves pampered and that soreness off-a our shoulders!

13 novels changed me in some ways or others in 2005. I hope that number will not be a constant in time to come. Already 4 books I packed from the 24-hour *gasp* bookshop in Taipei! God, my bibliophilic days will really get me broke soon enough...

From today onwards, I shall live my life as my own. And no more to only please others around me, nor ever compromise my own happiness for the sake of others'. While I shall maintain my truest self and form, best as I can do, I will learn to be stronger and more assertive. How someone sees me should be less important to me than how well I love myself (borrowed and paraphrased from Soothsayer's inspiring words *winks).

So is 2006 going to be different or as extraordinary as the bold promises I declare? I guess we'll just see. 31st day into the 12 month then - it's a date.

"So we think so much about money and our plans for acquiring it that we discover that we're alive only when our days on earth are practically done. And then it's too late."

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Last paragraph scripts are excerpts from BY THE RIVER PIEDRA I SAY DOWN AND WEPT by the great Paulo Coelho.

Playing Our Roles

"Some people have to be doing battle with someone, sometimes even with themselves, battling with their own lives. So they begin to create a kind of play in their head, they write the script based on their frustrations"

I know a lot of people like that. Because I am one. And at some time point of time, I am sure that you were one too.

"But the worst part is they cannot present the play by themselves," he continued. "So they begin to invite other actors to join in."

Every now and then, more often than not, we will always find ourselves faced with trying situations that test our wit and character. And often it may not be stemmed from our root; but rather, a by-product of undesirable ineptness or limitations imposed by others, or worse, a collection of it all. Like a cloak of midnight mist surrounding us, suffocating us.

These are the times we have our roles to play. We would think it is our script to write, and an end of the play we already know too well by heart. But others as well, have their own parts to play - for we cannot present the play by ourselves, not ours to be called. And suddenly we discover that we do not own it anymore, we are just a part of it after all.

Yours is a role who keeps asking why. Mine is one who shuns away and holds himself to blame, even before the plot is revealed. There lies our petty little problem, and we puff and puff 'til it swells out of proportions.

Yes, we will always be caught in a web of frustrations every now and then. But be strong and be patient, this is after all part of the play. And like all actors in all plays, we strive to become better after each passage. And at the end of it all, I just want you to know, though how it is accomplished may remain unbeknownst to us now, I just want to be there with you.

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Italized scripts are excerpts from BY THE RIVER PIEDRA I SAY DOWN AND WEPT by the great Paulo Coelho.

Vodka + Beer = Disaster

Never mix vodka with beer! My flatmate, Leow warned about the effects but cheeky friend, Preeda and I who were already a tad high after the Prime Blue, decided to spike the punishment drink (beer) with some vodka when he was in the loo. We schemed an evil plan to cheat on the next round of bluffing game with dices so that Leow will inadvertently have to gulp the concoction down, unawares.

Guess what? The plan backfired. Somewhere somehow we must have made a teenie weenie miscalculation and I lost. Preeda laughed like a crazy hyena while Leow had absolutely no idea. That must be how Ron Weaseley felt when his wand backfired on him once and vomitted slugs uncontrollably.

So funny... NOT - when you woke up with a heavy head, bloodshot eyes and a hangover the next day! We should have ended there and stuck with beer, but after the beans were spilled, we continued pouring shots of vodka into the beer admist the stupid jokes we made and drunken laughters our of own devices.

Off I go now. Need to nurse my hangover with gallons of water and nice warm mug of Ipoh white coffee in this cold cold morning, I mean, afternoon...

¡ feliz nuevo 2006 !

First milestone of my resolutions.

It's five days into the new year already, and this has been bugging me at the back of my mind for quite a while. Noodle's doing it, Jocelyn's doing it, for God's sake, even the Soothsayer's doing it! So why should I be left behind?

After I faltered and gave in to procrastination in Surviving Dhaka, which ironically did not survived at all, so here I am. Humble before thee...

First milestone of my resolutions for 2006. This.