perhaps love

…in my efforts to support asian films/the art scene, i bought the original DVD!

and it’s the second to my CD collection.

end

this is the beginning of the end, it has long since begun.

the end is big, the end is power-packed. the end is heavy, the end is significant. the end is demanding, the end is not easy. the end is tiring, the end is worth it. the end is condensed, the end is short.

the end is bitter, the end is goodbye. the end is a new start, the end is a clean state. the end is a new chapter, the end is different. the end is what i need, the end is what i want.

this is the beginning of the end, i can feel it.

today is the first day of the rest of my life.

culture culture culture need more couture v2

My sister knocked some sense into me, thankfully.

And it’s also true that there are limitations to how much a reader can appreciate cultural preoccupations that differ too greatly from the reader’s own. Many French readers have a passion for short, self-serious, faux-philosophical novels that stupefy American sensibilities. Many German and Northern European contemporary novels zestfully catalogue bleak, pessimistic realities that strike an American audience as profoundly depressing. Middle Eastern fiction at the current moment lacks a Jane Austen who could win over an American female readership. By the same token, why should anyone be surprised if the Middle East couldn’t care less about the Ya-Ya Sisterhood and its divine secrets; or if the Germans don’t share our obsession with the Vietnam War (just as we tire of their revisitations of World War II); or if the French don’t care for the meditative descriptions in the tomes of American short stories that emerge from M.F.A. programs from Iowa to the Atlantic Ocean. Not every taste travels. But that doesn’t rob it of its intrinsic value, or of its appeal to the land that produced it.

That’s the rebuttal i suppose. It’s always good to have one.

culture culture culture need more couture

i don’t know how to approach this subject, so imma start where i think. of late i’ve been coming across asian “prospects” (main ideas/themes as my lit teacher would say but i prefer prospects) particularly in film and writing, both books and essays.

and i have found the asian prospects to repetitively dwell on culture. as if that is the only thing asian writers can ever talk about.

(not to say that i consistently read all writers of all asian nationalities because i don’t. but i have tried a few and no i didn’t like it. so that was my deviation. when my friend suggested me the harmony silk factory i was like another one of those writers?)

a common one, which has been widely celebrated in and abroad, by yasmin ahmad is interracial marriage (IM) . i’m ok if it’s depicted well, which i assume this prospect has been justified by ya (cos i’ve never actually watched a full length film of hers… talk about being supportive of the arts. well i wouldn’t want to watch a pirated film, so i just didn’t watch at all.)

the rest of its attempts by people i can think of… is not very nice.

not to say that the root of the conflicts of things like IM cannot be found in western works. take for example friggin romeo & juliet and titanic. basically in IM both parties don’t like each other and hate each other and can’t accept each other. same goes to a lot of other works — western ones.

because, yes, i do believe that at the end of the day we are all the same, despite nay sayers claiming that the west has no roots, and in spite of traditions.

but perhaps it is the way that it is depicted that wholly puts me off. because basically a story has a conflict, meaning there’d be two conflicting parties. and in asian depictions, the setting is almost literally taken as that… where as in other depictions, other aspects are involved for the setting only acts as a support and it enhances these “other aspects”. compared to when the settings are taken for granted hence without the setting the story is nothing.

i hope i’m clear because it really isn’t me to write out an opinion and you get at least a rough idea of what i’m bullshiting. (i believe that to a certain extent my thoughts are in pictures. i mean — how would you write out a picture?) think in words, write in words. think in pictures, write in pictures.

and then there are all the millions of taboos constricting asian works. race, religion, sexuality all apparently are terlampau.  jadi kita semua mestilah patuh kepada tradisi-tradisi kita dan menghormati semua orang lain di dunia ini untuk kebahagiaan dunia agar perasan orang lain tidak tersinggung.

(English translation — overboard. That’s why it’s important for us to stick to our traditions and respect the rest of the world for universal happiness so the rest of the world won’t get hurt. Sense the sarcasm. ==)

to a certain extent, i am a part of this asian rigidness, and no, i don’t like that about myself. i want to dare to write. regardless.

i haven’t met a single asian author who has taken me aback with his/her prospect, wholly intelligent, made me think twice and go: oh shit. this is good. everything has been… oh pity pity this character.

hmmm… do i intend to be different kind of writer?

hopefully in my wildest dreams.

my boyfriend fuhua

somebody actually searched for my blog using this:

amanda yeo boyfriend fuhua

WTF MAN.

==

hyperbole

thus, once again for the gazillionth time, my life feels like it’s divided into the time before and the time after. and the reason for this division?

a very horrible human being of superior status who should be sued regardless of a ridiculous basis, whom i officially can say i hate highly detest. for thy has caused such disrupt in a mere few hours in my “grand entrée”, after an extended absence, back to a place i, like thy, hate highly detest.

*note that all this is hyperbolic and has been extensively exaggerated though what base emotions¹ implied are entirely real². and… and… and i hate this shit i have to go through. period.

__________

¹ the softness of the word emotions does not fit with the “tone”. but what the heck. i could not think of a better word. don’t even bother thinking of one for that matter.

² note the light alliteration

just business

in the end, you realise that as much as much fun it was, it’s just business. there’s no reason to expect any friendship.

“we had a job together. doesn’t mean i have to like him.” — johnny ramone on joey ramone

albums i should own before i die

1. the miseduction of lauryn hill — lauryn hill

2. electric ladyland — the jimi hendrix experience

3. lunático — gotan project

4. first impressions of earth — the strokes

5. once again — john legend

my name is adelyn and i am annoying amanda

mandy 60’s

facebook said that i’d be a person of the 60’s. i should like to think so.