Placebo

I called to deliver my parting words, but you were writing yours for a funeral that was to take place within hours in your hometown half a world away, where your parents and countless relatives were to commemorate a long life which had seen much success and come to a happy ending. So I packed my story away and agonized for the night.

I called again when you failed to read my words about a small tragedy that had just happened to me. I could not tell what was the bigger shock: my failure to cut you off right then and there, or your detachment from others' emotional reality. Over the years I have met a handful of men like you, for whom closeness means blanks and familiar presences are images hanging at the far end of their universe.

'I'm sorry you're distraught and my reaction has made it worse,' you said. You apologized and explained your temperament, a sure weapon that anyone could use against me--understanding is my primary response to things. Within a minute our voices trailed off and I gave up on what I wanted to say--No! You do not attack someone who lost a loved one only days before.

Even if the loss should have made minimal difference to our relationship. I am a presence you approach and stir whenever you wake up from your self-absorption. There is no telling when that moment happens, or it is so infrequent that I have only held onto you because there is no logic to my frustration--you are a placebo I have swallowed, and now I have to find a way out.

The Original Candy Girl

The following passage which I came across was what inspired me to write my post A Note to Candy Girl in March. For no reason in particular I decided to post it here--it is not my story nor my writing.

***

He is holding onto her because she is determined and she offers a lot of movement in his life. In this regard he is a person who likes to be led because it takes him out of his quite stagnant depressive frame of mind that he often prolapses into when not moved or inspired.

She is good at teasing--teasing him to follow. Sexual invites then run and let him chase type. She has him hooked quite strongly there and it is the major thing that holds them together.

There are other minor things, such as mutual social frames and by the looks of it, the parents seem pleased.

He is aware that she uses the teasing to hold him but he cannot help it and feels that she is a bit too bossy. He is a bit like a grumpy child not being able to break loose of a big sister's bond because she has candy and he wants it.

Their issue seems to be money. They do not agree on how to spend it. Her being too bossy and him being flirty with others. Besides the 'teaser bond', it is quite a shallow relationship.

Sleep

I fell asleep when the sun still shone on my champagne color blinds. Between grotesque dreams there was the sound of rain pelting down, washing away time and reminding me of its passage--I had gone to sleep to escape it. When I awoke in the dark I decided to go for a walk.

The paths in my neighborhood were ever so clear in the warm, humid air of June. The pub called Forever Blue--an apt translation of its Chinese name which says 'Deep Love'--was quiet as the crowd had gone after a World Cup match. It is a small pub with Christmas decoration on its window year-round, loud cheer and music seeping through its purple door every night. Next door is the supermarket and four young men in uniforms were loitering, talking in low voices. I turned to look at a road leading up to the luxurious residence up the hill. An old lover and I had hiked up to a windy park to watch small children crash their bikes against the fences. One child attempted to ride his dog--a golden retriever--in uncontrollable laughter.

My late-night walks are my shield against time, an emptiness unfolding before me when I have little clue to what lies ahead. Sometimes I picture myself walking up a long stairs in a game: a game of how far one can go, or how much one can endure, when the level of uncertainty can only go up as the ultimate challenge. The lucidness of the night, hanging above long silent roads only disrupted by cars brushing past, helps me believe that there will always be dawning of something new. Days will pass in ambiguity, and they will stall or speed until a flower springs open and life is new again.

In the meantime I sleep. Rather than stay up until the point of exhaustion, I lie down in bed and resign myself to sleep. It is the way to stop over-thinking--which I do everyday, and it leaves me quite tired.

Distraction

I suffered from a bloody headache; painkillers would not do the trick. I could not stand or move, could not read the Ismail Kadare novel on my desk or listen to the Spanish guitar on my iTunes. The night was closing in on me and I must save it. Alan had just walked out of a bar near my hood after watching a most boring World Cup match. 'Would you like me to bring you some grocery, orange juice? Or you want to get some air?' he asked on the phone.

On our way to the other end of the city at 4.30am, I turned off the music in his car as we were speeding along a narrow road. Alan is a more considerate driver if the passenger is the nervous type. With me--after ten years--he speeds and sings and sometimes curses and does whatever he feels like.

'The trees always look fluffy at this hour of the night,' I said.

'Haven't you done enough thinking for the day?'

'I didn't call you so you can get some sense into my head.'

'Yes you did.'

Alan lives in a house at the fringe of a quiet district, a long way away from the buzz of shopping malls, bars and restaurants downtown. Having grown up on an island he can never get used to living in a crowded area. In the morning he drives to work early to beat the crowd. We sat in two reclining chairs on his rooftop and drank green tea. I told him about my episode with T and that the chap came moping back. Alan started laughing.

'You know, sometimes you're quite demanding. Give people some time to catch up.'

'I have short attention span. And you're worse,' I said.

'I'm a little judgmental but I think longer terms. You always want the next thing.'

'I'd like to kick you now but I can't drag myself up from this chair...'

We watched wind push cloud in the sky.

The Power of Goodbye (II)

Sunday night T and I had drinks at a side-walk cafe in my neighborhood. T was confounded by my paranoid reaction from the previous night. I drank sparkling water and gave my explanation for what came down to an irrelevant interpretation of what was truly happening in the air.

'No, it reflected my reaction towards this kind of situation rather than my feelings for you or what we're doing. This is something I'm sure you can understand.'

'That I can understand. The heart of it is that you don't trust me,' he said.

'And now you're concerned.'

'It's your actions that make me question seeing you.'

I could no longer suppress my frowns or looking into the distance so I could shield myself from his defense, though I gave him credit for putting it into words. There has been any number of people who misinterpreted my intensity as emotional investment. If I put my arms around you and tremble at the touch of you, wouldn't you mean something to me? No, it means I am me, and I would be weary at your concern and questions.

To save us from further sabotage I invited T to come to my place and meet my cat. T recently got two kittens, though they are still shy around him. Taro being a nervous cat was hiding behind my nightstand when we approached.

'He has very pretty eyes,' T said.

'He does,' I said. 'And you, don't be so cautious.'

'I have to be. You've met me at a strange moment of my life.'

At dinner at I ordered mango salad. T put his hand on the table for me to hold it. He was tired from the lack of quality sleep--think alcohol and depression--and constant over-thinking. I was tired from trying to diffuse the blow-up with smiles, reason and half-hearted reassurance.

'Can you forget about it? I mean move on.'

'I can and I will forget it after a while...I mean I'll be patient and not jump into conclusion. And you? Are you going to think anymore about this?'

'I have very good recovery speed.'

'You're cool; you see the best in people,' he said, 'you've chosen a very odd person.'

I went quiet. Did I ever choose anyone? But T is right: I choose people all the time. And I have a compulsion to act kind, even at times when I feel sick at what is happening or that someone has nothing good to offer. Kindness is a mask for selfishness: people have no need for biting words, but the truth is I want the moment to be as good as it can be before I let it go.

T gave me a wide grin through the cab window. He is supposed to come back, but I would not be surprised if he does not. There is nothing more I will do now that I have written about it.

Disappearance

When people do posts on their blogs or Twitter or random online page to invite questions about their lives and thoughts--'Ask me anything and I'd answer'--my favorite question is always 'What's your one fear in life?' My answer would be suffering from terminal illness and hanging on to life in misery and having no family around. My other answer, which looms larger and much closer in my daily life, is that people around me would suddenly drop dead by a cruel stroke of fate or by their own hand.

In my early twenties, a school friend of mine was killed in a car crash as the bus flew over the flimsy barriers on the highway and plunged straight to the bottom of the slope. One July morning Ivy was still Ivy and she hopped on the bus to go to work, young and tall and dozing off by the windows to her usual dreams. By the day's end Ivy was no longer Ivy and her face was never seen again except by her family, hospital and funeral parlor staff. Her face was disfigured from head trauma; it was enough to hear her parents' cries.

I spent the night weeping by the computer and checking on news updates and my phone--I had texted my friend H., who was very close to Ivy, to see if she was well but received no response. By early morning I was reading all these stories of Ivy related by her students and their parents, looking at photos of Ivy at a school picnic and other glimpses I had never seen before. The worst was the photos of those 7-year-old students crying by their tables. Their grief compounded mine and I went to lie down on the couch.

This public dimension of this incident has stayed with me. It still strikes me as incredibly eerie: my private emotions were forever polluted by strangers' words, sensational reports of an unfortunate death that became 'public property'. Even my anger turned unreal. I was angry at the government which had obviously failed us, but what difference did it make to stare at the sorry face of the responsible official when all I could do was to sit at home and shed my tears? Would they hear my anger, would they give a fuck about it?

My friend H. wrote back to me the next day. She had been at a camping site with a group of students--how she managed to stay calm for the day I had no idea. Since then we have only spoken of Ivy twice. Both times we were walking under dying trees along the pavement, on ambience of traffic that rang like distant sounds of summer.

You Are My Fear (II)

Menace takes me in a twist. I stand cringing beside my desk and see blocks of life outside my windows, against translucent blue carrying broken rays of sun and birds humming in warm air.

I cannot bear to look outside. Only days ago I celebrated my freedom. Now it is gone. You have taken it away with your pretense which I fail to mock or take apart as I cannot tear us away from each other. Every time I think of you my throat closes up and I cannot spin between the repercussions of my lost equilibrium.

I do not understand this oppression. You should be the skeletons on a white horse raising the flag of death, trampling lives; or you should be the tower collapsing, on fire, throwing souls into catastrophe and they shall not land on their feet. But you refuse to take on these guises and to give me reasons to run.

I shall live with you: a slow suffocation gliding from one moment to next, in a fear I have long denounced and now returned to against my better judgment. Your presence is too clear to me; your deceit, rather than your eventual absence, will wear me down until I regret--until I regret.

Reality Check

'That's very helpful. You read of him was very close to what I perceived.'

'I'm glad to hear that Nicolette.'

'From what you saw, is he fully aware of his motive or is he kind of confused in himself?'

'It seems that he covers up his motive for himself a bit. I would not call that confusion. I call that dishonesty.'

'It's funny the extent of effort people go into trying to fool you and themselves.'

June 4th 2010

Last year I wrote this post about the 20th anniversary of the June 4th massacre. Twenty years passed: the small child who watched the bloodshed on TV in utter confusion had turned into a woman whose mind was filled with literature, art and a complicated anger towards the country her hometown had to return to in a history of never-ending terrors. The memories of violence were intact and vivid; I wanted to tell the world that as a native Hong Kong person, I was proud that we lived in the only Chinese city where people could openly commemorate the massacre victims and rally for justice. And that despite our reputation for being materialistic, Hong Kong people had a keen sense of moral obligation and at times, generosity--we acted out of our feelings about what's right and what's wrong, and we were not afraid.

Another year passed. Tonight I was at the candlelight vigil with my artist friend Claire. My faith has remained unchanged: the freedom we still have in this city means more than anything else to me. Do not ask me why I, or any other Hong Kong person, go on protests in support of dissident Chinese intellectuals or against crazy government projects when it is all futile effort. Isn't our freedom gradually fading behind the flowers of forgetting that spring open over my city? Aren't we supposed to fade into Fascist oblivion and be silent? I do what I do because I love Hong Kong--I must safeguard what's so precious to me about this town. I light a candle--as many others do--out of a pure insistence that what we hold dear must not be taken away even when the authority is bashing us against the wall. That we must cry and we must be true to ourselves no matter what.

Like I wrote last year, sometimes I get driven to tears in defending my hometown when certain foreigners question the validity of freedom in Hong Kong--it is a sinking island now, there is no hope for anybody. Whether that is the truth I do not know. One day this city will turn into a place I can no longer recognize--I wish I will not live to see it. I have no patience either when people ask: Why hold onto the impossible? My answer is that the only thing that matters is what one lives in one's heart. Why shouldn't I go and sing what I know to be true? Why should we give up our fight when we can still fight? Do you know how much this means to the mainland Chinese parents who lost their children in the massacre, or their families, homes, livelihood in all kinds of absurd tragedies in their country? And some others who are aware of what's happening and support our effort from a distance?

Yes, they listen, follow and some cross the border to join us when they have a chance, amid the People's Liberation Army officers in casual wear who come over and drift into the crowd. In the last months I translated a handful of poems by dissident Chinese writers into English together with a Chinese poet in Hong Kong. Some of them--mostly the ones by Liu Xiabo--have been sent to his wife and other Chinese writers, and some get read at overseas readings. Tonight for the first time I thought about the significance of our simple act--of flipping through the pages, thinking, typing away to communicate the spirit of these writers to those who may not otherwise get to see it, to preserve it for future readers who may chance upon these lines. It means something, at least to the writers and those who are directly affected by the terrorism in their home country. One day it could mean a great deal.

I was brought up on Chinese literature--some of which is still very close to my heart, though I admittedly have a very different mindset and I write creatively in English only at this point. The Chinese philosopher, scholar and teacher Confucius said: 'Know something to be impossible and do it.' I first read and contemplated this line in my Chinese literature class in high school. Since then I have held it as one of my principles. Yes, know something is impossible but do it regardless. This is how I hold onto my ideal; this is how I live.