Meditations in an Emergency

Where You're Calling From

2012-01-15T22:31:00.000+08:00

I think some people have checked up on this blog to see if I'm around/okay after I posted the news of my aunt's death on Facebook on Tuesday. Thank you, if you're one of these people.

I've been confined to bed more than anything else. High fever, chilled all over 24/7, coughing my lungs out and the doctor was worried that I might get pneumonia. Most of my family has fallen ill but I was the hardest hit of us all. Now, after sleeping most of the past days away, I'm still coughing and breathing funny and once I open my mouth to speak, I feel like I could choke. I can hardly eat.

This is really strange. All I had wanted to do was to clean up my flat, get some sleep, trim my hair, read, do some normal things. Now normality will have to wait some time longer. It's raining and chilly outside and when I need to go out, I'll have to wear a fluffy warm jacket and bring an umbrella.

At the Hospital

2012-01-06T21:50:00.002+08:00

From left to right: me, not wearing any make-up for the day; Grandma, you can see she's feeling kind of sad; my eldest aunt Carmen, who turns 62 this year, likes to jokes, swears a lot when someone gets on her nerves; Patricia, who's dying; Sandy, Patricia's twin sister, who turns 49 in a month. She had been crying before this photo was taken; Jade, my second eldest aunt, gym freak in her early 50's who does Thai-boxing; the woman in a red jacket, my father's girlfriend; Sandy's daughter, my cousin, Mandy, 22-year-old who looks 16. You can click to enlarge the photo.

This is going to be a black-hearted post.

1. How do the women in my family look so young, esp. Carmen who smoked for 30 years, I have no idea.

2. Finally, I have a photo to prove how ugly my father's girlfriend is. If you're my friend in real life, you know I'm really laid-back about people's looks - it means very little to me - and it's very rare that I'd use the word 'ugly' on anyone. I dislike this woman quite a lot for the following reasons:

-The first time I met her at a family dinner years ago, she was talking about taking Patricia to some Buddhist temple. The Buddhism wasn't what bothered me--it was the way she tried to make it sound like there was a 'special connection' between Patricia and herself with that 'shared enlightenment' when Patricia was nodding out of politeness. My family is a bunch of straight-shooting folks - if you're here, you're welcome; eat, talk, do what you like. Just don't give us any crap or pretend.

-She's dumbness personified. My father calls her dumb, too. My entire family appreciates her as a kind-hearted person who cares for my father, then agrees she's very dumb--only a dumb woman will love my father at this point in time.

When my family rushed to see Patricia in the hospital last month, my father's girlfriend was there, too. Right in front of everyone, she started stroking Patricia's hair and looked at her lovingly as if Patricia was a baby--who, at that moment, was a skeleton trapped in plastic tubes in a hospital bed with no voice. There, my father's girlfriend launched into this speech about going to see Chinese opera after Patricia had recovered--that she must not lose the battle, blah blah blah. I wanted to smash this woman's Pekingese dog face with a baseball bat and throw her out of the window. Or at least slap her in the face and scream.

Even now, when I'm holding my aunt while she throws up, this woman--when she's around--says things like "Oh, so sad" that are perfectly audible to Patricia. Does this woman have any idea what "dignity" means? Does she not know who my aunt is: a woman who, even on her last days, lives for her pride?

-She was, and continues to be, the proof that my father's life is officially over. My father was good at being two things: 1. a tailor; 2. a womanizer who got his smarts and charms, in ways that would eventually destroy the women who loved him. My father stopped being a tailor long time ago because the times changed. Up until some years ago, my father dated only good-looking women (with one exception--and that one wasn't bad as such). His ladies' man career was over when this woman came into the picture. My father's identity as a charmer is probably the only thing I've ever admired about him as a person, if such a thing makes sense. The arrival of this dumb, ugly woman showed me - and everyone else in my family - that my father wasn't the man he used to be.

-That said, I can also see that she is a good-hearted person, and I'm honestly relieved - even grateful - that she's with my father. She puts up with and cares for him a great deal when he's truly undeserving. I hope she continues to do what she does until he drops dead, so to speak.

Last Night On Oil Street

2011-12-24T05:08:00.000+08:00

Got a flash piece up at fwriction : review yesterday and it's one that I rather like. Thanks for reading, if you do.

On Hiatus

2011-11-20T01:19:00.001+08:00

This blog will be on hiatus indefinitely. Read whatever you see around here, or if you want to know what or how I'm doing, talk to me in other channels.

My Days (II)

2011-11-03T01:22:00.001+08:00

Music:

Liberation Von History, 2002 album by Wechesel Garland. Subtle, fuzzy electronic music. Don't ask me I cannot tell you anything more about this music than what you can hear for yourself. Or I can tell you about the man - a friend, not lover - who placed this CD on my desk, his eyes wild and distorted slits in smoke rising from an incense burner we had used as an ash tray. The man has problem with his eyes and his heart, a disintegrating castle from which familiar and unknown characters are running with their arms outstretched like books spread open--

to die. Because all stories are born to die within those who look at the world in hate. I was a passerby in lights dissected. "Here, here," he tried to shove the CD--endless CDs!--into my chest but it wouldn't crack. Nothing I could do about it except to throw the shield I'd been carrying to the ground the moment he walked.

Smoke:

I would smoke and I would smoke and I would smoke until I woke up heaving. My heart ached. My lungs were smash while I swam laps in breaststroke backstroke freestyle across the pool of old men who could kick to dissolve the spidery veins around their ankles onto my thighs or a clumsy woman grabbing me by the waist.

Accidental attacks. I swim fast and turn a blind eye to others. But not fast or nimble as kids in a swim team who can flip or curl up in water like animated inflatable toys to wiggle out of danger.

To protect myself from other kinds of accidental attacks, I cleansed everything in my studio flat--from window frames to my bookshelf, down to the electric socket beside the door and the door--with a lemongrass scented cleanser.

Ultimatum to self: "Smoke another cig in this flat and you're a loser."

Heat:

It gets warm in my flat--I pace around a lot. I shouldn't be pacing around as much because of a minor injury to my right foot that went unnoticed for too long and it's kept me off the dance floor and hiking trails for months now.

The truth is I don't miss dancing Tango at the moment. I miss the fun, but not the emotional connection. I've been walking along this long, occasionally circuitous path in that forest in my imaginary universe, where the trees are bent or they combust in such unison that the forest looks like a fold-up mirror open in flame, in tune with my tears and roots sprawling underneath the soil. I'm singing solitude and the song has many cadences. It's a row of bells hanging from my door frame.

My foot hurts, anyway.

Hair:

Last week I visited my hairstylist of 10 years for that massive haircut I'd put off for months. That waist length hair was literally weighing on me--I'd even rest it on the back of my chair while working on the computer.

I was just broke. Or I felt broke and my hairstylist is expensive.

We said, Let's do shoulder length, a bit longer. Let's do straight bangs covering the eyebrows so that I can brush that fringe in front of the mirror everyday to put on a new persona. The young guy who worked the chemical treatment ran the ionized straightener down my hair, looked at my reflection in the glass and I saw the lights in his eyes change.

The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology

2011-11-01T19:57:00.000+08:00

Skip your Starbucks for the day and get a copy of this ebook, won't you? A collection of 30 flash stories from around the world, The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology is now available for purchase! All proceeds go to two children's charities PROTECT: The National Association to Protect Children and Children 1st Scotland.

The project began as a flash fiction challenge when Fiona Johnson and Thomas Pluck dnoated $5 and £5 to the two charities, over at Ron Philips' Flash Fiction Friday and Fictionaut. 30 of the best stories were chosen to be included in this anthology, edited by Fiona, Thomas and Ron. Some of the authors are also past contributors of A-Minor Magazine including David Ackley, James Lloyd Davis, Sam Rasnake, Susan Tepper and yours truly. For the full list of authors, contributor interviews and more details, check out the anthology's blog here. Go get your copy on Amazon, Smashwords or Barnes and Noble (link to be updated for this one). We'll be looking forward to your feedback!

Some Things I Don't Really Want To Know

2011-10-15T00:03:00.001+08:00

1. I haven't written on this blog for a while because I've been upset. Over that bust-up with the girl who had been one of my closest friends for 13 years. The one I wrote about in my last post. To call it a bust-up may be an exaggeration as nothing horrendous happened, and I can't be sure how I'd feel about it when the dust settles.

2. For a week or two I had problem sleeping. I drank a lot of orange-flavored Lucozade and churned out words at the computer. Silly work gigs that hardly paid. I wrapped up two flash pieces, one better than the other but neither was something that ached to be written. Which I'm okay with, that's just how it goes at times.

3. It's looking like I have to take that break from writing I've been thinking of for a while. For the past months I nursed a brokenness within, let it bounce off the page in shards that cut but also relieved me of this burden I could have bent under. By now the brokenness has dissipated. I've embraced it, lived it and now there's only a still frame of black and white in my heart, until I close my eyes, fall asleep and wake up to go somewhere else.

4. The nights I couldn't sleep, I spent them pacing around my studio flat or running my hands through my hair in front of the computer. Was I being judgmental or unfair in any way? What other choices would I have made if I were her? How would I feel if I were in her shoe? Could I deal with the situation any differently, knowing that my friend would be upset by my actions?

5. I go through this Q&A every time I'm in a conflict with someone, and I suppose some of you do, too. In some cases, I'd go back to the friend/lover and say, "Look, I think this is how you might feel about all this..." or I'd give that speech if the other person wants to "have a chat". Then they break down a little and say "Yes" and the situation is resolved in seemingly amicable manners.

6. It's almost never the other way around - very few friends or lovers have, or can look at me in the eye and tell me how they think I might be feeling in a way that brings home the truth. Many of them, like the gal pal in question, are perfectly genuine and caring people who'd give a lot for others. But they function in different channels, they're not what I'd describe as "bold" or "upfront" and they don't analyze things as much.

8. Except that's the one thing I truly want from people--that they can look at me in the eye to show me they understand, and they're not afraid to deal with thing as they are. Is that a lot to ask? I'm a snob and I only like people who are intelligent and strong and honest--who don't do or accept cop out, big or small. Is that a lot to ask?

Jesus Died For Somebody's Sins But Not Mine

2011-09-28T11:52:00.000+08:00

Don't you just love this song, Gloria? Some of you don't listen to rock music. That's cool. Fine by me, really. The other day I was whining on my Facebook about this girl who'd been one of my best friends for many years until that moment when she shoved some speech about God in my face. I hate to write about it but what else can I do?

Now, let's say, this girl is someone who had some rather 'rocky' times in her earlier years, though it wasn't quite as bad as what you'd see in movies. A bit of drama here and there. Tears and a general lack of caring. Once when we were in our early 20's already, my friend ended up at the hospital with bruises on half of her face. Later on I called to check how she was doing, and to tell her about a certain rub she could use on her face to get rid of the bruises quickly. She said I was the only friend who called. Whoever else she called, well, they didn't say much. We were that kind of friends.

Over the years we were close, then not terribly close because she was often busy. Our lives were quite different, then they had their similarities at times. The drama continued: someone made a terrible mistake and hearts were broken, someone else was gravely ill and some random characters laughed a wicked laugh in the background which sent my friend over the edge. Again, I was supposedly the only person who would listen and care about her feelings. Why she didn't have other friends who would do the same, I guess it was because she was busy and had a limited social life. It had nothing to do with the quality of her character: she has always been a good person.

Now, let's imagine this allegorical setting: my friend found herself in a concentration camp. For a long time she got by--she was unharmed, just had to live through a bit of emotional torture once in a while. There was always a way for her to get out of there, but she stayed because she believed she didn't belong anywhere else. Plus, the Nazis weren't cruel people--they were just naive and selfish, they treated her well occasionally and even claimed to care about her at times. All that time she prayed to God that the Nazis would go to church, because she'd like her keepers to be Catholics. The Nazis wouldn't go, lives went on and she hoped against hope that it'd all turn out alright.

The day came when they were going to send her to the gas chamber. Finally she ran for her life and as she was crawling out of that camp, I was there because she had let me know that she would be there. In the following months, this friend asked me to take her to a couple therapists so she could talk things over with someone, get some advice, and I listened to all those horrible details because I was there with her. This was last year. Then we went to get a coffee, see a movie, do all kinds of things until she no longer burst into tears just walking down the streets. Sometimes I'd call to check up on her and she'd still be in this unspeakable pain that I'd never ask about.

So much time passed and my friend lived a fairly normal life, though a lot of questions remained. A few months ago, something told me that my friend was keeping a secret. She covered her traces. When it became obvious--to me, not to others--I dropped the bomb and asked her: "You're spending time at the concentration camp, aren't you?" She tried to cover it up: "I walk past it and hang out with the Nazis. I come and go as I want." I told her I wasn't having it--I knew she'd never disengaged herself from the Nazis, she never even stopped talking to them for a week. Now that she was back there, she'd never leave again.

"No, you don't understand. They're so sincere about having me back and I decided to give them another chance."

"They never let you go for a moment. They haven't really changed."

"I said I'd forgive them if they went to church--and they did, after all this time! God accepts them so I must accept them too. Even though, yes, I know they haven't really changed, they're still selfish people who'd try to send me to the gas chamber again and again when the time comes. But for now they treat me so well like they're my family, no one has treated me so nicely, I just want to do what makes me happy now and I don't care if it's a big fall in the future. Thank you for what you've done for me all this time. I'll live well. Amen."

Since then I haven't said another word to my friend. Now, let's get one thing straight--she was a good friend to me over the years, and I'm not saying that whatever I've done for her is a waste because that wouldn't be fair to whatever she's done for me, too. My only honest response to this whole situation, at this point, is that I find it hard to imagine how I'd be her friend again. Whatever I think, do, or say has no relevance to what she has decided to do or might want to do in her life, at an emotional level. I did what I did and then her life is none of my business. All I can do to refrain from barking at her is to walk off and let her be.

I have all kinds of eccentric ideas but any kind of God--the Christian God, Allah, Buddha, you get the drift--is not for me. I don't accept it when someone makes a decision out of their human desire and goes on to attribute it to The Higher Power. I also don't accept it when a friend flings God in my face when I'm saying how disappointed I am at a real-life scenario--I don't take any answer that eliminates all rational and realistic aspects of a situation. I just don't.

A-Minor Magazine & Other Literary News

2011-09-11T02:11:00.001+08:00

Most of you know by now that Sheldon Lee Compton, the terrifically talented writer from Kentucky I've raved about here a couple times before, has passed the A-Minor Magazine to me. On how it happened: you know how there're a handful of writers you particularly admire and when they need something--someone to review and promote their works, or whatever literary input you can give--you respond. For me Sheldon is one of those writers. He was looking for someone to pick up the zine; I was certain that I'd make the effort to run a good gig. That was it, really. I'm thrilled and honored to be running such a fine zine. I won't ramble on because...I'm typically nervous of saying anything that might sound 'corny'.

The zine has reopened for less than a week and I've received quite a lot of submissions already. But hey, I'd love to read your flash stories and poems if you've got some good ones to share. If you write both prose and poetry, and you got a little series that revolves around the same theme or imagery, all the better. If you feature artwork in your writings or collaborate with artists, or if you're a visual artist interested in submitting your work, shoot me an email.

***

Also check out Thrush Poetry Journal, the new endeavor of Helen Victoria and Walter Bjorkman! Both Helen and Walter are excellent writers and editors. They've got tons of submissions already but let me tell you, these guys work hard and have very fine judgment. Send them your work and you won't be sorry. Can't wait until the journal is launched in December!

Our neurotic sweetheart Rose Hunter--and a fine poet--is looking for submissions for YB Poetry and the theme is Animals. Yes, Rose loves her animals and we love Rose. Sherry O'Keefe and John Riley are co-editing the issue and I love these guys too. Together they have a way of weaving what's eccentric and delicate into something highly readable.

And--this is belated news but I just haven't had a chance to update this blog since end of August--the September issue of Negative Suck is online! Our featured author for this month is Len Kuntz, who's everywhere all at the same time. Negative Suck will go quarterly starting from 2012. Go and check out the latest issue.

Days of Egg Tarts & Mango Pudding

2011-08-31T23:23:00.000+08:00

The days of mopping around one's studio flat or down the streets to get egg tarts (it's a yummy kind of custard tarts with a subtle flavor, HK-styled!) always come to an end. The past couple weeks I've been running around: teaching silly English courses in classrooms that felt like hellish seas of idiocy; farewell dinner, movie and dinner, lunch with Grandma, dinner in some dark alley; more work; another family gathering to come and I don't know what else. Tonight I can sleep.

Here's a picture of Grandma and me. Many of you have seen it on my Facebook.

My grandmother likes mango pudding. She's 85, still has a full set of teeth (except for one missing tooth from an accident in her youth on Lantau Island, where my family came from). She's pretty healthy. The only complaints she makes about her health are poor eyesight (it's really not that bad, from what I know), vertigo (it's more her nerves when she's out and about on her own), occasional stomachache which really spells 'panic' ("These guys have been out of reach for a while...") and insomnia ("There're so many cars in the car park downstairs..."). Even at this age, she speaks with a very clear, very loud voice.

I got a bunch of old family photos from her and I'll make copies. One of these days I'll post some photos on my Facebook and maybe on this blog too.

My 'literary news' of the week is that I completed the 100 Days 2011 project. One hundred blog posts of prose, poetry and photos over 100 days. It was challenging, and it brought something out of me which I wouldn't have discovered--and forced myself to work on--during such a short period of time. And now it's the time to go through all these bits and pieces I've got and to rewrite...

Fever

2011-08-21T22:51:00.000+08:00

I've been away from this blog because...I had a bit of reading to do and meetings to go to; then I was sick with the flu for a week. One moment I thought I'd got a heatstroke; the next I was lying face down in my bed. Now I'm still tired. Other things happened, but it's nothing I'd want to blog about here.

Some days ago I had this flash story 'The Wind Is Going To Take You' up at TrainWrite. I wrote it specifically for this tumblr zine. I had no idea what the story was going to be, so I drew these railroad tracks on a piece of paper, and a balloon, and then the rest followed.

I also posted 'Focus', published in MiCrow in June, at Fictionaut. Parts of the story were based on this wacky bike safety movie 'One Got Fat' (1963) directed by Dale Jennings, and set to 'Everything You Do Is A Balloon' by Boards of Canada in this video.

I have no more words for you or myself for now. Here's a poem from the poetry collection I just finished reading, Jeni Couzyn's In The Skin House.

You entered the muscles with a paring knife
like a strong old woman
peeling potatoes.
You entered the veins with a wire brush.
Because I have prepared for you all year
clearing the builder's rubble
from what I called
my house --
welcome.

My Days

2011-08-10T02:34:00.002+08:00

For anyone who wants to know, an honest post about how I spend--and process--my days would go like this:

Some time ago: someone wrote my name on a label on my mailbox.

The next day: I bought a pink rose and hung it upside down from my four-poster bed, because I wanted to see how it'd look like, dried.

Some other day: me jumping around a park to grab a bauhinia leave, then taking a photo of it while an old man approached me: "Why? You're taking pictures of bugs?"

Same afternoon: everybody pushing past one another on a terribly crowded street in extreme heat; me in a black tank top, jeans and sneakers, in search of bubble tea.

Some days later: a former student and now friend put a coffee card in my mailbox and I couldn't make out the handwriting in black ink on the black envelope.

Some days earlier, or later, or on any given day: Subway sandwiches downstairs, from just around the corner. 6 inch. Parmesan Oregano cheese and toasted. Lettuce, tomatoes, onion...no olives, please.

On many afternoons: buying bread and cake at a famous bakery nearby; cashier: "Do you work or live in the area?"

On many evenings: monologue to self: "I must not go to the bakery tomorrow!"

On many evenings: going to the same restaurants for take-away food, reliving the same episodes from 1 or 3 or 5 or 10 years ago, only in different residential areas.

On certain evenings: friends calling: "Nicolette/Nicole/Colette! Get your ass downstairs!" Me sheepishly putting on an off-shoulder top or a tank top, then frantically brushing my hair.

On rare days that shouldn't be so rare: "Where are my bikinis?"

On most evenings: monologue to self: "I want new books...books..." while reading a library book. The joy of living one mini-bus ride away from the University of Hong Kong campus.

Last week: I went to the post office to get the book a writer friend sent from the States. Yippie!

Every week: monologue to self: "I'm sick of all this writing I'm doing. I need to do something new" then browsing through the photos I've taken in the past few months, editing them in iPhoto, which makes me look like a much better photographer than I really am.

Last week: hopping onto a minibus to go to the seaside; sitting on some stairs at the pier; watching old men practice tai-chi; yellow lights and distant trees.

Some weekends: monologue to self: "Just why don't I get drunk?"

One weekend: I went to get vodka and pita bread.

On most days: monologue to self in front of the computer: "Just what's wrong with me not getting a bloody job? And how did all these prospects flop? I need a break I need to fucking pay my bills!"

Yesterday: stomachache and headache, which were most likely both phantom symptoms. "Can I have some morphine, please?"

Last night: "NOOOOOOO!!!" over the phone; then monologue to self: "All this is senseless. Bah."

Last night: exhaustion followed by black-out.

This morning: on the phone with Brian Chan: "How much plum drink do you guys want? Two bottles?"

This noon: drinking plum drink with Brian Chan and his girlfriend on their rooftop before it started to rain. Brian's girlfriend: "Only spend time with those who understand is what I say!" Brian to me: "Why do you meet so many people who lack...intelligence?"

On any given day: some man: "What do you want?" me: giving a long list of evidence, reasons, implications that are staggeringly logical, thoughtful and semi-heartfelt to overwhelm the man so that he must walk away in silence for the time being, because, really, "Who I am has nothing to do with you and I secretly want. you. gone. Ha."

This afternoon: a note from an ex-lover about work. Ex-lover is one man who used to shout: "You're one hell of a talented person. Don't let anyone tell you anything but that!" for which I'd always be grateful.

Tonight: past midnight; burp; monologue to you, my readers: "I need some food and I've only got bread and it's another sleepless night."

Mud. By The River

2011-08-09T07:29:00.000+08:00

Reposted from Le Bleu du Ciel for Language > Place blog carnival edition #9

fill me with mud to stop my body from burning:
small, circular veins bursting down my thighs.
clad me in a cold, iron amor while i lose such
compulsion of colors, shivers stripped of their
shine on a lost night. the last snowstorm took
the locks off your gate & icicles slid down my
fingers. since then i've been running to where
the sun turns mourners into surf, dried traces
on sand & dirt of one's choosing. pick it up,
my new disappearance. throw it to the side.

Patricia

2011-08-06T07:23:00.000+08:00

Yesterday I was on the phone with my paternal grandmother who I hadn't seen in a while. She said my youngest aunt, Patricia, was unwell and staying with her and grandpa, in the family home I spent parts of my childhood in. Would I like to speak to her? Yes, of course. Patricia got on the phone and I casually asked her why she had quit living with her boyfriend in his village house. "Oh, I've got cancer," she said, "I'm staying here because it's closer to the hospital." The rest of the conversation lasted two minutes: "How are you going to take care of this and that?" vs "I'm fine. I'm not worried at all."

I was on a crowded street, around a bunch of shopping malls flooded with mainland Chinese tourists who queued up outside Louis Vuitton and Gucci. After the call I found the Mister Softee ice-cream van--which has been a part of our city life since 1970--and got myself an ice-cream cone. I bit and licked that ice-cream, walked for a long while and fought back tears so that I wouldn't have to hide myself from passers-by. Finally I took the ferry and got some air.

***

When I was a child I lived with Patricia for several years. After my parents' divorce (when I was 5) I lived with my grandparents and my youngest uncle in a small flat in this very 'domesticated' district, full of old people, housewives, children, supermarkets, street food and polluted air. Typical Hong Kong life in the 80's. Pat came to stay with us a couple years later with two dogs--a Pomeranian and a Cocker Spaniel--because she was always out working and hanging out with men and she wanted someone to take care of the dogs. She was in her mid-20's then.

The dogs soon ruled us. They always shat first thing in the morning in that 400 sq ft flat and someone--at times it was me--had to clean it up before anyone could start their day. Grandma cooked lunch for them (rice with chicken meat and all kinds of human food); Grandpa helped bathe them; I played with them when they started barking like crazy or trying to kill each other (which often ended with one of them getting taken to the vet). In those days, Patricia was a popular masseuse in a sauna place. On most nights she came home late. The dogs always waited for her by her bed.

I waited for her, too. Sometimes she was gone for a couple days. There were photos of her with a middle-aged man at dinner, at the park, on vacation. Pat was a pretty woman--petite figure with good curves, fine features and a charming smile. She joked a lot, smoked and drank occasionally, was a straight-shooting girl who could get very upfront with anyone who talked shit around her, which was rare for a young Chinese woman at the time. Every other woman her age was getting married, worrying about in-laws and babies. Patricia didn't want any of that.

At some point I heard that her boyfriend was a married man which, in my young mind, was just a 'given' like another aunt was married to a quiet man, or that I couldn't grow my hair long because no one would do my ponytail. I attended an afternoon school. On most days I went to the library in the morning, came home around noon for lunch, when Pat woke up and took a shower. Sometimes, when my grandpa wasn't around and Pat had forgotten her towel, she walked out of the bathroom naked. Water dripping down her well-proportioned body and fine skin. So much flesh and beauty.

***

Patricia took an interest in my well-being like most of my relatives did, but since we lived together, she took care of things for me when my father didn't. Like giving me money to pay for books and taking me to get a haircut. The year I turned eleven, she threw a birthday party for me at home, invited some of my aunts and cousins, came up with a cake and a camera. I was so agitated that I didn't speak the whole time. By that age I'd accepted that while my relatives took good care of me at a practical level, no one would attend to my feelings--that I often grieved over missing out on these little doses of caring other children received from their parents.

Shortly after that my father, in a fist of anger at my bad behavior (not doing homework), threatened to send me to this prestigious, Catholic boarding school for girls on an island. I wanted my freedom; I screamed and cried for days. At that time, Pat was going to move to a bigger place with Grandma and the two dogs, so she got Grandma to pack my things too. The new home was spacious and close to the harbor. At night Pat and I walked the dogs in the park. I also developed this terrible habit of staying up way past midnight to listen to the radio--which was how I got to know so much good music.

We lived that life for a few years. Pat started to take me out to dinner, movies, even Karaoke with this other boyfriend she had, and his two very young daughters from two previous relationships. The man was a charming talker, very sociable. Pat drove a red sports car. Those days came to an end when Pat moved again with Grandma, and I went to stay with my father when I was 13. Even then, Patricia (and my eldest aunt Carmen who I'll mention later) tried to make sure I lived well. The women took me on a shopping spree for household appliances, convinced me that I needed a rice cooker, a microwave and a washing machine, which my father couldn't afford to buy.

***

Pat's story unfolded in tragic ways. She attempted to break up with the married boyfriend she had been with for years, so that she could be free to marry the man she was in love with. The boyfriend wasn't going to have it. In addition to giving her money, this man was in love with my aunt--he had met most of my relatives, even introduced her to his wife and family who had accepted her as the mistress. When Pat called it quits, he was down to his knees in tears, with a check in his hand: "Write any amount you want." And this was a man who was the owner of a popular Chinese newspaper, connected to the city's celebrities, politicians and rich businessmen.

Pat grabbed the check and threw it in the man's face, said some nasty things. The man hired a private investigator and found out about the other boyfriend--and presumably did certain things to destroy her which, to this day, aren't fully explained to me by my family. Pat married her beloved just to get divorced in a year. The husband and the two girls treated her coldly at home, they fought often, her fortune had dried up and he wanted her gone. In the end the man hit her, called her a whore until she walked out of the house. She had always had problem with her right ear, and she suffered a partial loss of hearing from the blows on that night.

That wasn't quite the end yet. My aunt was so hopelessly in love with that jerk--she would do anything as long as he came back to sweet talk her. Which meant her taking on a huge loan on his behalf. And then he ran off. In the following years, Pat was evicted from one place to the next, could never hold a job for long (the creditors would come after her), had no friends, even abandoned one of her dogs (the two I grew up with were long dead by then--she went on to have others) at a pet shop. Carmen, who had handed over all her savings to help Pat and my father with their debts, paid for the dog's lodging at the pet shop for a year, until she moved to a new place and had room for the dog.

***

This is the family I come from--everybody does what they can for one another, which includes monetary help in pressing circumstances. In the 90's, my father got into an unconceivable amount of debt. My grandparents cleared out their savings--jokingly called 'coffin fund' in Chinese culture, the money that the elderly keeps--and Carmen helped us out all the time. The others took care of me now and then. My aunts and uncles were just regular people with manual jobs--taxi driver, receptionist at a laundry shop, cleaner at a hotel. Before Patricia's fall from grace, she gave my father as much money as it would cost to send someone to an Ivy League school. By the time Pat needed money, no one had any left to help her.

It wasn't just the money, of course. It was the unspoken love and pain of watching my aunt turn into a shadow of the woman she once was. Year after year I watched her--she lost weight, or got bloated; her face turned yellow as her liver malfunctioned. She moved back to the family home where she woke up sick on some days, from being cursed by my selfish, foul-mouthed, angry grandfather ("You've become such a useless person"). She missed that jerk who left her in ruins, and for years she wouldn't get another proper boyfriend. Now and then she had a job at a massage place, which ran out of business or she had to quit because of her not-so-good health.

Over the years I would talk to Patricia at family gatherings, ask her what she was up to. But every time I'd ask with a sense of dread--the answer would probably be not good, and my aunt was a proud person. "Oh yeah, it flopped," she would shake her head like it was nothing that her workplace had closed down and she was out of work again, and I knew perfectly well that it meant she might be evicted again. Other times I tried to tell her what I was up to, but nothing ever seemed appropriate. Should I tell her that I hated my job but my colleagues were funny people? Or that I didn't love my boyfriend even though he was a nice guy? Or that I got a cat? I'm not good at small talk at all.

***

In the last three years Patricia has finally had some stability, thanks to this boyfriend who is a chef at a Chinese restaurant. The boyfriend is married, too, though the wife and the son have moved to Canada for years. The man asked for a divorce and the wife told him to do it on his own in Hong Kong. Patricia was a proper, live-in girlfriend. The boyfriend visits and takes her to the hospital these days.

Given all this long and terrible history, you can imagine how I've been feeling since I talked to Pat. My aunt has got cancer and she doesn't have medical insurance. I don't know how much the boyfriend can help her out--a part of me is even worried that he may disappear. I can't help her out because I don't have a job at the moment. I can't go up to her with an envelop of money and say, Hello Aunt, I guess it's taxi rides to the hospital, which is the kind of excuses (like "Hello Grandma, go get yourself some food") Chinese come up with when they give money to their families. It's something I've always done with my grandparents and Carmen who used to support me. In the past I tried to give Patricia money too but she would never take it.

My memories of Patricia are a little bound up with the difficult times I lived through in those early days, and my love for her carries a taint of grief. Whenever I think of her, I think about how difficult, sad and pathetic life could be if one only made a couple bad mistakes. It was a different time; but still, it makes me very gloomy to think about it.

Tomorrow I'll Be The Iron Girl

2011-08-01T05:23:00.001+08:00

Everybody...go listen to this song Don't Stop The Dance by Bryan Ferry unless you're sick of the campy 80's (in which case I'd still think of you as perfectly sane). It's from his album Boys and Girls which features the ever flirtatious tune Slave To Love. I used to be a Bryan Ferry and Roxy Music fan.

'Don't Stop the Dance' is a song I often listen to when I'm feeling a bit upset or low. It has such a 80's feel to it: hold your melancholy; walk down the pavement and go into the bar; drink and talk to someone or no one; lose yourself in this cool, cool night. Don't lose the music. Don't stop the dance even if it means losing your senses. The game never ends--there's always a new one around the corner.

And now, take a look at these trees. Tell me if you have seen sadder looking trees anywhere in this world; I'll take note and try to make my way there one day. Trees are my allies like stones and statues are my alter-egoes. Tonight for once I have turned into mud. It's my new disappearance which you can throw to the side.

Tomorrow I'll be the Iron Girl. Bring me my armor.

Have You Ever Been This Low

2011-07-30T20:20:00.001+08:00

Well, that's the song I'm listening to. Have You Ever Been This Low by Suede. Last night, for the first time in I don't know how long, I wrote an email telling this person I'd known for 5 1/2 years why exactly we had ceased being friends. It wasn't difficult as I thought it would be, but it felt awkward and upsetting for sure. Today I feel pretty low. I picked up a literary journal from my bookshelf, tried to read some poems, felt like a dark veil was coming over my eyes and I just had to stop.

Nothing really happened. No messed up scenarios or arguments. Just a culmination of what did and did not transpire over the past years. In recent days, this said person had gone through a tragic loss in their life. I expressed my concern, kept my distance here and there as I knew them to be a private person who needed space, dropped a brief message or two, then checked in to see what was going on. No answer. All this time, the said person had marched forward to live a seemingly happier daily life: picnics, backyard parties, excursions to the countryside with fellow poet friends and a new partner who is also a writer. This said person lives in the States. I visited them early this year. And, amid all that buzz of spring and early summer, where was I? I was where I was, going through my own vaguely rocky life. And I was anywhere except in my old friend's mind. Me being me, I simply disappeared and deleted this person from my Facebook.

It's what I do when something is broken but doesn't warrant a talk (like in a break-up with a boyfriend)--I find a way to let the other person know that we're not in each other's worlds anymore. I don't contact them and shout, 'You've hurt/wronged/neglected me now tell me why!' or 'I'm upset at/I despise what you've done so I'm leaving.' If someone isn't worth shit, why would I talk to them again? If someone has indeed hurt my feelings, well, only I'm responsible for what happens in my life. I'll deal with it in my own time. Of course, it's a self-preservation tactic. I don't give people chances to change my mind once I have it made up. Something is fucked up, or someone doesn't care, then just fuck the right off. I'm not going to put myself on the line to 'have a talk' and to 'find out'. Most of the time, I just decide not to give another inch of myself to that other person when they don't fucking care.

In this case, I thought I'd disappeared and the old friend had accepted it, until they sent me an email earlier this month. Suddenly I was a real person they had thought about or even missed. Where did I end up moving to? How had this and that turned out? Did I manage to do...? How am I keeping up with...? Anything interesting happening in my life?

I put it aside for a while. Last night I finally wrote that email to say, the reason why I was writing back was that I wanted them to know I'd genuinely felt concern for and considered what had been happening to them, and I wished them better days to come. Otherwise, I would have just stayed silent. Years ago we were closer friends when we were lonely, struggling young writers; that changed as our lives changed. But in recent times, I had become a nobody to them. I don't complain when it happens with people, I just go. Today, I feel upset and just a little confused. How much energy do you spend on feeling upset over something to exorcise it, and how much energy you spend on blocking it out, to get your balance?

Departure

2011-07-30T05:56:00.000+08:00

Look here.

Photo was taken by the river. On a completely separate/different occasion around my birthday.

Sigh.

Movies & Music & Me

2011-07-25T04:37:00.005+08:00

I think most of you know that I don't follow pop music or Hollywood movies or whatever is popular in the mainstream pop culture. It's a matter of temperament. My taste in movie is quite particular. I refuse to watch: 1. chick flicks; 2. stupid movies like Jackass (a co-worker played the trailer in the office when I was still in my last job. That was enough to make me feel like I had wasted one precious minute of my life); 3. Hollywood movies with artistic pretensions, which translate into ridiculous plots, weak characterization and self-delusional dialogue and special effects (Think 'Black Swan' - a filmmaker friend played some parts of the movie for me, so that I'd see what he meant by 'There should be a limit to the number of hallucinations one can employ in a movie!') 4. Most mainstream films, really, bombastic with predictable plots and fake emotions...I don't know what else. The last 'Hollywood movie' I liked was The Assassination of Jessie James by the Coward Robert Ford, which was a fairly subtle film with solid acting and beautiful cinematography. Seeing a bad movie makes me go 'What a complete waste of time!' and I'd walk out of the cinema when a film is bad enough.

So, yes, I'm usually only into art house films, whatever that means. Independent cinema from Europe and Japan from the 60's to present. I'm partial to avant garde and surrealist cinema, esp. those flicks that were conceived as visual poetry or cinematic renditions of poetry. There're also some really nice films from the Middle East which we get to see at film festivals in Hong Kong. Hong Kong is a cool enough place for getting access to world cinema. Jewish film festival. Turkish film festival. German film festival. Fake copies of 60's Italian classics. Fake copies of out-of-print Bulgarian indie film...you name it and we've got it, now and then.

***

With music I have a higher 'tolerance' for random stuff because, well, I have a bigger heart for music and I can almost always gauge something for what it is. With most genres--even if it's dance pop or country music, both of which I usually do not like--I can appreciate that a certain infectious dance tune is a winner, or this certain singer writes sharp lyrics and pours his heart out into the acoustic guitar. I started listening to music at 3 or 4, since my parents were big music lovers and always had vinyls lying around the room. In those days I listened to a lot of Japanese music and, ahem, Culture Club (there was a Boy George poster on the wall--my mother was a fan). From there I grew up in 80's pop music, as I managed to stay up late to watch MTVs till midnight (Sting, The Cars which I particularly liked, Black, Michael Jackson...all pretty good stuff). By the time I was 10 I'd learned to sing Roy Orbison, Carpenters, Joan Baez, Roberta Flack, Bread...from this radio program I listened to on Saturday afternoon. My musical upbringing was purely accidental--nobody told me what to listen to. When I heard a song I liked, I remembered the name of the song or the singer, and looked it up in the library. With some recordings, it took me years to find out who the artists were, like this song by Paul Davis.

How I turned into a rocker in my teens was history. The brief of it was that I saw a few rock bands on Star TV when I was 12 and my world was never the same again. Then I had a drummer boyfriend and I learned to play drums at the age of 15. The guy was quite the package: distant eyes, prominent cheek bones, thick lips, quick-witted and had a wicked sense of humor. We dated briefly and stayed friends for years. After that, a bit of singing and bumbling around with a red wig. Then it was alternative music, classical, soul, blues, jazz...industrial, post-rock, electronica and weed as I hit early 20's. These days I seem to listen to a lot of electronica--like I said last time, not the kiddy type blasting in some pub, it's the grown-up/sophisticated stuff. My taste leans towards the serious side. When I say jazz, I mean John Coltrane, not Pat Metheny.

***

The one kind of music I can't listen to--I'm sure there're others, but they're not as popular around town--is...is...I hate to say, R&B. Not the R&B from 50's to 70's, that stuff is great, but the R&B they make nowadays. At an inconspicuous corner at a sidewalk cafe, when I'm about to eat that spoonful of sorbet and feel all bubbly...Here comes Rihanna! (it used to be Beyonce a few years ago) The high-pitched voice and the beats come thumping across the sidewalk. My eyes are almost blinded by the sunlight shinning on the little metallic table, the beats and the singer's voice half-screaming: 'I'm the only girl in the world!' Okay, this music gives you a false adrenaline rush--you can throw yourself into that colorful world where everything is hyped up and you're fine, the world is a fantasy fan spinning and you'll get through the day just fine because it's unreal. Now please, take this noise away from me. I only listen to music that registers.

For this reason--I think--I was surprisingly gutted when I read about Amy Winehouse's death. I've never been a fan--I don't have any of her albums--though I'd admit to the vaguely guilty pleasure of looking up her MTVs several times when I felt like listening to an 'easy-listening' soulful ballad. She was a true jazz singer, and her voice had more emotion/depth than just about any of her contemporaries. When so many of those pop divas strip down to dance like they're making love to the sand on the beach or the desert, their strained voices reaching over the fences to brace young kids, who go on Youtube to write: '...is so talented!'...when the diva wearing next to nothing launches into a pantomime of grins and dance moves against digitally created backdrops, earning millions of $$$ and fame along the way...Amy Winehouse, who was a talented musician and singer, is gone? It's a sick joke, isn't it?

Little Mysteries

2011-07-20T00:00:00.001+08:00

Today I noticed someone had written my name, Nicolette Wong, on the white label on my mailbox downstairs. The handwriting is just a little girlish, but not decisively so. You can take a look at how the mailboxes look here. None of them is mine, though.

It's been two months since I moved in and I couldn't bother to put my name there--I didn't want everybody to see it--or change the mailing address for some of my mails. The postman couldn't have done this prank since none of the mails I've got so far has 'Nicolette' on it. My landlord doesn't know I'm Nicolette either. A handful of my friends have been to my place, but those guys, with one exception, wouldn't remember the address. The one who would remember, well, I doubt they would have taken the time and interest to pull this little trick on me.

I don't think I'd find out who did it. Hopefully it doesn't matter. Years ago when I lived in public housing, someone who called themselves 'Mike' left me notes asking me to call them. Creepy notes written in slightly ungrammatical English, obviously by a very young girl. Yes, that's my story 'The Voyeur', which some of you have read.

***

I have a flash story, 'The Warrior', up at Apocrypha and Abstractions. This one must make me look a bit like a gothic underground lover, and I wrote it in a rather peculiar state of mind. For a year or so I had this image of this dead man lying in a dark space, and he would come back to life if someone managed to breathe life into him by sucking out the blood that had clogged his throat, or something.

The night I sat down to write it, I was listening to some electronica on Youtube--not the kiddy type you'd hear blasting in some car or club down the street, but the alternative type. Still, the playlist wasn't great and soon it was getting on my nerves. To shield myself from that discomfort, I focused extra hard on imagining the story, down to the glow of that straw. Now I can't re-read this story without finding it a little 'painful', even though I don't think others would feel the same.

New York City - Statue

2011-07-15T12:54:00.000+08:00

Reposted from Le Bleu du Ciel for Language > Place blog carnival edition #8

inspired by Janelle Stone's 'Reflecting'

she wades cactus-shaped reflections in the mirrored glass.
the pedestrians are living souls in her fargo & she is
a statue haunting a foreign city. the road signs say
'Go' to where the snowflakes fall like paw prints,
away from light, from the station clock ticking
to traffic. she would never shed the granite
to taste her flesh which nobody sees.

Some Things You May Or May Not Want To Know

2011-07-12T09:57:00.003+08:00

1. I have a serious dread of writing about anything that happens in my real life on this blog. Sometimes I write long entries about my friends, my thoughts and feelings surrounding an idea, an event that's a bit of an ordeal in my everyday life, which should be revealing, no? No, anyone can tell how those entries are very 'composed'. Which isn't to say what I write here isn't true stories or I lie about what I feel about stuff. Just that most of these anecdotes are so deliberately vague that you get a persona, rather than any sense of this Nicolette Wong as a real person at all.

2. I didn't and still don't mean to do that, not really. Okay, I did start this blog as some kind of 'professional persona' to share my writing and to connect with other writers. The writing on this blog was always going to be a bit of a 'performance', and I have a knack for writing quite honestly about personal stuff and shielding myself at the same time. But there were definitely times in the past when I was much more direct or open. Like two years ago when I left the Commie Castle (the newspaper), or last year when I was lovesick, or even last summer when I heard about the suicide of a writer/art critic friend which sent me running out of the office and crying down the street in broad daylight.

3. I don't mind people knowing who I am at all, if they do. It's just something I don't think much about--sometimes I'm oblivious to why or how people may pay attention to what I'm doing, like a story or a status update or a photo I post, whatever it is. In my mind, people are busy doing their own thing, paying attention to those who're closer or more familiar to them, and I'm a bit off their radar, or I simply don't imagine anyone looking at or reading up on me. Some people do and I know that they do, and I appreciate it. Otherwise, I am surprised when someone--esp. those I admire for their talent--drop by and say, 'Hi, so you've been doing this and that and I think it's good/bad!'

4. It's for practical reasons that I've developed that terrible dread of actually telling you about what I'm doing, or painting any pictures that will give you a clearer sense of who this Nicolette Wong is, at this moment in time. In the past years, for some rather unfortunate reasons, I have 'collected' a few troubled characters in my social life who will not let go of the past. People who go on to, in their mind, wrestle with those who betrayed or left them out of disloyalty. Or simply alcoholics who cling onto past friends and lovers out of self-pity. They still read and contact me and in one case, make feeble attempts to attack me. I never respond to them, but it makes me a bit hesitant about saying too much on this blog.

5. I'm as strong-willed as anyone can be--I don't ever doubt who I am, my worth as a person, my talent as a writer, my value as a friend or a lover because of conventional standards, others' expectations, lack of understanding or pure malice. There're occasional moments of agony, and when I get pressured enough, I walk off in tears. Some people who don't get it think I'm being a crybaby. The truth is I fucking can't stand it when a person or a situation demands that I bend, just to appease or pacify somebody. People who get furious and judgmental when someone isn't living up to their standards of behavior, their assumptions and hopes about the state of things. Such self-absorption or possessiveness--to think that one can lay claims on others, on life--I will never understand.

6. I'm as strong-willed as I am because I grew up very much alone. I started practically living on my own at 13, in a not-very-nice flat in public housing. My mother was out of my life by then and my father was--eh, this is the only accurate way of putting it--a loser. Think debts; nightly (esp. midnight) harassment from strangers; no money for food after the weekend; no certainty of where I was going to live the next day; packing a backpack to run away from threats. Someone always helped out, but I lived through all of that quite by myself, in that not-so-nice studio flat or in a relative's home, for several years. I read some textbooks through high school, studied some fiction and poetry in the university. It wasn't too bad.

7. Since April my life has been bogged down by practical issues: job, money, flat, job, money. I've been laying low at home a lot, though I do hang out with friends I want to see and/or those who really want to see me. Some people around me get married, get promoted at work, go dancing, take holidays. I read, listen to music, take photos, dream and write, amid the struggle of trying to sort out my practical affairs. Things are moving slowly at the mundane level, and it looks like it'll stay that way for a while. But it'll work out sooner or later, and sooner isn't necessarily better, so I hope it happens at the okay time.

8. I have my moments of anxiety, but for the most part, I feel like I'm floating on the top of all these issues. It even looks like I'm floating to a happier place than I've ever been. I write everyday, my focus is to work on myself as a writer, while I try to make money here and there to sustain my everyday life. It doesn't bother me that others are living more comfortable lives, doing more fun things, or 'getting ahead in life', so to speak. From a very young age I've been doing what I'm doing, because it's what I do. It means writing, and it has nothing to do with anyone or anything else at all.

Tennis Headache. Blog Carnivals & Craving

2011-07-04T01:18:00.003+08:00

Seriously, it gives me a bad headache to see Rafael Nadal lose his Wimbledon final. Alright, I half expected it--Djokovic has ascended to the top and he reigns over everybody else, even a hardcore Rafa fan like me has to agree with that. It just happens that I've always rather disliked him, the way some tennis fans can't stand Nadal. It's a personal thing. It'd give me less grief if it was Federer or del Potro or even Murray who beat Rafa to win a Grand Slam. That would make me go: "Hey! That guy got his chance." I mean, if Fed Ex comes soaring above the tennis court again, or Delpo recovers to strike like he did at 2009 US Open, or Murray wins his first major, wouldn't you think it's a nice surprise?

Now that Djoker is winning almost everything--I know, it's kind of a disrespectful thing to say--I'll stop watching tennis for a while. Until Rafa makes a miracle comeback or Delpo the giant takes over the US Open, well, one can always hope.

***

Edition #7 of Language > Place blog carnival, hosted by Julia Davies, is up at her blog practice makes perfect. Wonderful layout and line-up of writers. Thanks Julia for all the thought and effort! My post 'Retreat' is included in this edition. You'll find out what the retreat was about if you check out the blog carnival page.

My last post, 'To The Trees', is a part of the fifth anniversary edition of The Festival of the Trees hosted by Dave Bonta. The short short--or prose poem, I think--was born out of a 5.30am walk I took in the park in my last neighborhood. I sat down to write about it on another gloomy Saturday night, and I didn't have a story. A Facebook friend--who's gotta be one of the biggest music lovers in my town--posted this version of the NIN song, 'Hurt'.

What happens when all that's left of a story is an empire of dirt? What do you do with it? That was how I dreamed up 'To The Trees'.

My flash story 'Focus' is published in MiCrow. Check out the e-book. I was a little uncertain about this piece when I'd just written it, but now I think it's pretty good.

The July edition of Negative Suck is out here!

***

I don't have a lot of personal news to share except what you guys have already read about on my Facebook. Caught up in feeling sick over a wisdom tooth (now gone), a project grant proposal, and being disoriented as always.

I guess the truth is I've been withering a bit because of all the anti-biotics, disrupted sleep and working in front of the computer screen. I need to go to the countryside, or the beach, and I'm dying to eat some sashimi. Hmm...

To The Trees

2011-06-29T17:17:00.001+08:00

Cold front is you on the morning I cut through mist. Around the park where old men wave their wooden swords in unison, blunt-edged glory boiling in their veins. I tread a path of oval stones to haunt the trees, reading their names & spirits to make them my allies.

I must reach my stop before the sun scorches my eyes.

Since you passed out from too much alcohol in my bed, I have turned it into an ummarked grave. I shoveled dirt over your blonde hair fused with grey, your blue eyes burnt by past phantoms while you ran up the tower you built around yourself, panting, holding onto me for lights from a distance. Every step of yours made me cringe; it made me run to that snowy landscape where a fox smiled & flitted past, a reminder of your false love.

Now I must run to the last tree I could find & wrap my arms around it. Only its embrace could save me.

Retreat

2011-06-19T03:21:00.002+08:00

Written for Language > Place blog carnival Edition #7

I tread dried leaves to reach the peak. For days I will live with a borrowed halo by the sea.

Nobody notices the abandoned gods & their offspring. Their owner must have passed & dispersed into nada. The spirits still laugh. They will not tell me the story about their rusted home, remains of a wild history. I am a drifter, passing by.

The green sprouts at every slipping moment. I inhale the flowers & the sun. If only the world would wall me in, in that radiance of time, I would be happy until a dark veil falls & stifles me forever.

I'm always haunting trees. Pacing, chanting & leaning on them when they have averted their eyes. I have yet to learn to hear them. The texture and coalescence should give me plenty of hints. But my gift is raw & I pace in muted songs.

I'm in love with a man, who appears in ink wash from a distance. On so many nights I pine for him, but it only pushes me back into life whenever he returns. He does not know of my feelings. To him I'm a runaway soul who takes him for a fool.

We should go to the seaside. Maybe he would know & I would know.

Related post: 'Wall' at Le Bleu du Ciel.

My Desk

2011-06-11T17:38:00.000+08:00

Click to see original.

The Days (II)

2011-06-10T22:32:00.000+08:00

Even I write random entries sometimes. Want to see a picture of the interior of the building I live in? This picture didn't get any touch-up. Just fading light at 7pm on a summer day and the camera's aperture priority.

Here's to you, who I knew for a moment and will never know again. You don't know it yet, but by the time you realize what happened--and you won't, because people always see things differently at such junctures--I'll have nothing more to say.

And here's to you, who I can't love even if I tried. I went over the possibility of being with you quite a few times. It caused me grief. How can it be so fucked up, so doomed to fail, when you're such a good person with a lot to give?

Everybody knows I'm unfit for living a real life. Someone gave me this ring 5 1/2 years ago. I've kept it in my nightstand drawer as a reminder of my past folly. At least I haven't made the same mistake again. I don't think I ever will.

I'm not a heartless girl--in fact, I've learned to be pretty honest about not dragging someone through the mud when I can't take care of their heart. I sit and wait. Here's the purple drapes hanging from my four-poster bed.

In the past week I've drifted in and out of sleep. During the day I'm often dozing off, as if I was drowning in a muddy pond. It's pretty rare that I'd feel so lethargic. I should go for a swim--when I'm fit I can easily swim 2km in one go.

For now I can only go to sleep. Goodnight, people.

Silence (II)

2011-06-07T16:32:00.000+08:00

I've been writing and posting pictures at my blog for 100 Days 2011. It's a tough task having to come up with something everyday and so far I've been on time with my posts. Even shooting and touching up that one picture, among several failed ones, can take a fair bit of time and thought and I'm no photographer. The upside is that I let myself go--I'd write all kinds of random, bizarre and mean stuff that drifts past my mind and it gets more violent by the day. Give me a couple more months and a bunch of surrealist poems or flash stories to read, and I'll tear all my characters apart with an axe or bare hands. Or they just collapse on their own, as they do now.

In real life I have a knack for making people fall apart, develop compulsive-obsessive tendency, feel hurt or cut, go nuts or at least feel terribly agitated or disappointed or I don't know what-to-call-that-unreal-emotion in what are mostly minor or fleeting situations. It's my fault, or it's a very bad habit. I'm a very instinctive and self-aware person. The moment something happens--or even before it happens--I know precisely how I feel and think about it, how much I can take, what I cannot stand. And I put it aside for a while--'I should be understanding and tolerant'--fully knowing how much I dislike it. Normally I'll bring it up once or twice, and there would never be an honest answer. Then I stay quiet and act normal if everything was normal, until I drop the pretense and disappear.

No build-up. No warning. Nothing at all. People explode. They come up with various reasons why I have freaked out, that I must have been a psychopath who's full of bitterness at the world (i.e. what they've done, because at such moments the world revolves around them, in their mind), or a bitch who likes to do nasty things to others. For me, wearing those labels still beats having to say another word to someone I want out of my sphere. It would be so dishonest, so cheap to explain anything to that person whose feeling I don't care about. Today I decided I no longer want to stay connected with someone I've known for a long time, because they didn't give me an honest answer a while ago. When the dust settles, nothing matters. Nothing about this life would have changed.

No Hope

2011-06-02T03:58:00.000+08:00

My flash story--or I suspect it's really a prose poem?--'The Statue', is out in Ramshackle Review issue 4. Very happy to be published in RR & in such wonderful company of Bill Yarrow, Sheldon Lee Compton, fellow Hong Kong writer Tammy Ho Lai-ming, Jack Swenson and others. Two of my early 52/250 stories, 'Abandon' and 'Drama Boat', are reprinted in Fox Chase Review.

The Statue is my personal favorite out of everything I've written this year. The morning I wrote it, I had been up all night as always. I was reading literary zines online and I had this crazy urge to write and submit something to RR, which I had wanted to for a long while. So I wrote it in an hour and hit 'Send'. I loved this piece it because it was very me at that moment in time. If anyone asked me to rip myself open to show how I felt about the world, The Statue would be what they would see. These days I don't feel the same anymore, but the intensity of emotion and perception still rings in my mind. I'm waiting for another spell like that.

A while ago Court Merrigan said, in his conversation with Brad Green, that writers are paid in hope. For the most part I'm not sure if it's hope that I look for or hold onto--as a writer I'm probably of the not-so-ambitious type. Being a literary writer in English in HK--where the majority of population speaks Cantonese--is something I can't describe or define, because literature in English isn't a part of this culture. It has its ill-defined traditions or history, but it has no place in this town. From day one I wrote against the prospect of getting anything out of my writing. I had no hope.

Even now I have no hope. I don't think 'I must enter this contest' or 'I must get a book out' or anything along that line. I'm also the kind of writer who could retreat to the background, when a bunch of others are going off with critique or flaunting their own stuff, drinking beer and cracking peanuts and all that. Just thinking about it makes me want to crawl into bed and go to sleep. Anyway, what I meant to say is that rather than hope, I think I'm paid in that adrenaline rush of writing and seeing my stuff in print, every now and then.

On a different note, edition #6 of Language > Place blog carnival is now online! It's hosted by the ever might Michelle Elvy at her blog Warm Glow and it features a stunning line-up of 30 writers. Also, the June edition of Negative Suck is out, and this month's featured author is Erin Zulkoski. Enjoy!

Books

2011-05-26T00:13:00.001+08:00

With my recent move I've donated and given away a few bags of books. Most of my collection sits in my old family home, now inhabited by my father and his girlfriend. I haven't gone back in 5 years and I don't know if he has thrown them out, or what condition those books are in if they're still there. The books I left behind are mostly classics (Austen, Dickens, Lawrence, Joyce, Woolf...), and some modern day and contemporary ones as well. There're several of them that I wish I had taken with me, like Rosemary Edmonds' translation of Anna Karenina (I'm not a fan of Tolstoy, but I do think it's one of the greatest novels ever written and it changed my life when I read it at 22), Madame Bovary (I picked it up at 15 and the world was never the same again), Their Eyes Were Watching God (we all have the right to hope, don't we?) and a few others.

The one book that I regret losing--it irks me to this day--is The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. I read and loved it like crazy in my university days. A couple years later I left it in Melbourne, where I once thought would be my home, and the man wouldn't mail it back to me. ('Please? It has sentimental value for me'). The cover was that photo of Joyce as a young man, wearing a cap and a vaguely smirky smile, you guys must know which one. Once you owned and loved and spent your days with a book like that, you wouldn't want to get another copy. No!

Last night I sorted out my bookshelf in the new place. If I have to choose, say, 10 books out of this lot that I'd bring with me wherever I go, they would be:

Selected Prose and Poetry of Paul Celan

Birthday Letters by Ted Hughes

Cuttlefish Bones by Eugenio Montale

The Captain's Verses by Pablo Neruda

The Best of Marina Tsvetaeva

Disgrace by J M Coetzee

Cathedral by Raymond Carver

Franz Kafka: The Complete Stories

First Love and other novellas by Samuel Beckett

...the last one is a tough choice but I'll choose Unseen Rain: Quatrains of Rumi over Love in the Time of Cholera by Marquez, Honored Guests by Joy Williams or my books of Seamus Heaney's poetry, because I bought the Rumi book in Istanbul, which makes it a special one for me.

What about you?

100 Days of Stories

2011-05-24T13:12:00.001+08:00

Along with Marcus Speh and Susan Gibb, I've joined 100 Days 2011 - 100 blog posts of vignettes, micro-fictions and whatever I can come up with till late August! Since 52/250 A Year of Flash I've been keen on taking part in online writers' communities--sometimes there's no better Muse that the looming deadline. As a collective, the participants of 100 Days 2011 are supposed to draw on one another's works for their own creations. So I'll be looking forward to checking out others' blogs and responding to them too.

The blog I created for the collective is Le Bleu du Ciel, after Bataille's novella which I've recently read. It's a pretty name for a book full of vomit and other horrors most of you probably wouldn't want to read about. I'm a fan of Bataille and transgressive fiction, but the narrative in Blue of the Noon just isn't great - it turns into a tirade of sort half way through and all the hooks are gone. Still, I chose this title for the blog since it resonated with the mental picture I had of the world my first character found himself in.

In other news, after a lot of mental juggling and running back and forth, I've more or less sorted out my new apartment. In a few days it should feel like home.

If You Think You're Lonely Now (II)

2011-05-19T08:04:00.000+08:00

Clyde hit town when I was staring at the sea on a windy afternoon. I had told him that I would be away from home for a few nights, but he should be able to reach me when he was back. 'Call me,' he sent a text message. In the evening he turned up in my neighborhood, a tall Eurasian man in a New Order T-shirt standing outside 7 11' with a bottle of diet coke. We had a long hug, got a quick bite and went back to my place so I could finish packing.

Clyde took a look at the junk lying around my flat, said Hi to my cat Taro which had gone into hiding in the bathroom, and sat down to play a Bach sonata on the piano. In his home in Singapore he has a digital piano which sounds pretty much like the real thing, but in his mind it isn't the same thing. Whenever he is back in his family home in HK or visits a friend who has a real piano, he sits down and plays.

'Have you called the piano mover?'

'I'll do that tomorrow.'

'Do you even know those guys?'

'Not really.'

'Leave it to me. By the way, mum says Hi.'

The next day Clyde and I hopped onto the truck with the movers. The building I now live in is in the middle of a clubbing area, though my flat is quiet and there is a tree outside one of my windows. When the movers had unloaded the twenty cardboard boxes and assembled my bed, Clyde and I went up to the rooftop to get some air. It started to rain. I told Clyde that he should go home and I had to go shopping for stuff to clean up the flat. Clyde insisted on coming along. When all was said and done, the two of us walked up the slope in the rain--Clyde lugging a mop and a bag of grocery, me trailing behind him with two plastic bags of towels and cleansers and random household items, past bankers and models drinking beer at the sidewalk bars.

***

My friend is someone who doesn't hold onto the idea of home. Clyde has relocated several times in the past years, and he has always worked hectic jobs with long hours and frequent business trips. With every move he threw away most of what he had--books, DVDs, clothes, women--checked in a large suitcase and his classical guitar at the airport. For the last few years he has lived in Singapore, a city he dislikes. But it almost doesn't matter when he works at 60 to 70 hours a week, and is away half of the time. To make time for this trip back to HK, he had to put in extra time the past two weeks to get things done.

The day after my move, Clyde and I were back at my old place, clearing out junk and old furniture I no longer wanted, scrubbing stains on the walls and the kitchen sink. For a moment Clyde couldn't take the plastic gloves off his hands and I had to pull them off.

'I'd have done just fine on my own, you know.'

'I had to come back to see my folks anyway. It's been a year.'

'When was the last time you had to do housework?'

'Back in uni when I lived in that studio flat.'

'Oh yeah. Hmm.'

'What does that mean?'

'I've just...never imagined seeing you do housework.'

'It's not very glamorous.'

Clyde didn't come back because I needed help. He came back because he knows I never ask people for anything--not their time, not their attention or love, and certainly not their help in sorting out a practical situation. And I don't accept help from someone unless I consider them a true friend, or a lover I wish to keep for a long while. The last thing I want is to intrude into someone else's space, or to end up with a sense of obligation towards a person I don't truly care for.

***

Over the past 15 years, Clyde and I had played music, got drunk or stoned in a bar or someone's home, hit the beach in sunny weather, talked in the guest room in his family home till the morning broke. For those of you who haven't read my previous entries about him, Clyde grew up playing classical music--his third instrument is double bass. We met through a pianist friend when we got together to do some Tom Waits' songs, so the guy could propose to his girlfriend with me singing 'Jersey Girl'--which didn't work out. When our musical aspirations died an amicable death after a year, we threw a rocker's party--Clyde and I were dancing on the couch, and I fled to escape getting whipped by Clyde flinging his belt.

As much as I love my friend, Clyde has his quirks and they are difficult to deal with for those who don't understand. Strong-willed and incisive, Clyde has little tolerance for people who aren't game or honest. Tell him why you can't do something--certain evasions or refusal he can take, but if you feed him a half-assed answer that spells weakness of character, you're out of his world pretty quick. Try arguing with him and you'd get a blank look that says 'Points taken. I'm leaving.' Go the route of 'But this is what I've been going through' and you'd see the tagline 'Don't fucking waste my time' on his face. It has nothing to do with life being insane--you have something real to offer, or you don't.

Which isn't to say Clyde doesn't go through the interior Q&A about what he can give to others. He just keeps it to himself because it wouldn't change the outcome. The night he came back in town, I got messages from two ex-boyfriends, both alcoholics in denial who I'd rather not talk to again. Years have passed and they email, call, text, follow my Facebook and Twitter and possibly this blog, holding onto traces of me in their alcohol-induced self-pity. These guys never loved me. They just can't seem to get over the abuse and eruption they brought into the relationships, the way I exposed their flawed characters and cut them off for good.

Clyde read the messages. 'That guy who married the rich girl...he's classic.'

'He wanted to be an artist but he was never gonna be that...Still, not reconciled to life. It's been six years and I wish he'd leave me alone.'

'He won't. Because what irks people the most is not having the chance to justify themselves around you, to prove their point: 'But you were wrong about me.'"

***

Yesterday Clyde had a late afternoon flight back to Singapore. Before he left, we checked the piano after the movers had done their job. All was fine and Clyde made me promise to practice playing scales so I can play for him next time he comes back. Which is very typical of Clyde--he puts himself out there for you and you'd better show him that you love him.

'But I can hardly play now,' I said.

'It doesn't matter. As long as you practice. Do you still talk to Brent?'

'I can get hold of him...but we haven't talked in a few years.'

'Take some piano lessons.'

'Huh.'

I was off to see an artist girl pal in the area, so I hugged Clyde goodbye at the train station. Speaking of Brent, our pianist friend, there's a funny story involving the three of us from years ago. But this entry has gotten too long, so I'll save that for the next one, or another time.

Pure Slush. New Home.

2011-05-18T00:59:00.000+08:00

One of my 52/250 stories (the week's theme was 'blind spot') is now up at Pure Slush here and I'm grateful for the comments from my fellow writers! I'd always wanted to submit something to this zine but most of my flash stories didn't fit until I wrote this one. So, very happy to be a part of Pure Slush! Also check out my answers to the Hue Questionnaire, which can be quite a revealing list of questions for anyone who's up for giving some honest answers. Editor Matt Potter always has such good ideas, coz he puts a lot of heart into what he does.

The past two days were spent on moving, cleaning and moving, mostly with Clyde around. Tonight I took my cat Taro to our new home. It's rather tired me out and there's still a lot to sort out this week, so I'll talk to you guys later on.

Bedposts. Dismantled.

2011-05-16T12:55:00.000+08:00

My last story for 52/250 A Year of Flash is up here. It's been quite an adventure with Michelle, John and Walter who created this wonderful community for us flashers and poets. Here's to their labor of love!

This week's theme is threesome and my story is a direct yet somewhat twisted take on the idea. For a while I didn't have a story at all, though I really wanted to be a part of the 52/250 finale. One morning as I set my mind on writing the story and found myself staring at this rash on my forearm, caused by an anti-mosquito wristband I wore. The rash had spread; there were tiny scraps of swollen skin and scratches, not noticeable to others but rather annoying for me. There, I had the drama. Writing this story made me feel like a fiction writer all over again.

Last week I went away and came back, having left a lot of things behind and made some new discoveries. My rash has healed and I've even found a remedy for the mosquito problem, which plagued me so badly in the past couple months. Right now my good friend Clyde is sitting on my four-poster bed--which will soon be dismantled--while I'm writing this entry. Then we'll get lunch, wait for the movers to come and head off to my new place. True to his word, Clyde came into HK last night to be here for my move. I'd be damned if I ever let this man down.

I Keep Falling Out of My Chair

2011-05-09T04:46:00.000+08:00

How many of you watch tennis? I don't have a TV at home and I watch it online. It takes a bit of time and trouble to find a functional live stream channel whenever a match is on, which is one reason why I skip a lot of the ATP World Tours even though I'd like to watch more often. The other reason is, huh, it gives me heart attacks. Most of these matches are on past midnight HK time, or even 5am if it's the US Open. Who wants to sit in front of the computer screen alone, at such hours, to wave their fists at some world-class athletes spinning magical shots across the court, displaying superhuman mental strength to take each other down? The match that could go on forever takes that sudden turn you've been waiting for, and the crowd goes nuts at those fatal last shots that leave one of these guys walking off the court, disgruntled, even destroyed. What do you do with yourself when the match is over?

Sometimes I feel I'd fall out of my chair just watching a match. Other times I feel a terrible sense of dread and I'm almost tempted to closer the browser, stop watching right then and there. Most of the time I don't work regular hours and I have the luxury of staying up late to watch sports. Just the same, it sucks up my energy whenever I do it, esp. when my favorite player is losing and I feel a little crushed.

So, Rafael Nadal, please adjust your game now. You've got a new nemesis and he's getting too good. The clay court in Madrid was somewhat favorable to Djokovic and you hadn't had much time to prepare for this tournament, but he played better than you today as he does these days. Whatever it is, you've gotta change and step up on your game and beat him. You're still at the top and in world's sports, you're one of those guys who can bounce back against all odds. You can do it. Because if you don't, I'm going to be raging mad and losing a bit of sleep next time you lose to Djokovic!

Now, people, don't get me wrong--I'm not a Nadal fan because of his muscle or anything like that. I have a soft spot for him because he's the first tennis player I sat down to watch years ago and that experience got me into this sport. Growing up I was a soccer fan, but it got boring and a tad too dirty. Now I like tennis because there's always a lot going on, so incredibly competitive and classy, and it shows me what perseverance means. Shot by shot, game by game, these guys give the best of themselves until they win or get broken down. One day I'd love to learn to play tennis, just to get a taste of hitting that ball across the court.

The Lost Island

2011-05-06T01:06:00.000+08:00

A true story about my grandmother set in a remote island in Hong Kong. Originally appeared at 52/250 A Year of Flash.

***

My grandmother's childhood was floating away on a boat. The moment she looked back at her brother on the shore, a bony figure waving goodbye in frantic pantomimes of love, she knew her fate was sealed. There would be no going back.

The strange woman by her side had chosen her because she was fair, the fairest child on the island. In the years to come she would grow into a solitary teenager, who haunted the wood and cried by the sea until the well within her ran dry. Tall, erect and sparkly, she would break into Baptist churches in the colonized land to steal water, and to tread between trampled bodies before the day's killings began.

On this day she remained a small girl rocking to waves in fright, and her tears made a magnifying glass through which she saw cruelty on the woman's face. The middle-aged woman had travelled through mud and rain, in search of sweetness to bring into her household. A looming presence at the dinner table, waiting to receive the love that would forever elude her grip. The wind was in her eyes as she turned to look at the child.

'My husband doesn't like children crying,' she said. 'Dry your tears before we land.'

My grandmother never did what she was told. After all, she was headed for war times.

Write About It

2011-05-03T06:58:00.000+08:00

'Write about it,' is what my online writer friend, American novelist Donigan Merritt always says. As most of you know, I don't vent on this blog a lot--I save it for literary news, bits and pieces about my life, stories I share with friends and ex. or soon-to-be ex. lovers (I never write about current ones for privacy reason). For once I'll tear a page from Rose Hunter's book--our neurotic sweetheart who used to write some very amusing rants in her old blog--and say this much:

Fuck off, you pussy. You & you & you who're full of bullshit and have no balls to do anything real. Stop sending all this interference into my sphere. Stop milking us for 'inspiration' and whatever else you want from us. Go somewhere else to find your muse because--like I said in an entry last year--if there's any truth in your artistic persona, I'll fucking eat my hat.

Thank you.

Negative Suck Word Prompt Issue, Language > Place Blog Carnival #6 & Misc

2011-05-03T04:57:00.000+08:00

The May special word prompt issue of Negative Suck is up! Featuring Julia Davies, Robert Vaughan, Len Kuntz and others. Our editor and my dear pal Jeff, who likes his morbid thoughts and secret outbursts, has--maybe not so curiously--gone quiet in recent days. I'll wait and see when he resurfaces.

That said, Dark Chaos wants your submissions!

Edition #6 of Language > Place blog carnival, to be hosted by Michelle Elvy at Warm Glow, is open to submissions till May 15. The theme for this edition is 'language and place on the edge'.

As for me, I'm going through this manuscript of short shorts that I've written in the past months. A handful of them are balanced/crafted as they are, or finished in the sense that I don't see them going anywhere else. The rest I'll tear apart and rework into poems, just to see what these pieces are made of and what I can do. Which means I'll still be writing and hopefully publishing flash pieces, but you probably won't see me and my writing around as much.

The Power of Goodbye (III)

2011-04-30T06:29:00.000+08:00

Brian called from Shanghai and asked if I had time.

'For you I always have time,' I said.

A few days later Brian hopped on an overnight train and came into town with a backpack. By the time we met in the evening, I had been up for 30 hours from work, procrastination, my mental clock ticking too fast or too slow through my thoughts. I had my glasses with grey lens on and wet hair. My hair is almost down to my waist now that I have not had it cut in a year, from around the time Brian and I first met at a sidewalk cafe. Blue lights and an old trumpet on the table.

Brian flung his arms around me at a bus stop in my neighborhood. 'How's it going?'

I shook my head.

We walked along the streets that suddenly seemed empty.

***

Last year Brian was in HK for a while for work--he is an artist and designer from Australia. We spent our days listening to music in his home, where he showed me his sketches and paintings and rare, pirated DVDS he collected in HK and China. Brian has this nervous habit of spreading his artworks all over the table so he can move them, half an inch at a time, to their rightful places and relations with one another as if they were a deck of fortune telling cards. The predictions are always of fright, of abrupt endings--Brian is colorblind and uses conflicting, overtly bright colors.

I gave him a blank stare sometimes when he turned to me, seeking an answer, his sketches and paintings hovering in the air like ghosts.

'You're so honest,' he said. 'Most people try to hide it when they don't like my work.'

I could not help it--when Brian sees a door opening in music, in hope, in love, I see death.

***

On some days we went to the beach to hide our tears. We were both heartsick over someone we could not be with, which made us best friends in misery. When I bobbed up and down to watch people, Brian was breaking splits in the rip curls and his face shimmered in the faces of breakers. His long feet slapped the water and he turned like the tail of a large dolphin, a big shape moving deep beneath me. I turned to backstroke my way to the shore, my eyes burning in tears and salt and sun.

We had ice-cream cones like children did.

At night we went to jazz gigs, sat around the back alley outside the bar, chatted with gay men. Or we sat outside the sidewalk cafe where we first met and talked like broken records.

It'll pass, we would say to each other. One day it won't matter anymore. But it did and it still does, every time.

***

This year Brian had to settle some banking business in HK once his schedule opened up. He had sent me an anti-evil eye bracelet which he ordered from Greece--there was a jealous, back-stabbing bitch in my workplace and Brian has an imagination--for my birthday before that phone call. He knew I was having a bit of a rough time, so he figured he would come by to see me. We ended up at the balcony of a British bar/restaurant.

I leaned back in the chair and covered half of my face with my hair.

'Don't be so hard on yourself. You don't know what people think and feel after a while.'

'That's you and me, Brian. We leave things behind. Most people hold grudges.'

'That's true...but that's because we fuck off a lot.'

'Do we have a choice if someone doesn't like us enough to begin with?'

'I guess we don't.'

***

On his last night in town I saw Brian to the train station. For a moment I hesitated to hug him goodbye. Brian knows this one thing about me: whenever I have gone through an emotional time with someone I like, be it a friend or a lover, I look at them in my mind as if I would never see them again. I would kiss or hold them for a moment too long because I am fighting the urge to cry. Then I flip the switch, let go and send them off while I am still in that zone where losing them forever is a reality I could deal with. With people who know me well, I look at them and wait. With Brian it was a bit of a problem: he is just like me when it comes to saying goodbye.

'I wrote a flash story for you after you called.'

'I'll read it when I'm back in Shanghai...Let's hope we can catch up again this year.'

We hugged and we were children all over again.

The Agonies of Stories & My Magical Flower

2011-04-23T20:28:00.001+08:00

I have two flash pieces: 'Inscription' up at Referential Magazine and 'To the Trees' at 52/250 A Year of Flash. Both stories were written when I was wasting away over things that I should not be. 'Inscription', in particular, was a bit of a desperate attempt to distract myself by creating a world that was anything but what I was feeling. 'To the Trees' was somewhat more related to my real life--I did take that walk amid old men practicing tai chi with wooden swords in the park, at the break of dawn.

Last summer I picked up The Story of the Eye by Georges Bataille when I was looking for something to take me out of my shell. I read the novella once--a pdf copy sent to me by a friend--in my university days and remembered it as a fascinating work of erotic literature. It was not until I re-read it, with the physical book in my hands, that I realized what I had been missing. It was the postscript where Bataille reveals how parts of the story and the characters were based on some rather horrifying moments in his youth. It was a fantastic rendition of grief, of things he could have been capable of doing but did not do.

That moment changed everything for me. Up until last year, I had been struggling to write the kind of realistic short fiction that I was once good at in my early days as a writer. Year after year I had failures written all over the computer screen and I could not see that realm my sensibility had drifted to. Bataille set me free. Since then most of my stories have been about what I or someone else could have done in a different space, and many of them lean towards the fantastic. Now I am calm and focused, even happy.

***

My 'escapist' tendency creeps into my everyday life a lot. Today a tango friend came over with this rare flower I'd been looking for--Borage--plus a couple other goodies she wanted me to have. A dancer, painter, photographer, pianist, weekend farmer and I don't know what else, my friend got these precious flowers from a fellow farmer. Sadly for me, it is not easy to grow borage in a HK home or at this time of the year. For some reasons that I will not explain here, I would be very happy if I can get hold of borage year-round!

Both my friend and I have to move soon. Being an artist with eclectic interests, she has collected too much of everything--paper, art supplies, toys, small gifts that were meant to give away to curious friends--over the years. This, coupled with her need for space, make her apartment hunt a difficult ordeal in this town.

In my home there are only the essentials: books and a couple boxes of stuff on a bookshelf, clothes in a wardrobe, a nightstand by my four-poster bed, a desk and a piano. Even then there are things I need to throw out--like clothes, books, other odd items--that I have not looked at in too long. Things that I see some value in but do not want. The process of sorting out what stays and what goes to the recycle bin is pretty tedious. And I hate to admit things like: 'I once loved this author and now I dread reading her' or 'So-and-so who gave me this just means nothing to me. I want it gone!'

***

Whenever I get stuck in weighing the pros and cons, or simply the contradictions of something, I throw it away. If only you can honestly say, 'No, I really don't want it', things fall into places and you see you have not lost a goddamn thing. But we all like to cling onto things until we drown in misery, or drag random shit down the staircases of a walk-up building we have to leave. Panting, bumbling, wondering why you did not take throw it into the garbage when you still could. Now it is too late.

My own apartment hunt will be a tough one. But I have decided that if I have to move into a smaller place and reorganize my life, everything except my piano can go. A stranger can take my bookshelf for a nominal amount of money. A mover can come in to dismantle my bed and desk, throw the bits and pieces onto the streets. The wardrobe can stay here since it was not mine to begin with. Only the piano would come with me.

If You Think You're Lonely Now

2011-04-18T19:00:00.001+08:00

Last night my old friend Clyde--who currently lives in Singapore--called to ask if I needed anything. He saw on my Facebook that I just went officially jobless, and the evil estate agent who's taking over all the old property in Hong Kong has bought the flat I'm living in, which means I have to move out. At 2am I was still awake, but already half-gone to some gloomy dreamscape.

'No, at the moment I don't need anything.'

'Seriously, tell me.'

'No...no, Clyde...what I really want to say is that you're my guy.'

'I'll come back in May when you move.'

'You suck at moving things.'

'I can drive and play music.'

'That's true...and that's more than what I'd ask for.'

'Huh. Get rid of those fuckheads.'

'I'm just trying not to be so black and white about things.'

'When did you start saying this sort of bullshit?'

Having known me for 15 years Clyde knew exactly what I meant. That in my life there are often people who milk me for understanding and affection, make little effort for or with me, then get agitated or even accuse me when I start to pull away. For the most part I have no problem with people acting this way--they give what they give, nobody is obliged to like me. But it's not reason enough for me to stay quiet, or even respond to people's excuses with compassion until it runs dry. There is always room for others' struggles or things out of my control. Then it's all a massive black-out: I have no words, not an inch of feeling left.

Clyde put his phone on the table and played guitar, as he often does when we talk over the distance. It's one of the things we've always shared, besides all the things that we don't share as best friends.

Eleven Magazine & After Pausal at 52/250 A Year of Flash

2011-04-17T21:09:00.000+08:00

Dear fellow writers, artists and friends: I have been signed on as one of the writers for Eleven, a free digital literary magazine of words and photography, which is to be launched in June if there is enough funding. Please check it out here and spread the word. We would be so happy if you help us out!

I have a new flash piece, 'After Pausal', up at 52/250 A Year of Flash. It was written for Todd Tam, who posts awesome music on his Facebook late at night. I've written maybe 4 flash pieces to those soundscapes so far--they're even the better ones I've written recently--so here's to our love of music and solitary nights.

Who is Dolly?!

2011-04-15T14:01:00.000+08:00

I have strange dreams in which people reach me. People I have not seen or heard from or even thought of in years, they come driving into my neighborhood or plodding along the street to wait for me to catch them. Within a week they call or write me in life. Other times I dream of friends I have not talked to in a while, and they look anguished over a loss or a failure. This kind of dream is unsettling because the reality is often the same: they have lost their jobs, or injured a leg, or been wasting away over a problem.

My favorite kind of 'contact' dreams is when someone talks to me about a particular situation. Like when my tango friends asked me what I was doing the next day, if I could do something at a certain place and time, because so-and-so needed help. One minute after I woke up, my tango teacher called and made that exact request. I do not know how this happens, but it feels fun, like I pick up waves of information floating in the air when I shut down. People call this telepathy--which I believed in, though some people do not.

Another kind of dream that I like is when I see someone I have yet to meet. In some cases it would be a netfriend, and I see a side to this person that is very different from how they present themselves over the distance. A cheery young man who jokes a lot online would turn up in my town, half-shivering in anger while still trying to pull a straight face, and he would ask me to tag along to a place when I am getting alarmed about who he really is. When we do meet, it would indeed turn out to be a bit of an ugly story.

The past week I have been looking for a girl named Dolly in my dreams. In a couple of them I wandered in strange places with this name on my mind, though I clearly did not know her and had no idea how I could find her. The other night a young man I may or may not know in life came towards me and I asked, 'Are you still in love with Dolly?'. He nodded, with a tint of gloom and doom. Just now I napped at noon--I woke up at 5am and my work starts late today--and I distinctively felt this presence before me, and it was Dolly or something related to her.

Who is Dolly?! I must have gone psychotic or there is a Dolly in my sphere. But I am sure I would not find the answer--when something looms that large, there are too many questions and secrets to unravel, you must quit asking or you drain yourself. Maybe Dolly will just live in that indefinite space, into the future.

The Right Time

2011-04-09T15:38:00.008+08:00

I have a new flash story up at 52/250 A Year of Flash here.

There is never the right time for anything.

I Need Some Weed

2011-04-06T23:59:00.001+08:00

Yesterday I posted on my Facebook status: 'I'm pretty sure what I need right now is to smoke some weed.' Believe me, if I had any in my flat last night--or even tonight--I'd smoke until I drop and that's probably one thing that would make me happy. And I can't tell you how much I mean it!

I don't drink or do any drugs, not even weed except on rather rare occasions, because I always like to have a clear mind. But sometimes you just need to get high. Recently I tried to find out the truth of something I've been doing--I asked, but the answers are taking a long while to arrive. If I have to wait any longer I'd just have to, seriously, hit the black market in this shady building in Hong Kong that is the melting pot for ethic minorities. To walk down the dirty alleys with an eerie, green translucent glow and brush past dealers of fake watches, DVDs, spices, herbs, old magazines and sex toys until I see someone, a dark-skinned man whose smile seems slightly less ominous than the rest. So that I can mumble to his questions, thrust some money into his hand and fucking buy some weed!

The worst that could happen isn't to lose your mind or to find out truth that you don't want to hear. It's to get answers that don't change the course of what you do. To realize the best you can do is to be. That you must watch the moments evolve and flow and there's nothing you should do against it. Not even running away.

I Have No Patience

2011-04-05T21:26:00.002+08:00

The only thing I'm patient about in life is writing--that is a given. There're times when I show exemplary patience in other situations, but those are chances more than faith. Sometimes I think that's my excuse for not living a real life like other people do. I walk away from things a lot, when others prevail and sort things out. Well, what can one do about it?

I have a guest post up at Michael J Solender's blog not from here, are you? The little flash piece or sketch was written for my girl friend Polly Ho, after a photo album she posted on her Facebook.

On my desk: Mosquito, a collection of poems by Alex Lemon. I'd recommend this book.

Mosquito

You want evidence of the street

fight? A gutter-grate bruise & concrete scabs--

here are nails on the tongue,

a mosaic of glass shards on my lips.

I am midnight banging against house

fire. A naked woman shaking

with the sweat of need.

An ocean of burning diamonds

beneath my roadkill, my hitchhiker

belly fills sweet. I am neon blind & kiss

too black. Dangle stars--

let me sleep hoarse-throated in the desert

under a blanket sewn from spiders.

Let me be delicate & invisible.

Kick my ribs, tug my hair.

Scream you're gonna miss me

when I'm gone. Sing implosion

to this world where nothing is healed.

Slap me, I'll be any kind of sinner.

Thunderclap! Language > Place blog carnival & Negative Suck

2011-04-03T02:22:00.001+08:00

I have a new flash story, 'Disintegration', published in the latest issue of Thunderclap! You could get your e-copy or print copy of the magazine via their web site. 'Disintegration' is one of my favorites among the flash stories I have written this year--I got the impetus from a photo of one of those blackbirds that plunged to their deaths in the States on New Year's Eve. As for the title--you know where it came from if you're a fan of The Cure.

Edition #5 of Language > Place blog carnival, hosted by Parmanu, has gone online! This edition comes in a beautiful format, a stellar collection of work and reflections of previous hosts. It's truly amazing how much thought and effort Parmanu put into building the carnival as a virtual museum, with fantastic artwork to each of the contributor's posts. As the host of edition #2, I'm thrilled to see the carnival evolving and floating around the world. My flash story 'Memories of Hamburg', first published in slingshot litareview last year, is included in this edition.

The April issue of Negative Suck is online too and this month's featured author is Amanda Deo. The May issue will be our special word prompt issue, so check out the guidelines and send us your stuff. Deadline is April 20.

On a personal note, I've been lost listening to too much post-rock music as I work on my flash fiction. Soon enough I'll write like a phantom haunting my own apartment. Somebody save me before I totally fall over to the dark side. Please.

Volatility

2011-04-01T03:13:00.002+08:00

The past four days I worked on a video production at a local hospital. The video is about this state-of-the-art medical equipment that allows multi-disciplinary medical teams to operate on the patient at the same time. Instant conversion from minimally invasive surgery to conventional open surgery. No urgent patient transfer or assemblage of surgical teams required. A definite life-saver. For those of you who don't know me in real life, I write video scripts and do occasional project management for a video production house. Most of the jobs we get are plain commercial. Once in a while there're more 'meaningful' gigs for NGOs and the like.

My role in this production is to conduct and process the interviews, sort out what footages we might need, oversee the shooting and that the editor puts the right footages into the right places. Which has been a tough task given the nature of the video and ridiculously tight time frame. In the office I went through the medical terms and the footages until I was half-blind from staring at the computer screen. At the hospital my cameraman and I had to orchestra the doctors who mumbled in front of the camera, or spoke to us in a dozen floating voices at the same time inside the operating theatre. (I can't post pictures here since the video hasn't gone public yet and those guys have the copyright to the visuals)

Yesterday (Thursday HK time) was the last day of shooting. By late afternoon I was brain dead from it all. As I walked down the stairs I caught glimpses of a woman crying outside an operating theatre--she had just started to break down, to bury half of her face in her hands before a young man went to her and put his arm around her shoulders. For a moment I wondered if I should walk straight through the door and go up to her so I could see her--What kind of person would she be? Who was she crying over? Then I remembered I'd never stood outside an operating theatre in such circumstances, and I had no time or the mental capacity to enter that territory. Better get back to my cameraman who had fallen asleep on the couch where we had been waiting for the next shoot to begin.

Several friends of mine have passed and I never had a chance to see them at that last moment. Two died in traffic accidents and their coffins were all that I saw. The others bid their farewell with notes or letters that reached me later on. The first one came with a pin that was a token of affection between my friend and me throughout our teens; it pierced and stained me for a few years. The rest was just, well, eternal repetitions. In life you go through the same hurt over and over. Each time it opens the world of hurt you have been nursing within, sharpens and then blurs your fear again while you plod along. The raw nerve never heals. There is only the question of forgetting until you see you've never forgotten.

Amidst the hectic assignment, sleep-deprivation and hospital atmosphere, a relative gave me a call about my maternal grandfather who is in the hospital. Most of my friends know I have had no relationship with that side of my family for a very long time. The few times they have called me in the past years, it was always bad news and ambiguous requests, the kind that pushes you into a place where you're a heartless person no matter how you respond. For years I wanted to see this grandfather again because we were once close, and he would be the last person in that family who had anything bad to say against me--he's always been a cheerful, easy-go-lucky kind of guy.

My phone battery was dying and I had to rush into the hybrid OR to shout at the doctors again, so I quit the conversation without giving a definite answer. Was I going to stop by to see him? Would I make any arrangements with anyone about this? The memory of my grandfather from my childhood, grey hair and thin cotton shirts, jolly gait and giggles over our secret excursion to the dessert place. Things change so quickly everyday; I am off to hell and back every waking minute of the day, thinking, dreaming and then agonizing over phantom questions that shouldn't even change the course of anything I do. I'm not the same person my grandfather or anyone else has always known; and then I am.

There are always work, words and the days slipping through shadows. I need more time with my words.

Waiting for the Guillotine

2011-03-26T04:50:00.000+08:00

Don't you feel that's how living is like, sometimes?

On a different note, I have this new flash story up at 52/250 A Year of Flash. It was set in the island where my family came from, though the story never happened and I never had such a girl pal. Our home was right by the shore and as a child I looked for tiny crabs with a tin or a little plastic cup in my hand, usually at dusk.

Anecdotes (II)

2011-03-24T00:38:00.000+08:00

She left the two concert tickets we had booked in my mailbox, so I went to sit by the harbor with a bottle of sparkling grape juice and waited for the night to pass. Whenever I sit by the sea with a bottle, I have the terrible urge to throw it into the water before anybody can see it--which is impossible in Hong Kong, not even at 4am when passers-by haunt the streets in this town.

My good friend Luke and I threw bottles into the sea at dawn when I was 15. Luke grew up in the club scene in Paris; he was already a man when he moved back to Hong Kong at 19. White shirts, hair gel that had the scent of watermelon and a scar on his upper arm. Back in those days we listened to a lot of Bob Marley, watched stupid Japanese reality shows and talked about his family. He did most of the story-telling. When I was quiet for long enough, he told me I should learn to explain myself to people. I think I must have given him a blank look, as I used to do when my best friends told me what I needed to hear. Another time he squinted his eyes and said, 'Just ask. I've never said No to you.'

Half a life later, I still haven't learned to ask. If I ever explain myself, it would never be when the story is drawing to a close. My friend L.D. did what I might have done in her shoe--it takes strength to walk off in silence. She should do what made her happier, even if happiness sometimes means unhappiness. Whenever people fade away from my life--or when I have a premonition of that happening even if they are unaware--I try to think of how life used to be before they existed for me. What a vast, empty space life really is, when you retreat to its limits.

***

One thing most of my friends don't know about me: I'm a fan of Ted Hughes. A poem for tonight, from Birthday Letters:

Drawing

Drawing calmed you. Your poker infernal pen

Was like a branding iron. Objects

Suffered into their new presence, tortured

Into final position. As you drew

I felt released, calm. Time opened

When you drew the market at Benidorm.

I sat near you, scribbling something.

Hours burned away. The stall-keepers

Kept coming to see you had them properly.

We sat on those steps, in our rope-soles,

And were happy. Our tourist novelty

Had worn off, we knew our own ways

Through the town's runs. We were familiar

Foreign objects. When he'd sold his bananas

The banana seller gave us a solo

Violin performance on his banana stalk.

Everybody crowded to praise your drawing.

You drew doggedly on, arresting details,

Till you had the whole scene imprisoned.

Here it is. You rescued it forever

Our otherwise lost morning. Your patience,

Your lip-gnawing scowl, got the portrait

Of a market-place that still slept

In the Middle Ages. Just before

It woke and disappeared

Under the screams of a million summer migrants

And the cliff of dazzling hotels. As your hand

Went under Heptonstall to be held

By endless darkness. While my pen travels on

Only two hundred miles from your hand,

Holding this memory of your red, white-spotted bandanna,

Your shorts, your short-sleeved jumper--

One of the thirty I lugged around Europe--

And your long brown legs, propping your pad,

And the contemplative calm

I drank from your concentrated quiet,

In this contemplative calm

Now I drink from your stillness that neither

Of us can disturb or escape.

Anecdotes

2011-03-20T08:14:00.001+08:00

Two nights ago a girl friend of mine--I call her L.D.--called me up at 2am and asked if she could see me. Her voice was broken and I said yes, come on up. When I opened the door she slipped past me, sat on the edge of my bed and teared up. I gave her a cup of tea and retreated to my desk.

L.D. and I have only known each other for five months, though we talk a fair bit and I call her my genie--someone who understands and can always tell what I'm going to do next. At the sight of her tears, I knew better than to ask what happened.

Then she said, 'I'm moving back home.'

I tried to stay calm. L.D. moving back home couldn't be such a bad thing, except I'd feel lonely without her. It wasn't something I'd show either, since the whole time we'd become friends, she wavered between wanting to be around me and shielding herself in my presence. The way you take someone's hand in yours to pull them towards you, just to freeze up on the spot and let that person go. If she could talk to me in the safety of distance, just across the dinner table when I was clearly thinking of something else, she could be loose and funny. If I sat next to her and put my arm around her for a moment because we were having a good time and I wanted her to know she had my attention, she found a way to flee. This is how I get close to people as long as I am interested in them, regardless of who they are or what is happening. What the hell could I do about it except to give them space?

For this reason it was a mystery to me how L.D. turned up at my flat--until she used up half a box of tissue after half an hour. Then she looked at me and muttered something. My tall, blonde and lovely Swedish girl friend, her button nose all red and her mind scattered all over my place. I shook my head and stayed where I was.

***

A year ago I wandered around the city with a young man--a poet--I was in love with for the whole day. At one point we were at a sidewalk bar and I lit a cigarette. He asked me the question we had discussed and dismissed before: What exactly was it that I liked him, why would I want to be with him? I said I believed we complemented each other well--we were similar and had an understanding; he was cautious and drew on others' energy to act on things; I was decisive but slowed down to give people what they needed. We brought out things in each other that we normally wouldn't see and those were good things.

He took a long look at me and said, 'Yes, I think we're compatible too. You're someone who shares and supports my passion. You understand me the way I want to be understood.'

I lit another cigarette and watched the rain. It was getting too cold for us. He was half shivering in his slightly oversized jacket; I smoked and wept. Something couldn't be resolved and we had reached the breaking point. When the day ended I would enter my own life again where I no longer had to agonize over this young man: who he was, what he could have done, who he would become. Just the same, I stubbed one cigarette after another into the ash tray and asked my soon-to-be former lover, 'How many people do you think could give the answer that you gave, and that person actually likes them back?'

He took my left hand and pulled up the sleeve of my jacket, tracing the tattoo on my wrist--which says courage in Hebrew. 'It's because I don't have this,' he said.

Memories of Hamburg

2011-03-18T01:18:00.001+08:00

Reposting this story for Language > Place blog carnival #5. Originally published in slingshot litareview.

I came to know your country of castles on square streets and rivers into the haunted night as you speak, that's the bridge we have to cross, past the snowy ground where we splash water on the rocks escaping into light. Will you stay with me in this land of forgetting and let the past burn like flies on our skin so that we no longer have to run but embrace each other in pain?  

To give you an answer I burn my hair in your kitchen. You drop the pasta in the oven to spray me freeze me as you would attack an enemy for I have turned into Medusa screaming Leave me alone! before you nail me to the wooden floor with your jealousy—the Caribbean music cannot save the night. Our story is a dead soul swinging on solitary walk your mind curling up against the snow the passers by their diluted hope. You know I will not be back. 

You do not know freedom the way I do. Seven years spent waiting for the world to turn until you put on your suede jacket and rode to the book of poetry you show me. Never mind the dedication for Andrea she had been there when I was not now it is for you. Life-sized puppets in a Japanese museum multiple yous and us to dart to laugh into infinite traces. For you a man with a long crack down his chest for me a girl in kimono writing calligraphy on a hand scroll delicate determined. In soft lead pencil you wrote She's a writer too.

Eunoia Review, Calls for Submissions & Some Very Fine Writing

2011-03-16T02:02:00.001+08:00

No, the 'very fine writing' label isn't for me--wait till you get to the end of this post. I have a poem up at Eunoia Review here. It's my first poetry publication in a journal. How strange is that? This poem was put together from bits and pieces of a story I kept failing to write last year, but somehow it just doesn't feel like I was the one who did it. Now that I re-read it, I almost can't tell what this poem is about!

***

To writers and artists who come out at night, please consider sending your goodies to Dark Chaos. We have had a recent run of somewhat explicit and gothic materials, but DC is really open to a variety of styles and subject matters. Lyrical, visceral, humorous, surrealist...you name it. We accept poetry, prose and art submissions on a rolling basis. Send us what we haven't seen. Surprise us.

To those of you who love to muse on language and places, here's five more days to join the 5th edition of the Language > Place blog carnival. The March edition will be hosted by Parmanu. Send a blog post of your prose, poetry, travelouge, essay, photography or multi-media art.

***

Here's a writer you guys should look at: Edmond Caldwell. Some months ago I came across his story The Collector of Van de Voys in A capella Zoo, one of those journals I'd love to get something in one day. Despite almost suffering from ADD for reading fiction online, I read the longish story in one go and left a note on his blog saying how much I enjoyed it. I am partial to experimental and surrealist writing, and Edmond Caldwell does it pretty damn well.

Brain Storm

2011-03-15T00:40:00.000+08:00

Matthew Hamilton has a new e-book titled Brain Storm which you should check out here. For those of you who are regulars at 52/250 A Year of Flash or Fictionaut, you would have read some very fine stories by this former US Peace Corps Volunteer. Very exciting to see Matthew's new collection and now I just have to use Kindle...What about you?

Decisions

2011-03-14T18:48:00.001+08:00

For the most part there is only one decision I cannot make--to stop being decisive. Those of you who are my friends in real life would know that I tend to give definite answers, even when I am caught off guard in awkward situations. Do I want to go to this place on Saturday? Yes, by 9pm, even if it turns out that I'm busy or I haven't slept in 20 hours on that day. Will I do this for you next month because you need help? Yes, you don't need to ask again because I'll remember. We have had the biggest fall out. Do I still want to be your friend? No, and it's very unlikely that I'll ever change my mind. Now leave me alone.

Unless it's a major ordeal and something falls through--I'm out of work, or I have another rather serious plan to attend to so I can't visit as promised--you can expect me to be there. If I can't keep my word, I'll tell you why, unless I want nothing more to do with you and just want you gone. This 'decisive' streak causes me a fair bit of trouble. I might have gone through a dozen reasons why it's a bad idea for me to do something, but I follow through simply because I've committed to it. Other times it works out for the better as it pushes me through phantom worries to do make things happen.

A part of this decisiveness is a kind of disguise. One day I can still sound consistent and interested as I'm trying to stick to a previous decision with/about you, all the while watching my patience vanish into thin air. Once it goes past my limit, that's that, even if you've been totally unaware. A tango friend of mine once said she refused to be degraded into the position of having to defend herself or her actions. I'm the same.

Distraction (II)

2011-03-07T08:26:00.000+08:00

I had the fever and wobbled between broken phrases. A girl friend said to me: 'You don't feel right; you seem distracted, pacing.' I told her that I am ready for things to pick up speed. Yet between me and reality there is a long stretch of road that I am walking, trying to cross. She knew exactly what I meant.

Listening to a lot of dark wave could do something to a person's head--this I have known since my teens when I pictured myself kissing the floor goodbye. We have always known a lot of things: where to run, what to chase, who to shield yourself from. It does not stop us from laying in bed, defenseless against time.

Where are you?

Night

2011-03-06T04:13:00.001+08:00

Flash Party & Misc

2011-03-04T00:49:00.000+08:00

A flash story I wrote for 52/250 A Year of Flash, 'Playing Safe', is now up at the March edition of Flash Party. Flash Party is a sister mag of LITSNACK and they accept stories of 250 words or less, so fire away!

Two videos of Steven Karl reading at the St. Mark's church here and here.

When you're ready to call it a day--in just about anything--don't you just love this song by Led Zeppelin? (Don't click on the link if you dislike rock music, which some of you do)

Waking Up

2011-03-03T01:29:00.000+08:00

I am awake for long stretches of time that come down to a single moment--split open, splintering in losses, small openings of iron falling inside me until I wake up to see: this is happening again, the disappointment.

The sleep that follows is always the sweetest. Or that is how I would like to see things.

Language > Place blog carnival #4 & Negative Suck March edition

2011-03-01T21:22:00.000+08:00

The forth edition of Language > Place blog carnival is now up at tasting rhubarb, hosted by Jean Morris. This beautifully curated edition features previous hosts: Dorothee Lang, Michael J Solender, me and fellow writers including Michelle Elvy, Karyn Eisler and others. Both the line-up and presentation are fantastic, so go and dive into the cyber journey!

The March edition of Negative Suck is up here and this month's featured author is Bill Yarrow. We have a special call for submissions for the May edition - check out the guidelines for the word prompts and send us some good ...!

The Cyclical Night in LITSNACK

2011-02-24T01:05:00.000+08:00

The first flash story I wrote for 52/250 A Year of Flash, 'The Cyclical Night', is now up at LITSNACK. Very happy to have something published in this zine!

Dear Chris

2011-02-23T04:05:00.000+08:00

To this day I do not understand how or why you disappeared. Before your passing I had had to cope with the sudden deaths of more than a few friends, but none of them was a writer--like you and I were back in the days when we talked about art and your poetry.

The moment still pierces me: I walked into broad daylight with a few others, on our way to get coffee, and I tried to hide the shock and grief that were permeating my being. What happened to the poems and essays you spent so much of your heart and life working on--how did you leave them all behind, just like that? To me you lived in those words, and I owed you a response to what you had shown me.

For the last few days you filled my mind--I think of you every now and then, but this spell has caught me off guard. You must have stopped by when I was vulnerable, when I started chasing the kind of dream that would only trap us in endless solitude. Or did you swing by because you knew it was the moment when I could truly touch your pain, that I would understand?

Tonight I wept and fell asleep. Time had lapsed and I faced your grief. Since you have been gone, I have made more efforts in keeping up with people, in showing what I hold in my heart to those I wish to keep. Because things pass when we do not hold onto them, just like you did.

We Are Paid In Hope

2011-02-21T23:02:00.001+08:00

Len Kuntz is everywhere--almost everyday as we log onto our Facebook pages, this man has a new story or poem out in an online literary journal. Last time I looked he was in PANK and lo & behold! Len was proclaimed the James Brown of flash fiction in this interview at Housefire. Riley Michael Parker says it all: Len Kuntz writes more than we sleep; he writes more than a man has the right to! I know Len waited for all his life until a couple years ago to start writing, but what do the rest of us do with ourselves when this man can churn out stories in the bathtub?! (part two of the interview is here)

And here's a conversation between Brad Green and Court Merrigan. Court is someone I've read for a long while though we haven't talked much, so it's nice for me to read about his views on writing and his work. Court touches on a question that I used to struggle with: How do settings affect characters? Having lived in Hong Kong for most of my life and writing in a second language, settings were a difficult issue for me: How would I capture my hometown in a foreign language that carries a totally different sensibility than that of my native language/culture?

Anyway, here's Court telling us that as writers, we are paid in hope. That should be my consolation for the day, though sometimes it's not even about hope. It's just about, well, not totally falling over to the dark side...

Runaway Soul

2011-02-20T01:14:00.001+08:00

Julia Davies, a fellow writer who just falls short of being perfect while juggling her split personalities, sent this blog post by Sheldon Lee Compton to me before I caught up with my blog roll.

I had just woken up on another gloomy morning and it took me a minute or two to find my bearing. Later on I sent the post to a young friend of mine, a neurotic girl who loves literature; I told her Sheldon is a terrific writer who lives in a country where cigarettes are way too expensive.

She read it and said, 'oh, another runaway soul.'

I suppose it describes some of us.

52/250 A Year of Flash - Week#40 'The Money's Gone'

2011-02-18T19:18:00.001+08:00

New writing up at 52/250. I say writing because I don't know if this is a flash story or a prose poem.

For those who like post-rock music, I wrote this piece to this song by Jesu.

And I wrote it when my poet friend was sleeping. On a cold night in Brooklyn.

Silence

2011-02-17T18:27:00.000+08:00

In August 2011 I posted this short poem by Polish poet Anna Kamienska (translated by Tomasz P. Krzeszowski and Desmond Graham on my blog. Now and then--like the last couple days--I'd come back to this space and wait for silence to prevail.

Every silence must be carried through towards death

so that it is immortal

And every smile and tear and glance

must be detached from what is fragile and finite

Even an oak leaf cannot for ever be happy on a branch

even a dove is not for ever on a window sill

What flies away will come back

what stays will sing

Silence is the memento after everything

faithful as it were not silence after love

I Walked

2011-02-12T16:42:00.002+08:00

I walked on snow and tainted thoughts about the future. Another self, dwelling away from home. Sometimes the lock was frozen and it took a hair dryer for me to go outside. Other times I fumbled in my pocket for a lost ticket--to the art museum that left me in a daze; for the train ride that fleeted past like a ghost retrieved from an old film.

I lost things in the foreign cities. It did not matter to me. I hold a strange superstition: what's lost is no longer meant to be mine.

The cold blazed; I zipped up my coat, voice lost in a mystery just born from the night. Night: hopes dashed; hopes unformed; hopes on hold between echoes of a distant drum.

People who know me must know one thing: I am full of love.

I would reach you if I have to. Only it comes through in a language we cannot catch. The language of loss. Consoled, then abandoned.

We walked to the end of Manhattan. I can see your face, still.

The Great Destroyers

2011-02-01T11:08:00.001+08:00

My new flash 'The Great Destroyers' is up out in the Feb edition of Negative Suck.

And here's an interview about Dark Chaos at Fictionaut blog.

Enjoy!

52/250 A Year of Flash Week#36 - Playing Safe

2011-01-23T18:38:00.000+08:00

Latest flash story up at 52/250 A Year of Flash here.

This story didn't happen to me, though Wesley did exist--he was a black cat.

News

2011-01-19T13:53:00.000+08:00

My poet friend Steven has a new e-chap out. Download it here. As usual I don't quite know what to say about Steven's work getting published because it often feels like it has something to do with my life. You know what I mean?

Soon enough I'll actually be at Steven's reading in NYC, so I'll save the stories for a later time.

Here's Jimmy, a friend I met in HK five years back, in The New Yorker Book Bench. Jimmy was a TV news anchor in HK and moved back to the States (where he grew up) a couple years ago. At the moment he's doing a MA in Journalism at Columbia.

Jimmy is one of the most talented individuals I've ever met: a terrific writer and photographer; intelligent, self-aware and ambitious; a young man who pursues his passion. I'll be seeing him soon, too.

As for me, aha, not much to report on. I'm still struggling at work, writing flash stories and now poetry as well...even have a poem snatched up by an online journal. Who would have thought?!

Dreams of Reason

2011-01-15T02:17:00.000+08:00

Mick Karn, one of my favorite musicians, passed away from cancer at the age of 52. For those of you who are unfamiliar with early 80's music or British New Wave, he was the bassist of Japan, a British band that crossed boundaries from alternative glam rock to synth pop and anything in between. Mick Karn played a signature fretless bass--a sound that's much more melodic than what you'd expect from a bass guitar. After the Japan years, he became as an acclaimed multi-instrumentalist who explored a variety of musical genres--he was especially fond of jazz--in his solo and collaborative work.

He was also a sculptor.

The night I heard news about his death, I listened to some of his solo work and felt positively gutted. Can you miss someone you've never met, whose talent you embrace and admire from a distance? In his hands, the guitar sounds so much more fluid and imaginative...Now he's gone, gone, gone. Is it possible to feel a part of your sensibility going adrift, when an artist you've liked since your teens passed away?

That very same night, someone I've known for years told me one simple thing: it looks like I'm no longer interested in writing narratives. That my heart and mind have taken another path and it's time that I discover something new. I had nothing to say. I slept over it, and then I started writing.

This poem comes with two songs by Mick Karn: Dreams of Reason and The Forgotten Puppeteer. How can anyone play such sad music on the saxophone and clarinet?

The Catalyst

2011-01-13T02:37:00.000+08:00

I have become reluctant to write stories: to flesh out a character beyond its moment of conception, to string together the twists and turns of a plot line, or to expand a description of an object as the catalyst of the tale. It's been happening for a long time--maybe six years--when I wasn't looking. Time and again I tried. Every once in a while I wrote a good one. Other times I failed, pretty badly.

People asked me why I never wrote something longer, a novella or a collection of connected stories. I said I didn't have the patience: I could only write when an idea struck and once the spell was over, that was that. Or I wasn't in love with my writer's voice enough to engage in it for weeks, for months on end like some others could. That I lacked the writer's ego and I wanted to shield myself from the world.

There's some truth to that. And the truth is: I'm not interested in writing stories, at least not conventional stories with solid plots and characterization and decent lengths. I only thought I wanted to write stories because that was what I fell back on for most of my life. But something changed and the nugget of gold remained unnamed. I could hear it, but I couldn't see it or write about it. I let it sit there and tried to go the other way. I still wrote my failed stories.

In the past week two persons told me the same thing: I'm not cut out for dealing with the real world, in life or in writing, and I should walk through the emotional maze and produce drugs for the human mind. Their words hardly surprised me--I wasn't disappointed, not in the least. It's just another reminder that I have a lot to discover and to learn in my writing, and not a lot to look forward to in my daily life.

Like going to work. Seriously, it drags me down. As early as in high school I knew I would be terrible in a workplace, because I never intended to be someone who made anyone else happy. When I was a full-time journalist, life was easy--I came and went, talked to people, wrote a good story, and I was me again. In recent months I've been stuck in a place where I have to give, tear things apart, then fix them broken according to strangers' whims. Over and over.

This is why I haven't really written in this blog for a while. Soon enough I'll have happier news to share. For now, this is what it is.

52/250 A Year of Flash Week#34 - The Lost Island

2011-01-07T23:10:00.000+08:00

This is the beginning of a true story about my grandmother when she was four years old. Her family sold her to two distant relatives who were childless and wanted some sparks in their household. My grandma was fair-skinned and exceptionally pretty--which did her more harm than good even as she grew up to be a young woman.

As for the rest of the story, I suppose I'll write it one day.

New Year Miscellaneous

2011-01-03T02:52:00.000+08:00

The January edition of Negative Suck is out and our featured author is Sheldon Lee Compton. When I first read his work at Fictionaut, I left a note to say I was envious of his writing--and I still am. Check it out and enjoy.

As always, Dark Chaos wants your submissions. Send original prose, poetry and photography - dark and thoughtful stuff preferred, no whining monologue, please. Dark Chaos now has its own page on Facebook here.

The December edition of Language > Place blog carnival was reviewed as a BluePrintReview project by Casey Murphy from Folded Word. You can read the interview with Dorothee and me here. Don't forget to send your posts to the next edition of the blog carnival - the deadline is January 20th.

52/250 A Year of Flash Week#33 - The Drama Boat

2010-12-31T14:10:00.001+08:00

A silly story for a change.

Happy new year everybody.

52/250 A Year of Flash - twentysix

2010-12-29T14:22:00.000+08:00

The second quarter review of 52/250 A Year of Flash is now online. As one of the newest flashers of the second quarter, I was invited to write a reflection on a flash story of mine. The one I chose was 'Equilibrium' and you can read my response here.

Four of my stories are also featured in the 'Best of' line-up, in week#17, #21, #22 and #24.

Friends (II)

2010-12-28T01:55:00.003+08:00

Some photos for a change.

Polly's first visit to our tango studio and her debut on the dance floor. Polly loves languages, movies and art and she hosts the monthly Kubrick Poetry readings at a local bookstore. These days she works for a private school and recruits students who study to improve their English and their lives, something she is proud of. Last time I hanged out with Polly, we were at a poetry reading and I made a less-than-appreciative remark about the 'motivational' work that was being read on stage, to which Polly replied: 'Oh, I like this kind of stuff.' Our conversation ended up in a giggly embrace and that tells you something about my friend. Good-hearted, hopeful and well-behaved Polly who cherishes her dreams.

Jason Lee and me at the aforementioned poetry reading. Jason is a dedicated young poet and he is working on a book-length poem about Hong Kong. As writers we are at the opposite ends of the spectrum. He sets stringent requirements for his writing, churns out long narratives in verse and follows his own voice rather closely. I write in bits and pieces, or space and absence; I stop once I reach the heart of the story and just live the day. As two persons who have known each other for a little while, Jay and I have our similar traits and differences that intersect in interesting ways: he is slow-moving with an impulsive streak, while I am decisive but also meticulous.

With Phoebe and Kathy at a recent milonga (tango party). I wrote about them briefly in my entry about my tango friends. Phoebe lives her life in tango, writing, art and her moments with friends. Kathy is a young doctor and a carefree girl (in a good way). Both are very popular on the dance floor, except poor Kathy still has not learnt to turn away weirdos who spin her around just a little too hard. I look forward to going back to my tango classes in 2011!

Speaking of tango--here is a photo of me dancing with Bond.

My dear girl pals Christine and Claire again. The three of us had a little house party around Christmas at Claire's place and here's her cat DD, a little aloof and curious about the strange girls who invaded her space for the night.

52/250 A Flash Year - Week#32 - Silence is

2010-12-26T05:14:00.000+08:00

Look here.

I had no idea what I was going to write when I typed 'Silence is' on the page--then the image of a droplet came to me and that's that.

Happy holidays to everyone.

The Voyeur

2010-12-24T03:05:00.001+08:00

This is a story I wrote two years ago about an episode from my graduate school days, now published on Asia Writes. It happened during the times of SARS: schools were shut down, people roamed around in masks and panic, some were quarantined at the hospitals or in their homes (including someone who lived in my building), others fled the oppression by going on shopping sprees when the city's economy was going downhill. Of course, it's all relative--even at its worst, Hong Kong's economy has always been fairly solid, despite the horrendous gap between the rich and the poor in this town.

Like everyone else I was sick with worry and frustration during that summer. I came down with the flu and suffered a monstrous migraine that wouldn't go away for a long while. It took over my consciousness until I went blind walking up the stairs; then it invaded my sleep and I woke up in tears, anguished over not graduating on time and getting out of the rut I'd been in for years and years.

One night the story began. I did live in Room 422.

MY ORANGE DRAPES are thick and they don't breathe, not in the summer heat of Hong Kong. They flutter when the wind blows; they fall and get sucked between the rusted metal frames that have withstood the last thirty, forty years. Run your hand along them. You'll get a tainted taste on your skin.

The hissing cuts through the evening air. The long and insistent sound jumps and lurks from seven o'clock to midnight every night. In the past two weeks I've looked out of the windows many times and strained myself to hear. It's impossible to tell where the hissing comes from. These flats are long, endless rows of cells overlooking one another in this public housing estate. My search points to different directions, mainly to the lower left of the opposite building where my neighbors have old bed sheets for drapes that leave small and careless openings to their lives.

It sounds like a young man and his stubborn expression of misguided strength. Faceless, the figure is a vague shape and intensity in the dark. There're respites of silence when the hissing seems to stop for good. Then it starts again.

The footsteps unnerve me in the same way. The postman comes at lunchtime and delivers my bank statements, alumni newsletters, commercial printed matters, occasional postcards from an old friend on the other side of the world. The housing authority staff comes in the evening with rent payment notices and newsletters, government propaganda in grey and orange prints.

There's a rustle in the slot of my wooden door. I see an odd piece of paper on the floor. Beneath childish handwriting, a panda dances at the bottom of the page.

‘Dear Miss Room 422,
I'm bored. Will you be my friend?
Sometimes I see you smile. I think you're always happy.
Call me. 9746 3804.
Wait for you!
Mike'

TONIGHT I WEAR a ponytail for a change, though my floral pattern shirt has a similar cut to the one I wore yesterday. It makes no difference to my trip. Between the two fast food places downstairs, I've shown up in short-sleeves and long-sleeves, straight hair and curly hair, explored most items on the menus for take-away and quick dine-in over the years. The cheaper, self-serve place has old light bulbs bustling in the high ceiling. Phantom Chinese horses run wild in a painting on the wall. There're two elderly cashiers on different shifts. The dark-skinned one counts the banknotes with a permanent pout; the other, grey-haired and smiley, chain-smokes and sips milk tea.

The more upscale place is dimly-lit and has green floor tiles, which makes the waitresses look rather prominent in their white shirts. At night a sterile air wraps around the restaurant despite the grease on the floor. The owner is a short chubby man with thick eyelids and lips, pale skin a flitting shade of grey as he bounces around the restaurant wearing a round-collar T-shirt and a sly smile, the kind of smile you remember from a bad stage actor. He's always there to open the door.

“Spaghetti Bolognese with cheese?” he asks.

I sit down at a corner and wait. The cheese costs extra. Sometimes they forget about it and the meat sauce tastes like sugar and salt and water.

There's time to go to the Park'n Shop, but I can't bother and there's enough grocery at home for tonight. The Park'n Shop has its charms for me. The cashier with the great 80's perm and bright lipsticks is my favorite. She looks at the customers in the eyes as she speaks, her voice deep and burnt from prolonged smoking; then she takes the cash or inserts a credit card into the reader. I see her at mahjong with three other ladies, a white cigarette between her red lips and a glass of tea on the side table. In life she might be a dominatrix, a woman one remembers and fears; or she might be harsh-voiced and faint-hearted as her husband and children turn a deaf ear to her pleas. The other cashiers look generic to me, just as I'm one of the numerous customers coming in and out. We pass one another by in our invisible private zones.

I can use more of that anonymity now. Beyond the regular characters at the fast food places and grocery stores, it never crossed my mind that anyone in this housing estate would recognize me, leave alone follow my daily routine. My faith in oblivion is clearly mistaken. We live in twelve-storied buildings: anyone can poke their heads out to see who's smoking in the playground, who's marching into the lobby with shopping bags from a day out. My neighbor must have seen me at different times of the day. Early afternoon I'm a tall and thin girl in jeans and sandals, wobbling beside the bushes in the park. Early evening I have take-away dinner and I'm scurrying for cover, eager to get out of the sight of strangers. My moments of grace are late at night when I hop out of a cab, still radiant with make-up and from the evening's company. My shaky, light-hearted gait is proof that I have a life like anyone else that is more regular and grounded than me. I, too, have my happy times.

IT'S UNFAIR THAT my secret friend should know so much about me when I haven't wanted to show myself. I must have been crying at my desk when they saw me and mistook my shivering for laughing. I could be walking in circles to the strum of an electric guitar or the distorted tone of a violin of a post-rock band. I was mustering anger and grief, and some creep thought I was dancing with a smile on my face. What gives this person the right to judge and exploit me?

My only prize is suffocation. I keep my windows shut most of the time now even though I have no air-conditioning at home. My plastic fan sways, buzzing and stirring dust on the floor. The day unfolds a constant turmoil. I try to sit perfectly still at my desk. Sweat runs down my neck and my back, tracing an insane urge to tear down the drapes and scream. When night falls I want to spin around and breathe; then I remember the prying eyes and that I'm protected in my seclusion. There's satisfaction to my surrender. The watcher can stare at my drapes every night. My absence is all they see now, blanks of a presence they can no longer hold onto.

It's a big price to pay to live in this heat. I'm a fragmented soul and I drift behind the thick orange fabrics, living the resemblance of a life: reading, writing essays, eating take-away, wiping the sweat off my face. My mind is blunted; I pass each day as it comes. I remember the hissing too. I wonder if it's grown stronger since I shielded myself from the outside. In my fantasy it's a sly young guy, more pervy-looking than the restaurant owner or anyone I know. He lives in a receding abyss of boredom; hissing by the windows, he seeks unknowing victims to his glare. He sees through anyone he looks at because everything plays out perfectly in his head. I almost feel sorry for this guy, but not at all for my spying neighbor who's causing me so much pain. I don't think they're the same person. The strength of sound and the childish handwriting don't come together.

I can probably find out if I do my own spying. Still, I wouldn't risk exposing myself when nothing is private in public housing in this town. Past midnight I open my windows and clip the drapes to the frames with laundry clips, so I can peep without being seen. These are my only moments of freedom: I seal myself in again before going to bed. The night is a giant metal bed that creaks and conceals the lovers' identities. With every echo the interspace closes in a little more. Just as the throbbing is about to burst, it takes on a slow, monotonous rhythm; one loses track of time and it promises to last forever. When their love is over there's a man seated on the couch by the windows in a different flat. A calendar hovers over the TV set on a wooden cupboard. There's a never-ending soccer match on screen. The players, wet-haired and flushed, are running or pushing or curled up on the ground in pain and glory. The man is a perfect silhouette; he's eluded me for years and he'll remain a mystery.

The mating calls of stray cats are whirling. It sounds like children crying, like the boy who gets beaten up by a screaming mother in the afternoon. It could be him: his moans and cries on rewind, the same fate running through each day and night of his life. In the glow of the streetlamps a young couple emerges on a bench. The girl is drinking from a can of coke when the guy puts his arm around her shoulder. Such peace is a gift. On occasional nights the lovebirds get into drunken fights, crying and pushing each other like sumo wrestlers in a video game. I once saw a young man throw his arms up in the air at his girlfriend, in a dramatically loving or cruel gesture. He shouted: “What have I done wrong?”

BLACK INK TRAILS along the dotted line under an imaginary child's hand. These are neat letters masking a sense of urgency: “Call me. 9746 3804.”

Did my young friend scribble this second note after he finished his homework, under the gaze of adults, full of blame and malice? Or did he just return from a hasty porn voyage in his small bedroom, his cheap and privileged access to autonomy?

What kind of person would my voyeur be: a youngster stripped of privacy at home who seeks to violate space, or a precocious child looking for his counterpart? A thin lad with faint light on his bare chest, envisaging an intimate encounter with a woman twice his age, dreaming her curves and moves until the curtains fall, cutting short the echoes of his loneliness. Or is it be a girl who cries long cries like the child protagonist in the afternoon drama? A girl punished for everything she does and doesn't do, who cries as her mother thrashes her on the back; a girl who leans against the rusted window frames and imagines herself a dancer in the dark to a ferocious song; a girl so bent by anger that she thrives on playing the victim's role to justify her spying and living a lie, to seek the attention she'd never receive so she can grieve over the lost opportunity for friendship, a window to laughter and colorful self-pity.

Did she walk up the stairs to my flat with a pounding heart, or simply a thirst for adventure? Or was it a he: Did he dart down the stairs after he left this note, anxious for contact, for a fantastic opening in life?

The anticipation is the bleeding in my mouth. I open the drapes and the dusty windows to see. There's nobody looking at me.

52/250 A Flash Year - Week#31 - That Girl

2010-12-17T21:02:00.000+08:00

My latest piece at 52/250 is up here.

I wrote it at the end of a long and frustrating day--my need for detachment came pouring out of me as I wrote and that girl was born. It's strange how one's language can surpass itself when one's writing against oppression.

My days are full of surprises.

> Language > Place blog carnival

2010-12-16T06:05:00.032+08:00

Language > Place blog carnival: a BluePrintReview project and a joined blog cyber journey featuring international perspectives on language and place.

The second edition of > Language > Place blog carnival features over 20 writers from around the world. It unfolds between directions, detours and codes to arrive at fictive domains that are made real by the yearning for souls adrift. The journey continues, looking into private places and eccentricities, to trace slipping boundaries and the sense of one's ever shifting homes.

For info on how to join the next carnival, related links and notes on the project, visit the > Language > Place info page.

Nicolette

Detours/Directions

Dorothee Lang lives in Germany. This summer she flew to Vienna for some days. The lingual fun started on a day trip to Bratislava, once a trilingual city and now capital of Slovakia. Through a misunderstanding, she got lost in “Nove Mesto”, the 'new part of town' with a friend. 'The day trip to Bratislava indeed felt like a trip through history, and the Slovak language made it special, and more "abroad".' She blogged about the trip in: ‘Vienna, Bratislava, Istanbul’.

Karyn Eisler from Canada finds herself in foreign places where languages become music. Sometimes they dance in images, as in the Hungarian spa town of Hévíz. Look here.

Steve Wing from Florida grew up in a mono-linguistic place and grew to love other cultures and languages. In ‘road signs’, he muses on the relationships between words, directions and origins: ‘Even where there is one predominant language, though, there are traces of other tongues. So it is with the words on these road signs, which open like doors onto other cultures...'

Exchanges Decoded

Christopher Allen, an American writer and teacher living in Germany, travels the world with his ‘linguistic advantage’. He blogs about his adventures at ‘I MUST BE OFF’ and for this month’s blog carnival, he sent ‘Taksi or Fright’, an entry about his attempts to make himself understood in Southeast Asia in November.

Parmanu is from India and his job with a multinational company has brought him to Germany. For December’s blog carnival he sent ‘Super 8’, an entry about a brief conversation in English he had with a German passenger on the train, the charm and complexities of exchanges spanning cultures and languages.

‘It is with us humans, we fall into our language in times of emotional communication,’ notes Abha Iyengar, a poet and freelance writer from New Delhi, India. During a Writing Residency in Tamil Nadu in Southern India from 2009 to 2010, Abha navigated between the differences in sounds, sights and people in her temporary dwelling and those in her hometown. Follow her discovery in ‘An Ambassador Mercedes in Pondicherry’.

'I love the idea that multiculturalism--or is it duoculturalism? is alive and well and on my back,' Matt Potter notes in his entry 'Dyeing for it’ about his love for the 'trans-global warriors' T-shirts that accompany him across Germany and Australia. Matt loves sex, fashion and words--and he flaunts his stuff with flair (ignore the adult content warning note).

Fictive Domains

Marcus Speh is a native German who mostly writes in English because he thinks in images and a foreign language is a wonderful plaything. He blogs at Nothing to Flawnt, a reference to his long-time nom de plume, Finnegan Flawnt. While on vacation in Texas this October, Marcus wrote whimsical stories on different objects found on a Texan beach. Check them out here.

‘One day, he thought, his postcards to his wife would be found - these drawings would be his last words to her,’ writes Stella Pierides in her short short ‘Postcards’, which looks back on the cruelty of the Greek Civil War from 1946 to 1949. You can also read her notes on the story in ‘Language, Trauma, and Silence’. Originally from Athens, Greece, Stella now divides her time between London and Bavaria.

Linda Simoni-Wastila crunches numbers by day and churns words at night in Baltimore, and much of her writing explores health, in particular the societal and personal facets of medication and medicating. She participates in the blog carnival with her flash fiction ‘Lost in Suomi’, which was inspired by her memories of a distant trip to Finland.

Souls Adrift

Sherry O’Keefe is a poet and she writes beyond the confines of beautiful Montana. She asks the questions whose answers we keep to ourselves: What is common among all languages? What commotions happen in life that no language can adequately express? in her entry ‘In Case of a Bad Day’ and the poem ‘Mike’.

Len Kuntz lives on a lake in rural Washington State, and his writing paints vivid pictures of human suffering and loss. ‘Canto Del Sol’ is an account of his family trip to a remote part of Mexico. While there, they came face to face with extreme poverty and a community whose existence is dependent upon the discarded garbage of others. Len finished a novel this year and he blogs at People You Know by Heart.

‘Australian Friend likes to say, “Bloom where you’re planted.” It’s good advice for anybody, but I think it applies double to expats,’ writes Jennifer Saunders, who is originally from the American Midwest and now lives in The Bernese Oberland in Switzerland. She weaves impressions of US-styled Thanksgiving and memories of homes and traditions in her entry ‘Expat Thanksgiving. And Pie.’

Private Places

Julien Tatham is a filmmaker and experimental arts artist based in Paris. Julien lives for love and stories as he seeks truth in his personal space, an empty place that rings with questions: ‘...often you are alone in front of this silent place, outside we hear the rumor, a city, through the window. I’m surrounded by these objects in the apartment, rooms are stanzas of life.’

‘Behind that door could be anything, but at the same time, the possibilities have already been decided,’ Trang Nguyen writes about her private space in Melbourne in ‘(un)fettered territory’. Trang moved to Australia with her Vietnamese parents when she was two months’ old. Now she draws, takes pictures, writes, dances and loves in a surprising vacuum.

‘At night I take solitary walks. My mind curls up into a warm embrace for myself and the promise I would give, against the wind...I live a different kind of life,’ writes Nicolette Wong in an entry set in a back alley in her neighborhood, ‘Spring’. Nicolette is a Hong Kong-based writer who wavers between solitude and connection, destinations and abandon, solidity and wound in fiction and in life.

Slipping Boundaries

Natalie d’Arbeloff is a multi-lingual artist and writer living in London. From January to February this year Natalie was an artist-in-residence at the Casa 5 Centre in Tavira, Portugal. ‘Tavira Experienced’ is her visual journey around the city with the natives. Check out the complete archive of her entries on her stay in Tavira here.

‘Green and opaque with a hint of turquoise when the sun lights it. I stare at it and it is a surprise when the waves break in a froth of white foam and not in semi-precious stone chips,’ Julia Davies writes about the China sea in ‘Musing on travelling’. Julia is an English writer living in Germany where she juggles different sides of her personality.

‘...I’d come in the house, where Grandma kept a huge jar of old buttons for which I came to visit. I’d dump them onto the carpet and make up my own worlds full of button people, button animals, and button things...That was the Fajal of my imagination.’ Cathy Douglas ponders the history of his Portuguese immigrant family in her post ‘Faial’.

Foreign Eccentricities

Rose Hunter from Australia is a witness to strange scenes wherever she goes. In ‘El viento! El viento! Report’, she gives us glimpses into her ‘domestic situation in Mexcio--her sneaky neighbor, her apartment with an open front view and Rose shrieking about her everyday life: ‘It’s like camping!’

‘One day not long ago I drove home wondering how we were going to eat till Friday, payday...We had 300 baht, which, technically speaking, was not no money. It was $8.81,’ writes American writer Court Merrigan in ‘Democracy for $11.74, or, Serendipity’. Court’s household almost played a part in corruption in Thailand, where he lived his American adventure with his wife, two kids and his writing.

Rachael Fulton is a Scottish girl who writes from Jakarta and other corners of the world. She participates in the blog carnival with an entry on her earlier days in Logrono, Spain, which began with her sharing a place with a man who was a member of the Guardia Civil and another who had strange mystical pictures on his walls and said the flat was protected by spirits.

Shifting Homes

‘When one returns home after a gap of two and a half years, how much does one carry the ‘home’ that one left behind and how much does one carry back the ‘foreign’ one has been a sojourner in?’ Mosarrap Hossain Khan recalls his journey to home in India a year ago. Morsarrap is pursuing his doctoral research in English Literature at New York University.

Originally from Nigeria, Mary Shorun now lives, studies and writes in Texas. Mary calls the Nigerian and American cultures her ‘unique culture’ and their shared language of sport has particularly fascinated her. She captured the transition and familiarity between cultures in a blog entry after having watched an American frisbee game on a pleasant Friday evening.

Latha Vijaybaskar is a writer and educator living in Dubai. Having grown up in a multi-linguistic country like India, picking up new languages should have been a joyride for Latha. Yet modern times have made it too easy for some to grasp the spirit of learning languages, Latha writes in her entry ‘Paradigm Shift’.

(Photo credits: Dorothee Lang, Christopher Allen, Marcus Speh, Phyllis Ho, Trang Nguyen, Natalie d'Arbeloff, Rose Hunter)

About + How to Join + Links

> Language > Place blog carnival was started by Dorothee Lang, editor of BluePrintReview, in November 2010. Visit the > Language > Place info page for Dorothee's notes on how the carnival came together and related links.

The December 2010 edition is hosted by Nicolette Wong, fiction writer and art writer from Hong Kong. She is in the editorial teams of Negative Suck and Dark Chaos.

The third edition of the carnival will be edited and hosted by MiCrow editor Michael J. Solender at not from here, are you?

Submissions are open on December 20 and the edition is planned to go online at the end of January. Check out the guidelines here. Note: please address all submissions to Michael, as the carnival switches editors and hosts with every edition.

Update on 1/1/2011

Check out the carnival contributors' blogroll here.

Language > Place blog carnival is reviewed as a BluePrintReview project on Folded Word blog. Read the interview with Dorothee and Nicolette here.

Dark Chaos - Mirage

2010-12-04T00:09:00.001+08:00

New flash fiction out in Dark Chaos. Read it here.

This story was inspired by a conversation I had with Amy about mirrors (and then Eno chimed in for a few comments as well). If mirror is what separates us from our alter-egos: How do we go over to the other side?

Calls for Submissions: Language/Place, Negative Suck & Dark Chaos

2010-12-02T01:56:00.001+08:00

Seriously, it's time for you to submit something to the December edition of Language/Place blog carnival. On how to participate: find a post from your blog archive or put together a new entry that revolves around the themes of language or place. It may be a poem, a short story, a piece of travelouge or reflection or a photo which illuminates your relationship with language, a place you visit/inhabit, like or dislike, a sense of connection or dislocation, being at home or away from home.

Send a link to your blog post and a brief description of it and yourself to langplace@gmail.com and you're good to go.

On a different note: by some indefinable logic I've become 'affiliated' with Negative Suck and Dark Chaos, two online journals edited by Jeffrey S. Callico. Negative Suck celebrates its first anniversary and its December 2010 edition is now online. For those of you who're unfamiliar with NS, 'Negative Suck' is actually a medical term which Jeff adopted as a very loose metaphor for his literary venture (see his interview on Fictionaut here). Dark Chaos embraces artists who only come out at night--you get the drift, so check it out and send your work to Jeff.

Going Home (II)

2010-11-26T02:42:00.000+08:00

Monday night I got a call from an older woman who spoke my full name in Chinese. She sounded like the mother of a friend I'd lost years ago, so I responded with a casual 'What's going on?'. She turned out to be the lady I met last July outside the now demolished Sun Chung Flower Shop, when I was there to support Mr Wong on his last evening with his shop. The lady had walked past and wondered about the youngsters on that back street in Sham Shui Po, an old neighborhood that was being torn apart by the government and property developers for fat profits, often through illegal procedure or grey areas in the law. 'Because Hong Kong people care about justice,' we said, when the lady asked why we would spend our Sunday night supporting a stranger.

She got my number and promised to call. She must have called and asked for Ms Wong in her thick Shanghainese accent; I must have half-shouted, 'You got the wrong number!' into the receiver before I hung up mercilessly, feeling intruded and vaguely confused. On a random evening when someone said my name in the way that she did at 11.30pm--when I was about to sit down to read a book of poetry--I had to respond.

Tuesday night Amy and I went to Sham Shui Po to meet the Shanghainese lady. Her home was small: a bedroom with a fair bit of junk piling up the walls, two plastic chairs, a dressing table next to a single bed with colorful bedsheets. The dimly lit room smelled of grease. She sat on her bed and looked at us, speaking at an accelerating speed as if her words were pouring out of a broken safe, rushing towards us while we struggled to hold our breath, nod and let out some half-hearted laugh. She lives between HK and Shanghai where her two sons are successful managers of large department stores, and they call her every so often to ask about her well-being. ('Do you brush your teeth properly at night? Do you have enough for rent?') 'I moved to Hong Kong to take care of my mother before she passed away,' the lady said. 'You girls should get married and have children, so you'll find happiness in life.'

We had wonton noodles at a cheap restaurant and the lady saw Amy and me to the train station. Now and then she would take our arms. 'I have few friends in Hong Kong and you left quite an impression on me. We should stay in touch and hang out,' she waved goodbye. Short and chubby, she looked like a phantom who had come to life in a novella about the sordid lives of ordinary folks in Hong Kong in the early 1980's: her happy face was shadowed by an imminent gloom, even her glasses looked dull against the yellow backdrop of the train station. Amy and I wandered on the platform to catch our breath.

Back home I sat back in my reading chair and closed my eyes.

Friends

2010-11-20T03:58:00.001+08:00

These are from a while back but I don't feel like writing, so here're some pictures...to give you an idea what kind of life I've been living in Hong Kong.

Carmen, Julia, Jack and me. We're elementary school pals, and Julia has been one of my best friends for most of my life. Carmen has an adorable 4-year-old daughter and worries a lot; Julia is married to a quiet man and she likes all things vintage; Jack works in China and gets bombarded by managers who want to marry off their daughters to him. In HK it's pretty easy to stay in touch with school friends coz most people stick around rather than move to another state or city in the country. That is, if you make an effort and actually like those people beyond random presences on your Facebook friends list.

Helen, painter, teacher and now tango dancer. A tough girl who acts funny and mellow for the most part. We've known each other for 12 years. Back in the days she's known for being blunt ('Why do you have such bad skin lately?' when we're just crossing the road) and making fun of herself ('My perm is so bad I want to jump into the sea right now' when we're at the Victoria Harbour after she just went to the hairstylist). We're the kind of friends who grow more similar and closer as the years go by, though she doesn't say silly things so often anymore. Well, she still does sometimes.

Bobit Segismundo, Filipino artist in Hong Kong. I wrote about him last year--he was my interviewee for a feature article on the Philippines Arts Festival and we became friends. Bobit is a punk: he creates art to express his feelings and doesn't give a damn if nobody likes his work. In person he's a straight-shooting and curiously caring guy.

Sarah from Australia, my netfriend on a certain kiddy, outdated online diary site. I started reading her maybe 1.5 years ago and lo and behold, here she was in Hong Kong for a short trip. Sarah loves her music, art, family and friends, cute boys and lazy days at the beach. I should check up on her to see if she's learning Italian as she's planned to, as she obviously has a knack for language.

Me with Claire and Christine at Claire's birthday. I wrote about these two girls in my New Year's Eve entry. Claire is a painter and a fiery girl at times; in quiet times she can be terribly patient, esp. with her art, which I'm a little envious of. Christine is dynamic, optimistic and ambitious--she's going to be a successful entrepreneur of some art-related business one of these days, I'm sure.

Me at Claire's birthday party. Most of the time I'm actually quite happy. These days I don't have much to say coz it's all work and more work and some writing for me. I miss my friends.

Language/Place

2010-11-14T21:44:00.000+08:00

The first edition of Language/Place blog carnival is online! Contributors include November host and editor of Blue Print Review, the ever-thoughtful Dorothee Lang; Rose Hunter from Australia, who has a new collection of poetry out later this month; fellow Hong Kong writer Tammy Ho Lai-ming, co-founder of Asian Cha; yours truly; and other writers from around the world.

Check it out and stroll down to see guidelines for the next carnival--which I'll be hosting! More to follow soon.

Burma releases Aung San Suu Kyi

2010-11-13T20:51:00.000+08:00

Honestly...there were times when I thought I would never see this in the news.

In Other News

2010-11-06T03:08:00.001+08:00

Dear Steven in NYC got news here. InDigest Magazine included his (Ir)Rational Animals among their 10 favorite chapbooks for 2010. I'd probably never write about Steven's work here because it'd almost feel like talking about bits and pieces from my own life. Weird, huh?

Fellow writer from Australia, the occasionally neurotic, most often crazed and always stimulating Rose Hunter has her book out this month. To The River is published by Artistically Declined Press. See how beautiful the book cover is? And it ships by November 30. Time for me to look into ordering a copy...

As for me, I'm still caught up in monster work projects and assignments. Finding time to see those I want to be with; chasing away those I don't want to see. Ghosts that are bored with their existence and cling onto others as if their affection were free. Patience isn't my virtue. Thank you.

The Real Halloween Special!!!

2010-10-31T02:52:00.000+08:00

52/250 A Flash Year - Halloween Special

2010-10-29T23:08:00.001+08:00

A special piece of flash fiction written for my friend Julien Tatham, who is working on a graphic novel. Read it here.

52/250 A Flash Year/Week#23 Where I'm Calling From

2010-10-23T02:00:00.001+08:00

Here.

This fragment came to me when I was spacing out at work.

52/250 A Flash Year - Week#22 Abandon

2010-10-15T15:39:00.003+08:00

Here.

Special thanks to those who've been reading my blog and short shorts, and those who commented or wrote to ask about me.

52/250 A Flash Year - Week#21 Isolation

2010-10-12T16:27:00.001+08:00

Here.

But yes, my days are better than before. Thank you.