农民子弟

Recently, I was told to write an article about my experience doing community service with 农民子弟 for GAHA. For those who don't know, every Friday I troop merrily/reluctantly down to the main gate, cross over, take 812 for 11 bus stops, get down, turn right and walk for about 200m before I reach a 村 or village (its basically a cluster of houses given a pretty name), I enter the village and THUD. Its not Shanghai. Or at least its not a part of Shanghai they would publicize.农民

I can rattle on and describe the place. I would rather not though.

I don't know how to describe what i do. I don't even know the proper translation for 农民子弟. My dictionary tells me that proper translations should be peasant children. However, i know that peasant children lacks accuracy and context. I don't know what is right for this very special, very large group of people that are discussed so extensively. The 农民 issue in China is a big one, as seen from all the emphasis put on a famous figure if he came from that particular background, the row of books in the library all dedicated to this issue and the particular attention paid by the media with regards to this group of people. 农民.

The family i teach came from Sichuan. The dad came first with an offer from a supermarket as an attendant. Mom and two sisters came shortly after. Till now, the mother of the little girl still forlornly longs for the big house they left back in the fields. When i ask her if she wants to go back, she says -he's here, there is nothing there for me. Holding the one year old girl in her hands, her backdrop being that grimy shack the size of my bathroom... Perhaps you can accuse me of being sentimental, but it evokes true feeling. 农民.

Its winter now, and they have no heater. When i ask the mother if its hard for them she shrugs and says 就穿多一点！没事！On Friday I spent 4 hours on their bed (for its the only place to sit in the house) teaching the kid. When i got back, i was paralysed with a dripping nose, a sore throat and a feverish brow. I limped to bed and only got up at 5pm the next day. For 4 hours i lived their lives. The result of it? My collapse. Amazing. My weakness and pathetic inability. 农民.

婷婷, my exuberant tutee. Often when i arrive she is off somewhere playing in the cold. Her mom would holler for her, sometimes to no avail. Finally she'll arrive, flushed and excited chattering about her day. When asked about her exam results, I'm normally greeted with a slightly embarrassed smile and a 又不及格了. Then, the optimism will start spilling out. =D HAHAHA! -but! two marks before I pass for math! and English, the highest was only a 70! Its okay. This is the second exam in a shanghai school with the locals. I'll do better the next time. -smile. I don't know what to do with the mischievous imp. She won't study and yet she somehow possesses or is infected with the supreme Shanghainese confidence that she'll go somewhere in life. She fails but she doesn't let it get her down. Sometimes i wonder if i should reprimand or praise that blind optimism. 农民子弟.

Dinner is always a tug of war affair. 不不，我们不能一直吃你们的！不可以！青菜就够了！不用大鱼大肉！啊！太客气了！肉给婷婷！不可以！不可以！好好我也吃一点＝／I insist on not eating and they insist on me eating. As you can see, they often win as the mother likes to pull out her most devious weapon! -你嫌弃我煮的菜！After that, i always give in with a whimper... knowing that i cannot insult their pride for all the money in Bill Gate's various bank accounts. 农民

So what are they? :) I say, strong resilient ordinary human beings.
And what is it that i do? Now i finally know. I'm not helping someone who needs me. I'm doing it as a favor for another human being.



This post deserves the first photograph i ever took seriously as a photographer. Then, I learned something about the hobby that has since accompanied me for 7 years. Now, I just learned something about the duty and delight that will accompany me for the next 70 years. (Provided i live that long).

A nugget of truth

Now, read Alison's stream of consciousness for the next 3 minutes till 12.56am.

!2.56, I'm at 12.53am. !2.%3 Am, its damn hard to type 12.53am. My fingers are confused. See? So awkward. Jump Jump Jump. I don't like the song playing on iTunes. incomplete. =/ change. incomplete. thinking of changing. wait i can't write accurately in stream of consciousness style. i wish i typed faster. what would people think if they saw this. ! I might be exposed! haha! no. they won't get it. No one gets it. Everyone reads what i write from their own perspective, cloudy vision roses, glasses. now they will be horrified. i can't believe i wrote that. Wow. the things i do for truth. hah! I'm bullshitting again. ooops clock 12.55. i want to continue though. this is fun. 12.55. 12.55.1 2.55 again. numbers are hard to type My hand is getting tired. can smell my supper of fried chicken and potato pancakes. ooops 12.56. can i cheat? no no. 12.56 12.56 12.56 12.56. okay okay stop stalling. STOP. stop.

This is my attempt at truth. Recently, people close to me have been writing extremely heartrending, honest to god stuff on their blogs. Inspired, i tried. However, i failed. My most vulnerable and true thoughts are too mine for someone else to read. What lies above is my attempt at providing some truth.

Food in Shanghai

Someone close remarked to me recently that i update my blog frantically. :)
Perhaps perhaps
only for my joy then.

Food photography is all the rage now isn't it? I however, only take food when a particular dish or moment really strikes me. Share my food inspired moments! :)


See how quickly the guy's hands move! Even at F2 i couldn't get a clear shot!

That aside, i suddenly remembered a friend of mine that looked up to Anne Boleyn, the notorious English lady that managed to wriggle her way to the throne. Now i wonder, what kind of person would look up to and be fascinated with Anne Boleyn? Honestly, Anne Boleyn was an incredibly smart woman, not smart enough of course as we know from her public execution. She was unscrupulous, cunning, extremely religious yet curiously immoral. I used to have a strange distasteful admiration for her. Thankfully, that disappeared with time and the building up of my moral values and sense of justice. (I would at least like to think i possess the two) Still, if one did revere Anne Boleyn, does it say something about them? A high tolerance for cruel ambition? An admiration for cunning deceit? A broader definition of what is right and moral?

I'd say that a person's "heroes" are very telling of who they are or at least what they would like to be.

Look at all the wax people

Shanghai, my here and now

I think its time to consolidate a little.

These two weeks have been the furthest 2 weeks I've lived from those at home. I have always managed to be physically away, yet keep a part of my heart and mind where they belong. However, i fear that the tendrils of thought have started detaching themselves, curling in tightly and with a sudden movement lashing up and out.

One's heart and mind seems to have a limited capacity. The more i feel here, the less i have to offer there. Problems, successes, happiness, sorrow, experiences... they are here and now. I find that if i don't share them with the people back home and thus pull them into my present, these people tend to fade from memory. Time, the little bastard is another culprit. As i live from day to day here, time between each contact with home strangely increases. A week, two weeks, a month, more. Singapore is dimming.

Do i have to choose? Is it a choice between here and there? If so, whats the right choice?

山东

我要描述山东那一趟旅游！

山东是个小型的FUSSA秋游。我是和Leon，Zhengjun，Sixi，Jiaming，Ivana，Julia，Weiming和Zhipeng着八位同志一起去的。
All in all, we visited 3 places. 曲阜,淄博and济南. This time, I did not get cheated, traumatised or overly horrified and appalled at the terrible excesses and inherent evil of human nature.

Come! Enjoy some strange photos of my fellow companions!

Amusing JuliaGlorious Ivana

A strangely bashful JMThe awesome girl that helped us loads with regards to bus tickets...

I would say that a definite upside to this trip was the interesting company. Personally, i draw my delight during traveling from the beauty that surrounds me. I loved the Chinese gardens, the slanting autumn light, the iridescent pearl on the petals of the chrysanthemums. I love the seeming mundane quality of the long roads, the hours spent traveling with total strangers. I love waking up in the morning and brushing my teeth next to some snorting old man spitting into the metal wash basin. I love meeting fellow photographers and exchanging tips with them. (I learnt something awesome from an old man in 济南! :D) I can go on and on... but i'm sure that i have made myself quite clear.



All that aside, i begin to realise that perhaps its not enough. My companions were schooled in chinese literature and thus had an acquired ability to appreciate the culture and history that surrounded us. They drew their enjoyment from a different source. The genuine excitement that flashed upon Sixi's face as he walked through 李清照’s former residence struck something within me. I am inadequate. Therefore, this time i took something different away from my trip. I took away greater self knowledge, and a drive to become more informed about chinese literature which will thus teach me about chinese history and culture. For that, I picked up a book of Tang and Song poems! Yes. I did look up 李清照’s work and yes... now,to a certain extent, I understand Sixi's delight.

The trip also brought other flurries of new revelations. I learnt more about some people and am determined to continue filling the tank.

That's Sixi.

拿得起，放得下

这是我的新人生规则

Red leaves

Red leaves. One of the below is constant, faithful, loyal to its nature. From the second it blooms on the wrinkled surface of a twig till the day it untangles itself and withers to the ground, it remains red. The others are changeable as opal, shedding their green and yellow glory as the winds blow. Fickle them shedding their multicolored dresses like dancers changing partners in a masquerade.

Can you tell them apart?


Mark a few lines in the poem, Song-Inconstancy in Love by Robert Burns...

Mark the winds, and mark the skies,
Ocean's ebb, and ocean's flow,
Sun and moon but set to rise,
Round and round the seasons go.
Why then ask of silly Man
To oppose great Nature's plan?

P.S.
Blogger misrepresents colours. It infuriates me.

Honor

After listening to Beyonce's "If i were a Boy" on my sister's blog, intrigued i went in search for its lyrics. I was incredibly struck by something...

f I were a boy
Even just for a day
I’d roll out of bed in the morning
And throw on what I wanted and go
Drink beer with the guys
And chase after girls
I’d kick it with who I wanted
And I’d never get confronted for it
Because they’d stick up for me

I have reached a conclusion after reading the words in Red. Friends stick up for their friends. They don't condemn and judge. That's honor. To any outsider, I will defend and protect. We deserve to do what we want and be safe, for our friends will stand by us. especially here.

Where i am

Light through glass patched with rust,
a room of white gossamer.
Thick dust
smother white, matted, damp.

Silentium Amoris- Oscar Wilde

As often-times the too resplendent sun
Hurries the pallid and reluctant moon
Back to her sombre cave, ere she hath won
A single ballad from the nightingale,
So doth thy Beauty make my lips to fail,
And all my sweetest singing out of tune.

And as at dawn across the level mead
On wings impetuous some wind will come,
And with its too harsh kisses break the reed
Which was its only instrument of song,
So my too stormy passions work me wrong,
And for excess of Love my Love is dumb.

But surely unto Thee mine eyes did show
Why I am silent, and my lute unstrung;
Else it were better we should part, and go,
Thou to some lips of sweeter melody,
And I to nurse the barren memory
Of unkissed kisses, and songs never sung.

Shandong

I'm back from Shandong. It was a good trip. But...it was confusing.