Pilgrimage.

Setting aside the aftermath of unpleasant skin allergies for a moment, the day I made contact with poison ivy was in fact quite a special one. My dad and I decided to make a trip out to his village in the countryside where he was born and raised. We have no relatives who live there anymore so I'd never been, and the last time he went back was some 16 years ago.

For the hour that we were there, my dad walked around like a celebrity offering cigarettes to the neighbours and asking them if they remembered him. They all did, but the fun part was seeing how reactions ranged from "Oh my god it's you!" to "No shit, it's you." But mostly they were happy to see us.

We found his old house, which was abandoned and had clutter around it but otherwise was in good shape.

A gaggle of geese waddled across our path.

We found a well of spring water from the mountains.

Made our way up to the top of the hill through prickly grass and plants to visit my grandma's grave.

My dad is a pretty easygoing workaholic, if that even makes sense. What I mean is he left a lot of the disciplining and parenting to my mother. She was the one who dished out the curfews, beatings, lectures and sex talks (which consisted solely of teenage pregnancy horror stories). My dad just kind of let me get on with it. So sometimes I forget how real of a generation gap exists between us, which is what I was confronted with once I stopped admiring the landscape like some asshole tourist and started imagining what it would have been like to grow up in such a place.

You know that Simpsons episode where Lisa finds out all the women in her family are, unlike her dad and uncles, geniuses? I get the impression that might be the case with the male members of my family (we'll see about my brother). My grandpa on my mum's side never went to university, and basically worked his way up in a factory to become an engineer, and ended up inventing some kind of tractor for the Russians. Something like that. He's also a self-taught musician, artist, and calligrapher. And my dad (also an engineer) worked his ass off to not only get out of a peasant village, but a country that had been intellectually, socially and economically stunted by the Cultural Revolution shit show. He was among the first group of students to go abroad. That's such the norm these days but back then, people didn't just pack up and leave China. Back then, an international scholar from China was something of a unicorn.

The generation gap between me and my grandpa and my dad basically boils down to the difference between possibility and necessity. All this to say that I feel like my indecision over my own future is a luxury. And maybe seeing it that way will take off some of the existential edge this year.

(P.S. Thanks, dad.)

Just focus on the pretty stuff.

This film doesn't have a release date in North America yet, but here in Hong Kong it was our pick two nights ago for a family movie night. While it was enjoyable enough to pass some 2 hours, the more I think about it the more I begin to feel ambivalent.

Set in WW2 Shanghai right before the Pearl Harbour bombing, the plot revolves around American agent Paul Soames (John Cusack) investigating the murder of his friend Connor (Jeffrey Dean Morgan). While navigating the webs of alliances and corruption between the Chinese and Japanese, he falls in love and finds himself taking sides in an escalating war that could cost him his life. I guess you would classify the film as a mystery drama or thriller, but although suspense is maintained, the audience is very much walked through the story and there aren't any ingenious twists to keep you on your toes. Let's just say that when all is revealed, it's nothing jaw-dropping.

Can we talk about this badass cast? Well, except maybe John Cusack, who will always be that jerk guy from High Fidelity to me. Although he did carry the film better than I thought he would, I'm not sure if I've seen a sadder slimeball of a spy. Ken Watanabe plays Japanese Captain Tanako who has a shady alliance with Chinese mafia leader Anthony Lanting, played by Chow Yun-fat. The last film I saw Chow in was the atrocity of Dragonball, where he gave me enough second-hand embarrassment to vanquish all my childhood traumas, so it was good to see him back in a dignified role. Finally, Gong Li (flawless, perfect, doesn't age, goddess) takes on a femme fatale inspired role as Langting's wife Anna, who is secretly part of the Chinese resistance unbeknownst to her husband.

Although all three Asian leads give strong performances, the fact remains that they were cast for star power more than anything else, and what's more, typecast in roles that honestly could have been played by anyone who looked good in uniform, a trench coat, or a cheung sam. I really wish Hollywood would start giving more cred to Chinese and Japanese actors who are capable of so much more than lending an "authentic" aesthetic or delivering moral maxims and mysterious or sinister smiles. It's not that these characters were stereotypes or strictly one-dimensional, but their ~inner-conflicts and secretz~ were just as unoriginal and predictable as the classic trope of White Man Falling in Love With Married Asian Beauty.

Can it even really be called a spoiler to say that sexual tension brews between Soames and Anna from the very moment they sit opposite each other at a casino table? While there's nothing inherently wrong with Anna's sensual charm and Soame's understandable attraction to her, what bothers me is the way she eventually reciprocates these feelings. There's a really uncomfortable scene when Soames confronts her about using everyone in her life for the cause of the resistance, which according to him is really a personal vendetta for her father's death. It's not that he's yelling in her face and literally shaking her by the head --there's nothing wrong with an intense, angst-filled face-off between a man and a woman. It's the fact that it's immediately after this violent outburst that Anna "crumbles" and throws herself into his arms with tears streaking down her face. OMG ANGRY PASSIONATE MAKE OUT TIME, DID NOT SEE THAT COMING.

I know I shouldn't be surprised by such a gratuitous hook-up --I was basically waiting for it to come and go so I could get over the awkwardness of sitting between my dad and brother --but I have a real problem with scenes that show a woman's favourable response to displays of aggression. In this case, it's made worse by the inconsistency of Anna's character, who a) does love her husband and b) is very much her own woman who takes charge of her own operations, so you can't even argue that her submission is in keeping with the gender roles of the time period. Speaking of gender roles, I guess I also shouldn't be surprised that the betraying nature of a woman is a recurring theme throughout the film. But I can still be annoyed.

In theatre, it can be a backhanded compliment to say that the "production value" of the play was amazing when everything else was a shit show. While Shanghai is far from being a drag and will at least have you going with the motions, what I liked best about about it was probably the cinematography and throwback to film noir with some great compositions of light, shadow and rain. I'm also a sucker for that period look of the 1940s, and the grit and glamour setting of Shanghai was especially visually delicious due to the multiple national sectors the city was divided into at the time. Interesting fact to note is that filming took place in Thailand due to the sensitive subject matter, which led to the original filming permit in China being taken away. Chinese government: 1 Weinstein Company: 0. At least the two-block set that was built in Bangkok looks pretty amazing. Add to that the suits, fedoras and umbrellas and you just might forget the other inadequacies.

This stunning queen thanks you for your time.

Um.

"...Ghana is already a dumping ground for Europe's electronic waste, with containers full of broken cell phones, computer hard drives, and TVs arriving each month in the port of Tema, near Accra. European laws prohibit the export of this dangerous waste, but labeling the trash as a "charitable donation" offers a loophole."

- Sylvie Stein, "The YIMBYS"

Lessons from the Middle Kingdom.

On relatives: If you engage in conversation with any adult over 30, something like 10 minutes will be dedicated to how tall you are, how much you've grown, how much you can still grow, how tall your brother is, how much taller he can still grow, how tall you both are compared to every other kid they know. I don't know what it is about height that's so grippingly important, but it's probably some national inferiority complex.

On traffic: When I got into my first taxi, I noticed there were no seat belts in the back. Then I started wondering whether the customary bars implemented between the front and back seats were meant to protect the driver from shady clients....or me from a shady driver. Then my driver started yelling across the car to talk to another taxi driving beside us, whilst still driving himself. Then I figured I had a shady driver and reached for my seat b--nevermind.

On streets: 6 lanes, no pedestrian crossings. Do or die.

On food: The French have an ally in frogs' legs. And it tastes better than chicken. And yes, that is a piece of tortoise shell. And yes, I passed on that.

On Mao:

If there's a market for getting oneself photoshopped in a manly handshake with the guy, he evidently still matters.

Heroin chic.

I finally figured out the needle-looking tracks on my arms are in fact poison ivy rashes that I probably got from wading through the mountains looking for my grandma's grave (not even exaggerating).....fack on a flying fuck. So of course I did the sensible thing and started Googling everything about it, finding gems of valuable information:

"The oil from poison ivy is extremely stable and will stay potent -essentially forever."

THANKS, POISON-IVY.ORG. And no thanks, I do not want to view your "rash slide show."

Familial obligations.

Caffiend.

In Tours, there were no Starbucks or Second Cups. I didn't see a single person walking around with a to-go cup. And I didn't go a day without un café. Usually with a macaron to nibble on. Once with a cigarette. Always on the patio. Never for an all-nighter.

Ordering a dainty but potent shot of espresso was the best (and cheapest) way to justify sitting at a sunny table for 3 to 4 hours reading, writing and -my personal favourite -people watching. What we call coffee shops they call salons de thé. Sounds way classier and reminds me of the literary and art salons of 1930s Paris, but really they were pretty small and normal looking with the bonus of outdoor seating and good pastries.

Funny thing about Tours and coffee though -and I wonder if this is true of other areas in France -is that, at least in Place Plumereau (which is a local and tourist hot-spot), hot beverages are not served after a certain time at night. So quite literally, you cannot order a coffee, decaf or tea after 9 or 10pm even though the creperies and little restaurants stay open until well after midnight. We kept forgetting this fact when we were out late, and finally after being embarrassingly reminded yet again by a friendly waiter one night, we asked (out of curiosity, not indignation) why this rule existed. He gave us this very amused grin before giving his best shot at an unconvincing answer.

"That's a very good question. I've lived here all my life and I'm not sure why it's this way. But hot beverages take a longer time to prepare, so maybe that's why."

A longer time to prepare, really? Compared to a crepe or one of your mega-gelato-fruit-chocolate-everything dessert creations? Personally, I think it has more to do with money and turnover of tables since coffees are the least expensive item on the menu for the most disproportionate amount of acceptable "sitting-time." Or maybe French people just don't drink coffee and other hot things at night. Maybe that's considered totally plebeian. Maybe the French way of night dining is to inadvertently get drunk off an opaque glass of heavily concentrated sangria. Not that I did. (I totally did.)

Weird rules aside, the best espresso I had was actually in Langeais, a tiny town 30km west of Tours with a castle smack bang in the middle, hanging out with the other buildings like it was the most normal thing in the world.

I wasn't exaggerating about the castle thing.

It was the morning after I'd arrived here on my weekend biking trip with Christie that we sat down for a breakfast coffee at this place next to our hotel (which deserves a post in itself). There are several reasons why this particular instance of caffeine consumption stands out in my memory.

1) It was genuinely an amazing coffee, the kind where the bitterness isn't acidic and leaves a natural sweetness behind in the back of your throat.

2) I stupidly spilled 1/3 of it, being the klutz I am.

3) Everyone else around us was drinking alcohol. At 10 in the morning. There was a table of around 8 old, gruff men who looked like they could have been war veterans, and they were leaving when we ordered. Leaving behind empty bottles of wine and champagne.

I bet they had an amazing Sunday.

"And as we sat there listening to the carolers, I wanted to tell Brian it was over now and everything would be okay. But that was a a lie, plus I couldn't speak anyway. I wished there was some way for us to go back and undo the past. But there wasn't. There was nothing we could do. So I just stayed silent, trying to telepathically communicate how sorry I was about what had happened. And I thought of all the grief and sadness and fucked up suffering in the world and it made me want to escape. I wished with all my heart that we could just leave this world behind. Rise like two angels in the night and magically disappear."

- Neil McCormick, Mysterious Skin

Mood booster.

Rarely do I ever repeat the living daylight out of a track.

You can incept me anytime, sir.

She don't want a sweetheart.

source

Salle V12

A month is somewhat a weird length of time to spend in a small class -in the case of Tours, 18 students. Sure, you come to know everyone's names and faces, work with some more than others, chat in the hallway while waiting for class to start, give each other the side-eye when the Madame seems particularly on edge. But for the most part you're stuck in a limbo between knowing each other enough that you would make eye contact, smile, say hi if you saw one another in the street, and not knowing each other half as well enough that you would actually hang out as buddies. It's probably only in the last week, even last few days that you begin to feel more comfortable as an entire group (or maybe this is a sentiment that accelerates with the knowledge of a fast approaching departure) and by the time that familiarity starts to set in it's time to bid adieu.

Maybe that's why I hold onto the nicknames that quite naturally slipped into my head during those lazy afternoons when I tuned out of class and discreetly stared at people (in a non-creepy manner). I can't be the only person who has secret monikers for people I am acquainted but not familiar with. It's never done in a nasty spirit (unless if they're nasty people), but more so due to the fact that they often possess or exhibit something in particular that I come to remember them for. They're not distilled descriptions based off of first impressions either, though I admit I can be quick to judge sometimes. Anyway, in this case it was a cumulation of mini-observations that led to quiet "I dub thee" moments. And so in the spirit of nomenclature, I would like to fondly introduce just a few.

1) The pair of Spanish lads -Lisp Boy and Jesus -who sat next to each other and shared some bizarre, unconscious need to constantly open and close their thighs. I'm not kidding. Some people jiggle their leg, some click their pens. These guys...opened and closed their thighs. Every day. Not only that but they would often be synchronised; Jesus would be doing double time of Lisp Boy. And in case you have me down as a total perv, know that they sat right opposite me, facing me, so it was really hard not to notice.

2) "Cherie" -a guy, whose real name sounds like the French word -who really was a sweetheart, from Pakistan, had been learning French for 10 years, spoke it practically flawlessly but also ridiculously quickly. Had an amazing shriek of a laugh that would just come out when the teacher supposedly said something amusing. He was a total keener as well and described our first French Lit class as "orgasmic."

3) Brit Girl from Nottingham who over-pronounced her rs but had such an adorable accent I probably spoke to her in English just so I could hear it more.

4) Rapunzel who was Columbian and had amazing, frizz-free ebony hair that looked like it came out of a Pixar movie.

5) Spanish Grace who reminded me so much of my high school best friend Grace from the way she sat to the way she gave presentations. Sometimes her accent was so strong I didn't know which language she was speaking. Incidentally, high school Grace is also a language wiz at both French and Spanish, and one of the nicknames we had for her was Senorita Shrimp. COINCIDENCE? I would like to meet my own European doppelganger some day.

"Inspiration could be called inhaling the memory of an act never experienced."

- Jonathan Lethem, "The ecstasy of influence: A plagiarism"

Maybe the only thing I really regret about my time in Tours is that I didn't pull out my harmonica by the Loire.

The jealous girl friend.

That's girl friend, not girlfriend. My experience so far with every close friend who's gotten into a relationship has been less than rosy. I'm not annoyed that they have a boyfriend and I don't, I'm annoyed that my status as a girl friend gets shafted so painfully obviously it's like I'm in a second-class friendship.

I don't intend for this to be a hater/rant post and I'm not doing a "bros before hos"/"chicks before dicks" spiel either because I get that priorities drastically change when you're in a serious relationship. I'm fine with not seeing and hanging out with my friends as much as before, and I'm also fine with seeing and hanging out with them and their significant other together. I'm amiable. When I don't like the boyfriend, I can still be civil. Whatever makes my girls happy, I'm cool with. What grates me is how the new relationship totally encroaches on and changes the dynamics of my (much longer) girl friendship, and not for the better. And in that respect I feel like I have a legitimate bone to pick, if only to remind myself not to do the same in the future. So here goes.

Even disregarding third-wheeling and outright ditching, what little girls-only time I do get is always in the shadow of the invisible but palpable presence of the Boyfriend. This is totally fine when I actually have an interest in interrogating my friend on the latest developments of a crush or budding romance, but the fun kind of wanes significantly after they start going steady and I'm still going out to lunches where the sole purpose is to discuss said relationship and all its wonderful and not so wonderful moments.

I get that as a good friend I'm supposed to listen to these things that are important to my friend's life, but when it's seriously the only thing I get to listen to? It's a drag, frankly. Half the time I'm agreeing and aww-ing over how lovely everything is (and I am genuinely giddy and happy for them if they keep the circle jerk under 15 minutes), and the other half I'm listening to all their problems and giving out advice I'm pulling out of my ass because I sure am in a position to be sharing my wisdom and experience.

I sometimes wonder if the reason why I'm suddenly faced with this onslaught of couply-topics from my girl friends who are girlfriends is because our previous conversations revolved so much around Being Single, Boy Crazing and Boy Hating, and now that one of us isn't single well, that strikes a lot of that commonality out. That's actually a really depressing thought. I would hate to think that my closest female friendships are all heavily founded on interest in the opposite sex like some awful chick flick. I don't think that they are, and I don't think that I would feel any better if I also had a boyfriend because even though that would even out the grounds of conversation, the last thing I want is to be exchanging and comparing nauseating couply pieces of information.

The fact remains that I am single, of course, which makes it infinitely worse. Because somewhere in the tedious, one-sided lunch we're having, the conversation always, always takes a turn for the worse when we're finally done talking about my friend's happening love life and inevitably turn to my non-existent one. The question never fails to come up to facilitate this cringe-worthy change.

"So, what about you? Anything?"

And then I have to sit there like a lame duck saying no, or mention some hot guy I saw on a poster who was totally looking at me. The worst part is the way they ask that question. It's the same tone you'd use if you found out someone's pet cat just died, I'm not kidding. There's all this concern, like I'm sorry you're missing out but don't worry, something will happen soon. You'll fulfill your end goal in life in nabbing a man and you won't be sad like I used to be anymore.

FUCK'S SAKE.

All I'd like is for them to sometimes -not even every time, but sometimes -separate their individual self from their couple self, and come out to lunch as the former. Can we talk about that TV show, or that awesome book, or the plays I'm thinking of directing, things I've been writing, my summer in France, your last year in London? Maybe I am completely unenlightened about the bubble of love that completely envelops one in bliss, but is that really so hard to do? Do guys also exclusively talk about girls when they're single (I know this bit is true) and girlfriends when they're not? Fuck it, next time just invite me out for a menage-a-trois.