Monthly Archives: February 2010

Brunch with Jason

Brunch with Jason Shim

Before get­ting on his train, Jason asked me if I was a hug-per­son. It was the right ques­tion, because I’m most assured­ly a hug-per­son, and we embraced before he stepped out onto the plat­form.

We grew up at the same time in the same neigh­bour­hood — a small sub­urb some­where in the mid­dle of the 500km that sep­a­rates us — but nev­er had a chance to meet until he gave a pre­sen­ta­tion in town for the HR Council for the Nonprofit Sector. Until now, we only com­mu­ni­cat­ed through blog com­ments and e‑mail exchanges.

When I first met him, it struck me how much tall he was, and how much deep­er his voice was than I expect­ed.

Jason is like me in so many ways, some­thing I find extreme­ly rare. We share a strong self-aware­ness and a pen­chant for self-improve­ment, as well as the same views on love and tastes in women. Perhaps it could be said that Jason is an extro­vert­ed ver­sion of me. We could dis­cuss things we nor­mal­ly reserve for our close friends, and con­tin­ue as if we had already known each oth­er’s sto­ries for years. He’s a true kin­dred spir­it, and many times I felt like believ­ing in him meant I believed in myself as well.

Brunch was filled with such stim­u­la­tion that I for­got to take a pic­ture, so I set­tled for this one when I went to see him off at the train sta­tion. I’m so glad I was able to cap­ture his per­pet­u­al smile, that same smile I see in his pic­tures when he trav­el­ing the world, in Budapest, Ghana, New Orleans, and oth­er places with names too for­eign for me to remem­ber.

Fishing Without A Hook

I’ve been liv­ing the strangest exis­tence late­ly. It’s been a life with­out struc­ture or mean­ing. I won­der what I’ll think of this phase of my life when I look back in five years.

Some days are eas­i­er than oth­ers. Sometimes, it’s a strug­gle just to find a rea­son to exist.

I have to admit that every pain, every sad­ness is inspir­ing. It may make my fin­gers bleed and my lungs ache, but the pure emo­tion that comes out of it is worth it, because that means I’m feel­ing some­thing, instead of the numb­ness that scares me most.

My one mis­take was try­ing to for­get some­one, when instead I should have been try­ing to for­get life in gen­er­al. I’ve always had the habit of think­ing too much, and not doing enough. I’ve been try­ing to set goals to get some­where, when it’s work­ing toward those goals that’s the impor­tant part.

I made an appoint­ment with my ther­a­pist again1, because some­thing is def­i­nite­ly wrong with me right now. It feels like I have the world at my fin­ger­tips. I have so much time and oppor­tu­ni­ty on my side. I laugh at the right jokes. I dance at the right songs. It’s all star­ing me in the face, but every­thing still feels emp­ty.

I’m not look­ing for answers. I just want to stop ask­ing ques­tions.

  1. I haven’t been back since last October []

Broadsword and a Ukulele

Broadsword and ukulele

My Tai Chi teacher recent­ly added the Yang style broadsword to the cur­ricu­lum. I’d be lying if I said I was­n’t ecsta­t­ic, as I’ve wait­ed quite a while to learn a weapon form. There’s some­thing roman­tic and exot­ic about wield­ing one of the four great Chinese weapons. I find it delight­ful­ly iron­ic that it’s a gwei­lo who’s cat­alyzed such an inter­est in my own cul­ture. Take THAT, my racist and sex­ist Chinese ances­tors.

As for the ukulele, one day I found out how inex­pen­sive they can be and bought one right away. It’s a Mahalo Les Paul style ukulele (right down to the square tun­ing pegs) with an extend­ed neck for high­er reg­is­ter notes. In many ways, the ukulele is the per­fect instru­ment for me right now; cheap, easy enough that I can teach myself1, and not too hard on the fin­gers2.

It feels fuck­ing fan­tas­tic to be play­ing music in some form again. I did years of piano and flute lessons in ele­men­tary school to high school, and took a very long hia­tus from then till now. And that was most­ly in band, when I could­n’t choose the music I want­ed to play. Now I can play the songs I like, and the advan­tage is that I’ve prob­a­bly heard them a few hun­dred times so I already know them inside-out.

With my years of music lessons and per­for­mances from my youth, it’s not like I’m learn­ing music from scratch, I’m sim­ply fig­ur­ing out how to apply what I already know about tone, pos­ture, tun­ing, vol­ume, fin­ger­ing3, tim­ing, and into­na­tion, to anoth­er instru­ment. Admittedly, it’s been very slow going, and it’s like I’m learn­ing a new lan­guage as I train my fin­gers to achieve a dex­ter­i­ty that was nev­er there before.

The inter­est­ing thing is that my last few years prac­tic­ing Tai Chi has helped me learn the ukulele. In my Tai Chi class, I’ve gained the patience and per­se­ver­ance required to prac­tice the same moves over and over again until they become a nat­ur­al part of my mus­cle mem­o­ry. In the begin­ning, it was a lot of con­cen­tra­tion spent just try­ing to remem­ber what to do next in the form, but now that I don’t need to think about them when I prac­tice, my con­cen­tra­tion goes into fine-tun­ing the lit­tle details. The same prin­ci­ples can be applied to the ukulele (or any instru­ment, for that mat­ter), and I’m try­ing to get to the point where I don’t need to think about what my fin­gers should be doing, and just con­cen­trate on play­ing with the right kind of expres­sive­ness.

Which is why I have a broadsword and a ukulele rest­ing on the wall next to my desk. Any time I need a break, I pick up one of them and prac­tice for a few min­utes.

  1. Because I real­ly don’t have time for anoth­er time-con­sum­ing hob­by []
  2. The strings are nylon, instead of the met­al of gui­tars, so the cal­lous­es aren’t as bad. The health of my hands is also an impor­tant thing to me. []
  3. Though the fin­ger­ing for a stringed instru­ment is real­ly dif­fer­ent from piano and flute. []

Nod

In my last year of high school — which was also my first year at that school, so no one real­ly knew me — I had a cre­ative English class. We were giv­en 15 min­utes of free writ­ing time at the begin­ning of each class, of which I most­ly spent mak­ing ver­bal doo­dles to any kind of cin­e­ma stim­u­la­tion I had recent­ly seen at the time. Around then, it would have been quotes from Monty Python and lines from Casino. Anyone could put a CD in the stereo for every­one to hear, so one week I put my most recent mix in.

In the mid­dle was Creep by Radiohead , and anoth­er guy in class sud­den­ly exclaimed, “A great song!”, amidst the silence of our work­ing minds. Everyone looked at him, then at me, and I felt a red­ness flush on my face.

That was fol­lowed by One by Metallica, and again he said, “Another great song!”, and the same chain of events hap­pened as last time.

He was that edgy kid with bleached blond hair and always got in trou­ble for wear­ing walk­ing shoes with his uni­form. He did his own thing, had his own tastes, and fit in with the crowds he want­ed, not nec­es­sar­i­ly the crowds that want­ed him. I was that awk­ward kid who had no real friends, had a mop for hair, and a per­pet­u­al­ly tac­i­turn demeanour. To have him acknowl­edge my taste for two songs in a row had sud­den­ly giv­en me some kind of street cred because he was far more pop­u­lar than me.

Some of the oth­er kids start­ed look­ing at me dif­fer­ent­ly from then on.

29 3/12: The Once Loved

When I look at this pic­ture, I see the flaws. The stretch marks on my back, and espe­cial­ly promi­nent on the side of my ass. Those strange red blem­ish­es on my shoul­der that I don’t remem­ber hav­ing. The lack of junk in the trunk so com­mon in Asian peo­ple. I did­n’t even know I had a mole down there.

I used to have body-image issues. Always think­ing I was too skin­ny, and too ugly.

Self portrait at 29 3/12

 

Then some­one made me feel dif­fer­ent­ly. She treat­ed every part of my body with as much atten­tion and love as I treat­ed hers. She was the first per­son to ever make me believe that I was attrac­tive too. Some days, I felt as hand­some as she was pret­ty.

I turn 30 in nine months, and now that she’s gone, I won­der if any­one will ever see me that way again.

The Turning 30 Series