You are currently browsing the monthly archive for November, 2007.
I suppose there is a part of me that wishes to compulsively tell people about my life and my feelings. how can I be sure if they were real unless I communicate it to someone and have them validate it for me. how sure can I be of the substantiality of my insubstantial life unless I were sure someone were to witness it (even second hand) and remember it alongside with me.
something bidisha told me while we were in Tokyo really struck me. it came up as we were talking about being the only child in our families and the terrifying inevitable prospect that one day both our parents will die and leave us alone. and she pointed out that a large part of the terror is that we become the only ones left who remember. all the memories seem to die alongside with our parents, and there will be no one else other than us who can ever testify to the things that happened in the past.
and it is so true, especially in my family. who else can remember my brother as a boy, and all his childhood tantrums and quirks, who else can ever really come to claim that the boy I knew as my brother was real, was born, had lived.
there is a part of me that wants to seize, hold, possess, claim all the things I feel I see I think—I want to impress them onto my mind as real. they were real, they happened, and I am the better (or worse) for them. when I meet friends that I really like, other than the need to know, there is the desire to tell to share, to tell them everything that has happened to me, perhaps stemming the desperate worry that I am not real to them yet. how real am I to you, or you to me? alas, alas, too many thoughts.
the world stretches too far apart sometimes, even as plane rides and the internet makes it smaller. sometimes it seems there is a huge incommunicable, untraversable distance between one human being to another. ultimately, in the quiet and darkness of night, I am alone in myself, as the social ties fall away from me.
1) this japanese winter really sneaks up on you. first it’s nice and bright and autumn-y at 15 degrees and then suddenly one day it decides to drop to 5 degrees and stay there. there nights are bitterly, bitterly cold. my poorly-insulated japanese apartment is not really holding up too well. specially with my lack of heater and electric blanket. le sigh. i actually cannot sleep with my head above the duvet because it’s too bitterly cold and the cold stings my face.
2) crooked teeth love. he has taken to learning random things that i might be interested in. he learnt all the kanji for the chinese names of well-known japanese animated characters (like shin-chan and anpan-man), and also random english phrases. like once he came up to me during cleaning and went, “please…! pass the salt.” <3
3) i think mr. m. doesn’t like me anymore :( -sad-
4) but there’s been all sorts of love from various third-years. <3 i love them. am getting to know some of the girls better too. (though i suspect mr. m’s girlfriend dislikes me still :P)
5) rise of the ichinenseis. hiroto s. is an up-and-coming first-year upstart. apparently, he knows all the baseball seniors despite defecting from baseball to track and field earlier this year, and he has taken to annoying me regularly. even colluding with crooked teeth. alas!
6) japanese people like to talk about the weather a lot. A LOT. like the british, really.
there are too many threads to be ironed out.
Lately the topics of ‘ganbatte’ and ‘shoganai’ have been recurring repeatedly. First from Mindy, about her experience on the train in Tokyo, then from Joyce, about the children in English club and their attitudes towards life; then again with Mindy and her speech contest, for which the title of her speech is “shoganai.” Then finally today, which is a day where I have nothing but Mr. S’s classes, and to top that, is also the day I have lunch with his homeroom class. And today… we had so many conversations, all of which were very enlightening about my strange Japanese friend. Again, the recurring theme was shoganai and ganbatte.
Just to briefly explain the terms for those unacquainted with them—‘ganbatte’ is what the whole Asian dream hinges upon. It’s not just Japanese, it’s very Chinese (and therefore, Singaporean, as most of us are Chinese). It’s the belief that if you want something hard enough, as long as you work hard you can achieve it. It’s the belief that meritocracy is founded upon. As long as you work hard, you can get anything. We want to believe that we have the power to change our destiny if we try hard enough. We don’t like the thought that sometimes even by working hard we still can’t achieve what we want to achieve. It’s a scary thought, if not downright terrifying. If we can’t get what we want by working hard, then we’re trapped, all of us. If we cannot believe in human effort, then what can we believe in?
That’s where ‘shoganai’ comes in. We’ve tried so hard—what else can we do? It’s just a part of life—roll with it. It’s hardened cynicism that borders on fatalism. Ultimately, if you think about it, there’s a fine, fine line that separates
- Being concerned and wanting to do the best that one can to help people
- Being overly-burdened by things that you cannot help and worrying about things that are out of your hands
- Being shoganai and becoming numb to the troubles and struggles of others
And it is difficult to find that balance. It is defeatist if we say that things are way over our heads and we are helpless; but it is tiring to bear it all for other people (and sometimes unnecessary and unasked of us). Yet I truly feel that sometimes there really is only so much that humans can do, especially when it concerns other people. Maybe we can believe that we can change things in our lives, but when it comes to doing things for others—there has to come a point when we realize that our power is simply too limited and too tiny. I may wish that my friends can be happy and whole in themselves, but there is realistically little I can do to make them feel that way. I can wish that the Chinese transfer student will not be lonely and will find friends in this foreign country and find hope in her future even though she is screwed over in her studies because of the language barrier, but what can I do for her? I can only help her in my class, for my subject; I can only talk to her when I have lunch with her class. I may wish desperately that despite losing a child, my parents can feel whole and secure—I can work hard on behalf of both me and my invisibly ever-present absent brother; I can try to secure glory so incredible it is worth two children; I can take their financial burdens upon myself being the newly-minted only child and income-provider — but for what? Will that truly ever heal my parents?
It is… a difficult thing. But I don’t want to be fatalistic and say “shoganai, there is nothing I can do.” I don’t want to not care for people. I don’t want there to come a point when I am so jaded that I think someone cannot be changed and that they will be doomed to unhappiness for the rest of their life. Is this a copouty answer? Perhaps. But there has been so many times in my life where the inadequacy of human effort is emphasized again and again and again. Sometimes people are so broken that there is little anyone else can do to fix them. The only freedom I can see in such a situation is to believe that God is looking out for these people, that God is working all the time in their lives. I can only pray that God opens the opportunities for me to help, and that he has a larger plan for them that doesn’t hinge on just me. That is the only way I feel I can be free. Like how Mindy ends her speech, it is not ganbatte—but it is not shoganai either.
I choose to believe that the Son of God came down to our world as a man, and destroyed our strongholds in the cross. I choose to believe that the power of his unlimited grace assures me that he loves and cares and helps all the people I cannot. I choose to believe in the hope that one day all will be healed. I choose to believe in a life of freedom from worry and from fears of inadequacy.
I believe in hope, and above all, i believe in love.
you know, up until just now, if you had asked me what a flaneur was, i would have answered that it was someone who made flans.
-恥-
i’ve been tipped off by mr. s. that it is illegal (or well, completely not allowed) to post photos of students on the web without distorting their faces. i won’t take down my p365 shots, but i’ll password lock my school entries that have photos. :) the password is the one most of you from york should know– if you don’t know my password but want to read the entries, drop me an email at ailin.chin[removethis]@gmail.com :)
you see the depths of my heart, yet you love me the same.
knowing that i am sheltered regardless, knowing i can have the strength to change, knowing that i am protected and i am loved. i am loved. that is what gives me the hope. but there is a hopeless tangle in trying to tell that to people. whywhywhy, am i mute to the people i love desperately; why can i not be proud of what has moved me deepest; why do i constantly behave like i am ashamed of what is the best part of me?
Louis: like at elim last week i mentioned to —— that my friend once commented about imagining the pencil trashbins impaling little kids.
then she said ‘what a weird comment’.
or something like that
-sad-
miss: laugh
your… ‘friend’?
Louis: yes my friend =P
miss: aaw man
Louis: luckily
miss: why not reveal that your girlfriend is a total psycho?
:<
Louis: hahahahahaha
miss: are you… ashamed of me
Louis: i’m ASHAMED
i cry myself to sleep at night
thinking of the countless imaginary children you have impaled
—–
i do think of the dustbins impaling children. -hushed voice-
