I'm not a very nice chap.

Tired

Erm, woohoo. Back in Singapore at last, but things have failed to turn out quite as expected. For starters, I managed to leave my handphone in Chicago, so now I have no phone numbers. Of course, I don't have a number of my own anyway, so it isn't relevant. Still, I've been reduced to mooching about waiting for people to come online, since I can't call them. Rather sad, I think. And now that I do have a number again, I still don't have my phone book. Pretty much at a loss. Not in the mood to venture out to the wilds of Zouk or some such place to search for friends either. Too old for that sort of thing now. Trying to stay dry this summer anyway.

One part of my plan is coming along ths far. I have not touched anything unhealthy except in the way of food since I returned to Singapore. I think a couple of months of detox can't do any harm, except for the pounding headaches and constant lethargy. Other than that, it's going peachy. Of course, my dad had to go buy one of those wine chiller cellar things, so it's rather tempting. Also, several bottles of pretty decent whisky. I shall exercise willpower.

What is with girls asking me to sniff their fingertips in airplanes? I really don't get it. The first time it happened, it was weird enough, but I was polite enough to comply because the other party was acting like a child. Then last week, on the flight from Chicago to Hong Kong, this girl seated next to me came back from the washroom, then asked me to smell her fingers. Now, I'm pretty sure this sort of thing isn't too common, but it has happened twice to me. This time, I asked her why I would want to smell her fingers, and she said it was because the soap smelled nice. Now, this was the same reason I was given the last time, but I still didn't get it. I mean, do I go around offering my fingers to relative strangers to smell because I think the hand soap I just used was especially fragrant? Heck, I don't go around offering my neck up for smell tests after I apply cologne, even though most of the time I know that I apply too little for people to smell. That's true, by the way. When you can smell my cologne from more than a metre away, it means that I made a mistake and used too much. Anyway, the whole finger smell thing was just weirdness. At least the first time it happened, I sort of knew the girl in question. This time, I had been chatting with her for maybe an hour. I tell you, it was very awkward to lean over and smell some stranger's fingers, albeit fairly attractive, when there are two stewardesses hovering next to you trying set a tablecloth. Somehow managed to get complimented on how pretty my seatmate was by one of said stewardesses while I was having a quiet chat with her. Imagine my look of maligned innocence.

Ok, that was just a quick mutter from a pretty tired me. More on why I'm tired some other time.

Dust

What happens when a heart is broken, not by a shattering blow, but by neglect, the dust collecting atop it until the mass of each insignificant dust mote joins with that of every other one, and the collective weight of the dust is simply too much to bear?

Perhaps the fierce strike is better, more merciful. The pain is far sharper, more acute, more concentrated in a single moment when a word, a phrase, an action cuts to the quick. The blow not only causes a break, but also stuns the recipient. Sometimes it is more the shock of the blow than the actual damage caused that is the deciding factor. It is common knowledge in boxing that a knockout punch is most often caused by the surprise of receiving an unseen punch to the head. The jab may not have crushed a grapefruit, but the jaw was not set as hard as a grapefruit, so it swings loose, the brains are rattled without warning, and the wiring is momentarily short-circuited. You search for reasons, for logic and understanding, but in that instant, nothing makes sense, for without warning, there is insufficient information to understand what is going on. And the feeble powers of the human mind cannot function without the proper preparation. A sharp strike, and everything falls apart, without any defence. For it is only by letting another into your guard that you may hope to prevail. Unless, of course, your reach really is that superior. Fortunately for most of us, few indeed possess such long arms.

But a quick knockout punch usually has little damage. Imagine a blow across the back of the head, hard enough to cause one to lose consciousness. Contrast that with gently beating a person about the head with a telephone book, say, for several hours. In the former case, a concussion may occur, but the force necessary to cause a loss of consciousness is not enough to cause serious damage. In the latter, the brains are bounced around for hours on end, and they become so scrambled that nothing works anymore. By the time the recipient loses consciousness, the pain and confusion will have reached levels beyond the comprehension of any person who will live after that.

The above example was taken from a novel, by the way. Post Mortem. Decent enough piece of crime fiction.

Anyway, the point is that a slow breaking of a heart is far more cruel. The recipient can see the heart slowly coming apart, and there is nothing to be done about it. You may try, but the dust collects and collects, and no amount of huffing will stop the inevitable. The dust may be sent flying by your breaths, but it will settle again. And in the end, the weight will be too much. The sluggishness of the process hurts most of all, for the damage is clear and unavoidable. It is felt, every moment of the process, and each individual mote of dust that settles atop the others is experienced and known. All the pain and damage is experienced. No shock occurs, for one knows all that happens as it happens. It is precisely because the increments are so small and seemingly insignificant that they are all too significant. There is time to contemplate one's downfall, to mull over what might have been, what alternatives might have been possible. The bearer of the weight of the killing dust will always think that there would have been a different outcome if only another course of action had been taken, or that there is still some hope of redeeming the situation. It is that hope and that regret that makes the slow breaking so much more painful than a quick, sharp blow. There was an alternative, but it was not taken. There is another way, but it cannot be fathomed. What crueler punishment is there than to know that hope exists, just beyond reach?

Ok, just so it's clear, this was not inspired by a personal experience, but from a series of conversations I have had with a few people recently. Reflections on other people, not on me, so do not message me and ask what's wrong. I'm just peachy, thank you. Don't reach, don't hope, don't suffer.

Family

I just had the most ridiculous conversation. I was chatting with one of those China Chinese people, and I was asked why I didn't speak in Mandarin. The next question was whether I could speak Chinese at all. I assured her that I could speak Chinese, but nowhere near as fluently as English. This being the case, in addition to my being in the middle of New England, I quite naturally used English almost exclusively, even in my conversations with Chinese speakers. In fact, I saw no reason to deliberately switch languages when I am in an English-speaking country, since while the party I am speaking to may not possess perfect English language skills, my Chinese language skills are not perfect either, and so by default due to everyone else around us being unable to understand Chinese, any conversations should be held in English. Voila, a Pareto improvement. Don't you like that old fellow? Always useful in an argument.

Anyway, so she replies that it is a failing of mine that I do not speak perfect Chinese. In fact, I should make the utmost effort to ensure that my Chinese is up to the mark before making any attempt to perfect my English or any other foreign language.

My reply was that I saw no reason for prioritising Chinese over any other language. In fact, I personally feel that while it is useful to be able to speak and understand Chinese, it would be no less useful to have a grasp of French or German.

But it is the language of my ancestors, my dear China girl cries. I have a responsibility to know the language and to know it well. Every Chinese person should be able to speak Chinese well, for we should take pride in what our ancestors have achieved.

I ended the conversation here, for I was weary of it, but I would like to note that this is an utterly ridiculous argument. To start with, I have great doubts over how many of my ancestors spoke Mandarin. I do not know if Mandarin was spoken on Hainan, but in Canton, Caozhou and wherever else it is that my ancestors hailed from, I am fairly certain that a good number of them had no Mandarin skills. In fact, both my grandmothers do not speak it. So by that criteria alone, I have no ancestral obligation to speak Mandarin. If anything, I should be learning more Teochew and Hainanese and whatever else is relevant.

Also consider that it is highly unlikely that the Mandarin of today is anything like the language spoken by those who did speak its precursor. Simply observe the written language. I certainly could not read the Chinese characters of a mere thousand years ago. While the spoken word does not parallel the written exactly, it is nevertheless an indication of how much a language can change in a fairly short period of time. English is less than a millennium in age, yet the conventions are now considered to be inflexible and absolute in some quarters. Chances are that even if no other dialects are to be found in the ancestral bloodline of a person, after tracing the line back a hundred generations or so, any conversation would be impossible, simply because the language is nothing alike. Am I to attempt to discover what changes have occurred in the language since its inception and deconstruct the current lingo in order to speak as my ancestors did? It is as ridiculous as it sounds.

Taking the idea further, one must realise that tracing things back far enough, we all share an ancestor. Should then all the peoples of the world make a concerted effort to discover the primeval language spoken by that savage common ancestor and use it? We would be reduced to grunting and gesticulating a great deal, I suspect. The human race was once nothing more than a collection of animals, do not forget. In fact, we still are. It would be foolish to take inordinae pride in any accomplishments of a culture or nation.

Allow me to explain. If I were to look at the first Chinese astronaut and proclaim that I felt pride swell in my chest because he has accomplished something for my race, then I am saying the exact same thing as taking pride in a dog learning to perform tricks. I am not related to this astronaut by any way except by a ancestor many generations above me. Why should I take any personal pride in him and his accomplishments? The dog is also related to me by a common ancestor, albeit many more generations up than the one I share with the astronaut. It is only a matter of numbers that separates my feeling pride when a Chinese man accomplishes the extraordinary, and feeling the same pride when some animal manages something equally beyond its usual capabilities. It is the deluded who takes pride in the Chinese culture, or the English tradition, or the achievements of the human race. I have little more identification with any other Chinese person than I do with a fly. It is all a matter of numbers of generations to trace back. Simply because it is beyond conception or memory means nothing. To use those as excuses is to admit one's own limitations as a thinking being. How can we marvel at the discrimination between human races decades past if we apply the exact same standards to the larger race we find ourselves in?

Therein lies my impassivity to prejudice and discrimination. I have no problem with my own possession of it, or with being the object of it, for it is simply impossible to eliminate. We naturally discriminate against most of the larger family of life on earth, for it is near impossible to find sympathy for the housefly, or the earthworm, or the oak tree, or the bacteria on our skins. And if we cannot apply the same rules to all the members of this massive extended family we find ourselves in, why should we take care to apply them to any single group in particular?