There are so many people to thank for helping me keep my sanity intact through these trying college years. Don’t know if you all think this is too sappy of me though. Haha. Bear with me, for this is probably the first and the last.

First and foremost, I would like to extend my eternal gratitude to my parents. This goes without being said: without them, I wouldn’t be here.

To the teachers who have inspired me and pushed me to achieve my potential these four years, I thank thee, all two of you. To the rest of the teachers, thank you for giving me a pass grade. To some of them, you might want to consider a career change, teaching is not just a job.

As an emotionally dependent idiot, I owe the woman I spent 4 unforgettable years with for being there through my foul tempers and for being a lasting punching bag. She saw me through my transition from a feisty youth to a resigned chinese university student, and stayed. When my temper called for it, she flew to Hong Kong at my whim, and even to Shanghai just to help me with my unpacking when I moved to a one-bedroom apartment. She has been relentless in giving all she can to me, even when I long stopped deserving it. You know who you are — thank you.

To MissY who’s somewhat grudgingly still by my side, I know your patience with me reaches your limit many a time, and I thank you for bearing with my bitchiness, nagging, and laziness with household chores. Let’s hope this year of pseudo married life will bring much laughter to our new home. Thank you also for being my pillar of support, and more importantly, school administration informant these four years in college. Haha. Thank you for staying by me when I was at my lowest, and for forgiving me when I couldn’t even forgive myself. 

To CG who is currently in lovely London finishing up his Master’s, thank you so much for all your encouragement and advice through the trials and tribulations these 4 years. Also grateful for your help when I had to move one too many times, and for our many reasons to celebrate with treats! Your wisdom and academic talent have also been of great help to my little academic pursuits. Thanks mostly for keeping it real when the rest of the world seemed to sway the other side. Much credit has to be given to you for the sanity I have today. 

To other FUSSA-ians, although your recollection of times with me is probably of yesteryears, I do sincerely appreciate the help and support available from FUSSA these years. I wish all of you success in your endeavors.

To Vanessa, my closest Chinese friend, thanks for daring to be different from the herd, and looking out for me when most didn’t. I appreciate your honesty and cherish our years of friendship in Shanghai.

To my other Chinese classmates, thanks for being patient with my Chinese and Mandarin, and listening to my presentations with accented English even when the teacher was not in the classroom. As we embark on our different paths after this, I hope we remember the good times when we acted out “Cupid and Psyche” and other fun skits in English class.

To my one and only Italian friend Marta, your independence and courage have been of great motivation to me, and I thank you for our heart-to-heart talks, and all your encouragement that would not have been possible without your open mind.

To Birte, hailing from Hamburg, thank you for imparting some of your mature wisdom on to me. Meeting you at that fateful Irish talk was a lucky day. =)

To Yuka, thanks for sharing your interesting china experiences recently, and I do hope you achieve your goals in the near future.

Connie, thanks firstly for feeding me with great food and letting me introduce you to unhealthy snacking and life-saving instant noodles. My stomach is grateful for your occasional treats of banana bread, Reese’s and your bag of half-eaten chips. Thanks for being so cozy with me so quick at Gage, and helping me make my stint in UBC a very memorable one. 

Thanks also to my other roommates at Gage, who made 6 pax living extremely comfortable, even though we only had one toilet cubicle! Thanks loads for sharing your utensils, but mostly for giving me intimate insights into Canadian culture.

To Grace, Elena, and Madeline, thanks for the great times in UBC! The meals, the drinks, the skipping class to climb Grouse Mountain (not once but twice!), and the talking cock before and after MLT class.

To my beloved supportive friends back home: Winni, Reina, Celine, Joanne, Lay Shan, Shufen, Shuh Tien, Shaina, Dino, Yiling, Yunling, Wz, Js, etc. Thanks for all the support and encouragement! I’m also grateful to some of you for calling/webcaming/skyping/msning once in a while to share intimate details of our lives. It’s absolutely gratifying to know that friends back home still care despite the distance, and it’s life’s great luxury to be able to chat over roti prata etc with pals whenever I’m back in Singapore.

Thanks dot for always showing concern and offering medical advice at critical moments! 

Nicole, we seem to only meet long after the sun sets, but, good times.

Joice, thanks for the inspiration to take the road less taken.

To anyone else I may have missed mentioning here, you are missed and thanked too!

Starting full-time work tomorrow (1 July), and I guess it’s farewell to academia. 

Although I’ve had many misgivings in the past with Fudan University, I sang the school song on the day of commencement. Not so much because I felt proud or whatever, but ‘coz it’s quite a good piece:

Fudan School Song:

Goodbye bouts of nostalgia, hello full-blown adulthood.

Something happened about a month back between myself and a close friend, at a certain cafe in Shanghai at about midnight, which left me in complete ire. Instead of talking about it that very night and allowing the wound to fester thereafter, I’ve taken the liberty to let the anger wane with time, and place what happened that night in a different perspective.

With this overdue post, many irate thoughts have since dissipated. Which I hope allows my position to be one of objectivity.

As some of you know, my relationship with MissY has a definite expiration date. What was supposed to be this July upon graduation has since been shifted to an unknown date sometime next year. The end is inevitable and we knew it from the beginning, but here we are, happily together. Many cannot understand why we even fought hard for this, given a self-destructive ex on one side and a suicidal depressed “roommate” on the other. But we have emerged from some ugly past determined to be happy while we can, together preferably. Yes I’m digressing but essentially, what I’m trying to say is that nobody can be certain how long you and your partner can stay together, but you can be sure you want to stick it out with someone who makes you happy, so why not allow that happiness to stay in your life for as long as possible? In fact, the knowledge of an impending deadline has made us all the more glad we have the now. Would you have chosen to not have begun at all, and never get a taste of this bliss?

So anyway, this close friend of ours, being very concerned for my well-being, said to me one month ago: “Why don’t you go back to being normal? …live life like a common person…It is the proven right way…it is human’s duty to pass on generations…think about how you will hurt your parents’ feelings…you will feel more secure in the common path…”

If any of my friends reading this agree with her, please don’t ever, EVER, say such things to me. I withheld expletives and possibly a mental breakdown then, but I’m not sure if I can bear another stab like that. She cut me deep.

I argued with her point by point, and I believe my English that night was one of my most fluent occasions. I don’t think I need to repeat that conversation with her here, but I know our friendship, if it can still exist, will never be the same again. 

I was appalled. I thought that after 3 years of solid friendship and all the things I told her in confidence meant she understood perfectly well. Obviously from what she said she hadn’t, and may never will, though I hope to change that. I could have heard those words from some acquaintance, someone I don’t care so much about, and I wouldn’t flinch an inch; but to hear it all spilling out from her mouth? I really thought she knew better than to spout such homophobic and bigoted critique. 

There is simply no “proven right way” of living, loving, or anything. There probably isn’t a “right thing to do” either. We are all captives of what we have created with our own minds and misconstrued judgements, and if you do use your brain you would know better than to trust them. Sometimes categories/classifications that carry negative connotations make us prone to shunning it, not wanting to be associated with it in any way whatsoever for fear of the social eyes staring at you, pointing fingers and whispering. But if you would stand back and take a look, categories/classifications only serve to exclude, divide and subjugate. They are but human creations. Which means they are (extremely) fallible. So why do you want to let them rule your life?

Not a good day at work today. 

Disclosed things I wasn’t supposed to, which put the boss in an awkward position, which of course didn’t forbade well for my prepared negotiation speech.

Oh well. Will sleep over it.

Just wanted to share how MissY cooled us down from a stressful day at work with her sliced cucumbers. Probably not an uncommon method but I’d like to think of it as her knack for exhibiting her Koreanness at the right time.

Probably a useless thought, but I’m wondering if my job position is “Junior Content Specialist Editor”, am I supposed to be a “content specialist” or a “specialist editor”. Do they mean the same thing?

Anyways. So it’s been a week at the office. What’s my take on the job? I got to do some semi-creative writing in the middle of the week which required composing introductions and conclusions to ESL teaching articles, some editing/proofreading in the last few days that involved re-writing dating blurbs, and moderating and copying job ads everyday in a jobs/classifieds site that I think I’m now in charge of. In the coming week, I will be collating a hundred-ish Asian celebrity profiles and pictures after daily sourcing. It’s supposed to be fun, looking at idols’ bio and photos, but I have to work so fast I don’t have the time to read any of it. Appealing to fans of Taiwanese and Singaporean celebrities, if you have any good English sources for celebrity profiles and images, please contact me asap!

I feel like I’m somewhat on a (paid) “how to make money on the internet” course. Which is very useful, yes, but I think I would like my writing to be read mostly by people instead of search engines.

Nevertheless, I quite like what I’m doing/learning for now, and have some ideas of my own to either work on this current site or make another. For fun, not just for monetization.

On other news, MissY has started preparing curriculum for the kids in the kindergarten she’s teaching at. The kids keep her very happy there, which keeps me very happy too. Even though now I have to vie for her attention with 4-7 year-olds, and they’re hard to beat with their “sooooo cuuuuuttee” tugs at her shirt, and their puppy eyes looking (blink-blink-blink) earnestly at her begging for a spinning ride in the air, which is something I cannot get from her ever, obviously (but I will try asking for it one day when I weigh a bit lesser). It’s good to see her being so contented teaching these kids, and makes me wonder whether I should try it, despite my loathe towards most of them little monkeys, which probably stem from my wanting to be like them, haha.

ESL teaching is good money, but I’m not sure if my wanting to try it is for the right reason.

MissY sometimes comes home and expects me to be a kid too, though. She makes me sing along to her songs like “hello hello hello hello, hello teacher, hello friends, hello hello hello hello, hello!”, with the necessary hand waves and face turns. We do two versions, in English and in Korean, since my Korean is somewhere at the kids’ level of English. And her tone towards me is changing towards a more authoritative one, speaking to me as if I were her student, which I’m not sure if I dislike or allowing it to take on new dimensions in the relationship.

Then there are interesting things like this video she has incorporated into her teaching the other day:

I’m thinking she and I can become composers of kids’ songs too!

Ah, all these exciting project ideas.

There are some things I’m so glad to hear the last of, although they can be very entertaining (only to outsiders, probably). The following two incidents were related to me via MissY, therefore there may be slight differences due to interpretation or in the name of story-relating.

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Every semester, the police officers (not sure if that’s the term for them, but they wear the same uniform I think?) from Shanghai’s Exit-Entry Bureau come to the Foreign Student’s Dormitory (with the exception of 2007, but I was away anyway) to assist us in our residence permit applications. MissY, out of sheer frustration with the application procedures and cost (she has applied more than 8 times, thus handed in the same amount of ID photos of herself) decided to voice the incredulity. Sometimes we can’t believe how, for a lack of a better word, retarded they can be, or how retarded they think we are.

MissY:  Why is my residence permit only valid till 31 July when that’s less than 6 months from now? Why do I have to apply every half year and pay 400RMB each time? That’s so expensive! I paid only 800 for an American visa that is valid for TEN YEARS!

Police Officer: Your residence permit is given according to the dates the school provides, and it’s 400RMB for a permit within a year. 800 for an American visa? Impossible. You must be referring to US dollars. So if we do the calculations (does it in front of her), every year is about 500RMB! So you see, our Chinese residence permit is not expensive!

MissY: Then why do you keep needing a photo of me?

Police Officer 1: Because you grow prettier every year! Hahahahaha

Police Officer 2: You see, all you give us is a small photo, but we give you such a big piece of paper in your passport!

MissY: …

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MissY was in a meeting with the committee members from the various foreign students’ associations. From this semester, it is compulsory for all “self-supporting” students to purchase insurance. No insurance, no residence permit. So the insurance company came to give these student leaders a briefing on how the insurance works.

When it’s an EMERGENCY, instead of calling for the ambulance at 120, we are to call this person-in-charge’s number. Which by the way, will not get answered after he knocks off at 5pm, and during lunch hour. The eligible hospitals have a section for foreigners (!) but we are NOT to go there or else we will not be able to claim for anything.

MissY’s friend 1: Okay, so let’s say I’m dying right, and as I’m lying on the stretcher, I must make sure I tell the medics “不要带我去外病，带我去普通病!” (Don’t take me to the foreigners’ section, take me to the ordinary section!)

Such poignant last words, huh.

MissY’s friend 2: Make sure you’re only dying before 5pm, and avoid lunch hour too.

Insurance guy: We, at XYZ insurance, care a lot for you guys! Last year, one student was admitted to hospital after being unconscious. He was placed in 外病 ‘coz the medics found a foreign passport on him. I visited him the next day and the first thing I did was to transfer him to 普通病, and when he woke up I told him our insurance company will consider whether to pay for his night’s stay at the foreigner’s section. So you see, we really care a lot for you guys!

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Haha?

Experiencing an amount of inertia when it comes to blogging. The notes in my phone are piling up from the random things I want to blog about, and I don’t know how else I should put them down other than yet another post about random things. (Not the 25 random things about me ok don’t worry)

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On Thursday I went for my debut Shanghai/overseas job interview. On a rainy winter day. Once I entered the interview room (it was a large meeting room), I wasn’t sure where to place the jacket I just took off.  Should I just dump it in the chair next to the one I’m supposed to sit on? In the end I wrapped it on the chair, and then realized I didn’t know what to do with my scarf. With the lack of winter garment placement practice, I hid my scarf in my bag. On departure, I wasn’t sure whether it was alright to make the interviewer wait while I put my jacket back on, so I just carried the whole damn thing all the way to the entrance.

I believe it was also my first interview with a Caucasian, a co-founder of the company. Standing at 1.9m or taller, I did not feel intimidated because I kinda grew up with a brother almost as tall as him. In fact, I liked the interview with him because 1) he laughed at almost all my attempts at jokes 2) his questions were asked in a friendly way 3) when he sits down he doesn’t tower over me.

For instance, instead of asking, what are your strengths? as many of the interviewers in Singapore would read from a script that has been photocopied since 1999, he asked, “If your best friends were right here, how do you think they’d describe you?”

I’m not sure if I want to do what I do a little in my leisure time as work.

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My mother and I have different travelling habits. I want to save as many pennies as possible while she would pay pounds to save the trouble. To her, it is always better to pay more now for the ease (e.g. taking taxis instead of trains/buses) than to pay more later for hospital bills in the event that due to lugging luggages you break your fingers.

But she would walk to three different supermarkets in different shopping malls to compare the prices of a particular product and then walk back to the first mall because it was 10 cents cheaper.

And she’d rather use a plastic bag to shelter herself from the rain than buy an umbrella or poncho.

I don’t get my mother.

But I admit we’re getting more alike than I’m comfortable with.

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Malaysia toilets always have that hose for washing down under. Japanese toilets have one or two bidets (toilets that have warmed seats and washing tubes with squirting functions, complete with power choices, buttoned) and always with disposable toilet seat covers. Seoul toilets also have limited bidets. In Bangkok the hooks for bags are placed really high, I don’t know why. Singapore toilets have a sitting : squatting cubicles on a ratio of 8:2. Chinese city toilets, if not the drain system, then sitting : squatting is 2:8, sometimes 0:10.

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Singapore MRT stations have escalators or lifts at every station, at any necessary point of elevation or depression. This convenience you cannot find in Shanghai, Hong Kong, Seoul, and Bangkok. I have lugged around 10kg of goods in certain Hong Kong MTR Stations with the frustration of staircases where escalators or lifts would have helped. Ditto Seoul when I carried my luggages.

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S$30 on my Singapore EZ-link card can barely last me two weeks.

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Riding with the new SBS Transit buses in Singapore made me carsick a lot. All the adjusting of suspension did not work well with my stomach.

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Ironic how people ask me if I’m Korean, and ask MissY if she’s from Singapore. Many times.

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When I told MissY about how our Skype conversations are being scanned by the Chinese, she got angry and said let’s do a Skype call, where she’d say: Chinese governent SUCKS! I meant SOCKS! S-O-C-K-S SOCKS!

She wanted to test their scanning system I guess.

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I can’t read much on the Shanghai subway, even though I’m seated. The salient feature of all Chinese dialects is that it’s loud, and I don’t know why Chinese people like to talk on their cell phones as if they were in the club with blasting music. People sitting next to me somehow like to nudge me with their elbows as well.

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I don’t like the Korean strong sense of hierarchy, but appreciate being bowed to when the young Koreans bow to her (I’m almost always next to her).

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After living overseas for long periods of time, consuming different sorts of food has done wild things to my stomach. I’ve realized that the most important thing in life is not having lots of money/status/power, but the ability to move your bowels comfortably everyday.

The main concerns when living abroad are not visa applications, internet connections, the packing/unpacking or moving of houses, but they are: what to eat for the daily 3 meals. If in China, what is the least harmful food, or what food will only be damaging many years later?

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MissY just tried to teach me the meaning of  the Korean word “assa”. “Like yay! Like when you move on to the next level in Mario you go ASSA! Like I found coconuts for Tracy (in The Sims 2) I go ASSA!”

These days, I see her occasionally blowing into her Nintendo DS Lite. She’s building a fire for her The Sims character to cook fish or something. -_-

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10 Jan: Flight to Nanning (Guangxi)

14 Jan: Flight to Shanghai

15 Jan: Flight to Seoul

20 Jan: Flight to Jeju

22 Jan: Flight to Seoul

24 Jan: Flight to Shanghai

25 Jan: Flight to Singapore

9 Feb: Flight to Kuala Lumpur

11 Feb: Flight to Shanghai

Tired. Aging fast with all the packing and unpacking; checking-in; immigration checks; security checks; rushing to boarding gates…which reminds me, I should really get a belt. My jeans was hanging a tad too low while running to gate 39 at Gimpo airport today. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say my jeans nearly dropped since my backpack was pushing it down while I was running to the guy who was running to me to ask me to run to the gate.

Note to someone: We really suck at goodbyes, but I’m glad we don’t have many chances to practise.

Only 1 day left of 2008, but I don’t feel the hype, since time just goes on and the year is but a number to track things better for history and future and whatnot, right?

But just for the record, it’s time to review the year (just a quick one, having a major exam tomorrow) that will very soon be just a number in history.

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Snow disaster, Sichuan earthquake, Tibet riots, Olympics controversy, Olympics, Melamine, Melamine, and more Melamine.  So many events going down the books for 2008 in Chinese history. But of course they won’t be recording the latter event, nor other food scandals, will they?

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Did some things I’m not proud of this year, and there were times I didn’t know how I can actually live with myself, but most of it is now packed away in a box in some corner of the closet and perhaps never see the light of day.

This year, I witnessed how love, or just my weak understanding of it, can reveal itself to be something ugly, evil, something so distasteful, just lurking around the corner of beauty and innocence. But I do treasure the memories. They will always be special to me.

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Then as usual, I try to do many things but achieve nothing.

I’ve been to many places this year, but barely went around Shanghai.

My friends finally visited me, but I barely talked to them while they were here. Oops.

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I learnt that being sandwiched between two lovers who are falling apart is most tiresome and too jeopardizing to friendships. Talking to one puts you on the blacklist of the other, sharing information told in confidence makes you a spy, even though you had every good intention. I don’t ever wish to be in such position, nor do I wish for any of my friends to be stuck in such predicament (sorry, Dino).

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Possibly the best thing that happened this year was, and is, the embrace of such an understanding, forgiving, and laughing (she deserves this as an adjective) MissY in my life. A superb chef, too. I’m all in favour of throwing diet plans (non-existent anyway) aside to savour whatever she prepares for me. Her knack for knowing the way to my heart is the reason why I don’t miss quesadilla anymore, nor do I need to order a certain dish from ING because she does it so much better. She treats me much better than I deserve, really. Even though we have an impending expiry date, I will never forget how much laughter she brought to my life here in Shanghai. Thank you.

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Last year around this time, I was in New York, waiting to join millions to count down to 2008 at Times Square. Last year, I knew I’d be here this year. This year, I have no idea where I’d be come this time in 2009, but gradually I’m having some ideas that involve either Singapore, Shanghai, Seoul, or Berlin (not in order of likelihood).

So, although I look at the crossing of years now without much of a blink of an eye, here’s still wishing farewell to 2008, you’ve been good to me, and let’s hope 2009 does better.

Happy New Year everyone!