torn

I was the boring one from RST department, who was not even able to talk about real movies in the Chinese study class. Oh, landscapes, how ridiculous; while Mike was talking about the three dialogues in Wang Kar-Wei's triologies. And I again played the boring role who talked about film effects on personifying landscapes in Bill's class. Who cared about movie; I was the victim of the class since I was trying to avoid too much on social power structure, dominant discourse. I'm really frustrated coz I feel how inadequate I am, in terms of everything.Painfully torn.

I hate meeting for deadlines

One after one. Never feel I'm able to reach the best potential because of this confining restraint. Such an exhausting period.

the other side

Brian asked me of my response towards the Korean killer. I told him that I actually think he is great in standing out breaking down the American sterotype of the "quiet, coward and peaceful" Asian, it's just he used a tragic and bloody way. He looked at me for 5 seconds and didn't know what to say. I knew I was not being very nice. It was not Brian's fault for being a white American male.

But the frustrating and suffocating thing is the American society's obsession with the superficiality. Everyone sees the cruelness and the cold-bloodness of a Korean-American monster, but no one is trying to see the reasons behind. Everyone is blaming on his mental illness, yet no one is trying to envision the life he has been living - a poor Asian boy growing in the Asian ghetto, eating the humiliation from the white counterparts "go back to China"! No one is ever trying to reflect on the mechanism of American society- how the bloddy racism turned a healthy boy into a psychotic, let alone for anyone to have sympathy on him and his past. It is as if he is not entitled to any right to fight. It is as if he should just go and hide himself in the Asian ghetto, somewhere in Chinatown, washing dishes all his life like his parents. Whatever miserable life he is gonna have, as long as he does not come out and kill white people.

It's not we Asians are by nature quiet and conforming- it's we have to be obedient to the dominant social discourse to be "a good citizen".

By no means I'm trying to justify for him. It's just the other side of the story that help us more than mere hatred and revenge. Mourning for those who were killed. Mourning for the killer. Mourning for our feebleness to change. Mourning for Asian Americans. Mourning for America.

poem and nature

The structure of nature is image;
the structure of image is poem.
Nature never exhausts itself.

定风波

莫听穿林打叶声，
何妨吟啸且徐行。
竹杖芒鞋轻胜马，谁怕？
一蓑湮雨任平生。
料峭春风吹酒醒，微冷，山头斜照却相迎。
回首向来萧瑟处，归去，去无风雨也无晴。

Forms

The furthest distance in the world
is not between life and death
but when i stand in front of you
yet you don't know that
I love you

The furthest distance in the world
is not when i stand in front of you
yet you can't see my love
but when undoubtedly knowing the love from both
yet cannot
be togehter

The furthest distance in the world
is not being apart while being in love
but when plainly can not resist the yearning
yet pretending
you have never been in my heart

The furthest distance in the world
is not
but using one's indifferent heart
to dig an uncrossable river
for the one who loves you

--Ranbindranath Tagore

I've been reading Norweigian Wood by Haruki Murakami in English recently. God knows how many times I've read it in Chinese. When I bump this poem tonight, I suddenly feel nothing is more able to express the feeling that is aimed to be described by Murakami. Love stories are alike. But they just take different forms. Sorry if my definition is too arbitrary.

observing

Watch the flow of your thoughts, your sadness, your emotions. Imagine them as green leaves, floating on a stream. Don't engage and interact. Just stand aside, observing it. You are no longer yourself now. You can see through yourself now. You become a container of emotions and feelings which are too fragile to be touched. Let them go and
be released.
- from my counselor Ann