guess what's on today. rockfest and chingay at the same time.



chingay. i remember going to one with my mother when i was little. she brought me to the front of the crowd and sat me on a road curb and told me to stay put as she went to burger king to get some food for me. so i sat there watching the procession. and after a while this policeman came and told all the people around me to move in so that they could shift the barricade. me, being just maybe 5 or 6 i think, just followed the people and soon i was stuck in the middle of the crowd looking at people's knees. so i think that's when i started to cry, wondering where my mother was. according to my mother, i was wandering behind the crowd and whimpering "mummy, mummy." i don't deny her account of it. but i was soon placated by fries and some stuff from burger king. sometimes i wonder how come my mother was brave enough to just leave me alone in the crowd. probably an attempt to ditch me.



chingay. in secondary 1 i made many new friends. and amongst them was this guy called freddy tan. he had small eyes, neatly combed hair with a side parting and was one of my talk cock buddies in class. he sat near me. so came the time of year when chingay was looming around the corner. and freddy one day very wittily started calling me yap chingay when i think i brought up the subject. so he loved the name, probably cos it's a good diversion from people calling you freddy the frog. but with a name like freddy, it's bound to happen. he loved the name he made for me so much he wrote it on my pencilcase. or it could've been this other guy but i can't really remember. ironically, whenever he got into the mood he would hop up and down from one foot to the other and chant "yap chingay yap chingay". it's ironic cos he really reminded me of a cartoon frog when he did that. but i was nice. i never called him freddy the frog. 1. cos it's one of those stupid nicknames. like when you have a name like aloysius and people all over your life call you alloy thinking it's horrendously witty and that you'll think so too and you're damned to a life of people trying to be witty (and of course due to pck there's a new way to impress people who are named aloysius). 2. well...there's no 2. it's just a stupid nickname. i never really spoke to freddy after secondary 1 after we went to different classes. i don't even know where he is now. but he'd probably call me yap chingay if he ever saw me on the streets now. maybe he'll even get into the hopping act. he really loved it.



anyway, regarding the stupid nicknames thing. i'm not bitter about it. i'm like way over that. i'm 22 fer feck's sake. that's practically middle-aged already.

yeah watch me bust this move now c'mon. yeah check this. like the jackhammer drill downstairs my house now pounding the beat. yeah dig this. faster than jaco's fingers. smoother than jaco's lines. it's all erratic now. yeah c'mon. it's the beat of drums and cymbals. its tradition versus technology. it's the peeling of oranges inside a lion's head. c'mon spew it. spew it. watch this. dig this move. hear the shoulders pop. feel the beat drop. solid.

i'm curious. could anyone who's in perth and coming to this site leave me a message on the comment box? or email me? thanks. i'd really like to know who it is.

chinese new year. it seems to me that quite a few people my age don't like it that much. i don't really get it. well actually i can understand why. but i guess its just circumstance and situation.



every chinese new year's day, my relatives come over to my place for the day. then on the second day we go to my aunt's place. it's a ritual gathering at different houses for different occasions of the year.



as the years go by, the children in the families grow older and the gatherings become less of a time spent together and more of a appear and then leave to meet friends and other halves. it's not really a big deal to me i guess cos i'm part of the children. though i'm getting a bit too old to be referred to as a child. we all are.



i don't know what i'm really getting at here but the narrow-minded me sometimes thinks that there shouldn't be so much abhorrence towards chinese new year just because of the sole reason of relatives. perhaps other people get to see their relatives more often than i get to. i only see them a few times each year. usually on occasions. everyone's busy and stays far from each other. but well, the whole point of chinese new year and whatever other occasions is to have kin gather together isn't it? these are ties that we can't sever. i'm not saying that it's a heavy chain that binds us together but it's just something that shouldn't be dismissed so simply.



sure they can get on your nerves sometimes, but then even friends do. maybe everyone should just take some time to think about what the gatherings are about. traditions are old and maybe hackneyed but traditions were started for reasons. and if those reasons were not applicable today the tradition would probably be forgotten or ignored. the most basic tradition would be to gather together and share the occasion. what's the use of having all the decorations and the lights and the food and the preparation if it isn't shared?



even if you see your relatives all the time or even stay with them, maybe this would be a good day to overlook each other's faults and be more open to each other. it might even a good beginning.



people don't get together on festive occasions to rile and annoy each other. they get together to have a good time. at least an amiable time. at least. we can all at least try.

why jesus is better than santa claus.

so i'm sitting on one of those big ceramic tiled covered stools next to the hawker centre waiting for my mother and this lady parks this pram with her son in it right in front of me. then she goes to queue up to buy some 4d. her little daughter who's been running around has been yelling that her mother should buy some so she acquiesced.



so i'm just hiding in the shade cos it's a real hot day. and the kid in the pram looks all over the place and he looks at me. then he goes, "mah mee. mah mee." so i tell him, "i don't think i'm your mother." but he keeps on saying it. so i just point to where his mother is but he doesn't really give a fuck.



so this goes on for a while as he fidgets about in his seat and tries to take a swipe at this display stand that he's right next to. and i'm just trying to think cool and not perspire in the god-forsaken heat.



then his sister comes running up to him holding a teletubbies vcd that she got from the vcd shop next to the 4d shop. and she goes, "maomao!" and hands the vcd to her brother in the pram. and of course the kid starts to go, "maomao!" too. i never really thought of the teletubbies as cats.



so the little girl runs away towards the shop again. and the kid in the pram just keeps on saying, "maomao!" and waving the vcd about and i tell him that i think he should put that back cos it must be illegal even if you're a pram-riding minor. but again he doesn't give a fuck. so i gather he's either a pretty cool kid or just plain rude.



then what happens is his sister comes running back. and shes got another teletubbies vcd in her clutches. she picked up the conversation where it was left off beautifully and said, "maomao!" to which her brother said you guessed it, "maomao!" very one-track mind if you ask me.



then guess what happens, the girl who works in the vcd shop walks out to where we're at and she goes up to the girl and she gives her a mighty kick in the stomach. no actually what happens is that she just goes, "meimei, zhe ge gei hui jiejie ok?" and she takes the vcd and goes back to the shop. the girl used to work at this provision shop further down the row but that shop closed down.



but if you're paying attention to this, you would be asking, "what about the vcd with the kid in the pram?" see, the girl doesn't see that the kid has one too. so the kid just keeps on holding on to it and somehow he keeps silent when the girl came over to reclaim the vcd from his sister. it's very devious.



so my mother came along and i told her what happened. and she said, "see, that's good training what. train from young." and i was like why wasn't i taught this when i was young too. but that's another matter altogether.



see all throughout the whole "operation" the mother just waits in the 4d queue pleased as piss and being as oblivious as a bad waiter. and that is the real deviousness of it all. no one suspects little kids.



it's a beautiful scheme.

there's something wrong with blogger.