Ignorance is kind

「假如一間鐵屋子，是絕無窗戶而萬難破毀的，裡面有許多熟睡的人們，不久都要悶死了，然而是從昏睡入死滅，並不感到就死的悲哀。現在你大嚷起來，驚起了較為清醒的幾個人，使這不幸的少數者來受無可挽救的臨終的苦楚，你倒以為對得起他們麼？」

很認同魯迅這樣的質疑，不過他最後還是決定要吵醒那幾個人。

我始終覺得，為甚麼就不由他們無痛離去？

太殘忍了。

是誰吵醒了我？

誰會料到，這樣回來，結果不是圓夢，反而成了殺夢。

實在想不明白。

春天真是令人抑鬱的季節。

同時我對這地方的厭倦及絕望已達到極限。

Posted via email from slippery when wet

A Letter

Dear dream,

**c* you.

Best,

J

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Troubled Water

I've always been living beside waters.

The Victoria Harbour, the Solent, the Wear.

And the Troubled Water.

I live on this side, and the thing is on the other side.

I've never touched it, never seen it.

But I used to believe it really exists.

Does it?

Is the other side of the Water even reachable?

Everyday - I try and I try and I try - 

But everybody wants to put me down 

They say I'm goin' crazy 

They say I got a lot of water in my brain 

Got no common sense 

I got nobody left to believe

I jumped into the Water, and then got drowned - again and again and again.

Either I'm crazy, or super-crazy.

Why am I still alive?

Then I was woken up.

It was only a dream.

You can be disappointed in me, but I am too tired for it.

The thing is dying, if not already dead.

It's like the Schrödinger's cat. You never know. Because you can never open the box.

Or you open the box, only to discover that the cat is dead but still convince yourself it's alive?

Why did you wake me up?

Oh right. I asked for it. I thought you could stop my fall.

I thought I could find, or build the Bridge.

But no.

And now I prefer living in darkness.

Hello, my old friend. I've come to talk with you again.

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Ice cold

I had a chocolate cookie frappe last week.
"Are you sure?", the cashier asked, "It's full of ice."
Without a slightest hesitation - "Yup."

Cold drinks are so delightful, even in winter.
Anyway it wasn't quite wintery was it? Hey it was over 20 degrees!

Everything seems to be reminding me a lot of the past, the frappe was not an exception.
Oh the cozy cafe beside the Framwellgate Bridge, the shake shop on the New Elvet.
I tried really hard to resist the temptation of buying another large cup of shake, which would cost me around £5 or something, just like when I was still in secondary school - to stop myself from buying chips every recess, to save $5 a day.

No matter it's £5 or $5, I mostly gave in. What a failure.
But so what? It is delightful!

Reason why I took over a year to repay the debt to a very very kind insect.

I didn't know whether I felt it right - while I was having the frappe on the street, people gave me a strange look.

Guess it'll take some time for me to get used to the "normal" way of living in Hong Kong, which I am quite reluctant to.

And it got cold again.

"Oh you're still wearing a coat - finally!", a classmate said in astonishment yesterday.
I am quite happy to be different, though this can be deemed to be abnormal.

Then I realised I wear the same amount of clothes while it was snowing.

Yes I admit the increasing feeling of missing the D-town was induced by yet another failure.
But life's amazing isn't it? You never know where it leads you to. You never know what a smallest decision will ripple to.

Sisi's life was such a tragedy - being a empress could do you not much good.
Dealing with the annoying royal etiquette, the early death of the firstborn daughter, the suicide of her only son, an unsuccessful marriage, and eventually - a totally random assassination of herself.

Could it be any worse?

Probably that's why she loved to travel a lot.

I'm lucky to have visited two places she lived in.

I've never been to Nice, but I've been to Leeds and the isles of Greece.

Good enough.

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Random thoughts

I am just trying to write something every day, for my own pleasure.

Had a literature lesson yesterday. We read Anton Chekhov's Rothschild's Violin.

I quite like Yakov's concept of "losses". Am I being abnormal? Am I doomed? Are you going to condemn me as you did to him? Does it undermine the work I've put in throughout the years (if any)? Why must you take everything to the extreme? Don't you know being extreme in ANYTHING makes no good anyway? You are just hypocritical.

Just the concept - I don't approve of what he did to people around him. I did lose something after all so please allow me to think at least I am eligible to adopt the idea. But I still have sympathy for him. Aren't we forced to "quantify" our lives? Or to put it this way - aren't we being calculated all the time? How much money do you make? What score did you get last semester? What fascinates us mostly? Numbers. What defines success mostly? Numbers. Welcome to the world of numbers.

I have a different interpretation of the story ending. Most likely I'm "wrong", but I insist, as literature is supposed to be open to interpretation - if you can't be bothered about numbers.

曾經俾人話讀呢啲嘢會讀壞腦，其實好似真係會架。

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the diary of a primary school chicken (duckling)

I prefer using black ball pens to blue ones, because black ink looks good.

A classmate didn't bring her pencil case to class and asked whether I could lend her a spare pen.

I had three: A - one nice and normal and working black pen, B - another black one with not much ink left, and C - a normal working blue one, but no good as it's blue.

 

I lent her pen A, which I was using, then I picked up B and tried to write with it.

It totally ran out of ink within minutes.

I reluctantly used C for the rest of the lesson.

 

Blue. Yuck.

 

I used to have a purple pen when I was younger, without knowing it's purple.

I thought it was blue, and liked it a lot,

until the day I was blamed for using it to do homework.

 

Time for lesson.

I hate school.

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After all, it's just a dream - no more than that.

在Portsmouth那一年我已經跟好友講「邯鄲學步」的故事。

其實這也是我小時候從「成語動畫廊」看回來的。

那時總是很怕自己會變成這樣。

而事實證明我並沒有過慮。

我最後一篇寫完令自己滿意的「文章」正正就在我出發到邯鄲之前。

有足夠理由相信這並不是純粹的巧合。

﹝然後這幾個月又發現自己的中文其實很「歐化」，上面一句是很好的例子﹞

擁抱中國文化？我呸！連筷子都未識揸，連成個sem成績都會俾中文科s拉低哂。我呸！

夠了，我從今以後再也不會自詡甚麼甚麼甚麼甚麼。

自從放棄堅持了多年的「不後悔政策」之後，我對所有發生過的事情就如排山倒海般地後悔。

不後悔，我反而可以厚着面皮說自己每一個決定都是勇往直前。

一後悔，就只看到自己懦弱退縮的一面。

抑或是我之前堅持着不後悔去麻木自己去掩蓋自己懦弱的一面？

因為我很怕作錯的決定。

然而我愈怕錯，就愈做錯。

過則勿憚改。

我再不願意，也有一個小小小小的新年願望。

把握好一點時間。

看多兩齣電影，或者讀多兩頁書，或者寫多兩行字，或者聽多兩段BBC新聞。

應該可以令自己的罪疚感減低一點。

哪怕只是一點。

一切的發生是我始料不及的。

這句有點廢，我料得到的，就不會做錯的決定。

一直都沒變的只有一樣。

就是很喜歡將自己不濟的一面公諸於世。

是潛意識裏希望人可憐？

不，不，不要。

I'm just a poor boy.

I need no sympathy.

Darn. No. Not this song. This, again, is so depressing.

其實我只是需要一個渠道發洩。

但大槪我短期內都不會再打那麼大段中文。

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Unfinished

So, see how many things I have left unsorted in Durham:

Telephone bills.

Library fines.

A degree course.

Places I should have visited but somehow didn't manage to.

A chance to fight with my dear friends against the evil dissertation.

Do all kinds of silly things to Bill Bryson in the Cathedral.

And the list goes on and on and on.

All these thoughts are so depressing.

I must be trying to run away from something.

I'm totally deflated.

It's too late.

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Chaos

You know which one is the biggest mistake of all?

That is to think that you're actually good at Chinese.

Didn't you have a hint of it much earlier?

It hurts so much.

And the consequence is too much for me to bear.

I hate you.

Now I genuinely wish I haven't come back.

Sorry for failing to keep the promise.

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