a few things about the colloquium yesterday

for the most part, two things struck me as unexpected: one was that i was amazed at the sociable nature of such an occasion, and the other was that this event unwittingly provided me a necessary distance from what i am doing.

it's probably weird for me to say that i found the sociable part of conferences surprising and unexpected, given the number of conferences i have previously been to. but when you're the organisor, it seems quite another story. in the first seminar we organised this past feb., i didn't feel the need of socialising too much because you have all the native-english speakers taking charge; the only a few things that worried me was if the technology would go wrong as i was in charge of it, whether my presentation would go well in front of all the familiar faces from the centre, and how my chairing for the workshop session would be (which turned out a disaster, though not directly related to me as a chair).

this time, though, i somehow was the person determining 'what happens next', 'how long the next break is' and 'whether we do this or not'. i felt so unfamiliar with being put in the spotlight and yet, it was not like i couldn't do it- practically it didn't feel hard; rather it was simply just like another thing to be taken care of in daily life, though obviously i don't get to be in that role of a hostess every day. what amazed me more was how adept i was: i enter into that persona effortless, checking on people and being diplomatic. but i did feel quite disoriented when i found out that in these social moments, communications were not meant to be only about communications- you speak certain things not necessarily to discuss any thing in-depth, rather the focus was to keep each other company, producing a friendly atmosphere. i was not quite used to it.

the other thing about the colloquium was the 'distance'- so well needed. on and on, i have this problem of being immersed in what induce passion and anger in me about my thesis, and so i end up appearing, for example, a nationalist, as in what wendelin finally plucked up to ask me last weekend- whether i was a nationalist. i've also been sensing the danger of not keeping the necessary distance from the topics and materials, but didn't quite know how to strive for some 'clearer vision' before yesterday.

this was how it worked: discussing issues with others within the framework of east asia/taiwan, i was immediately forced to look at things from a totally different perspective and to try to bridge over that difference in perspectives, and so such efforts distanced me from what i saw as problematic. it was as if some kind of extra bonus of participating in a space as such and being patient and attentive etc. really good stuff. didn't really expect it, but i am glad that this happened- now i just ahve to try to remember it and don't let go of that crucial distance.

other than these two things, i think yesterday was a success. many people at different time points during the day came to me and expressed how much they appreciated this space for discussion. i also have gotten some emails saying similar things. i am really glad too that i invited lim over and he's surprisingly sociable, experienced and wise. you learn so much by just being around him. it's always by knowing people as such that makes you feel comforted and optimistic about what the future might hold.

learning all your common wisdoms from tv series

i used to do this with _angels in america_ and now i am doing it with _the l word_. these words: 'there's only one thing that cuts across all our realities. it is love. the bridge between all our differences'.

it's interesting love becomes the bridge over. personally i am more inclined towards donna haraway's 'affinity, not identity' than towards love. not that i hold anything against it, i am just thinking about Hainan ji fan, a film released in 2004, touching quite a few gay viewers situated in the chinese culture. the mother in this story just doesn't understand why her three sons are all in love with men (and one of them even emigrated to taiwan- i thought that was so funny- but not so funny. singaporeans probably thought that we had been more liberal than we really were). at the end of the film, although the mother still doesn't believe in homosexuality, she shows her unreserved love for the sons and it was exactly on the note of love that the film ended with a hint of happiness- everything is gonna be fine because they still love one another despite the gaps and differences.

naive, yes, but not stupid. it managed to be popular. which meant that 'love conquers all' still had good resonances with people.

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the quote i picked up in _angels in america_ was: 'there is a genuine violence in softness and weakness. sometimes self-interested is the most generous you can be.'

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and i have tomorrow to prepare my talk on saturday. which means i am still eating biscuits and watching _nip tuck_. XD

pains

she told me if you have done everything you can, and it's still not getting any better. you should perhaps walk away, cuz there's nothing you can do. let it go because it's nothing you can change. it's not because you're not good enough.

'it's not because you're not good enough'. i thought that was it.

despite constant struggles and clear pains, i still enjoy and desire a lot of things in this world.

and it's ambivalent all the time. i hate how habituality for one conceal, or disguise, the process of naturalisation, and love as much how it for the other creates a deep sense of belonging and identification.

sometimes you're really spending time solving others' problems projected onto you.

my thumb nail hurts

am writing some christmas cards and my thumb nail on the right hurts. haven't written chinese characters for soooo long- i just don't know how to write them so that my thumb nail doesn't hurt as i write. it feels so stiff, my right hand. . . well, it's not even like i handwrite a lot these days anyway.

had a wonderful day. printed out 96 pages this morn and handed them to ann for our next supervision meeting. facilitated a session on _nearly roadkill_ and it was a great one- most of its greatness was that people seemed to have enjoyed it and i managed to sumbit some interesting ideas about the lack of racial play in this novel. (gees, i am good. XD)

and then went to the one-hour transferable skill session on 'how to strcture a 20-min talk'. the facilitator was the same beautiful, sophisticated and yet really sincere woman as in the last-time session i went to weeks ago, who is (allegedly) the director of graduate training unit. it was a good session, providing lots of hands-on knowledge, though not that useful as i've kind of sorted things out myself anyway. but i appreciated her work, and so filled out carefully the evaluation sheet.

before home, i took some photos as i went (one of them as illustrated up there). it was fun playing with light and colour thru my camera. i really enjoyed it. haven't been able to spend time doing that for so long.

and then after getting home, i cooked myself a nice plate of diced salmon with colourful peppers and mixed herbs. i ate it with toasts. too lazy to cook carbs. it was nonetheless fantastic, and purely out of my own invention (ok, it's not that original, but i didn't read any cook book for ideas). got my haircut, cleaned the kitchen, took out the garbage, cleaned my floor, brewed some coffee, listened to al start, painted something, replied emails, uploaded photos, and updated my blog. it's been quite interesting how people in life start to take an interest in me and what i think and have to say. it makes life more exciting as i go along.

now, it's probably time to work on my presentation on saturday. can't put up with handwiting christmas cards anymore.

one quick note

trust in yourself and that you're worthwhile being loved as you are.

ett Hål i mitt hjärta

a film filled with disturbing, horrible and unbearable violence.

i went to see _ett Hål i mitt hjärta_ by mistake. i meant to see _3 rooms of melancholia_ and thought mistakenly that it would be played at 12.05, while it was really at 1.10. no wonder i thought the title of this film did not seem familiar at all.

so i missed the one i wanted to see, and instead saw this really violent and brutal film. i kept on suppressing my desire to leave, because it was actually a good one. there was a good dose of honesty and sincerity that i appreciated. but it was really brutal. it reminded me of _requium for a dream_. the thing was that it was brutal for a good reason, and i think it was that reason so deeply connected to humanity that really bothered and frightened me.

the director's previous films are _show me love_ and _lilja 4ever_. _show me love_ was soso, but kinda sweet i suppose. _lilja 4ever_ was too much of a 'teenager' genre for me. i saw _lilja_ first (right before i went to sweden), and then i watched _show me love_ while i was in sweden. the kind of sweden depicted in _lilja_ was so alienating and foreign to lilja that it made me feel nervous about my going to sweden for a year at that time- so contrary to the general knowledge of sweden being a peaceful and humanism-promoting country (though they do produce weapons. . .) thruout the film, it seemed that one could never know what would be in store for the future until one made the choice of being physically there. but in _show_, the kind of simplicity and predictability of sweden sort of came back as something taken for granted, which was an interesting twist in terms of my own viewing sequence of moodysson's works.

now that i've made a connection between the three films, i can't help but wonder why lukas moodysson always focuses on either sexuality or sex businesses (prostitution and porn) in sweden?

when i was there, sexuality seemed so invisible, almost not a concern, to me and to the people i knew. what might that possibily mean?

another day has gone.

've been avoiding my us housemate for ages; been very quiet and actually content with my writing without leaving traces of going about my regular life in this house for ages, and exactly for these 2 reasons, i've also started to show restlessness.

had high hopes for today, walked to uni and went straight into the campus store to meet up with various conference-packs-to-be stationary items. among the chatting, shopping and deciding colours of paper folders, yi-han and i started to exchange completely daily-life nonsense and it felt so warm and dear to me, though i've always understood that we are just so not connected because of the age difference and the consequent generation gaps, despite being raised in and surrounded by the same society.

so we chatted and jumped among topics and being sort of lax about things and yet still managed to agree upon a worksheet for the one week to come before the conference day. obviously i am just being a lazy jerk, 'i have to hand in stuff next wed and facilitate a session the same day and. . . so could you do this and that and this pleeeeease?'

and yet i am getting bored with what i am set out to do- writing, preparing the session, presenting whatever that can be counted as 'transnational queer', thinking about 'geek' and x-men, worrying about money for netherlands and canada etc. my adventurous nature does not let go of any opportunity to go do something different and be away, and yet i feel the materiality and physicality of these things is just going to kill me in the end (translation: extremely limited resources, budgets, time and energy).

. . . and still have time completing one of those cheesy online tests where the result page says:

What makes you a good partner and friend?

You're not likely to be clingy in a relationship
Your adventurous nature keeps life interesting
You can adapt easily to different situations
You are one who is dependable in times of crisis

oh well, i guess you're right; even though you don't know me and are nothing more than a computer-run programme connected to the internet. *grin*

there are roughly still another 20 pages to be finished before the 23rd and at the same time i have a hundred other things to do before the end of next week; but i am still determined about going away for the weekend, in the name of this.

and in the name of getting together with a good friend.

writing is fucking undesirable. sleep instead sounds just right. an appointment with the hairstylist next wed. totally braces me up: yes, i yet again cut my own hair and it yet again looks embarrassingly hilarious in the back. . .

in the past one hour, i listened to cheerio chen, got connected to the BBS community, counted the number of familiar ids and wrote two sentences, along with reading 3 essays. but yeah 2 sentences.

my firefox weather forecast just said that it's 0 degrees out! cool. a cold winter we're having aren't we? definitely looking forward to some white noise falling down much sooner this year! it was only 5 days in feb last year- so disappointing, esp regarding the amount of crispness, or at times dampness, and heaps of flaky snow we used to get in southern sweden in 2003. but at least the 3rd winter in europe cured my seasonal depression and actually have me enjoy the slanted, wintry sun in the mid-afternoons.

although i frankly have absolutely no idea where i'd end up after this fleeting 3-yr period, i know the revelations of my laziness and indolence in things are definitely signs of my settlement in it here. and what this signifies is yet to be observed in the days to come.

human beings are so hard to understand.

i feel like maggie in _virtual girl_. . . always wondering, always observing, and always not getting it. and yet programmed into having all these socialised emotions and reactions, wanting to help and to understand, only to feel more and more confused and disoriented.

writing

writing is a painfully beautiful and mesmerising expereince. (spoken in scottish accent where 'experience' has this funny 'r' thing to it)

lesbian as chic?! -_-|||

it first happened on the train going back to y* from london. we were 3 on the return trip and there were a str8t woman, one queer and me (and i think they weren't sure what i was, since i was/am not sure either. anyway) the str8t one started to say, in a curiously reassuring tone, that she is really not that str8t because she thinks beyonce is hot. she would totally go to bed with her but she thinks beyonce wouldn't want to. then the queer woman said 'she might you ask her nicely'. i didn't say anything. i found myself confused with the conversation- i felt there was something more to it and yet i didn't understand what it was. at the same time, i found that conversation really weird.


then the first private conversation i had with my british housemate after moving in took place when she borrowed my laptop for the internet and realised that i had natalie portman on my desktop at the time, she went: 'i think she's really beautiful. i'd totally marry her if i could'. and there i was, tongue tied- i mean, what was i supposed to say? (i think i said something like 'ok'- which sounded prob. really stupid.)


my british housemate is a mormon, and she's duly obsessed with (of course heterosexual) marriage just as mormons are supposed to. (in the beginning i was a bit worried that she might be uncomfortable with the idea of homosexuality because of her religion- anybody who's seen _angels in america_ would know- and since there was no other way to find out, i deliberately let her know that i was going to the pride in mcr, which immediately pivoted me around the identity of lesbian for her. . .)


both situations left me wonder what it was that these two women wanted to express in their talks about sleeping with/marrying women? and then it sort of dawned on me one day that lesbianism is considered progressive and 'chic', and so they were trying to let people know that they were not bigots.

the whole thing creeps me out. it reminds me of my housemate who would date women just to show that she's avant-garde. it really, really creeps me out. i know it happens everywhere, and wendelin had talk with me about this phenomenon being 'popular' in the literature and arts circles in taipei, but still. . . human beings are so readily empty and hollow, so pathetic. (i mean, why would anyone do things just to 'show' to others that they are not like this or that?!)

and prob. i could be just one of them, if i am not careful and reflexive enough.

?

went past a church in newcastle today and it said 'love good, hate evil'- since when is the church supposed to promote hatred alongside with love?

we live in the lack of love and don't know it.

for decades we live in the margins of the world, being used to negligence and forgetfulness. over the taiwan strait, we call you 'bandits' and you call us 'bandits'. we hate each other. deeply. you keep on declaring that you are going to rinse taiwan with blood, and we keep on buying new weapons from the states.


we learn how to threaten each other, being bold enough to make claims about what we will do in case this or that happens. we are getting more and more alike, unwittingly, because of this mutual hatred.

if they honestly tell us, how many communists have the nationalist killed? and how many families and relatives of the nationalists' got killed after nationalists' retreat to taiwan? was it really 4 million? was the death toll during the civil war really 11 million? when the nationalist and communist were in battles with each other for the ultimate power, how many people had paid the price?

as taiwan and china are busy striking deals to 'earn the rest of the world's money' together, have the two thought about the number of people who are simultaneously starving and dying in the _communist bandits' land_? what have they done to provide the basic living condition for people who keep on picking up the bills of the country's power contentions?

we live in the lack of love and curiously feel nothing about it.

ohhhhhhhhh.

in the middle of writing and suddenly just wanna procrastinate. dunno, just want a break. want to stop. and then my brain starts to think about the course reading and assignments that need to be done next week- gees.

so i got up, went to the kitchen, digged out my swedish ginger snaps and british thornton's dark chocolate bar and started to eat them. the former was from my first and only trip to ikea in leeds and the latter a gift from a friend. i didn't like ginger snaps so much when i was in sweden, and they were practically everywhere. now i get soppy and actually miss that which cannot be easily seen around me at this time of the year. which is a bit corny really. its not even like i celebrate christmas or anything. i guess i just wanna retain a feeling of home. so need to work on that redefining home for myself.

i eat slightly more these days after having started working on my thesis. *Sigh*. as chang shiao-hung confesses in her preface of _narcissistic women_, she considers herself an emotional eater- whenever she feels stressed in academic writing she goes to the fridge and find something to eat. i was so impressed with her honesty. and so whenever i do the same, i always think of her preface.

i get a sense that maybe my anxiety is not that related to my thesis, but really a matter of having too many things to mind in life. conference. the fact that i always present in the conferences i hold- like i don't have enough to do already. keeping an eye on not pestering the presenters and keynote speaker for abstracts and outline since there's still plenty of time and they all have their own lives to mind; try not to call the catering for repeated changes, not to send msgs to yi-han every now and then for this and that which randomly occurs to me. . . just finished talking to my mom in the early afternoon and the breaking news was not her final decision of the date of retirement, but my (second-time?) explanation to her that there's no men in my life and i don't necessarily want to know/meet any. and then after that, i chatted a little with _her_, feeling like a hypocrite. it's such a challenge to live with her now. i still like her and in a way feel very close to her and yet at the same time, so far away from her. i criticise her in my mind a lot, and feel really bad about this silent criticism towards her. i am a hypocrite. she's like me, big time, and yet we are also so majorly different. i can almost be as self-central and over-sensitive like her, but i just cannot bear people who are paranoid and not trusting. they bring about so much doubt and distrust in the air and it makes me feel uncomfortable. i like being easy-going and trusting. i need that sense of security to help me get going. never before have i realised how important general trust in people is. i guess i just learn to trust people around me. having travelled on one's own so much, you do start to realise that you're not so important and that you can just be relaxed about things.

babbling. . .

all i want to say is just that i hate distrust.

paris/gender is burning

spent an afternoon watching this documentary 'paris is burning'. liked some parts and didn't like some parts (->useless statement)

i guess personally i always get a bit nervous whenever watching transgender/sexual performances as a celebratory act- not that i don't enjoy watching them, but rather because in this culture here i can be easily defined as a 'normal homo' in the sense that i don't look 'visually-informing'- basically, i look like a femme/bisexual/heterosexual. while i am doing the most i can to resist this imposed point of view having an influence/being materialised on me, i am ambivalent. the best example is that i got asked 'are you gay?' in the club night when women approached me. this question interpellated my own ambivalence: i don't belong here; my gayness does not get to be read, and yes and no- i want while i don't want to feel taht sense of belonging.

anyway. after the film i checked out _feminist film theory_ to read butler's critique and bang! haven't been feeling like this for such a long time! so wonderful- and it's not exactly a feeling of being challenged, but rather an exhilarating joy of being *alive*.

miraculous. feeling alive is miraculous.

though, this puts more pressure, in a way, on me because i now so fucking wanna write the third part well- if not to perfection (still possible if you're like *really* situated).

. . .

i should have updated my blog, replied to people's msgs and put on links to the online community of 'diasporic chinese women', but i just keep on coming back here for expressing myself (since chialin's gone) without doing all the above things. for the time being this seems a blissful, pressure-free haven to me. well, not that my blog is in any way a pressure, but it is after all more public and cannot be as relaxing, whimsical and not making sense as this one. and i have to admit, language choice does make a difference to me. (though i get paranoid and wonder if all the things i said about her will be found out in the end- in whcih case, i really should have made the complains in traditional chinese characters)

have to hand things in on the 23rd and then 26th will be the day. argh, if i continue to feel so tired and sleepy around this time of the day, i cannot possibly pull it thru. not to mention all the other niggling. . . (ex. i got the wrong light bulb for my ikea lamp *sigh* how would i know there are two different kinds?

which reminds me, i met adrian in costcutter when getting a light bulb. my hello to him was somehow in mandarin, despite his coming from hong kong, and never before (well, only once) had we chatted in mandarin- he doesn't speak mandarin but cantonese and i can only sing cantonese songs without knowing at all how to speak it. we've only talked in english to each other.

but for some reason i reacted in mandarin the moment he greeted me and it brought in a strange atmosphere. later i found out that in hong kong, speaking mandarin is considered 'of a lower class' becasue you get loads of chinese workers pouring into hong kong, taking away the labourers' jobs, and they seem 'naive and backward'. so tensions between cantonese and mandarin get entangled with the job market as well as ideas of modernity. although my mandarin is of 'taiwanese accent', adrian's hearing of mandarin is probably too poor to tell the difference. i thought the moment of my speaking mandarin as a response to his greeting was so fascinatingly charged with challenges to him and me. i don't know much about hong kong and yet my little knowledge of the language politics in hk simply revealed a lot of intricate relationships among the chinese, hk and tw people.

guess what

she just came in my room this morn, starting first with some practicals and then quickly switching to what her semi-bf has been reacting to her former affairs with some other guy in May after their (first?) breakup last year.

she just went on and on and i felt like a counsellor sitting there, listening. she said she was upset. and then she added 'not with you, but with x'. so i keep on thinking, 'what is this?'

so, she needs me. probably because i am about the only person she knows who is willing to listen and actually understands what she's saying. i want to give her that privilege of being listened to while i can, but cannot do it without being wondering- so what are we now? some hypocrites pretending to be 'friends' when she decides she needs my ears? (and for that matter, my brain and english comprehension skills as well) there are things we haven't settled between us, so are we going to keep on ignoring them and be 'friends' who share feelings? i was trying to avoid her as much as i could in the house, and now with this 'please listen to me' gesture, i don't know what to do.

and yet i let her do it. she left my room murmuring that she needs to go to the gym, havent been there for days, and it will clear her head etc., after thanking me for listening. i replied 'no problem'. though i get so many questions having said that phrase.

what the fuck

just as i started to actually feel sad about what had turned out between us, she immediately proved that i was completely wrong about this sadness. just as i got reminded 'but we were so close' and that 'she was such a wonderful friend', she again showed me how 'evil' she was. i mean, so i got it wrong when i thought that pack of bran flakes on the counter was mine and i am sorry to have mistaken it. but you don't have to pretend you don't care and then say, 'maybe you've eaten it and you forgot, and you thought that you didn't eat it and so you took mine'-- what the fuck is that?! (there's one already open in my cupboard and she's like: did you forget that you've got one already?)

she treated it as if i did it on purpose, as if i meant to take away her bran flakes to irritate her. i can't believe how stupid one can be when one loses the ability to trust others. and it's totally bush- 'if you're not my friend you are my enemy' type of thing. totally stupid. and there i was, thinking that there was friendliness and connection coming back in the air between us. i am so wrong.

a miraculous moment (contiuation of sort of an update)

i was a bit nervous waiting to be seen by the same counsellor again. i tried to distract myself reading an interview with beautiful monica bellucci in a magazine and couldn't help but put it down after a few paragraphs, realising, 'so after all, i do feel nervous about this'.

and then i heard her voice. i didnt know that i'd remember her voice. getting more and more nervous.

she asked me to come thru. it was a very short sentence; didn't even have time to check if she had a friendly smile on her face.

i went into the room and sat down on the empty chair; the other one's got some papers on it. she started by asking me how i felt getting back here.

that was a good question.

the moment i entered the room and sat down, i felt incredibly vulnerable and sad. i felt wronged.

i replied that i felt like crying and soon after i did cry. i didn't at all anticipate that i would. i thought it would be about her explaining things that happened last time; in other words, 'straightening' them towards her favour.

but it was nothing like that. it was a miraculous moment where i actually opened up and simply became tearful- felt all my high demands and heavy burdens on myself were being seen and understood- i could just then be myself, without responsibility and obligations, without being ultra-intelligent, helpful, altruist or anything else. i was my tears.