Lightness, and Time

          Last Saturday I got a tattoo on my upper back. It's a graph by the British artist Banksy, a girl holding balloons. I was inspired by Milan Kundera's book the unbearable lightness of being. The background of the book is Communist period Czech and the main character, doctor Thomas, believes that life is short and light, and love and sex are separate. I feel my life is becoming lighter, well, not in a sexual way, but it is definitely a new phase of life that I am not able to judge right now.

          When I was watching its movie version the other day to get back my memory, one scene stroke me very strongly. It is this man who has moved to Switzerland and giving a speech about how democracy is important is important for his home country Czech. Thomas' lover asked him "if you really want to save the country, then why did you immigrate".

         

                                                         

 'what happens but once

       might as well not have happened at all

If we have only one life to live

we might as well not have lived at all'

Today I was doing tutoring with my Mission Hills kid Kayla.She was one of the only ones who was doing their homework,while other kids were talking really loud and being wild. She was really angry because she had to accept all the punishments because others  were not behaving well. When looking at her face and her anger, I suddenly thought of this lecture back in high school when Mr. Davis was talking about World Government. Many people were not showing any interest, and some just walked out. I had a really long face, and moved to the front row to show that I still want to listen.  Anyways, I love my kid Kayla, she is the best.

 I remember it is written in a book that all people who go to America are escaping from their past. This is true, because I am escaping, or more accurately, I chose to leave.  When I listen to 6.4 activists, I will still cry like a baby. I totally understand how much a decision it is for my parents, and how much they are not talking to me. They want me to have a light life basically. But at the same time, I always feel caught between responsibility and personal pursuit.

"当你不能够再拥有，你唯一可以做的，就是令自己不要忘记". 

when you can't own something anymore, they only thing you can do is not to forget about it.

"每个人都会经过这个阶段,见到一座山，就想知道山后面是什么。我很想告诉他,可能翻过山后面,你会发现没什么特别。回望之下,可能会觉得这一边更好。但我知道他不会听,以他的性格,自己不走过又怎会甘心？"

Everyone will experience this period, when see a mountain, wants to know what is behind it. I really want to tell him, maybe behind the mountain you will find nothing special. When you look back, maybe the older side is better. But I know he won't listen, how can he stop before going by himself?

- 东邪西毒 Ashes of Time

 

Eloquence of Jhumpa Lahiri

When I read a book, I like to know how the author looks like. Yes, looks can be deceptive. But sometimes, if the photo is good, it captures a part of the person. As you start reading the book, that part of the person comes alive. In my mind, I build my own person, I build the writer.

Writing is extremely personal. It is a reflection, both loudly and subtly of the deep thoughts within an individual. Writings bring them out so even if I have only read fictions from one author, I feel that I know this person. I know some part of the person through a friend, through a cousin, through a face I noticed on the street.

I love Jhumpa Lahiri as a writer, and possibly as the person in my mind. I love her originality. If writing is food, hers is the organic one. There are no fertilizers in it. There are no embellishments. Its simple. Its powerful. Combining her writing to her face, oh my, it creates a most seducing image. Lahiri's eyes are deep. She seems like the kind of person I would want to spend time with. Someone who has thoughts unique and beautiful.

Her books gives me companionship. She gives words to my deepest thoughts, some of which I feel with pain. When I see her writing about the experience I have undergone myself, I feel close to her. This loneliness she describes, so exquisitely, this feeling of not belonging, of being in a new country, of being a foreigner, Lahiri shares my pain.

Her prose is so dignified yet intimate. It impresses deep within me. So to those who have not read her yet, she has three books to her name:
A. Interpreter of Maladies

B. The Namesake
C. Unaccustomed Earth

Let me end with the final line from her story, " The Third and Final Continent":

" Whenever he is discouraged, I tell him that if I can survive on three continents, then there is no obstacle he cannot conquer. While the astronauts, heroes forever, spent mere hours on the moon, I have remained in this new world for nearly 30 years. I know that my achievement is quite ordinary. I am not the only man to seek his fortune far from home, and certainly I am not the first. Still, there are times I am bewildered by each mile I have traveled, each meal I have eaten, each person I have known, each room which I have slept. As ordinary as it all appears, there are times when it is beyond my imagination". 


Now, thats what I call WRITING. 

Quizas, Quizas, Quizas

Siempre que te pregunto
Que, cuándo, cómo y dónde
Tú siempre me respondes
Quizás, quizás, quizás

Y así pasan los días
Y yo, desesperando
Y tú, tú contestando
Quizás, quizás, quizás

Estás perdiendo el tiempo
Pensando, pensando
Por lo que más tú quieras
¿Hasta cuándo? ¿Hasta cuándo?

Y así pasan los días
Y yo, desesperando
Y tú, tú contestando
Quizás, quizás, quizás

Estás perdiendo el tiempo
Pensando, pensando
Por lo que más tú quieras
¿Hasta cuándo? ¿Hasta cuándo?

Y así pasan los días
Y yo, desesperando
Y tú, tú contestando
Quizás, quizás, quizás

Osvaldo Farrés

                                                                       

Crazy

                                                                      

This madness is infectious,
all kinds of it, mixed up in a huge jug,
pouring out of the edge.

Bubbles are coming out,
not beautiful as in common sense,
but more like a joke told by kids.

A house made of iron and painted all black,with no windows and not much air,
people are becoming mad.

People are becoming mad,
Mad is becoming people,
not mad, not people.


"People are becoming mad..."
"Quoi?"