Saturday, December 31, 2005
Towards 2006
"You need to open a small door and taking [sic!] a big decision. Be a small motherfucker." (jaime, via sms, 21 April 2005)
Monday, December 05, 2005
To Brother J.A.
2002: "if living is an art it is a strange one, an art of everything, and particularly of spirited pleasure. Its developed form would involve a number of qualities sewn together: intelligence, charm, good fortune, unforced virtue, along with wisdom, taste, knowledge, understanding, and the recognition of anguish and conflict as part of life. Wealth wouldn't be essential, but the intelligence to accumulate it where necessary might be. The people I can think of who live with talent are the ones who free lves, conceiving of great schemes and seeing them fulfilled. They are, too, the best company" (hanif kureishi, intimacy, 1999).
2005: hit 33. huge, voiceless void. surviving three years of the once wishful death? (see H. Miller, entry of 1 Nov).
Thursday, November 10, 2005
Three Emperors in London
Tuesday, November 01, 2005
On Living: A Point of View
Somehow the realization that nothing was to be hoped for had a salutary effect upon me. For weeks and months, for years, in fact, all my life I had been looking forward to something happening, some intrinsic event that would alter my life, and now suddenly, inspired by the absolute hopelessness of everything. I felt relieved, felt as though a great burden had been lifted from my shoulders. At dawn I parted company with the young Hindu, after touching him for a few francs, enough for a room. Walking toward Montparnasse I decided to let myself drift with the tide, to make not the least resistance to fate, no mater in what form it presented itself. Nothing that had happened to me thus far had been sufficient to destroy me; nothing had been destroyed except my illusions. I myself was intact. The world was intact. Tomorrow there might be a revolution, a plague, an earthquake; tomorrow there might be not be left a single soul to whom one could turn for symphaty, for aid, for faith. It seemed to me that the great calamity had already manifested itself, that I could be no more truly alone than at this very moment. I made up my mind that I would hold on to nothing, that I would expect nothing, that henceforth I would live as an animal, a beast of prey, a rover, a plunderer. Even if war were declared, and it were my lot to go, I would grab the bayonet and plunge it, plunge it up to the hilt. And if rape were the order of the day then rape I would, and with a vengeance. At this very moment, in the quiet dawn of a new day, was not the earth giddy with crime and distress? Had one single element of man’s nature been altered, vitally, fundamentally altered, by the incessant march of history? By what he calls the better part of his nature, man has been betrayed, that is all. At the extreme limits of his spiritual being man finds himself again naked as a savage. When he finds God, as it were, he has been picked clean: he is a skeleton. One must burrow into life again in order to put on flesh. The word must become flesh; the soul thirsts. On whatever crumb my eye fastens, I will pounce and devour. If to live is the paramount thing, then I will live, even if I must become a cannibal. Heretofore I have been trying to save my precious hide, trying to preserve the few pieces of meat that hid my bones. I am done with that. I have reached the limits of endurance. My back is to the wall; I can retreat no further. As far as history goes I am dead. If there is something beyond I shall have to bounce back. I have found God, but he is insufficient. I am only spiritually dead. Physically I am alive. Morally I am free. The world which I have departed is a menagerie. The dawn is breaking on a new world, a jungle world in which the lean spirits roam with sharp claws. If I am a hyena I am a lean and hungry one: I go forth to fatten myself.
Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer, Harper Perennial, p. 103-104
Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer, Harper Perennial, p. 103-104
Friday, October 28, 2005
Cruel/Loving Body: Beijing Dis/Embodying
I woke up in the morning, finding a flyer slipped under my apartment door. Beijing,the year is 2004, and the flyer is an advert on some new plastic surgery clinic. That is one of many ways you can greet the day here, the modern capital of the Middle Kingdom. Contemporary Beijingers seem to be obsessed with their looks – plastic surgery clinics mushrooming, penetrating even your private space.
Spas lifestyle finally arrived in this part of the world. On the streets, promo girls push the flyers in your palms. This year alone, China hosted four miss pageant contests， including the Miss World. They will start another one soon, and this will be dedicated to those who went through a plastic surgery. As absurd as it might sound, the latest contest was triggered by a girl who was disqualified in one of previous contests because the jury found out her surgically altered face. She fought back – oddly enough leading to her chance to finally win in the next new contest. Another month witnessed a conference on lingerie productions, including a fashion show of the next season.
Body is now the temple of many Beijingers. This theme moved Wen Hui, a choreographer, staged Report on the Body, a performance by Living Dance Studio, the first independent dance company in China. The troupe had been in Europe for the second round. “I’m amazed with this change. You can find bathhouses or spas almost in every corner. Manicure-pedicure, branded clothes, expensive cosmetics. What’s this all about?” mused Wen Hui. This seemingly newfound bodily obsession is transferred to the stage – unfortunately only had one chance to be performed in front of public in Beijing back in end of 2002, but ironically has been touring throughout several cities in Europe ever since.
Beijing too, the city, can be seen as a ‘body’- constantly undergoing a makeover. This once ancient, imperial capital, has gone through a massive, rapid change in the past few years. Built as if imitating a fortress, with four ring roads circling and bordering, Beijing is so vast and so spread out a space. Construction sites are ubiquitous: apartments, malls, and the so-labelled, ‘New CBD’ – Central Business District. A passionate taxi driver took me to a little tour, a quick glance to his favourite, lovely fangzi (ordinary, traditional Chinese house in the hutong/alleyway area). He has been living for decades in one himself, he said, and he despairs to notice its continuous, alarming disappearance. Experts predict that at least 600 hutong are disappearing every year now, replaced by what the policy makers have in mind.
Now, I find, one of the most delightful things to do in Beijing is to stroll down its old, most ordinary hutong and sample the arguably most charming slice of life of the city. The kind around Jishuitan area (not so far from the lake side where glitzy, night life spot Hou Hai is). It is where life evolves around a few simple things – originally-built fangzi and most still with no toilets (that is why public toilets became a truly Beijing features), small eateries lining up side by side with ‘fake’ barber shops (where girls in blonde-dyed hair waiting for ‘customers’). All in harmony. It’s as if an arena to show what Chinese used to be very good at - the Taoist art of loafing - where guys playing mahjong on the street side, eating spicy meat stick for half cent per piece at a cheap food stall, drinking a bottle of Yanjing beer for only RMB 2 (around Rp 2200). It’s where you can nick delicious mala tang - Sichuan food assortments dipped in yummy sauce, all only RMB 3. The bonus is to get a genuine hospitality from the owners instead of a brisk, baffled fuwuyuan (waiters/ress) at the bigger restaurants. Living is cheap, yet so rich.
Oh, for sure, you also can have a much nicer ‘hutong’-like environment – a line up of newly, stylised-built siheyuan (courtyard house) like the ones right next to the Forbidden City. Re-designed in greyish bricks, these two-story houses are really a bargain compared to those flashy, overpriced, modern apartment. Something in between is the kind around the Central Academy of Drama – a mixture of local feeling (with its surviving moongate and ‘double happiness’ sign on the door on some of its houses), but with trendy cafes and bars classily lurking.
A throughout makeover is indeed on call. Much hassle goes to the deadline of hosting the 2008 Olympics, but other reasons abound to co-exist. The 20 year or so ‘new economy’ put Beijing on the rat race to establish ‘one country two system’ or simply to set the mood of ‘capitalism with a socialist character’ off the ground. It is in a way a snowball of Deng Xiao Ping’s famous cat’s allegory back in the 1970s that ‘it doesn’t matter whether the cat is white or black as long as it catches a mouse’.
Deng, the architect of reform, whose centenary is widely celebrated this year in China, set the credo: ‘to be rich is glorious’. Surviving the odds of Cultural Revolution, China came out perplexed in the 1980s, catching the wind of change in the odder 1990s, now riding the new Millennium full gear of high optimism. It often feels like a déjà vu of being in Southeast Asian during its much-hyped ‘New Asian Tigers’ period in the late 1980s, only in a much more zapping, dizzying pace. Economic growth has been persistently around 7%, and experts raised a pro-contra on overheated issue. Do not rush to quick conclusion though. Many things change, even speed up post joining the WTO, but not as deep as it may look.
Although the China government has just issued a green card procedure for foreigners last August, it was not until 2003 when foreigners were allowed to live in any accommodation (previously confined to certain area and apartment). Export permit for private companies was just recently issued. And the restriction on international publishing will not be lifted until next year (so don’t expect you will find a wide range of English books or magazines for a city as big as Beijing). Some news sites are banned on the net (funny, you can’t log into Time International or Time Asia, but try Time Canada. Voila). And although now MBA students can apply the MacDonald index in their case studies – where you measure people’s buying power against the price of Big Mac price - it does not mean the quality of service in general is predictable or standardized as one can expect in global consumerism. In many cases, the idea of serving ‘customers’ is still a vague one, in contrast to the big campaign of consumption endorsed by the marketing gurus.
On the surface, Beijing seems like any other capital in Asia – vibrant, lively, ‘renao’ (in Chinese). Whilst it preserves the traces of history – temples, palaces, antique tombs – it invents new spots: infamous Sanlitun bar street, idyllic night life at Hou Hai, stylish eateries at Nuren Jie, underground gigs, filmmakers cafes, club life or funky shopping centre at Xidan. It is not as savvy and natural as Shanghai in tapping the global lifestyle; although the coffee cultures finally hit the city of tea houses, it still takes you miles to find a decent one. But scratch the surface, you will likely to find the true soul of contemporary China at its heart.
Compared to Shanghai superficial arts scene, for instance, – where money is the main currency - Beijing offers a genuine dynamic reflected on its range of expressions, practice and level of sophistication. Good and bad, gem and trash arts – all up for grabs. It is hard to imagine a phenomenon like Dashanzi Art District – an ex Bauhaus style factory complex, built by the East Germans in 1950s - happens in Shanghai. Two years ago, it was just a run down area, ready to be demolished. Some artists moved in, in no time it turned to a seemingly organic, trendy complex of art galleries, studio space, cool cafes, restaurants, bars, clubs and boutiques. Now, it’s on the arts world’s map – the rumour of its discontinuation as the contract of many venues will end next year, became the headline of New York Times arts page. Last year, they persisted to organise its first international arts festival, despite the absence of government permit, thus toning down the Opening bash as an act of compromise.
Indeed, this is the moving, beguiling time to be in Beijing. In a quick glance, Shanghainese may be more fluent in English and business, more natural embracing the cosmopolitan culture – now lobbying to build a special between-two-cities ties with London. Guangzhou-ren may be more pursuant of new ideas, but Beijing sets the parameter of progress, where the next wind of change breezes. No doubt, this goes beyond the city’s old charm as a merely site of imperial or socialism memorabilia.
*) this article was published in The Jakara Post, January 2005, but with minor edited words and title rephrased. Here is my original version.
Spas lifestyle finally arrived in this part of the world. On the streets, promo girls push the flyers in your palms. This year alone, China hosted four miss pageant contests， including the Miss World. They will start another one soon, and this will be dedicated to those who went through a plastic surgery. As absurd as it might sound, the latest contest was triggered by a girl who was disqualified in one of previous contests because the jury found out her surgically altered face. She fought back – oddly enough leading to her chance to finally win in the next new contest. Another month witnessed a conference on lingerie productions, including a fashion show of the next season.
Body is now the temple of many Beijingers. This theme moved Wen Hui, a choreographer, staged Report on the Body, a performance by Living Dance Studio, the first independent dance company in China. The troupe had been in Europe for the second round. “I’m amazed with this change. You can find bathhouses or spas almost in every corner. Manicure-pedicure, branded clothes, expensive cosmetics. What’s this all about?” mused Wen Hui. This seemingly newfound bodily obsession is transferred to the stage – unfortunately only had one chance to be performed in front of public in Beijing back in end of 2002, but ironically has been touring throughout several cities in Europe ever since.
Beijing too, the city, can be seen as a ‘body’- constantly undergoing a makeover. This once ancient, imperial capital, has gone through a massive, rapid change in the past few years. Built as if imitating a fortress, with four ring roads circling and bordering, Beijing is so vast and so spread out a space. Construction sites are ubiquitous: apartments, malls, and the so-labelled, ‘New CBD’ – Central Business District. A passionate taxi driver took me to a little tour, a quick glance to his favourite, lovely fangzi (ordinary, traditional Chinese house in the hutong/alleyway area). He has been living for decades in one himself, he said, and he despairs to notice its continuous, alarming disappearance. Experts predict that at least 600 hutong are disappearing every year now, replaced by what the policy makers have in mind.
Now, I find, one of the most delightful things to do in Beijing is to stroll down its old, most ordinary hutong and sample the arguably most charming slice of life of the city. The kind around Jishuitan area (not so far from the lake side where glitzy, night life spot Hou Hai is). It is where life evolves around a few simple things – originally-built fangzi and most still with no toilets (that is why public toilets became a truly Beijing features), small eateries lining up side by side with ‘fake’ barber shops (where girls in blonde-dyed hair waiting for ‘customers’). All in harmony. It’s as if an arena to show what Chinese used to be very good at - the Taoist art of loafing - where guys playing mahjong on the street side, eating spicy meat stick for half cent per piece at a cheap food stall, drinking a bottle of Yanjing beer for only RMB 2 (around Rp 2200). It’s where you can nick delicious mala tang - Sichuan food assortments dipped in yummy sauce, all only RMB 3. The bonus is to get a genuine hospitality from the owners instead of a brisk, baffled fuwuyuan (waiters/ress) at the bigger restaurants. Living is cheap, yet so rich.
Oh, for sure, you also can have a much nicer ‘hutong’-like environment – a line up of newly, stylised-built siheyuan (courtyard house) like the ones right next to the Forbidden City. Re-designed in greyish bricks, these two-story houses are really a bargain compared to those flashy, overpriced, modern apartment. Something in between is the kind around the Central Academy of Drama – a mixture of local feeling (with its surviving moongate and ‘double happiness’ sign on the door on some of its houses), but with trendy cafes and bars classily lurking.
A throughout makeover is indeed on call. Much hassle goes to the deadline of hosting the 2008 Olympics, but other reasons abound to co-exist. The 20 year or so ‘new economy’ put Beijing on the rat race to establish ‘one country two system’ or simply to set the mood of ‘capitalism with a socialist character’ off the ground. It is in a way a snowball of Deng Xiao Ping’s famous cat’s allegory back in the 1970s that ‘it doesn’t matter whether the cat is white or black as long as it catches a mouse’.
Deng, the architect of reform, whose centenary is widely celebrated this year in China, set the credo: ‘to be rich is glorious’. Surviving the odds of Cultural Revolution, China came out perplexed in the 1980s, catching the wind of change in the odder 1990s, now riding the new Millennium full gear of high optimism. It often feels like a déjà vu of being in Southeast Asian during its much-hyped ‘New Asian Tigers’ period in the late 1980s, only in a much more zapping, dizzying pace. Economic growth has been persistently around 7%, and experts raised a pro-contra on overheated issue. Do not rush to quick conclusion though. Many things change, even speed up post joining the WTO, but not as deep as it may look.
Although the China government has just issued a green card procedure for foreigners last August, it was not until 2003 when foreigners were allowed to live in any accommodation (previously confined to certain area and apartment). Export permit for private companies was just recently issued. And the restriction on international publishing will not be lifted until next year (so don’t expect you will find a wide range of English books or magazines for a city as big as Beijing). Some news sites are banned on the net (funny, you can’t log into Time International or Time Asia, but try Time Canada. Voila). And although now MBA students can apply the MacDonald index in their case studies – where you measure people’s buying power against the price of Big Mac price - it does not mean the quality of service in general is predictable or standardized as one can expect in global consumerism. In many cases, the idea of serving ‘customers’ is still a vague one, in contrast to the big campaign of consumption endorsed by the marketing gurus.
On the surface, Beijing seems like any other capital in Asia – vibrant, lively, ‘renao’ (in Chinese). Whilst it preserves the traces of history – temples, palaces, antique tombs – it invents new spots: infamous Sanlitun bar street, idyllic night life at Hou Hai, stylish eateries at Nuren Jie, underground gigs, filmmakers cafes, club life or funky shopping centre at Xidan. It is not as savvy and natural as Shanghai in tapping the global lifestyle; although the coffee cultures finally hit the city of tea houses, it still takes you miles to find a decent one. But scratch the surface, you will likely to find the true soul of contemporary China at its heart.
Compared to Shanghai superficial arts scene, for instance, – where money is the main currency - Beijing offers a genuine dynamic reflected on its range of expressions, practice and level of sophistication. Good and bad, gem and trash arts – all up for grabs. It is hard to imagine a phenomenon like Dashanzi Art District – an ex Bauhaus style factory complex, built by the East Germans in 1950s - happens in Shanghai. Two years ago, it was just a run down area, ready to be demolished. Some artists moved in, in no time it turned to a seemingly organic, trendy complex of art galleries, studio space, cool cafes, restaurants, bars, clubs and boutiques. Now, it’s on the arts world’s map – the rumour of its discontinuation as the contract of many venues will end next year, became the headline of New York Times arts page. Last year, they persisted to organise its first international arts festival, despite the absence of government permit, thus toning down the Opening bash as an act of compromise.
Indeed, this is the moving, beguiling time to be in Beijing. In a quick glance, Shanghainese may be more fluent in English and business, more natural embracing the cosmopolitan culture – now lobbying to build a special between-two-cities ties with London. Guangzhou-ren may be more pursuant of new ideas, but Beijing sets the parameter of progress, where the next wind of change breezes. No doubt, this goes beyond the city’s old charm as a merely site of imperial or socialism memorabilia.
*) this article was published in The Jakara Post, January 2005, but with minor edited words and title rephrased. Here is my original version.
Monday, October 17, 2005
Stadium Revisited: Body, Dance, Space and Subjectivity
The closedown of Tanamur - once the Jakarta's institution for nightlife - despite its survival of passing its 30th birthday, leaves Stadium arguably the only one worthed taking over the crown for being the next, enduring Jakarta institution. At least, for now. But as the city changes so rapidly, so does everything. A recent revisit was a brief moment of reflection - of such a space that tells so much about another world of Jakarta through dancing bodies that throng it on most nights.
It was the Thursday before the Good Friday. The Easter weekend. I was brazenly gatecrashing to someone's birthday. It was of a stranger, an unknown film director who works for this production house notorious for releasing bad (but blockbuster) soap operas and a full-fledged 'entertaining' film happened to be written by a friend. He (this scriptwriter friend) dragged me off to the hell-hole, luring me with a free-flow of alcohol night-promise.
I soon felt the outlandish tackiness as I was stepping onto its front door, with few guards sitting on a stool, scooping my heavy working bag for non-Stadium mineral water or whatever. Its once familiar greenish tiles and walls now saturated my view, its front alley leading to the stair/elevator. All the rituals: briskily walking up to the front of elevator, getting in, pushing the no. 4 button, and getting ready.
The cover charge is now Rp 30,000 for weekdays. It was full but not body-to-body packed Friday night. The film director booked a sofa on the right balcony, accompanied by a girl, who pushily shoveled pills to our mouths - despite our seemingly feeble (but meant it) NO. "It's only a half, it's for baby," she persuaded in her chirpy voice. Her ponytails swinging in the dark. I soon grabbed my friend's hand, and dragged him ond floor down to the main stage. The 'usual' place for the kings and the queens.
Well, the place has lots its magic. It seems. It's now just another tacky, big dancing hall in downtown Kota -with less attitude. Guys in dark shades, still prowling for their preys. Girls in skimpy clad, also in dark hues, playing the game along. But the city has changed - as always. News of tsunami, prices hikes, constant deadlock in reform and progress. Regression. The bodies - dancing as they still are - intoxicated with bad quality essence. Even the flying dragon lost its charm - no matter how much lighted with the red laser beam.
It was the Thursday before the Good Friday. The Easter weekend. I was brazenly gatecrashing to someone's birthday. It was of a stranger, an unknown film director who works for this production house notorious for releasing bad (but blockbuster) soap operas and a full-fledged 'entertaining' film happened to be written by a friend. He (this scriptwriter friend) dragged me off to the hell-hole, luring me with a free-flow of alcohol night-promise.
I soon felt the outlandish tackiness as I was stepping onto its front door, with few guards sitting on a stool, scooping my heavy working bag for non-Stadium mineral water or whatever. Its once familiar greenish tiles and walls now saturated my view, its front alley leading to the stair/elevator. All the rituals: briskily walking up to the front of elevator, getting in, pushing the no. 4 button, and getting ready.
The cover charge is now Rp 30,000 for weekdays. It was full but not body-to-body packed Friday night. The film director booked a sofa on the right balcony, accompanied by a girl, who pushily shoveled pills to our mouths - despite our seemingly feeble (but meant it) NO. "It's only a half, it's for baby," she persuaded in her chirpy voice. Her ponytails swinging in the dark. I soon grabbed my friend's hand, and dragged him ond floor down to the main stage. The 'usual' place for the kings and the queens.
Well, the place has lots its magic. It seems. It's now just another tacky, big dancing hall in downtown Kota -with less attitude. Guys in dark shades, still prowling for their preys. Girls in skimpy clad, also in dark hues, playing the game along. But the city has changed - as always. News of tsunami, prices hikes, constant deadlock in reform and progress. Regression. The bodies - dancing as they still are - intoxicated with bad quality essence. Even the flying dragon lost its charm - no matter how much lighted with the red laser beam.
Close of an era? Stadium needs a reinvention, otherwise, it's more fun to jump into the darkness next door - the incredulous Moonlight. The cheapest gay bar in town offers probably the least pretentious drag show so far. I hopped by accident with a throng of Viet Namese dancers in mid June, and it was pulsed not only by crazy, signature humours of the two quirky MC ladyboys, but also loads of attitude onstage... towards self, and at last, life.
Sunday, April 10, 2005
.... (some lines that should be the closing para of the previous entry, but for some reasons failed to be attached to the one):
Then. What it really takes from one to extremely move from the deed of love to the expression of hate? Or, is the difference between the two as thin as silk thread? Or, can one extreme feeling, for once, wraps around the other inside, like a closed mask? (love inside/hate or vice versa). Similar to Zhang Xianliang's protagonist in his Half Man is a Woman, "I love you that is why I can't stay on with you. I have to hurt you, hurt you so bad so you put me out of your mind." Only, he delivers this paradox as a silent monologue - so loud, yet unsaid. He made her believe that he hates her.
Monday, February 21, 2005
Discourse on Hate
hate /he
t/verb, noun
verb (not used in the progressive tenses)
1 to dislike sth very much: [vn] I hate spinach. I hate Monday mornings. I hate it when people cry. He hated it in France (did not like the life there). I hate the way she always criticizes me. [v -ing] She hates making mistakes. I hate coming home late. [v to inf] He hated to be away from his family. She's a person who hates to make mistakes. I hate to think what would have happened if you hadn't been there. [vn -ing] He hates anyone parking in his space. [vn to inf] She would have hated him to see how her hands shook. I'd hate anything to happen to him. 2 [vn] ~ sb (for sth) to dislike sb very much: The two boys hated each other. I hated myself for feeling jealous. He was her most hated enemy. Sometimes I really hate him. 3 [no passive] [v to inf] used when saying sth that you would prefer not to have to say, or when politely asking to do sth: I hate to say it, but I don't think their marriage will last. I hate to trouble you, but could I use your phone? (Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary)
t/verb, noun verb (not used in the progressive tenses) 1 to dislike sth very much: [vn] I hate spinach. I hate Monday mornings. I hate it when people cry. He hated it in France (did not like the life there). I hate the way she always criticizes me. [v -ing] She hates making mistakes. I hate coming home late. [v to inf] He hated to be away from his family. She's a person who hates to make mistakes. I hate to think what would have happened if you hadn't been there. [vn -ing] He hates anyone parking in his space. [vn to inf] She would have hated him to see how her hands shook. I'd hate anything to happen to him. 2 [vn] ~ sb (for sth) to dislike sb very much: The two boys hated each other. I hated myself for feeling jealous. He was her most hated enemy. Sometimes I really hate him. 3 [no passive] [v to inf] used when saying sth that you would prefer not to have to say, or when politely asking to do sth: I hate to say it, but I don't think their marriage will last. I hate to trouble you, but could I use your phone? (Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary)
So much have been written about its cousin - especially in some parts of the globe showered in the (comercially) pinked campaign every second month of the year (boring, boring). But what about its opposite feeling?
It's not that I'm as noble as Dalai Lama or Mahatma or other saintly people if I stay away from hating (people). Or at least, try to. As for my case, it is simply due to my banal fear of adding unnessary wrinkle lines before its time that hating, I believe, could cause. I don't think I ever have an object for this strong word as a noun (hatred). And as a verb, my use of it is not really particular. Time and again, I'd say, 'I hate traffic jam or I hate some crooked politician with funny moustache', but can't really think of a familiar face I ever target the feeling to.
It's most possibly cos my life has been generally 'safe' from state/big man-inflicted tragedy, keeping me reasonless from possesing this strong feeling. All those pains and sadness and other ordeal in life inflicted by other human beings, as far as mine, comes in meager size. There is no holocaust in my life, nor Cultural Revolution, nor 1965 massacre in Indonesia, nor excruciating pain/suffering/humiliation inflicted on those women raped during the Japan occupation or Indonesia's 1998 riots, nor those people caught in the middle of ethnic conflict in Rwanda or the religious one in Moluccas Island or what the world still have to add the long list of human misery until this very second. I just happen to be the lucky ones.
Such acts, as most of us know, can be generated by many reasons. But, when it comes to personal level, can it be also something genetic? If a girl's moderate temper (like mine? ugh) is not really prone into a such, long-term anger which easily morphes into hate - could it be due to her father gene - known to his closest as someone with such a big heart? One's temperament - is that in one's DNA?
If not blood-related, can it be cultural? A certain culture is based on revenge, so I was once told, inherited from some Viking tribe whose customes rooted in mockery and fists and betrayal. So. Does my grandmother's surrounding culture - a serene, 'alus' (refined), dismissive Javanese its female trained throughout her life contributes to my personal trait? (Mind you, not the contradictory, two-faced traits its male-culture possesed by the Central Javanese). Is there really such thing? How valid this analysis? Switch the news channel, and the proof (that human beings can be a profound hater) is aplenty (of men not learning from human kind history,thus failed to stop the vicious cycle of hatred). But why does it sound so simplistic?
If one managed to save his/her soul from being engulfed or empowered by hatred, how strange it could be to be an object of some kind. Arch your eyebrows, but this thing is as old as other worldly sins. You can be hated because the colour of your skin. But when someone you know (even more if once so dearly) lavishes his/her extreme dislike (or anger) on you, hissing the harshest words (from the same lips which once were so able to utter such highly imaginative tender ones), how would you react? After the shock, it might leave you shiver, cold, frozen in sadness, then tremble-shatter, but how it shakes the inner- as much as the outer you? Debris of absurdity scattered, as one may look in dismay at his/her own failure to fathom the moment (when he/she is hated). In the blurred blue print of a soul, what is actually the trigger, and how it actually triggers? I mean, where? Is it in the mind, in the heart, in between? Is it in the course of times, in certain space, in a peculiar apace?
But hate or hatred does not always mean a bad thing. "I hate injustice" so uttered this grand dame of activist I interviewed recently. Decades of violence and injustice has led her lead an extremely rich life, full of good deeds and small miracles woven into her daily life. She entered the list of 1000 women campaigned by a women organisation in Genf to win the Noble Prize this year.
It's said (by some rock star I suppose :-) it takes a man to love a woman to hate her. Nice contradiction - flattering yet illusory. But to contrast the act of hating with the act of loving between the two sexes at a personal level, well, probably Roland Barthes' notions can enlighten. He concluded, the language we use when we are in love is not a language we speak, for it is addressed to ourselves and to our imaginary beloved. It's for that very reason, a lover's discourse is a language of solitude.
(Barthes) Language is a skin: I rub my language against the other. It is as if I had words instead of fingers, or fingers at the tip of my words. My language trembles with desire. The emotion derives from a double contact: on the one hand, a whole activity of discourse discreetly, indirectly focuses upon a single signified, which "I desire you", and releases, nourishes, ramifies it to the point of explosion (language experiences orgasm upon touching itself); careess, brush against, talk up this contact, I extend myself to make the commentary to which I submit the relation endure. (To speak amourously is to expend without an end in sight, without crisis; it is to practice a relation without orgasm. There may exist a literary form of this coitus reservatus: what we call Marivaudage).
Then. What it really takes from one to extremely move from the deed of love to the expression of hate? Or, is the difference between the two is as thin as silk thread? Or can one extreme feeling, for once, wraps around the other inside, like a closed mask? (love inside/as hate or vice versa). Similar to Zhang Xianliang's protagonist in Half Man is a Woman, "I love you that's why I can't stay on with you. I have to hurt you, hurt you so much, so you put me out of your mind." Only, he delivers this paradox as a silent monologue - so loud, yet unsaid. He made her believe that he hates her.
But even if hate is some kind of a lover's discourse, and that might be highly flattering for the object, yet it remains illusory. Eventually, it unfailingly hurts. Probably forever.
Thursday, February 10, 2005
Chinatowns Part Two: Scorched Out for Love, remix #1
Traffic miracles do happen in Jl. Hayam Wuruk, Kota/Glodok, Jakarta's Chinatown. I was marching along the sacred avenue, heading to some portion of the yummy dimsum (albeit limited selection) at the end of the journey, amazed that the street - used to be choke-a-bloc with cars on business hours and beyond, pollutions and what have you - was total clear. Only happens in Sincia, so the local, indonesianized dialect (Hakka? Hokian?) for Mandarin 'Xin Nian'. This 'heaven' also is only possible since 1999, as Gus Dur (then the President) re-acknowledged the rights of the Chinese-Indonesians to express their cultural identity that had been discrimanated throughout Suharto's tenure. Two-day holiday in a row, a very long weekend indeed, and it turns this City to an amiable one-fourth-ghost town. Just like Beijing, at the same time of the year. Yet so pleasant (cos the shops remain open). It's just like Iedul Fitri - empty. All the holidaymakers seem to have flown off to Bali, Singapore or joined the traffic jam heading to the closest sea sides.
Kaliber (short version for Jl. Kali Besar Barat), is two streets separated by the black-watered, canal-like gutter in the middle. I wish I could possess one of the shop-houses - or offices - lining up in these streets, some are so dilapidated. In June 2003, some artists did an exhibition in the roof-less ruins, and I'd go, 'shit', if only... Imagine to have a contemporary dance centre there - with a programe so eclectic like The Place in London. I know that some young architects have been trying to generate fundings to save these once beautiful quarters, still, to no avail.
Yesterday, in the daylight, I failed to re-locate the first Kota club I visited back in 1999. I didn't even know the name. We - a bunch of people from different nationalities - got stranded to that place, first mistaking it for a dangdut disco. If you don't know what dangdut music is - well, it's your problem. Find out. I remember clearly that the lobby had a strange ambience. Kind of heavy decoration (some green velvet as the floor? ouch!) with nasty-looking bouncers looking at us as if we were some extraterrestials got lost on earth. The sounds thudding from inside floated some mysterious air, and the shock (mine!) came as soon as I entered the space.
What a music! High pitched, high bpm tacky house, banging so loud, almost bleeding my ears. The big hall - I could not see the borders - was almost pitch dark, only occasionally lighted by the laser lighting splashing from some points. It was packed with those nocturnals whose eyes were closed, and head shaking to right and left. Chinese descendants - yound and middle age. I just met insanity en face. As Sheryl Garratt says in her book, Adventures in Wonderland: A Decade of Club Culture, "this wasn't clubbing as a pastime, it was clubbing as a religion, a release, a way of life." But she here referred another intake of clubbing, the one in New York, early 1970s that is, and it's just so funny to compare both, which I will do soon in one of these days.
Kaliber (short version for Jl. Kali Besar Barat), is two streets separated by the black-watered, canal-like gutter in the middle. I wish I could possess one of the shop-houses - or offices - lining up in these streets, some are so dilapidated. In June 2003, some artists did an exhibition in the roof-less ruins, and I'd go, 'shit', if only... Imagine to have a contemporary dance centre there - with a programe so eclectic like The Place in London. I know that some young architects have been trying to generate fundings to save these once beautiful quarters, still, to no avail.
Yesterday, in the daylight, I failed to re-locate the first Kota club I visited back in 1999. I didn't even know the name. We - a bunch of people from different nationalities - got stranded to that place, first mistaking it for a dangdut disco. If you don't know what dangdut music is - well, it's your problem. Find out. I remember clearly that the lobby had a strange ambience. Kind of heavy decoration (some green velvet as the floor? ouch!) with nasty-looking bouncers looking at us as if we were some extraterrestials got lost on earth. The sounds thudding from inside floated some mysterious air, and the shock (mine!) came as soon as I entered the space.
What a music! High pitched, high bpm tacky house, banging so loud, almost bleeding my ears. The big hall - I could not see the borders - was almost pitch dark, only occasionally lighted by the laser lighting splashing from some points. It was packed with those nocturnals whose eyes were closed, and head shaking to right and left. Chinese descendants - yound and middle age. I just met insanity en face. As Sheryl Garratt says in her book, Adventures in Wonderland: A Decade of Club Culture, "this wasn't clubbing as a pastime, it was clubbing as a religion, a release, a way of life." But she here referred another intake of clubbing, the one in New York, early 1970s that is, and it's just so funny to compare both, which I will do soon in one of these days.
Monday, February 07, 2005
Chinatowns Part One: Scorched Out for Love
the nightclub/kitsch, greenish floor/tacky walls/long alley, smoky/up, then down into the dark, foggy/'mamas' linger around/the crest-shaped bar/their girls, waiting/preying/prowling/whilst/on the dancefloor/sea of house-brand mineral water bottles/shaken by techzak music/order of the night/from behind the deck/all nocturnals brush shoulders/mingle/stone-/zombie-like creatures/join choruses in drug-infused euphoria/
ur standing tall/on the stage/overlooking the den/below/bodies, sweating/twisting/ur smooth face/observing/in ur funky, fine shirt/me, with/subdued thoughts/we'll be just buddies/another web of platonic feelings/trying to lock ur stare/out, hands held/tread the stage down/pass the crest-shaped/out to the fake light/
a trip to the church/stadium
but/ur soft-sturdier/bigger torso/engulfs mine/gently/twist of the nite/i turn....
- sorry for my craziness, I hiss to ur chest - so natural/ as if expecting this moment
and the elevator door opens/we're instantly lovers/smitten
Shameless - this is a failed attempt or a fake imitation of Jeff Noon's Needle In The Groove (Anchor, 1999). There's no way I can copy his writing style ("Think Borges crossed with Philip Larkin on acid and you've got some idea of the power of its very English enchantment"/Arena), no matter how flirtatious I'v been with his mother tongue for years. But his story conjuring up the mystery of dance culture, allowing the complex rhythms of the music to infect his language, I agree to whoever wrote the back-cover comments, shows how Noon creates a new kind of writing, so-called 'liquid dub poetics' that just mesmerised me for days until I finished the damn book.
But my Noon's intake here is to help me enter the realm of a (particular) Chinatown I feel like describing this time - now that we are marching to the new Chinese Year, in just few days. I've been to some by now and before I knew, I started to pick up a magnifying glass whenever I visit one these days. The three in the UK (London, Manchester, Liverpool) are easy to figure out. They centre on a main street (Gerard St in London), and the small hub piling around it, a window display full of Chinese knick knacks, cliched intricacies. The whole food world - full-stacked Chinese supermarkets, restaurants (from Peking duck to dimsum), moon cake and other delicacies shops, 'take-aways' - along with shops selling DVDs, cheapest international phone cards in town, Chinese medicines and practice of Chinese doctors - you name it. This structure bears so much resemblance with the one in Melbourne (with the Museum of Chinese immigrants, and a restaurant dedicated to Mao Ze Dong in which I was once spoilt). The one in Paris is mixed with the Vietnamese noodle stalls. Whilst those 'Little China' in Southeast Asia seem to take it further. Here, the sense of localities is strong - albeit sometimes can't escape the typical 'Chinese' street contour (lineup of neons flashes, Chinese characters emblazoned in red) like the one in Bangkok. Its enchanting shophouses with its faded paints now became the arty thing. Rents rise high - so I heard.
But the one in Jakarta, the Kota/Glodok area that is, is another case. Unfailingly, I strongly think I have to start from Stadium, the 'church', the notorious club, to enter its realm of nightlife that I still haven't found in any Chinatown I have visited so far. (What about those in the US? curious).
This part One is only an overture, to a world I finally peeked into about five years ago. Kota is where this city began to pulse about four centuries ago - but its present blunt, physical presence blurs its old charms. Old, colonial buildings in the area are rotten - one by one dissapears. This part of the town is confined to be just a commercial hub where you can snatch pirated DVDs or electronic stuff with the best bargain (as long as you don't mind hassling), old Chinese temples, viharas, or the most original dimsum.
For many Jakartans, Kota nightlife represents more like a myth than a real part of the town they are a regular. Or, the closest, it's a cliched notion of outrageously high-speed bpm, incredibly tacky house music, super-bad remixes of West Life and the likes, e-madness, girls for 'ups and grabs' packed its 'one stop entertainment' temples like Stadium, ruled by the organised crime kings and lords, whose names we only dare hiss in initials. It is a decadent world - a black-red brocade, kitsch, female G-string probably wore by its young whores. The seediest gay bar is located here. A tangled, vicious circle of corrupted economy and crooked passion, just like a miniature of the state.
But a taste of Kota nightlife is a must, for those who would like to understand the world underneath, the history of Chinese immmigrant existence, the cultral shreds it is made of. To me, it takes millions rides to Jl. Hayam Wuruk, the main avenue, so many strolls to Jl Mangga Besar, and walks and nibbs in its vast arrays of Chinese foods in its maze of back alleys. Still, it's never enough. I hope to extend this discussion in my next Chapter. Just bear with me for a bit, hao ma?
ur standing tall/on the stage/overlooking the den/below/bodies, sweating/twisting/ur smooth face/observing/in ur funky, fine shirt/me, with/subdued thoughts/we'll be just buddies/another web of platonic feelings/trying to lock ur stare/out, hands held/tread the stage down/pass the crest-shaped/out to the fake light/
a trip to the church/stadium
but/ur soft-sturdier/bigger torso/engulfs mine/gently/twist of the nite/i turn....
- sorry for my craziness, I hiss to ur chest - so natural/ as if expecting this moment
and the elevator door opens/we're instantly lovers/smitten
Shameless - this is a failed attempt or a fake imitation of Jeff Noon's Needle In The Groove (Anchor, 1999). There's no way I can copy his writing style ("Think Borges crossed with Philip Larkin on acid and you've got some idea of the power of its very English enchantment"/Arena), no matter how flirtatious I'v been with his mother tongue for years. But his story conjuring up the mystery of dance culture, allowing the complex rhythms of the music to infect his language, I agree to whoever wrote the back-cover comments, shows how Noon creates a new kind of writing, so-called 'liquid dub poetics' that just mesmerised me for days until I finished the damn book.
But my Noon's intake here is to help me enter the realm of a (particular) Chinatown I feel like describing this time - now that we are marching to the new Chinese Year, in just few days. I've been to some by now and before I knew, I started to pick up a magnifying glass whenever I visit one these days. The three in the UK (London, Manchester, Liverpool) are easy to figure out. They centre on a main street (Gerard St in London), and the small hub piling around it, a window display full of Chinese knick knacks, cliched intricacies. The whole food world - full-stacked Chinese supermarkets, restaurants (from Peking duck to dimsum), moon cake and other delicacies shops, 'take-aways' - along with shops selling DVDs, cheapest international phone cards in town, Chinese medicines and practice of Chinese doctors - you name it. This structure bears so much resemblance with the one in Melbourne (with the Museum of Chinese immigrants, and a restaurant dedicated to Mao Ze Dong in which I was once spoilt). The one in Paris is mixed with the Vietnamese noodle stalls. Whilst those 'Little China' in Southeast Asia seem to take it further. Here, the sense of localities is strong - albeit sometimes can't escape the typical 'Chinese' street contour (lineup of neons flashes, Chinese characters emblazoned in red) like the one in Bangkok. Its enchanting shophouses with its faded paints now became the arty thing. Rents rise high - so I heard.
But the one in Jakarta, the Kota/Glodok area that is, is another case. Unfailingly, I strongly think I have to start from Stadium, the 'church', the notorious club, to enter its realm of nightlife that I still haven't found in any Chinatown I have visited so far. (What about those in the US? curious).
This part One is only an overture, to a world I finally peeked into about five years ago. Kota is where this city began to pulse about four centuries ago - but its present blunt, physical presence blurs its old charms. Old, colonial buildings in the area are rotten - one by one dissapears. This part of the town is confined to be just a commercial hub where you can snatch pirated DVDs or electronic stuff with the best bargain (as long as you don't mind hassling), old Chinese temples, viharas, or the most original dimsum.
For many Jakartans, Kota nightlife represents more like a myth than a real part of the town they are a regular. Or, the closest, it's a cliched notion of outrageously high-speed bpm, incredibly tacky house music, super-bad remixes of West Life and the likes, e-madness, girls for 'ups and grabs' packed its 'one stop entertainment' temples like Stadium, ruled by the organised crime kings and lords, whose names we only dare hiss in initials. It is a decadent world - a black-red brocade, kitsch, female G-string probably wore by its young whores. The seediest gay bar is located here. A tangled, vicious circle of corrupted economy and crooked passion, just like a miniature of the state.
But a taste of Kota nightlife is a must, for those who would like to understand the world underneath, the history of Chinese immmigrant existence, the cultral shreds it is made of. To me, it takes millions rides to Jl. Hayam Wuruk, the main avenue, so many strolls to Jl Mangga Besar, and walks and nibbs in its vast arrays of Chinese foods in its maze of back alleys. Still, it's never enough. I hope to extend this discussion in my next Chapter. Just bear with me for a bit, hao ma?
Saturday, January 22, 2005
A Can of Worms
Whatever. Here I am, writing my own blog. Don't smirk for those I know well enough, who have been so much into this ahead of me, and probably wonder why I had been not attempted to join the bunch until now. The naked truth is, I so long for that old, now sadly gone habit, of emailing (and getting emails from) a handful of you on such (albeit randomly) frequent basis, in which we lavished our minds on certain slices of lives, parts of our thoughts, that we seldom reveal to others. I hope too this newish way of venting out will somehow replace my frustration of failing to revive that old, now sadly gone habit of getting emails from those rare encounters I still value so much.
So. I create this space to be a sort of mental musing - of all pointific (or not so-) themes that bother my mind from time to time. Lots on bodies, I suppose. Contemporary dance, inevitably. Southeast Asia. East-West rambling. On movies (and thus the blog name is Moon Water, the Chinese Film Festival I'm now organising with some of you) or whatever issues I feel like ranting about.
Glad if you feed me back whenever you feel to. But expect to get, I will no more wish. Things happen when they happen. If desire is a (representational) itch that can never truly be scratched (Lacan), at least, I know where to seek my consolation.
Mine is only, a can of worm.......catch?
So. I create this space to be a sort of mental musing - of all pointific (or not so-) themes that bother my mind from time to time. Lots on bodies, I suppose. Contemporary dance, inevitably. Southeast Asia. East-West rambling. On movies (and thus the blog name is Moon Water, the Chinese Film Festival I'm now organising with some of you) or whatever issues I feel like ranting about.
Glad if you feed me back whenever you feel to. But expect to get, I will no more wish. Things happen when they happen. If desire is a (representational) itch that can never truly be scratched (Lacan), at least, I know where to seek my consolation.
Mine is only, a can of worm.......catch?
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