He thinks about Christmas, Hari Raya Puasa, Deepavali and… Chinese New Year.
He wonders, if the Chinese is the only race these days who celebrate its most important annual event with most of the food, clothing, music, decorations, rituals, gifts and greetings centralized on the single theme of getting rich?
Huat ah!
He feels awkward, almost embarrassed.
When he kept seeing The Kite Runner being displayed prominently on the bookshelf in Kinokuniya for the last 10 visits or so, he knew he had to read the book. Before he could do it, however, they chanced upon the film at The Cathay last Saturday. As she vetoed his suggestion to watch Rambo, and he was obviously not interested in 27 Dresses, the final decision was reached easily.
He had high expectations, and he wasn’t disappointed. He left the cinema with a thousand thoughts. Of love, of parents, of friends, of war. Of redemption, of traditions, of nation, of ambitions.
The similar feeling when he woke up from nightmare occasionally, only more intense.
There is a way to be good again.
For you a thousand times over.
Silently, he whispers these words to his homeland.
Unlike Jiin Joo, he is not planning to write a thesis about it.
To quote something he learned from a colleague (and attempt to sound intelligent at the same time), tempus fugit.
Let’s start. He spent the first 8 years studying stuff that would soon be proven obsolete. In between he met his first girlfriend that would soon be proven his last. Then, he got a job that would soon be proven to be… just a job. He later bought a house which would soon proven to be smaller compared to his peers, but cheaper as the property prices shot up like crazy. Finally, he got married to the same girl that would soon proven to be something that doesn’t need any proof.
It’s not terribly exciting, but it’s not much different from most of the people he knows anyway. In retrospect, any fools could have seen all these must have already been orchestrated carefully in the grander scheme of things at the very moment they arrived.
The next 10 years? Let’s just say they have already booked their new one-way tickets.
“Forty-two!” yelled Loonquawl. “Is that all you’ve got to show for seven and a half million years’ work?”
“I checked it very thoroughly,” said the computer, “and that quite definitely is the answer. I think the problem, to be quite honest with you, is that you’ve never actually known what the question is.”
“But it was the Great Question! The Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything!” howled Loonquawl.
“Yes,” said Deep Thought with the air of one, who suffers fools gladly, “but what actually is it?”
“The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” by Douglas Adams
“…So take the photographs, and still frames in your mind
Hang it on a shelf in good health and good time
Tattoos of memories and dead skin on trial
For what it’s worth it was worth all the while
It’s something unpredictable, but in the end it’s right.
I hope you had the time of your life…”
- Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life) by Green Day