The Heart of the Forest

The old fae looked up darkly and carried on.

"Somewhere in the forest is a pale, tall man. He weaves through the fields of trees like a spirit picking his way through a crowd of silent watchers, like a seamstress' silent needle feeling the path through the fabric, searching.

"I met him once, you know, when the world was young and the trees remembered our war. He was young then, newly-spurned by his lover and weighing the heart of the forest down with every heavy step. His face was as long as the old nights; his eyes like stars.

"They say he still walks, you know, still searches the lands for his lover, still shrouds the forest in its eternal night. He is tall; with limbs like the branches of a birch: you'll barely reach his knees, little gnome.

"Why do you seek him, princess; why do you seek him, daughter? No one finds the Wanderer and leaves the meeting untouched; his is the heart of the forest, with its little joys and long sorrows. I was young when I found him; I am old now.

"Now leave. We have spoken enough."

The Gnome Meets the Fae

"Words are just little shining wisps that flow like maidens through the air, son, and like maidens they may destroy you or put you back on your path or simply vanish, never to be seen again. You may choose to welcome the maidens, or you may shun them: but choose quickly, for she is leaving," said the old gnome.

Fizzlespizzle rubbed his nose and shuddered: the past few days he had been forced to make so many difficult decisions so often. Little Fizzle the miner, caught up in such complicated things, he thought to himself as he realized he did not even know the name of the gnome.

"Well?" The gnome in question was clearly getting impatient.

Fizzlespizzle picked himself up and wiped some mud off his breeches. He looked around the cave one last time. It was a damp, dark place: the walls of the old untended tunnels had too few torches, he thought to himself, making a mental note to suggest some improvements to the head miner. If that scary fae-thing ever lets me out alive, that is, he sulked as he walked towards the green door.

"That's the way, son. Don't fret, I doubt she'll eat you. And yes, she's a she, mind you."

A Fiery Start

“Little gnome, little gnome, don’t cry. It’s over now, it’s all over.”

Fizzlespizzle flinched as the soldier put a calloused hand on his shoulder. Was it over, the gnome thought to himself as he blew his nose, or was it only beginning? The soldier gazed sympathetically, as if knowing that it really was the latter.

Fizzlespizzle looked up after rubbing his nose once more for good measure to see the princess picking her way through the remains of the carriage. She really was beautiful, he thought. The gnome remembered that fateful day when she summoned him from his old life of mining the depths of their city, into this world of danger. The soldier, following his gaze, mumbled, “to think it was him all along.”

“M’lady, please, you may burn yourself,” cried a soldier as the princess crumbled on the charred remains, but he was ignored. Fizzlespizzle looked on as the princess clutched her lover’s burnt and shot body, as if daring the winds and the rains to pry it from her grip.

Meanwhile the fae, her wrists bound once again behind her back and guarded in the corner of the clearing by two soldiers, gazed at the scene with the patience of one who knows too much and has lived too long. She knew that this was only the beginning of their journey to the dark city.

big nosed

"hmmm," said Fizzlespizzle the Gnome.

dream-maker...

I've always wanted to write a book. Two books, actually. One fiction and one non-fiction. They've been running around in my consciousness, playing games with my mind and all that jazz.

I think dreams are really amazing things. We human beings can sit in our corners and wonder about the future. We build little castles in our heads, intricate masterpieces that may very well get swept away by the next wave. But that's what keeps us going, right? I wrote an essay once on creativity and humanity, my main conclusion being that creativity is what ensures our humanity.

Little dreams playing in my head.

The Tears that Fell

There is a lady in the flickering light of the rose-tinted ballroom. Her name is The Tears that Fell. Watch her dance, lover, as the rain-soaked winds stroke like the master of an oiled viola the misty window panes revealing the night. And watch her dance, enthralled, and listen.

There is music streaming from the old gramophone on the musky wooden drawers. The old player sings of remembrance and half-forgotten years; old joys and sorrows; and loves that were lost, but treasured. You almost hear yourself singing its haunting strains as you lean against the creaking wall of the ballroom, a tear slowly forming. As your eyes well up the light forms rainbows in your eyes.

There is a beam of the moon on the rose of the floor. Today as if enthralled, too, the moon turns its old face and watches with the intensity of one torn and lost; watch with him. The silhouette of the lady sighs as each time it passes the touch of the sun's companion, as if meeting a lover once again, and in each stutter of breath from the naked bulb of light we see the grace of silk; a sublime flow. Watch.

There is a light in the eyes of the lady of the ballroom. It catches each beam, pinpoint and flicker, and shatters it to rainbow fragments like a diamond on a forgotten ring. Remember, lover, and watch. As the music lifts her like a dove on the winds she glides, rises, swirls, each step a tribute to a memory; and a flame. You feel a burning in that broken soul, you feel a pain in that tearing heart; watch as each tear sparkles.

finally, pictures! touristy stuff 2

to continue from my last post...


candice and i finally got to see one of beijing's famous "hutongs", or alleyways, that are disappearing slowly to give way to modernisation. we stumbled on this one in the center of beijing while searching for a tourist attraction called the "underground city".

this hutong was basically a little neighbourhood of small crumbling houses that has been blocked from view by a large perimeter wall. people there lead simple lives: we saw a family playing badminton, a lady selling fruit, and many other people sitting around, a stark contrast to fast-paced modern beijing.


we found that the "underground city" tourist attraction had been closed because it was unsafe (the picture above is the entrance). but it was really nice to walk down the hutong talking to people and taking videos. it's like i'm storing the last memories of a place that may disappear very soon.


next we took a walk to the temple of heaven! the place is actually a collection of temples surrounded by a very large park where locals love to hang out. approaching the complex, you begin to see kites flying very high up in the air. there were a bunch of old men playing chinese instruments at the main gate, and man were they good! the audience (mainly local) looked totally enthralled.

going further into the gate you can see middle-aged ladies playing chantek (they are VERY good) and various other people walking around happily. deeper in the park i heard strains of beautiful music from some chinese wind instrument, and saw an old man playing a flute-like thing with two friends watching over. the whole place is like a totally different world.


we didn't get to enter to temples themselves because they were closed, but we walked down a large open-air corridor that linked two of the temples. it was gorgeous! there were many locals there lying down on picnic mats, or flying kites, or just walking around. we even got a mini kite-making lesson from a middle-aged lady who was flying a lizard-shaped kite (basically, "it's hard to get the shape of the kite right"). i've never seen such amazing kites. they come in all shapes and colours, and people here fly them so high you wonder how many kg of rope they brought.

i think for all the impression of rushing and money-making china can give, many people here are still contented and peaceful. their philosophy seems to be to take the modernisation in stride and enjoy the little things. maybe singaporeans should learn from them.

China experience: day 60 of 70

finally, pictures! touristy stuff 1

So with two weeks left on our china experience, Candice and I decided to spend last weekend doing touristy stuff!


First up, the best Beijing duck restaurant in China! They sound a gong and roll out your duck when it's ready, and they roast it in such a way that all that's left is juicy fleshy and thick crispy skin. Not to mention all the stuff they give you to wrap the duck with. Shiok.

on saturday we visited tiananmen square and the forbidden city for real! i was totally awed by the forbidden city. firstly it's HUGE. you can walk and walk and walk through various gigantic gates and still be at the fringes of the place. they mean it when they call it a city; there are several whole palaces built inside the place.

and secondly it's like a totally different world: there are 800+ rooms, many of them full of ancient treasure, surrounding courtyards or orchards or flower patches. and many rooms have been repainted to look as close to the original as possible. really amazing stuff.

the next day we visited langfang! the scale of the university project there is huge. it's something like ten times the size of NUS. and the large amount of greenery and wide roads remind you of singapore :D

ok that's all for now! i'll write about beijing's "hutongs" and the temple of heaven another day :) night night!

China experience: day 59 of 70

Sine Qua Non

Without which nothing.

There are things in each of our lives, without which our lives have no value. To you, it could be as simple as the friends you have made over the decades, or as complex as the company you spent your whole life building. These are the things we identify with and define ourselves by; these are the things we measure our lives by and therefore the things that make life worth living.

We tend to grasp on to something, perhaps anything, that keep us alive. An old, friendless lady who finds some small sorrow-tinged joy as she watches the sun set from the porch of her nursing home, or a young teenager who slits her wrist to get attention, and, she hopes, concern: we search for things that matter to us, and like proverbial straws they are sometimes too insubstantial to lift us; but we still try.

My condicio has always been close friends and memories. These are the things that define me, because my close friends are the people I am walking through life with today, and the past is how I came to be here. I still have the full set of journals I ever wrote, from the time I was six, and almost all the photos, digital or otherwise that have ever mattered to me.

What is your condicio? Do you know why you are something? Dubito ergo cogito ergo sum, but existence is not value. If you value yourself, you will treasure, and maybe even fight to be, yourself. That is what makes us human beings; it is why we live in houses, wear clothes, have quarrels, worship, get married, and go to funerals. It is why some people can say that yes, life has meaning.

Condicio sine qua non: a condition, wihout which there is nothing. Do you have one?

hello world

yup, i haven't blogged in a while. been working on a few things here in beijing during my free time from work, including a wikipedia article about my dad! i'm quite proud of it (just google my dad's name) but i've been hard pressed getting secondary sources to prove that the article is worthy of inclusion in wikipedia... well, that's all i wanna say now. gonna fry or microwave some chicken i bought, then shower, then fetch candice back from the gym. goodnight, world.

China experience: day 40-something out of 70

marble arch

listening to "hallelujah" bu rufus wainwright.

it's an amazing song; so many meanings to it. it's one of those songs that can either make you feel like holding your head high, or feel like crying.

reading in beijing

my two books from amazon.com have arrived!! a terry pratchett book and a mathematics book :) shows how varied my reading interests are huh?

they don't believe in learning on the job

so there are now three interns in my team. one of them is new (she only came in last week), and there's a beijing resident who's an undergrad from a canaian uni who's been here 6 weeks, and then there's myself, who's been here 5.

they're sending us for a 3-day training next week. like... what? they're sending me for training, after which i'll only have 3 weeks left with the company? it's hilarious :) big waste of their resources...

:)

China experience: day 37 of 70

both sides now, again

i just watched the "love, actually" scene where the president's wife just finds out that her husband was cheating on her. really really love the whole scene. it's like, "here i am, this innocent, sweet, kind housemaker, who never suspected my spouse of doing anything like this behind my back. and yet..."

cracking into mars

i've been following the phoenix mission on mars, and read a funny line from one of the news websites:

"After trying to crack further into it, the arm became immobilized, which is the expected programmed reaction for when it hits a hard surface."

:)

god and science

i've always felt that given enough time, physics will one day show itself to be linked to christianity. it's a sneaking suspicion that has shaped a lot of my personal decisions.

i've known since very early on that there is definitely something beyond the material world. i've seen far too much - from the possibly mundane, like events too coincidental to be true, to the possibly explainable, like prophets who literally saw into my life, to the shocking, like demonic manifestations.

all the evidence i've seen has kept me stuck to christianity because it is the only supernatural belief system that is, as far as i know, coherent and makes sense within itself. that's just my opinion... but opinions are the basis of faith.

but while i believe strongly in the supernatural, i also have a great interest in the natural world, especially physics. to me, physics is the most fundamental of the sciences because it explores the smallest (photons and such), the largest (the universe as a whole), the earliest (the birth of time), and the latest (the end of the universe). and all the study is guided by scientific principles, where theories and laws are built on concrete proof and experiment.

many people feel that god and science cannot be reconciled. i understand that view. it's easy to notice that so far, god has not "appeared" out of the equations, not to mention the fact that biology as we know it does not require a divine being. but if you ask me, i'm completely fine with the fact that physics has not proven god exists even though some think we are extremely close to a complete understanding of the universe.

no one said that science has to "prove" god! i don't believe that god is so messy that he would interfere with the universe, change stuff around, or put the phrase "BELIEVE IN ME" in some equation, just to prove to us humans that he is real. i believe that god is not someone who needs to prove himself. he told us in the bible, why show miracles? why give a sign?

i believe that by the mere nature of science and the laws he created for our universe, god has already revealed himself. one of the most "miraculous" things about physics, to me, is that it is even understand, and that it is neat (or elegant). when you see that the fundamental particles in the universe can be categorized into neat groups that are related with equally-neat mathematical equations, you wonder why, ask yourself is there more to discover, and wonder what the big picture is.

our understanding of the universe is now that of a few understandable and implausibly elegant theories. each theory explains a large range of observation. for example one simple equation (the einstein equation - not e=mc2, the other one) governs gravity, the expansion of the universe, and etc.

one great thing about physics is that the theories can be unified. in other words, as scientists get better at understanding the world, they often realize that the equations of 2 or 3 or 4 theories are actually the same thing, expressed differently in different circumstances. so physicists are slowly cutting down the number of theories.

today, we are left with two basic theories that no one has managed to combine - general relativity (governs the very big) and quantum theory (governs the very small), and scientists believe that we are very closely to coming up with one single theory that explains everything in the universe.

what does this have to do with god? why does it matter since science is already showing god? it matters because physics categorises our understanding of nature. with a final theory, we shall find out how the universe as a whole is organized, maybe even how the universe began. with that, we shall see the hand the made the initial push to begin the universe, and we shall see a complete picture of the heart and mind that went into creation.

so if physics is allowed to advance far enough, we will see the hand, heart and mind of god. yes, it is possible for me to return to a path towards physics research. it may be a difficult journey should i leave the beaten road and head down that path, but i'm keeping that option open. *wink*

orange thing + about work

there's a budak pantai song playing in my head... fann's song. i've always wondered why they called it that. anyway...

i have the spore creature creator! it lets you create almost any creature you can imagine. start with a spine, add limbs and parts, paint the thing. it's serious fun, although i might get bored of the concept soon heh. that thing below is one of the first things i made :)



work has been getting more interesting. i suppose the team trusts me more, so they've been giving me more to do. for instance, i now know how to use the company printers, fax machines, photocopiers and scanners! and scanning is really fun hurhur. oh and of course i've also been doing the standard stuff like checking figures, tallying reports and so on :)

and there's a new intern in my team, which makes 3 of us. quite funny cos when the team heard that there was a female intern coming, the ladies got pretty excited for the guys in the team...

anyway, time to sleep. miss you all!

China experience: day 32 (i think) of 70

flying without wings

i suddenly thought of the phrase. was it from a song?

and i'm suddenly wondering about myself. i think i'm a strange person. i like seeing new places, but i miss home a lot. i like being with people, but i don't like crowds. i like familiar situations, but..... whatever.

thinking about that beach again... will be nice if i dream of it. goodnight...

a little fall of rain

spore!

ok i've been itching to get spore. what's spore? if you haven't heard of it you must be uninterested in astronomy, cosmology, and strategy games :)

imagine a function 3-D model of a whole galaxy, complete with stars, black holes, nebulae, planets and quasars, right in your desktop, and being able to explore every one of the 5 million solar systems modeled in the galaxy. and throw in the ability to create content, all the way from microscopic bugs to creatures to buildings to spaceships. and imagine that millions' of people's creations are all stored on a central server ready to the downloaded into your galaxy, for you the explore.

to me, that's not a game. that's a tool for teaching creativity, astronomy, cosmology, biology, and well the list goes on.

so if you play the game some day, and see a herd of bright orange, big-bellied, button-nosed creatures in the distance, give them a hug and check out their orange houses.