I heard a story today, about a girl being disowned by her father for getting pregnant out of wedlock. She was 22 when it happened. Immediately two things came to mind. First, I can’t believe it’s still happening today. Second, how typical can Chinese people be?

It’s not a secret that Chinese tradition has many pillars. One of them being the concept of “face”. I’m not going to be giving an education here, but it revolves around keeping the family name honorable -” saving face”. The idea here is that by disowning her, he would be saving his face, upholding the family name because she is no longer part of it. Then consider the crime, getting pregnant before marriage. I’m not saying that it’s encouraged. Religions are against it. Society makes it a taboo. But do you really think disowning your child is the comparably righteous thing to do? It only shows that you care more about your stupid pride than your daughter, your own flesh and blood.

I don’t believe there is any reason that can justify what he did. You only have family in this world. If anything, mistakes (even more huge ones) should be covered with love. We all make mistakes. This man just cast the first stone.

We constantly feel the need to keep our culture and tradition intact, and in my case, people feel the need to prosecute me for not speaking Chinese. Since when being Chinese but not speaking the language is a grave crime? It’s like the Chinese can’t go wrong. We are the greatest civilization on planet Earth! Well, I’ve got news for you.

The thing behind this shit mentality (disowning children) is the same thing that you people feel so strongly about – the Chinese tradition! Tradition breeds thinking, mentality, attitudes. I don’t have a quote or a reference for you. But take a look around. You see it in TV shows, you hear it happening in real life, you read it in books. You know about it because it’s part of the Chinese mentality. TV scripts aren’t really far off from reality. I don’t hate my people. I hate the tradition and culture that form idiot mentalities like this.

Chicken rice balls! If you don’t know by now, I love these things. BBQ party and more backpackers after the jump.

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I visited Malacca again. Not for food, even though we did have plenty, but strictly for business. Business in this case meaning living with backpackers for an entire weekend and doing a little video (and report) on the “phenomenon” that is backpacking. My lecturer is convinced that it is popular culture today. Well, going on a weekend trip in the name of school work, I say why not?

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Is it just me or do people talk too much online nowadays and fail to live up to it offline? Everyone’s a critique and everyone’s a martyr. But face to face – nothing. Not even a hint of what was opined. All the flaming on Facebook statuses comes to mind.

Photos too. Don’t be fooled by our beautiful pictures – testaments to our fun and social prowess yes? No one would want to admit it, but every picture should not be taken at face value. After all, behind the lens we manipulate your sight. We only let you see what we want you to.

My advice? Embrace it. Believe in it. Please give us our 5 seconds of fame before you click away.

Meet Elise (in yellow) and Beatrice (in blue).

A little conversation ensued when I met this 2 over the weekend. But first a little background – she attends my church irregularly over the past few years since she was born. She’s 5 now and obscenely smart. Ok, back to the conversation.

Elise : Hey koko Joshua, Beatrice say you don’t like her.

Me : What? (looking at Beatrice) No la….

Beatrice : (all shy) Yes. You like Elise more.

Me : No no no… I like you both the same ok? Come I hug hug.

Beatrice : Okay

I gave her a hug, and she walked away smiling. How she ever came up with that conclusion I would never know.

It’s a tragedy if we don’t stop once in awhile. Smell the air. Stare at your clock. Walk on grass. Print our pictures. Bathe at 6am. Cry in the toilet. Sing in the car. Hug your favorite pillow. Talk to children. Flip the old school magazine. Walk a few flight of stairs. Shout at the top of your lungs. Kiss your mom. Kiss your hard disks. Be angry. Be sad. Miss something. Want someone.

Do you sometimes feel like you’re just a spectator in this shit hole (or some of you more buoyant individuals would prefer to call it, ‘life’)? Sometimes, I do prefer to be the spectating spectator.

The entire last week was spent on bringing this shelf to life. And with it, my room is completely Ikea-fied. What you should be looking for in the picture is my “Media Center + Books shelf” black storage and also the “Worn Clothes” clothes hook that’s really just a wall bracket.

Got the storage last weekend and been painting it every other day until Friday. Took me 3 cans of black stain to get it looking all glossy and black like that. If you’re wondering, it’s the IVAR unit that comes sans treatment. In order for it to fit into the rest of my room’s color scheme and clean easy, I decided on a black stain that costs Rm25 a tin. That’s adding RM100 into the entire cost of the shelf originally at Rm250. Hidden costs aside, I really like the IVAR. It’s not a computer, but it has endless configuration possibilities! Well, the shelves are movable as far as I’m concern, which makes it… transformable?

The clothes hook is an idea I got from the store using one upside down wall bracket (2 wall brackets hold up a shelf). Now I don’t have a pile of clothes lying on the floor anymore. If you’re wondering, this is NOT my wardrobe. This is for the clothes I’ve worn but not worthy to be thrown into the laundry bag yet. Don’t worry, I know when to change my clothes.

I had a nice, slow weekend with Joyce. As a matter of fact, she helped a lot with clearing up the space for the above items. It’s nice sometimes to spend some time cleaning together instead of all the malls and whatever you couples are doing these days. We go old school sometimes. It wasn’t nearly as fun (or sexy) looking as the montage of Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett in Benjamin Button, but we had our fun.

Future Plans?

I’m thinking of a 20″ LCD to replace the hifi? No no, I have no budget for that. But it would be nice wouldn’t it?

Posters, photos and a couple of potted plants would do this space just nice for the time being. I would love to have a huge picture of my old Kancil, printed out and framed, and hanged on top of the IVAR unit.