Of HK and VK

Ruka. 17. Off to Hong Kong for my first big adventure. Speaks English and Japanese. Follow me on twitter @rukayan1807

[hellokittysocks-blog]

On seeing a group of deaf middle-schoolers board the train at Shiga en route to Nagoya

Prose based on a personal experience. 

One afternoon in January, I got on a train at Maibara station bound for the Nagoya direction. The morning snow had melted, leaving behind heaps of unsightly grey matter.

I was with my very tired lover, my hand in his, his head against my shoulder as he dozed off. A group of deaf middle-schoolers boarded the train. Unlike regular middle-schoolers, their group was large, around seven or eight, and contained both genders. Middle schoolers tended to band together in small teams of two to four, separated by rigid social structures. You’d have the popular girls all dolled up for something as insignificant as school, the uncool girls with their shaggy hair and tiny eyes and regulation-length skirts, the outgoing group of boys with glossy sling bags that might have been cool in the outside world in 2007, the aesthetically challenged boys with non-mainstream interests.

But this group’s kids were all different. Their only shared characteristic was their disability and possibly the general direction of their homes. Their uniforms were clean, the girls wore normal-length skirts and the boys’ uniforms were slightly oversized to accommodate another three years of growth.

One of the girls had shaggy shoulder-length hair, tiny monolid eyes and wore a face mask and a thick black scarf. At first glance she seemed to be closer to another girl — a girl with large-ish eyes and pigtails — but when they shuffled into the compartment, the two stood on opposite sides of the train.

One of the boys had short, messy hair and the general vibe of a class clown. He grinned brightly while furiously signing at other boys who snickered at the joke. The shaggy-haired girl tapped on his arm when he was facing away from her, and pulled down her face mask to mouth what she was signing in reply.

Their hearing aids differed slightly — the class clown’s were flesh-coloured and attached to the back of his ear, the girls covered their ears with hair, one boy had a thin wire attached to a device on the back of his head in addition to the usual flesh-colored hearing aid.

They looked happy, like they’d just had a great school day. They looked as if there had been a general joke in class and they were hanging on to it on the ride home. People boarded the train. Some stared. An old woman with permed grey hair stared at their sign language with absolute horror on her face; of what kind, I do not know. Two middle-school girls with short skirts and makeup boarded the train and continued conversing without a second glance. Towards the next set of train doors, a group of middle-school boys boarded, loud and boisterous. But the deaf kids, with their jokes and sign language and mouthed words, made only the occasional snicker.

There was another deaf boy who stood out from the group — a quiet one who smiled at their jokes but made no contribution to the conversation. He had medium-length hair, delicate features and a slight tan. His bag was a white shoulder bag, and it was quite filthy. He looked down at his smartphone most of the time, only occasionally looking up and smiling.

One by one they alighted, waving or patting each other lightly to alert them of their departure. When it was the clown’d turn to leave, there were only four remaining. For some reason, he said, “I’m getting off” in a little loudly instead of signing or mouthing his words. Perhaps the remaining kids were able to hear him and he knew this. Whatever the reason, he announced, “I’m getting off” clearly, and off he was.

The whole journey took maybe around forty-five minutes, but their faces and smiles brimmed with happiness. For forty-five minutes, they remained in their world, a world of signs and inside jokes that we outsiders could never hope to set foot in. Had they been normal, they would obviously have been separated by unnecessary middle-school cliques and perhaps never would smile so innocently or interact with such lightheartedness.They had escaped into their own world, a world where sign language was enough to communicate, a world without pressure and expectations and barriers. Only when the train slowed at their respective stations were they cruelly dragged back into real life, a life of discrimination and walls and disappointment.

[hellokittysocks-blog]

Mutual feelings

Do you hear the wind howl, The full blooms sway, The cloudless sky?

Do you see my faint white breath, The tremble in my voice, The steady thump of my heart?

Do you feel as I feel When I see you Catching the afternoon sun?

[hellokittysocks-blog]

Last Train

I stood on an almost-empty platform with a small bag. It sat on my shoulder, deflated, containing only a wallet, a cell phone, a pack of tissues, and a half-empty pack of cigarettes. A crumpled train ticket stuffed into the pocket of my jeans, I waited for the last train.

It was a clear night, and the sky was decorated with stars that shone out of a purplish pitch black. An uncharacteristic night sky for this city. I had spent three years here, three years that passed in the blink of an eye.

I remember the day I first set foot in this city. I was seventeen, with unruly hair dyed in unnatural colors like the country bumpkin I was, wearing clothes that only a country bumpkin would have worn. I was your typical school dropout from a town way out in the sticks, a town with maybe three convenience stores in total, a town where the trains ran every hour instead of every three minutes. There was nothing for me there, and I left for the big city. I had taken a similar train, and I had arrived sometime in the afternoon. My seventeen-year-old self was amazed by the sheer amount of people that this city contained — the waves of people that swept across the roads, the ridiculous number of zebra crossings, the insane number of LED screens that plastered over every corner of every building.

It was in one of those waves of people that I met her.

She stood out from the crowd of faceless people like a sunflower in a lavender field. Basked in the afternoon sun, her caramel-colored hair caught the light beautifully. She caught my eye, and then we passed each other, and I knew, in that moment, that if I continued walking, I would never see her again. Being the spontaneous youngster that I was, I turned, and ran after her, narrowly avoiding crashing into several men in business suits.

I called out after her, and she turned around, eyeing me suspiciously. I felt a sudden jolt of attraction, and my heart knotted in my chest, and I asked the most beautiful woman I had ever seen in my whole life if she’d care for a drink. She pondered for a moment before saying yes.

In that moment I felt as if I could do anything. I let her lead me to a dusty cafe, where we spent the next two hours. She told me about herself. She apparently was a fresh graduate out of university, which made her five years older than me. She had never dated a younger guy. She found me interesting. She’d never met anyone who’d run after a random girl on a street just to ask her out, she’d said. I told her that I was fresh out of the country and didn’t have anywhere to stay the night, and she let me stay at her place — just until you find a job, she’d initially said — but I ended up living with her for three years.

We soon realised that we were complete opposites. Where I was a hopeless romantic, she was incredibly realistic. Where I needed her company almost 24 hours a day she was fine with not seeing me for an entire week. Where I was spontaneous and daring she was reserved and careful and responsible. I was so very attracted to her calm nature, that I failed to see that she found my affection suffocating.

She began to find me reckless and irresponsible. She complained that my cravings for attention were too much for her. When I woke her up with a surprise breakfast one Sunday morning, something that she had always responded positively to, she declared me irritating and demanded that I let her sleep a few more hours. Even the way I snuggled next to her when we slept brought her displeasure.

I tried to give her more space, I tried all I could, but it seemed that my very presence irritated her. I respected her opinions of me being a clingy brat for another year, hoping that as long as I didn’t anger her she would let me stay at her side. But that wasn’t enough, apparently.

One day she she said aloud what I had been too afraid to even think. “We’re just too different to be together,” she’d said. “Maybe you should move out,” she said.

The very next day, I threw several items into a bag and bought me a train ticket back to the town from whence I came.

I looked up at the sky, and thought about the cigarettes in my bag, the cigarettes that I had surreptitiously taken from her handbag as something to remember her by. I had never smoked; cigarette smoke gave me breathing problems. I remembered being attracted to the way she held an unlit cigarette between her lips when we were at the non-smoking cafe. I remembered how she’d smoke outside on the veranda after I told her that the smoke gave me breathing problems. And I remembered how this arrangement only lasted a month before she began smoking inside the apartment. Perhaps I should have noticed at that point, that we just wouldn’t work out.

I made a mental note to throw the cigarettes away later.

The train pulled into sight and opened its doors for a few people to trickle out, and even fewer people to enter. I chose a window seat in a very empty compartment and waited for departure.

Twenty minutes later the last train left the station, taking me away from the city, the great city that I had so admired, the city in which I had met, loved and lost her.

Looking up at the starry sky, my heart let out a desperate wail of despair.

[thebelchers]

[hellokittysocks-blog]

And So I Anticipate

This is a poem, and before you read it you should probably take a look at the prose I posted almost a millennia ago about an experience I had. The narrative was, well, exaggerated, and frankly, slightly embarrassing, so I will not link it here; if you will not put in the effort to learn about the poem's backstory you might as well imagine it for yourself.

Not since then have I tasted Salt nor flo’er of any kind; On my lips they linger still And so I anticipate.

A sultry summer stroll; or Alchemy perhaps? That drew Me to you; a one-way street. But still I anticipate.

Tender lashes framing Pools of burnt umber; They linger in this mind’s abyss Yes; still I anticipate.

Blunt words I fain would utter, Were they not the truth of truths; But how else will I give up, And cease to anticipate?

You wish not to lie with me. This I know; your eyes say so. For I hear them, loud and clear: “Why do fools anticipate?”

“Oh, you foolish maid,” they say; “As if we would lie with you!” That much they do pity me; I should not anticipate.

I have naught but memories Of Sea-Salt and Lavender, Memories dear to me still; And So I Anticipate.

[hellokittysocks-blog]

2/9/15

So on the above date I went out with this really nice dude, and well, because I have nothing else to write about, here is my (slightly exaggerated) account of the event.

Sometime around noon Naoki sent me a message asking if we could meet in the evening of the same day. I was ecstatic, since he’d cancelled on me before, and we arranged for the meeting time to be 5.15pm at Exit C of the Kowloon Tong station. I told him it was fine as long as he didn’t ドタキャン (last minute cancel) me, and he was surprised that I knew the word, since it was a sort of slang, said that if he actually did ドタキャン (last minute cancel) me I could fine him. As my next class was three hours later, I went home and speed-showered and speed-changed into cleaner clothes that looked less like pajamas.

After my class ended he sent me another message, saying that he had to postpone the meeting since he was stuck at a hostel that claimed they hadn’t received his booking. And after that he appeared busy, and didn’t reply me! So I had nothing to do and nowhere to go, so I called Kimo.

Kimo was apparently busy and seemed very uninterested in my prattle; I called 5. I like 5 because he was a sort of big brother who’d constantly tell me what to do, and he could joke around a lot. But 5 said he couldn’t meet me at the time (it was around 6) because it was late and he needed to eat dinner, or some sort of feeble excuse.

After the second phone call my phone was at 25% so I went back into CityU, took out my Mac and charged my phone with it. I sat for a while, when I got a message from Naoki! Finally! It was around 7pm, but he asked me where I was, and said he’d be at Exit C in less than 10 minutes. I rushed to Exit C.

I saw this Japanese-looking dude with a navy felt hat, and instantly I knew it’d be him. I was going to wait for him to find me, because I was a little nervous, but then! Some dude appeared out of nowhere, and started talking to me. I didn’t catch his first sentence, but his next sentence was, ‘Can we be friends?’ and I was honestly so freaked out but I didn’t know what to do at the same time; perhaps I could have brushed him off and walked right up to Naoki, but at that moment I had lost sight of Naoki and I was utterly alone.

The dude asked me to dial a number, which was apparently his number, and he asked me my name, and he made sure that I saved his name as Nelson in my phone. (Although I deleted it at the end of the day.) Then he asked, ‘You’re waiting for someone, right?’ and at that point I was so intent on getting away from that dude that I uncharacteristically walked right up to my target (who was bent over an iPhone) and waved our message screen under his nose to catch his attention!

I don’t know what I was expecting, but I was expecting someone young and foolish, and instead the person I met was (in my opinion) smart (he went to Waseda), big-brother type (independent, I suppose), spontaneous and experienced (by that I mean that he’d been to many places). I was attracted to his spontaneity, something I had in my heart but never dared to do in real life (I did maybe once or twice, but that wouldn’t count).

When he saw me his face broke into a wide smile and he put his hands together and apologized for having me wait (for two hours) and I said it was okay, because I had nothing to do anyway. Then he said, since I’ve made you wait for so long, please let me treat you to dinner! And I agreed, and we went up to Festival Walk to look for something to eat, but of course every place was crowded.

He told me about his experience at CUHK, and he tried practicing his English and Chinese with me. His English was quite good for a Japanese person, but his Chinese pronunciation, although pretty good, was slightly off, and it was understandable, although really cute, and it made me laugh a lot. I asked if he wanted to look at CityU, so I took him there, and he was amazed at its proximity to the nearest MTR station. He said the campus in itself looked very much like an MTR station, and he questioned its security system when I said that it was completely okay for him to just walk in and take a look around. We were heading back to the MTR when some middle-aged man asked Naoki for directions, and Naoki just looked at me blankly (he didn’t understand Cantonese, and even if he did he wouldn’t know where the Amenities Building was, anyway) so I answered the man’s question, after which Naoki exclaimed that it was amazing how fluently I spoke, especially since we had been in the middle of a conversation in Japanese, etc, etc.

He got this wild idea that we should go to TST to look for something to eat. We wanted Chilli’s, since it was nostalgic for the both of us, but Google said there was no Chilli’s in Hong Kong. Then he said he wanted Tim Ho Wan, and we looked for one on Google, and the nearest outlet was on Hong Kong Island, so we decided to walk to the pier.

On the way to the pier he told me lots of things, that I should definitely go to Japan, because my language skills were so good that it was a waste if I didn’t use them, and that I should definitely re-visit Singapore, etc, etc. And while we were waiting at a crossing he turned to look at an ice-cream store, and we looked at the flavours, and it had some odd flavours, so we went in and he made me do the ordering. He has a sea salt ice-cream, and I chose lavender, and we tasted each other’s flavours. The sea salt was awfully salty, and the lavender — you wouldn’t have known it was lavender even if they’d stuck the plant in the ice-cream. But it was a good experience, how we walked the streets of TST with ice-cream in our hands.

We reached the pier, and we waited for the ferry. We got on, and opposite us sat four Japanese dudes probably in their mid-twenties, but they didn’t have the kind of atmosphere Naoki had. Naoki had the citizen-of-the-world atmosphere, while those dudes had the #JapanMasterRace atmosphere. It made me happy that I’d met Naoki.

When Naoki spoke I made it a point to look directly into his eyes, something I wouldn’t usually do. Naoki had very nice eyes. Thin but long, upturned lashes, and inner double eyelids (is that what they’re called?), and his eyes were slightly upturned and full of life and energy. They were the eyes of someone how actually lived.

His irises were a dark brown, and I’d often look into them and see myself reflected in his eyes, although he never kept eye contact for very long.

We got off the ferry and headed in the direction Google indicated. Naoki had very good intuition when it came to direction; he mostly made correct decisions when faced with different routes, and only needed Google as a general guide, whereas my sense of direction even with Google telling me to turn left or right was in the negative.

I casually asked him what was inside his backpack, and whether his computer was heavy. He said it was a MacBook. I asked, ‘Air?’ and he pondered for a moment before saying, ‘Pro.’ ‘So it should be heavy,’ I said, and he replied, ‘A little over a kilo.’

‘Mine is Air,’ I said, ‘so I can carry it with me and feel nothing.’ He was surprised, and lifted my backpack to judge its weight. ‘So it’s really light,’ he said. I told him I was using it to charge my phone, and showed him the cable. ‘I’ve never heard anyone use a MacBook to charge their phone!’ he said, ‘Why don’t you just buy a mobile battery?’ I laughed, and he said, ‘Take good care of your MacBook. If you lose it, you lose everything.’

We found the place all right, but it was closed for maintenance. And after all we had been through! Naoki consoled me, saying that such was life, and we should just get the sushi place next door. So we got in, and Naoki played around with the iPad mini used to order, and randomly ordered lots of food (despite not being able to eat all of it) and we talked a bit, and apparently Naoki couldn’t eat wasabi at all, which was odd, because I too had relatively low tolerance for it, but I still enjoyed it in reasonable quantities.

After we finished it was then time to go home. We were walking from Hong Kong Station to Central Station, and got on those travelators. Naoki asked me what they were called in English, and I replied, ‘travelator’. He said the pronunciation of that word was cool, and he had me say it again, and he said, ‘I would never have known what they’re called… A Japanese person would probably call it a conveyor belt or moving platform… Wow.’ Naoki’s backpack weighed a ton, and his hostel was in Mong Kok. We got off the train at Mong Kok station, and he said he wanted to see me safely on the train heading to Kowloon Tong — refusing to budge until I agreed to go home.

He asked me to give him my number, first in Chinese, but he messed up a few times before giving up and asking for it in English instead. I encouraged him to say it, and he ended up saying (in Chinese) ‘Can you give me your phone?’ so I handed him my still-charging phone. He took it, thanked me, and said, ‘I successfully stole someone’s phone, wow.’ After he said it right, I clapped (every time he said something correctly, I’d clap) and held out my palm for his phone so that I could put the numbers in. He handed me an iPhone 5, and I looked at it and said, ‘Why is it so small?’ to which he replied, ‘This is what iPhones are like, they’re small.’

I compared my phone with his, and my phone was huge in comparison. I typed in my phone number, and asked him for his number. He said he didn’t have one. ‘What about your Japanese number?’ I asked. ‘I don’t have one right now,’ he said. ‘So you terminated the contract of your phone number?’ I asked in Japanese. In Japanese, terminate a contract is just the term 解約 kaiyaku, and a contract is 契約 keiyaku. It’s very easy to confuse the two. He was surprised that I knew the first word. ‘Wow, you know that word…’ he said. ‘Yeah, I terminated the contract before I went to Singapore.’

I didn’t want to go home, partly because I was afraid of being alone, and partly because I had the feeling that I would never see him again. I grumbled on the platform, missed five trains, and ended up dragging him on the train with me to Kowloon Tong. I tried to lay a guilt trip on him by mentioning that I’d waited two hours. He was a little flustered at first, and said, ‘don’t say that…’ but quickly retaliated, ‘but the sushi was good, wasn’t it?’ and I had no choice but to say yes, it was good.

When we reached Kowloon Tong I made up lots of excuses to make him stay longer with me, and probably missed three trains or so in the process. He kept telling me to go home, and he started pushing me along the corridor to the escalator up to the East Rail Line platform. He pushed me onto the escalator, and I looked back, and he said, ‘We can meet again,” right as I was saying,“Meet me again, ok?” and we waved goodbye and I saw him turn around, in the direction of the Green line.

[hellokittysocks-blog]

Oni・鬼・Demon

The other day I read a story about an Oni.

I was casually browsing at the Page One bookstore in Festival Walk Kowloon when a book caught my eye. The Ghosts of Old Edo, by Miyuki Miyabe. I’d previously read one of the author’s works; I don’t recall the title, but it was about telekinesis. A great book it was.

I stood in the Page One for three hours reading that book, and I found a couple points it raised that I felt were quite good.

Some people in this world wear the skin of a human over the heart of an Oni. When you see an Oni, you see the embodiment of your own 喜怒哀楽 kidoairaku, or your four basic emotions.

The second one is from a story about an Oni who was the embodiment of filth and sickness and death that came into being in an old house that had been used to contain plague victims. When he revealed himself to the lady of the story however, all she saw was a miserable-looking pale young Oni who looked more sad and abandoned than anything. It was a reflection of her abandoned self. She and the Oni grew close, and she brought it with her to Edo, where it silently lived with her even after she married into a wealthy household. Not many could see it, but a maid could smell its fishy stench and a potential customer who had a reputation for swindling people saw something terrifying beyond words.

The significance of this is that I have a very strong feeling - a hunch if you will - that Isshi has read this same story at one point. That man who loves Oni, and believes himself to have Oni blood in his ancestry - yes, he most definitely would have read that story.

At any rate, I started wondering what the Oni would look like before my eyes. It would be silent, I suppose. Silently he would stare at you, with deep dark-red eyes full of hurt and sorrow; as if you had wronged him in some way; perhaps evicting him from his own home, and then reprimanding him for having lived there in the first place. Those eyes would then look into your soul for any hint of gentleness, but still he would say nothing.

For his lips, pale and thin and without any affection to speak of, would only part to reveal long sharp teeth, rotting with malice. Even if he were to speak, the words that would come forth would not be words you wished to hear. His voice, quiet as a whisper yet harsh like the snarl of a lone wolf, would linger in your ears and torment you to your very core.

He would have long pale fingers and perfect, sharp, red nails that dripped with desire. Desire for flesh. Desire for worldly things. Desire for things that should not be yearned for. Impossible things.

How would I meet this Oni? I would be casually strolling, with a parasol, or a silk handkerchief, or some other useless trinket. Then I would see an odd figure in tattered clothing, and upon closer inspection I would see that the figure had horns that grew out from his forehead, or scalp; I would not know which, because he would have straight, coarse black hair that covered his forehead and grew almost to his elbows. In the afternoon breeze - yes, I would see him in broad daylight - I would catch a whiff of alcohol wafting towards me.

Who goes there? I would call out, and the Oni would turn to face me. His large eyes with their red irises would meet mine, and I would see that those eyes were shaped like mine, only colder and wiser.

He would say nothing, and I would start to fear him. I would start to fear his cold red eyes, his malicious mouth, and the waves of jealousy that would radiate from his form and seep into my very core. I would start to fear the desolation behind the coldness in his eyes, the loneliness, and most of all I would be afraid of how the Oni resembled my own reflection in a looking-glass. Who are you? I would ask.

He would smile at me, a thin smile, a pained smile, and without moving his lips his voice would resonate in my head, almost as if it were my own thought.

I am you, he would say. I have come to show you your true self.

[hellokittysocks-blog]

So I found a VK store online

And so since VK CDs and stuff are hard to come by, I decided to go to the physical store yesterday. It's in Mongkok, and the building is like real old, and the 'store' is literally just a rented warehouse-style room.

After walking about in the heat for around 30 minutes, I found the building, and found the store. It was on the 23rd floor or something like that, and when I peeked in through the glass door I saw a 20-something year old girl sitting at a computer. 

She saw me, so there was no running away from the place. I pushed open the door. And she stared at me. And I didn't know what to say (not very many people speak English in Mongkok, and I can't speak Cantonese when I'm nervous) because I felt like I had barged into the store without introducing myself. 

My brain sort of jammed and my immediate reaction was to speak Japanese. Some screwed up thought process my brain is.

「こんにちは」Hello.

Blank face.

I showed her my phone.

「この店ですか？」Are you this store?

Nod.

「探してたんですよ」I was looking for your store.

No response.

I proceeded to look around on my own. She didn't seem to mind, so I sifted through a box of VK CDs on the floor. They had some really old CDs, like CDs that you literally cannot find on the internet anymore. And probably since because they were old and nobody was likely to buy them, they were marked at really cheap prices. I ended up buying a Sendai Kamotsu (2008) CD for $50 and an ancient(1997) single by a band called 忘却白書 marked at $60, but she sold it to me for $50. And they had other stuff too, like 御手紙 by SID (2006) and some live limited CDs by an obscure band called Shelly. They also had some Nagoya-kei band albums, but most of the stuff was either SID, NIGHTMARE, and AYABIE(the old one with Aoi, not the new one with Yumehito as the vocal; I prefer Yumehito's voice by the way) and I wasn't really interested in these bands so I didn't buy anything else.

I asked if they had any Kagrra, stuff. Twice. She said no and shook her head furiously twice; I was quite disappointed. But I sifted through their piles of magazines and found a SHOXX mag with the old Ancafe lineup! Bou was on the cover! I was really shocked. I mean, you'd never be able to find that online. t made me real happy. There was also a SHOXX mag from 2007 with PSC's then vocalists on the cover; Miyavi, Keiyu, Shou, Ruki and Isshi. That made me real happy too, but the mag was priced at $80 and honestly I do not want to buy an out-of-date mag for $80. Not even $50, for that matter. A couple years ago I picked up 5 out-of-date SHOXX mags at the Kinokuniya in Kuala Lumpur for an equivalent of HK$15 each. And they were only like a year or two old. I'm not crazy enough to buy 7-year-old magazines for $50, no thank you.

I also bought two picks, one SID Aki pick with the word 'fuck' all over one side (such rebel, I know) and a Hitsugi pick with his name on it. They were $25 each, but it's ridiculous considering that I do not own an instrument and I have as much musical talent as a hamster (I can only make high-pitched squeals, that is).

I kinda wish I hadn't panicked and spoken Japanese. I would have liked to at least try to communicate in Cantonese, but strange people make me nervous an also Cantonese is intimidating somehow. I've got a lot to learn.

[hellokittysocks-blog]

Public Library

Tuesday, 20:20.

We are at a public library near our temporary abode. Where we come from, public libraries are unreachable on foot, and nobody who reads needs to visit a library - books are cheap and space for them aplenty. But in this city, one person may not even have a hundred square feet to call their own; the walls paper thin and the sounds of family members doing what they do disrupt even the calmest of minds; hence the need for public libraries.

We sit in the Student Study Room. Summer holidays have just begun, the Study Room is virtually empty. Not a soul cares if you spend the entire day here leeching off the free Wi-Fi and air-conditioning, although a lack of plugs limits our stay here. Tomorrow we shall return with a full battery and hours to kill.

The notice in front of us claims that our seat is Seat No. 11. It says we are not to leave our belongings unattended. On our left is a wall painted a pale blue. Scrawled on it with a cheap black gel ink pen are the words, "I Fuck goy All", and "I LOVE HER", in blue. 

What is 'goy All'? Who is that? Depressing. Reflective of the poor state of English in this city. Pathetic, absolutely pathetic.

Our headphones blast guitar riffs and heavy rock into our ears. Beautiful. We would like to give local indie rock a try. Last night we listened to some local bands on the internet, and they had some really good guitar riffs. It gave us goosebumps. Fascinating.

"I LOVE HER" proclaims the graffiti on the wall. Who is she? What is she like? The capital letters show signs of desperation. Why? Does she not love you back? If I were her, I too would not love you back, you graffiti-scrawling, desperate, pathetic mess. Absolutely pathetic. 

We have this bitter hatred within us, hatred of our situation, of the paper-thin walls and judging eyes of this city. Our precious sits on a shelf at home, precious with his wide grin and uneven teeth, precious and his silky black hair and alcoholic breath. The precious... If the precious could see us now, what would he say?

You give the youth of today a bad name, precious would say to us. Go do something with your life. Go out and live. Go find something you love, and do it.

Precious, we can't. We can't do it! This city is unforgiving. It is too cramped. The people in it are too blunt, and know not common courtesy. For us, precious, it lacks warmth and love. Yes, excuses, nothing but excuses, but precious, when was the last time you left your comfort zone?

Might I remind you, precious, that when you left your comfort zone, you left with something that you loved above all; you had a dream; you had something that could keep you up late into the night; you had people to share that dream with. And us? Our art sits on the table, unfinished. The hostile environment has taken away our will to pick up brushes and paint. Unread books stare at us as we lie on the strange, unfamiliar bed. We can't do it.

"I LOVE HER" says the graffiti on the wall, its voice desperate for air; it is drowning in a sea of emotion. I love you, precious, and I am lost. 

[hellokittysocks-blog]

This ridiculous city!

I've been in this city for 2 weeks now and the prices here are complete bullshit.

At my local store 325ml coke costs HK$5.5 

500ml water costs $4

500ml beer costs $12.9 for 2

Venti Caramel Macchiato cost $42

A breakfast gyudon costs $22

A bag of potato chips costs $12

The cheapest item of clothing in a thrift store is $50 for 3

Why the fuck is beer cheaper than coke??? This is ridiculous.

[hellokittysocks-blog]

The Green Line

18.15, Friday.

 In one of the busier stations of the island we stand and observe the everyday happenings of the city. We stand in a corner near the escalator to avoid obstructing the flow of people-traffic. 

A few meters away are a group of youths waiting for something. They appear to be idle and rather bored, and are looking towards the platform; it appears that they are waiting for something  we know not what. But the youths have left. We should now turn our attention to something else. 

Platform 2 of the Green line is a busy one. 5 stations on the green line are interchanges; it is never quiet on the green line. 

A train just left. A new one arrives in less than a minute. That is to be expected, for it is rush hour. Why are the people rushing? Because they all have homes to return to, and things to do, and people to love.

And us? Do we not have a home? Perhaps. But our home is a story for another time. Do we not have things to do? Of course we do. But we do not want to do them, because we are facing a moment in our lives when all we want to do is observe people. We will do the important things later. 

Do we have someone to love? We are loved by few, and love even fewer. We know not if we should, yet two loves we have of comfort and despair... No. That story is not ours to tell. 

Back to the Green Line. The doors open and close like some rhythmic, collosal snake. It rushes through the tunnel. Nyoom. Off to its next station.

Another train nyooms into the station and opens its doors for the waiting people. Crowds spill out of every door. Those on the platform squeeze into the space left behind; sometimes not very patiently.

A station attendant walks down the platform. A man with a phone approaches the doors. I am at X Station, he says. Wait for me.

He squishes onto the train. Some people remain on the platform. The train doors open another time, and then close. It is what happens when someone somewhere on the train obstructs the doors when they close. Obstacles are a nuisance. Just like we who stand on the platform with our phone. Perhaps we will be forgiven. Perhaps not. But once we board the Green Line, we will be forgotten. And that is a fact.

[hellokittysocks-blog]

First post two weeks in

I'm being a really stereotypical blogger by sitting at starbucks and blogging. I'm sorry. It's 30 degrees outside and I have a Venti Caramel Macchiato to finish in 2 hours. All for the aesthetic.