A vehicle for catharsis

Was on my way to Party World yesterday; my brother was on his way to Great World; so we shared a cab. One night more than one year ago, in the backseat of a different cab, he had told me all about his new girlfriend then. Yesterday, he updated me on all that had gone wrong with her since, then asked for my advice. I had no wise words for him, just Yodaisms. Our cab got to Party World. I alighted, all upbeat, to go KTVing with Ms C and Ms H.

But his confession caught up with me. Somehow, I was choking back tears when I did my duet with Jay Chou on 一路向北, a break-up song set in a car, and got to: 你说你好累 已无法再爱上谁 风在山路吹 过往的画面全都是我不对 细述惭愧 我伤你几回. Somehow, I had to sing the song three more times, each time with Jay's original vocalising on.

Ms C and Ms H indulged my madness, thinking I was just being my usual daft Jay-loving self. By the fourth time, Ms C, who is heavy with child and was also heavy with lunch, had curled up on the couch for an afternoon nap. And on I rasped uselessly, wholeheartedly but not as full-throatedly - the song was now some sort of sad lullaby.

BOOKS | How I made the mistake of leaving my brain at the door of Howl's Moving Castle

I'd forgotten how fun it could be to read a book collectively.

A few friends of friends, friends and I met as a book club tonight to talk about Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones, a truly charming children's book, my friends, that should not be judged by its cover or cinematic adaptation. So charming, its magic was lost on me at first.

I went to it last month, wanting to lose myself in it. I love Wynne Jones' Charmed Life. I like love stories. How could I not love Howl's Moving Castle, a love story by Wynne Jones? But I did not and it was a disappointment. I was in denial, however, and when anyone asked me, I would still say, "It was nice."

Then I met up last week with my friend, Ms N. A really alert reader, she once observed of a sentence in AS Byatt's Possession about a male character's sexy smile that it seemed out of place. We later learnt Byatt had added the sentence to the American edition to sex up the character for American readers. So Ms N had read Howl's Moving Castle and as we talked about it, it was as if we had read different books.

In my book, there is a girl, Sophie, who has aged decades because of a curse. She goes to the castle of a wizard, Howl - who might or might not be an evil eater of girls' hearts and who was born in Wales - and comes to be his cleaning lady. There is a fire demon, Calcifer, who is bound to Howl's hearth by contract. Calcifer sometimes sings what is known as the saucepan song.

There is much more in Ms N's book: "The saucepan song is a real Welsh rugby song...Calcifer must have heard Howl sing it...so Howl is a man who sings when he cooks, he's adorable."

Wynne Jones, you see, does not so much write as sprinkle her story all around, as if it were magic dust; you have to read between the lines to connect the dots; I realised, after my meeting with Ms N, I had to reread Howl's Moving Castle.

At the book club tonight, as more of us talked about Howl's Moving Castle, more of it came to light - to life. Someone asked how a girl like Sophie could love a guy like Howl. I forget what I answered but it was enough to made Ms N turn to me and say, "You're a romantic."

Maybe - then what you have heard is the tale of how I fell for a book.

A humble translation

DA YE

By CHIP TSAO

In 21st century Greater China, there is an up-and-coming class called da ye (the lord).

One Hong Konger puts down another with – “Aren’t you cocky, are you a da ye?” Mainland free-and-easy tourists have been panned by Hong Kong media for pooing and peeing in Disneyland and Chinese netizens wilfully come back with – “Da ye has spent the money, I’ll do as I please.”

China’s da ye and his ilk have wreaked havoc in Europe, speeding on Germany’s roads and roaring with laugher as they shop in Paris’s designer stores. Da ye has the money, you’ll do as you please? Sure. But you have disturbed the order and harmony of world civilisations; you have provided the best proof of the Yellow Peril; you are the basis for the China Threat theory; you and your ilk have sowed the seeds of the next rash of anti-Chinese outbreaks in the world.

How does one say da ye in English? In English, king and beggar alike refer to themselves as I; in Chinese, an emperor refers to himself as zhen (the sovereign). Even zhen is not as ruthlessly oppressive and insufferably arrogant as da ye, though his mandate is from Heaven and he is the most da ye of all under Heaven. The Chinese emperor never referred to himself as da ye. He sometimes spoke of himself as gu jia (my humble self) or gu wang (the humble monarch). The empress dowager and other palace-bound, unhappy women followed his lead and referred to themselves as ai jia (my mournful self). It was all self-effacement. What they meant was: Grand as it is the palace, it is cold at the top, nobody knows of my misery.

So in Chinese culture, a modicum of modesty was the most important in references to the self: a civil official such as the prime minister, who wielded administrative might, referred to himself as bei zhi (your meek servant); a military marquis such as the commander-in-chief of the Nine Gates[1], who commanded three thousand armoured soldiers, referred to himself as mo jiang (your inferior general). Scholars announced themselves as wan sheng (your junior); rich men and landowners referred to their wives as zhuo jing (my humble wife) or jian nei (my lowly wife); the most proper universal designation was bi ren (your lowly servant) or zai xia (my lowly self). This was the Chinese civilisation.

Bandits and pirates alone referred to themselves as ye every time they opened their mouths. “If ye is not wanted here, ye will be wanted elsewhere, if ye is not wanted anywhere, ye will enlist in the Eighth Route[2],” – if one did not thrive as a thief, there was the army, if the Nationalist Army did not take one, there was the Communist Party. Forest and mountain bandits alone oft had the word ye on their lips; their business was pillage and rape; they referred to themselves as da ye and they were not mistaken. Once upon a time in Beijing, luminaries, too, were addressed as ye. A son of a rich family who roamed the brothels was hailed from afar by tea boys and doormen in the eight hutong – “Welcome, San Ye.” This San Ye, Er Ye, Ba Ye or whatnot would be wearing brocade and jade, with fan in hand, and he would be smiling as he walked to the door and cast a name card. This was yesteryear’s cultured China.

In today’s mainland, the “get rich first” crowd have become the da ye class, with civilian Lai Changxing[3] as their economic ambassador and military man Zhu Chenghu[4] as their foreign-affairs spokesman. Looking northwards, there is no Divine Land, only a reptile park crawling with da ye. Is this still China? How in the world would I know?

[1] The city wall of Beijing had nine gates.
[2] The Communist Party of China led the Eighth Route Army during the Chinese Civil War and the Sino-Japanese War.
[3] Mr Lai is called the most-wanted man in China for his alleged involvement in a multibillion-dollar smuggling operation and is now in Canada.
[4] Major General Zhu has caused a controversy for saying that if the United States attacked China while defending Taiwan, Beijing would respond with nuclear weapons.

BROWN RICE DIARIES | Chapter Six

My father isn't a phone person. During his pre-retirement days, we were not to call him at work and he hardly called home. He didn't, and doesn't, have a cell phone. Nowadays, if he has something to tell us when we are at work, my mother - who is deaf in one ear and has a gift of garbling words - is the one who picks up the phone to pass us his messages.

Ma: (In Cantonese.) "Your father says you should buy some shares from that leit today."

Me: "What leit?"

Ma: "That leit." (Maybe five feet from her, my father is saying a word that sounds like reit.)

Me: "What reit?"

Ma: "That one that starts with P. He says you should buy some today. (Now, someone is saying what sounds like prime reit.)

Me: "Prime Reit?"

Ma: "That one that owns two buildings in Orchard. It's in the news today, your father says."

No, I don't have a clue why he can't come to the phone himself. But imagine my bewilderment when, for the first time ever, he called me at work yesterday. Yes, my mother has gone to China for a week, but what could be so crucial, he had to dial my number?

Me: "Lou Dao?"

Pa: "I want to cook a bit of brown rice. How many bowls of water do you add to a cup of rice?"