See, saloons and hairdressers are usually filled to the brim in the days leading to Chinese New Year. There's this "tradition", I suppose, which requires one to go for a haircut. The explanation behind it is that since it's a new year, one must cut away the bad luck/burden of the old year so it doesn't carry over. Yup, that makes so much sense. This picture of mine was taken during my annual CNY haircut. See a difference? Me neither.

Oh, and because the demand is so high, you should probably know that the prices are too.

#4 Must buy new year clothes


Less of a tradition and more of an excuse for kids to get new clothes. This "tradition" began back in the day when people wore the same 3 shirts over the span of a year and didn't buy a dozen clothes while in Bangkok (ahem guilty ahem). In those days, the new year signified a new beginning, and a new set of clothes. I'm blessed to be able to buy clothes whenever I need it, without waiting for CNY to come but this "tradition" has still stuck on till now.

#3 Must get many angpao packets


This is largely an auntie thing. Go shopping with your mom/auntie and watch the magic unfold as they try their best to secure as many packets of angpaos as humanly possible. This behavior is weird because
a) the angpao packets are empty and
b) the angpao packets have to be filled with OUR money.
Hoarding angpao packets is the same as buying a vending machine for your home; it's a fantastic place to keep your drinks, but you'll still have to pay for it.

#2 Must buy more cookies


Chinese New Year visitation is basically a time for people to go on visitations and gorge themselves silly on Chinese New Year cookies. It's the only guilt-free time of the year when it's rude NOT to clean out your hosts' house because you'd expect them to do the same to you. Therefore, each house must have a steady amount of new year cookies to satisfy every single guest. Not feeding your guests on Chinese New Year is equivalent to giving each of them slaps across the face. It's rude, and it hurts.

#1 Must clean up the house


Yeah, while I generally dislike having people come into the sanctuary of my house, I have to accept the fact that yes, there will be people my house for Chinese New Year, and no, it cannot look like a pigsty under any circumstance. Plus there's that rule that one cannot sweep the floors during Chinese New Year because sweeping the floors = sweeping away your ong. Or something like that. I never really listen to my elders.

Have you done ANY of these 5 musts do yet? If you haven't, you better get cracking because today is already Chinese New Year Eve so you don't have too much time left.

By the way, my family has done it again, producing another video for Chinese New Year after last year's Balik Kampung. This time around, it's a pretty sad video about how we're all going home for Chinese New Year, but not exactly BEING home for our family and friends, with almost everyone engaged with a gadget of some sort. Just a friendly reminder, put down the phones and talk to your family members this year.




Have a happy Chinese New Year to everyone celebrating it. Don't get into a coma of any sort.

Cheerios!

For those of you who remain blissfully unaware of the far reaches of KPOP, or prefer to remain so, let me bring your attention away from the manufactured dolls and into something more amazing, a song that has both a fantastic music video AND layers upon layers of meaning: meaning I will attempt to analyse and break down so my Arts degree doesn't go to a complete waste.

I am, of course talking about the hit song Bar Bar Bar by the most charismatic of KPOP girl groups Crayon Pop. 

For those of you who haven't heard about this song or group before, what the freaking hell is wrong with you? But more importantly, you're denying yourself the chance of embarking into one of the most meaningfully layered song in all of KPOP history. Don't worry. Here's the music video. Go watch it and come back. I'll wait.



For the rest of you who know the true value of awesome, high five.

Based on thousands of repeated viewings of this song and its music video, I have come to one conclusion. Underneath all the cutesy and innocent looks of the 5 girls of Crayon Pop, Bar Bar Bar is essentially a song about the notorious underbelly of Korean pop culture and how the process of manufacturing these KPOP idols are severely affecting the idols themselves by taking away their individuality and freedom, to instead making them puppets (or robots, as some may argue) used to entertain the masses. 

On the first viewing, you'll probably pass off this music video as another by-product of the KPOP craze. It's colorful, cute and crazy all rolled up into a 3 minute video. There are cute girls just jumping around on imaginary pogo sticks, while wearing these weird helmets throughout the entire music video.

Let's look at the dance.


The dance starts off with a very weird move; wobbly legs. In most other KPOP girl group choreographed dances, the need to be "cool" or "hip", "sexy" or "amazing" far outweighs the practicality of the dance. Just look at HyunA's dance in Bubble Pop (no one human being can do what she does with those hips) or anything T-ARA does. The only wobbly legs are probably your own after you attempt to follow.


The wobbly legs are a way of saying that while the girls are standing (in a way), they are unable to completely rely on themselves. The fact that they worked their own group's name into the song; ("팝! 팝! 크레용팝!") is also proof that this song is essentially deep seated insecurity. There is no individuality, as shown by the entire dance which is completely similar. There is even a point in the dance where one member pretends falls, and the rest follow suit. There is no "I", but rather, a collective group in general. Individuality is not a thing.

The helmets. Oh the helmets. Many people have questioned the need for 5 perfectly normal girls to wear helmets while bouncing around. It's cute, some argue, while others are more scathing in their comments; 'it's retarded!''This is for children!' But think about it. What does a helmet signify? Arguably it's for protection/safety but throughout the entire music video, nothing dangerous seems to threaten the safety of our 5 heroines. Therefore, it is only safe to assume that the helmets signify the imprisonment of the girls to a power above them; i.e, their KPOP overlords. 

The lyrics support this conclusion. Look at the line, "Follow me (me). mamas and papas ("날따라 해(해) 엄마도 파파도 같이 Go")". While it sounds like they're cutely asking for parents to join in their dance, it can also be interpreted in a manner which they are calling out for their parents to accompany them down this business. Being an idol means living in a pretty lonely world; you can't just take a stroll back home to see your family without hordes of fans flocking around you. Basically, the song is saying that being an idol is tough, and that parental love and guidance are ever so limited.


Another line of the lyrics; "I don't want to stick at home now." is in English, that is to say, a universal call for help, to escape. KPOP idols are often put into dorms with their other group members, and the place can be seen as a "home" because they spend most of their careers there. The song is basically stating that the girls are sick of staying at "home" to be controlled, but want to go out into the world where they'll be able to freely wander instead of being locked away in a dorm for a huge majority of their lives. Escaping is a major recurrence in the song, appearing in the other lines of the lyrics; "Hey, you guys, escape your daily life ("Hey, You Guys 벗어나 Day Life")" and the various (Jumping, yeah, jumping, yeah EVERYBODY ("점핑 예 점핑 예 Everybody")".

ChoA and Way are twins. This is very obviously (I don't know how people miss it) a stab at the production of KPOP and how it limits individuality. Both girls look the same, dance the same and are identical in almost every aspect (because they're twins, duhh). But towards the end of the song, Way jumps away from the rest of the girls and starts rapping. She's moving away from her identical twin sister, which is also a step away from the humdrum of the "group", and forming her own "identity". KPOP groups are essentially a product of the big companies; there's hardly any time for "individuality" or "personalities" to exist at all. I seriously don't know how people don't see such an obvious fact.


Or y'know, this could just be a song about 5 girls who absolutely love jumping on pogo sticks. It's entirely your call.

Cheerios!

The world of technology has changed the way we interact. In many ways, we're all connected, yet remain disconnected from each other. We can now see our family and friends living halfway around the world in the palm of our hands, and yet disregard those who are sitting just opposite us. We've all become closer, drawn together by the power of technology, but also in many ways drifted further away from each other.

There's no interaction on the dinner table at all. Kids are too busy flinging birds into pigs, on the devices that their parents use to keep them quiet. Parents are engrossed in flicking through their Facebook news feeds, or browsing the latest news, or even shopping through Groupon sites instead of holding a conversation with their children, or with each other. My own family tries not to do this, but eventually none of us can resist the temptation to whip out the phone and start browsing Twitter or Facebook or Instagram. Why? Because everything is now in the palm of our hands, all on the 5 inch screen in front of us.


Yum cha sessions, as I can readily attest to, are peppered with long pauses of silence, with everyone busy tapping on their phones and occassionally letting out a small chuckle at that hilarious cat meme a friend shared on their Facebook wall. Then it's a long period of silence again, interspersed with a brief slurp of the teh o ais. The insane thing is that this practice has become so normal that we ourselves don't even notice it. At the briefest of lulls in the conversation, our hands will immediately grasp at the phone like a long lost lover. We do talk, but more and more minutes are spent staring at that 5 inch screen, liking that cat who can do somersaults.

No one takes in life anymore unless it comes through their 5 inch-screen. I've been to concerts where people pay hundreds of dollars to rock out with their idols behind their phone screens. You've paid an exorbitant amount to see, for example, G-Dragon, barely 2 steps in front of you and still you choose to view him through a 5 inch phone screen. Be in the moment, enjoy the sights and sounds right then and there, instead of making sure your hand is steady to capture everything you can probably watch on Youtube.


Everything that's available to do isn't a good idea. I'm not against anyone joining social media; heck, you'd be an outcast of you didn't at least have a Facebook account. But think about it: Is there a need to join 20 different social media sites to share the same exact thing? I'm not joking. There are people (hi mom!) who immediately sign up for a social media site that they didn't know existed, just because "Auntie So and So invited me". And when you have 50 social media sites to update, there will be a constant need for you to keep tapping and tapping on the phone, non-stop. It's a vicious cycle of ignorance.


For everything I've said up till now, I've also been guilty of doing. Yes, I take pictures of my food before I eat, sometimes even forcing others to wait while I find the perfect angle to take a delicious looking shot. Yes, I do check my Facebook, Instagram and Twitter while with friends and family because I just cannot stand not knowing what's going on with OTHER people not in front of me. Yes, I have plenty of social media accounts, from which I constantly spam my friends with.

Yes, I'm living my life behind a 5 inch screen, so connected yet so distant.

Cheerios. 

Writing this post a month into my unemployment instead of actively looking for a job is one of the signs that I'm living in a constant state of denial. Every morning I wake up and tell myself that I don't need a job yet, and tomorrow is another day to find work. This has already been happening for a month, and I'm still telling myself that I don't need a job yet because I'm on a break. I'M ON A BREAK! LAY OFF, OKAY?

Some days, I wake up feeling grumpier than usual. As I shove food into my mouth, I curse my rotten luck to not be at work and earning money to pay for the food I am shoving into my mouth. And then I look at myself in the mirror and wonder WHY THE HECK ARE PEOPLE NOT HIRING ME TO DO STUFF FOR THEM. I HAVE QUALIFICATIONS DAMN IT! I'M QUALIFIED TO DO STUFF I REALLY AM SO SERIOUSLY GET DOWN TO BUSINESS AND LET ME DO MY BUSINESS AT YOUR BUSINESS!!! Please?


I'll be honest here. I have no bargaining chips to use for getting that interview, other than my ridiculously handsome face I'm kidding myself. But, I do make offers with myself all the time, none of which I think will be applicable to this scenario here. "Hey company I'm interested in, I'm pretty good looking. Wanna hire me to do stuff for you?" Now, my best bargaining chip is pity, so pleaaaase, PLEASE! Give me a job! I need a job. Job...


A great man once said that the breaking point doesn't matter once you've gone past it. I've not only gone past the breaking point, I've trampled on its wife and children as I freefall down the hole of depression. I'm like Alice, except I'm not a girl and I'm about to die from starvation. Y'know, typical complaints of the unemployed. Which I am. And will probably be for a long time. Oh no...


Yep.

Cheerios, I guess? 

After a long time, I'm finally sitting down to write you this post. I've wrestled with whether or not I should even put this into words, an everlasting remembrance on the wide sea that is the Internet. Every letter typed is like a jackhammer to my heart; it hurts. It hurts to remember what we were, and what we could have been.

Maybe it was my fault. I do admit that I have drifted apart from you. Adulthood can do that, and with a relationship like ours, it was never destined to break down that barrier. We've both changed; me more than you, understandably. Our thoughts, so often infused with that bit of childish innocence, lost out to the newer, more exciting world of adulthood.

I know I haven't been putting too much time to maintain our relationship. But you have to understand that I've been working long hours to support you, to support us. Our relationship has always been based on mutual understanding and love. You know me more than I know myself. I've invested so much time in the past, I feel that sting too. That sting of parting.

I don't know when but my feelings for you began to change. I used to find solace in your company, the hours we would just sit facing each other, talking about love, laughing over the silliest things. I knew that my every touch would give you pleasure beyond your wildest imaginations and in turn I could just unload everything on you. I loved you for no other reason than because I loved you.


Then it became harder and harder to keep up with you. With more and more responsibilities piling up, I had to give up some time with you, just so I could keep up with my work and personal life. I'll admit that I have not been giving you all that you need, but it was also partly your fault. Your constant need for attention, your thirst to know more and the times you kept checking up on me. My inbox is full of the messages that you have left me. I don't want to sound harsh here, but that's definitely not normal behaviour.

But let bygones be bygones. It is with the heaviest of hearts that I write this post to declare that I can no longer keep up our relationship. We're better off not knowing each other, not being so invested in each others' lives. The pressure, the stress I had while I was with you, I can feel it all lifting, leaving, gone.

Perhaps it's for the better, for both you and I.

Goodbye, blog. Thank you for everything you have given me. You will always be my first love.

Love,
Joel

P.S: Let's only see each other on Mondays.