塗鴉: 夢想 graffiti： rêve / dream

graffiti, as seen in beijing, July2010

塗鴉寫著/ comme écrit le graffiti / the graffiti reads:

為了夢想，來到這裡
19 歲生日在此許下心願

I came here for my dream.
Making a wish here on my 19th birthday.

Je suis ici pour réaliser mon rêve.
lorsque mon 19ème anniversaire.

Des grandes villes, dont Pékin, sont les destinations pour les milliers et milliers des gens partout du monde. Que pourriez vous faire si vous e^tes urbaniste?

Big and mega cities still attract millions of people regardless of countries or continents. Can they (the cities) sustain our future?

世界上的大城市中國的、海外的也好，吸引着無數人的心靈。要有一個可持續的二十一世紀，是要人人落戶大城市嗎？

Jay

jay, a philipino film in 2009

 

Neil Postman said that America was the only country fixated on television, I beg to differ. As a matter of fact, the venom of “reality television” that told off over in the late 1990s has been spreading like wild fire. In this funny and made-to-believe-it-is but in reality a non-documentary was a good mix of drama, humour and at times almost horror.

A murdered teacher named Jay left behind a family in grief. The initial sadness was convoluted bit by bit as the reality TV director/producer, curiously also named Jay and his crew visited and filmed the family for his programme like vultures. The anecdotes when the sister of murdered Jay mistook a telephone call as her selection to the “Big Brother” show to various relatives and acquaintances of the dead “reenacting” their grief for the TV programme mocked on the obsession and the near-complete surrender to TV in many cultures. The “staging” of the apprehension of one of the suspects by the police was more than hilarious. If you watch this movie and can relate crack up to the humour in it, it seems natural that your culture, apart from that of the Pilipino and American, has succumbed to the far-reaching daily influence of reality TV are NOT the only two.

In an impoverished province where stable employment is hard to come by, getting famous on reality TV seems natural to the locals as it might bring money and fame and better lives in probably Manila. That is a depressing but sober observation.

This film garnered the best actor and best supporting actor and actress roles of the Golden Screen Awards in the Philippines in 2009.

改變了的七一

七月一號對我來說是一個永遠改變了日子。外婆（兩星期前去世後，昨、今兩天是她的喪禮. 七月一號更加是她的大殮的日子。

六月三十號下午在殯儀館那些法師已開始念經。快而且久不久像和唱般的重複使人要十分集中精神，有一位助手便是十多分鐘便走來我們看著經文的子孫之前再“指”導我們念到那裡。仔細地看經文的話，某些段落是頗傷感的。婆婆身體不好已一段時間，離開大概是對身邊的子孫的解脫。過去這一年，她連媽媽也認不出來。其實最近早婆婆幾個月我的萍姨媽已先走一步。還有三月份我一位在蒙特利爾的法國友人Gabrielle（對，她總是覺得自己是法國人，雖然她移民加拿大的魁北克省不下十年）。 幸好Gabrielle的姐姐在病重的時候聯繫上我，在他臨終前兩星期通了一通電話。

七月一號喪禮在火葬場完結、在尖沙咀吃過解慰酒後我還趕得及去港島那邊看七、一遊行。最近的政治新聞不斷，然而今年我只作為一個旁觀者，畢竟這香港回歸中國的紀念日，以及加拿大的國慶日，都被婆婆的離去改變了。