Bumping in the Night

*super delayed post ahead

On a summer's night, is there any better way to give yourself the chills than ghost stories? Nope, none in my opinion. Which is why, on 21st June 2014, I attended Bump in the Night session, which is part of the Cooler Lumpur Festival for 2014(Theme: #Fast) and scared myself silly! >.<

Can you imagine, listening to ghost stories at night?? Yeap, GHOST STORIES. At NIGHT(precisely 11.59pm to 1.00am (or sometime around then)). And the stories were told by, in this order, Patrick Teoh, Susan Lankaster and Kamini Ramachandran, and I really got spooked out by them!! And that was after I try my best not to imagine or picture what is happening through their story-telling, but they are so good that even that method of mine failed!

Patrick Teoh started off the night with a story from a male adult perspective, presumably mid-twenties to somewhere in the early-thirties(my forgetfulness had kicked in!), returning home after a long time away and was reminiscing about his neighbourhood and house, until he finds it odd that his mother covered all the windows with black paper. Turns out, there was a park nearby his house, where a little girl was killed after being lured by the promises of red balloons. It would seem that the little girl has been going house to house, asking for the promised red balloons. Throughout the story, the little girl's last memories were unfolded and the male adult finally decided to grant her last wish, so that she can move on. However, it was this move of his that ultimately ended his mother's life.

The next story, told by Susan Lankaster, is the spookiest one of them all. And the subsequent one told by Kamini Ramachandran was less scary but still in the same tone.

However, since Procrastination took over me, I no longer remember the stories, which a big fat shame on my part, and for that I apologise.

Nevertheless, I remain hopeful that I get to enjoy this session in the future.

Restoration, Resurrection, and Revival

Title pretty much sums up what this post is about, really.

4 years and more had passed since I last wrote anything here. However, recent conversations and what is happening around the world, made me realised that I do miss the moment of just letting my thoughts flow and fingers running wild. Of course, with that said, it does not mean I removed the brain-to-mouth filter but perhaps, just perhaps, I remove self-censorship and express myself without being prompted or asked. One thing for sure, to keep rantings to a minimum and only a one-liner in each post, if any.

Now, memory test of a fraction of what had happened since my last post:

1. Became older by 5 years (Duhhhhhh)

2. Learnt great lessons from 4 idiots (at different timing, of course!)

3. Changed job 3 times (with no breaks in between, at all)

4. Enrolled for 2 classes (Japanese and Date Selection)

5. Switched company 1 time

6. Made the transition from keypad phones to fully touchscreen phones (only because the distributor stopped selling that brand in my country)

Well, quite sure there are more but I guess these are my personal highlights from the past few years, the ups and the downs, the good and the bad and whatever else.

Not sure if I should credit Lady Fortunate, but I experienced the most growth in the career aspects, with all the sacrifices of not enjoying a proper "uni life" and coming out to work at a fairly immature age working out just fine now. Definitely not going to rest on my laurels, since I have, about 30 years left till retirement. Way too early to slow down or go easy on myself, especially when I have this unlimited capacity to grow and learn. Maybe the only blocker in my path is wanting to enjoy life a little; stopping by to smell random flowers and weed (hey, even grass have its own smell, ok? Don't believe me, next time pluck a grass and rub it between your fingers, there will be a lingering scent), listen to birds chirping and twitting (when they might be exchanging plans on whose head to poop on), or experience some peace and quiet in the open space rooftop area, catching a nap or two.

On the personal front, think my growth is less exponential. While I am still single AF with questionable suitors in line, I shall just take this time to develop myself, and put MYSELF first while helping others in times of need. Whatever happens, happens. Ain't gonna force, ain't gonna pressure.

Back to helping others, at times, what they want may not be the best for me but I shall be contented as long as they end up happy. Where I draw the line is when whatever they decide for themselves is going to turn out detrimental to themselves. At that point, what I will do is to highlight the pitfalls of their actions and the final outcome and yet, I still will not forbid them to pursue what they intended. I guess at the end of the day, I just wish and hope everyone finds their happiness, regardless if I am part of the happiness journey or ending. Perhaps this was one of the many great lessons I learnt from the 4 idiots but, I am glad the lessons happened. Made me a tad wiser and conscious of the fickleness of the human heart (not that I didn't know before but this really opened up my eyes and drilled the lesson deep).

With that said, while I know blogs are mainly thing of the past, that is not a massive blocker in coming back here to resurrect this part of my life. And my words may or may not be seen by another, but at least, I do justice to myself by letting the random fleeting creativity that attacks me gets released, one way or the other. This definitely not the last of me and the revival is only starting. :) 

CInapek Romeo and Juliet~~

Also known as............*drumrolls* Lo Mio and Chiu Liet!!! ("#LMnCL")
Like seriously, get your most Cina-ish friend to pronounce Romeo and Juliet, you will get Lo Mio and Chiu Liet instead. XD


Ok, ok, enough joke. This post is meant to be my thoughts on the currently on-going theatre performance at KLPAC(if you don't know where, the most I know how to say is that it is at Sentul). Before that, let me get the itty-gritty, teeny meeny mini details out of the way first:

Thespian :
Alfred Loh, Amanda Ang, Dylan Yeo, Emily Tan, Fahad Iman, Gregory Sze, Ho Su Chuin, Mark Beau De Silva, Stefanie Paulus & Shawn Loong
(Dem names should be enough to pull you to watch the play, if not enough, read on :p)

Date & Time:
25 – 27 Feb, 2 Mar – 5 Mar @ 8.30pm;
28 Feb & 6 Mar @ 3pm
(Hah! Left 5 more shows only! Also, higher chances of getting tickets on the weekday shows, weekend shows tends to be a bit packed)

Language:
Mainly presented in Cantonese, but with a fair deal of Mandarin and English. Surtitles available, so you can read some of it.

(The above were copied from KLPAC):

Now, here onwards would be what I think about the performance of the day (27th Feb) and in fact, even within the same show, different audience would have different opinion. Let's start, shall we? There might or might not be spoilers, for which I humbly apologise in advance.

As we all should know by now, #LMnCL is adapted from Romeo and Juliet and the setting has been changed to Ancient China, but it is a bit hard to pinpoint which dynasty or era it is from because I am not that good in the history of CHINA. But then, it can obviously be seen that western influence has begun to seep into China, so there might be a strong indicator there. The overall geographical setting of the story is in the Forbidden City(imagine emperor, harems, royal families, dignities yadda yadda, you should be getting the idea by now) but what I find the most commendable is the use of space and the setting up of props because it is being shown in Pentas 2 where the audiences are surrounding the entire stage. Like, a praying altar is set up where it can be seen by everyone or, in between seats, a bed is placed (are you curious yet? ;D ).

However, the general story line remains the same where a pair of star-crossed lovers tries to overcome their family feud to be together. And something about the ending is open to debate whether is it actually a happy ending or a sad ending. Personally, I find it to be a happy ending but hey, it is up to you once you watched the whole thing.  I would welcome an open debate, if any.

To be honest, I am more of a purist, so I sort of did not expect to have such high level of Chinese elements, but then these elements made the entire performance so much more fun. Especially when certain words were mentioned i.e. ham ka chan. And the re-occurence on the complain of the mantou(a plain white bun). There are funnier ones but then, it needs to be experienced in the show itself. Although, I did set a high expectation to have a non-stop laughing session because it is co-written by Cheah Uihua and Freddy Tan(creator of Corporal Punishment) but thinking back, it was unreasonable of me la.. for god's sake, it is based on Romeo and Juliet yo! Which is Shakespeare's most tragedic tragedy of all times!

Talking about Chinese elements, it does take some time getting used to the Cantonese pronunciation by the cast at some point like when the Westernised Chinese aka the Chiu family (representing the House of Capulet) speak Cantonese, they had to make it sound so English but speaking Cantonese, which is very praise-worthy because I honestly cannot do that. On the other hand though, the Lo family (representing the House of Montague) had some really good Cantonese speaker and some of them need to brush up on their Cantonese XD

In terms of acting, I am not going to comment because I don't have the understanding of the technicalities but one thing for sure that I will say is that the potrayal of characters were damn entertaining and the bit I like the best is the one playing dual-role(a guy playing a guy role and a female role) although, most of my friends didn't notice it. So, you may or may not be able to notice this person playing dual roles.

And there you have it. It is definitely not a complete dissection of #LMnCL but it is written to the best of my ability and observation. A final note though, I do hope that more people will go watch in order to support the arts!