Wasn't in exactly much of a mood to blog, but thought I'd force myself to sit down and "pen" some things down.

So... having watched the play "Red Rose And White Rose" during the recent Huayi Festival, I was actually a little depressed that my chinese standards are bochup, since this play based on Eileen Chang's (novel?) was really interesting and offers... an asian view on marriage and courtship quite well I suppose. Not sure if it applies to the current times, men chasing over the "hotties" while preferring to marry the averages or "notties". Still from how the play goes, reading her works could have been an eye-opener. But to read the english translation rather than the original chinese text? Seems a little... degrading. Reading another language's translation is much better because you hardly have any choice, but with the second mother tongue we have, it's just pathetic when you have access to the original source and yet you have to pick the 2nd hand, transcribed version. You never know what text and meanings that are being conveyed get lost.

Guess I digressed too much, was a great play, and thank god for the ah tiongs attracted to the play, some of them asked good questions that helped me better understand the show during the post-show dialogue session.

Here's someone's analysis of the story, if anyone's interested:

I wonder what kind of impression would people like Kexin get from watching it? Wild thought that strayed through my mind while watching.

With study break at the moment, all my undone work seems pointless now. Which is great, it's like time dropped off the weights in my heart and now I feel lighter, freeer. Still got to revise though, and no confidence with business finance. I wish I could say "fuck itttttt" but damn I can't.

Education is important but we don't like what we are learning. How?

It's A Great Great World was nice to watch. A glimpse into what could and had been back then, whilst churning out feel good stories to keep viewers entertained. Not sure if the cameraworks while Xiang Yun was doing her Cabaret-risque song and dance needed work though. It's either view from the back of her shoulder, panning through audience with camera aimed at her, a mid-shot on a her face, or pan in front of her, without audience this time. After some time it gets repetitive, yet staying too still wouldn't help either. I wonder what other shots could be done, especially since she isn't doing much except singing and sashaying at one spot.

But the use of the various dialects was good, perhaps partially because it was the de-facto language most of them would use back then. I could imagine my parents or grandparents speaking lke that back then! You could tell that some of the newer actors are poor at their dialects... ;)

Openly kissing each other was a little improbable back in those days hough, my grandma and mum says. Back then when my mum was young, when her aunt I think wanted to go on a date, they would bring her along and go have fun, then you have noticed, Chinatown has alot of these back alleys, so they'd go to say, the cinema, and when they are done, they told my mum to wait outside the alley while they went in. My mum then thought maybe "korkor" needed to pee so when the father asked where they go, she simply said the cinema because to her peeing is a minor thing, no need to report back haha!

The Japanese air-raid (cgi?) scene was good, I was actually happy for Raintree Pictures when I saw the planes flying and bombing Singapore, no childish looking, over the top blocky animation like in Jack Neo's films (which didn't even look appropriate!) but one as close to realism as possible, and well executed for the scene. Maybe darkness seems easier to do, I don't know. But the way they decided to go with a realistic look, together with the mood and story of the movie, makes it such that it's well executed, which is more important here.Gives me hope that Singapore's animation are not shitty as they were.

The lady that helps drive the story along fixed the fan? I'm amazed she even knows how to fix one. Makes me wanna open up mine and fix it with screwdrivers spanners and no manuals man

Say I've considered sharing my steam account with you guys, let you all enjoy the benefits of buying some games. Still wanna think through it though hmm.