Yeeee-bluddy-aaaaaaargh!
*points up* Look! Saya masih hyper! Wheeee!!!
After a couple of weeks of me going wheeee!!!, I'm sure more than a few of you regular readers will wish for me to get really emo again, eh?
Today was, in general, a really good day. Fantastic final assembly, great video premiere, met and talked to Philip (who cut his hair and looks... quite alright, really. Much better), general happy attitudes all around despite the exams being just around the corner.
It was great, of course - until I got back to the hostels and realised that the servers went belly up on me again. Why is it that each time I really want to put something up, the servers decide, "Right, mates, let's go on a little vacation, yars?"
I can now think of five swear words starting with 'P'... two in Malay, one in Tamil, one in Sarawakian and one in Melanau. Oh, make that six - I just remembered a Spanish word Wazi taught me.
Oh, I swore at the computer and ta-dah! I'm back online! Should do this more often.
Aaaaanyway.
The main reason I'm writing this is because I want to write about a play called A Goldfish Tale. Heck, I didn't want to watch it, but since it was free (thanks, Terri!), I thought, "Hey, what the heck. It can't be that bad."
And it wasn't that bad... in fact, it was bluddy goode, considering I went in with low expectations. And hey, any free chance to see Gavin Yap is a good chance (eh, talking weird again...).
Gavin Yap is keeyoot.
*before I go on, let me just say that I am going through a phase where I make stupid puns and spell certain phrases like I'm dyslexic to create a feeling of emphasis. I can feel my IELTS score dropping to about 7... yeeee, noooooo!*
Myself being my own, totally lovable, mood-swingy, procrastinating and just generally can't-be-bothered-to-write-my-own-review self (laugh it up, bodohs), I will steal Tieng Yee's review of A Goldfish Tale and add my comments to it.
Tieng, sorry for not asking your permission in advance. And note that I'm only using your review because I'm too flighty to write my own at the moment, and it's not some kind of personal attack at your review, okies?
Tieng Yee's review italicised, my comments after each italicised bit, and my comments are non-italicised.
Review - A Goldfish Tale
Ta-dah!
A Goldfish Tale is a half-dead fish out of water. Think of a goldfish flopping about outside its bowl. The scene can be either cruel to see, pitiful or even amusing. Watching it, you wonder if some act will save it, or if one should just flush the fish down the toilet.
A bit... harsh? Sure, maybe it had its rather clichéd moments, but the reality is that clichés are marketable, and they can really work.
My opinion about clichés ? If they're misused, they can be really trite. But most times, you can't avoid using a cliché. And anyone who tries to totally eliminate clichés from their writing, or their speech - they're either in denial, or trying to appear jaded so that people will think they're cool.
Am I being harsh? Perhaps. My opinion, anyway.
The play certainly isn't plot driven, it's character driven. Where have we not, at least once in our lives, seen or encountered personally the characters in Goldfish? What child has not experienced his or her parents nagging them about the house after finishing any major level (whether secondary or tertiary, etc) about getting a job soon and NOW and oh, did we mention we want grandchildren?
This is what I don't get. This obsession with plot. Plot to me is relative. Or, to be more accurate (and confusing, sorry to anyone who has read this far), the characters are part of a plot, and a plot is what binds the characters together. Plot drives character, character drives plot.
There's a saying that is probably repeated in every English and writing class in the world - write what you know. And the reason that this saying is so popular is that, no matter what your experiences, someone out there - many people out there - will have experienced something similar.
You can only write well when you put yourself into a situation. You can only put yourself into a situation if you can relate it to something you have experienced, whether directly or indirectly. And that is what writing and story-telling is about to me - relating something to someone in such a way that they can relate to it.
Oh, hell... I am giving myself a headache.
Seng (the main character) is caught up in this situation that all overseas Chinese coming back to Malaysia seem to find themselves trapped in - boy comes back to Penang after finishing his studies in America and waiting for his work visa, gets involved in family squabbles, but eventually triumphs in the end (after the requisite journey of discovering his 'uncoolness' and latent family values).
Seng was played by Gavin Yap (who is God!).
Marketability again. Everyone can relate to the situation. What's so bad about that? Really, what's the point in watching something that you totally do not understand?
It doesn't have to be unique or shocking or twisted to be art. Art is expression. Art is evoking emotions in other people. Art is an emotion - passion.
They're clichéd characters. They're lovely and flawed. There's the grandfather (Khoo); a grumpy old man who knows his time is near. He only seems to be tender to his wife (Ming); a good-hearted woman who can't accept the fact that her husband not going to get better any time soon and his granddaughter (Clarette); a whiny twelve year old in a Form Six uniform (who hasn't had a sister who behaves in that profoundly irritating clingy way once in a while?).
Khoo was played by Patrick Teoh, Ming by Faridah Merican. Clarette was a minor character, so not remembering who portrayed her shouldn't be too bad, eh? I mean, the name's there, I just can't grasp it.
There's that word again - clichéd. Lovely characters, and flawed. Flaws bring realism. Really, who wants to see a bunch of perfect-by-societal-norms people strutting their stuff on stage?
Again, clichés can make people relate to the situation. Clichés are not inherently bad. They only become bad when they are misused.
Likewise, Seng's aunts. Two money hungry women just waiting for their father to die. Hold on, they can't even wait that long, Don't you think we should have an early reading of the will? and It's obvious he's not going to get any better. These statements are overhead by their mother whose many months (or even years) of pent-up denial finally erupts in their faces. She's disappointed in her children, and takes refuge in old photograph albums.
All I have to say, again, is - everyone's been there sometime, somehow, and that's why it's good. People can relate to it.
Seng has a love-hate relationship with both his father (George) and grandfather. His father's insistent nagging that he go and try to get a job in Malaysia or better yet Penang grates on his nerves. Why don't you call up our retired lawyer neighbor (Bala), son? Seng feels he can't take the pressure any longer - he must get away, back to the States, away from his stifling family and the stifling humid conditions of Malaysia. The fact that his father is a morning person - Seng, it's 7AM! - and is part of the tennis social set also drives him up the wall. It's like any father trying to initiate his child into the 'social sports' be it tennis, golf or squash.
Ben Tan played George, Bala was played by Ari Ratos.
I think I'm turning into Aldwinckle - sorry, Tieng, but I'm in teacher-mode overdrive because people have been asking me to help them out with exam revisions in subjects I don't even take - because what came to mind after reading this paragraph was comment a fellow Aldwinckle classmate of mine always got on her essays - "Look, you've made your point. Move on."
All that Seng can remember of his grandfather is the latter's constant yelling. At everything. At everyone. In one of their 'truce' moments, Seng asks him, Why? Khoo replies he didn't want it to be that way, but that's just how things happened. He then follows this up with his usual tirade of how Seng is a lousy, useless bastard who will never amount to anything. Seng fights back, claiming, Well, I learnt from the best. And You will always be that nasty old f*** that I know.
The essence of the moment is not captured here. It was somewhat more poignant. Mainstream poignant, but hell, mainstream poignant gets to people.
You need to walk before you can run, right? That's how it is. Do the mainstream stuff before you branch out into something more intellectual, or controversial. We're not really ready for that yet.
Why does the old man hate his grandson so? As the saying goes, 'What you hate in others, you see within yourself.' Seng's grandfather sees a lot of himself in Seng. Stubbornness, strong will, a loudmouth, a desire to get away and make something of himself, in danger of being stuck in a rut - it scares him. He tries to 'eradicate' these 'faults' or at least turn Seng away from the mistakes he himself has made by constantly scolding him. But Seng, like his grandfather, cannot handle criticism well.
'What you hate in others, you see within yourself.' Ironically, this is a cliché in itself. You can't get away from 'em.
Somewhere in the middle of the play, Seng reveals his 'goldfish theory' to Clarette. You see, the goldfish swims around in it's own bowl. It swims, then.. Ooh! A castle! It swims around again and Ooh! A castle!
The moment was after Clarette got upset seeing the adults fighting about the grandfather's will. Seng hugs Clarette and tells her, "Look, it's going to be okay. Well, maybe not. It's going to get worse but trust me, things will get better after that!"
Every older sibling has said that someway or another to a younger sibling. Cliché? Reality.
And the goldfish tale went like this - Seng was trying to cheer Clarette up. So he told her his golsfish tale. A goldfish has a memory span of about one minute. So, it will swim around the tank and say, "Oooh, a castle!" Then it will swim around the tank and after a minute, sees the castle again, and will say, "Oooh, a castle!" as though it had never seen it before.
But - goldfish, if taken out of the water, will die in one and a half minutes. So... for the last thirty seconds of their lives... all goldfish can remember is the experience of dying. They will not have remembered anything about living.
And that is how Seng feels. He feels as though he is trapped in a situation where all he will ever remember is his so-called suffering in Penang, when he wants to remember a life he dreams of - in the US.
The theory smacks of the creative workings of older siblings / cousins deluding their younger counterparts. But it does have a point. As Seng says, If the goldfish leaps out of its bowl, it has 30 seconds to live. As it lies there, gasping for breath, it's likely that all that fish can remember is how it feels dying.This runs parallel to his own situation. His family seems to swim around in their own world, only seeing themselves and their own surroundings. He as the goldfish who 'leapt', has 30 seconds to live, and counting. Are the other goldfish attempting to save one of their own, by pulling Seng back to Penang, to be around familiar things once more? Are they worried that all he
After a couple of weeks of me going wheeee!!!, I'm sure more than a few of you regular readers will wish for me to get really emo again, eh?
Today was, in general, a really good day. Fantastic final assembly, great video premiere, met and talked to Philip (who cut his hair and looks... quite alright, really. Much better), general happy attitudes all around despite the exams being just around the corner.
It was great, of course - until I got back to the hostels and realised that the servers went belly up on me again. Why is it that each time I really want to put something up, the servers decide, "Right, mates, let's go on a little vacation, yars?"
I can now think of five swear words starting with 'P'... two in Malay, one in Tamil, one in Sarawakian and one in Melanau. Oh, make that six - I just remembered a Spanish word Wazi taught me.
Oh, I swore at the computer and ta-dah! I'm back online! Should do this more often.
Aaaaanyway.
The main reason I'm writing this is because I want to write about a play called A Goldfish Tale. Heck, I didn't want to watch it, but since it was free (thanks, Terri!), I thought, "Hey, what the heck. It can't be that bad."
And it wasn't that bad... in fact, it was bluddy goode, considering I went in with low expectations. And hey, any free chance to see Gavin Yap is a good chance (eh, talking weird again...).
Gavin Yap is keeyoot.
*before I go on, let me just say that I am going through a phase where I make stupid puns and spell certain phrases like I'm dyslexic to create a feeling of emphasis. I can feel my IELTS score dropping to about 7... yeeee, noooooo!*
Myself being my own, totally lovable, mood-swingy, procrastinating and just generally can't-be-bothered-to-write-my-own-review self (laugh it up, bodohs), I will steal Tieng Yee's review of A Goldfish Tale and add my comments to it.
Tieng, sorry for not asking your permission in advance. And note that I'm only using your review because I'm too flighty to write my own at the moment, and it's not some kind of personal attack at your review, okies?
Tieng Yee's review italicised, my comments after each italicised bit, and my comments are non-italicised.
Review - A Goldfish Tale
Ta-dah!
A Goldfish Tale is a half-dead fish out of water. Think of a goldfish flopping about outside its bowl. The scene can be either cruel to see, pitiful or even amusing. Watching it, you wonder if some act will save it, or if one should just flush the fish down the toilet.
A bit... harsh? Sure, maybe it had its rather clichéd moments, but the reality is that clichés are marketable, and they can really work.
My opinion about clichés ? If they're misused, they can be really trite. But most times, you can't avoid using a cliché. And anyone who tries to totally eliminate clichés from their writing, or their speech - they're either in denial, or trying to appear jaded so that people will think they're cool.
Am I being harsh? Perhaps. My opinion, anyway.
The play certainly isn't plot driven, it's character driven. Where have we not, at least once in our lives, seen or encountered personally the characters in Goldfish? What child has not experienced his or her parents nagging them about the house after finishing any major level (whether secondary or tertiary, etc) about getting a job soon and NOW and oh, did we mention we want grandchildren?
This is what I don't get. This obsession with plot. Plot to me is relative. Or, to be more accurate (and confusing, sorry to anyone who has read this far), the characters are part of a plot, and a plot is what binds the characters together. Plot drives character, character drives plot.
There's a saying that is probably repeated in every English and writing class in the world - write what you know. And the reason that this saying is so popular is that, no matter what your experiences, someone out there - many people out there - will have experienced something similar.
You can only write well when you put yourself into a situation. You can only put yourself into a situation if you can relate it to something you have experienced, whether directly or indirectly. And that is what writing and story-telling is about to me - relating something to someone in such a way that they can relate to it.
Oh, hell... I am giving myself a headache.
Seng (the main character) is caught up in this situation that all overseas Chinese coming back to Malaysia seem to find themselves trapped in - boy comes back to Penang after finishing his studies in America and waiting for his work visa, gets involved in family squabbles, but eventually triumphs in the end (after the requisite journey of discovering his 'uncoolness' and latent family values).
Seng was played by Gavin Yap (who is God!).
Marketability again. Everyone can relate to the situation. What's so bad about that? Really, what's the point in watching something that you totally do not understand?
It doesn't have to be unique or shocking or twisted to be art. Art is expression. Art is evoking emotions in other people. Art is an emotion - passion.
They're clichéd characters. They're lovely and flawed. There's the grandfather (Khoo); a grumpy old man who knows his time is near. He only seems to be tender to his wife (Ming); a good-hearted woman who can't accept the fact that her husband not going to get better any time soon and his granddaughter (Clarette); a whiny twelve year old in a Form Six uniform (who hasn't had a sister who behaves in that profoundly irritating clingy way once in a while?).
Khoo was played by Patrick Teoh, Ming by Faridah Merican. Clarette was a minor character, so not remembering who portrayed her shouldn't be too bad, eh? I mean, the name's there, I just can't grasp it.
There's that word again - clichéd. Lovely characters, and flawed. Flaws bring realism. Really, who wants to see a bunch of perfect-by-societal-norms people strutting their stuff on stage?
Again, clichés can make people relate to the situation. Clichés are not inherently bad. They only become bad when they are misused.
Likewise, Seng's aunts. Two money hungry women just waiting for their father to die. Hold on, they can't even wait that long, Don't you think we should have an early reading of the will? and It's obvious he's not going to get any better. These statements are overhead by their mother whose many months (or even years) of pent-up denial finally erupts in their faces. She's disappointed in her children, and takes refuge in old photograph albums.
All I have to say, again, is - everyone's been there sometime, somehow, and that's why it's good. People can relate to it.
Seng has a love-hate relationship with both his father (George) and grandfather. His father's insistent nagging that he go and try to get a job in Malaysia or better yet Penang grates on his nerves. Why don't you call up our retired lawyer neighbor (Bala), son? Seng feels he can't take the pressure any longer - he must get away, back to the States, away from his stifling family and the stifling humid conditions of Malaysia. The fact that his father is a morning person - Seng, it's 7AM! - and is part of the tennis social set also drives him up the wall. It's like any father trying to initiate his child into the 'social sports' be it tennis, golf or squash.
Ben Tan played George, Bala was played by Ari Ratos.
I think I'm turning into Aldwinckle - sorry, Tieng, but I'm in teacher-mode overdrive because people have been asking me to help them out with exam revisions in subjects I don't even take - because what came to mind after reading this paragraph was comment a fellow Aldwinckle classmate of mine always got on her essays - "Look, you've made your point. Move on."
All that Seng can remember of his grandfather is the latter's constant yelling. At everything. At everyone. In one of their 'truce' moments, Seng asks him, Why? Khoo replies he didn't want it to be that way, but that's just how things happened. He then follows this up with his usual tirade of how Seng is a lousy, useless bastard who will never amount to anything. Seng fights back, claiming, Well, I learnt from the best. And You will always be that nasty old f*** that I know.
The essence of the moment is not captured here. It was somewhat more poignant. Mainstream poignant, but hell, mainstream poignant gets to people.
You need to walk before you can run, right? That's how it is. Do the mainstream stuff before you branch out into something more intellectual, or controversial. We're not really ready for that yet.
Why does the old man hate his grandson so? As the saying goes, 'What you hate in others, you see within yourself.' Seng's grandfather sees a lot of himself in Seng. Stubbornness, strong will, a loudmouth, a desire to get away and make something of himself, in danger of being stuck in a rut - it scares him. He tries to 'eradicate' these 'faults' or at least turn Seng away from the mistakes he himself has made by constantly scolding him. But Seng, like his grandfather, cannot handle criticism well.
'What you hate in others, you see within yourself.' Ironically, this is a cliché in itself. You can't get away from 'em.
Somewhere in the middle of the play, Seng reveals his 'goldfish theory' to Clarette. You see, the goldfish swims around in it's own bowl. It swims, then.. Ooh! A castle! It swims around again and Ooh! A castle!
The moment was after Clarette got upset seeing the adults fighting about the grandfather's will. Seng hugs Clarette and tells her, "Look, it's going to be okay. Well, maybe not. It's going to get worse but trust me, things will get better after that!"
Every older sibling has said that someway or another to a younger sibling. Cliché? Reality.
And the goldfish tale went like this - Seng was trying to cheer Clarette up. So he told her his golsfish tale. A goldfish has a memory span of about one minute. So, it will swim around the tank and say, "Oooh, a castle!" Then it will swim around the tank and after a minute, sees the castle again, and will say, "Oooh, a castle!" as though it had never seen it before.
But - goldfish, if taken out of the water, will die in one and a half minutes. So... for the last thirty seconds of their lives... all goldfish can remember is the experience of dying. They will not have remembered anything about living.
And that is how Seng feels. He feels as though he is trapped in a situation where all he will ever remember is his so-called suffering in Penang, when he wants to remember a life he dreams of - in the US.
The theory smacks of the creative workings of older siblings / cousins deluding their younger counterparts. But it does have a point. As Seng says, If the goldfish leaps out of its bowl, it has 30 seconds to live. As it lies there, gasping for breath, it's likely that all that fish can remember is how it feels dying.This runs parallel to his own situation. His family seems to swim around in their own world, only seeing themselves and their own surroundings. He as the goldfish who 'leapt', has 30 seconds to live, and counting. Are the other goldfish attempting to save one of their own, by pulling Seng back to Penang, to be around familiar things once more? Are they worried that all he