The warmth radiated, the passion emanated, cascading like a waterfall from
her skin, bring me to fear. You are so beautiful, are you meant for me? I’m
just nobody in the world of everybody, a small speck, breathing only to exist.
Just as the divine stars twinkling in the skies, you are better than a million
princesses, and just like stars, you’re out of reach. You are here… when the
truth, I’m not sure of how I could live with you beside.
Kpop: one of those many
facets of Hallyu that invades the
shores of so many countries not just in Asia, but Africa, Europe, and the
Americas. You can say the Korean Invasion started with that very series Winter Sonata. If you don’t know what
Hallyu is, then let’s say you are not riding the waves.
So, what about Kpop? Kpop
unites and divides people. Some people are avid supporters of the music and are
willing to pay hundreds of Won… err… Ringgit, just to see their favourite
idols. Others meanwhile belongs to the group of people who tries to steer away
from the manufactured sounds of these Korean artists. Manufactured seem good
enough word: three top Music Managements in that country seem to churn out more
idols faster that you can see kimchi. Well, I belong to neither of the groups.
I listen to Kpop music, and I have groups that I like [calling them idols is… err… not for me], but an
over-the-top fan, I’m not. I like Jpop better.
Of course, I can’t deny
their mass appeal. People love Korean groups, both male and females, and they
are devoted to them that they know every single Korean words to the songs that
they like, even if the fans really only understand a handful of Korean phrases –
oppa, gamsa hamnida,and sarang
haeyo being the typical ones. They love Kpop groups for their catchy, danceable,
upbeat songs, or in many cases, for the cheery, bubbly songs, even if the
people who sing the songs are 20 to 25-years-old males with Asian features. I
find myself to love some of those songs. That’s the thing that makes Kpop,
Kpop. Plus, their videos are always filled with all those slick dance moves, or
mellow heartfelt performances. God knows how long they trained to get those
grooves on – though you really should confess [especially the girls], you just
want to ogle at their… err… physical attributes.
And that’s something that I
think makes those Kpop groups likeable. Their… physical – attributes… [Okay, their
bods…]. They work for it. That’s something that I really salute. Girls just can’t
get enough of that hotness, can they? That’s determination. Meanwhile, some of
the girls in the girl groups don’t really have that good of a voice [not that I
have a good voice…], but they sure know how to strut and sashay their stuff on
the dance floor. Just look at Girls’ Generation, or SNSD, or Shoujo Jidai, or
SoShi, or just whatever that you want to call them… for all I know, you could
call the group Stinky Tofus and those hungry Kpop fans would still come to
their showcases… Now, back to SNSD, with too many faces in a group, I don’t
even know who’s who, but they share one asset– legs… See? Of course, to think
that they are grouped together just because of their legs would be something of
a stretch... hey, why not show what you’ve got, right?
Talents?
Yes, you have to have
talents to be in the entertainment business, and South Korea seems to be
bursting with talented people. Just how many groupos appear in these few years? I only stick to those that I knew.
Sometimes, many groups sound almost the same… their music are not that
different, and of course, their faces… handsome or pretty, but I just can’t
separate one from another. Only Kpop fans could recognize different groups. Some
groups manage to at least distance themselves from the rest by being different –
F.T. Island, for example, plays their own instrument [thanks, Amirah]. You
know, people love groups, but there is a solo artist that I think is really talented.
It’s a good thing too that she’s easy on the eyes [then again, they always are.
Ask the girls]. She’s IU. I love her, and she shows growth over the years –
from bubbly songs to more adult-oriented music.
So,
I was reading Berita Harian last Friday when I saw this:
You
see, this is a letter sent by a Cohort 4 student. The C4 had graduated about
eight months ago, but are still not posted anywhere. I’m not sure if this is a
letter from Gaya’s C4 [my seniors] since C4 didn’t just exist in Gaya only –
IPG Kota Bharu also had one before.
What
the heck happens to MOE? I will be pissed off too if I am not posted anywhere
after toiling for the past six years in my IPG and university. This is a waste
of talents and teachers. Of course, some of them are now pursuing their Masters
Programme. At least they have other things to do. How about for those who did
not? The only way for them to kill time [and earn wages] is by doing other
work.
I
just hope their problem will be solved soon. I am hoping the same thing won’t
happen to me after my class’ graduation… blahhh~
This is the first book from the new
Gladiatorseries
by Simon Scarrow. If you are familiar with the word gladiator, then you will get the idea that the story is set during
the Ancient Roman Empire.
The novel is basically about a
young boy named Marcus Cornelius Primus. His family is thrown into hell [well,
hypothetically speaking] – his father, a former centurion named Titus, is
killed, while his mother, Livia, after a failed plan to get away from their
captor is turned into a slave in a winery somewhere in Greece. Marcus, who
manages to flee meanwhile embark on a quest to save his mother by finding a
Roman army general in Rome as instructed by her mother. He leaves his Greek homeland
with nothing the clothes that he wears by being a stowaway on a ship. Fate proves
to have another plan for Marcus as a sailor aboard the ship notices him to
illegally board it and a fight ensues. A man seeing Marcus capabilities to fight
finally buys him so that he can be trained as a gladiator in his school. His
life as a trainee gladiator now begins, but his hope of saving his mother is
rapidly diminishing. Unknowingly, Marcus actually holds a secret that even he
does not know, that secret that will threaten Marcus’ life… and with it, the very foundation of the Roman Empire.
Basically, the novel is a children’s
novel, and I’m 20 going on 21. So, maybe most of adult novel readers will not
find this story a great read. The language is simple enough – it is not the
kind of language that you could read in novels like The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown,
but that does not rob the excitement from reading it. I love the story because I
love history. The novel really shows what it’s like to be enrolled and trained
as a gladiator and the life during the Roman Empire as a whole. The characters
are quite alright. Some proves to be fascinating, like the Athenians and the
Spartan. A Celt who is the rival of Marcus is a good antagonist. Marcus being 10 years old during the course of this book is still
developing. Perhaps more about him will be revealed on the second book. If you
have a lot of free time, you could finish the novel in one setting.
The second book in the series, Street Fighter will be out on the next February.
We are losing something. In normal circumstances, these
things seem to have infinitesimal importance to us. We don’t really care about them,
but in the end, in a way or another, the disappearance of the seemingly
innocuous aspects of life will have a profound effect on us. It is quite an
irony because we do these things every day, and we take it for granted. The
things are writing and reading.
Writing, we are rapidly losing our penchant of
writing. At first glance it should feel absurd. Writing is the thing that we do
every single day of our lives. We tweet each thing we’ve done, or say the
things that cross our mind on the cyber wall… using our PC, or laptops, or
smart phones. Some of us have blogs. In addition, we have forms to be filled, exercises,
and other academic or non-academic stuff to write about – the main writing tool
being the computer. Those are examples of what we call writing isn’t it? In a
matter of speaking, ‘yes’ is the answer, but when we think of it traditionally,
they are not. Each tweet has limited characters. The same goes to the comments
and stuff in Facebook. We don’t write long materials anymore, and we don’t
write manually much of the time.
I read an article in NST about this young 15 years old
British traveller who visited Penang during its colonial heydays [at that time,
there was no such thing as adolescence].
He gladly wrote a journal about the things he saw – the smell, the sights, the
sounds, the life of the city. It is not a simple task to capture everything there,
but this is the time when writing tells everything.
The article didn’t really show the writings of the boy, but stated that the
young traveller had brought to life the colourful and wonderful Penang’s
colonial times with just ink and papers. You can’t beat that.
I think that is what writing is all about – getting
the delights of living alive with just words. We couldn’t remember all the
highlights of our lives, could we? Yes, we do take photos, but why rob the
pleasures of writing away? We write shorter and shorter as time passes. We
don’t know how to write well, let alone capturing the senses in our writings.
Our essays are lifeless and bare.
Reading meanwhile is an acquired hobby. Why acquired
when it is just a simple thing to do? The reason: many choose not to read. In
this modern world, information and entertainment that you get from a book can
come easily via the sprawling cyber web. Just a click and you have the things
you want. Still, as with writing, reading things on your computer or your smart
phones come with a catch [or two] – unlike the conventional method, reading
with e-gadgets means that you are not engaging yourself with a higher level of
comprehension and you will have an attention span that is short.
Besides, the novelty of the traditional book is
something modern thingamajigs can never beat. Holding a real book gives you a
feel of reality. Sometimes, you might even smell your book and heard yourself
reading it out loud. Flipping a real book excites your senses, every page has
new things. Imagine when you’re reading a novel, and you really, really want to
know the event that happen to a character, or when you are trying to find an
answer to your exercise in a text book. I think that is why books can be so
engaging. They rouse our emotions in a way nothing else can.
In the lights of all modern conveniences all around
us, we should not pretend that we are losing nothing.
