Oh so warm and dry

The blue sky in my room

The thousand changing stars

I’m lying next to her

Just like in a dream

All a memory

It’s all so unreal

Ah, definitely one of my more well-liked songs I’ve heard in the past couple of years. And, how coincidental that its title just fits so seamlessly with this blog’s overarching theme as of late. I'm waiting for one of my aunts to finish up so I can drive her back. I don’t want to crowd the room (or smell it) so here I am, staring out into the dusky Western sky. This is different from the city that I’ve milled around for the past … however long it’s been. Even though the downtown still requires much development before finally becoming that “world-class city” that it wants so hard to pride itself as, it’s still a common phenomenon for me to become lost in its hubbub.

A thoroughly appreciated change of pace, and, though overt metropolitan artifacts still clutter into the current panorama, I am reminded now of this almost cliché epiphany that pops its head up as needed by my often waning sanity: as many constructs as we may create, no matter how high they extend and how hard they try to reach into the sky, no matter how suffocating they may seem to be with their artificial ability to loom and lord over us, there is still this huge world, and this infinitely huger universe, just around the corner that just cannot be conquered by any acts of our collectively grasping mortal hands.

And with that in mind, I feel like it's ok for me to just sit here for a bit and breathe, in and out, and to let my mind rejoin the clouds, if only for a short while.

Namaste

Somehow, the first two times I ever hear this word occurs within 24 hours of each other. Not that I'm trying desperately to grasp at some significance, but it is notable, at the very least. 

Namaste is both a phrase of greeting and a phrase of parting. Consisting of the two Sanskrit roots "namah" meaning "reverential salutation" and "te" meaning "to you", this phrase translates to "salutations to you". As an aside, "te" is also "to you" in Latin, I vaguely remember some other association Sanskrit and Latin before, well I'll look into that later. Anyway, the more formal form of namaste is "namaskar", where "kaar" is the root for "form", thus forming the meaning "salutations to your form", relating to the Hindu idea of the inner soul being of Brahman and the outer surface being merely an illusion. 

Well, I mean, that's what a cursory reading of Wikipedia tells me anyway.

infinite finitude

I guess my recent obsession with the sky fits in well with the name of the blog, chosen so many moons ago: "ciel". I'm not really sure what led to me picking that word to represent so many aspects of my online persona. But, there it is.

I've been driving back and forth from the hospital (and driving in general) a lot these past two weeks. I presume it isn't a particular reach when I say that pavement and upcoming traffic are not very exciting things to look at. Maybe that's why my gaze has leaned a bit more upwards as of late. Also, there's a big-ass window (c.f. big ass-window) in the canteen with a nice skyward view that I spend a lot of time looking through when I'm waiting for one of my aunts.

The best word that describes the impression that sky-gazing leaves with me is "finitude". This isn't something I bring up often with people nowadays because many seem to be perfectly content to shrug me off immediately, as if it were some sort of reflex they've developed. Whatever, fuck 'em all, right? Ok, maybe that's too harsh.

But whenever I reflect on the vastness of the great cosmos that abounds above us, I can't help but lament. Lament that I'm stuck here in this finite body, destined to live my life out worrying about and carrying out all these trifling finite affairs, that, in order to achieve some level of contentedness, I'm even supposed to force myself to derive "meaning" from these infinitely finite things. Will there be a sum to these physiological processes that I seem to help keep perpetuating?

I guess I can see why people would so readily shut me down when I bring up this topic. Even the lament of futility is futile. And so, our only option is to continue on unwaveringly? And, we're just supposed to take it?

How boring.

It was the clouds.

Something about the lighting just seemed a bit off as I left the house. The world seemed to be tinted in this pink-yellow hue, like one of those aged photos from a few decades ago: a strange lack of blue. Refreshing, it felt as if I had just stepped out of the music video for "Strange Days" by Matthew Good Band and had begun seeing, after a long period of their absence, red, yellow, and green.

It was the clouds. The sun had just nestled itself under the horizon but its light still shone across the dusky sky. Spread all over were delicately spaced streams of clouds: lit a warm yellow under their bottoms and left darkened on their tops, where the light no longer reached. That light reflected must have been what had cast upon the entire landscape its temporary golden hue.

So there I am, driving westbound on the highway, conveniently emptied to allow me to cruise at a comfortable speed. With the city passing by in this peculiar light and "We Could Die Chasing This Feeling" by Hammock in the background (rad coincidence there with the music video by the way), it didn't feel like I was driving that all-too-familiar route to the hospital, that I had been regularly taking for the past week.

No, for a brief moment, I felt like I was driving in a faraway place, worlds away from all those trivial and not-so-trivial matters that seem to wrack up with such ease in my consciousness. And, for a brief moment, the word "beauty" actually meant something to me.

Another blue night over me (or Starálfur, again)

I posted this on my other blog. But, given the content, it feels much more appropriate here so I'm just going to copy it here. This marks the second in-depth post I've made about this song, Starálfur. I wonder why I like this song so much.

Lately, it seems I've been going back through my already bloated collection more than trying to find newer music. Sigur Rós's Ágætis byrjun has been playing a lot in my car. Not the whole album, mostly just "Starálfur", "Viðrar Vel Til Loftárasa", and "Ágætis byrjun". It's always surprising when I remember that this album was released back in 1999, though I didn't get a copy myself until probably 2007.

I was sprawled across the backseat of my car late last night. Just outside the window were the pale stars all in their familiar arrangements. Starálfur was playing and it was just so fitting. The first two lyrical lines are translated as "Blue night over the sky; Blue night over me". Whenever I hear those lyrics, I'm immediately reminded of the great wide sky that encapsulates all of us as well as the infinite cosmos that lay just beyond that. Always a welcome reminder since I'm so anxious all the time (says a friend that I hadn't seen for years; and here I was thinking my anxiety was only particularly noticeable in the past year or so).

Anyway, here's the album version of Starálfur. I swear I've written a long-winded post about this already. I guess it was probably for the other blog.

caelum caeruleum

The blue sky says hello. For all whom fall under its jurisdiction, it is open and accepting with its all-encompassing embrace. Staring into the seemingly unending expanse, the trivial mundane matters that so occupy our thoughts and cause us distress begin to appear as nothing more than specks of sand on a beach.

Oh, if only you could reach down from that transcendent realm and pull em away from all these daily non-sequitors. I would be happy to forfeit this corporeal cohesion if it meant an existence beyond reacting to these petty and meaningless sequences of events.

But you do nothing. You sit there in your intangible kingdom and lord over us, mocking our inalienable futility and our abject denials of any claims of such.

estne, estne, estne

Room's way too muggy. The quad-core probably isn't helping much.

If I had made different decisions that day, decisions which were completely innocuous at the time, this situation may have evolved in a completely different way. But, ultimately, the circumstances ended up becoming aligned and, now, there's quite a situation, isn't there.

It's not my fault. I've read enough posts and watched enough clichéd shows/movies to know about the unproductiveness of misplaced guilt. And, so I clearly won't let myself dwell upon this. But the impression still remains.

Why did she have to stare at me? Why did her tears have to begin welling up as she was staring at me? Did she know of those insidious thoughts that had remained dormant up until that very moment our eyes connected after those stupid fucking dominoes fell? Worse, does she not share in my assumption that my guilt is misplaced?

I haven't gone to see her since. I just can't. Shit is fucked up is what it is...

Deus ex machina

Another hot, muggy night that clearly wishes to offer me no sleep. Well, technically, I slept from 11-3, so, those are four good hours, right? No matter. I guess I'll type a few thoughts up that I had been toying around with in my head today.

For the first time in ages, I find myself actually optimistic about my future. Yeah, yeah, pharmacy, profession, stable job, I know the mantras, but I mean, I've become authentically positive about the future beyond that tired, old jargon.

When it comes down to it, what it really boils down to is perspective. I've been in this city my entire life: in the suburbs for the first 17 years and then mostly downtown for the next 7 years. I only happen to venture out of the city limits on rare occasions. Hell, I was going north on 16th the other day and was legitimately surprised to see a vast field containing nothing but... corn. Seriously, what's up with that?

So, clearly, the city is ultra familiar and close to my heart. It's an obvious option for where I'd like to work later on. Therein is where lay much of my previous consternation. Within my field, from what I hear anyway, the chance of working in my particular urban centre of choice is quite slim, especially for a greeney such as myself. So you can imagine my underwhelment (I'm not sure if this noun form of "underwhelm" officially exists) when I'm forced to consider job opportunities in areas that are ~5 hours away from any friends and family (not to mention Chinese food). But, I realize now that that's just fine.

This sudden change was most probably precipitated by the books I had been reading lately on Aboriginal and Hong Kong history/culture (though the trend itself has been a process ongoing for years). On the one hand, you have the overt institutional racism and assimilationist processes that Canada forced upon the Aboriginal peoples. Of course, nowadays, there have been major improvements in terms of supports for Aboriginals as well as attempts to make reparations (though whether one could say these constitute as "equivalent trade" is another topic entirely). Still, I take pause when I consider that residential schools had been open all the way up until the 1960's, merely one generation ago.

On the other hand, we take Hong Kong as it was in the early 1900s, a time when housing consisted of fire-prone wooden shacks and when the rate of tuberculosis infection was >90% in people above the age of 14. Despite these conditions that would be considered deplorable by today's standards, we have a population willingly placing themselves in this setting, which only illustrates that conditions were even less desirable in the places they had initially come from.

Just from those two examples, I can't help but be thankful that I'm alive in this day and age. When institutional racism is largely a thing of the past and when it is so easy to live a safe, comfortable life. Hell, there's even Internet now. How ridiculous is that shit, right? And, so, working a few hours from where I consider is "home" suddenly seems much more to be this extremely midget potato. Suddenly, all those worries I had been carrying around with me for the past half-year or so seem much less burdening.

Quite pleasant, wouldn't you agree?

"Heunggongyun"

My next set of readings are a collection of papers regarding Hong Kong, all published around the time of reunification (i.e. 1997). While topics were numerous (politics, economics, culture, etc.), I focused on the sections dealing with culture and identity.

My parents and my grandparents had lived a significant portion of their lives over there and it's clear from my discussions with them that they clearly associate themselves with Hong Kong and not with China. And so, I'd say it's a very fair presumption that the "Chinese culture" that I've been exposed to all these years is indeed of the HK variety. But, what exactly is that?

"Heunggongyun" is a term used rather frequently in the couple of papers that I've read so far, literally "Hong Kong people" (Tam 1997 & Mathews 1997). The authors use it to denote the culture developed in Hong Kong and distinct from that of China's. According to these articles, Hong Kong describes a space not merely in which Eastern and Western values meet but as a one where they are integrated. Add to that the diversity and emphasis on city-life that comes with living in an international business hub as well as the possibility of great self-created success and you may very well have the core ingredients of "heunggongyun".

Of course, the concept described above may very well be a bit antiquated. These articles were, after all, written in 1997, just as reunification occurred. With such a major change, certainly a sufficient amount of time would be required before any trends in the evolution of the "heunggongyun" mindset could be observed. According to the Mathews, the attitude in Hong Kong had already been shifting away from "Hong Kong apart from China" to "Hong Kong a part of China" and I'd imagine it's only kept shifting in that direction ever since. Also, my impression is that, since 1997, China, at least its urban centres, has become vastly more Westernized as well as affluent. And as a final point, it does seem the idea that one can achieve great successes through personal effort seems more of an artifact of Hong Kong during the post-war and ~1960's period. And so, taken all together, the concept of "heunggongyun" today is probably much less distinct from Chinese culture than what it was when these articles were written.

Nevertheless, antiquated or not, these readings have been informative, to say the least (there should be a couple more posts just from these two readings coming up). Hopefully, this is the right track. I certainly feel like I'm getting closer to something ... important.

1. Siumi Maria Tam (1997). "Eating Metropolitaneity: Hong Kong Identity in yumcha". Australian Journal of Anthropology. 8:291-306.
2. Gordon Mathews (1997). "Heungongyahn: On the Past, Present, and Future of Hong Kong Identity". Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars. 29:3-13.

si quando precor...

It seems I only come to you when I feel hopelessly overwhelmed, more as a sort of last alternative than anything else. But I'd be lying if I said I didn't find comfort in those rare moments when I do turn to you. Tomorrow scares me. I'll be going around, facing what I can only imagine as a seemingly endless torrent of rejection. I can just see the looks on their faces right now: either apathetic or disdainful, but always simply cold. I wish tomorrow would never come, that somehow I could just stay in this moment for just a bit longer.

Lately, I've been losing sleep, again. It seems those demons have finally caught up with me. And all I have is this chipped blade and this decrepit armor, totally useless. The last time that I hit the trough, I cried out to you and I remember that, soon afterwards, there was a definite sense of peace. Something was able to melt away those choking anxieties. I pray that you would be with me again, if only for a just a little bit longer until I get over this all too familiar hurdle.

Ah, me of little faith. In retrospect, maybe I shouldn't let these little waves throw me into such disarray.

Appendix 3

Just a few quotations I want to get down before I return this book (the one on mixed-blood Aboriginals).

My mother's cousin owns a shop on the reserve, so we go and visit her every now and then. I was up at the reserve recently, and I went to see her. And she gave me a really big hug. I think it was a turning point for me. It was almost as if receiving a message - "It's okay, you can come back. You're a part of this family now." Maybe I always was but this was an acknowledgement of it. It felt really nice.
- A "C-31" Story

But you know, I still feel kind of disconnected, sometimes, around who I am. Because when I really put it in perspective, coming from an Indian family - there's not one person in my family that has not been affected by some kind of violence. I have cousins in prison. I have people who killed themselves. I have alcoholism and residential school. This is my blood family, but I still feel pretty disconnected from all of those experiences. It's hard to explain, because genocide touched me in a different way.
- An Adoptee's Story

These excerpts are from the stories found in the appendix. They are the last two in the section (in the order presented) and I can't help but think that the author had indeed intended the ordering of these notably varying accounts.

I'm definitely going to try and pick up a copy of this book somewhere (though it's definitely available on Amazon, I'll check the bookstore first).

Active transport

So, recently, as per the past few insipid blog posts, I've been reading on the topic of culture and identity. So far, I've gone through works regarding the cultures of the Vikings, Mi'kmaq, "mixed-blood" Aboriginals, and a little bit on Chinese diaspora. I honestly wouldn't have minded reading more on the Aboriginal cultures but that, ultimately, is something that I won't be able to fully relate to.

And with that line of thinking I've begun reading this work on Chinese diaspora  ("At Home in the Chinese Diaspora: Memories, Identities, and Belongings", edited by Khun Eng & Davidson, 2008). One chapter spoke on the role of intergenerational transmission of memories in creating senses of nostalgia and belonging, particularly in those whom had never experienced it first-hand. I remember one phrase in particular: "culture is a discursive construct rather than a natural one". The idea is that memories of home are conveyed not en masse but are done so in a purposeful way in which only information that contributes to the narrative that the conveyer wants to construct is passed on. Well, that's my interpretation of what it means, this book is actually heavily academic so I really do feel out of my element as I go through it.

I took from that reading that the development of cultural knowledge is an active process. And so, if I do want to break out of the current cultural confusion, I'll need to start engaging the people around me that had at one point been immersed in "Chinese". It's not like I can just put a book under my pillow at night (not that I really use it nowadays) and hope that the information will enter my brain via passive diffusion, right?

And, no, it's not a particularly radical notion in that I have to exert effort in order for my will to be enacted. Still, I'm glad that I came across this. I really think there is a good chance this simple concept would've completely eluded me had I not encountered it. I'm not exactly the most critical of thinkers...

Can't stop

I can't stop, I can't stop yeah
I can't stop, I can't stop yeah
-"Can't Stop" by M83

When I told my friend that I periodically went to campus to read, he suggested that I not as I should really get away from the place that had caused me so much stress during the year. I appreciate the sentiment, but, as I lie here stricken with these thoughts and emotions that I thought I had finally been able to purge myself of, I can say with some semblance of confidence that it was never really the institution that set me on my downward spiral, but quite simply just an uncontrollable impression of inadequacy. And that is something that follows me around like a bad habit.

I've been taking the summer easier in the hopes that I could have some time to gather up those broken, shattered pieces on the floor around me. For a while, I really thought I was making progress. But, now, as I hit the two-month mark of my self-imposed vacation, I realize that I'm really still a smouldering wreck inside. I just wish I knew what I could do. The usual suspects of my anxieties are as easily discernible as the birds casually chirping outside my window or the sun that's set to rise about an hour from now. I guess there aren't too many things I can do about them (since regret comprises a majority of my qualms, and, well, simply put, I can't go back in time). However, I guess I should go ahead and take care of a few small things.

Maybe then I'll be able sleep again...