Obshchechelovek

Had lunch with L. He is about to leave for the UK. We passed three traffic lights by cutting a crossroad diagonally. Later he said: we could be grateful for just that. I thought he was making fun of the idea of ‘being grateful’. He continued to talk with ease, not showing any sign of trying to make fun of anything. Even though the suggestion was a bit extreme (feeling grateful for such an insignificant moment in life), I thought it was a really good advice. There are many things we can feel grateful for. But to be able to feel so for such an insignificant event means that the person has come a long way. The lower the threshold of gratefulness the more difficult to achieve. All the best to your new adventure, L.

I broke a document container. Not by accident. When was the last time? No, this is new. I thought by kicking it I could vent my anger. And yet, my heart continued burning. When can I get out of this loop of hopelessness? I have no power to launch an attack. I am sick, rotten, nearly dead. All this comes from my lack of sleep, as a voice inside me goes. It is the other way round. The idea of continual affliction takes away my sleep. I want to stay away. Anything. No, I want to see people…

When you see certain things before your eyes, you want to capture them so that they won’t disappear in your mind. A wish to linger on that scenery and the sensual experience attached to it. Photography in this sense is a protest against cinema. There is something old-fashioned about the former. An outcast trying to preserve certain moments in life. Cinema, on the other hand, keeps you distracted with its 24 frames per second. And yet we don’t pause a film. It’s unethical. I want to revisit film photography. Is that decadence according to Walter Benjamin? I met this middle-aged man while hiking with my boys in Ma On Shan. He showed me with pride his film photos taken with his Cannon film camera. Yes, they are different from digital. And that revived my passion for clicking my shutter again. Perhaps my take will be slightly different. I want to write my reflections alongside my photos. Not only to capture the moment, but also to linger onto it, with words, which gives a sense of endlessness to a closed space.

Fat. Very fat. American has the fattest and fittest people. It’s only in American can you see young ladies devouring crisps in a sports attire. What’s the point of doing exercise, one may ask. Virtually everyone walking in Commonwealth Ave is on the way to some exercises. They make you think: Oh yes, no wonder, American is always on top in sports. But I can’t help wonder at the same time: what if I don’t like sports? Will I be excluded from the ‘gang’?

Because of jet lag, I skip my lunch but desperately need food at 5 in the afternoon. Sadly in the vicinity of my dormitory I can only find a fried chicken shop. Hardly can I see any item that can be called healthy. Fried fingers, chips, garlic bread. Thanks god, I have two drinks to choose from: Coke and lemonade. I choose lemonade, thinking that it is healthier, but obviously it’s not. I put those fingers into my throat and leave the bread and chips aside. With an unbearable sense of guilt I throw the leftovers and the plastic bag into the bin. Gosh it’s my last time but I have tried many last times in different places.

On the way to watch the Blue Man Group, one of the black people in a gang shouts at a black lady on the street: ‘You look fantastic ma’am!’ ‘Thank you!’ ‘I wish you a great day!’ What impresses me is the lady’s gentle and appreciative response. While Hong Kong ladies may suspect ill-intention from the ‘appraiser’, Bostonian girls has no doubt. In fact, she has the obligation to answer nicely to a compliment made to her. I am shocked, which is then followed by a vague sense of bliss.

No, I must drink this again. I mean, coffee, a cup of black coffee. Freshly brewed. Not too strong, and not too soft. I know my friends – they drink coffee to keep themselves awake. They drink for productivity. Me too, I have insomnia after coffee. But I drink it so that I can push myself to an intensified mood. I love this half-ecstatic state. I think what I do not think. I smile to what I do not smile. No more grudges, no more cowardice. I am the hero of my mind – a cliche which I think of only in that peculiar mood!

A sense of everything interconnected. Bliss. A bliss that is not innocent. I observed idle talks in cafes. Intrigued by them, I delved into my writing notes. ‘Yes, this is the picture of the world, this dreadful world of distances and interest. One of the articles I glimpsed through was about how students fail. It said that students fail because in school they spend their energy in just coping with assignments, with an intention to finish them so that they can go and play after school. The tasks are completed robotically and the element of ‘let learn’ is gone.

The article goes on to criticise the bureaucratic policies at the University, which hamper the cultivation of a truly learning environment, e.g. timetabling, exit test, cutting classes, language medium, etc. They are all well said. The focus is mostly on the system and the policy, suggesting that environment determines consciousness. The articles gives the impression that the current education system is virtually a prison, killing all sorts of creativity and motivation. The question is: do we have a better solution? How do we stop comparing ourselves with others (Universities)? How do we go back to value unmeasurable values, such as care, self-love, sensitivity, responsibility?

It is more and more difficult to teach humanities. But still, a teacher holds the power and right to teach. That app. 120 mins are still more or less under his or her control, regardless of how the management team tries to devalue what they do. There is still a lot of space to inspire and educate before we start to criticise from a bigger perspective. Perhaps I should not use the word ‘before’, implying that we can’t do both things at once. In fact, we should criticise the system and continue to inspire students at the same time.

To inspire here means to cultivate a deeper understanding of humankind, not to give stereotypes hastily, and to express sophisticated ideas without jumping to conclusions. In humanities to inspire also means to have more reflections on the ambiguities in life, such as emotions, decision-making and standard of beauty. To inspire does not mean to foreclose debate, but to see things in new perspectives, ultimately, to become an open-minded being…

The term ‘world cinema’, if we are to define it, has to take audience’s experience into much consideration. Because what makes cinema ‘worlds’, or what is so ‘worlding’ about cinema is measured by the extent in which the audience finds the images unfamiliar. By that term I do not mean images of complete novelty, but images that appear absolutely normal in one film but strange in another. With the distractive quality of cinema, the audience is always in an active mode (Walter Benjamin). They begin to compare two cinemas in mind and see that an image would fit in ‘normally’ with one but not another. Although the image looks familiar in the present, they can imagine how unfamiliar it will be if it apply to another cultural context. In other words, world cinema does not solely depend on the content, but how widely-watched and comparative the audience are. A cinema that worlds is that which re-co-ordinates its images into a constellation that grows.

Chan knew that he was not talented. Every time when he picked up his flute to play, there was a voice flashed in his mind saying you are not good enough. He also knew that such self-defeating thinking was unnecessary. Chan’s friends said he played the flute wonderfully. In fact, he was the principal flutist in his county’s sinfonietta. His performance in the group was never praised by the director, but he hardly received any criticism either. Lots of the comments – including the one about him being untalented – he found from people’s speeches and faces. He had been playing the flute for 40 years. Is it a time to stop? He held his flute in his hands, wiping the surface of each button on the body. The sound chamber was covered with saliva after hours of practice. It had been a routine for Chan to clean the inside with a wooden stick attached to a cotton handkerchief. For some reason having to take out the wet handkerchief from the other side of the tube had become something disgusting. I should not have done that. I knew it was wrong, but I still did it. Newspaper reported today a teacher was charged of molestation to his students. He paused his cleaning. He wanted to moan and weep on his unfortunate situation. But at the same time he felt a strange distance between the self and the deed which he had committed. It was as if he was seeing in his mind someone else doing the it. I cannot make myself cry for someone I do not know. With that in mind he found himself more pitiable. But the more he saw the whole event a tragedy, the more repelled he was to a cry. If it was only me who is involved, but would that be possible? The wife and her family had known the news.  Sitting next to his wife asleep, Chan knew she would support him as always (such an assumption made him more guilty). But what if her parents request a divorce? What is the point of living when no one values me? He felt his life had been propelled by a force that was fuelled by many voices. But among these voices none belonged to him. Perhaps this is a lesson for me. It’s time to start my life again. He doubted whether he was optimistic enough to take all these as a ‘learning process’: shame, guilt, uselessness, being old and impotent, hypocrisy. How to finish myself painlessly? But I may be called a coward. The only person who does not despise me is my wife. But so what after the cry? His schedule today was packed. 9 students in 6 classes. He would soon be late if he did not pack the instrument at once. Have the centre heard of the news? Should I cancel the class before they call? He decided to take the bus to the centre. He might confess to the lady who sat at the reception. She is full of understanding and care. She will pity me. I will also talk to my students, ask them about their wrongdoings kept away from their parents. The city this morning looked entirely different. The sky was unusually bright. The details are so irrelevant and yet so vivid and unavoidable to Chan’s eyes. He wondered when this feeling was going to fade.

The Mission is an exploration of friendship – more specifically, male friendship. The forming of this amigo bonding, unlike many other gangster films, has little to do with women. In fact, the ‘ship’ becomes tougher and stronger because of the exclusion of women. Having said that, the brotherhood depicted in this film is atypical – it is propelled by wordlessness. The sound of silence. The presence of absence? Tacit understanding among the guards. Not sure if English can accurately translate the phrase 默契. It literally means a tacit agreement (I remember that is used by Engels in his working class book). Here the understanding operates at the level of the clique. There are four major gun scene. The tacit understanding gets better and better.

Dialogues are scarce in the film and that has to do with tacit understanding too. Part of the wordlessness is made possible by the fact that all characters follow a certain set of conventions that govern the triad world. If you like, the friendship needs not to be ‘built’; it’s always already assumed that the one you are going to work will is your friend. Or as a social work professor says, this is your ‘must friend’. The film is about how a must friend turns into your just friend, and even trust friend (to use again the professor’s phrase).

The guards are given a challenge at the end – how to settle the adultery committed by a friend, whom you have received order to killed?

When Curtis kills Rats so that Roy’s bar becomes peaceful again, his motive is again ambiguous. Yes, Roy is hyper and he cannot fully concentrate on his bodyguard work because of his chaotic business. So killing Rats will make Roy focus on his work again. But the audience is also invited to believe that the act is carried out out of the spirit of brotherhood. Not a move of the guards can be explained by a single cause; it is always overdetermined. A bastardised cause of self-interest and righteousness. Perhaps the crux of the whole discussion of the film is the de-romanticization of the triad righteousness. And yet, the film is not challenging but contaminating it by removing all the gangster from tearing into the most sentimental pitfall.