Mart-deBlog

I finished my papers and had one open week planned before leaving, to do those last things worth redoing. Bas returned from his trip through South-East Asia and was there to check out Hong Kong. Besides the retakes, there were also room for things I still hadn't done and Tai O, a tiny fishersvillage on Lantau, was one of these new places allowed in the supposed week of nostalgia. So up we went, boat and bus to where the Hakka people of Hong Kong originate from and still refuse to leave their cool mansions on wooden stakes. Tai O had exactly that surreal streak I needed. There are villagers looking a little off when you pass by, there are orderly straight tracks but also chaotic alleys that lead along the houses above the water, houses that are sometimes made of wood and at other times completely of pale metals. We walked up this hill passed a 'no trespassing' sign. Dogs started to bark somewhere, invisible until they jumped out of the surrounding green and started their bare teethed chase. We ran. We survived and ate fish and hired a little boat to search for pink dolphins. They weren't there although we did find an amazingly red house. And Snowhite, caged. And the sun set while fisher's boats returned to their harbour and I read a Deleuze text about the lasting of the past. It was a day in my last week but also a day containing that whole week in it's surreality, a day cut from all other days in being momentary but simultaneously lost in the continuity of being away from home, a day when the world spins as fast as my head and experiences can become the over-symbolic still life of a white bird flying away.

Friendwise, being on exchange can be rather frustrating as everyone knows there is too little time to dig and too much time for just mutual smiles. You don't want to care too much because you will leave, but you can't care too little either with all the experiences craving for social context. There is the constant temptation to settle in a web of fellow exchange-students and create this pathetic island of internationality cut from surrounding nationality. In my case, I don't know whether it should be 'I managed to find the right people' or 'the right people managed to endure me', anyway I am very grateful for how it was. Just some blinkers:
The spontaneous 'lets meet-up'-email of Kathy (2nd pic) and chilling in Starbucks; the get-outs with Tesse (3rd, far left), the clubbing with her friends, the hot hotpotting and the bitching 'bout Dr. Lau; the long conversations with Tennia (1st pic), her admirable ideals of changing cultural wrongs, all her wonderful uniqueness contrasting with the common Chinese student and her like-mindedness making me feel so at home; the long-forgotten gaming with namesake and roommate Martin (bottom pics), eating kooky delicacies together, his tolerating of my messy quirks and all his veteran tips that helped me survice the crazy jungle of HKU.
XieXie / M Goi!

So, these are the last days of my time in Hong Kong, so reflection kicked in. For now, I just want to mention a mistake I made. At some points, especially in the post 'Judging the Mass', I attacked the lack of rebels and odd-balls in Hong Kong; completely ignoring the fact that perception of the mass is a complete abstract category. Now, I am not saying that the mass suddenly doesn't exist, the only thing I forgot is that these sort of concepts are extremely dangerous in the naive eyes. When dropped in a such an unknown and alien environment, you try to make sense of the surrounding world through the 'big categories' first, focussing on the many, see how the people generally are. One cannot accurately judge the particular things on their particularity when completely clueless about the common, so I came to realize. But then, wherever you are, the mass will always be stinky, and this feeling is exactly what makes an individualist. This still doesn't save those individuals who indeed continually join the mass and enforce it (they still suck), however, it's just plain evil to judge the individuals here for not being individual. Why? Because it ruins those individuals who do strive for differences. And there are really amazing characters here just as they are anywhere else. I can bitch about the mass and I can bitch about one individual but it's ignorant to judge about the individual as a mass, especially in this case. How cheap this may sound, 'one person does make all the difference' but only a difference to me if I recognize it. It's such a stupid mistake on my side to forget the individualist person who is different from the many, only because they are not many.

Here is a fact about me: I'm quite possessed by my search for idealisms, be it by the sublime in music and film, perfection in language and story, the supreme philosophy, the ultimate in tree, garden, building, clothes. And here is another fact: I've been girlfriendless for almost 3 years now.
Now, I believe these facts go together. I mean, one reason that there has not been anyone is simply my stupid obsession with beauty, that ideal transcended beauty. You have to realize, here it is even worse than in Holland, as in Hong Kong there are models shining in my face at every corner, and some of them seriously take the air out of me: "She is it!" goes my twitching brain, "..." goes my thumping hart and "gottagottagotta have her!" goes my body. Unfortunately there are also these mirrors on every corner, again taking the air out of me: "HAHA" goes the brain, "MUHAHA" goes the hart and "You stupid pathetic moron, who do you think you are!!" goes my body. Then I went yesterday to this pretentious nightclub where many models of Hong Kong hang out, and indeed, some of them make me fall to bits, and indeed they don't even see me, and indeed I don't see any other girl than that one ideal girl. This is serious. Especially, because I know it, I have tried to rid myself of this stupidity but the urge for the ideal girl has the exact same source as my search in music, film and theory. There is a pattern in all the things I love and, whatever the medium, values just seem transgressive. In other words, if I stop being obsessed with model-beauty, it would kill my urge for that what makes me enjoy life and intensify my experiences. So, here I am, left with this mind-screwing conundrum: do my pleasures create the suffering; if I ever settle for less than I desire, would it blowup my drives and make me old and dull? I can't kill my search for ultimate beauty but then, I can't be alone either. Well, until I figure this out, I'll just try to hide in my pleasures. And away I go.

an ode and a woe
to roads' flat sorrow
so slow its moving
in the urban meadow
behooving its go
only the longing
for tongueing a fly
and a cry for more
the roar of an orgy
and tadpole galore
sad lore of its wishing
butt cheeks squishing
instead of that dread
the down-swishing axes
chopping the hopping
ending reflexes
of plumb bumpy legs
tea, eggs and congee
see how I scoop
and plea, why o why me
a group of them flocking
in my fucking soup.