Curse of the Golden Flower

Saw "Curse of the Golden Flower" last night with hubby. The visuals and the attention to details were amazing. I was suddenly pulled into a life that was really rigid and so full of rituals. I enjoyed the movie because of the visuals and the built-up tension it showed. I felt like sitting on the edge of my sofa, anticipating the climax...wondering where the story would take me.

I wonder, though, why are there so many movies with this kind of ending? The ending reminds me of my feeling when I watched "Hero" and "Raise the Red Lantern", and "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon." All of these movies are Zhang Yimou's movies, btw.

Here's the trailer of "Curse of the Golden Flower":

Some of the visual beauties in "Curse of the Golden Flower" reminded me of some scenes in "Hero", just like in this one (the fight scene starts at 1:00):

Whenever I check out movies in imdb site, I always like clicking on trivia part. Do you know how long it takes to shoot the above fighting scene?

Here's the answer: 

"The lake scenes took almost three weeks to film because the director insisted that the lake's surface had to be perfectly still and mirror-like during filming. Due to the natural currents, this occurred every day for only two hours starting at 10am. To adjust to this phenomenon, the filmmakers arose at 5am each day to begin five hours of preparation and set-up."

And I bet many people still remember the lovely fight scene among bamboo trees in "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon":

And while reading this trivia page, I chuckled upon finding these sentences:

"Concerned that Western audiences would not be able to tell Andy Lau and Takeshi Kaneshiro apart in the beginning of the film as they are dressed similarly, Yimou Zhang had Kaneshiro's character eat peanuts throughout many of the opening scenes to distinguish them." 

That paragraph describes R2's feelings whenever he watches this kind of martial arts movies. He says that he enjoys watching Asian martial arts movies, but sometimes in movies that are fast-paced, he loses track on the characters he he he he he...

Anyway, I think among those four movies, I still enjoy "Curse of the Golden Flower" more than the others, but for some reason "Raise the Red Lantern" has left the deepest mark in my heart.

Interracial Facial Recognition

In one episode of The Good Wife series, a crime witness is asked to identify the perpetrator (they are of different races) and the witness managed to pick up the wrong one. In the end of course they find out the right perpetrator, but an investigator for the law firm finds out about interracial facial recognition or cross-race effect.

Pic source: http://www.glitter-graphics.com

Basically speaking, normally people of a one race have trouble identifying faces of people from a different race (unless they've spent much time with the people of that certain different race). It has happened to me and R2 as well.

When we were watching Ip Man, R2 stated, "I really like watching Asian martial arts movies, but my problem is that they all look the same and it's hard for me to remember which is which." Yep, I can understand his problem, especially during fast action scenes when many people are fighting one another and there are many people involved in the fight/war/battle. And in some Asian action movies, the pace of the movie is very fast, so it's kinda hard to distinguish which is which if you're not used to Asian faces.

When I first started helping out at the daycare, I also had the same problem in remembering the kids. Mind you that there were only about max. 15 kids in the class per day (normally between 10-12 kids at once), but some days some kids didn't come or they came earlier than the others and vice versa. Thankfully they had put the pictures of each kid in the hall along with their names below it, so I took a pic of that with my mobile phone and at home I tried memorizing the faces and the names so that I wouldn't mix them up. After all, some kids had certain needs and if I didn't remember which was which, there would be trouble.

My Japanese friend has also told me a similar problem. She's volunteering in schools in this area and she's been to many different schools and she's met so many different teachers, but the problem is that she doesn't remember which is which anymore - except perhaps the ones that she's met the most.

That's also my problem when I started working in my current workplace. Let's just say that approximately on a 6-hour shift as the main cashier, there are at least 200 transactions (during high season the number can even be over 300 transactions). In the beginning everything just whizzed by, but after some months I started remembering the regular customers' faces.


At my workplace, every now and then, a certain customer wants us (the cashiers) to hold a certain product for him/her to pay later during the day or even the next day. Many times over I can't even remember the person who's booked that certain product, but fortunately normally I'd ask them to write their names down and then they do come back and let me know in detail about what they want.

Another type of problem that I encounter sometimes at work: I remember one day a grandpa came by and said, "Remember me? I came here yesterday." Errrrrrrr...that's a really tricky question. Unless something remarkable or weird or crazy happened when he was there and unless he was a regular customer, I would probably forget about him...but then again it made me feel kinda sad that he was hopeful about my remembering his face he he...Ahhhh...life oh lifeeee...Now I'm rambling...

Suicide Rate

Found this text while browsing through Time Magazine today. It's pretty disturbing, but it also made me think.

"A lot of Asian people just work without any other things to make life more interesting; if they lose their jobs, it throws their life into total disarray," said Paul Yip, director of the Centre for Suicide Research and Prevention in Hong Kong. "If the financial crisis is going to have an impact on suicide rates, it'll be more serious in Asia."

Rises in male suicide rates a year after the 1997 Asian financial crisis.

South Korea: 45%
Hong Kong: 44%
Japan: 39%

Anybody has an opinion? I don't think I have enough general knowledge to make any statements on this quote, but I just think it's interesting what he said about Asians. At least this quote is totally valid when I try to think of what happened to my Dad after he resigned from work. He suddenly lost sense of his own value in life and his whole life went into "disarray". Glad to say that now Ken's existence has given back his sense of value in life.

I think one of the things that Indonesian needs is a place where the elderly can do plenty of activities together ('coz I know my Aunt who lives in Canada with her hubby can still do plenty of fun activities with other pensioners). Unfortunately I think if they do build (or have built) that kind of place in Indo, it's going to be SO costly that the elderly can't afford it. Back to ground zero then.

Oh well...just a little something to think about.

Assumptions

I've been meaning to write about this, but haven't had the chance. Well, remember the birthday party I attended on January 4th? I had a long talk with Vi, one of the guests.

She first started asking me how Arttu and I met, so I told her the brief version of it. Then she asked me, "Do you know what other people probably think about Asians marrying Finnish people? They probably think that they wanted to get married with Finnish people for their money or citizenship."

It didn't surprise me to hear her say that, but what surprised me was my own reaction. I didn't feel the need to explain myself to her. After all, what matters most is that Arttu's family knows that I'm not a gold digger. That's the benefit of marrying a foreign guy when he was unemployed HA HA HA HA HA HA HA...Ahem!

Anyway, as you probably know, then I left to the bar with some girls, whereas Arttu and the birthday girl and the rest of them went to a different bar.

In the bar, I also got to talk to Vi again. Well, she said that since they were all females, if somebody approached me or something, then I should have told her about it. I truly appreciated her gesture in trying to protect me. So she "assumed" that since I was an Asian, then Finnish guys would approach me.

I told her that I had never gone to the bars alone. Besides, I had never made eye contact with anyone too long. Then she said something that made me surprised. She said, "Well, but you know what people will think if you keep on staring at the floor?" I shook my head, since I honestly didn't know.

She said, "They'll think that you're depressed 'coz you've been abused or something. Anyway, speaking of abuse, here in Finland the social system is good, so if you're abused or something, you don't have to worry. You just need to tell the authority, you know? But anyway, I'm sure that your guy isn't abusive 'coz I can tell that you're a smart girl."

So she had "assumed" that I stared at the floor to avoid making eye contact with other guys. I explained to her that I didn't stare at the floors all night whenever we went to bars, but I just made sure that I didn't stare at other guys' eyes since that could be misinterpreted as flirting with the guys. I told her that I did look around the place, but I wouldn't make an eye contact with guys too long.

It was pretty interesting to see what other people have to say to me when they found out about my relationship with Arttu. To be honest, I never really thought about what other people (Finns) thought about me and Arttu. As long as my parents know about it and as long as his family accepts me, then I'll be okay.

But what I realized by having the conversation was that years back, I would have tried to explain to her about the truth about our relationship. I would at least felt the NEED to explain to her about us. But I didn't feel it anymore and it feels...LIBERATING!!! ;-D

But that brought me to my other conclusion from the conversation. How many times do I, do we, assume? It's so easy for us to just take some "samples" in our brains and then whenever there's a similar case, then we'd think it's just the same as the "samples"? Of course in some cases, this ability has been proven crucial. However, in some cases, this type of assumptions can be dangerous, or at least misleading.

Yeah, yeah, this post is just my rambling thoughts, but your two cents are welcome he he he he he...OK, now I'd better clean up the house before I blog-hop. See you soon, guys!!!!

glitter-graphics.com

Pressures

I've been reading some sites on the pressure to be thin in Asia and it seems that they're all in agreement with one another.

A friend of mine who was considered medium-built in Indo moved to Holland a few years ago and since then she'd received so many compliments on being tiny (she's lost weight over the years, so she's now considered average-built in Indo). She said that whenever she went back home to Indo, again she felt the pressure to watch her weight more carefully since she didn't feel slim or tiny in Indo.

One of the things I "hate" in Indo is what they considered to be "normal chit-chat topics". The "normal chit-chat topics" would be:

1. Marriage:

In wedding parties, you'll hear that question: "When's YOUR turn?" (especially if you've got a boyfriend and you've been together with him for more than three years and you're both old enough to get maried)

When old friends meet one another (they're old enough to get married), then usually they'd start by asking, "So, what do you do now? Have you got married? Kids?"

The worst thing is that when you're single at the moment and people keep asking those questions to you. And then before you reach 30, your mothers become more and more worried about your life and then she starts introducing you to the sons of her friends or friends of friends. Well, I know that it happens to single guys, too...their mothers start panicking and ask around to find "potential" girls for their sons.

2. Kids: This is one of the most annoying "chit-chat topics" EVER!!!

Imagine that after just being married for a year, everybody starts asking, "When are you going to have kids?"

The situation gets worse if you're a Chinese and your husband is the first born child in his family and your in-laws are DYING to have a grandkid. YIKES!!! It gets even worse if your husband is also DYING to have a son whereas you're dying to have a daughter. It gets even worse if your husband THINKS there's something wrong with you since you haven't gotten pregnant yet even after a year trying and then he wants her to take some tests to make sure there's nothing wrong with you. It gets even worse if your mother starts pushing you to take the tests since your mother thinks that your in-laws are DYING to have a grandkid from you. And then it gets worse when everybody you meet (friends, relatives) starts asking the question. Pressure, pressure, pressure!!!

I mean, COME ON, give them a break! I've read somewhere that 80% of marriage couples who have sex regularly without any protection can conceive in a year and that 20% of them ARE NOT going to conceive within a year!!!

It's not over yet, you know? Then if your first kid's reached 1,5 years old, everybody starts asking, "When are you going to have the second one?" (gladly usually they stop there as they assume you'd want to have not more than 2 kids)

3. Weight:

Some people, upon noticing someone getting a bit plumper, say, "Hey, you've gained some weight, haven't you?" or "Hey, you look plumper!"

Nice going!!! I never really had a HUGE problem with my weight (initially), but after some people mentioned that to me, I started to think I were such a fat cow! I hated those remarks. Once I realized that they'd really gotten into my head, I was ANGRY!!! I was feeling okay with myself, but I let their remarks make me feel bad. That's NOT okay. I've been healthy and my weight is still within my normal body weight range. How dare I let them make me change my mind about it?

The funniest thing was when I contracted lymphoma tuberculosis and my doctor said that my normal weight should be 44 kg, whereas some people had told me that with that weight, I looked chubby. Right! Ever since then, I decided that I'd decide what the best weight range for me (HEALTHY weight range) and I'd exercise regularly and stay healthy and I wouldn't let anyone else make me feel bad about myself, INCLUDING MYSELF (as long as I'm healthy). Period.

And you what the worst thing is? It's that they DO NOT compliment you when you've lost the weight you've gained. I think my friend's right. She said that Asians didn't compliment a lot, whereas westerners did. After moving here to Finland, I've learnt to give more compliments than when I was back in Indo.

Well, speaking of weight, I read something that made me COMPLETELY shocked. It was an article written a few years ago, yet I think it's still relevant enough to link here.

Read here: Asia's Killer Diet Pills

Here's the headline: Singaporean actress Andrea De Cruz needed a transplant to save her life after the diet pills she took damaged her liver


This is also what I read here: Calorie Count Forum.

My mum would call me from Indonesia and ask "Are u thin or fat?" We are chinese, and it's important to be a perfect daughter.. I gained so much after I came to the States, I guess it has something to do with less pressure that we have over here.. Over there, I was 96 lbs and they can still call me chubby. :( I even feel afraid to go home because people always say: OMG What happen with u????? What did u eat???? I can't recognize u anymoreee

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A women I knew/know who is very wealthy and japanese has threatened to cut her 21 year old daughter out of her will if she doesn't lose X amount of weight in X amount of time. I was horrified when I learned this! Until this point I never knew how bad it really was for some in the culture.

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i also happen to be asian and have lived in both asian and western cities. local asian people can be so unforgiving sometimes. for example, my aunt from hk who had come to canada to visit me was like, "omg! your arms are so fat now! how much do you weight?" when i said 115, she was like, "omg, when did you hit 100? you were so skinny back there!"

i wanted to say '...yeah, that's cause i'm a grown woman now...not a kid.' it made me want to crawl into a hole and die.

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Last year I went to Bangladesh for my brothers wedding and they have the exact same mindframe and belief that being super skinny is beautiful.

I am a UK size 8 (considered to be quite small over here) but when I was in Bangladesh I was made to feel as though I was obese! No clothes would fit me and everywhere I went people just looked me up and down. Even my cousins who live there were horrible because I wasn't a size 0 and therefore I wasn't beautiful. They completely screwed me up mentally and I've only just got myself back on track (only took a year!).

Looking back, they are just a bunch of malnutritioned mini's and I can't compete with that. I'd rather eat healthily and be healthy than starve myself to be one of them.

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Hey another Asian here. I'm one of those out of the norm ones since i'm 5'11 and weight 140 to 150 lbs ( i dunno exactly how much i weight)

I agree that it's the type of food and cultural difference that makes Asians tend to be on the skinnier side. At least it's less likely to see a size 16 in Asia......Before i came to canada i weighted 130 lbs and i was 16...now i'm 27 and i've gained 10 or 20 lbs....i believe it's the food that's available to you....and eating has become a kind of social activity.

I know the media is pushing a lot of girls going insane because I'll be called VERY FAT if I lived in Hong kong. I wouldn't want to go out at all because I know i'll be pointed at....it's really frustrating but I am in that culture background and I know it doesn't make sense but I am trying my very best to lose that 10 or 20 lbs....*I was already tall when i was 16.*

It's funny that all my Canadian friends call me too skinny, but all my Honger friends say (or imply) that i need to lose some weight.

And in Diet Blog, Bijou wrote this in the comment section:

i just wanted to add that the pro-skinny culture in Asia (especially East Asia) is much more institutionalized and vicious than it is here in the U.S. the young women there are supposed to be thin and fair-skinned, but never muscular. dieting is advocated while muscle-toning exercise is discouraged. my own mother warned me of developing bulky calves after i started working out. thankfully, my calves only got leaner. i actually avoid traveling back to Asia because it's like the parting of the Red Sea whenever i walk down a sidewalk - i can almost hear people thinking "Big American girl coming through, make way!" keep in mind, i'm 5'2" and 103 lbs.

I'm not really sure what I want to say by writing this post. Just letting off some steam, perhaps. LOL!!!

Just one warning, though:

WATCH WHAT'S COMING OUT
OF YOUR MOUTH!!!

Ahem. That's all I wanna say, I guess. ;-D