How long had it been?
Oh, I do love Ancient China periodic dramas, but only if it is well done. Since I am so infatuated with this one, it is quite obvious that this is a good one!

Starring Liu SiSi and Nicky Wu (unaging legends, as we call people like him…… I grew up watching him, and now I have grown up, his face is STILL THE EXACT SAME!) as well as other stars, the cast is strong!

As I watched this drama, I kept thinking back to the days where I watched Huan Zhu Ge Ge, the popular drama based on the popular novel. After that drama, I remember for the first time in our lives, my sister and I picked up chinese novels and read through them meticulously, searching for the next book in the series, despite the daunting chinese words squeezed into tiny pages. So I am considering reading the story online, but this is….. really a sad story, choosing to stick to the original history in terms of big events.

Enough with my ramblings! Let me start making sense.
(Clockwise: Block-wood 10th prince, Diligent 13th prince, icy-face 4th prince, Maertai Rouxi, virtuous 8th princ, 14th prince, and venomous 9th prince)

Context is simple, really. Modern 2011 woman Zhang Xiao stumbled back into the past, in the Qing Dynasty under Emperor Kangxi’s reign, after a car incident cum electric shock. Her new identity is the daughter of General Maertai and younger sister of the second wife of the 8th Prince, Maertai Rouxi. She was later sent to the palace and developed a love relationship with the 8th prince. However, knowing the history, and against the ancient idea of a man marrying many wives, she was unwilling to accept the proposal of the 8th prince. She later fell in love with the “icy-face” 4th prince, who later became the Emperor Yongzhen after Emperor Kangxi’s death.

Unconsciously, she got involved with the fighting and ploys among the princes and unwilling hurt her love, 4th prince and cause her soulmate in that century, the 13th Prince to be imprisoned for 10 harsh years. It was only later that she realised that all these hurt was caused by her, and she wished she had not done what she had done. The story ended in tradegy, and it was a really good crying exercise =..=

Many mentioned that this is the first time where the Emperor Yongzhen was portrayed as a man whom people wanted to sympathise with, but then again, this is the first time with focus on his emotions. You can see the rough relationship in the diagram below. Do that note that “Luo Xi” here is a spelling mistake. It should be “Rouxi”, also Royalty (blue colour) is also of Manchu race…

When I think about the 8th prince and the 4th prince, I say, they are well matched in this rivalry. 8th prince is born of a mother without enough status, and thus was looked down by all in the palace. He worked hard for his position, and gained the title “Beile” at a very young age of 17/18 (?). He gained his power and support by the various princes and big lords though his own hard work as well.

While the 4th prince’s mother is of a high enough status, his mother is often too strict on him and chooses to ignore him in favour of his brother, the 14th prince. He is calm and collected and extremely serious, but often mistaken as cold-hearted. Probably, the only one who truly understood him and stood with him all the time was the 13th prince, who lost his own mother and was his childhood playmate. He can’t be more alone and lonely.

Both the 8th prince and the 4th prince were intelligent and know how to play this game well, thus making it a really good match.

(In the foreground, Emperor Kangxi, who was acted by veteran actor Liu Hongren – love his acting!!!)

I remembered him in another periodic drama, of another dynasty, where he was a man with power and position, and wanted to overthrow the emperor. Then, he had looked like a man who wanted the throne, but did not really look like a real emperor even when he sits on it. Here, he was FULLY the king. Admirable acting indeed!

The princes in the scene celebrating the 10th prince’s birthday. Don’t know who is the prince in the middle is, but I think he is the 12th prince? From left to right, 10th prince, 13th prince, <who?>, 15th prince, 4th prince, 8th prince.

Imagine my delight when they did this for one of the promotion of the show. Left to right, 4th prince, Rouxi and 8th prince. They look so in character even though this is just the “fashion show” in conjunction with promotion of the show.

Of course I favour the 4th prince! I haven’t seen him since his role as Wesley in Wesley’s adventures. Oh wait! I did! In Liaozhai… the supernatural tales of ancient china. Incidentally, Liu Sisi, the actress for Rouxi, acted in the same show, but in different story (the show is split into 4 stories) with Nicky wu’s. Nevertheless, this is the first time he shaved his head for a perodic drama, and reviews are good. I don’t know if this is just because of his new image in this show, but I always thought his acting is adequate but never that good as in this show. This time, Nicky wu did impress me with his “icy-face 4th prince”, bringing him to another “peak” after his singing days.

As for Liu sisi, I admit I do not watch much drama, so I am kind of missing out on a lot of actions. So I shall only compare this show with her other one I’ve seen, Liaozhai. There and now, I see a lot of growth. Though her character at that time was more… emotionless, I was expecting more from the acting, for I felt the character was more than the slightly wooden performance given by her. Now, I see she can be implish and rude and fascinating and gentle and everything else too!

Ah, I need to really set this drama aside and continue my life as per normal now. Luckily chinese new year holidays gave me days to watch.

Not everyone can walk with you for the entirely of your life. There are thousands of millions and billions of people in this world. How easy is it then to search for one willing to walk with you all the way?
Not easy.

So cry.
Because crying can make you feel better, and because then, you will know what else to do – Move on.

Dear Mother,
Please stop using that tone on that poor girl.
Everyone should be able to cry…..
To be unable to cry is a terrible thing.
You are right.
Chinese new year is here.
But that does not mean that everyone can be happy.
Happiness is something that can be ordered.
It is something that a lot of people can search, but can’t find.
So let her cry.
Especially this is Chinese New Year.
I hope you understand…
Not everyone is a hardened warrior like you.
You worked hard and fought to live your life.
That is admirable.
But she’s not you.

Cry.
I will blast music into my headphones and pretend I can’t hear you.
So Cry.

I did not enjoy anticipating it becoming a live drama. 

I knew it would be spoilt. Destroyed. Like Twilight. And then horribly threw it away. The story is the same, yes, but the medium is different, and the people working on it, their ideals… they are all so different, that it is hard to expect the same kind of quality. How one director sees the piece of work and how another interprets it is so different, so vastly different, that they two would definitely produce TWO DIFFERENT WORK, and that is where I decided I will stop torturing myself and watch the live adaption. 

Lack of intensity. Using of popular korean stars to act and thus compromising on the fluency of lines delievered and accuracy of speech spoken…… to say the least, those were the most obvious offends that should have been avoided. I shall stop here, before I run myself dry criticising. 

I am just keeping quiet… trying to wait for the time to come where I have to handle them..
And listening and listening
and listening
As my heart beats faster and faster and the familiar (almost too familiar) feeling of fear approaches in one silent move and captured my heart. 

Photo Manipulation 1

This was minor adjustment to enhance the colour…

But, as prior with this shot, I had others “green shots”, and somehow, though I love the greeneries and everything, it became apparent that too much green is not good….
So I decided to do something with the green this time round. And maybe because I got too sick of having to deal with green, though it is still a wonderful colour.

Photo Manipulation 2

I was told to upload this photo into the group’s dA account…
I hope you see my dilemma.
I had taken this shot as a point-and-shoot kind of photo, without much thought other than to record, from a certain time of view. Therefore, I had made do with the “it’s not that good” kind of thoughts, thinking, “it will do since it managed to capture the main character.

If I were to take this photo with more thoughts than the above, Then I certainly would have preferred to have more of the swing we were on in the frame, and not just sticking in the side of it. You would see it as the rod at the right hand side of the photo. I could have done a bit more for this shot, but that would be doing so much more and making it better.

Also, I did not wish to sign in into the group’s account…… esp when I do have my own account.

Because I don’t want to go back to work.

I am an escapist. I know.

In the mean time, I am starting to upload previous year’s Chess cosplay annual event into photoblog and dA….

It feels weird, that it happened so long ago, but only a year just past recently….
If only my time at my workplace will fly too, and it is time to resign.
If only.
-but then again… if it flies, that means I have put up with a lot of …-

And I need to stop trying to drag my nights staring at computer screen and clicking randomly….
Need to start editing work….

There are people who believe in the good of others, and there are people who can mostly see the bad. Perhaps I belong to the latter group?

Art… and not only art, is many different thing to different people. I do not understand what is the purpose of that person, nor do I agree with the person’s ideals. Such, we are different people. But perhaps that person was offended by my remarks? Who knows? I just said that her question was useless. To her, like me perhaps, she may have felt too strongly about the views she holds important.

It is upsetting that we met through a piece of my work. If there are someone who could understand my work, I would have hoped for that person who could understand and agree with my point of view. But Art is vast and different through different eyes and mind, and no one can manipulate.

So I will have to let go. And hope I may never see or meet this person ever again, on the same stance, wondering if there is something that connected us through that first piece.

For all I know, I call it Art, someone might just call it a few dump lines of words.

changed it into a photoblog because I love the new skin WordPress has…

First photo-intense post (more than one photo in a post) was Steampunk gathering on 31st december 2011.
Managed to get some really good pics, though some were blurish here and there.
I really credit the good photos to the camera, Mark Sein II, and those bad blurish ones to moi.

Still trying to figure out how to get good image into a frame.
Steampunk gathering was a good way to find out.
Though I don’t like this year a lot.
I only like it when it ended.
Thanks goodness…
no more of such like todays.
Anti-socials should act like anti-socials.
Strangers overwhelm and terrify me. These strangers intimidated me, which I admitted to Postman.

Wanna grow stronger at communicating with photos…
and at writing.
This year, gonna focus on what Bartender called the “Se gigild Project”.
Only because that wordpress name was taken and I had to go for old english that it ended up being the Se gigild project.
Need to beef up and edit more….
All chapters written already, but last chapter still not posted.

Oh well. Enough with that.
I drink to your health (ALL of your) this new year.

On 15^th December 2011, a train on the way from Raffles Place to Jurong East suffered a fault. Most of the lights went out in the cabins and finally, the train stopped, in between City Hall and Dhoby Ghaut. The distance was negligible, really.

In between the time when the train driver was busy answering to the questions the pesky passengers posted while running here and there from cabins to cabins to solve problems and checking the train and try to get it back into working conditions, I ignored the lack of air-conditioning, the darkness, and continued reading. Soon, I alternated between napping and reading, changing to the other when one did not suit me any longer.

According to the lady sitting next to me, who informed her friend on the phone, we had been stuck in the train for about 30 minutes. I watched as the train driver rushed back to the start of the train, where we were, saying that there’s no use for “you” to follow him, for he is as stuck as “you” are. The “you” was a man who persisted in following him, whatever good it did. In between all these, the Train driver continued to speak through the PA system, assuring us that he had contacted the stations, and apologising for the lack of air conditioning, and asking us to please be patient.

I will admit it, he did not have the best of tones, the nicest of voice, but his voice kept me from panicking. It was…. warm, in a way.

Then, banging was heard. Passengers’ hopes raised, and people got out of seats. More banging, and hope did came. The driver informed us that they will open the train and let us out onto the track, one by one, and lead us to the station. Excitement is now in everyone’s blood. We were lucky, being at the head, we managed to get out quickly.

I switched off my mp3, pulled my headphones away and enjoyed the mini excursion. There was a ramp, and the head of the train was missing, or it was camouflaged or hidden or something, but the cabin ended with a hole and a ramp, and men were there at the end of the tramp, offering their hands to us, even if they were strangers stuck on this job. The driver was there too, (and if he is not the driver, I am sorry for mistaking, but it is so much easier to call you the driver) and he told us to be careful, and to take photos when we are on tracks (meaning, be careful while walking down the ramp, and don’t lose focus just because you are taking photo on the ramp… take photo on the railway tracks instead) as it is a once in a lifetime opportunity. His humour was much appreciated. I thanked him jovially and he probably did not know why.

We walked the small distance towards Dhoby Ghaut station, and entered the platform of the station through the underground railway tracks that trains run on. Those of us who were stuck on that faulted train knew what happened and went straight for the circle line, though it was later (and with humour) when I entered into the next train, that I realised that the Circle Train faulted yesterday.

The detour was not appreciated, and I had been hungry and in need of the washroom before the journey, but halfway through, I had to wonder if I my stomach needed a filling more, or if my bladder needed a leak more. According to wifey, I can do both, except not at the same time. By the time I reached Bishan station, I was amused by the man who carried the sign saying that train service towards this place was down, and the blank to state when it is back up was not filled in.

We were told by the PA system, multiple times, (that they have to change people saying it) which line is still working, and the alternatives. Well, the people back from where I came were luckier, for they had free shuttle service. The rest of us had waited and waited for the next train to come, but it never did.

I decided to make another detour, and took the Circle line further up to the east west line, where I ended it and went to the north south line again. You could imagine how exhausted I was. When I reached the Circle line again, the staff was sure that the north south line was up (at least the end that I wanted to reach) while I was sure that the entire line is now disabled. In the end, I went back again, and it was disabled, like I thought it to be.

So the detour was made. When the train reached Farrer Park, I thought of Honey (Mad woman), and smsed her, in my own words what that became a portion of a poem, because, I had never thought I would land in this situation, and this experience reminded me terribly of my lonesome travels. I wished I could bunk in with her, but no, I can’t, so I made my way obediently back up, and onto the north south line again, which had recovered (at least in the parts I wanted it to be).

And the journey took 2 hours or so.

I am exhausted. Tired. Weary. I showed my tired face so maybe people know and don’t disturb me that much. Frankly speaking, the one thing I did not want to hear, absolutely, was how bad the MRT was, with the faults and etc, but it is also the one thing that I heard. I exploded. Imagine, this is only one small part of my trying day. I don’t even want to describe the rest of it. And yet, I was forced to listen to more negativity. How much more negativity could I hold?

This entire week had been trying on me, especially emotionally. I ended up more weary than I had expected to be, and why is the weekend not here yet?

So sorry for complaining, I need to release some negativity, you see, before my beloved family members fill me up more.