琴酒有感

半夜在慾望的驅使下，偷偷拖著不勝酒力的身體跑到雪櫃偷取食用冰勾兌琴酒。

室溫的琴酒 杜松子和歐白芷的濃烈香氣讓我難以承受，直到冰塊將她們的嘶吼降低為耳語。

在北歐聽歌軟件Spotify建立了gin drinking playlist，但是就如同宿命一般打開了李雲迪的Scherzo開始聆聽。如果我沒有放棄彈琴是不是今天也可以彈奏這種東西了呢？

我還記得孩提時候深圳的個室內，蜻蜓翅膀藍色的電子管CD機內聽這首歌的感覺，B&W音響除了顫動空氣，似乎也在撩撥我的心弦。這張專輯裏面每個音符我都能背出來，但是卻缺乏彈奏他們的技術。數年後的個室內，我用著垃圾不堪的AirPods嘗試重溫舊夢，然而卻是徒勞的。我起身，戴上高中時候買的HD1，硬是把進度條幹回開始。終於，聲音開始效仿回憶，接近我的記憶，一個我不想醒來的夢。

我對於舊宅，最喜歡的是那種千禧年歐洲現代主義的設計。那塊木地板雖然被我劃花，卻也覺得溫潤如玉，是我現在依然堅持在刺眼的亮光大理石地板上赤腳的原因，儘管“新中式”的醜陋依然暴力的刺向我的心靈。

樂章進入了柔板，蕭邦在冰冷的房間中寫下了這段傳奇的旋律，而我用玩笑，理性，甚至是人格掩飾的部分卻如同那個冰冷的房間一樣。我將看著那部分消散，像是暮光中被我點燃的，不可告人的秘密紙條，消散在風中，變成灰燼。不可觸碰，卻和羽翼一樣可以飛得很遠。

我想讀保羅·魏爾倫。用法語讀給女朋友聽。

我在想我以後的房間究竟看起來像什麼樣子。我可以輕易的為拍賣會的東西估價，輕易的設計出最優秀的室內裝潢，為何我今日，竟委身於此？

我似乎已經可以看見那個房間，觸手可及的mirage。牆壁上有一張巨大的中世紀掛毯，藤蔓和獅子纏繞著藍色華服的人。陽光透過巨大的玻璃窗灑落進室內。綠色的窗櫺細到可以看到暴雨，卻不讓其突入。角落有一張全尺寸的三角鋼琴，她的外套隨意的扔進張開的琴中。黃銅推車上的水晶醒酒器蝕刻著我的名字。這一切的一切，我似乎都可以摸到，張開眼，我身處陌生的天花板下。

那個將英國無價音響玩壞的小孩，會認出我今日的模樣嗎？如果能認出來，我也就此可以死去了。那雙琥珀色的眼睛，在陽光下散射出的光華，已經很久沒有遇到了。

在那之前，我會慢慢擦拭我的水晶杯，漫步在回憶中的。意識，是一種詛咒，如果不是因為我愛的人，我希望永遠不會在下一個夢之前醒來，我希望永遠彈奏者一架虛空中的鋼琴。

休克，震撼與給女友的博文

思量許久，也許我應該使用中文寫這篇博文，儘管她作為一門語言已經許久未被我寵幸。很久沒有寫作了，或許是2025對於我，亦真亦幻，甜美如同夢境。我看著時間從我的指間如同溪澗一般湍湍流過，我置身其中。

我那漂亮又聰慧的女友，請你原諒我每次只擅長在廉價的草藥酒後才敢於觸及真實的感情。我生性敏感，我懼怕我殘存的理智會在清醒的時候為了想要逃避，結束一切，而，自我毀滅。人之交往之真實，來源於窺探，然而我不敢窺探自身，因為我不知道何時線斷，那種感覺如同夢醒時分，宛如夢醒，惆悵、釋然，卻又抽離。

黃昏的落地玻璃窗前，無所屌謂的起來，真的是一件很爽的事情。

世界，會否會因為我的缺席，而停止轉動？

遇到你之前，我覺得這個答案是否。

然而我知道如果我就此離去，真正在乎我的人一定會很傷心，所以我不能就此離去。

所以我瘋狂抽菸，瘋狂喝酒，直到喉嚨生疼，腸胃出血，彷彿那樣才會讓我知道生命的脆弱，因為我的preceptor不是為這種等級的遊戲難度所調適的。

妳放心好啦，我的自毀傾向在可控限度，因為我是一個懦夫。韓國的兄弟看到這篇博文應該會給我發dm，問我是不是遇到了麻煩，為了那些關心我的人，我當然不可能死去啊。

你也許知道我曾經不是家中唯一的小孩，但是自那種事情發生以後，我不可能再以“反正死掉也無所謂”這種心態自居了，也不可能再去作為一個可笑的殉教者推動一種思想的發展。多麼可笑，一個人願意為抽象的概念和事業就這麼死去，卻因為世俗的限制，繼續苟活在這個世界上。

這麼談論下去，似乎博文會變的沈重，所以我將談論我的母親。

我的母后大人是一個可以和我討論任何哲學話題的人，雖然我並不總是贊同她的觀念。母后曾經在八九上街，可是因為如此最終似乎也沒有得到文憑。我不得而知箇中辛酸，只知道，作為混子的我沒有資格評論那個時代的年輕人，我會為了不被射殺而放棄踩著單車上廣場，而我也不可能和其他人討論茨維格，阿倫特和安蘭德。

莫非我的行為會讓她悲傷，所以我不敢在她的面前展露我的陰暗面。但是我也深刻的知道，世界上可能不會再有和她一樣了解而又喜歡我的親屬，所以我深愛著她。

對不起，不肖子孫未能振興家業，反令門前車馬日漸稀疏，把最後的期望寄託於我，卻仍可能失敗。

我的未來像蘇格蘭的晨霧一般，給予我足夠的私密感，卻也蘊藏著迷航的風險。彷彿，只要行差踏錯，就會墮入海邊的懸崖，和英版哈姆雷特那個凝望的海底一樣粉身碎骨，所以我因而放棄了犯錯的嘗試，和與之而來的，賭上身家的可能性。您還記得上一次我自信的時候嗎？那種可以以傲慢的態度行走在社會上的時候，那種進取的態度在我琥珀色瞳孔散發出來的光彩，上一次是什麼時候？我已經記不清那時的我的樣貌了。上一次的博客嘗試，和上一次房間裡的人懼怕我，和上一次我的話語有任何的重量，還是在小學的時候。

我十分清楚，母后是閨秀性格的人，如果我能夠，只要我能夠賺到足夠的錢買回一切，一間鄉間的攝政時期小房子，後院有一個小溫室種上他媽的六十幾種玫瑰，她會回到熟知的一切，也不會看著我如此虛度光陰而感到痛惜。母親，我只是需要在這個令人窒息的社會麻痺自我。

母親，駕駛著我因為賺到小錢一時衝動購買的英國v12小跑車，你究竟是什麼感受呢？為甚麼不願告訴我家中已經無能為力了呢？也許如果命運不一樣的話，你會對我的成就感到自豪吧。

為甚麼妳在我25歲的時候還需要從事工作呢？

為甚麼我在25歲的時候還未能夠在發薪的日子給你買點玫瑰酒和嶄新的禮物呢？

如果當初家裏沒有像今天這樣每況愈下，你會支持我去劍擊，賽車，你會支持我繼續玩音樂，在東歐的某個小國念哲學系嗎？每天下午的三點，我會在PH Blüthner前面給你彈奏德彪西或者蕭邦嗎？而如果我們沒有賺到錢，但也僅僅是維持了現狀，你是否會支持父親將鋼琴賣掉而去償還一些數字呢？真不甘心，往昔生活真像南柯一夢。

我知道不該向您追問這些，也不求答案，只是對自己的無能深感失望。

所幸，遇到了喜歡的女孩子，我的信用卡還能夠支付20年emo音樂會員瘋狂收聽黑裙子（fuck that），希望有朝一日妳會看著我們喝咖啡，雖然你從未見過她，但是我希望妳會喜歡她... 我遇到了想要永久繼續這般生活下去的人。

母親，您是否覺得家族中只有我繼承了外公的反革命學術權威路線，即使我已被學術界洗牌出局，為餬口學習自己並不喜歡的專業，卻依然在凌晨想像著在日本或者某個地方，東山再起後繼續學習自己喜歡的東西？

當我未能夠每年拿出一百萬資助外婆去用到FDA最新的認知藥物，您是否覺得愧對了外公？明明，這種責任不應該落在您的身上啊。我難道不應該向著你們所想像的那樣，亦或者成為令人尊敬的學者或是一個對家族有用的，快樂的人嗎？而當我又和外公一般，開始對抗著制度和系統，你又會不會覺得那本身是你應該完成的事情呢？

養育一個輾轉轉校、幻想自己生於香港好逃課，而不是被內地鄉巴佬湖南班主任的權術將我的正直按在地上摩擦，一天到晚自憐自艾的人，您是否早已心力交瘁？對不起，至今我仍未找到報答您的方法，但我不會放棄戰鬥。

Mother, you are the one that I relate to when I put king of hurts by the black skirts on perma loop.

很久沒去看看冰川湖和划船了，我希望下次見面的時候可以給您做飯洗碗。

他說他想留在深圳

他的深圳，是清晨七点钟在某校布吉地铁站外排队买北佬早餐的长龙，是4号沿线月租五千的单间，是在微信群里转发“港硕申请说明会求赞（甚至更差 澳门）”消息时小心翼翼的语气。他说想攒点钱，毕生愿望是买一套前海区高层小三通，还有一间学位房“给未来”，自我介绍不忘QS排行。

我不过握着吉州窑茶盏，凝视着金红色的茶汤，但那是女友在临沧云雾般的海拔上收下一座山头后空运的顶级滇红金针。客厅里有一台父辈80年代背回来的木色昭和空调，冷气冻头；阳台正对着明华轮，船边依稀可以看到消失的海岸线。那片宝蓝色的碧波，只存在于记忆中，仅有的证据是小时候在楼下玩的照片，定格在和平照相馆冲洗的爱克发Ultra 100里面。海面从白色的栏杆里探出头来。

他一脸激动要给我看顶级国产电车，我以为是高合Z，带绿线的冰裂纹手机上赫然是一台汽配城风格保时捷电车，告诉我经历了60几期摇号后，自己曲线救国成为了尊贵的粤B车主。六位数的号牌上有三个连号，尽管从他手机的还款提示我心里很清楚那多半是他的父母赞助的首期。

我翻过抽屉里一叠老相片。九十年代，我们家车库停的是黑牌 600SEL，旁边并排五台凌志，车头朝着深南大道的夜色。报废政策的到来让一些人来家里喝茶，因为我哭闹着不想卖掉上幼儿园时候的座驾，那时的我刚刚够到方向盘的上缘。当他们走的时候，那台灰色的平治在几个摩托罗拉大哥电话的操作下从粤B变成粤Z，屁股上多了一张反光车牌，继续驰骋在滨河大道的夜色里。

他兴奋的说要计划带我去吃brunch，给我看小红书一个热门打卡地。两瓣生菜陪葬在半死不活的甜椒和彻底死透了的奄列上。我翻着母亲当年在利兹读 PhD 时寄回的手写菜谱，我基于我俩健康考虑建议他整点粤菜。然后他带我去了一间装修无过却看起来太尝试怀旧的场所，用谭仔米线的粤语口音order，说这样才像本地人，吃着100一件的濑尿虾和60一片的东星斑水饺，完事了对着一张四位数的小票让我帮他拍照。

我想起坐车1小时在盐田海旁的铁皮屋里被部长从车上迎到桌旁，桌上是一碗蒸气四溢的2头鲍翅汤捞饭和顶级茶叶（大人们让我拿其他东西洗杯子），叼着烟的厨师将花生油锅给我泼在他从蒸柜里取出的老虎斑，给我拍了一张照片。夏日的雨点落在铁皮屋顶上，室内弥漫着一股黄金海胆炒饭的香味，我记得桌上有一碟濑尿虾，空壳堆满了巨大的不锈钢盘子，因为拨着手疼。大人们兴奋的讨论认识的渔民使用五条日本发动机的快艇将渔获送到厨房，以及清远林场走地鸡的品种。那种兴奋莫名其妙的相似。

他把前海当“产业圣地”，在欢乐海岸门口能看到的无人机秀自拍一张，玻璃写字楼直耸天际，不经意间传送了几张莲花山看到的LED夜色，赛博朋克风格的电路板海洋。我觉得深圳的飞鸟是可怜的，无论是白天的眩光，抑或是夜晚的喧嚣，就像住在巨大的华强北3000块一套的图吧RGB lifestyle机箱里面一样。N年前的一个夜晚，爷爷带我站在同样那些楼顶，看着灯光亮起。市民中心的烟火窜上夜空，他说，今后，这条街的招牌会比季节更换更快，他会不会想到，建设着城市的人，最终又带着汗水一文不剩的离开了这座城市，和像他一样抱有幻想的人擦肩而过？

他嘴上说“不卷”，心里还是盯着万象城（原来的那个）的新表橱窗。和我逛街的时候不经意漏出手腕上的江诗丹顿，对我斥走导购小妹的神情甚为不解，还在电话谈论前海活动上和“领导”同框一次，便对外解释为“政策窗口”。仿佛忘记了他初中带过，又急切的扔回抽屉的卡西欧，波衫和巴西配色小球鞋。我觉得，甚好还是不要告诉他零几年楼下的星巴克还未开业的时候请我去benchmark了他们咖啡机的口味，还送了我20斤刚出炉的咖啡豆，只因父辈搞市代理的朋友听闻我从塞伦盖蒂safari回来，想找个借口约我聊一下当地政府打猎牌照的发放，我告诉他我过去只是为了拍照，为某个保护大象的协会慈善拍卖黑白照片，说罢还是给了他一个电话，他又送了我20斤。

3点，他终于从前台挂满hype word的AI Web3 深度强化学习pre-A轮带期权独角兽公司下班，拍了张深圳湾大桥的夜景发来，说“今晚海风大，游人不多。高才过了，我们一起去香港”。

我坐进车里，司机把深夜电台声调低，窗外是深南大道的车流如织，即使是这样的夜晚。揽胜纯电模式滑过深圳音乐厅下的天桥，金色的大堂里曾留下过一张我和磯崎新先生在舞台中心的合照。欠曝光的照片上还能看见他的白胡子和深褐色的木头。我忽然想起童年在那个广场上听海阔天空的夜晚，所有的艺人都已经消失，留下一个变成食物广场的书城和某种土嗨的广场舞蓝牙喇叭。音乐厅金色的灯光依然凝视着这个愈发陌生的地方。

我靠在藤椅上，天井中风铃轻响，父亲种的夜来香正开，是时候离开了，让后来的人，生长在这但是又未曾生长在这的人，驱逐同样生长在这但是又未曾生长在这的人了。

Showa's Last Train

Life has derailed me in recent weeks. Unread texts from people I care about multiplied like dishes in the sink. Maybe I will go back to them before they start wondering if I was purposefully sabotaging our relationships. 

This month, I have been transfusing music from 1981. Yah Yah Yah from Chage and Aska is flowing out from a device I left illuminated—because a girl in a distant dream pulled the worn cassette out from her bag. 

"do you feel it now?", she exhaled with a scent of peach. 

When I awoke, my finger was already tightened on the rewind button. 

Tonight, when I close my eyes, the pale walls of my rental dissolved. The sea breeze comes first, and then the colours kick in—slightly off-green, like a pack of Fujifilm 400. The wood floor creaks gently under my bare feet. The sizzling of korokke and the smell of glazed onions, mixed with her faint peach fragrance. The shoji glows behind me with a dim light. A fan on the chabutai shakes its head in disapproval at her questionable demeanour, blowing away the summer heat as the last train pierces across my balcony into the night, like a whistling arrow. She was there, whispering all the unknown titles close to my ears, as she shared a Midori-menthol with me that was slightly too punchy. I remembered her lipstick marks on the filter.

Perhaps they failed to fully factory-reset me. I was left with the weight of a time I didn't exist. As I opened my eyes, the fluorescent light and the marble floor stung my retina as much as the rejection to leave my trace in this dwelling. "you will move soon". Fuck that. I immediately lit up a cigarette in the cold wind, not midori, a cheap malboro ice blast from the konbini downstairs. I snatched for my phone, memes, braindead rants, sexually frustrated 2025 kids... But then I saw it. An apartment that filmed tokyo love story was recently up for sale. In that same condition I remembered from television, in a price where Japan's inflation forgot to jack up. That is a place I am willing to bleed, I thought to myself. I am not staying here. I will go find her. 

Caffeine Level: Insufficient. Mood Dial: Unpredictable. Blog Output: ???

I was about to drown in Debussy, but then I remembered I owed my roommate a happy blog, so here we are.

It was a night on the balcony, drunk. When I realised that happiness exists for me, even in adversity. Happy things. remember... Happy things only. 

So tonight I was torn apart by insufficient nicotine, completely sober, and sexually deprived, yet overdue in my French homework. After 6-8 months (couldn't remember) without RTX 4090, I found myself playing Civilisation V. I have come to realise why people call that game addictive. Having sucked in any online games, I took my time in reading the tutorial. Afternoon flew past, I didn't even bother to stand up and smoke. It was about conquering the hexagons roleplaying Oda Nobunaga. Why haven't I discovered this earlier when it has been sleeping in my library for more than 4 years? 

As I took a 12 am shower, how very un-American of me, I found myself struck with post-nut-like mental clarity. Perhaps the 28-degree weather has finally breathed some sense into the daily ordeal of hair-drying and tartiner expensive shiseido moisturiser onto my face, that I've recently tried to maintain with certain futility. 

So as I conjure this post in the darkness, the decision has become simple, to achieve celestial revelation through nuking Kuala Lumpur, or to actually show up in class tomorrow, maintaining that same clarity in front of a very sexy french professor. 

I think I will indulge myself with 50 more turns and then sleep, completely abandoning my lost cause to read Baudelaire instead of this godforsaken game which I should be ashamed of playing, and hopefully not resulting in the "one more win and I will sleep" mentality. Although, should I rather be worrying about something else, such as, how to suffer more poetically in another language, where I don't look like a complete fool for the great soul that I have but unable to confide? ... ... Putain, C'est la Merde, I'm too simp for that, I need to destroy Queen Elisabeth I. 

Oh wretched faith...

Feeling Phantasmagorical

(Finally I have finished 1 of some 10 stuffs I had to post)

She discovers this in the escritoire, when she finally unstuck the tiroir, laboriously. A letter bearing her name appeared. It was written in green ink (like melted pine tree diluted with Evian). The penmanship was shivered, nonetheless carried an elegance unfound in this time. As if it were written by someone who had attended a school a long time ago. Several spots on the parchment appeared soaked. It looked like it had been conjured in a rush.

Ma Chère Isabell—

You reckon you do not know me, you cannot see me, and you reckon you do not remember me. And yet, I remember you.

Perhaps all too well.

I remember your visage beneath the moon like it was yesterday. The moonlight flowed down your cheveux like shattered mercury, dripping across your wrists.

I have stood in the vacant ballroom, devoid of the laughter of the shallow invités in their treacherous complexion. For what use are they when you have longed for someone with soul?

I have seen the way you danced across the polished parquet, alone, when the music no longer flowed like fine wine from the cave beneath you. Yet you extended your hand across the empty hall when no one was left to watch—a shivered attempt to grasp something that was not there.

Were you thinking of me?

And it is I who shared the same eternal melancholy across the years we have shortly roamed this wicked land, where we held an unspeakable longing that beckons us for the additional under the most silent hours, with tears of crystal mirroring the moon gliding down our very cheeks.

Know that I have unwaveringly adored you and always will, in this life and the past, in tomorrow and yesterday—even if you cannot feel that right now.

I am your sigh across the jardin when the dew freezes itself in the morning, your sigh visible as a white frozen mist, descending onto the rose—considered wild but really neglected too long. And I am your hesitation, an inexplicable sensation when you have stood where I have stood in my bibliothèque. Across the now-dusty bookshelf, when you laid your delicate fingers across that very same sonnet that I have lingered my hands on.

If you love me still, if you hear my silent cry at minuit, if you feel my presence on the porch awaiting your return in the twilight, and if you have felt my whisper to your skin when you did come back to me, then—

Écoute, Écoute!!

If you do hear me—if you still feel me—say my name aloud, and I will come back to you. Again and again.

new posts coming up

a gush of warmth rushes over my mind as I hear myself cry: Revolte ! Revolt against the cold world that incarcerated you in an eternal torment ! Preserve your mind before the world engulfs it with the inevitable need to survive and live like a swine !!

And so I will write. 

even though my brain is not what it used to be, only time will give me the grace to reflect on various subjects and I shall conjure a permutation of letters that will be posted. recently. hopefully.

Above the Chinese Restaurant

Laufey - Above The Chinese Restaurant (Official Audio) 

I got drunk in front of my family tonight.
It wasn’t the first time, nor will it be the last.

I am a flicker in the universe—a summer firework in Japan, brief and fading. Some might remember it as a good thing, in fragments of distant memory, but it is never relived. Never real again.

How do you carry the weight of the world when defiance is your only compass? When existence itself becomes a betrayal of your ideals—abandoned, worn thin from years of compromise?

There are so many masks I wear, so many faces for survival. I have grown used to them, accustomed to slipping between roles. There’s the polite face I use to mask disinterest, the one that nods along in conversations I’ve already left. The face that conceals where I once studied math, for fear of being boxed in as that tired, soulless caricature: the emotionally stunted "nerd," who cannot grasp the warmth of human connection. And then, there’s the face I wear at dinners with government officials—an empty mask that agrees, quietly, that socialism is our salvation, though I don’t believe it, though it scratches at my soul every time.

At some point, the mask fuses to the skin. Removing it is not freedom but pain. I’ve lived a life so layered with small, necessary deceptions that I no longer know where the lies end and I begin. If I peel it all back, what remains?

Oh, what a pathetic existence.

A little too guarded. A little too aware. A little too earnest in wanting something real. The harder I try to build genuine connection, the more I see the world as cruel and cold—a place where those who reach out are the ones burned first. The hedgehog’s dilemma in its purest form.

Thinking about it makes me sick. Surely this is the last sad imagination of a man lying on his deathbed. But no. I am still here, and once again, I feel the weight of existence.

I grew up in this cold city—a place my geography textbook called subtropical. A lie. The chill always seeped into my bones, and it wasn’t until ten years later, smoking in that same deceptive climate, that I realized the world was always cold.

I’ve smoked in colder places since then. In cities far from here. Sometimes with a rare soul, one of the eight billion faceless shadows plaguing this planet, who felt almost like a kindred spirit.

We stood on the balcony once, sharing a cigarette. He told me—without hesitation—that he had many regrets in life. His words hung in the cold air, dissolving like smoke. I wanted to ask what they were but didn’t. Some things are too sacred to unearth, even between kindred souls.

Tonight, drunk and smoking alone, I feel that same cold seep back in, and I think of him—not with longing, but with an ache that words can never fully carry. A fleeting moment, a shared defiance against the heaviness of the world.

I wish I had spoken more. Not to confess or reveal, but just to stay a little longer in that fragile stillness, when everything was as it should be. I admired his recklessness, his honesty. The way he faced life with all its bitter sharpness.

If life were a little kinder, I might have told him that rare souls like his should never be forgotten. That even now, I carry that night like a talisman in my pocket, feeling its weight whenever the world turns cold again.

Tonight, the wind bites like it did then. And though the cigarette burns to its end, the memory lingers longer than the smoke.

I miss you, my partner in crime. I hope to revisit you in your colder city and the stars are kind to you, as they did me dirty. 

Me 2025, Me 2017

A new year, but the crisp Pon Yup air wraps around me like a familiar, if not somewhat unwelcome, coat. I crush my empty can of Kirin and let the fizz of nostalgia settle in my throat. Five years ago, I might’ve used this night for resolutions—fresh starts, ambitious goals—but tonight, all I can do is dwell on the pieces of myself left behind in other places, with other people.

Pon Yup wears the face of Hong Kong like a knockoff reflection—both strange and familiar. The cynicism in the crowd, the neon glare of night markets, the unspoken distrust of the system: it’s so like home, yet tilted just enough to unsettle me. I wonder if parallel universes exist, each version of me drinking cheap beer on a rickety balcony, trying to recall who I used to be.

“Ling Ling” by The Black Skirts spills out of my phone, courtesy of the Spotify subscription I still pay for—twenty dollars a month, for old time’s sake. Once upon a balcony much like this, I blasted this track with a roommate as broke as I was, both of us convinced our youth would last forever. I didn’t speak the language—Korean lyrics might as well have been code—but we danced and sang anyway. Now, volunteers on the internet offer translations, bridging the gap I never tried hard enough to cross. I wonder how many connections I’ve let crumble because I didn’t have the words—or the courage—to hold them together.

I flick through Instagram on a flimsy VPN, half looking for hope, half trying to numb myself. My feed is equal parts regret and envy—friends who left, lovers who gave up, and versions of me who might have existed if I’d gone to Japan for high school, worn that seiranfuku uniform, handed a girl my second button at graduation. The romance of it all still haunts me. I was good at Japanese once. Middle school me was a standout, the student representative of Japanese language in the entire grade with 1300 students in a subject that never quite promised a future but gave me a rare taste of excellence. Then life happened, and I ended up in a frozen Canadian town where cherry blossoms were just a rumor.

I take a bitter sip of Trappistes Rochefort 10. The taste is horrible—cheap, sugary, a far cry from the refined drinks I used to imagine I’d sip one day. My phone buzzes: a like on my New Year’s post from an old Japanese high-school friend. She was brilliant and quiet, her eyes warm in a way that could steal my breath. I’d always wanted to talk to her in her language, maybe ask if she found the day as dreary as I did, maybe just say, Let’s walk home together! Senpai, I really liked you... But I was five years behind in class, and my mind was unraveling faster than I could learn.

Sometimes, I want to go back and shout at the kid I used to be: High school is the last chance you get to see your friends every single day without inventing reasons. Don’t waste it. But I know how it ends. She graduated a year before me, and I never see her again. That’s how most of my stories go—late realizations, early departures.

So here I am in 2025, trying to gather the courage to fly to Japan and see her once more. Tell her that her trusted mitsubishi pencil carried me through my uni in a frozen place on the other side of the world, that her life in waseda was an inspiration to me and without her I couldn't have made it. Maybe I’ll tell her the truth: that she’s the embodiment of a dream I never let go of, even in this dim balcony light, even when I’ve stopped believing in almost everything else. And maybe she’ll laugh, or maybe she’ll understand. Either way, it would be real, and that’s more than I’ve had for a long time.

On nights like this, regret is a slow poison, but hope is a defiant spark. If I can hold onto that spark, maybe this year, something will change. Maybe I’ll finally speak the words I never could—not in perfect Japanese, but in whatever voice I have left. And maybe, just maybe, that’ll be enough. 

Keep fighting... ed... Ganbarimasu... zuttoni... 

Compulsions to write, feeling like Ryan Gosling meme every day.

Sitting on a rented house whose design I somewhat disagree, feelings of emptiness rushed through my brain every single morning.

Pretend to be well, pretend to be rich before my ex-girlfriend, pretend to myself that I am handling the situation calmly, my daily ritual has became to chain-smoke expensive, smuggled Japanese cigarettes everyday. 

When I was 8 or something, a number where I fail to understand the weight of the world, I wanted to be a writer. With the current human condition, I started to lose understanding of this goal. To write is to create a connection among your audiences, but in a world where we are all forced to chuck down shit, I feel I am losing this audience. Perchace it is a Diogenic lifestyle that I long for, but I need to earn bread for my family, for it is still the secular objects that offer people with basic sense of security. The urge to benefit them is unresistable, even though my own somewhat radical ideologies is sacrificed :( I hate human being but they do not. 

Suppose I have a nuclear suitcase in front of me that would wipe out the entire human race on this planet, with a single press of a plastic, colourful button, I would smash that shit with no hesitance. My existence is nothing (a very buddist thought even though I'm not), but there is way too many people in this planet that believe their existence gave them the right to steamroll others, and perhaps there is a reason for them to exist in such quantities. It would seem that the pride that we hold in our own species is inherited. I just don't see the point to it. To me, the idea of having to end my suffering with one single tactile click is worth considering. Yes, I have received kindness and had a childhood, but no, the world is too cruel for kind people. In a somewhat darwinism reality, holding conscience to your prey is not the way to survive. But if you want to survive in the first place, you cannot be simultaneously enlightened, or morally elevated, or even consider any forms of sophiscation. 

This is only one of such things that I don't understand about the world, my race (as human being, but you can argue that I too don't understand chinese), and there are so many of them. 

L'Étranger

(consider this as a trigger warning. This post contains some material that may be not suitable for children including but not limited to: substance use, vulgar language, dark humour, themes of mental health, discrimination or prejudice. Viewer discretion is highly advised. )

So I was kicked back to China, in the city of Shenzhen after being absolutely traumatised by the shït I witness on a daily basis. I am having major Canada withdrawl symptoms. On the second day down the aeroplane, I stepped on dog (or human?) shit on Chinese streets in Shenzhen. For all the record I can recall, surrounded by its voracious mobs, this city has bought me nothing but failure. I moved to Guangzhou.  

I have always thought myself as a foreigner. un étranger, in the language I have newely acquired. Although I need to point out that, this is not the first time I have read L'Étranger by Albert Camus. I am more at ease when I don't hang out with my own kinsmen but that is between you and me. IF there is anything the Chinese is good at, it is to assume that you are at the same level of shittiness with them, and if they found out you are not, they will strive to reduce your sanity to that same level, if not worse. They seem to believe that you *ought* to believe certain doctrines, certain paths of life where you fetishize an apartment, a public servant job, communism with chinese characteristics, bubble tea, big fucking TV that only boardcast state station called CCTV, gastronomy without menu comprehension, and, preferrably beat your child with belt when they express any dissent when they want to fuck up the system. Therefore, drinking out in a bar like a real cowboy where nobody really gives a shit about you is exactly the experience I was looking for. A fresh new start. And if the list have scared you even to the most minor degree, congratulations, you are un étranger.

A friend told me that immigration is in the shitter in canada right now, so it may be a blessing in disguise that I did not choose to immediately stay in Vancouver. Some guy online has precisely described this action as Geopolitical arbitrage, whereby you live in a cheaper place with increased cash in your pocket, or mental health. :]

I have not yet gave up on my plans to own a maison in Canada where I can smoke cigarettes on a conservatory, chilling with plants, admiring the iron art and stars, et cetera. I wanted to be the professional foreigner. But this depends on my ability to pass a certain French language test. 

If by act of miracle, I should came out victorious, I may stand a chance to return to that god forsaken land november 2025. So I have enrolled myself in a week-day french class in an heriotic search to boost my rubbish french..