Be With You

In my long hiatus, I've gone from books to films in a big way. I actually finished three books in NZ--Margaret Atwood's The Blind Assassin, David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas and Thomas Friedman's The Lexus and the Olive Tree, but after starting work, I've been so tired (ever the root source of lazy, isn't it?) that I've turned to film instead for my brain's gym workout. Most recently, I saw this Japanese film Be With You over in Cineleisure. I wonder if it's really been so long since I last succumbed to melodrama that I've lost my cynical immunity to tearjerker cliches, for I swore, if I hadn't been in a public place (and watching together with a female friend--the auto-reflexive male machismo kicked in) I would totally have been reduced to kleenex solvent.

Be With You dir. Nobuhiro Doi

To sum it up, Be With You is an entire Japanese drame (do-ra-ma) condensed into a 2hr movie, complete with all the requisite scenes of people getting run over by automobiles, drenched in the rain, running from point B to point A to catch person B just in time before B disappears...you get the drift. Except that BWY is all of this and more. What differentiates this film from all the usual run-of-the-mill soap opera is the incredible chemistry between the two leads and the childlike naivete through which the tale is told (it is no silly contrivance that the film is framed within the reminiscience of the story's boy narrator Yuji).

By now, the relentless machinery of marketing has already informed the world countless times over that the lead actor and lead actress of the film, Shidou Nakamura and Yuko Takeuchi, fell for each other while filming the movie. While some may treat this as tired trivia, there is no doubt that their real-life attraction to each other translated to great effect in reel-life. When shy and awkward Aio (played by Nakamura) offers his jacket pocket to the hesitant Mio (Takeuchi) to warm her hands, we are infected with a warm fuzziness that is not unlike a fleece blanket on a cold night, mug of cocoa in front of a campfire on a wintry evening outside, a girlfriend's cuddling against that hollow in your shoulder. For those who still spend their weekends wondering when and where they will meet that special someone, the film, replete with moments like this one, gives momentary relief--a flirtation with love, if you must. In the vocabulary of Japanese film, there is no need for long, passionate French kisses or naked gymnastics (think Mr. and Mrs. Smith). All you have is a raised eyebrow, a nervous twitch of the lip, a stolen glance and that is all it takes to convey a romance far more convincing and affecting than in most summer Hollywood blockbusters.

Yuji, the young son of the ill-fated couple, is a pivotal figure in the movie. Not simply the prototypical wide-eyed Japanese cute kid, he also takes on the more important role as the narrative voice for the story. It is important that the movie is told through his glassy-eyed perspective, for it is only through a child's ignorant innocence that the story's absurd conjurations can be so utterly believable. Fairy-tales were made for children after all. However, it is also because we see the couple's story through the child's eyes that the pathos is made so much more powerful, for who can stand that thought of letting the tragedy of loss befall a child (not least the prototypical wide-eyed Japanese cute kid)? Needless to say, our heart-strings are stretched like a bungee cord, given reprieve only to suffer repeated and continued stress. Let the floodgates open.

Watching this movie is a cathartic release. In two hours, you would have lived through your childhood, your first love, your first loss and your first child all over again. And unless you're a heartless bastard (or just a damn si-ai-mien-zhi guy like me) you will definitely cry your heart out. bring kleenex? no way, bring a towel to dry your eyes and a pair of shades to hide under on your way out.

OSIM triathlon 2 July 2005. Thats my friend Tapioca on the left.  

spelunking Power Rangers (From left:me, Peter and JJ) 

My leap of faith 

NZ. This is closest I have gotten to the divine. 

back in the game

I'm BACK. yea, I know. it's been slightly more than two months. I think the only right thing to do in this comeback entry would be to do a quick run-thru the last two months. It's like one of those life-flashing-past moments or rather, one of those MTV montage clips where twenty thousand different images flicker past your eyes at a hundred frames per second, leaving you sensorially overwhelmed, but subliminally satisfied. Think A Clockwork Orange.

May:
the month of May marked the closing pages of a chapter in that book that writes itself we call life. but it was an ending in style. one final fist punched into the air, before the fireworks dim and fade away. May was ORD. but more importantly, May was the NZ trip. one whole month in possibly the most beautiful land on this planet. well, it definitely was the most beautiful place within the realm of my experience. whether it be the rolling amber hills of wine country Blenheim (complemented with a splendid glass of Pinot Blanc), or the perfect blue curtain skies backdropping the beaches of Abel Tasman, or the evian-clear glacial crevices of Franz Josef, or the snow-capped hills and valleys of Fjordland hiding coyly behind skirts of morning mist...NZ had it all. It was also in NZ that we packed in enough adventure to last for this lifetime. whitewater rafting, ATV riding, tramping, fly fishing, and the two best--bungee and spelunking.

1. First off, bungee. My god. what more is there to be said? Leaping off from a platform suspended 134m above a valley, 8 seconds of free fall. Time came to a standstill. Was I scared? Hell yeah. Up in the platform, a hifi blasts Linkin Park at 80megadecibels, enough to blow your eardrums but also rocket your adrenalin level all the way to the moon. I shuffle my bound feet (was this how our great grandmothers felt with their crushed toes forced into those baby shoes?) obediently towards the edge. An enormous hand rests reassuringly on my back. the hand belongs to the man who operates the bungee. wait, he's no man, he's a giant. A giant with giant hands and a booming voice--his presence gives you the confidence that you're not going to die like your heart, mind and five senses plus keeps telling you, but his presence also tells you there's no turning back. Not with that hand against your back anyways. The voice of Zeus thunders from behind my head "Ready? On my count. 5.."
I take a deep breath.
4..
I can do this.
3..
Linkin Park dribbles into silence. Transition to next song. Wait, what the $#@? I can't jump without music!
2..
Wait wait I'm not ready! But my screams of protest don't break the sound barrier beyond my mind. My mouth lets out not even a whimper.
1. GO!!
I jump, trying to remember to keep my head low and my feet high. Was my form good?

Time literally stops. (I am reminded of the scene from Manhattan when Woody Allen stops time to comment on everyone else standing in line)

and then I plummet to my pseudo death in time accelerated plus one, and experience...
liberation. so this is what birds feel. lucky them.

Did I mention I'm acrophobic?

2. Next, Spelunking. The name of the cave adventure we signed up still remains unclear to me. In one pamphlet, it read The Lost World Epic adventure. In another, it said The Ultimate Lost World. In any case, you get the idea. this was The One. The Keanu Reeves of Cave Adventures. (actually, it might be more appropriate to call it the Tom Cruise even though the Matrix reference will be lost, but Tom DID do this adventure TWICE. I'm not kidding you.) we rappel 100m into an enormous limestone cave system. tunnels, underground rivers, waterfalls. it's a whole new universe down there. Decked out like Power Rangers (skin tight black wetsuits and knee high white gum boots, go figure), we embark on the adventure of our lives. We (JJ, Peter and I) swim, rock-climb, duck under waterfalls, make blind drops of 5-7m into pitch darkness, submerge and glide through underwater sumps, spidercrawl through straw-thin crevices and cracks. And the whole way, our guide Russell threw in a free physical geography lesson as well, showing us fossilized whale remains and clam shells in the cave walls. 4 hours worth of traipsing through the caves later, we find ourselves in a spacious cavern. We turn off our head lamps, and bear witness to a miracle on earth. thousands, no, millions of glow-worms light up the cavern ceiling like stars in the nightsky. This is the closest I will ever get to space. I am speechless. Who wouldn't be?

June:
I spent the month of June going to work for the first time and prepping up for the Osim triathlon coming up first thing in July. Nothing terribly exciting, to be frank, except maybe the terrible culture shock of work in the first week. though mentally I was fine, my body was completely thrown out of sorts. incredible fatigue, then diarrhoea and headaches, but I live and survive, so I'm still standing. My colleagues are great. I knew two of them before going in. One from Columbia and the other from ....well...one very long and drunk night at some party. (If you guys are reading this, sorry heheh. I won't elaborate any further) My immediate supervisor is hyper neurotic and metrosexual extreme (I spied bodybuilding.com email in his hotmail inbox) but he totally saved my ass in my first mess-up at work so I am thankful. Plus, he's actually quite funny la, behind all the weirdness and that muppet snigger. (hope he doesn't read this)

Fast Forward to July!!

The OSIM Triathlon:
I spent the last two months training for this and I'm totally psyched. Ok, fine, you caught me. I was in NZ in May, so maybe not really two months of training. But I ran in NZ! 6 times, in fact. 6 of the best runs ever. In perfect weather, against perfect scenery and breathing perfect air. Alright I'll stop gushing about NZ and get back to the OSIM tri. Everyone warned me about the open sea swim and I wanted to get a bit of practice before the actual event, but somehow, the deadly combination of sloth and poor time management got the better of me. I arrive early at East Coast with my gang of fellow foolhardy tri-wannabes (army friends who want to have "one last burst") all completely green at sea-swimming. We sit in the stands before our race and catch Tay Ping Hui and Joanne Peh running through the finish line. Doubt creeps in and we wonder why we didn't sign up for the Mini race instead. Who needs bragging rights anyways?

The race begins at 10.30. We're in the second wave with our girly white swimming caps. When we dive into the water, the race turns into a slugfest. Dog-eat-dog out there, every man for himself. Everyone's free-styling, but breast-stroke is the automatic weapon of choice whenever a fellow competitor draws too near for comfort. Feet make contact against goggles, against noses, against face. You just hope you're on the feet end of the equation and not the face. Ten minutes into the swim, my inner demons are having a board meeting to try and convince me that I am about to drown.

I emerge from the water about twenty minutes later, but I'm half dead. I spot my OCS buddy waving at me from the gallery (I didn't know he was coming) so I put on a brave front and mask the fact that I am on the brink of collapse. This turns out to be a good call because the photos they take of me at this point show a tired but determined me running out of the water. Ahh. A picture is worth a thousand words in a well-garnished story that remains to be told and passed across generations of my very first tri. heheh. I hop on the bike and sprint off into the cycling leg. Like real. My idea of a controlled pace is a snail in the race. The whole world overtakes me, including this guy on one of those rusty old bikes with a basket in front. "Good job" he says as he passes me. I wanted to give him the finger. Smug bastard.

Almost an hour on the bike (yea, that's how slow I was), I transit into the run. Well, it really wouldn't be right to call what I was doing then running. It was more like a half-jog. I've conveniently discarded all the pictures of myself in the running phase. They betray too much of the half-jog. My legs feel like logs left over from Christmas and dumped in the garage to dry out for seven months. My inner demons have raised the stakes by this time, their meeting was pretty successful and they were staging a hostile takeover. My mind run numerous scenarios ranging from me tearing the race tag off my singlet and walking away, to me taking a quick shortcut when no race official was looking. Somehow, I manage to amble my way across 5km and reach the finish line. I have my pals to thank for this. Couldn't have done it without you guys. One proud moment: the announcer reads out my name 100m from the finish line. The crowd cheers in support. I revel in my split second of pseudo fame.

I go back home, lie down, and don't get up for the next two days.