Monday, December 19, 2011

The Invisible Eye: Portraying the Hidden Ubiquitous Face

Western beauty standards have taught Asians that they are ugly. Their lack of representation in the media has taught Asians that they cannot be heroes, they are rarely main characters in movies. When Hollywood takes stories from Asia, or real-life stories with Asian main characters, they thrust these Asian characters on the side as minor characters and replace them with white ones. We make up the largest population of people on the planet. 

But looking at the TV, books, movies, newspapers, magazines, and comic books, you would never guess it. We are nowhere within those pages. You will have to scour the internet to find us. They have hidden us well. They have even caused us to hide ourselves.


Who am I? I am less beautiful than Caucasians because my eyes are small and narrow. My hair is only born one color: dark brown, so dark it appears black. It is the opposite of the ideal feminine blonde. (Blondes have the most fun you know.) My nose is big. My body is short. My breasts are small. My eyes are only made one color: brown.



But these are all mistakes. With hard, diligent work, time, effort, and money, they can be fixed. Dyed hair, highlights, thick eyeliner, layers upon layers of mascara, fake eyelashes, colored eye contacts, contacts that make your eyes look bigger, eyelid tape. With the right amount of self-hatred and betrayal of everything that defines who I naturally am, I can be loved. I can be adored. I can even be told that I am “beautiful”.

But no matter how much money I spend on cosmetics, on hair dyes and perms, even on plastic surgery, I can never love who I truly am. I will never be told that I am beautiful. 

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(And they all tell us every day: it’s okay.
Being Asian can be fixed.)

Thursday, December 15, 2011

The Simpleton's Routine [Final Draft]

Let me know which one you guys like better. <3
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You know he does not care;
quite honestly, you do not  care either.
It is merely a ritual you attend to every Wednesday afternoon at three,
Your mind accompanying his, two pleasant companions on a familiar journey, perhaps to a different continent.
There none of this exists and there is only white, which you grope at curiously with your fingers.

In truth, the gross graphic detail of your tea party bores him spectacularly;
Meaningless strings of words, of nothing, to fill nothing.
But it’s better than the painful long silences that so often clog up the gaps in both of your conversations
(the nervous holes shaking until you both freeze in your  skins).
So while your mouth flaps seemingly obliviously in the breeze,
He paces around heavily, in his mind, observing another world that’s he located far too many times before.

Even you can see the foam bubbles exploding from his mind;
Stumble-stuttering as they escape from holes in his skull with some difficulty,
The images run blankly through his head, 
black-and-white film that dully graces the flat landscape, the washing-machine interior of his brain.

You imagine bacteria; worms where his thoughts have begun to decay, being uselessly tossed aside,
perhaps added with some salt in case you want to save them for later.
You’ll return to the pile every once in a while to peruse them;
discard the ones that have grown unbearable to look at (or, indeed, even touch without rubber gloves).

But you can’t pretend to see colors where there isn’t anything;
He can’t either, however much he would like to.
(But he does not speak of it,
and neither do you.)

Instead you sit, and he smiles,
and together you observe the hollow shape of your brains,
the silence that cowers beneath the constant clamor of your voice--
the pleasant emptiness, the stringing hum of words that run effortlessly through your tongue
straight through his ears; neurotically, with plastered twin anxious grins all the while,
secretly fingering the strings and passing them between the two of you nervously with shaking fingers.
A pleasant chat over tea every Wednesday afternoon.

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

(in-prog) you become a virus when you die, didn't you know

You see them you stretch your hands back--
Fucked into your skin like nails on a corkboard are
every word you’ve ever typed
tattooed and resplendent,
staring back at you with faint ghosts of the keystrokes still imprinted on your fingertips.

Pretty soon the concrete rain will start to dissolve into your skin
And the plastic keyboard will eat your brain
starting at your fingertips
making its way down to your toes
until you melt into the screen

(You’ll become a virus when you die
Didn’t you know?)

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Still unfinished...this one is from all the way back in January ;o
(Where does the time go?)

Saturday, December 10, 2011

RADWIMPS - Order Made (Made to Order)


One of the best songs I know.
By the j-indie band RADWIMPS.

I'm sure I was probably asked
Before I was born, by someone from somewhere
"I will make it so you can see
Either the past or the future, so
Which do you want?"

Friday, December 9, 2011

Boys in Anime/Manga That I Would Approve of My Friends Dating



Most bishies in anime are assholes with over 9000 lbs of emotional baggage that I would never want my friend to date.
There are a few prize guys, though. Here's the list of those I approve. xD 

- Kazehaya (Kimi ni Todoke) 
- Ryuu (Kimi ni Todoke)
- Sano (Hana-Kimi)
- ...Akito? (Kodocha) Maybe.
- Watanuki (xxxHolic) Kind of dweeby, but a nice guy. 
- boy from Family Complex (youngest bro)
- Nobu (Nana)
- ...I want to say Zero (Vampire Knight), but he's kind of fucked up. But he's such a great guy and would love her so much! T^T
- Naruto 
- Rock Lee
- Shikamaru
- ...Chouji (fat but a good guy.)
- Kiba (Maybe. If he treats you like he'd treat Hinata xD)
Daigo (Sand Chronicles)
- Hyoue (Her Majesty's Dog)
- Syaoran (post-Sakurified ver.) 
- Sorata (x/1999) 



Who would you add to the list? <3

The Simpleton’s Routine

The grossly graphic detail of your tea party bores him spectacularly
But it’s better than the painful long silences that so often get stuck between the gaps in your teeth,
clogging up the gaps in your conversation like nervous holes.
So he paces around heavily, in his mind, observing another world
While your mouth flaps seemingly obliviously in the breeze.  

You know he does not care;
quite honestly, you do not  care either.
It is merely a ritual you attend to every Wednesday afternoon at three,
Your mind accompanying his, two pleasant companions on a familiar journey, perhaps to a different continent.
There none of this exists and there is only white, which you grope at curiously with your fingers.
Meaningless strings of words, of nothing to fill the silence.

You can see the images running blankly through his head,  
Black-and-white film dully gracing the flat landscape, the washing-machine interior of his brain.
Even you can see the foam bubbles exploding from his mind, escaping from the holes of his skull with some difficulty. 
You imagine bacteria, worms where his thoughts have begun to decay, being uselessly tossed aside, perhaps added with some salt in case you want to save them for later.
You don’t pretend to see colors where there isn’t anything;
You’ll return to the pile every once in a while to peruse them; discard the ones that've become too painful to look at.

He does not speak of it,
And neither do you.
The pleasant emptiness, the humming of words, runs effortlessly through your tongue and through his ears.
A balm that blocks out the deafening silence threatening to spill out heavy through the window.

Instead you sit, and he smiles, and together you silently observe the hollow shape of your brains,
The silence that cowers beneath the clamor of your voice
While you finger the delicate puppet strings between you nervously, neurotically, plastered twin anxious grins;
A pleasant chat with tea every Wednesday afternoon.

--------------------------------------------------------------------
Another poem from my Creative Writing class last year. <3

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

The Ghost Patient (Vampire Knight fanfic)



Disclaimer: Vampire Knight, Zero, and Yuuki all belong to Matsuri Hino, not me. If Zero and Yuuki belonged to me, they would already be officially canon, and Vampire Knight would have to become an M-rated manga. xD  Graphic does not belong to me either.

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Her skin had grown paler since the last time he saw her. He could barely see her amongst the sheets. The faint moonlight that managed to squeeze past the curtains was darker than she was, more tangible, and he wished he could touch her. Wished he could help her somehow.

"She won't move," the maid whispered behind him; she turned away before he could meet her gaze and pretended to attend to the pile of sheets, daily laundry for the ghost patient.

In the tomb-like room, there was no space for breathing. It was static and suffocating, a thick black mass of dust settled into a neat, complacent pile, content to wait for another century.

Tangling with the sheets. She was skeletal and so far gone he could barely tell she was there among them; a faint outline of the vibrant creature he'd once known.

He turned away as well, lowering his gaze to the floor, respect for the dead; not for the bastardly king but for his faint queen that had died somewhere amongst the sheets and the months since her capturer had gone.

Zero would never be a savior.

He pressed a knee against the bed and watched her through his bangs, a quiet contemplative expression on his face. Just watching, waiting. He stayed there for days. The maids didn't bother him; left a bottle of pills at the door with a glass of water, changed every six hours.

They remained untouched.

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Yuuki stared vacantly at the wall across from her. Her eyes echoed her feelings, revealing a reflection of a girl she barely knew; faded and tired and dead. A stringy mass hung limply over her shoulders, tangling with the sheets; her skin was paler than the moonlight that cut past the curtains into the dusty tomb-like room, static air breathing nothing for no one.

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A/N: I'm super nice and friendly and I love hearing from you guys, so please drop a line and tell me what you think! :D

Okay.

So I'm going to follow the trend and post my angsty teenage poetry. xD
Prepare to be confused.
Deeply.
(I'm not even sure what they all really mean myself)



Tour of the back of your head

Well, sit down; make yourself welcome.
You haven’t been here in a while.
This is my squat while I’m the job; I know, it’s a right fairytale palace--

dirty clothes strewn over all the broken mirrors, spare and broken and faded;


--more like a junkyard, actually. But then again, what'd you expect?
You’ve neglected it for quite some time.
Oh, as you stroll down the corridor, you might have forgotten a face or two from the portraits in the halls
…don’t worry, though, it happens to everyone.

Bathroom? Oh yeah, down the hallway on your left.
(Warning: the cleaning maintenance has gotten pretty lazy.)

The sink chokes and sputters before the water at last breaks through.
Discolored reflections split in the water as they fall from the faucet in strangely uneven proportions, leaking painfully, staining streaks down the sides of the sink 
before they finally disappear and become completely unidentifiable. 
They seem to smile at you as they pass down.
(Don't worry about it, they probably forgot you just as easily.)

--You ready to go now? Awesome.
You arrive at the main feature; your old bedroom.

…Oh, it's my bed frame, you supply weakly.
(but cracks lead in a hundred paths. It’s rotted in a myriad of places you didn’t even notice before, places you didn’t even realize existed.
Your old face glimpses in and out from the holes of what’s left of the wall, a tired hungry phantom weaving in and out through the last wisps of its days.)

Don’t be a stranger! Say hello! Ooh, doesn’t look like it’s too happy to see you. Uh…
What's that? Oh, that—that’s a dream machine. Gives you toxic cancer, you know, you can’t breathe for days;
--You wanna try? You sure? (You crazy? What drugs did you take while you were gone anyway?)
…Well, alright then, if you're sure. Close your eyes. Breathe. 

Slowly, you sink down through the floor…





Through a slot of a telescope, you observe the keyboard-smash of heart against ribcage.
A helpless struggle, like sand out of an hourglass,
Striking beautiful notes on the piano keys --made of real human bone, you know.
Consistent, efficient bruises. Runs 24/7.
(It's slower than you remember? Well, it’s not like it's a machine...)

Through a second slot, a face turns towards you.
Its sad twisted contours suddenly form a flower gasping for air; 
inspiring strangers to back away, its emaciated head pokes through the bars;
Suddenly it’s a Jack-in-the-Box. 
Poor, crying, out-of-tune…All the notes already choked out of his throat from prior screaming. 
You can see the poor life he’s led; his make-up has lost its stark scare.
His spring sinks back down into the earth, sunken and soggy,
then suddenly flails about wildly, carving incomprehensible words into the terrace
desperately, as though trying to send you a message before you leave.
Abruptly melting mirrors cascade down the walls around him like syrup…


--Hey, wanna try another slot?
No? You’ve seen enough?
Wanna go back? Sure. (Told you. Wuss.)



When you awake, you’re curled up on your bed with your arms around your knees;
a pose you haven’t been in since you were a kid.
The grinning dumbass from the maintenance crew stares at you expectantly, still grinning, hands extended. 
You blink. And then impatiently drop a handful of coins into his waiting hand. As he walks happily away, whistling some obscene tune from the ‘90s, you roll your eyes and turn back and suddenly find yourself staring at your old walls, like they suddenly walked into the room. 

For some reason you can't tear your eyes away; when you finally do, 
you notice there’s a piece of paper on your bed in front of you, faded and slightly wrinkled.



YOU ARE HERE




is written in the center of a large box drawn with black marker.
You blink. The rest of the page is blank. You start turning it over, looking for any extra marks. There’s nothing else.

For some reason this causes you to break into a cold sweat.

The walls start collapsing around you. But some reason you find you don’t care. You want to sit here on this bed and never move, hugging your teddy bear as it takes it down with you. The maintenance crew starts to shout. 
Your eyes slowly start to drift shut…
Melting mirrors cascade down along with the walls around you like syrup…

…Right before your consciousness completely blurs, you think you see a face drifting out the window…













When they find the scene, the only thing they find intact amongst the rubble and melted silver is, oddly enough, a piece of paper, strangely pristine, untouched, as though marked by the hand of some god.

However, when they pick it up, there’s nothing on it. The surface is completely blank. 

My Favorite Anime/Manga Quotes.

MARS - Fuyumi Soryo
Kira
"People seem weak, but they're strong.
They seem strong, but they're weak...
No matter how much you cry, you still have to sleep.
And you even get hungry.
You suddenly realize you've done the same things you did yesterday.
And you say hi to your friends and smile just like you did yesterday.
Life goes on as if nothing ever happened...” (volume 8 p.29)

Rei: "But I wouldn’t tell you to forget about it. I can at least understand…that you can’t forget about it." (vol. 8 p. 37)


Bokura ga Ita (We Were There)
"Yano. The person whom you really, really love may not be here anymore. 
And you might be feeling lonely, but, there are people in this world who really, really love you, so shouldn't that equal it all out? 
So, please don't ever think that you're alone."

"You don’t know what it means to be betrayed!
Should I explain it to you?
It means to be treated like trash and your feelings get stepped on…
you get hurt over and over again and in the end you are left alone!
Can’t you see how much I care for you?
How hard I’m trying to connect with you?
When did I ever betray you?
When did I ever leave you alone?"

"Back then we gave it our all, we neither lied nor made mistakes, we didn't fail and didn't do anything wrong. 
It's just that...time has passed and changed it all."


Both of these are some of the best manga I have ever read, I would highly recommend them.

Sunday, December 4, 2011

2NE1 - UGLY--My Take on It.


I think I'm ugly
And nobody wants to love me
Just like her I want to be pretty
I want to be pretty!
Don't lie to my face
'Cause I know I'm ugly~

This song is so misunderstood by people everyone on the interwebz. 

By saying "ugly", I don't think they're just talking about feeling your appearance is ugly. They're talking about not liking yourself in general for whatever reason, about thinking that there's something fundamentally wrong with you, etc. And not wanting people to lie to you and tell you that there's nothing wrong with you.

The video, though?

THAT'S definitely about the beauty standards within society that make so many beautiful people feel like they're ugly, and how they should be destroyed. 

2NE1 is a great band to promote this song and message because they do not resemble your typical kpop girl group and thus receive a lot of censure about how their faces/bodies/etc. don't resemble the beauty ideal.



It might sound cliche, but it's true: every girl in 2NE1 is actually beautiful in her individual way, if you look, but they are not all skinny sticks or have the "ideal" nose or whatever, which also makes them very relatable as they are all "real" people with no manufactured beauty--except Park Bom, who obtained plastic surgery BECAUSE her appearance was bombasted by critics, so this song is actually even more relatable to her, as she felt her looks didn't satisfy the public's demands of a female kpop singer.

So they are the perfect voices to express the insecurities that everyone feels about themselves sometimes; because even the most beautiful girls can find something they hate about their appearances.


UGLY Lyrics (My Transliteration)

100(-ish) Words You Need to Understand a Japanese Pop Song

I've been an avid fan of jpop for quite some time. My first memory of reading Japanese lyrics was in Card Captor Sakura: The Movie's theme song Tooi Kono Machi de (In This Distant Town) in elementary school. As I read through the other lyrics for CCS, and then for InuYasha, I couldn't help but notice that certain words and phrases kept showing up again and again.

As I gradually learned the meanings of these words, I realized that certain ones were present in almost every Japanese song I encountered.

Here are around 100 words you need to get the gist of any jpop song. Tested on Gendou.com, but your mileage may vary.

1.     Sora- sky
2.     Yume- dream
3.     Hana- flower
4.     Tsubasa- wings
5.     Kokoro- heart
6.     Hikari (/akari)- light
7.     Aoi- blue (usually in reference to “the blue sky above” = aoi sora no miagete)
8.     Namida (/naiteru)- tears, cry
9.     Egao- smiling face
10.            Zutto (/itsumo/itsumademo)- always, forever
11.            Doko made mo- no matter how far
12.            Wasurenai- I won’t forget
13.            Omoi (/omoidasu/omoide/oboiteru/etc.)- remember, memory
14.                        Mieru (/Miteru/Mienai/Miageru/miagete/Mitsukeru/Mitsumeru ­etc.)- see/look/can’t see/look up/above/find/notice/gaze at/stare at
15.            Itsuka- someday
16.            Ashita- tomorrow
17.            Sekai- world
18.            Mirai- future
19.            Jidai- age/era (they say this more than you think)
20.            Soba ni iru (yo)- by my side
21.            Yasashii- kind
22.            Tsuyoku- strong
23.            Aruite- walk
24.            Ikite (iru)- live
25.            Michi- road
26.            Futari- the two of us
27.            Tomaranai- don’t stop
28.            Owaranai- never-ending
29.            Tsunaide- connect
30.            Te- hand
31.            Toki- time
32.            Basho- place
33.            Hi- day (e.g. ano hi “that day”)
34.            Kodomo (/ko)- child
35.            Afureru- flow, overflowing, etc.
36.            Chiisa-na- small (They use this one  A LOT…”because I’m such a small person” is common)
37.            Chikara- strength
38.            Hitomi- eyes
39.            Hitori- alone
40.            Kodoku- loneliness
41.            Sabishii- lonely, sad
42.            Onaji- same (something along the lines of “although we had the same type of heart…”)
43.            Hajimete- start
44.            Subete- everything
45.            Kotoba- words
46.            Hitotsu- one (commonly used as “the one [single] thing”)
47.            Mune- chest (heart)
48.            Jibun- self
49.                        Ima- now
50.             Ima sugu- straight away
51.            Kodoku- loneliness
52.            Mitomeru-  accept; admit; acknowledge; attach (importance); award (damages); discern; vindicate
53.            Deau (/deatta)- to meet, (“I met you”), etc.
54.            Atatakai- warm, hot
55.            Nemuru (/nemuite)- sleep
56.            Naka- inside
57.            Kikoeru- hear
58.            Oikakete- hide
59.            Sagashite- searching
60.            Shunkan- moment
61.            Hanasu (/hanashite)- talk/(past tense)
62.            Mamoru- to protect
63.            Kidzuku (/kidzuite)- to notice
64.            Setsuna (/itami/itai)- pain/sorrow; it hurts
65.            Kizutsukeru- to hurt, damage, injure
66.            Hayaku- fast
67.            Keshiki- landscape
68.            Asa- morning
69.            Yoru- night
70.            Koe- voice
71.            Kaze- wind
72.            Hoshi- star
73.            Yuki- snow
74.            Tsuki- moon
75.            Nagareboshi- wishing star
76.            Mainichi- everyday
77.            Tooku (/hanarete)- far away, distant, isolated
78.            Kanjiru (/kanjite/kanjiteru)- feel
79.            Tsuzuku (/tsuzukeru/susumu)- to continue
80.            Hanasanaide- don’t let go
81.            Kotaeru- answer
82.            Kawaru (/kawatta/kawaranai)- to change, changed, do not change/unchanging
83.            Kioku- memory
84.            Kiseki- miracle (“the miracle that I met you…”)
85.            Tatoe (/tatoeba)- for example
86.            Eien (eien ni, eien no)- eternity, eternally/forever, eternal/infinite/undying
87.            Umarete- born
88.            Karada- body
89.            Kao- face
90.                        Eranda- “I chose” (past tense te-form of ‘erabu’)
91.                        Monogatari- narrative, story
92.                        Todoku- reach, come to; come through (news etc.)
93.            Tabi- journey
94.                        Wagamama- selfishness, egoism, willfulness
95.                        Kurikaesu- repeat; echo
96.            Kaeru- to return
97.            Mou ichido- one more time
98.            Yami- darkness
99.            Dakishimete- embrace
100.       Uso- lie
101.       Sotto- softly
102.       Kakera- fragment
103.       Kyo – today
104.       Kinou - yesterday
105.       Kagayaku – shine/glitter/sparkle