空氣人形

Just got back from a screening of “Air Doll,” or “空氣人形." I'll talk a bit about the movie since I haven't really done this before. It was a thoughtful little art house Japanese film by Hirokazu Koreeda. The movie is about a life-size inflatable doll that comes to life. While her owner is away during the daytime, she would wander out to the outside world, during which she meets a variety of people and even works at a video rental store and fell in love with a co-worker. Yes, the premise sounds bizarre, but the movie is able to carry it through while conveying its messages: the emptiness and loneliness of urban life and what it means to be human. These messages may be done many times in other movies, but here it’s another creative way to present them.

One of the main themes it brings is the inability for people to connect to each other, to share their sorrows. Because of this, they are empty inside, like the doll. This is quite reflective of the current society. As the doll with a soul learns to become human and fills the emptiness inside, she also discovers that the human characters live lives that are empty, always relying on a “substitute” to release their troubles and feelings. Though I think it is also important to note that the world can't be without the hardworking kindhearted people which the movie didn't mention.

As the doll goes around the city, she also collects glass bottles, fragments, and things in which one would consider garbage. But she finds the beauty in these objects. When she walks, she notices grass, flowers, and dandelions. All these small objects may signify the things we missed as we go on our lives. By the way the scenes in the movie are all well-crafted and beautiful to look at. It’s interesting how the glass bottles are transparent and we can see light shining through…just like herself...

Anyways this is an interesting movie…weird and shocking at some parts (well it is from Japan) but overall I definitely recommend this movie. It premiered at Cannes Film Fest in May and Japan in September 2009. Oh and the lead actress is Bae Doona… she’s Korean who speaks near-perfect Japanese. She was amazing here…hmm both acting and body haha.

March

...of the Penguins? No not really, though I think that film is pretty heart warming. I'm just catching up on stuff since February. Let's see...oh yea spring break was from March 18 to 28 and was probably the only thing worth mentioning out of that month.

At the end of December last year I finally told dad how to download some Taiwanese shows like 豬哥會社, 綜藝大哥大 and 綜藝大集合. That gave him something more to do to fill up his daily activities. And since the internet at home is no doubt provided by Turtle Inc., he had to wait several hours...hmm make that more than ten hours to download a two hour show. He used the computer my sister didn't want anymore and was that computer a raging firetruck! The cooling fans must be running on Red Bulls because it was just too loud!! He mitigated the annoying sound by putting up our Blu-ray player container next to the computer to block the sound when they sleep. That was hilarious! I brought the HP computer back home during spring break so they could use that to download instead.

Anyways it was very enjoyable watching those shows with them during the nights that week. Those shows really gave them something to look forward to after a long night of hard work at Lai Lai Restaurant, and they certainly end the day with fun and somewhat nostalgic note.

二姊 moved into their new house in San Jose area. I would have to say it is a really nice place: nice front/back yard, great view of the mountains, and convenient anywhere you go. They painted Tesla's bedroom baby blue, and Tera's pink. I would say Tesla's bedroom feels like going to Hawaii. It has that nice, relaxing, and refreshing feel whenever I walk into the room. Another thing is that 大姊 and Erika live 10 minutes away so they often have dinner together. And on Fridays mom would be like a caterer bringing everything over there for dinner. What a task!

Oh and I also get to go to Toys 'R Us and BestBuy. That Samsung 3D TV in BestBuy was gorgeous. Though you look weird having to put on the glasses every time you want to watch 3D. I think the TV comes with 2 glasses, so unless you want to pay more, only 2 will get to watch 3D...well, unless you switch around or something..."alright 5 minutes! my turn!!"...When will glassesless 3DTV come out??

Mom, dad, big sis, and Erika are in Taiwan right now (went back on March 31). They'll stay in Tainan for a month! I have my 200-minute prepaid calling card ready...wow I've already used 100 minutes of it O_O

Pale Blue Dot

Voyager 1 (1990)

Quote by Carl Sagan:
"Look again at that dot. That's here, that's home, that's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam."

That makes me think how seemingly insignificant we are. From a photograph of Earth 6 billion kilometers away made by Voyager 1, we're not even a grain of dust in our own solar system. But it doesn't matter, and what matters is that we cherish what we have here. It is the mind, the curiosity, and the determination that make humans significant. It is the wonderful life on Earth that makes us stand out (well at least for now) from the rest of the universe. And one day, we'll venture to the unknown, look back at the pale blue dot, and say, proudly, that that is our home.

Been wanting to read that book "Pale Blue Dot" for a while. Alright, this March 18, spring break equals reading time!

虎

Winter Olympic XXI begins!
Watching the opening ceremony last night, I saw a lot of familiar sceneries especially when the camera showed the night view of downtown Vancouver. Felt like I was there...well I was, just two months earlier :) Anyways the shows was really beautiful, and showcased the diverse seasons of Canada effectively...

Last night's trip with sisters and brother-in-law to Okazuya Japanese Restaurant was pretty amazing...probably because their little ones are at home sleeping. 可以專心吃!

祝大家 新年恭喜! 虎年行大運!

Lucky

So my uncle always plays this game for Superbowl at his restaurant. It's basically a grid with each square partition corresponding to a set of two numbers, representing the scores for the two teams. My dad chipped in thirty dollars for three random squares. And we luckily won 300 dollars!

I guess this can cover the Bluray disc player he bought two days ago (more than cover actually). Now if only we have a bluray disc to play...haha hmm...

Next weekend is surely a busy one. We have President's day (2/15), Valentine's day (2/14), and Chinese New Year (2/14) all in one weekend. I'll be going home from thursday to monday, a good relaxing weekend hopefully. Before that however, must study for midterms monday to wednesday > <...

2010/1/17

Start of the new quarter in school...well third week already. One more to go after this quarter and I will end my undergraduate classes.

I thought I will be more active in clubs this quarter since it's my last year and the graduate school applications were done, but turns out I am still being a hermit in my room=/... !(宅印)!

Yesterday was pretty fun watching the Golden Globe Awards. AVATAR wins best director James Cameron and best picture drama! Yay! The global box office is like what...1.6 billion dollars already. I think he's going to re-sink Titanic (1.8 billion) soon.

It was a novel experience since I found two websites that provide live streaming of the show, one of them was from Facebook. It's interesting how this process worked. You get to watch the show (need fast internet connection of course), but then you get to interact with community online as you are watching it. There was this chat room next to the screen in which users such as facebook community posted comments. In the video, the hosts actually used questions from facebook users to ask the celebrities. Other devices such as PS3 and XBox also allow one to go online to watch videos while interacting with others online. In a way it was as if one was actually there interacting with thousands of people.

Through this internet community people seem to be connected to events more, but in a way that has a plastic box with semiconductors separated between the real world and ourselves. And too often do most people view the world through this window, whether 15 inch or 50 inch. I guess one of the ideas AVATAR is trying to convey is to wake up, perceive things clearly, and relate to the world first-hand instead of through a barrier.

Happy New Year

2010!