Memoirs

"Every step I have taken has been to bring myself closer to you..."

My blog is increasingly becoming a movie review site. Mmm... perfect results of a movie fanatic.

Last Friday I went to watch Memoirs of a Geisha, the much disputed film, with the Chinese and Japanese shunning it due to cultural and historical reasons. The Japanese accused the film maker to be insulting Japanese Culture, the depiction of Geishas is untrue and they took it negatively.

On the other hand, the Chinese criticised the three chinese female cast as traitors of their own country by portraying their historical enemy, the Japanese.

Mmm...a simple movie with an innocent storyline, I can't understand why these people have to take advantage of it to express selfish, irresponsible comments.

Before I step into the cinema, I was anticipating for a meaningful show with ummm... boring parts. Considering it was already midnight, I might need to focus really hard to understand the essence.

Surprisingly throughout the movie, I was not bored for a single moment. The show was smoothly arranged, well directed and easy to follow.

I must praise the three female chinese casts on their splendid acting especially Gong Li and Zhangzhiyi.

My gain from the movie is about Faith. Sayuri lived a life with no choises it seems. She was sold and forced to be a geisha. She was forced to be a slave to the "Mother" after she failed to escape. But she held on to a faith, a dream: to be with the Chairman. This faith brought her choises she could never dream of, and a purpose. As she says, "Every step I have taken has been to bring myself closer to you..."

Life is a dream, all memories chained together in a strange way. Somethings we remember clearly and some do not. Sometimes when I looked back, I have not recognized the paths that I have taken. But where I stand now is a result of my previous choise.

Am I straying further and further away from my destination? Is every step I take brings me closer to where I wanna be?

Eventhough I enjoy the show in overall, but I am still very much disgusted with the love of the Chairman and Sayuri. Not that their huge gap in age, but the idea of the 30-40 year old chairman falling in love at first sight with a 9 year old girl. Perverted old man!

Anyway, Great show worth 2 hours and 15 minutes of my time.

Official Movie Site: http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/memoirsofageisha/

Dreamcar

Recently a lot of people asked me what is my dreamcar, well here it is, at least for now:
Nissan Fairlady 350Z
-3.5-liter V6 engine
-6-speed manual transmission

A totally beautiful car, with a reasonable pricetag
On-The-Road Price (Peninsular Malaysia) RM 571,875.74
(Private Registration inclusive of 1 Year Road Tax RM 4,386.00, 1 Year Comprehensive Insurance Premium RM 14,640.50 with a sum insured of RM 551,000.00 and Ownership Claim Fee RM 50)

Interested, just have to knock your head out and grab it, will cost around 12K a month for 7 years if take up full financing+insurance and roadtax. very affordable. :)

Consider a 2002 version second hand at around 250K

View the gallery and details at http://www.nissan.com.my/vehicles/coming/350z.html

An Evening with MPO

Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra, I always wanted to attend their concert but never did.

Well, opportunities came by when CC 'jiou' me and RT to accompany her.
Excited as we are, after getting coats from their counter(apparently everyone have to wear coats, quite redundant 'cause everyone's taking them off once inside), we sat down at the first circle, a bit far and high up (how come so high and far cost more than others below?).
The evening started with pieces from the Latin American, orchestra with the latinian twist. Very enjoyable with me enjoying most pieces. After the 20 minutes break, we back to hear the Waltz which I find quite boring except one piece. Not too much to comment about as I am very amateur about orchestra and stuffs but overall a very enjoyable 2 hours. The arrangement and music is great but some how I expected more and felt the impact was lacking.

RS in Gleneagles

Fortunate RS is recovering well in "Hotel" Gleneagles.

One of the biggest events occuring over the turn of the year: RS had a head on collision with a car at Jalan Ampang on 29 December around 1130pm. Her bike was totally wasted, her right wrist was shattered and her right thigh broken. wasSounds serious but she is actually quite fine, well at least she can still joke about it. Some passer-by hailed a taxi and sent her immediately to Hospital Besar Kuala Lumpur. She is not so fortunate being conscious, grieving in agony all the way to the hospital.
My involvement in the event occurs on the morning of 30 December, 8 hours after her accident. I received a call at 7:40am from the Hospital, awaken from my sleep, still hanging over from the bottle of wine and loads of beer I drank last night.

Nurse: "Ini Cik Calvin Pang?"
Me:" HUh....nak cari siapa ni...apa hal?" (Still dreamy and angry)
Nurse:"Ini dari Hospital...

The nurse apparently still call me cik even after hearing my manly voice. By the time I reached the semi critical ward in the hospital, it's already 8:45am due to the jam. RS was asleep and the nurse say that they could not contact her dad since last night. RS refused to go into operations and waiting for her dad to arrive from Penang. So I called her dad, found out that he will only be arriving at 2pm in the afternoon. I asked for his consent for the operations and immediately arrange RS to go operations.

KL Hospital has one of the rudest staff, RS was forced to take multiple X-rays because they mixed up with the X-rays. The way they handled the patients are not proffessional and rude. I am surprised to find their motto is to provide the best to the patients. But I guess I can't blame them but there are certainly rooms (or planets) for improvement.

RS underwent operations in KL hospital and got transfered to Gleneagles on 30th night. She had fever and limbs swollen on 31st and was in a lot of pain. She was injected with Morphin to numb her pain causing her to stay semi conscious. Hopefully the worst is over. By today, 2nd of January, she felt better and remained active the whole day. She will undergo another operations on Wednesday to insert in rods and metals to her limbs. It will probably take her a month or two to fully recover. Do drop her a visit. Just ask me and I will tell you the location.
Please do not buy any food! She is already well fed by us...Your visit will be just fine...though she asked for a new laptop, a tv and stuffs...haha

The bright side is: She is fortunate to "walk away" from the accident and hey it is New Year!