Prime Lit Real Estate: Japanese Home & Bookshop

Gosh ... that's a lovely idea ...

I started a mag-like Tumblr quite a while ago. I like them because it's easy to post songs.

Here's one called Dedicated to ... . Enjoy.

Yes, I know, it's the title of a book but this Annie (who is a writer, singer, lyricist, actress), has nothing to do with Nancy Garden. She's the multi-talented Annie Yi, who so happens to be very pretty, too.

Well, I've recently been obsessed with cataloguing my music collection, and have today decided to put in all my Harlem Yu cds. Unfortunately, as a natural progression, I thought since I only had a couple of Annie Yi's I'd do that next.

I didn't know of their relationship, of course when I stumbled upon Annie's cover album 百樂門小艷紅之快活歌 and thought, wow here's another cover album I may like. Ironically, I was into cover music because of Harlem's Night Club, but let's not split hairs. At first, I was quite unused, even put off by her voice - if you look around now, they are so many who sound like that - a little girl's voice, high pitched and small. But as I listened, because the selection of songs and arrangement were really good, I realised that she had so much skill. With my little knowledge about her, I looked around and found some information and discovered her writing, and film (which I never got to watch) ... then I read that she and Harlem were a couple.

Her next two albums, I treasure too. Both representing the Annie Yi that people should see, beyond the pretty face. She's cool.

Then her divorce and the ensuing scandal which led to her being banned in China. All at once, she seems to have dropped out of the Chinese entertainment scene.

But today, I found a lovely article online talking about her musical career and I could not but agree with the author of that piece, that we can never know what conspired in her life and should not judge her, and I'd like to add - just judge her quality of work. After all, we also hope that our bosses do that, too.

I wonder too if we will get to hear or see this strong Annie Yi soon.

I've just finished a book called Babe In Boyland, which has one of my favourite plot devices ever. The one where the girl has to dress up as a boy for some reason. Of course, the funny thing is, I never noticed how much I actually loved this until last year when a slew of dramas came out with the same premise. So I started a little Tumblog (handsome girls and pretty boys) on this.

Well, let me count the ways where this plot device has occurred and I went - oh, must read/must watch!

Do you know Mulan? The filial gal who goes to war in her father's place - I always go - must watch!!! My favourite is Vicky Zhao Wei teaming up with the handsome Chen Kun, which in turn took the first place from the Mainland drama series with Anita Yuen (whom I totally adore) and Zhao Wen-zuo. I even hunted down and bought a book called Wild Orchid by Cameron Dokey, which is a sort of retelling. 

Then there's Georgette Heyer, whom I love and have read many of her books - her Regency girls like the 'medieval' Chinese ones can't go gallivanting around as themselves. Leonie (These Old Shades) and Penelope (The Corinthian) are as feisty as they make them.

Louis Cha's girls that wander in the martial arts world sometimes dress like boys, but his men too dress like women. In Chinese opera, the norm in the past was an all male cast, anyway as the same with the stage.

Did I mention manga like Ouran and HanaKimi? And their adaptations into dramas and anime ... hoy, I collect them. (Although the Ouran drama still lies untouched on my growing stack of unwatched and to-watch DVDs). Despite other people's opinions, I like both Maki Horikita and Ella Chen in their roles, albeit for different reasons.

Talking about dramas, how can we not mention the three Korean dramas that I rewatched so many, many times - Coffee Prince, Sungkyunkwan Scandal and He's Beautiful? All which were not only great because of the romance but the ensemble cast.

And ... I need not mention Shakespeare and the various other retellings, people.

So, we can now gather that I really like this sort of story. So I sort of mentioned this to a close friend that I'm reading (now done) Babe In Boyland, which has this plot device that I really like. And guess what she says, errrmm, you know if you were not married, people would think that you're homosexual. Oh dear, excuse me, I have nothing against homosexuality but ... just because ...?! I was rendered speechless.

So, you can't like yuri or yaoi, too? Does that mean that if I like to read manga like Drops of God - I'm an alcoholic? Ok bad example.

But simply I love it. You know they always portray underdog male characters as poor and whatnot, but at the end, he's a true hero because he did something etc. I just like this sort of plot device because the girl gets to be the hero and the underdog the boot. Especially when the guys are clueless and confused, and you as the audience/reader is sniffing or mumbling in your tears - wait till you find out how cool she is. Damn ... the girl is always the character we want to be - who is painfully tomboyish without much of a figure but nice.

Anyway, I really was stunned. Yet, I can see her point. Although I don't necessary agree - it's a free world, I'll like what I like, so shut up. And I'm not afraid to say I like it even if people would get the wrong idea. Geee ... would you please get a brain?

BTW, Babe in Boyland - to me marks the return of the romantic comedy in teen books, straighforward fun and lightheartedness. So there.

Have you ever been in a situation where you were speechless or could not find the right words to reply, but it hits you sometime later, or at 3 pm in the morning? I like to call it the Delayed Response (DR) syndrome.

I had one of those yesterday. Those who know me would know that we've been having a crucial exercise at work this week, and yesterday was the fallout meeting. Now, everyone is usually exhausted but will keep their eyes open for this meeting. Well, I wouldn't mince words to say that I totally abhor the time we waste talking about this and that, some are even so minute you want to throw up! Suffice to say, I was prepared to be bored to tears or worse, fall asleep at the table.

To recap a little, this year was a wee headachy as we were assigned less people and what not. Everyone thinks it's the company's tight-fisted policy which led to this. But it's also probably some advisor's delusion that our staff are much better than the last-minute part-timers. I don't know about that though. I guess it's pure luck, good or bad - you get good apples, bad apples and sometimes no apples. Still, most went smoothly, so it really was supposed to be a meeting where you discuss the weaknesses and be constructive about it. And hopefully, the people who are in charge will remember to rectify it the next year.

Anyways, things got a bit hot when someone decided to be super-critical. Of course, I was trying to mind my own business.

After the meeting, on the way back home, I had an outburst of sorts in the car. The poor girls who had to listen to that! And much later, I realised that I should have just had the outburst in the meeting, throw a tantrum and leave the room - perhaps they will think twice when they conscript me again! Damn, lost opportunity.

How many times did I want to say do it yourself but bit my tongue? If you want to be so critical, really ... DIY! Hah, and since it's perfectly fine for the newbies to run the show, why do you keep conscripting the very exhausted bunch of seniors who have prayed to be let of the hook? I mean, the advisory team gets free food (of sorts) and the thumbs up from the boss, the parttimers get more money, the rest probably gets OT and a cheap bottle of RO water - and us in the middle, all we get is you should have done this and that and well, someone did it better - ungratefulness to the highest degree, thank you very much! Oh, I forgot - we get an extra 7 bucks.

So, so, so ... although I wish I said all this, and may have gambled that if I walked out, I'd be blacklisted - could I have gotten a serious offense warning if I did? Because I so wanted to say it. But did not because I didn't think of it then, damn prudence!

Still. Sigh. Can we pass next year? Please pretty please?