< Certificate of Honor >

< Certificate of Honor >

It’s been 18 years now. For 18 full years have you been so diligent and hard-working.


I still remember the first day we met. So cold was it in Hoengseong, my teeth were clattering and my legs shivering. Then, for first time you opened yourself and I took a nervous step inside. That unforgettable moment, I was amazed at how broad and neat hearted you were. Bold and sturdy on the outside yet warm and welcoming on the inside, you gave me trust and I knew I could always count on you.


For hundred times a day, for students, teachers, and workers, heavy and light, tall and short, you didn’t seem to mind. Your mind was always wide open. No matter how late I was, you had my back covered. Landing me safe and sound, just in time on the lobby, you proved to me, nothing is impossible.    


Then, last summer when you were ill, the entire school was rent with grief. Although it was only a week or two, your absence was so critical. So many were sent to court and everyone thought “Only if you had been there.” As Benjamin Franklin said “We get wise too late and old too soon,” it was only after you were gone that we realized how much we appreciated and loved you.


So now that you have returned, young and beautiful as you used to be 18 years back, we give you this certificate of honor. Mr. Elevator. Kmla. Senior, we honor you today, November 26th 2013, as the “Best Elevator in the World,” for having volunteered for the safety and convenience of thousands of KMLA family members over the past 18 years. With no doubt, You, Mr.Elevator, have certainly raised us all, to the “highest level.”

Tales of the Unexpected- Roald Dahl

Although I have only read a couple of the stories out of <Tales of the Unexpected>, it was certainly enough for me to find several common traits shared among the stories. The most significant of them was the “ironic” attitude of the narrator. The irony appears when the narrator contradicts himself by speaking of horrid things in such a moderate manner. The last scene of <Lamb to the Slaughter>, where the detectives eat the murder weapon as their supper, the narrator adds lines such as “One of them belched” as if the men were eating an ordinary lamb chop. Like so, I think such narrating methods made the overall tone of the stories sarcastic and cynical.

 

Unlike his children’s’ novels, most of the Roald Dahl’s short stories in <Tales of the Unexpected> portray the negative side of human nature. The dark themes of the stories suggest that the author intended to show the negative human natures through the actions of his characters. Revenge, in <Lamb to the slaughter>, greed in <Mrs. Bixby and the Colonel’s Coat>, and dishonesty in <Man from the South>, all three are example of Dahl’s such intentions. Almost as if it is a punishment, the main characters mostly end up in a tragedy for pursuing immoral human deeds. Like so, not only did the author try to portray the evil human nature, but also he tried to show his critical attitude towards it.  

 

Lastly, another hint suggesting Dahl’s negative portrayal of human nature is perhaps the theme “trust.” In <Man from the South>, the American Boy answers “Sure, I’ll bet, why not?” to the South American man that he encountered for the first time; and eventually he almost loses his finger for a Cadillac that didn’t even exist. In <Mrs. Bixby and the Colonel’s Coat>, Mrs. Bixby cheats on her husband for 8 years. On the contrary, she herself, who refused to write the description of the coat saying “I trust you” to the pawnbroker, is cheated in the deal with the broker. By making the characters trust in the beginning and eventually get betrayed at the end, I assume that Dahl intended two things. It’s either that Dahl wanted to stress the evilness of the human nature by contrasting a crime against trust and innocence, or simply to show the stupidity of human nature, so carefree and lacking suspicion.

 

Are they Really Homosexual?

At first glance, Oscar Wilde's "The Picture of Dorian Gray" might appear to deal with the homosexuality between Dorian and his two admirers, Basil and Henry. After all, when the book was first published in 1890, it was both popularized and criticized by the public for dealing with one of the “tabooed” values of the Victorian era. Although there are no direct references to homosexuality in the book, quotes such as “…saw Dorian Gray for the first time… our eyes met…I grew pale. A curious sensation of terror came over me” and the homosexual preference of the author himself bring a synergy effect; emerging together, they-the evidences- seem enough to refer to the theme “homosexuality”. However, as Oscar Wilde was often quoted “All art is quite useless,” he did not “use” his novel to portray real-life, personal traits; thus, it is more accurate to see his literary works with no accordance with his sexual preference. Accordingly, the relationship between Basil and Dorian cannot be proven to be something more than an artist’s attraction for his masterpiece. Therefore, it is perhaps more accurate to assume that the atmosphere of the novel is not based on a sexual affection of males, but an instant interest or platonic attraction among companions. In this sense, homosexuality, one of the major themes of “the Picture of Dorian Gray”, should rather be accepted as a “shaky” idea built upon lack of evidence and not a solid statement.

Very Personal- Ben X

Ben X; I Am Nothing (2007)

    - Ben being taunted

 

“In order to feel good, you need to learn how to feel” - Scarlite

Despite the fact that he has suffered from autism and Asperger’s syndrome all his life, Ben (Greg Timmermans) is to attend a “normal” high school with all the other “normal” students. For the past few years, he has been constantly bullied by his classmates (especially by the two extra mean boys named Bogaert and Desmedt), but this time, the class has somewhat “crossed the line” in taunting and humiliating Ben. With that “incident” being a catalyst, Ben and his mother begin a struggle to finally make things alright.

 “This is my end game”- Ben X

Ben views the world as if he is playing his favorite game of “ArchLord,” in which he is called Ben X, level 80, heroic, and loved by his “healer” named Scarlite (Lara Verlinden). The film does an excellent job in building a game-like portrayal of Ben’s perspective of the world by, for example, intertwining Ben as the actual human Ben, being all tense and nervous on the complicated streets on his way to school and the fictional ArcLord character Ben X, going on a quest while following a mouse cursor floating on the screen. Throughout the film, the viewer can really experience the true assimilation of reality and an MMORPG game, with all the game-like sound effects and BGMs.

 - Ben's view of the world

The running time of total 93 minutes basically deals with the dark situation that Ben has faced all his life and the attempt to overcome such a situation; narrated both in Ben’s first perspective, and in the third perspective of others surrounding Ben. The scenes that frequently flip back and forth between the first narrative of Ben and the recorded interviews of people certainly stresses the intention of the director; he might have wanted to clarify what was going on in the movie since half of Ben’s perspective was based on the computer graphic scenes on ArchLord. However, despite the director’s initial intentions, whether the interviews of such diverse people- his mom, dad, teachers and etc- actually helped with the clarification or rather contributed to more distraction is debatable.       

Overall, the movie is respectable in a sense that it faced many of the hot social issues such as teenage game addiction and bullying. Nevertheless, bringing the film to a personal level, it was rather disappointing. As a viewer that has an ex-game addict older sister an  therefore abhors games in all shapes or forms, I did not enjoy a single part of Ben’s hypersensitive game viewing eyes, the game like sound effects, nor the 3D computer graphics. Personally, I give the movie 6 out of ten, for I couldn’t feel what Ben was learning to feel  even until the entire movie ended, but rather I sympathized more with his younger brother that appeared on the screen for less than 5 minutes in total.

 

Cast: Greg Timmermans (Ben), Laura Verlinden (Scarlite), Marijke Pinoy (Mom), Titus De Voogdt (Bogaert), Maarten Claeyssens (Desmedt) and Pol Goossen (Dad).

The Last man Standing

In Oscar Wildes’ The Picture of Dorian Gray, all the characters face their tragic finals by either getting murdered or committing suicide. Starting with Sibyl’s suicide, Basil gets slaughtered by Dorian, Alan kills himself, and James Vane is shot by a hunter. The death of Basil, without doubt, was brought by Dorian, but when observed more carefully, I noticed that the death of others also had Dorian as the fundamental cause.   

 

Then, where or who was the centre of that evil, which corrupted Dorian to “murder” so many people? In the beginning of the plot, Dorian was said to be “unstained purity” but towards the end as somebody tells him “the goes the devil’s bargain” he turned out to be the monster he found in the portrait.

 

The first sacrifice of Dorian’s vice was Sibyl Vane, the former fiancé of Dorian who killed herself after Dorian unilaterally broke the marriage. James Vane, the brother of Sibyl Vane, was shot while stalking the “murderer” of his sister, Dorian, by a hunter who had mistaken him as a deer. Then, Dorian reveals his highest potential of wickedness when slaughtering his closest friend Basil and black mailing his chemist friend Alan Campbell to hide the crime scene. Alan, who later kills himself for guiltiness, tells Dorian “You are infamous, absolutely infamous!” after getting threatened that Dorian would publicize his homosexuality if he had not done the job.        

 

Murder after murder, Dorian seems to develop his evilness. Some people say, “as written in the book, the “yellow book” was the core of the bad influence.” But then as Wilde wrote “All art is quite useless,” could it really have been that single book that destroyed Dorian? And after every incident, Dorian still seems to have some moral senses, which are however; all contradicted by Lord Henry. From the very beginning of the story, Lord Henry has had a great amount of influence on Dorian and it can be seen from “Basil would have helped him to resist Lord Henry’s influence, and still the more poisonous influence came…” Also, as Lady Naborough said “Lord Henry, I am not at all surprised that the world says that you are extremely wicked.” Many parts of the book proved his evilness.

 

Sibyl died from a broken heart and the failed relationship that devastated was actually due to Lord Henry who, behind the scenes, persuaded Dorian to break up with Sibyl because “One should never make one’s debut with a scandal.” Lord Henry, with his villainous character, not only encourages immorality, but also destroys the existing morality within Dorian by constantly justifying the immoral actions that Dorian himself regrets. After the death of Alan, Dorian falls in sorrow for luring the man into his death but Lord Henry describes it as “It’s the man’s own fault. Why did he get in front of the guns?”

 

The story ends by Dorian killing himself after acknowledging the tragic outcome of his wrong doings in the severely wrecked portrait. Finally, with Dorian committing suicide as a result of the immorality, which was introduced to him by Lord Henry, Lord Henry eventually becomes the “core” of all tragedies. And as of what I noticed to be very interesting, he was the only man alive, or the “last man standing.”  

   

 

                                             

 

 

Xiao! Wang Jing

“Wang, duck down a bit.”

“W…What? Why should I? Where am I? Where’ you guys bringin’ me? Please let me go I gotta go and finish my Common App tonight.”

I refused to move despite the rigid hand tugging on my arm, forcing me to keep on walking. The hand of the person that tied this annoying cloth around my eyes, probably that of Franky; it sounded like him, felt like him, and most of all, smelled like him. Well, I obviously knew that there had to be many others involved in this besides him. Not only could I smell a crowd around me, but I also heard the mocking giggles that have been irritating me ever since they “kidnapped” me in front of the Yoga house. The group mainly consisted of my homeroom classmates but with Liz missing. Liz and I have been together for 3 years; I recognized her scent within the radius of several yards. Unlike me, Liz was an outgoing, active girl, and it was quite strange to not have her participate in a prank played, especially, on her own boyfriend.    

 

“Chai hong Yoga house”, as its name suggests, is a small yoga academy located on Millwood Avenue, the main street of China Town Virginia, where my mom gives yoga lessons during weekday evenings to most of Virginia’s bourgeois housewives. It was awkward to have 15 “elegant” female Anglo-Americans gliding through china town in their silver Audi’s but my mom’s fancy resume of being an Olympic bronze medalist kept luring them in to this shaggy neighborhood for over ten years.

 

Barely ten minutes ago, was I there on the shaggy road, to pick up mom’s unlaundered yoga outfit. Now, I’m headed into some kind of a naughty mischief my friends prepared for me. I felt bad. And I meant it. Tonight was the perfect chance to finish my grand experiment with the perfumes. I’ve been working for almost 3 years now, to make the perfect scent for Liz’s graduation gift and I had only 2 months left until I finish it, give it to her, and finally enjoy myself cuddling with the perfect girl perfumed with the perfect scent. Even mom said she’ll be working late at dad’s restaurant, helping with the group reservation, or some teens having a birthday party. That bought me a ton of private time. I had no time to waste; my clock was ticking away. Whoever it was that was playing this time consuming prank on me, I would most certainly take revenge on as soon as it ended.

But for now, Franky was my one and only guidance, preventing me from bumping into stuffs. I could identify people, food, and the overall atmosphere by simply sniffing the mid-air, but not walls and ceilings. Some smelled like wet fungi but usually they smelled like nothing. 

“Ouch”

“See? I told you to duck down. It’s in part your fault. Who told you to be so tall?”

 

Okay. The first one on “People to Revenge” list was definitely Franky. My forehead began throbbing. I get the feeling it’s going to bruise tomorrow. I tried to take my attention off from the pain and on to something like “Where was I going?” My forehead told me that I was indoors, just past some kind of an arch-shaped entrance, and for the rest, my nose went on doing its job. With the eyes disabled, my nose became extra sensitive.

 

“Sniff”

 

Yuan xi, or Chinese parsley. Followed by sesame oil, rice, pork, ginger, garlic, spring onion, pepper, chilly, soy sauce, oyster sauce all blended and complementing each other as if… As if it was it was the smell of my father’s apron I remember as a child. The apron of a head chef in Beijing’s largest hotel always smelled like a mouth watering Chinese dish garnished with freshly chopped Yuan xi, in it catching the story of the chef’s hard day and telling it to his son. Cilantro, or Yuan xi, for me, was the smell of my dad with his generous smile, smell of home back at China, smell of warmth, smell of all things that were taken from me on that plane here to America. Tabooed from coming near their restaurant, attending boarding school, and being forced to become an “Intellect” unlike them for 12 whole years, I had almost forgot the scent of it. The piercing scent of cilantro grasped my fading memory of comfort; comfort that existed before our family was flew out of China in search for the American dream, while sitting on an intractable amount of debt. For the first time in 12 years, I felt warm, and then I realized that for the first time in 12 years, I had stepped in to a Chinese restaurant.

 

“Surprise!”

 

It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the brightness it had been missing for an hour. Then first came the sight of Franky, then my friends, then the scene of a Chinese restaurant….Then mom? She looked shocked just as much as I did. A brief sense of empathy came across me, then in a matter of seconds; however, a gush of anger had swept it off its feet.

 

“What the hell??”

 

I could hear my heart pound in my ears.

“Tada~ It’s your Birthday Wang Jing!”

 

There was a cake on the table, and their eyes were full of silent pride of accomplishment. They did indeed succeed in surprising me. They had just broken my, no my family’s life-time taboo. And now, it was MY turn to show them what they had just done. The quiet, introverted Chinese nerd was off the leash. I grabbed Franky by his hair.

“What are you doing! Wang Jing Stop!!”

 

Just before I banged Franky’s head against the table, I saw the menu chart fall from my mom’s trembling hands, on to the floor. And that was when the time halted.

 

“……..”

 

Not a sound was made, nor a breath was taken. I let go of the hair. A handful remained in my fist, Franky screamed a scream of a pig and people started screaming along, but I couldn’t feel nor hear any of it. I read the title out loud.  

“Xiao Wang Jing”

My father came out of the kitchen with a rather embarrassed smile on his face as if I had discovered his little secret he had hoped to keep to himself. Or of naming the restaurant in the name of his son “The smile of Wang Jing.”

 

Suddenly, my senses came back with the olfactory sense reacting as the first. The soothing aroma of cilantro took me down. The anger, the shock, the confusion were all malfunctioning. I felt high in the scent of yuan xi, the Chinese restaurant, my father’s apron, and of my childhood comfort.

 

That night I was half out of mind, I didn’t do anything, say anything, not eat anything until I stood in front of my perfume collections,madly searching for the last scent that would satisfy the lacking 2 percent of my grand project. I carefully took the spoid, on the verge of going mad with excitement, and perfected the aroma of my memory. Basking in my own glory, it was only after I had put on the lid written “Yuan xi” back on the bottle, that I realized I had created a cilantro-scented perfume for my girlfriend.        

Me Nam is Didi

 

In a classroom dimly lit by thin streaks of sunlight coming from the glass-less windows and ventilated by two wooden fans barely hanging on to the ceiling, awaited fifty pairs of eyes glistening with reserved excitement. For the first few days of class, I was simply the new “miss.” From the morning greetings of “Good morning miss” to common questions such as”You nam (name in Hindi) miss?” despite my efforts of crying out “Me nam is Min!” the replacement of the two “ss’s” with an “N” seemed nearly impossible.

Of all the classes, the Bengali class 7 and 8 was the shiest, yet the most diligent, and eventually the most memorable. To be honest, after the first class, I secretly hoped to change classes to that of a lower grade; I had dreamt of something less quite, more aggressive, and fun. Then on the next day, I dragged myself into the same class, wishing that it would end even before it started, frustrated already at the thought of being called “miss” all day.

I carelessly started handing out two sheets of colored papers, not really minding what pair of colors left my hand. Everybody seemed happy with what they got, pink and yellow, purple with light green, blue and red, but except for Pinky, who kept on looking down at her papers in an attempt to hide the disappointment in her face. And not thinking much about it again, I switched one of her two brown papers with a pink one; she was“Pinky” after all. “Tangku miss” she replied to me with such an over-sized smile that it almost embarrassed me. So everyone was satisfied in the end, excluding myself, working on their “bird in the cage" eye illusion crafting where you draw a cage on one paper, a bird on the other, and spin to see the “bird in the cage.” I was so bored I could almost hear a clock ticking over the dull, monotonous sounds of pencils scratching.

Another 40 minutes seemed to have somehow crawled past me without any deviations. However, just like any other surprises, mine also came at the very end. 5 minutes remaining for class, I was going around taping the two papers on to a stick so I could finally wrap up my boredom. It became Pinky’s turn to give me her papers for taping but instead of handing me the paper, she told me to lean over the desk and bring my ears closer as if she was going to whisper a secret to me. A bit annoyed, I did as she told me, I leaned over the desk to hear her little secret in an exaggeratedly enthusiastic manner. Fortunately, she didn't seem to care nor be suspicious, with her simple hesitant action, she just left me in a state of sudden shock. For the first time something deviated from my expectations, for the first time in India I was called by the name“didi” and for the first time ever in my life, kissed by a girl on my cheeks.

 

From that day on, I don’t know what Pinky did to her classmates, but class 7 and 8 certainly became my favorite class. They seemed to be thankful and happy even of the most minor things we did for them; for example individually asking their names and telling mine in return. All of the girls started calling me “didi”, we held hands when walking on the same direction on the street, and on the last day of class, Pinky brought her hair bands to braid (braiding the hair in two strips is the most signature hairstyle in school) my hair just like she braided hers. Even until the day I left India, the class stayed quite, gave me a bunch of bashful smiles and was not exactly referred to as “Min”. But rather, something more than just “Min” and I guess for them, that was a sister or “Didi” as they used to call me.