blog

INGREDIENTS

Any [immovable/rigid/dogmatic] idea of how or what anything must be

lack of curiosity

excessive navel-gazing

vitamin deficiency

DIRECTIONS

...

finish later

summary: "two neighbors form a strong bond after both suspect extramarital activities of their spouses. however, they agree to keep their bond platonic so as not to commit similar wrongs"

Chow Mo-wan: In the old days, if someone had a secret they didn't want to share... you know what they did?

Ah Ping: Have no idea.

Chow Mo-wan: They went up a mountain, found a tree, carved a hole in it, and whispered the secret into the hole. Then they covered it with mud. And leave the secret there forever.

Ah Ping: What a pain! I'd just go to get laid.

Chow Mo-wan: Not everyone's like you.

infidelity, things unspoken. rain and dark rooms, eating in fractured silence. telephone calls. "yearning," if you're so inclined. and these fucking dresses, over and over, the whole time. i'll talk about that.

Maggie Cheung plays Mrs. Chan (Su Li-zhen) and is consistently chided by her neighbors for being overdressed. her presence is striking, elegant. she is actively being cheated on by her husband. her dresses, formally known as cheongsams or qipaos (which i enjoy typing more), were popularized in shanghai in the 1920s and have undergone a number of historical evolutions. when the qipao first came into vogue, it was as a revolution of sorts. the qing dynasty was freshly overthrown, leading to a widespread turn from traditional values. this was embraced by Chinese feminists of the time; during this period of unrest, many women attended school and entered the workforce for the first time. with shifting lifestyles, duties, and philosophies, came some sexy little outfits. The traditional robes for women were ditched for the qipao, a slim-fitting dress inspired by the Manchu changpao, which was formerly required attire for Chinese men of a certain class. the qipao became immensely popular with women throughout China, and Mrs. Chan may as well have been a walking advertisement for this garment. however, she was sort of in the wrong fit at the wrong time. the rise of the People's Republic of China discouraged women at large from qipaos and similar garments in the 1950s, and ITMFL is set in 1962. the social perception of these dresses heel-turned from stylish and of-the-moment to shamefully bourgeois - an undesirable class indicator. at this point, flexing was a political misbehavior. the qipao was largely replaced by an androgynous, simple tunic similar to the appropriate menswear of the time. there was a qipao resurgence in the 1980s, with the PRC eventually designating it as required formal attire for female diplomatic agents, but in general you shouldn't have been seen in one around town for a few decades.

Mrs. Chan, despite it all, is seen in a qipao every time she's on screen. devoid of context, all i really thought while watching the movie was that she rocked them. "she must have a tailor on speed dial," etc. but there was more research to do for absolutely no reason and to no real end aside from what you're reading right now. Mrs. Chan lives in Hong Kong, which during the set time of the film was a colony of Britain. Culturally, this made it a strange place to be. many sought refuge here from the political and economic instability of mainland china, while the people who had lived there already were sort of up to the same shit as usual. global historian Girgio Biancorosso asserted that Hong Kong was "...a political, social, and cultural space that has become distinctly local; a space defined by both the immigrants' desire of starting from scratch and the islanders' sense of being separate." Mrs. Chan is, in fact, an immigrant from Shanghai in this story, which probably explains why the fits went so hard and her neighbors were a bunch of hating ass birds. given the time period, maybe they were also hand-me-downs, or she was on diva shit because she could remember her mom doing the same in her childhood. geographically, she is removed from most stigma around looking awesome. personally and emotionally, her life was silently falling apart.

this is the part where I'm less sure of exactly what to say. you're in a new place, the rules are a little more up for interpretation. you're feeling funky and free and figuring out what the fuck the british are all about and then boom, the love of your life is leaving all the time to sleep with other people. is there any beauty without pain? that feels reductive, boring, dumb to even type. but when you're feeling trapped, a little heartbroken, disappointed all around, maybe it comes naturally to dig into the one thing you're always going to have: yourself. vanity as armor. despite the love affair central to the film, you never get the impression that she's particularly trying to impress. her character is quiet, resigned, maybe just strikingly beautiful because what else is there to do anyway? i hate fashion, i hate all assumption based on appearance, i hate when it makes sense anyway. highly recommend the movie and nothing i wrote here really has anything to do with why it's good.

it's hard to lose a parent under any circumstances. they bring you to life, teach you what they can, and one day you see them for the last time. my dad died young, without warning. things were complicated but not in any particularly unique ways. i didn't feel close to him.

he loved me and i love him but he was unreliable, he drank and crashed his cars, he hurt my mom, he hurt his girlfriend after my mom, never came to a track meet, skipped his custody days, lied, stole. he taught me how to hold a grudge, how to draw, how to pirate music. he never taught me how to make chili but i figured out how to do it like him anyway. i was his first born. we share initials: AJC.

once i left home i did everything i could to stay away, and the space between us only grew. i never called, but neither did he. i ignored texts until i had a question. we both grew up. he really did try, but for a long time i was bitter. dismissive. thought it was too little too late, hated the pieces of him i saw in myself. and there are plenty, built into my psyche the same way everything that happens to a person makes up who and how they are. i have fuzzy shiny memories of him as my Favorite Man, memories of hiding behind the couch to see the movies he'd put on after my bedtime. he pretended not to see me behind him, peeking out from under a blanket on the floor. nasty fucking carpet in that house. i can still smell it. i remember how he took pictures of everything, how he loved cats, how our dining room would fill with smoke when he played poker with his friends. i remember scrubbing musty yellow smoke stains off the walls when my mom sold the house.

we were born when the sun and moon sat in capricorn. i got his eyes, his hair, his teeth, his love for rollercoasters, a lot of his restlessness. my mom hated it when he gave himself tattoos and i loved learning to do the same. i never got to tell him that. he didn't know me anymore, and i never met the person he became. the one he was still becoming. my sister says he was really in love, keeping a job, happier than ever. i never got to ask him how he did it. i never told him he was a good dad, and it would have been a lie if i did. he was a friend, an addict, the only person brave enough to try to teach me how to drive. he cared about romance and art almost exclusively. he knew the exact locations and conditions to gather too many morel mushrooms for anyone to eat alone. he probably regretted having 3 kids by age 22, but he would never have said that. he misspelled my name every time he wrote it. he cried in front of me more than any man i've known since.

on the first of december he died of a heart attack at home. i'll never hold a grudge again.

opened at work (movie theater). everything was weird, every conversation a little strained, but i felt good by the end. chandler showed up without socks on and quietly came out later wearing socks. didn't mention this but noticing got me through the day.

anais nin: "let's not count our chickens. i am not a genius, i don't write anything, i am not useful, and on top of that i am mean. perhaps, later on, i shall write well. i shall be inspired. but what good does that do me now? it doesn't make me any better, and I judge by the present and not the future"

simple things. a job i like and a bed to sink into. to be left alone when i want it. no pressure to do or be anything beyond what is necessary. the time and space to do or be whatever i decide. love that feels like devotion, like religion, like a thick blanket you bring to lay on in the park. to put my car in neutral and push it off a cliffside. to create no waste, consume only what i need. to break glass and make a mosaic. anonymity. secrets. soundtracks. to stop thinking that killing myself is always an option. for my mom to call me more. for everyone to call me more. to be in the loop. to be met halfway. straightforwardness. tattoos i won't like in 20 years. eggs, cooked any way, every day. less inhibition

"TO LOVE SOMEONE UNCONDITIONALLY IS TO NOT CARE WHO THEY ARE OR WHAT THEY DO. UNCONDITIONAL LOVE, ON THE SURFACE, LOOKS THE SAME AS INDIFFERENCE." (r. bach)

WITHOUT EXPECTATION OR ATTACHMENT

a wish for another person's happiness

ABSOLUTE FREEDOM / ABSOLUTE DEVOTION

incurable