Whoa!

Was just listening to the radio on my way out for lunch and a song got my attention. The singer was lamenting about her lover who is always absent. The laid back and mellow mood of the song was so 'alien', standing out like a sore thumb amongst the rock & roll, emo music that saturates the airwaves that it would seem inappropriate at all.

Came home googling for 'Bitterheart' and surprise, surprise - she's one of our own! OMG! At first I thought someone at the radio station had a nostalgic moment and put on a 60s-styled song. I thought it was a master touch as it certainly got me listening, as well as curious. I've always liked the slow music of the olden days for the relaxing mood that they bring, especially from the somewhat muffled speakers of old radio.

Zee Avi - Bitterheart

Can you hear me

The other day my brother asked me about the MSN display picture I used - an Oriental-looking girl with brownish hair smiling into the camera, presumably curious about her identity and if this were the face of a 'family potential'. Akhem, suffice to say it ended as a disappointment as I explained that it were that of a pretty talented member of a popular Korean girl group called Girls Generation (SNSD).

I don't quite remember how I came to know SNSD except that it was through another group, the even more popular Wonder Girls. My ex-colleague and I were then looking at a bunch of Youtube videos whilst waiting for time to pass before our weekly ritual of mamak-football and came upon a group of traffic policemen doing the famous 'Tell Me' dance with a kid. SNSD were part of the guests to the show and via some snippets of their music and video, I got curious and began searching for other videos.

As with most Korean girl groups they sang standard fare bubblegum pop with occassional sprinkles of R&B stuff (with the exception of the very talented SeeYa) but one voice from the nine of the members caught my attention: it was slightly huskier but a lot more powerful, standing out as a big contrast to the rest of the softer sounding ones.

A quick research on Google Images and Wikipedia revealed her to be Kim Taeyeon 김태연, the group leader. Further listening to the rest their music confirmed my opinion of her as the brightest star in the group of nine. Perhaps she's not the best looking of them all but is no way average by comparison and the talent in singing simply blew the rest of the competition away with perhaps two others coming close whom can sing pretty well themselves - American-born Jessica 정수연 and SeoHyun 서주현.

What actually impressed me the most was when she did two solos songs, both for Korean dramas that I've never bothered to watch. The first was If (만약에 Mananghe) made for the drama Hong Gil Dong 쾌도 홍길동. Read the comments at Youtube to see how impressed everybody was with her solo debut.

Then came a polished effort from the drama that is currently being shown on 8TV Malaysia - Beethoven Virus - a song called Can You Hear Me (들리나요 Deullinayo).

(Funnily enough I heard this song playing whilst my cousin and his girlfriend were watching next door, with me in the toilet doing some log export business...)

Here's looking forward to more in the future.

Starry, starry night

One of the things I like to do when I was a kid was to climb out of the room window onto the roof just to sit down and look at the stars. Back then the are outside the back of the house was secondary forest of which some bit of the area were cleared to plant stuff. My parents and the neighbours spent their free time planting vegetables and fruits, most notably banana trees and yam.

The lack of artificial lighting would mean that the whole area would be in darkness as there were no buildings within view except for the medical lab located long the road - the area were not as developed then as now. Whenever the moon is high up in the skies of a clear night the area would be bathed in serene bluish-white lunar radiance.

My favourite though, is when the curtain of night is punctured with countless stars, their faint celestial lights blinking from the heavens. Being on the roof gave me a sweeping view of the sky, vaguely lid into a shade of dark blue.

I often ponder about life then - me myself and I, and the Universe. The stars in the skies got me thinking about my place in this thing called Creation. I am such a small thing, so minute that by comparison to everything out there I'm such an insignificant speck. Line us all up and I wouldn't even be microscopic - I'd be invisible. Have me terminated and it won't look any different.

 It's funny when you think that (existence of aliens non-withstanding), this little speck of fragile carbon-based life form is the most intelligent thing in the Universe, potentially (read that as many times as possible until you get my angle) the only living thing out there that is sentient. And if that much is true, then we're truly special indeed. I am special, you are special, he is special, she is special.

So special that sometimes one would gladly give up the world for the hope of achieving or to keep something as they were. The police put their lives in the line of fire to ensure that others don't have to. A mother would shield her children with her own back from the upcoming danger. A brother would gladly give up his food to feed a younger sister. A soldier would gladly run into the thick of battle in hope that what he does will keep his wife and family safe.

As I look up to ancient illuminations from globes of fire that might no longer be there anymore, there's a humbling feeling that as humans, we're not the mightiest - a single comet hurtling dirty ice to earth would annihilate most if not all of mankind - but we have the ability to try, because we can. A beaver would continue to build dams regardless of what CNN reports of incoming cataclysm, dung beetles would continue to do their part is breaking down compost, whales would continue to nurse their cow in the sea.

Pity I couldn't relive the habits of a childhood anymore of climbing out the window to the roof - an incident of burglary in our neighbour's house got everybody spooked that metal grills were installed to bar any kind of entrance (and exit) without keys.

Furthermore houses were now built in the are that used to be the secondary forest - so more lights now fill the night than before, making it all the harder to see anything so vague in the night sky.

"There was a complaint from next door about you standing on the roof".