Month: January 2020

恭喜發財！

Contrary to popular belief (of friends for whom I am the token Chinese friend), I am not stuffing my face with tikoy, surrounding by delighted relatives in red.

My participation in these Lunar New Year events are very minimal and un-Chinese. We don’t have doting Chinese grandparents imposing these traditions on us, so we skip out on the festivities and expenses.

But today, we all did work downstairs at the office and had lunch together. There is nothing more Filipino-Chinese than the hustle of working for the family business.

I do love the stories accompanying Chinese holidays. Chang’e and her rabbit on the moon, the magpies helping the cowherd and the fairy meet up….

The Lunar New Year’s story is about a rat race (heh) instituted by the Lord of Heaven. The rat wins the race by betrayal. It doesn’t wake the cat on time to run the race, which is why they will forever be enemies. It allies itself with the ox, only to jump ahead to the finish line. I think it says a lot about the Chinese psyche that the first animal of the Zodiac is a tiny rat.

I do wish everyone good health and good fortune this year. May the moon watch us closely and shine brightly on all of us.

*Alternate titles include: 1% of Something, 1% of Anything

Running time: around 35 – 45 minutes per episode, for 16 episodes. If you are me, the time spent on this drama is a big blur.

I originally planned to write about Cebu for this week’s post, but I wasn’t really feeling it because my feelings were so consumed by this drama.

So the plot goes, lovely and kindhearted teacher helps out an old man from nearly dying. Old man turns out to be a rich chairman who is not a frequent recipient of unconditional love and help. He decides he wants to reward her by leaving her everything in his will, provided she be married. Whoever gets the girl, gets the fortune. Whack.

Old rich man, of course, has an asshole chaebol grandson. This grandson is of such concern to the old man that he desperately wants to set them up so she can whip him into shape. Asshole grandson wants the fortune, so agrees to date the teacher for six months. If it works out, good. If it doesn’t, they just chalk it up to fate. Both parties agree to this despite their mutual, initial dislike of each other – which means that them falling in love is inevitable. And because it is “merely a business arrangement”, there is pining and drama and domestic cuteness.

Cue the swooning.

I love all these tropes, but executing them as realistically and as neatly as this drama does is difficult. The pacing, the tension, the chemistry are all very important.

Though it stars the rich, stuck-up asshole guy from Drinking Solo (Ha Seok-Jin – it’s funny because he falls for a poor teacher there too), and yes it features my K-Drama pet peeve of the *wrist grab*, the drama is refreshing for its characterisation of the lead girl and the swiftness it takes to clear up miscommunications.

Jeon So-Min plays the teacher character, which I thought was really drawn well. Most K-Drama female leads annoy me a lot because they act so dumb when they’re not supposed to be dumb, and so cowardly when they are supposed to be brave. The teacher character here is charming, smart, fierce, and loveable without being Mary Sue about it. She’s president of a K-Pop boy’s fan club, has a nouveau riche best friend who is equally magnetic and loves her a lot, and she’s charitable without being irritating. She feels like a whole character, who is in fact, able to stand up for herself even if she is physically treated like a rag doll. (Will there be a day in K-Drama where the female lead does not get kidnapped? Rare.)

And because she can stand up for herself, she can clear up miscommunications easily. She asks the male lead questions, rather than acting in foolish assumptions, so it doesn’t take so long to resolve petty misunderstandings. It’s what made their six month relationship so wholesome – the fact that they communicated and exerted effort to meet each other. They even tackle adult stuff like sex and consent (“You’re not a human if you touch a drunk woman.”) without being preachy about it. It’s the kind of relationship that proves that loving someone is really a choice.

My admiration for the drama’s clear, respectful lines and my investment in the relationship then, made The Last Trip Episode (another K-Drama classic trope) really painful for me. Because they were like “Please find a good man, so I will feel less bad.” and “If I’d known I’d like him so much, I would have given these six months my all so I would have no regrets”, and I was like “Please stop, you guys, this is wrecking me.” This drama was Drinking Solo on rom-com steroids.

“Most people break up because they don’t love each other. I don’t understand why we have to break up because we do.”

My crops have been watered. My skin has been cleansed. This was the death blow. I’m drowning in my own feels. The year is 2020, but emotionally we are in 2013. I would recommend this drama to friends, but I think I want to keep it for myself for now. Because I am still in the middle of processing my thoughts about it. Which is why this blog post is so, so long and so, so *hand gestures* messy. omg.

Short of giving up my whole entire heart to this drama, I can no longer find the words to describe the joy it brought me over the past week. Aside from the short episode lengths, I really just ate up the whole damn thing as fast as I possibly could. Healthy K-Drama couples without losing the spiciness and the cuteness for 2020? Amen.

Resolutions are intimidating. Every year, people come up with a list of things they resolve to become/do, only to quit because the changes they need to incorporate into their life get too daunting or they aren’t getting the results immediately.

I’ve fallen into that trap a lot over the years, so I’d like to actually see through some changes this year. Based on what I’ve read and researched, some experts recommend chopping up goals into more specific, manageable bits so you can gradually have them in your life.

There’s a big difference between having a resolution like “Write more” and a goal like “Write one blog post every week”. There are more details to the latter, which means you won’t be at a lost as to how to proceed.

Since I have a lot of things I want to accomplish this year, I’ve decided to post my goals and my plans for this year. Another aspect to achieving a goal is accountability. We like to save face, so we are more inclined to finish with a little bit of pressure from the expectations of other people. Even though I know that no one is reading this, I feel like I’d be encouraged to complete my task list this year if I write about it publicly.

1. Work on the yearbook at least once a month: Since there is no moving forward on the yearbook from my high school’s end, I’ve decided to compile all the information, ideas, and plans into a powerpoint and negotiate from there.

2. Learn a new recipe once a month: I learned how to bake last year but haven’t practiced in a while, and I want to learn how to cook so I’m going to try out new things and see how that goes.

3. Get my drivers’ license before June: All my friends have their licenses but don’t drive, so I’d really like to learn how to drive and THEN figure out how to get a car.

4. Exercise at least thrice a week: It’s hard with my current schedule, but I think I can do this on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. There are lots of workout videos on YouTube that fit into a single K-POP song so I’m also going to try those.

5. Finish a TV show/drama every month: I am notoriously slow at finishing TV shows, so I’m hoping to watch continuously every month.

6. Grow my hair out and donate it again: Five years ago, I grew out almost 12 inches of hair and donated it to the YMCA Downtown’s Strand Up for Cancer campaign. I think it’s almost time to cut my hair soon for this.

7. Grow at least one plant on the rooftop garden: Our garden is really hot so plants aren’t doing so well there. I’m hoping to do research and grow useful crops and herbs.

8. Try out the badminton court near the house at least once: It’s a walkable distance and quite cheap. I just really need a playmate for Saturdays, I suppose.

9. Try out the archery range at SM North Edsa at least once: I also heard about an archery range at the mall nearby, and I really want to take my shot at the sport (pun intended).

10. Study Chinese at least once at week: It doesn’t matter whether or not I learn new characters, phrases, idioms, poems, or finish a new level on Duolingo. I need to be more purposeful about improving my Mandarin.

11. Finish the existing embroidery projects I have before moving on to the next project: My attention span on my projects isn’t very consistent, so I want to finish all my ongoing projects before the year ends again.

12. Try to use the sewing machine at least thrice: My sister bought me a sewing machine as a 15th birthday present, but I think a thread snagged somewhere on it and I have to check that. I would really like to learn how to operate it and to do basic repairs on my clothes.

13. Journal at least once a month: I used to go through one journal in one year. My current journal is a little thicker to be sure, but I’ve been writing in it since October 2017.

14. Draft an itinerary for a trip to the U.K. before the year ends: To visit the United Kingdom has been a dream of mine since high school, so I think I have to plan in order to will it into existence.

15. Avoid soft drinks: I don’t think I can avoid junk food or sweets yet, so I’ll try to avoid soft drinks this year.

16. Clean out the toys in the attic and the old magazines in the shelves: Some things haven’t moved since we moved into this house in 2016.

17. Invest in at least two pairs of shoes and a nice bag: I’m considering a pair of sneakers with East Asian designs and a leather satchel right now. I want to buy pieces that are more unique and last longer.

18. Reread old books: I really loved YA when I was 14 years old and up until I was 17 or so but I haven’t read some of them in so long so those are due for a reread.

19. Host a birthday party: My 22nd birthday is coming up soon and it is only fitting as an homage to Taylor Swift’s “22”.

20. Grow out fingernails, one finger at a time: A lifelong resolution of mine, since I can never grow my nails out. We’ll try our level best this year. Maybe. Hopefully.

So in no particular order, these are my goals for 2020. Will I see them through? I’m hoping to complete at least half. See? I set a realistic goal to meet my other goals.

Happy New Year to everyone, Auld Lang Syne and all that jazz. Things I’d recommend other people to do this year? Stream Red Velvet’s Psycho, and stan SHINee!