Let's put things into perspective

Time, 2:40am, 18/11/06. Place, Imperial College Willis Jackson House.

Just finished my lab report. Sure took a long time. It's not exactly done yet because I still got to read through it and see if there are any ammendments needed.

It's getting cold here. Finished my beer while doing my report. Just had a couple of shots of Jenever, something I bought in Brugge. It really isn't working very well, just 20% alcohol. Gotta get my hands on some whiskey. Haha!

A bit paiseh to have to go to Han for his Green Label. Haha!!!

Before I talk about anything else, a little something on Jenever. I got the one with a lemon flavour. Taste quite ok as long as you just run it over your tongue once and swallow it. It lacks abit of texture and richness. Taste is definitely NOT as full bodied as Greenie. But its a good light drink. Wait, wait, stomach starting to feel abit warm liao. Good good.

Now to what I really want to talk about. This is something that I thought of while I was back at hall eating lunch. Incidentally this is the first time I cooked my lunch in the hall on a weekday! What I had was black bean sauce chicken with instant noodles. Haha!

Black bean is a sort of fermented bean. So while I was eating it, i thought of the response of westerners to asian fermented stuff like salted fish or something. Then I thought of us. Not just as asians but also as Singaporeans.

As Singaporeans, we grew up with a mixed contact with Western and Eastern culture. When we see the "ang mohs" go all gaga over asian stuff we say that they are "sua ku". When we say asian people become all excited over western stuff, we say that they are "sua ku" too! Now, what does that make us?

We've never been in a culture absolutely dominated by a single source or school of thought if you could call it that way. So we will never understand the "exoticness" of things from different cultures. Just like the way that lukewarm water only has minimal temperature change regardless of whether you mix it with hot water or cold water.

So are we superior? Are we less "sua ku"? Are we not "sua ku" too if we cannot understand the way they feel?

Can anyone be expected to understand the feelings of anyone or everyone?

I think it is inevitable that we do not understand all that is going around us. The only thing we can do is to put in our best efforts to see things in different perspective.

That's the way with science, as in you can never know whether a theory is true. You can only know that it hasn't been falsified YET.

That's the way with life too. You can only try your best. Whether that's enough is not up to you to decide.

Such things are easy to say isn't it? Yes I agree. But what is your alternative? To close your eyes, mind and heart? To tell yourself that the "other" peoples are all "sua kus" just like how Aristotle maintained that the Earth was the centre of the Universe? You can do that I suppose.

Haha! That's the way things are isn't it? Always in 2 ways. Sometimes I even think that this form of 2 way thinking is quite counterproductive. (At this point, I notice my arguments have sort of gone into a loop, so I shall leave it as it is now.)

Alright, fourth shot down! Time to sleep.

Time, 3:12am, 18/11/06. Place, Imperial College Willis Jackson Hall.