Excitement for things that have yet to come

I'm preparing for my mother's birthday this month. I know she specifically wants to have a birthday cake this year, so I'm putting aside part of my budget for that. I vowed that starting this year, I will always buy my mother a birthday cake. I wasn't able to do it last year because COVID was right at its peak during this same month back then and non-essential stores - like dessert shops - were closed temporarily. Bakeries only had bread. And even if we go further back, it was either my mom was abroad or I was busy with school. We were never fond of traditional birthday cakes truth to be told. We both hate sweets and we both prefer to eat out instead. Her recent preference to cakes was probably due to Instagram and Facebook. Also bragging opportunities. As a millennial who experienced the thrill of social media likes earlier than she did, I knew that I have to give her that chance. 

Apart from that, I'm planning for us to go to our favorite local restaurant as well. COVID is already manageable in our city and establishments have been open for months with incredibly strict social distance protocols: Everything has social distancing, even while eating. People who lack either a mask or a face shield are not permitted to enter. There are sanitation procedures when you go in. There are sanitation procedures when you go out. So all is well and I'm probably more excited for her birthday to come than she is.

DRAMA SERIES

Today I finally caught up with the recent episodes of Penthouse Season 2. Surprisingly, considering this drama's wacky reputation, the plot managed to go crazier than how it was a week ago. 

• Cheon Seojin ate a fncking sim card. That's nirvana-level makjang shit right there. You won't see this serious-looking emotionally-draining silliness anywhere.

• Cheon Seojin was strangely sympathetic and pitiful in this episode. The entire show revolves around the theme of the lengths a parent will go for their child.

• Cheon Seojin x Ha Eunbyeol mother-daughter bonding time, covering up their murders edition.

• Bae Rona died BUT I suspect she's alive and still comatose somewhere. 

• Ha Yooncheol transformed into a spineless snake for the sake of his child BUT I have a gut-feeling it was him who moved comatose Rona. Others say it's Logan Lee, but my bet's on Dr. Ha.

• Shim Suryeon appeared BUT I think she's actually Shim Su-ryeon's twin and the twin's mother (having twins tends to be genetic afaik). Hence why Joo Dantae was obsessed with our original Suryeon in the first place! It's because she looks like his children's mom.

• Logan Lee contemplating life because he is stuck with the stupid Oh Yoonhee instead of his soulmate big brain Suryeon.

I can't wait for this week to end so I can have new episodes to consume.

The River Where the Moon Disappeared

I've been offline for a while. I was quite busy with work and other stuff. Today I want to talk about Actor Kim Jisoo. He is playing the male lead character, On Dal in the drama I mentioned previously. River Where the Moon Rises. Recently, he was added to the currently growing list of celebrities being accused of school violence or workplace bullying. 

Before I explain what had happened to him, for context, all of these allegations, against celebrities came out after the South Korean volleyball twins Lee Jaeyeong and Lee Dayeong were dropped from their national team when their teenage bullying was brought to the spotlight last month. 

In the view of justice --however delayed--  attained, other bullying victims were empowered and realized they finally have a voice and they can be heard. The amount of trauma caused by school violence does not end once you graduate. The mental toll will always be there, and for victims who are doing their best to move on with their lives, for them to see their former bullies having the time of their lives on TV, enjoying their fame and money, it's a cruel twist of a knife in the gut. As a result, the South Korean kpop and drama industry had their share of uncovered secrets and testimonies from numerous victims the past few weeks. Some were faked but most sound credible and the latter group is full of heartbreaking stories from school or even video evidence unearthed from years ag that showed visible signs of discomfort of the bullied party.

You wonder sometimes how these despicable bullies have gotten as far in life as they have.

One of which is actor Kim Jisoo. I wanna focus specifically on him because one, it will take forever to cover all the other suspected celebrities and two, I was just starting to like this guy! 

Personally I feel like Jisoo was hit with the worst of allegations so far. Not a pissing contest among the suspected celebrities' victims by the way, we should not negate each individual's level of trauma. But instead more on the quantity of bullying he did. He seemed to have a To Do list back then since he managed to do everything a classic teenage bully stereotype would do and more (molka and shaming male students s*xually) and his younger self wasn't shy about them either, which resulted to a lot of witnesses sharing their POVs now. From reading the insanely detail accounts, you could have sworn he was proud with what he was doing then. No effort at conscience or shame whatsoever. He was the infamous king of the campus. If there's one thing that connects his current self to his school days, it's definitely the arrogant confidence.

The main post that triggered a wave of testimonies even ended his post with:

"I don’t want an apology or restitution. It already happened, I don’t want an apology for something that's already irreversible. I don’t think it would even be sincere anyway. There’s one thing I want. Kim Jisoo. If you want to act, do it. But if you do, you need the title of school violence perpetrator right before your name."

The comments are equally interesting as well, reactions ranged from the usual photos of school records and witness accounts, to people describing how they have contacted fellow alumni and discussing how this issue has finally blown up and that they expect more people to talk. And ho boy they did. The paragraphs are long, the descriptions of the bullying were horrifying and their anger is evident.

For the record, he had already confirmed his Iljin past as of this writing, via the ever classic, supposedly-sincere handwritten apology. But this apology was too vague for me and did nothing to confirm which exactly were the legitimate testimonies, and which ones are just there for clout. Or was he silently confirming that all of it were true? Only the parties involved knows and it's up to them whether to open up more in the future. 

The face of disappointment

What I do know now is that the River Where the Moon Rises is affected big time. Due to the cinematography and Netflix level of the drama's quality, that it was already 100% pre-made like most Chinese dramas. But apparently they were about to wrap up filming soon, yet the content they've filmed are now useless. Having this kind of scandal to hit the lead actor of a drama being broadcasted on a national TV, it was unsurprising that a hiatus was announced yesterday as the production team finally decided to replace Jisoo and find a way to miraculously edit what they have and save what they can. 

It's a sad turn of events, for the victims to live in normalized silence for so long and for the drama team, for their efforts to be wasted by one single man. It will be a while for River Where the Moon Rises to make a comeback, yet I still look forward to Ondal. It will be a new a face, but at least it will be someone I can empathize easily with without guilt.

Fixing red strings and good fortune

The red string bracelets are probably one of Xiao Zhan's most iconic trademark to date. In an era of fast fashion and luxury rentals in a saturated entertainment industry that produces numerous celebrities and idols per year, a lone actor that managed to unintentionally establish a trademark for himself is already remarkable.

But before we dive into his story, what exactly are these bracelets anyway?

For a start, the custom of wearing the red string bracelets actually dates back to thousands of years ago, accross different cultures, beliefs and regions. Hence at present time, once you start digging into its history, you'll discover that there's already a lot of symbolism behind what's supposedly - at first impression - an unremarkable accessory. For the Chinese in particular, red strings depict a connection between individuals like loved ones, friends or family. In Feng Shui, red string bracelets promote good luck and fortune to its wearer, and in general, they offer some sort of protection against evil.

For a simple bracelet to be associated with these positive symbolisms, it's not difficult to understand why it tends to be a popular gift item. Which is how Xiao Zhan managed to receive his. When fans noticed him wearing them during a show, Xiao Zhan explained how his mother gave him the red string bracelets as a present. Since then, it has became one of those "Idol trivia 101" that's being casually passed around inside the fandom for years.

As of this writing, it has became a fandom staple. So naturally, I did my own share in contributing to that fact, I bought a handful of red string bracelets straight from China last year. I had an extra one for a spare while another one for my mother (since she's a staunch believer of Feng Shui). Each one came in with it own set of free Xiao Zhan photocards and a bunny pin. One thing for sure, Chinese merchants know their customers well.

I know I could've just made my own. But my capabilities does not extend to that.

Anyway, the one bracelet I received and became a daily accessory held well enough for months, but sadly unraveled itself last week. I looked all over the house for some candles to fix it up. Eventually I managed to find a dusty one, lit it and slowly burned the edges of my string bracelet to lock it in place. You could still see the soot from the photo I provided.

So why not just throw it away and use the spare one? This bracelet for me is both a symbol of protection against evil and a reminder how Xiao Zhan persevered through storms (plural because he lives life in hard mode by default) and still end up standing with a bright smile for his fans. As corny as it is, I will treasure it and wouldn't give up on it.

A week full of reading and watching

WEBNOVEL

Right now, I'm currently busy reading HAN Mint's novel called 악녀는 두 번 산다 or in its English title, "The Villainess Lives Twice". I only came upon this randomly late last week. I'm a sucker for nice pretty pictures so I fell in love with the cover and decided to read some chapters. I'm pleasantly surprised to discover that it's not just an awesome read, but the overall quality of writing is on another level compared to its genre mates. The story revolves around a strategist dabbling in evil arts, who wasted her whole life working to make her brother the Emperor, only to be betrayed by him. Amidst the tragic circumstances, she found hope in humanity when she was rescued by the Grand Duke who is basically The Perfect ML. Using her magic, she gave up on life and made herself a human sacrifice, only to wake up in the past, prior to becoming her brother's tool. 

Now this kind of plot may seem familiar to most of you. But the brilliance of this webnovel displays itself as our MC starts to walk down her road to revenge by lowkey hatching plots and providing traps for her potential enemies and victims to fall in. But this time around, she's doing it for the greater good. I glad to see there are a lot of new twists every few chapters and the behind-the-scenes planning is quite logical, this is a level of craftmanship that I've yet to encounter since I last read "The Rebirth of the Malicious Empress of Military Lineage", which was already a lifetime ago. Other webnovels will try to present a supposedly wise, evil villainess MC, but they always fall short on certain areas. For example, they'll became too weak, too stupid and some arcs are even shamelessly overrated and easily predicted. So far I'm confident to say "The Villainess Lives Twice" is a different flavor and is praise-worthy. I'm still in about a quarter through so this initial impression might change, but until then, I fully recommend this.

DRAMA SERIES

I'm watching two Korean dramas this week. Penthouse Season 2 and River Where the Moon Rises. The first is a recently popular modern  (an exaggerated, overdramatic soap opera) and the second is a sageuk (Korean denotes historical dramas). In its first season, 

Penthouse became viral among kdrama viewers for its melodramatic confrontations and open approach to themes like mental health, school bullying and corruption in the business and education industry, usually benefiting the ones on top of the economic pyramid. It's scandalous, funny at times, with a dose of a few murders. So me and my mother have looked forward to this second season since January, and the trailer alone, showing party guests getting shitfaced with an approaching helicopter is good enough to hype us up. I'm still in Episode 1 and so far so good, a lot of things had happened already and we already had two dead people hahahaha. That sounds morbid but you'll understand once you watch this.

River Where the Moon Rises is spearheaded by Kim So-hyun and Ji Soo. Two beautiful people. This was apparently an adaptation of a popular tale. It already had previous adaptations already but this seems to be the most serious and most expensive one among them. I'm not initially familiar with the general story but with the current 4 episodes we have right now, I say it's interesting. I looked into the tale, one version is available online. Here's an excerpt that made me giggle:

"After the princess spent the night outside his house and offered to buy him a new house, food, land and a horse with the money she earned by selling her gold ring, Ondal was soon won over by her sincerity. The princess not only brought Ondal and his mother out of poverty, but also paid for his education and gave him professional training in the martial arts."

Princess Pyeong-gang sounds like a sugar mommy. No judgement. Ondal is capable with his own talents later on anyway. lol. Think of a charming male Cinderella mixed with politics and war. That's what the drama is. 

It's been quite a busy for me and I'm too tired to eat well or sleep well back at home. I'm just filled to the brim with cheap instant coffee these days. I'm glad I was able to find new titles to spend my free time with. It's an instant type of self-care and temporary mind-cleansing amidst work stress.

My dream desks

There's this group of influencers that caught my attention in weibo recently. I know they call themselves bloggers. They probably are. But for the sake of avoiding platform-specific jargons and in order to attain a comprehensible post, I'll just call them influencers. 

The ones I'm about to focus on today are similar to the ones posting in the stationary corner of Instagram. It's all so cute, with photos of their desks, their daily journal entries, and lots of kawaii elements in between. They also don't just limit themselves on journals or productivity posts, some tend to focus on snacks (probably sponsorships) or their homemade meals. This made me somehow think if they can be categorized as food bloggers instead, under an umbrella classification of....desk influencers? Hahaha I'm not sure anymore. 

As long as something is happening on their cute desks, they take pics, then they share it. Whatever thir chosen themes are, it's all weirdly addicting. Can't stop scrolling through their profiles. 

Two of my favorites:

Name: 米粒粒mini
Weibo Account: https://m.weibo.cn/u/5960532966
Mostly about: Food pics and food vlogs

Name: Helen_千屿
Weibo Account: https://m.weibo.cn/u/3668048607
Mostly about: Snacks and journal entries

See how cute they are? I personally believe there's a whole team behind each account, but that's just my guess. If these are being managed by one person only and these are legitimately windows to their real daily lives, then all the more impressive. We may never get that kind of confirmation though, but I'm already satisfied at browsing their content anyway.

First Ever Blog Post: Hello World!

Today is February 16 and this is my first ever post. I figured that since we just recently celebrated the Chinese New Year and I had too much in my head on most days, might as well work on my new year's resolution and start recording my thoughts in a brand new blog. The last time I had an active blogging hobby was way back in high school, up until my sophomore year in the university. I still had a PC back then and a lot of extra time to maintain a coherent blog for a few years. I don't have both of those luxuries now, but I still hope I can post for a long long while in this. After all I'm supposed to be an adult haha.

So what will my blog be about? My personal life? My fangirling commentary? Anything goes really. This is just a space where I can open about my inner brain rantings.

FOOD

I came across a food blogger in weibo this morning. Very popular that almost each of his recipe posts seemed to have been part of hot searches in the past. That's a feat considering how easy their recipes tend to look. One of which caught my attention: Strawberry Fresh Milk Drink. 

Whenever I hear Strawberry or Banana right next to the word Milk, I instantly get reminded of Korean flavored milks. And now I'm craving for one. So I proceeded to read the posts under the Strawberry Fresh Milk Drink tag and from what I could see it's just the same process: Strawberry homemade jam + Chopped strawberries + Milk + Refrigerate to cool. I doubt anyone with a day job and an unmotivated mindset (like yours truly) had the perseverance to make their very own homemade jam. I literally don't have time for that.  I had an enlightenment: Why not just use a store-brought jam? It has things in it that's not just strawberries, but laziness has a price and I am very much willing to pay. Hmmm, I'll try this out over the weekend.

XIAO ZHAN

Ah the sunshine of my life right now. I'm currently watching his new drama, Douluo Continent. So far so good. A week ago, I decided to continue reading the novel it was adapted from. Started with Chapter 40 last Thursday and I'm now in Chapter 127. I'm quite slow and the alarming thing was the drama adaptation is actually spoiling the novels! It's making me sideye those antis who kept on claiming that the drama did not follow the novel at all. If that's the case, why am I being spoiled then? 

From what I observed, the drama opted to fold the layers of plot to be crammed into one season. I think it's genius because if they're gonna ideally and faithfully follow the novel, we'll be having Game of Thrones kind of length and for Chinese dramas that had to go through heaven and hell to get approved and broadcasted, this is not the ideal route to go for, no matter how much hatred purists will throw at the drama production.

So back to the drama, it will end this week for those who purchased VIP benefits in the streaming platform, which I already did when it was first released. But I decided to halt my viewing for the moment and try to read a much as I can before this weekend comes. Will I succeed? I don't know. We'll see.

DOULUO QUOTES

As mentioned earlier, I'm doing my best to read Douluo Dalu before binge watching the drama adaptation. As I went through the chapters, I managed to gather some quotes worth remembering:

🖤 “Growing too smoothly will often lead to brittleness.“ - Qin Ming

🖤 “Loving someone doesn’t necessarily mean insisting on having them“ - Grandmaster

🖤 “In your character there is a lot of your mother’s softness.“ - Tang Hao on Tang San

🖤 “I’d rather be a blacksmith’s son, to me, what’s the point of status?“ - Tang San

🖤 “Young eagles must spread their wings on their own and fly, only then will they soar to great heights.“ - Tang Hao justifying his abandonment

🖤 “This match is only a fragment of your lives, you still have a long road to walk, as long as you gain something, victory or defeat is of little consequence.“  - Grandmaster

🖤 “Bibi Dong, hear me clearly. If anything happens to Tang San, then I will spare no cost to destroy Spirit hall. In my life I have had no children, but he is like my son.” - Grandmaster

As you may have noticed, so far I like Grandmaster more than I like Tang Hao. I know the latter is supposed to be their world's number one Superman or something, but he left Tang San so abruptly that I'm vibrating with excitement to see the exact reasons why. Because until then, Tang San only had one legit father figure and that is Grandmaster.