Mooncakes

I adore breakfast cereals with almonds, corn flakes and vanilla flavoured items. It's a wholesome way to start a day - cereal, milk, and a short aerobic ride to school to wake me up. It's Saturday today. Time to get another box of cereal from the local supermarket, Coles. And since I'm in the city, I might as well get my favourite French pastry - the croissant. Ok, maybe a few croissants.

Then I saw the mooncakes on display. I remember how much I loved them. I remember how hard it was to find them here, a rare treat, a familiar icon absent, just like how the nasi lemak here isn't served with ikan kuning, or the chicken rice with tangy chili, or the absence of barbecued sambal stingray. Yes, this isn't home, and the mooncake reminds me of that. It reminds me of all of that. How fitting - the history of the mooncake includes an episode where secret messages were put inside it.

The Principle of Accessibility activates a network of concurrent networks associated with food, and with food comes home, and with home comes... my friends. Yes, I miss my friends the most. The impossibility of a quick phone call to arrange a reunion or coffee session after a movie leaves a sense of tangible absence. Not quite a sense of loss, but pretty close. I wanted to write this before I got on with my day. I felt that it was important, something I shouldn't just forget. Something fundamental to my sense of self and identity. To my personal identity, defined by my personal attributes and close relationships, as professor Yoshi defined in this week's lectures.

Many years ago, before I realised the arbitrary norm established between race and culture, I sought to be more 'Chinese'. Today, I tread the line between the eclectic and esoteric. But I still remember this poem from long before. I've just figured out how its odd lines rhyme to present the association of thought, snow and home while the last characters of the even lines reiterate the motif of the moon. The pensive mood of the poem is also enhanced by the first characters of the first and last lines, standing for 'quiet' and 'bowed' respectively. It has, in other words, a structural harmony. The skills I've picked up studying English literature seem to apply here too. Perhaps poetry is a universal human expression...

靜夜思

床前明月光

疑是地上霜

舉头望明月月

低头思故鄕

I've just figured out how its odd lines rhyme to present the association of thought, snow and home while the last characters of the even lines reiterate the motif of the moon. The pensive mood of the poem is also enhanced by the first characters of the first and last lines, standing for 'quiet' and 'bowed' respectively. It has, in other words, a structural harmony. The skills I've picked up studying English literature seem to apply here too. Perhaps poetry is a universal form of human expression...