December 2010, when bliss and sadness meshed as one in a full display of human emotion

I've had so much to write for the past couple of weeks, don't know if I remember all of them or if my writing skills could possibly do justice to my emotions and all I want to say.

December 2010 has been such an incredibly blessed month for me. I've travelled to more places than I ever have in my entire life (well technically I only went to China and Singapore but that's more countries in one month than I've travelled in years!); I've returned home to my sweet sweet kampung where I got to see my family again and where everything is still the same aside from the smooth flowing Klang bridge which adds to the sweetness of Klang; but most importantly, I had one whole month to spend with my aunt whom I've not seen in years because she lives in NY. And that one month expired this morning. Is this what a breakup feels like? Because it's odd how we bonded so much over one month, and even though we have not seen each other for years before this, we're both on such similar wavelengths it's heartwarming how we just picked up where we left off. And her being back just brought everyone together, and I think we had more large scale family dinners in the past week than we have in... years? Now she's gone back, and I'll prob only see her when I graduate in 2012, and I cannot friggin wait!! I miss her!! I wasn't particularly wrecked driving back from the airport this morning, but the sadness comes in waves. Sigh. Helps to keep my mind occupied on other things I guess.

China was an incredible experience. How many people can truly say they went back to their ancestral village and got in touch with their relatives in China? I can. And they were so enthusiastic to have us, so giving of whatever little they have, so ready to go out of the way to make our stay as pleasant and comfortable as possible. I honestly feel quite ashamed of myself. I went to China totally unprepared, with no expectations and no intention of keeping in touch with any one of my newfound relatives after returning home to Msia, but they made the effort to get my number and email address, and have kept in touch (quite over-enthusiastically I must say) ever since. But one thing that struck me was how important family was to them, even those from faraway lands they've never met and don't share anything in common with. Famliy roots are so incredibly important to the Chinese and if they had the opportunity I bet they would be at our doorstep visiting us every year. It was a quite a paradigm shift for me to see how much emphasis the Chinese place on familial ties. We were literally treated like celebrities! I started to wonder what has become of our society over here, we're so caught up in our own little happy lives that we've no space left for distant relatives we share the same roots with. Well maybe it's just me lah. But all in all, though China was an incredible experience in terms of seeing and experiencing the very village my grandfather lived in though I've never met my grandpa, I hated the third-class mentality that the Chinese have. I was griping to my sis all along the trip that I will never come back to China. So what if they have beautiful high rise buildings and high speed bullet trains and flashy cars and all that jazz? Doesn't change their penchant for milking as much money as they can out of unassuming tourists, doesn't make them conscientious, doesn't change one bit of the widespread corruption, doesn't make courtesy and hygiene a national priority, doesn't make the government acknowledge that free speech is an inherent right of every citizen. I cannot imagine myself living in "modern" China, though I have much love for those living in REAL China and would love to spend some time there for however long to make a difference as much as I can. The old people are super fit though, I don't know how they do it seriously. They smoke like chimneys (I think i've secondhand smoked more in those 10 days than I have in my entire life, ferreal) and eat all the animal fat they can and drink tea out of cancer-causing flimsy plastic cups I was afraid to drink from and torture their physiques with back-breaking work, and still they're up and about at 80ish years of age with no sign of illness plaguing so many 60-year-olds here. Incredible stuff I tell you. The secret has got to be Chinese tea and their self-planted veggies. Oh sorry, I should have mentioned where I went. I was in my relatives' place in Yunfu, Guangdong Province for a few nights, then I was at Guilin and Yangshuo, and then I went back to Yunfu, and then we spent one night in Guangzhou. Most of the trip I passed by in a half-asleep state of mind in a car/van/bus, and some of the rest was spent attempting to speak in pidgin Cantonese or playing with babies called Ah Lok and Ah Hin (my favouritest boy in the whole world for now), and the rest was spent feasting my eyes on the wonderful vistas and the host of colourful cultural stuff on display. I did have a great time, but I have to admit, the attitude of the Chinese made me miss civilization and returning home!

3 days after returning back, I went to Singapore, which either has nothing much to shout about or is a place you shouldn't go to with an aunt and her two equally-aged friends. Honestly the only reason I went was to spend time with my aunt. Plans to go to the zoo (the only place I mentally planned to visit) fell flat when we were told by passers-by not to waste our money. Furthermore it was a rainy night and we lived about 40 minutes away from the zoo. So yeah, we just hung around in Marina Bay Sands, spent too much money on unnecessarily expensive food, watched some pole-top performers (not to be confused with pole dancers) from Singapore. If you ask me, that was one of the hightlights of the trip. The other two were - 1.discovering the arts library in the Esplanade where you can borrow all sorts of artsy stuff from dance books, play scripts, music scores, DVDs, CDs, CDs and MORE CDs, Jazz CDs, Samba Jazz CDs... my eyes went wide. I went "Saaaammmm, can borrow for me ahhhhh?" he just smiled and went "errr dunnola, maybe *shrugs*" in the typical Sam manner. But dood, Samba Jazz CDs!!! If only we had something like that in Klang, or even Subang. Haih when will Malaysia ever keep up? 2.the National Geographic store in Vivo City. I was pleasantly surprised to see how huge it is inside, and how eclectic and exotic their products were. And boy was I happy to discover Putumayo CDs being sold! I've been a closet Putumayo downlo, er, filesharer, and I never could find the CDs in local stores, so to see them in the Nat Geo store was quite a happifying incident. I vowed to buy them when I eventually marry a millionaire. So yeah, I guess those were the two highlights of my current Singapore trip. Aside from the walking, talking, money-spending and diarrhea-suffering, there was not much else to shout about. Unless there's a music fest or some other specific event that captures my attention, I don't foresee myself going back down south anytime soon. Oh did I tell you I puked at the JB checkpoint? Gawd, what an experience to remember. Thank God I had the brains to request for a plastic bag at the previous pit stop. Or I would have been left behind by the bus to help clean up the mess I reckon.

Today, my aunt left =( But there are greater things to look forward to. Here's to a great 2011 and to even better experiences ahead!