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Sunday 25 May 2014

Trèfle à Quatre Feuilles

 J'aime beaucoup le vert.

Le vert, c'est pas une couleur très fille. Bein c'est pas une couleur cliché de fille.

Quand j'était à l'école primaire, j'aimais le rose. Comme pleins d'autres filles. Comme le monde s'obstine à associer la couleur rose à l'innocence féminine. 

Je n'ai rien contre le concept. J'aime beaucoup le rose, et j'ai depuis longtemps adopté le concept que la couleur donne pureté et innocence aux yeux de qui la regarde. 

Chez ma gardienne d'avant et d'après l'école, il y avait de grand verres de plastique pour boire de l'eau. C'était toujours un combat au moment de boire, parce qu'il n'y avait qu'un verre rose.

Et il y avait beaucoup de filles. 

Moi j'ai pas mal toujours poussé pour avoir ce que je veux, quand je le veux. Quand j'étais petite ça allait jusqu'à la méchanceté. J'en suis tellement gênée aujourd'hui qu'il m'arrive souvent de ne plus oser demander ce que je veux, ou me dire que je ne mérite pas d'avoir le choix. Ce que la culpabilité peut faire à un esprit corrompu. 

Tout ça pour dire que, avec le verre de plastic rose, j'ai souvent poussé, couru, commencé des disputes, été chicanée par la gardienne...

Mais.

Je mentionne cette histoire de couleur parce que non, seulement, c'est depuis ce temps là que rose n'est plus officiellement ma couleur favorite, mais parce que pour une fois, j'ai choisi une approche alternative pacifique à mes frustrations d'enfant gâtée. Même maintenant, j'ai l'impression que c'est à ce moment là que je suis devenue une mini-adulte. Gâtée et un peu égoïste. Mais avec l'esprit assez futé pour chercher une alternative, choisir ses combats et laisser tomber parfois, et perdre, pour gagner plus. 

Ce jour là, j'ai décidé que, finalement, rose, c'était pas la plus belle des couleurs. Vert, c'était bien plus beau. Alors une journée où je suis arrivée la première au comptoir pour choisir mon verre, j'ai choisi le vert. 

J'ai longuement fait la promotion du vert. Insisté pour que les gens comprennent que le rose, c'est un peu platte. Est-ce que ma carrière politique a commencé à ce moment là? En tout cas, on a eu des chicanes pour le verre vert par après.....



C'est pour ça que j'aime beaucoup le trèfle. C'est une des rares plante qui malgré sa jolie fleur, est populaire pour ses feuilles. Et le vert trèfle c'est ma teinte préférée de vert. Jeune, brillant, joyeux. 

Un été, avec quelques uns de mes amis d'enfance, on a décidé de chercher des trèfles à quatre feuilles. Mes parents n'aiment pas le fait que l'on doivent mettre une quantité incroyable de pesticides pour faire une belle pelouse, alors cela faisait plusieurs étés qu'ils avaient planté du trèfle dans la cour pour graduellement remplacer la verdure polluante. Le résultat, c'est qu'on a plein de trèfles dans la cours. 

J'avais pensé qu'il était difficile de trouver des trèfles à quatre feuilles. Ils sont, après tout, une 'anomalie', si le trèfle à 3 feuilles est la 'norme'. Finalement, on s'est rendu compte que les anomalies'' sont un peu partout et beaucoup plus faciles à trouver que l'on avait pensé. On c'est ramassé avec une quinzaine de trèfles à quatre feuilles en moins d'une heure de recherche.

J'ai aussi remarque que, en tout cas pour moi, je ne trouvais pas de trèfles à 4 feuilles si je concentrais ma recherche en m'accroupissant dans le foin. Je n'en ai trouvé que lorsque je regardais de loin et balayait le sol de mon regard. J'ai aussi pris l'habitude d'en chercher et de les laisser où je les trouvais quand j'en voyait un dans la cour. Comme si la chance devait rester enracinée pour me donner des ailes. Parce que moi, les petites superstitions comme le trèfle à 4 feuilles, j'aime beaucoup y croire. Quand j'avais besoin d'une petite poussée par l'avant je marchais vers mon trèfle et essayait de le trouver de nouveau. 

Parfois on a juste besoin d'une petite poussée de rien du tout pour prendre des décisions toutes simples, et toutes compliquées. Depuis notre chasse aux trèfles à 4 feuilles, à chaque fois que je marche près d'un champ de trèfle alors que j'ai l'esprit troublé, je cherche du regard pour un trèfle à quatre feuilles. La règle, c'est de ne pas forcer les choses. On regarde de loin.

Si je trouve un trèfle à quatre feuilles ici, ma semaine va se passer sans pépins. Si je trouve un trèfle à quatre feuilles ici, je vais avoir une belle surprise aujourd'hui. Si je trouve un trèfle à quatre feuilles ici, j'ai bien fait de refuser/accepter telle ou telle offre. Si je trouve un trèfle à quatre feuilles ici, ma relation avec telle ou telle personne va durer...

Ironiquement, les seules fois où j'ai triché et me suis accroupie pour en chercher activement - et, par la même occasion, n'en ai pas trouvé - c'était quand je commençais mon "si...." avec une histoire de garçon. On sait bien, les garçons, sont bien les seuls méchants qui nous font déroger de nos propres règles... le mois dernier c'était la même chose. Je savais bien que mon affaire ne fonctionnerais pas comme je l'espérais mais j'ai quand même reposé la même question plusieurs jours de suite - en me disant que pfff qu'est-ce qu'un trèfle sait de la vie, à chaque fois que je ne trouvais pas.

Ça fait une semaine que côté émotions je suis pas mal plusse de bonne humeur avec moi-même, mais je sens un vide, j'ai envie de faire plein de choses mais je ne sais pas où commencer. J'ai aussi pleins de petites frustrations avec des choses dont je n'ai pas le contrôle alors j'ai pris une longue marche samedi après-midi. En marchant à coté d'une talle de trèfle je me suis dit:

Si je trouve un trèfle à quatre feuilles, cette année je vais cesser de me sentir insatisfaite de ce qui m'entoure et trouver cette éphémère plénitude de vivre qui me rend si joyeuse par moments.

Et là, dans un grand espace vide, un joli petit trèfle à quatre feuille me regarde gentiment.

Je l'ai ramassé celui ci, parce que je le voulait chez moi et qu'il était trop loin de chez moi à pied pour le retrouver quand j'en avait besoin.. 

Nexen - May's Disaster



This outfit was the mistake. I am sure. I hate Samsung.

That, and everytime I wear orange. I want to like Hanhwa again...

How much bad luck will Nexen have to go through? Did we sin so great, wanting to do good in a sport that we find enjoyable? Did someone decide to curse us with some shamanic scary stuff? Well now, even our star players are being completely useless. WHAT is wrong with Nexen. Brandon Knight was doing poorly lately and was let go, and I feel like, even though replacing him might not have been such a bad decision, it has messed up with the team spirit. Now a new guy is there, and all our players are are running like chicken with their heads chopped off. 



Trying to be positive, after losing so many games in a row....


Death Toll for May:

4th: 8-7 Kia
6th: 6-3 NC
7th: 24-5 NC
10th: 4-2 Kia
16th:  4-3 Lotte
18th: 11-6 Lotte
21st: - 9-7 Hanhwa
 22nd: 16-3 Hanhwa
 23rd:  6-3 Samsung
24th: 5-4 Samsung

And today...at this time only at the beginning of the fifth inning we are getting killed: 17-0 by Samsung... Please, let the wind blow our way from next week, and start afresh.



Had a baseball watching hang out at my place last Friday. Not only did Nexen lose again, my Internet connexion was messed up and we ended up having to watch it on a cellphone screen instead of (1) the big screen DM brought, (2) the computer screen of my laptop. The food though, the wine, and the cheese were all great comfort for my hurt soul. 


Saturday 24 May 2014

Le Roi Soleil


Last weekend Nexen was playing in Pusan, but I had plans for both days to I stayed in Seoul. After the wedding on Saturday, I had a musical on Sunday night. The tickets to the musical were given to all teachers from one of our student's mom. We could ask for 2 so I did and I invited a friend out. I feel like watching a musical alone is kind of awkward. Rich people are lucky, they have enough to spare not only for their kid's teachers, but for unknown people that would go with them, I think the tickets were $130 each and we were in the VIP section. 







I chose the date I wanted: the Sunday of the second week of the presentation. 

Thing is, after the first week, articles started to come out big time : Big budget, horrible singers: The big disappointment. Thing is, the main character is an actor, not a singer. I was told by my friend who wen to the show, that he was actually pretty good, but that there were high notes that he just couldn't render as good as the other.


So I was kind of dreading it. 

My friend, a big musical fan whose sister is actually a musical actress, sounded pretty upset when he heard about the critics. Told him he didn't need to come. 

Why would I need to force someone who didn't want to see it. Shame on him. It was actually a great show. I invited a girl friend and we did a dinner coffee musical date instead. I had a great time.


I didn't take pictures with my phone during the show, least I'd disturb the people around us, so those pics are actually from this website http://www.korea.net/NewsFocus/Culture/view?articleId=119055 and I do not claim any of those as mine. 


I was really impressed by the voice of two of the supp. characters. A girl and a boy, who both had charisma and strength in their voices, and I loved the acting skills of the guy playing Louis's little brother. The main actor's voice, as I was told, was much more beautiful when he sang lower tone songs, so it was a shame that the main theme, that came back three time throughout the musical, had so many. His acting was great regardless, and he had a good complicity with the other actors. I think I must have liked the musical all the more because I expected the worst. 


It was a huge-scale show with amazing dancers, acrobats, singers and an incredible amount of backgrounds. Having played in small scale 4 musicals before, I could tell this had require an incredible amount of work and money to set up. 

And not only because they paid for the lead actor's face to be on the advertisement pamphlets.


The musical Le Roi Soleil roughly tell the life story of Louis XIV, the French womanizer king. There is much more to Louis XIV's life than women, but in the musical that is one of the main focus. 
The musical is the adaptation of the French musical written by Lionel Florence and Patrice Guirao from 2005. What I found really interesting is the way the musical was adapted in a very clever way, making it a Korean musical, while keeping the spirit of the French musical alive. There was a slight nudge of Korea in every single part of the musical. 


Costumes were more colourful, more poofy, more impressive looking, dresses reminding of the flower shape of the Korean hanbok, while still keeping the European lines of the outfits. The lead female character wearing light green, the color of the Korean bride in hanbok, is also one of the things I noticed as a Korean influcence. I don't know how much of those small things I noticed were intended, and how much of those were just naturally put this way because they just felt right for the designers, but anyways. In most western stories, we'd go for a pale pink or blue, to display the image of maidenhood and innocence.  

Interactions between the characters in Korean was reminding me more of the Joseon Era TV shows than the French court, that and the way they displayed respect with the slight head bowing and the way they called on each other. In this case, however, I don't see how they could have used a different way to communicate in Korean, than using their own vocabulary related to royalty, so this was not necessarily meant to "koreanize" the musical. 


There is a whole scene that is yelling KOREA, however, without any doubt. I have yet to listen to the original version of the musical to really be able to compare, but the scene where the Spanish princess goes to a witch to curse other ladies - or more precisely, ask of Louis that he does not look at any other women - is definitely not European. There is a big shamanistic looking tree with the typical long red strings of fabric hanging  down, and the witch herself has this way of speaking reminiscent of the Korean shaman women. I like that image of the Korean-French witch. I particularly enjoyed that scene.

Euisong's Wedding :)

 My second Korean wedding! I have always loved weddings. Weddings are the sweetest thing you will ever have to wait for, sitting and doing nothing for hours. I like weddings regardless of the amount of money people say is wasted on the ceremony, room reservation and etc. I like weddings because I like to see people nervously waiting for love to be officialised. I like looking at the beautiful outfits the bride gets to wear and how weddings transform every little girl into a princess, through the expert hands of the staff. 

The weddig was on May 17th. On that weekend I was invited to 4 different weddings at the same time. Shame I can't really be at 4 different places at the same time, because I am sure they were all great weddings. In any case, I didn't have enough money to afford going to Korean weddings... In Korea you want to give at least 100$ to the newly wed. and I'd rather use the remaining 300$ on myself ;)

Because I'm selfish.


There is one things I really like about Korean weddings: no one looks shabby. While I have always liked weddings in Canada, there is this thing about 'formal' wear in Canada, where unless they are loaded, guys do not have a decently fitted suit. In both types of weddings I've been in my life (I know this is not really a good way to put it but for lack of better words, I mean type one: western wedding; type two: asian wedding) when you ask " what will you wear for the wedding?" you get similar answers.

"Just clean and nice."

That's it. 

Thing is, the idea of clean and nice differs greatly in Asia and in the West, anyways, for what I have experienced. The biggest gap is not for women. Girls always find a way to look sort of nice and that's in every culture. 
Clean and nice for a Quebecer means just that: clean clothes, that look kind of nice. Some people will wear shirts but usually with clean jeans or even shorts sometimes. 


Picture taken by a friend I met there, who had an actual camera.... (Christina Rin)
Credits to Christina Rin

In Asia, clean and nice is. Formal suit, usually perfect fit. Their best watch. Some of the most fashionable guys will match out a formal outfit without having too much of the typical black colored-suit,  but even if they don't, there'll at least be some clean nice expensive looking leather shoes going with the full set. That's clean. For Asian males. That's nice.

And I also think that is the best invention of the universe. 

Suits.

Man I love it when guys do put at least as much effort as girls in their looks. So that's another reason I like weddings now, at least in Asia...

So both of the weddings I've been so far were thanks to a friend I made in Sanbon, a guy who was the childhood friend of a former co-worker. I knew both the guy and the girl in the first wedding, but only the guy in the second, so I didn't really dare showing up awkwardly in the bride's room to take pictures, but I regret it now, because she was really beautiful and I don't have many pics.


I took a couple of good ones with their second outfit, the Korean traditional one tho. I really like that guys get to wear bright pink and the like, in Korean outfits. Those colors really look good on guys and are usually under-rated.

Eungyeong and Wongyo's wedding was on a Sunday so people just split up after the ceremony and the brunch, but this time, as it was on a Saturday with beautiful weather, we all met up and partied until pretty late that day. I didn't really have many nice pictures, except one of John's girlfriend (they are also getting married this year, yay!) taking a selfie. She was so cute I couldn't resist ha ha ha ....


 The pictures below were not taken by me, we were lucky to have CM taking decent pictures with her huge camera :)))))

Credits to Christina Rin

Credits to Christina Rin

Credits to Christina Rin

Credits to Christina Rin

Sunday 11 May 2014

꽃가득한 순천정원박람회 - Sooncheon's Flower Festival

There are weekends that seem to exist only to make you enjoy better ones. This weekend is such a weekend. I must be nearing that red phase of the month because small things affect me much worse than usual, and they sadly seem to happen more often than usual as well. 

At one baseball game recently, one of the busiest ones I have been this year, Mokdong was completely sold out. I sit with my cheering crew, and we practically have the whole block for ourselves, because all our season tickets are in the same spot, and we are about 30 noisy people dancing cheering and waving flags around, so people usually just sit in the block beside us and since there are tons of empty seats around, there is no problem. I am very tall in Korea, but it is never a problem at Mokdong because I always am at the front of the lowest row near the fence, and all the people behind me are higher up, and standing as well. 
Since the atrocious ship wreck that has left the whole country scarred, baseball cheer has stopped in Korea. It was a tragedy, and baseball was doing its part of the mourning. 
What I'll say here has nothing to do with how atrocious I feel the ship wreck is, please understand. However, since the cheer has stopped, baseball has become really awkward and boring. I feel like I'm in the states watching the baseball I've hated all my youth.

One dude in a white suit runs from one dot to another dot. 

We like it, we say yayy.

Then it starts again.

I hear that it's finally going to be over next week - like, we will officially have the right to be happy about things again...

But back to my story.

At that cheerless game, there were no seats left and a couple came late in the middle of... hm the 3 inning I think, right in the seats behind where I was standing and watching the game. Cheering or not, I don't like to watch the game sitting like an idiot. It's cold, and it's boring. In such a case, watching on TV has way more charm because at least, of you only watch, TV gives you much better angles to watch. 

They politely asked me to sit cuz they couldn't see. 

I was thinking. Man, it's a baseball game, can't they stand too, then we'd both see and we'd have fun with the game? I rolled eyes and told the person besides me what I thought. I was already irritated by the lack of cheer and space. 

I moved 3 seats on the right and asked ppl of the crew if it were okay for me to stand there. As far as it went they could see alright so no problem. Well apparently I was still in the way of that same couple. Man I didn't say anything, but my eyes could have killed. 

I don't pretend to be a good person, at least to myself. I know I am a very self-centered and impatient bitch. However, I also hate self-centered impatient bitches, so I have been working on myself for years. At that time though, a part of monster-me got out. I am pretty sure there was a black aura around me, that aura only my very close friends have seen in moments of angry weakness when my true self comes out.

All this to say, that a friend told me last week that that day, he actually got chills all the way down his back at that time. He felt there was something he could never have imagined, hidden deep inside me. 


Well this weekend, I think it's trying to come out again. Man so many frustrations. I am happy I am alone right now.

This ranting, by the way, is just a little prelude to my blog entry, that I had half finished before the system bugged and I lost it all. This weekend I dropped things everywhere, stained stuff messed up nails, got lost, hurt my feet in new shoes, couldn't get my bike because the cleaning ladies were washing the whole area outside and waxing the floor of the first floor of the building, arrived late at the game.......

So here we go, me writing for the second time. 

Enjoy.


On the last day we went to the hot baths in Boseong. They were like the usual, except that they also had a green tea bath. It felt like a blasphemy to bathe in the dark liquid that I love drinking so much, but I figured that at this point, no one would ever drink that tea in which a hundred of old grandmas bathe every day... just a thought.


Now that I got you all hungry.

After the baths we got on the way home, but decided to stop at Sooncheon see they flower festival. They had special garden sets with thematics from all over the world. The place was a bit too big for us to see it all however, so by the time we set ourselves to meet up at the exit, the both groups we had split into had each visited their own halves of the big park. What an irony that the groups would go in completely opposite directions.


The Garden of the World, the only indoor garden we saw, was the only one we walked through together, although we did split up while going through it.



There were tons of really nice bright coloured flower everywhere. I think that while the outdoor gardens were much more fun to walk through, the indoor one was the most impressive. It had lots of flowers from different places, while the outdoor ones, even if they represented different countries, they were restricted by the weather so instead of having flowers from those places, they had the design of the places looking like the cliché of each of those cultures.




I was really impressed by that small thing in the Korean indoor garden. It showed their green house system, back from few hundred years ago. I honestly never though about the concept of green house having been invented way back then. They had a clever setting with rice paper screens on the roof and straw mats that were probably rolled down the windows at night to keep the temperature warm in the house. As there is not that much snow in Korea I guess they did not have to worry as much about wet snow ripping the rice paper, but it must still have been a hard job, to take care of the whole thing.


It is in those times that I think. Hmmm I am the daughter of an architect alright...

They also had a plant breeding ware house with black light everywhere and plants stacked in rows on shelves. The blue color everywhere made it eerie and strange to walk through...


Did I say there was a lot of wind? Well there was lots of wind. Funny enough my phone recognized that all those pictures were taken with a few second difference and put them all together in a gif image without my asking. While I am still wondering about this weird action, I like the result because it clearly tells how windy it was...




In the split up teams I was Team Monica <3

We had a great time wandering around. Monica is master at the art of taking pictures that look natural and fun so I have great visual memories of that part of  the afternoon. I took loads of pictures myself, but I was far from being as good as she was, the sun was so bright that I didn't see what I was capturing most of the time, and took countless pictures of my thumb... man.






Cuz whenever there's a boat, it's Titanic all over again..






Me in the French Garden rose alcoves (do you call those alcoves?)


:)