A retreat

I haven’t watched anything on celluloid for a week.  I haven’t touched a computer for days (yes, it is humanly possible to not touch any form of a computer/laptop/keyboard for days)  With these few days of an unexpected break, I suddenly feel like getting out and about all the time, indulging myself, esp when family and friends are in town by the hordes and I can always find sth someone is interested in doing it with me.  Me and my gfs even set up a ‘food fund’ and challenge ourselves picking out amazing digs in the city for a set peanuts amount.  Even when my fam have watched DowntonAbbey S3E1 together as an event, I’d rather drive an hour to watch sand-moving from one beach to another (yes, there’s such a thing).  I’ve revisited most of the museums in town I haven’t been to for too long, seen an opera (Verdi’s Rigoletto….ermmm I’m just not an opera gal), watched Warhorse on stage (a puppetry masterpiece with such powerful, clean and bare aesthetics, the rightful homage to the book, way more memorable than the movie), and went to the theater (Chinglish, aka fcking profoundly Awesome! It’s hilarious with layers of in-depth essaying of culture clashes).

Not sure if I’m subliminally provoked by the fascinating ‘lost in translation’ in Chinglish and the current murky complicated Sino-Japanese tension, or the fascinating auntie who dropped me a super great book rec I can’t put down (Mr. Chen Guanzhong’s The Fat Years : So hair-raising considering the original ‘science fiction’ in Chinese was written in 2009, set in 2013 and it’s like reading the words of a CN Nostradamus in 2012.  In the ‘fictional’ world of 2013, China is the new ruling superpower, there is brainwashing, there is the CN nouveau riche owning Starbucks and the likes… a group of dissidents setting out to investigate a ‘missing’ month from ‘history’…  There is no more timelier read than this novel atvm) I’ve started an intense read on J novels in English, which I’ve never done before…I’ve read quite a few on my current list in Chinese, watched the movie adapts available (many r my fav Jmovies).  On top of them being the obvious seminal masterpieces, I am most stimulated by all the different nuances and cadences in the vastly different languages.  It’s my own little linguistic retreat.

It purges my system from all that quite unhealthy addictive drama-craze, which is so…liberating.  To be very honest, I still dl the dramas my gut is interested in, yet I no longer need to watch it like a drug.  I’m not sure how long R1997 ultimate episode is gonna sit in my drive, nor the 4 eps of Nice Guy. I’m fully aware they are there and still….no urge to watch.  I’m in a frenzied reading phase, I guess.

This is my list I wanna tackle:

Ryunosuke Akutagawa’s Rashomon

Yasunari Kawabata’s Yukiguni/Snow Country

Soseki Natsume’s I Am a Cat

Junichiro Tanizaki’s Shunkinshō

Yasunari Kawabata’s The Izu’s Dancer

Yukio Mishima’s Shiosai/The Sound of Waves

Any more suggestions?  I’ll be on vacay (should so be packing) yet all I can think of is load up my ereader. XD