'Chine' means China in French. Think IndoChine.
The 3 days holiday break is an encounter with Chinese and China. No, i didn't fly off to China to have my holiday (cos moolah and time explains everything), but more rather, it's Chinese and China, much more nearer at home.
The Hands
The story featured in Eros, the manage-a-trois movie featured Wong Kar Wai, Steven Soderbergh and Michaelangelo Antonioni in their presentation of sex. They worked around with it, and Wong made the best out of it, while Antonioni leaves us a big question mark.
Gong Li and Chang Chen in a cheongsam and a suit. She is a hooker while he is a tailor apprentice. He went up to her place to take measurements and she gave him a good hand job. From then onwards, he devoted his life in making the best cheongsam for her. Until when he become famous, and she met her downfall, he realised that he still loves her, even when she is no longer as glorious as her heydays.
Once again, i am brought into the mood for the love of the Wong's cheongsam beauties in the 60's. Cindy once told me that cheongsam makes a woman look good. Even if she do not have any figure, a cheongsam would make her a beauty.
No wonder so many female actress are dying for a role in Wong's film. Apart from making themselves look beautiful, they can bring home those cheongsams after the shooting has come to an end.
Just couldn't really explain why i love those actress in Wong's film, if the film surrounds HongKong in the 60's. Actress in cheongsam, those beehive hairstyle, and the sexy figure. It's hard to explain why i love Maggie Cheung, Gong Li and Zhang ZiYi in cheongsams so much. You gotta see it for yourself.
Other 3 reasons why i love Wong's film surrounding the 60's so much: 1)The guys are forever weaing the same stuff. Tony Leung Chiu Wai and Chang Chen donned a suit and a tie, making themselves look like Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones in MIB, minus the sunglasses, those latest gadgets and aliens. All they had with themselves are pens and cigarettes. 2) Those old songs played in the film. From Nat King Cole to Zhou Xuan and Bai Guang, those good old songs turns the film into a artpiece, rather than a bubble gum movie. 3) Wong seems to have a penchant of including hotels and motels in his film surrounding the 60's. In The Mood For Love let us see how Leung and Cheung wrote swordfighting novels in a hotel room named 2046. Motel is a place for 1) Leung on a journey of self discovery with Faye Wong and Zhang in 2046, 2) let Gong Li to live through her last days in The Hands. Oh yeah, it rains everytime in the 3 films.
Lao Beijing Eatery, Plaza Singapura
Promised my mum that i would bring her for xiao long bao (steamed meat dumplings) in Din Tai Fung. But after calculating the budget, i decided to give Lao Beijing eatery at PS a try.
Had High-Tea buffet at 3pm, and we were served with loads of small savoury pastries. Note: what you see on the buffet table are pretty limited. Thus, if you want to have those featured in the menu, but not served on the table, you need to order them from the waiter and waitress.
The decoration: old traditional Beijing teahouse furniture, crockery, plates, with a touch of modern tiles and lightnings. A fresh pot of jasmine tea awaits us, and after settled down, we had our appetizers (Garlic pork, vegetarian goose, chilli cucumber, braised shitake mushroom and picked veggie.) and main course (pan fried meat buns, chives dumplings, Beijing fried noodles, fried rice). The rest of the main course has to be ordered from the waitress. And in the end, we had: pan fried pork dumplings, steamed meat dumplings (a yum yum! 8 pcs fresh from the steam basket. juicy meat in piping hot steamer, and the lovely juice ooze out the moment you tear a hole on the skin.), onion pancakes (a letdown. too much flour has been used.), meat sauce noodles (aka Zha Jiang Mian. Noodles are nice, but the serving of sauce could be improved.), dan dan mian, special fried pancake, fried rice (a real disappointment) Oh yeah, did i mentioned fried rice?
Ai Shanghai (Love Shanghai), OG Orchard
In China, Beijing and Shanghai are miles apart. In Singapore, the distance between Shanghai and Beijing has been shortened to a distance of 1 MRT station. If you don't get what i mean, mabey Ai Shanghai can explain what is this about.
Ai Shanghai is a fashion botique located at L1 of OG Orchard. It is a small corner where fashion and household decorations surrounds the old Shanghai design. Over here, you can find the infusion of cheongsam and blouse, where a cheongsam does not look like a cheongsam, a blouse do not look like a blouse.
The clothes does not really grabbed much of my attention. More rather, it's the household decorations that fancys me. Those old fashioned chest and mini wooden pillows doubled up as a chest reminds me of the box placed on Liliy Lim's table in her TP staff room. The box, which features drawings of ancient beauties, has something different when you opened up the box. It contains a set of mini mahjongs, mirrors, abacus and Chinese lots (those lots used in Chinese temples, where it contains several sticks with numbers written on it. You prayed and shaked the container full of sticks in front of the goddess, and when the number falls out, it tells you your fortune.)
Hmm...those are not really special, except the mini mahjong and Chinese lots. What draws my attention are the inner designs of the containers. It feautres pictures, or more rather, look like papers from books pasted onto it. Those so called 'papers' are books on Stories of Filial Piety, or your Chinese calender that predicts what will happened for the next 365 days.
It's cool to own them, but it would be even more fun to enjoy those little toys.