The City Never Sleeps

I've decided to talk about Ruan Lingyu 阮玲玉 and her movie Shen Nu (神女) aka The Goddess for this entry. Why Ruan Lingyu?

1. She is one of the few actress from China who acted really well. So good that her fame indirectly affects her personal life, which eventually leads to her own death at the age of 25.

2. The way she potrays the role of the mother/prostitute mades the movie one of the few classics in today's movie world.

神女 features Ruan as Ruan Sao, a young mother who works as a prostitute at night. When she runs away from the police during a raid, she hide herself at the backdoor of a house belong to the gangster, Chang. Chang wants Ruan Sao to repay him with sexual favours. Shortly later, Ruan Sao ends up Chang's woman after sessions of harrassment and threat.

6 years had passed and Ruan Sao's only son, Xiao Bao, had grown up. She decided to let Xiao Bao receive education after Xiao Bao has been insulted and despise by the neighbours. The boy began his education and it was to be something worth happy for. However, Ruan Sao's profession led the school principal decided to pay a home visit, where he was stunned by the remarks made by Ruan Sao. She told him that she paid the school fees with her earning from prostitution, but that doesn't mean her child should be ripped off from the right of receiving education. Eventually, the principal resigned as he do not allow the school directorial board to dismiss Xiao Bao due to Ruan Sao's profession. Xiao Bao was dismissed from the school.

When Ruan Sao decided to take Xiao Bao to somewhere else to start a new life, she was shocked to found out that Chang had taken her life saving to gamble. A quarrel broke out between Ruan Sao and Chang, which ends up Ruan Sao killed Chang with a wine bottle. She was sentenced to 12 years of imprisonment and told the school principal to convey the message to Xiao Bao:

'When he grows up, tell him his mother is dead. He would live in shame for his life if he knew his mother worked in such profession.'

The story ends here.

Here are some little things that i saw from this 79min slient movie from China:

1. 人言可畏. Gossip can kill. In the story, the neighbours gossip about Ruan Sao and her questionable profession. That was somekind of reflection of Ruan's real life, where her previous marriage ends up people gossiping at her for divorcing her husband for another man. Unable to take the pressure (which spreads from grapevine to the press), she ends her life on 8th March 1935, which happens to be International Woman's Day.

2. A mother's love. At night, Ruan Sao is a 神女. At day, she was a 女神. Ruan Sao's life was a crossover of a prostitute and a goddess. She cares for her son and placed her son as her priority even though she has to work as a hooker for a living. When she was in prison, she do not want her son to live in shame for the rest of his life. Thus, she told the school principal that she is dead.

It's sad that at the end of the day, there are people whose personality cannot be compared with Ruan Sao in real life.

This is the story of 5 Singapore dragonboaters representing Singapore for the dragonboating competiton in Phonm Penh for the SEA Games 2007.

They left Singapore happily for the competition, hoping that they could bring pride to the country.

The 5 cheerful and enegetic youth, whom seems to have a charming smile and a bright future, decided to row the boat after the competiton with the remaining 17 teammates in the sea on Saturday, 24th Nov 2007.

However, the boat overturned when a strong wave came towards them, and all fell into the sea. 17 were rescued, but not the 5 youths mentioned earlier.

A search team was called for immediately, and the family members of the 5 youths were informed about the incident 20 hours later.

In the end, the bodies of the 5 youths were found at the river on Sunday evening.

News shocked everyone in Singapore.

Their loved ones cried.

The bodies will reached Singapore tonight.

The End of the Story.

The moral of the story: complacency leads to irreversible damages and unthinkable consequences.

When people decided to take short cuts in doing things, usually there will be 2 endings: either things goes smoothly, or it simply leads to a disaster. Here, the short cuts refers to not wearing live jackets when rowing the boat. And this is something that could have been avoided.

Sometimes in life, when would people listen to the advice they learnt since they were a kid and apply them in life?

So i took the opportunity to clear the off and leave last week, which gave me a super long weekend last week.

Wed - Visited Army Museum with the fellow RP's, and that was the only time when all the RP's get to sit together on a small little sofa to catch Royston Tan's After the Rain, a short film which will be run permanently at the Museum. I've mentioned that Royston and his crew took the effort to shot the film at 1 Guards, where the short film looks into a father-son relationship thru national service. Went to Orchard Rd with WC and i drooled at those nice looking Calvin Klein tees selling at 1/2 price...

Thur - Deepavali. Stay at home and sleep like a pig.

Fri - Finally, i stepped out of the house to catch the uncut version of Ang Lee's another masterpiece Lust, Caution. And if you expect the hall to be filled with only some audience, you will be wrong. It is 97% full for a Fri 3.30pm at Lido Cineplex. Unsurprisingly, the hall is filled with mostly ah peks and aunties who decided to pay $8 to see the hot and steamy sex scenes between Tony Leung and Tang Wei, which stirs up a big hoo haa earlier on when the distributor decided to release the NC16 China's edit in the first place.

And i simply loved the scene where Tang Wei seduces Tony Leung in the bedroom. I'm not going to say it. Go watch yourself.

Sat - Payday! For the first time, i am buying 2 C-In2 briefs from newurbanmale.com at $26, which was a 1-for-1 deal. However, this cause a problem: how and where do i place them in my cabinet, since it is fill with several boxes of Calvin Klein briefs?

Sun - as usual. Visit the library, buy groceries, pack up stuff for Mon's work. =(