Casa De Shao

Category: The milestones

  • Thirty

    Thirty

    A cousin’s wedding – May ’25. Friends of the couple, dancing to Dancing Queen. Capella Ballroom.

    I’d imagined my thirtieth to be some kind of grand affair; after listening to weeks upon weeks of Harmontown, I thought that at some point I’d have the chutzpah to host a faux talk show.

    I’d invite my friends on stage and do bits where I tease them, celebrate me, celebrate them and clap them offstage.

    We’d do it in that Fort Canning event space, and I’d hire a sound team? And I could spend like 6,000 dollars for the food and location and the equipment, and that would be a fancy night, and I would group up my friends in their cliques and everyone would be beaming at me, tux and shit, onstage. 

    My friends would do lighting effects using flashlights, and I would make the multimedia, and at some point we could rehearse and sync up my theatrical shit with the onscreen shit and it would wow everyone. 

    Everyone would clap my back as they left, in gowns and tuxes, and people would say “haha, wasn’t that such a wonderful evening, Shao’s birthday?” “Yeah, what a great guy” 

    Perhaps I would gain some kind of renown, enough to be an NCMP, enough to be a marriage officiant guy, and people would recommend me to other couples, saying “I recommend this guy, Shao, he made us cry during our ROM, and the aunties love him”. 

    Maybe I’d show up at all the arts events, and whisper the same thing to every artist to not give up on their dreams. 

    And perhaps at my funeral, all the people I’ve crushed on would circle up around my coffin, like the seven dwarves, and they would share about their favourite parts about me and their regrets and how foolish they were to not date/continue dating me, and how that since I’m going to die, the world would be a worse place, and they’d do a North Korean wail and the audience would wail and-

    Pause.

    I would open one mischievous, twinklin’ eye at my actual wife (which I eloped with at 31) and wink, and she would hit a lever, and the coffin would stand up and fall apart and I’d have a hat and cane and look a lot like the monopoly-man and do a surprise jig, and the In Remembrance banner behind me would fall apart and say

    “I Remember-DANCE cum Celebrating an Orgasmic 130th”

    and I’d rehash my 30th with modern references, like how everyone tried to modernise “We Didn’t Start The Fire”.

    We can’t modernise “We Didn’t Start The Fire”, though, because there’s not enough content since that song to make a new one, we can’t retread what Billy Joel already sang about and anything else would just feel satirical and pointless.

    You can’t just repeat the line with the pope, that’s just derivative.

    30 was the deadline for me to start being a mature adult. Like the talk show idea, it was a blurry, ill-defined image of what should be to make my life better from then on.

    I thought I’d have my shit together naturally, as an effect of time and maturity. You know. Get a relationship without needing to try. They say relationships should happen naturally. 

    Han Cheng and I hung out once at some Soka event he invited me to. This was fresh off of uni. Five years later, I went to his wedding and knew only Ray Yan and Weibo, and sat at a table of HCI people.

    Han Cheng was still Han Cheng, and I watched him on-stage making cutesy corny jokes with his new wife, through green-tinted stained glass (metaphorically) from the table furthest from the front (geographically). That’s the same guy, I thought, and he’s wedded now, so logically, there must be something wrong with me. 

    I guess I haven’t really been trying as hard as I think I have, and some aspects of being in a relationship scare me enough into self sabotage.

    I haven’t especially been trying to connect with people on dating apps, I haven’t been trying to take better care of myself, I haven’t been trying very much in that regard at all.

    It’s funny that in spite of everything in the past year, this relationship shit is the thing that’s making me write a post at last. I guess it’s also the fact that this flight home from Yogyakarta follows the 4D3N trip I was on with Yunus.

    The 4D3N trip followed after the girl saying “I don’t want to waste your time on not being available for you, you know?” 

    I don’t know. Went out with this girl, thrice. Polar opposites. 

    Her? Cute, studious, clumsy. Methodical, family-oriented, serious. Experience-chasing. Interested. Incredible. She started the conversations.

    Somehow we had an astounding amount of differences. She didn’t like being asked about her days. She didn’t like people telling her to take a break. I liked both of those things.

    We had one misunderstanding a day. She loves canto pop and R&B, I don’t. She’s not a coward. She has a sparse desk, mine is filled with cat reporter figurines.

    The one day on her work trip she didn’t reply, it tore me to pieces. 

    We met when she got back. After suggesting that we had a picnic, she didn’t reply till the morning of (not a great texter, I reassured myself),

    She apologised for not preparing anything (I washed and brought grapes and hummus and crackers and made cucumber mint lime water, because she said she ate healthy). 

    After a game of Splendor (she won by one point), we looked that the lame Botanic Gardens pond, and I asked if she wanted to continue. She seemed conflicted and apologised and said that right now, she couldn’t work through us because she only had space in her life for her incoming tea-based startup. 

    “Nothing you did wrong or could’ve done different,” She reassured. 

    I don’t know. I felt a real good future between us between our taunts between rounds of purchasing properties using gems. 

    I asked if, in a few months, when her startup had settled, we could give it a shot again, and she said yes, but in that tone. 

    (Yunus called bullshit. He says that she’s just making an excuse because she doesn’t like me enough. 

    It annoys me. I tell him that I believe her. Because, if he was right, then I could’ve done something different, and that would kill me.)

    Then Yunus and I went to Jakarta the next day, and I put Capricorn on loop. 

    Who was I supposed to send my hotel room tour to now? How much should I have cared? Did I care too much about something that barely began? Am I the only person doing this? Who can I care about now?

    This feels empty, my envelopes have no addresses any more. 

    We had a six hour train ride this trip. The weather was disgusting, the views weren’t exceptional, but six hours without being expected to do fuck about shit? 

    I think that’s what I need. To shut off any expectations. I didn’t contact my family, I barely texted my friends, and I could finish Alita: Battle Angel. 

    I don’t know. At some point, I felt myself unfold, the crease lines disappearing. None of these problems mean anything when you are hurtling towards East Java at 113kph.

    Farmers in the field at 113kph, rice paddies at 113kph,

    I don’t know. I have a fuckload of notifications on my phone and I can’t care less about 

    – if Blastoise is ready to have a good night’s sleep

    – if bdr invited me to a mushroom rally

    – anything on the Straits Times, really

    – what tasks I have to do for improv

    – story notifications on IG

    – Facebook birthdays

    – shopee/laz sales

    Maybe it’s my Eat Pray Love era. 

    We’re landing soon. Indonesia this whole time was me coming to terms with our drivers hurtling on the wrong side of the road towards tens of motorcyclists. If a rogue airplane wing sliced through my neck, I hope I can say something cool before it got to my vocal chords.

    p.s. I mean, I got over most of this, it’s like 3 weeks old, 4 weeks old.

    P. S. S. 6/7 weeks.

    But I still gotta post it. I guess. I don’t really give myself time to write this much any more. But it’s like outdated. I hope this other date is gonna work out.

    I’m doing better. Maybe drinking a bit much. Apprenticeship’s gonna end soon. I’ve gotten a recommendation to the fifth floor. Things get better.

    Apprenticeship ended. I’m down with COVID. There’s a new girl I’m talking to. I’ve got a good feeling about it. As usual. But this is different. As usual!

  • No Truce With The Furies (Twenty-seven)

    Harbourfront, That One Self-care Day

    Section written on 9 Oct

    My knees are pretty busted. They began hurting about three weeks ago, when I got a sharp pain a day after a 5km run.

    Of course then, I’m out walking now. I feel tightly wound from being indoors all day and today being a Saturday makes it worse.

    (more…)
  • More Than You Can Chew

    More Than You Can Chew

    My Room, Pasir Ris

    I’m zipping two huge fucking files, it’s 1:43AM and meh, might as well write something here, right?

    Xue Min (my bestie) and I have somehow succeeded in submitting some proposal to NAC and RP.

    One unfortunate day, the RP people messaged us and whoop de fucking doo, we’re now Resident Artists for the “Community Arts@RP” residency.

    It just occurred to me that anyone curious about that residency could just Google it and find my blog. Welp.

    Concurrently, I also have a shiny role as a Multimedia Designer for Bound’s next project as well as their next next project.

    I realised there’s no need to zip shit, I could just copy the whole folder into my HDD which would do just fine.

    Anyway.

    This whole residency business has made me realise a couple of things, which I will present to you in point form.

    • Your next crisis is always the worst one ever.
    • Ergo, every crisis is manageable.
    • Anyone can do art.
    • To handle bureaucracy and red tape, allow for 50% more time than required.
    • Everyone is trying to help you. Let them.
    • Every time you feel a spike of anxiety at a new complication, realise that you have been through this before. Tell the spike, thank you, I’ve got this, okay?
    • Your friends are more willing to travel to Woodlands at 9am on a Saturday with only 5 days’ notice than you think.

    Okay. My new method of “just copy it” saved me half an hour of zipping and then copying, and I predict another half hour of copying back and unzipping. God, I’m a genius.

    I don’t know who’s reading this, but if you want to do a workshop to learn about mindfulness and expression of gratitude, visit bit.ly/GratitudeLab1.

    Will post more soon, okay bye love you

  • Anaphylactic and Super Hypochondriactic (Twenty-Six)

    Anaphylactic and Super Hypochondriactic (Twenty-Six)

    some strawberry field in Dali, fuck if I know

    Somehow or somewhere, crushes have always had been a way for me to fill in a Void which I failed to recognise in myself.

    This Void is the mythologically derived Ego, which bears a narrative written along its folds and crevices. These narratives are borne from various bits and pieces of fables that we were fed since young, by our parents.

    To me (and I am sure most of you), our parents were Gods who wrote the world. I worshipped them, in a society that applauded you for doing so.

    Our crisis of confidence comes when our parents reveal their mortality, either when we realise how fucked up they are (Dad broke a glass and blamed me for putting it too close to the edge of the dish rack) or when they reveal that they can’t exist forever.

    Dad was unpredictable and had terrible esteem, one that he would hand down like a room-height portrait. He would lash out erratically (never physically abusive), and be nice at other moments.

    Of course, when you lash out at a kid unpredictably, what happens?

    He thinks that he’s defective.

    He imprints upon anyone who shows him a little bit of affection.

    One day, his two closest friends discover a mutual attraction, which (to him) confirms that he is fundamentally defective. The confirmation seemed to be a catalyst to several years of depression which was by no means avoidable.

    (It took me like, 9 years to realise how fundamental this idea of defectiveness was.

    To my closest friends of my JC years who might still be reading this:

    I apologise for my lashing out. I apologise to the bottom of my heart. I was a terrible baby about it. You guys did so much to prove to me that I still mattered; it took me too long to realise that this issue was simply inherent to my beliefs. If it matters any more, I’m very different now. I’m wiser. Maybe I’m too late.)

    Could you believe that? Fundamentally defective.

    My therapist and I worked through these narratives that I recognise. There’s an Ego and an Inner Child.

    The Inner Child just wants to be loved; the Inner Child just wants to prove that He can exist. The Inner Child wants to be told that He is Safe.

    The Ego tells the Child that this is dumb, this is all dumb, and what the fuck are you doing? That glass was shattered because of you.

    At Ginett, they provided little bags with the words “MASK BAG” stamped upon them, and a little version of their fleur de lis logo imprinted above in red ink.

    I consciously leant back in my rattan chair, staring up and to the right of her head. Part of me I wanted to look like I didn’t care when I so, so did.

    “I just wanted to know…”, I bit my lip as I tried to formulate something I wouldn’t regret saying-

    “What we were.” I cringed as I failed. I looked over the large table to her-

    She was tearing strips of paper from the bag and dropping them into the candle-cup, with an intense, distracted wonder. She looked alert for the first time that evening, which betrayed her attempt to look fine.

    I desperately wanted to ask her if she was listening, but I knew that the answer was that she was, and that she was subconsciously trying to appear cool about a heavy topic.

    She would then proceed to produce various forms of excuses: “I’ve never seen you that way” (ouch, and not what she said last time) and “I’m sorry for leading you on”.

    God, fucking, damnit.

    I’m Twenty-Six and my bones still hurt from when she (another dear, dear friend, I love you) said “im going out with someone this coming week”.

    I feel like I’ve let down a weird apparition in the form of younger, J1 Shao. He’s hovering behind me as I slouch on an office chair, begging me to not be “pathetic”. He thought I’d have everything sorted out.

    You know what’s so bad about this feeling of being defective?

    I truly, truly believe that in some form or another, I am so, so fundamentally defective that I will never be loved.

    That I will never be safe, for I will always be on the brink of being driven away, the Beast, Quasimodo, Shao.

    Even at this juncture, the Ego is at a loss for words, because this is so true to His being; this is the very reason He exists.

    Behind the curtain of Oz, under the veneer of the emerald glasses- surprise! The Ego was the Inner Child all along. The Inner Child fears that he has absolutely no reason to exist on this plane. He does all in his might to find a tribe that accepts Him; but once they do, it is deemed a fluke. He seeks out yet another tribe and yet another tribe, trying to obtain external acceptance for a Belief an Old God had left behind. This Belief is a dark, inky stain that will always permeate his actions.

    He has walls, eyes and ears that distort every perceivable sensorial input. Even though he has a dragon’s hoard of evidence that He is likable, His Belief corrupts and renders it all worthless.

    A meaningful gaze, a hug, a kiss, a cuddle, a blow-job, a fuck, a doe-eyed look, a marriage, a baby, money or a smile will never provide the love that he will existentially require.

    He will never be happy, until he learns that He is good enough.

    And it is not that He will never be able to rid Himself of the Belief. He will learn to handle it and observe it.

    He has to learn that He is safe.

    Here the tears flow.

  • Marked Against Death*

    Marked Against Death*

    Bus to North Stradbroke Island. (Brisbane, Australia)

    Moshimoshi! Long time no update.

    Let’s see. Since May, I’ve gone to Australia (fantastic), lost some weight (2kg), graduated from University (Honours (Merit)), gone on the news (fuck), languished (meh) and gotten a job (thanks An).

    I might revisit those here eventually. You can’t tell me what to do, Sean.

    I went to the polyclinic the other day; you have to book appointments through this HealthHub app, it’s easy to use, but complicated.

    Isn’t it funny that Australia/Graduating/Going on the News/Getting a Job aren’t as post-worthy as visiting the doctor?

    It’s easy to use because it’s, admittedly, pretty straightforward. Tap, tap, appointment.

    It’s complicated because you have to download an app in order to book an appointment. When you reach the polyclinic, you still have to get a queue number. The lady behind the counter will then proceed to rush you upstairs because you’ve arrived right on time for your appointment, when they specifically told you to arrive 15 minutes in advance.

    You will then have to wait for 30 minutes for your number to appear in front of the door they just assigned you.

    Hey, HealthHub? Just schedule the appointment time earlier for us! Duh-doy!

    Too complicated for you, Shao?

    Then how did the 20 trillion ah gong’s and ah ma’s on level 2 do it? With the help of 15 trillion grand-sons and -daughters?

    Just an aside – Jesus Christ, it’s really hard to write without sounding disinterested.

    It was the evening. I sat in the waiting room, in my detergent-y smelling sports attire (mom wanted to go exercise after). My queue number blipped on the screen, 30 minutes after it was supposed to. I knocked and scurried in.

    “How can I help you today?”

    “Er, I’m depressed.”

    It feels lame to say that. It feels like a wet fart. It feels like somehow, I’m scraping the bottom of the barrel for sympathy. Hello, please find me someone to talk to about how I am unable to function normally because I’m so empty inside-

    OKAY. I know. Tis a sadblog again. It’s gonna be different soon, I promise. I’ll fast forward it for you! Here:

    So, the funny thing about going to a GP for “Psychiatric Reasons” is that under the section where they usually write:

    PATIENT COUGHING 5 DAYS – RECOMMEND SUPPOSITORY

     They now write:

    SEEING THIS GIRL MAKES HIM NERVOUS: SUSPECTED MILD ANXIETY – RECOMMEND SUPPOSITORY

    And so she went, “I don’t think you are depressed.”

    Bammo.

    Denial. Anger. Bargaining. False Depression.

    Thanks to my three years of occasional actor training, I don’t think I showed any visible surprise. I tried to steer my answers to within the ballpark of “kinda bummed out”, but at the end of the session, she gave me a choice.

    “You could either sign up for a counsellor or ask for a referral.”

    “OK. What’s the difference?”

    “For the referral, we’ll get you another appointment with a doctor before bringing you to a psychiatrist upstairs, who’s with the IMH. For the counsellor, we have a social worker on this floor.”

    I winced at the term IMH, but figured that if I wanted to have a second opinion, the referral would be nice. The higher the floor, the more godly the counsellor.

    She printed the prescription form, the Moses’ tablet of medicine, so to speak and so I left the clinic, $13.40 and one label lighter.

    I am realising that I know what good writing is like, I just can’t hit it. I’ll let this post simmer in the Drafts section for a few days like a good ol’ whiskey.

    Come to think of it, maybe I’ve gotten better in the whole depression department. Maybe. It certainly feels like it.I can laugh sometimes. I get frustrated. I experience some emotions. I get angry.

    Devil’s Advocate? I still get bummed out. I hate myself. I get panic attacks just by seeing a blue notification blip on my phone. Okay. That’s anxiety. Who’s to say?

    I received an SMS that told me to go for a session on the third floor on the 25th. I was thrilled, and went last Sunday before realising they meant 25th SEPTEMBER.

    So what if I don’t need crutches any more? I’m starting to walk again, cautiously. I gonna see if I can leave this label behind.

    Baby steps.

  • 23, pt. 2

    23, pt. 2

    Photos by Annie and Tom

    “So where should we go without getting caught?”

    I replied, “I’ve heard people go to the roof of that building. Sometimes they go to the carpark. There’s fairy lights at the roof-” “Wow!” “-and there’s a dump at the carpark.”

    (more…)

  • 23, pt. 1

    23, pt. 1

    “Piece of shit. Stupid piece of shit. You’re a real stupid piece of shit.”

    (more…)

  • Bump-in; Mannequins

    I’m losing my grip on the mystic art of stage managering; finding a 200 dollar shoe cabinet’s receipt and literally dropping a mannequin and smashing a hole in its head right after paying for it.

    A friend told me with a concerned look, “I hate you for being a terrible stage manager, but it’s not your fault.” I blushed at the aptness of the description and proceeded to stumble over everything in the bump-in, holding the words dear. Humility, yes, but mostly discomfort at… at how dare my lack of experience endanger everyone’s enthusiasm and blood for Stage.

    “Are you okay?” multiple people asked.  With a grimace betraying my joke, I shimmied into the space below the sink to hear my heart pound my head, asking if all was for nought.

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  • Distant thunder

    Distant thunder

    Day 1 is upon us…

    What’s going to happen tomorrow? I hear the buses and the road and a distant roll of thunder.

    My legs are chilled to the bone; muffled slipper steps and doors closing startle me every time they occur.

    It’s a new beginning again! NS was a comfort in how we were told about everything to do… The long and leafy roads are but a distant memory and I’ll have a new dull routine to follow and yearn. New stories to tell and rubbish to smell.

    I’m afraid, but everyone in this block has been friendly thus far. I don’t really know anyone yet, but…

    I don’t think it’ll be that bad. It won’t be!

    I’ll make it through, damn it!

    Stand up and fight!