Day 5
Impending mini lockdown coming. And they are calling it Circuit breaker - hey that's copyrighted! Isn't it remarkable that a small country like us is punching so much above its weight? I think there's a catch phrase about making London like "Singapore on the Thames."
Plans to get fans back to stadiums are shelved for now. Oh well, watching it on TV is cheaper and less time-consuming if that's any consolation. But I will miss watching it with you boys. And Mummy will have one less thing to help her fall asleep to.
Am I worried about the Covid situation here? Not too much. I really think the high rate of infections here is just due to the nature of society here. People insist on the right to gather, to drink, to party, though opinion polls show that a majority of the public want to police to enforce the rules more strictly. And the police themselves are a bit conflicted - they say it is not a law and order problem but a health issue. And they want more clarity, and more support from the public when they enforce, because they say the public becomes critical and call them heavy-handed when they do try to enforce. I think one contributory factor is the role of the mainstream media, and social media that play up these sentiments because well, it makes good copy. But it may not really represent how most people feel.
The collective sense of community has fragmented I think, into smaller groups. People identify themselves more by their tribes - in other words, they choose to accentuate the differences more rather than the commonalities. It's that streak of individualism that is taking over the world. I think it has always been there, but people understood that you needed to find a balance. And they trusted that political leaders were there to tell them what this balance was. No one trusts politicians anymore. We are also headed in that direction, but we still have a greater sense of conformity for the collective good.
The BBC interviewed some freshmen and I got the sense that they were more disappointed that their drinking and partying would be affected, than how their classes or studies might be affected.
Day 6
Watched a Japanese movie called 100 yen love. I had bought the DVD because this was a movie with good reviews that featured Sakura Ando. She was in this great movie called Shoplifters that Mummy and I watched - she was the 'mother' who took the girl into their home. It was a remarkable movie and her performance really was one of the highlights. Lately I have become tired of the usual Hollywood fare - even those that seem to want to be different somehow manage to feel the same no matter the storyline.
The movie Shoplifters was a revelation because it showed us a side of Japanese society that is different from what we encounter as tourists or on TV. Like the Korean movie Parasite, it takes a look at those who live at the margins of society. There are no triumphant heartwarming endings.
How to describe this movie? Calling it the Japanese female equivalent of 'Rocky' doesn't quite nail it. Anyway it was good and Ando was very good in it.
Day 7
It's been a week. Not too bad actually. There were times though when I felt like Tom Hanks in Castaway and wished I had a volleyball to talk to :) I did talk to myself on occasion. I just found out you can actually buy this volleyball! Amazing what people will buy. Perhaps they should just dump a container load of it in the ocean in case someone needs it yah?
Did two Youtube workouts back to back. First one was too short (about 20 minutes) though it did get my heart pumping. Followed up with another from the same site (Popsugar Fitness - I highly recommend it if you ever want to do a home workout) but this one was 40 minutes and I was really sweating by the end even though I had opened the balcony door and it was single-digit temperature outside. It was intense. Or else I am just getting old. Strange though that when I checked my Garmin app later, my heart rate wasn't as high as I thought it reached.
Day 8
After chatting with you guys, I spent most of the afternoon on my laptop, sorting out all the photos we've taken over the years. These are on my Onedrive account online - if you need to access it, it is registered under my gmail account (awkumcheong). Password should be my favourite manager08. It was a bit confusing at first because I needed to figure out how it worked so as not to accidentally delete stuff. It was a really great and productive way to spend the day - with an incredible Pop Soul classics playlist on Spotify playing in the background. So many great songs - they don't write stuff like this anymore. Right Matt? And the best testimony of the merits of this playlist? I never once felt like changing playlists or turning it off or switching to something else. When was the last time you felt that way listening to the radio or whatever?
Lots of wonderful memories from the photos - I will post them on this blog. Lots of love, especially when I see photos of the birthday celebrations that Mummy put together for you boys over the years. And for me too:) So much love that went into the food, the cakes, the games...
And there are so many photos of you guys that I like.
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