The Chronicles of a Broken Beaker
--The Adolescent Journey of Broken Beaker--
My life sort of began when I was 4 because technically speaking because you are not conscious of your life until you reach age 3 or 4. – However, I don’t really have any solid memories of my childhood. Because they are all fucking dull and gloom.I grew up in a big family in a very big house. Yes. The house has been there for at lease 5 decades. It’s a wooden house, sitting on an elongated 60m by 200m land. No kidding. It’s a fucking big house. It has 8 bedrooms, 2 big living rooms, 3 bathrooms, and 3 outhouses. Isn’t that great? I lived there with my grandmother, of course mum and dad and sis and bro, my single aunt, single uncle and my grandma’s brother’s family. I don’t know what you call that. The whole house was just a fucking chaos. There’s nothing fun about it. – I lived there until I was in primary 4, when I was about 11 years old when my grandmother decided she wanted to move to a quieter area, and so did my parents.
Growing up in that sort of conditions isn’t great means you don’t have your own privacy, not that I needed one at that age, and you are constantly under the pressure of other family members. If I happen to wake up one hour later than my usual wake up time, I will be told off. If I didn’t get good results at school, everyone in the house will know. It’s like that.
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I have a brother, who is 7 years older than me, and a sister who is 4 years older. Since I am the youngest, my parents, especially my mum always gave me special attention, and of course, my bother and my sis aren’t very happy about that. They despised me because they think I am spoilt, which I probably am. I basically can get what I want but under the pressure of my brother and sister, I usually don’t ask for much because I don’t want them to think I am treated any different. How mature. My brother is like a stranger to me. We just don’t talk much I don’t know why. When I was in primary school, he’s already in secondary school. In my teenage years when I kinda need like a male role model, my brother is already out of the house to attend university. So I never really have any chance to get to know my bother and all that. But I still look up to him because he’s like the fucking cult hero of the family. Everybody liked him.
On the contrary, I am rather close with my sister. My sister is the rebellious ones; she mix with people that parents usually won’t approve. But I thought that she’s kinda cool you know, hang out with all the cool people and listen to cool music. She was the one who kinda got me into listening to music at a very young age, like Nirvana and Metallica.
I also have 2 cousins of the same age, Alex being the older one, was born in early 1984, then me, born in April the same year, then there is Aaron, who joined us later that year around August.
1984 is the year of Rat – according to the Chinese calendar thing, and we have been dubbed the head, body and tail of a rat. Alex is the oldest but the shortest – so he is the head of a rat. I, the middle height between the three of us - am the body of a rat and finally Aaron, being the youngest and the tallest, hence the long tail of a rat. Seems perfectly logical.
We went to the same kindergarten and we used to hang out like almost everyday after school. We are the also the most rebellious ones in the family. Well boys will be boys. But anyway, we were close like real brothers, and we even made a vow that we will help each other whenever whoever is in trouble and we swear we will never betray each other. Seemed like the kind of things kids would do, and under the influence of those Hong Kong mafia movies, we actually though we are supposed to die for each other.
I was always the brightest in the three of us. I got good result at school, I have good manners, and I get up early everyday during the holidays to help around at the house. On the contrast, Alex, is the more rebellious one who hardly ever listens to anyone – and was also the mastermind behind our actions. Aaron is not the brightest ones but he’s not the rebellious one either. He is the youngest – plain and simple. Everybody loved him. Having said that, if we happen to do something wrong, Alex is the most likely to get scolded, then me and Aaron is the least likely ones. It has always been like this. When something happened, Alex will be blamed for involving us, then I will be punished, then Aaron will go home safely.
When we were kids, we used to sneak around the house; we used to secretly climb over the fence to the supermarket across the roads to get chocolates although our grandmother told us not to, we used to have mud fight during the rain seasons and got home dirty and tired.
During Primary school, we don’t see each other all that often because we all went to different school. But we still get to hang out maybe once or twice a week, mostly sleepover at my grandmother’s house. I remember there was one time when my grandma was having afternoon nap, we decided to play the scary game. There were 4 rooms in the house and each of us will take care of a room, making it look scary, then we would visit the room and get scared – which is kinda stupid. But anyway, I can’t remember who, got really creative and stuffed up a glove with some cloth, and positioned in a way like the hand is holding a knife, and it’s holding a real pocket knife. And I don’t know why I did it but I was jumping on the bed where the knife is and I actually cut my leg and bled out gallons of blood and passed out. The bed was covered with my blood. And of course, this means Alex – is going to get into serious trouble.
But anyway, up till secondary school. That’s when everything changes. We hardly get in touch with each other because we kinda have our own circle of friends to deal with. It got to a point that we actually feel quite awkward to see each other in family gatherings. I guess it’s weird that we just drifted apart – just like that, and knowing we used to be so close, none of us knew what went wrong. But deep down though, we knew that we are still brother. Whatever.
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I went to a primary school called St. Joseph Primary School. It’s a Christian school although I am not Christian. It has a church and priests and nuns and all that you know kinda freaky. Primary school was probably the toughest period of my childhood.
On my first day at school, I met Garret, which is not his real name but I’d like to call him that anyway and he didn’t seemed to mind, like I totally wouldn’t mind people calling me Rooney or Gerrard, but anyway he then become my best friend throughout 16 years of friendship. I remember it was the first day, and my parents were looking inside the window of the classroom to see how the class is going, and to make sure I met some friends, that I would be alright on my own. And I think that my parents are friends with his parents so they tried to set us up or something like that. I am not too sure, because I was only 8 and who gives a fuck at 8 years old. But that’s how we met; although we’ve only gotten closer in primary 5. At the same year, I also met Adrian, because my mum is kind of like mates with Adrian’s mum too. And we became fast friends. Adrian, Calvin and I always played together at school, or outside the school. And there, with a few connections of my parents, I have met my childhood friends – who then became people that define the idea of friendship for me as we grew up.
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I have a girly name. It’s not my Chinese pronunciation that sounded girly, it’s when it’s translated into English that it sounded fucking girly. Don’t ask me how, but I have the girliest name a guy could probably have and it’s not funny - that’s one of the reasons why childhood has been so hard for me. I was constantly being insulted by my teachers and classmates for my FUCKING name.
Every morning before class starts, we will be assigned to clean up a specific area of the school. It’s okay if I were assigned to clean the curb, or to pick up rubbishes. But sometimes, when I get the toilets, my name will always be on the girl toilets rooster. And I always have to go to the prefect in charge to correct that mistake. And sometimes, they would laugh at me for having that name. Things got even worst when we have Physical education classes. The class will be divided into two lines, boys and girls, and the teacher would do the rows. When calling my name she would look at the girl’s row. And she would call my name again only to found out my raised hand is on the boy’s row. Then she would laugh. And someone standing behind me would say something like “Why don’t you stand over that row?” and giggles. I remembered once in Primary 4, my PE teacher asked me “Why would your parents give you such name” bitch.
I remembered there were a few times I came home from school and ask my mum to have my name changed to a more appropriate one. Then my mum would always tell me “it’s their mouth, you can’t control what they want to say, but you can choose to ignore it” She always says that. I was probably too young to understand the logic of what she said. I would get really angry and not talk to her. I only want my name changed so all the insults will stop. What is so hard about that? Well the thing is, if it were anybody’s fault, blame the doctor. When I was born, he left out a vowel on my name when he was filling my birth certificate and that made all the difference. I don’t know if anyone understands what sort of impact it has on me, living my early life, having everyone mock me because I have a girly name. It’s fucking depressing!
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In primary 3, at the tender age of 10, I became the well known thief of my family who is obsessed with Dragon Ball and wagging classes. Allow me to elucidate, well kids loves superheroes. I love Dragon Ball, I mean literally obsessed with it. Goku would be my superhero in that case. Every two days in a week after school, we have Chinese classes. It’s like totally voluntary if you want sign up for the class or not, but if you do, you will have to go to every single class. Well my parents want me to know a little Chinese, so they signed me up for the class. But then I have more important things to do after school than learning the fucking Chinese calligraphy. I have to go across the road to get Dragon Ball cards, well you know those little credit card sized card you get from a machine, a dollar for each. I always go there after school to get the card, and going to Chinese class made it entirely impossible. So first off, I started skipping classes, which I thought is not really a fucking big deal. Then I got desperate, I used up all my pocket money vending the silly cards. But that wasn’t enough. I got more desperate and I want more, so I started to steal from my mum’s purse. Eventually she noticed some money missing, she started to ask if I had taken any money, and I would say no. And I stole again, she’d ask again, and I stole again. At one occasion, I met a guy who is older than me, probably 12 years old, he told me he could get me large amount of Dragon Ball Cards for a cheaper price. I was totally seduced. I ordered from him, and up to a point, I owed him RM300 dollars. I got desperate and I stole from my mum again. Little at a time. But there’s no way I could get 300 dollars without her noticing. And I was getting nervous as the seller kept pressuring me to pay him or he’ll tell his mother. I was desperate. I thought I am getting into a big trouble. I had no choice; I had to tell my mum. And I told her.
Surprisingly, she wasn’t mad at me at all. But my dad did. Don’t want to talk about it. But anyway, my mum called the seller up to settle the things. She though I have been manipulated and cheated. Those cards could not have possibly worth fucking 300 bucks, but of course I didn’t know at that time. All I see is cards, cards, cards, so many fucking cards I am convinced that I could live the rest of my life having those cards.
Although my mum did not get angry, I could fucking tell she’s really disappointed. I mean like when people are really frustrated, they’re speechless. That was what happened with her, she gave me a cold treatment which made me feel so bad. I so wished she’d say something rather than saying nothing at all – but the thing is her method worked on me. Shame, shame, shame.
But anyway, point is, every single human who lived under that fucking roof found out what happened and started giving me evils. My grandmother punished me, my uncle gave me a fucking lecture that I don’t fucking understand and my cousins laughed at me. It was fucking humiliating. They were like totally overreacted about it. Big deal.
In Primary 5, I upgraded from 4B to 5C. You see each year have 3 classes A, B and C. A is for like mentally challenged students while B is like for people who have a little sense of the world and C class which is like where all the bright ones, and the rich ones supposed to be.
At the beginning of the year, I bought a striped cream-grey color t-shirt and I wore it to school one day underneath the plain white school uniform which is quite see-through. During music class, students are sometimes required to sit on the floor in rows. And one of my classmates, Joanne saw what I was wearing and said to me “I have a shirt exactly like that, and I am not going to wear it anymore since you’re wearing it”. Ouch. I never wore that shirt again either.
Well, that year too, I sat next to a fucking female dinosaur called Jessica. Omg, I kid you not, she’s like the most horrible girl I’ve ever met in my life. She ate like pigs, she is dirty and she spreads her leg when she sits down and did I mention she’s fucking huge? She was really rude. She used to copy all my answers for mathematics test, but when I tried to copy her answer for English test, she shoved me away, what kind of bitch is that? – Megabitch. I was like totally traumatized by her. No joke. Anyway, my academic performance for that year is like 52nd place, out of 56 students. How depressing.
Sometime in primary 5, I met a dick called Fattgo, which is not his real name too but it suits him just fine – because he’s like totally fat and rude, just like your typical bully. He has a problem with people like me. That sort of people that does nothing to anybody but always ended up being bullied. I am not fond of him because he is so full of himself when he talk, and most of the times, all the things he talked about doesn’t really inform his actions. That means he is just so full of shit. Also, he is the first guy who taught me how to swear using a sentence rather than just a word – “Fucking Hell in the Neighborhood”, that’s it. I didn’t know what it meant at that time, but the way he said it made it sound so rude and so totally effective. But his character doesn’t end there in my life. It continues to unfold later in secondary school.
In that year, I started to hang out more often with Garret, Calvin, Adrian, and Angeleo and several others which I can’t be bothered to mention. We used to stay after school to play ping-pong and going to Dynasty Hotel or just play games, stupid games that kids play.
Primary 6 is like the final year of Primary school and it was also the time we sit for National exam called UPSR. I don’t want to go into that because it’s all boring stuff. That year, I was lucky to get away from lady dinosaur. I sat with Rowena, a really cool girl who swims nationally, I think, and right behind us is Elizabeth and Alvin. The four of us were like best friends; we do everything together; gossip together, eat lunch together, and play games together. They were like the coolest people ever. But the person sitting right in front of us is a totally different story. - Winnie, another bitch, not mega, but ain’t mini either. Sometime that year, she borrowed a CD from me; it was Cranberries’ To The Faithful Departed. After she listened to it, she said “How can you lend me something like that, the music is totally crap. How can you listen to something like that?” HELLO LADY???? I mean I didn’t fucking offer the CD to you. It was you who wanted to borrow it in the first place, don’t blame me if you prefer Take That more. GIVE ME A FUCKING BREAK.
Also in that year, everyone started asking everybody to write autographs; you know those fancy books where you write some cheesy stuff for remembrance. I’ve got some people nice enough to ask me for an autograph. I always find it funny no matter how clichéd up autographs are, they are still widely popular. But anyway, the most common things people write are stuff like “Remember me forever”, “Friends forever”, “King sails what ship and who sails what ship and we sail friendship” and etc etc. But at that time, do we really mean what we wrote? I certainly didn’t – I mean I was fucking glad it’s finally over you know, and trust me I wouldn’t want to see half of the people in primary school in my life ever again. You know, it’s more like a cool necessity to have a fucking autograph than the value of remembrance it holds.
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In retrospect, at that time, Primary school has been hard for me, but also at that age, who would understand the value of friendship, who would understand the idea of life. Every kids went to school with the own set of prejudices about other people, prejudices they have been taught at home. That is why people say things that probably have hurt me, but it does not necessarily mean that they meant it. At that time, we weren’t taught to accept differences, because differences are aliens. Everybody thought we should be the same, and that is why if you happen to have a more noticeable difference than any other kids in school, you will be an outcast. I was different but not entirely different. I am a guy with a girl’s name. My dad doesn’t drive a fucking Mercedes to send me to school or pick me up from school. I wasn’t academically better than anyone else, and I am certainly not cool. It doesn’t sound all that different as I grew up, but as a kid, at the period where nobody understand shit about life, and the only reason you’ll be safe in school is determined by your social-status, I can’t help but wonder and ask myself why aren’t my dad rich, why didn’t I have a guy’s name, why can’t I be like him, why I am I so uncool? I envy that group of cool people who always hang out together, the rich kids and the rich kids. I so wish I could join that group so I am cool. I was like 11 years old for Christ’s sake. At that very young age, I already learnt the idea of shame, and disgrace. I was always lack of self confidence, which is why people always pick on me. I am not mischievous like other kids, which they thought I am a coward. And the accumulation of that made me who I am today.
It’s a phase where nothing means anything really but at the same time, it’s a significant phase of your life that will change you profoundly. At least it has changed mine. – The way you think about yourself and other people, the way you read the life, and before you know it, it casts a mould where your life principles take forms as you grow up.
However, throughout the film, I can't help but wonder what is the intention of United 93, what is Greengrass trying to achieve with this. It's obvious that this film does not carry any sort of political statement, and I am sure this film is not intended as a commercial entertainment eiter. It is until the end of the movie I came to understand the idea of the United 93. Now it was speculated that the original postscrip for the film was "America's War On Terror Had Begun" which was taught to be too political minded. The final version that made it on screen was the rather sober and appropriate "Dedicated to the memory of all those who lost their lives on September 11th 2001". United 93 intends to dignify those on the flight, ordinary men and women who decided to fight for their live - it captures, without being either manipulative or maudlin, what 9/11 was like. Paul Greengrass has successfuly tells a profoundly emotional story, that is unflinching, and with little dramatic embellishment - which results in a powerful account that is not effected by any sentimentality that often Hollywood tends to do when it comes to depiction of their own history.
The movies strengh has a lot to do with Aaron's Eckhart's flawless performance. Echkart presents the spin doctor as an obnoxious jerk who you can't help but root for mainly thanks to his slick double speak - He is the perfect leading man who is edgy and has impeccable comedic timing. You can't help but being charmed by his charismatic and wickedly funny sense of humour.
And I have a big fucking problem with the Referee - that cunt called Elizondo Horatio, first thing - when the ball struck Velente's hand, the referee waved it off. Then on the 62nd minutes, he gave Rooney a big fuckin red card - That, oh dear I swear to god, is the most memorable moment I've ever withnessed. The crowd was quiet, everyone had their hand either covering ther open mouth - in disbelief, or covering their eyes - in horror. That, perhaps is one of the most shoking and controversial moments of World Cup 2006. People said Rooney's temper is going to cause him trouble, if he don't start to control it - and there you go, right in our face. Who would've thought. I was as shocked as everyone else in the room. I almost had tears in my eyes. In that very second, it's like my heart skipped a beat. Maybe I am biased but the truth it - that scenario was just so unfuckingbelieably rediculous. Just a few little pushes and a fucking red card. Hello mr. Referee?? , boys will be boys and in this fucking male-dominated game, a few pushes worth a fucking red card? Come on. I really don' t think that it was the clash with Carvalho that caused it. I believe it was something Ronaldo had said to the referee that caused Rooney to burst. He must've thought "hey, I thought we're teammates" Lol - it's sad but true. I bet Ronaldo is hated by most Man U fans now - including me.
As for Rooney, it doesn't really matter anymore. He's been there, played with his heart and everyone can see that. He is still my HERO and everybody's hero I guess; when he was redcarded, there was like a surge of emotions going through everyone that was there, like a invincible connection-a total shock mixed with disappointment and sympathy. Despite his irrational outburst, he has got what it takes, that is really the only thing that mattered, 4 years later, I am sure we will see him leading England to victory.
So after 40 years, the dream is once again shattered. It was so close. So so so so close it's crazy. It's just fucking unfair this game had to end with penalty - Throughout the 120 minutes, England's performance was far off better than Portugal, despite the fact that they are one man down, they manage to deliver a wonderful performance. With the disadvantage of loosing first Owen, then Beckham, then Rooney they continue to defend and attack, creating opportunities at the same time breaking down the opponent's attack; could we, supporters expect more? No. They've played well - it's just so fucking unfair.
