“Mushrooms by the Sea” (1931) by Filippo de Paris. Oil on canvas, 53 x 63 cm. I spent a long time looking at this painting, which has been compared to works by Salvador Dali. I was particularly interested in the large sky and beach in comparison to the relatively small sandwiched sea — an ungenerous…
Category: musings
The Interrogative Mood: Questions with Lian-Hee Wee
The following questions are taken from Padgett Powell’s The Interrogative Mood. Can you list the things you are afraid of, or is it easier to list the things you are not afraid of, or are you afraid of nothing, or are you essentially afraid of everything? It’s hard to say. I can’t guarantee that I won’t…
“The Lens and the Modern Self” by Magdalen Ki
Image source: The MET Museum (via.) 20/20 vision indicates good eyesight, but this is impossible without our built-in crystalline lens. As we age, we demand more lenses and thus discover a new world with the use of the camera lens. We are often taught to see the world through sexist, racist lenses and we are further…
“Don Yuan: A Review” by James Au
Don Juan is just as irresistible to writers as he is to women: both attractive and repulsive, courageous and honourable, yet entirely amoral and self-centred. We have all met someone like him, or at least someone who would like to be him. —Peter Gordon Two weeks ago, I had the pleasure of joining Dr. Tammy Ho to see Don Yuan (presented…
“John Gave Rachel A Book” by Tammy Ho Lai-Ming
John gave Rachel a book, ten years ago John gave Rachel a book Of poetry— Western Wind: An Introduction to Poetry On the second page of the book John had written, in green: For Rachel, who doesn’t need An introduction to anything— Certainly not to poetry— With memories of all the Places we talked about…
“Buddhism, Selflessness, and the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis” by Vinton Poon
‘[W]hen a layperson sees a mountain, he sees a mountain, but when an enlightened person sees a mountain, he does not see a mountain.’ Image source: via. Buddhism, as a religion or a philosophy, has many wonderful concepts that help us perceive life in a better way. The basic notion of this belief system is that…
“A Night on the Platform” by Liu Yuwei
Photo by Oliver Farry. A girl friend of mine went on a trip to Rehtaeh Mansion years ago. To save on transport, she purchased an 80-percent-off railway ticket online. The train arrived at its destination before one in the morning—that was why the ticket was discounted. She, lingering on the platform, had nowhere to go…
“The Guess Who Quiz” by Heidi Huang
Click image to enlarge. From left to right: Florence Leung, Jason S Polley, Douglas Berman, Heidi Huang, Tammy Ho Lai-Ming, Jason Lee, Julia Wang, Ruth Hung and Stuart Christie. This “Guess Who Quiz” is actually ‘stolen’ from our students’ inspired descriptions of each teacher during our farewell dinner held on 2 May. When perusing the joyful photographs of that…
“Reading for What?” by Liu Yuwei
“That Streak of Sunlight on the Books” by Tammy Ho I once joined an English writing course because my English writing could not be any worse. If there is any way I can make it better, I would go for it. A way to improve writing, according to my writing adviser, is to read and…
Department of English, Hong Kong Baptist University 