I'm getting that strange shiver again. Where once I thought I was just lapsing into sappy sentimentality (all those Chen Xiao Dong concerts), I now know this isn't a phase. Not even one I purposefully and conscientiously segue into just to confuse people. Not another "no shit" stunt. I'm not going to try to define it. I'll describe around it. "It" (strange shiver) consists in:

1. Particularly arch, or tender, inflections in both statuesque AND flabby bubblegum ballads. Faye Wong would come under the former, Jay Chou the latter.

2. Nondescript slice-of-life scene from B-grade Chinese movie, and more so if it's about the heady impetuousness of dissolute youth, juvenile delinquency, bleary-eyed wasted people in squalid tenements, urban sprawl and lurid commercialism, related topics.
(this one is especially insidious. There's no way of telling exactly what sorts of things trigger it. Though I've given pretty extensive guidelines)

3. Compelling slice-of-life scene from A-grade Chinese movie
(Suzhou He, Hua Yan [Dazzling]: look out for my review in "Cinematic" when it gets published...if at all. Anyone want to take up an ad? Will reach 6400 undergrads on campus, plus penetrate self-satisfied artistic coteries.)

4. Dowdy decor in American Chinese restaurants

* * *
So thanks to A's contagious cyber-voyeurism, I randomly google people once in a while (and only once in a while), and last night I thought of this guy I met back in Sec 3. And I found his journal. And I pored over it, with alarmingly close attention to detail, and Oh My God I realised I was (passé composé) like him, and I talked (passé composé) like him, and I wrote (passé composé) like him once. Except of course, now I'm me, and he's still him. I had that most discomposing of existential experiences. Not discovering that there is no self, but that there are neurotic multiple selves, spatially or temporally summated (oops, let a SB44: Vision And Brain term slip in there). And I saw an erstwhile self sallying blithely forth down wide open spaces; whereas in my case, that version of Me was somehow twiddled with at a critical cleft somewhere down the line, now unravelling differently in a parallel life. And the two lives (selves? substitution instances of the same self?) have diverged. And The Road Not Taken, and all that stuff.

H would have something to say about this, about Groups One and Three and all that. And as much as I fear Y's uncanny clairvoyance, I'd be interested to hear his take on this.

1. Leng3 Pan2 constituency: Crabmeat-shark's fin omelette
2. Mum's albumen omelette with Hunan ham, dong1 gu1, dried scallop and coriander
3. YQ's famously botched sOOper-salty whitebait and three-mushroom omelette

From these precursors I drew inspiration and crafted the most triumphant dish of the night: albumen omelette with dong1 gu1, gingko nuts and scallops, wreathed with coriander garlands.

Y and A made a huge cauldron of fearsomely hot curry. In this forceful Eastwest meld, we also had M's penne with shrimp (and longbeans?), K's mysterious rice pilaf (orange peel, basil, lemongrass?), T's moules marinières, someone's strange calamari-jalapeño thing, C's chic-ku-teh, P's buffalo and teriyaki wings. Then we played Polar Bear, Guru and Robot.

I found canned mangosteens, orange-flavored natadecoco, and natadecoco in mango juice. And A found canned tapas! Octopus bites in garlic oil.

Let's see, what else have I done. Ah, the Master's Tea at Adams. Oh, that stupefying crab dip! Those cuddly scallops enwraptured by floppy bacon bands! Strawberries cling-coated with molten chocolate!

I will attend to the following soon, but not now, owing to a very pressing essay, fun reading (Kundera), hard-ass reading (Saint-Exupéry) and just fucking impossible reading (Sekuler and Blake, "Perception," 3rd ed.)
1. On why Taiwan Café is spatially and psychologically comforting first, and stomach-satisfying only second.
2. On why Spice sucks, and Smile rocks.