The Modern Woman

"没有物质的爱情只是一盘沙，都不用风吹走两步路就散了"

“love without materialism is just a pile of sand, even without the flowing wind, it will spill after a couple of steps"

The trend in my INGS debates have largely been centralised around this idea of the irrevocable permeation of Capitalist ideology within our frameworks of governance, thought - everything. I don't necessarily think that Capitalism is a bad thing, but I am acknowledging that I have had no reason to think otherwise.

The ongoing dialogue of what constitutes a 'modern woman' has in the past fairly disinterested me given that I don't particularly think any one generalised term can even begin to encompass the nuances that make a 'woman', or associate with the archaic level of thinking that promotes gender binaries; but for some reason there's something about it that has got me thinking.

I read somewhere, that the 'modern woman' wants to pay her bills, be self-supported, but also wants her man to open the door for her. These paradoxes of traditional 'gentlemanly' masculinity with the ideal of independent career-driven womanhood seem to make up the dialogue of what constitutes 'woman'. More so, there appears to be this continual reliance, or desire for a 'partner'. By no means am I advocating for 'cat lady status', but in a world populated by individuals, we're awfully concerned with trying to find others before we find ourselves. It's all a bit corny and lame, I'll give you that, but as always, bear with me.

So the above quote comes from this lovely little Chinese film called《小时代》, or Tiny Times, and you should disregard the terrible IMDb rating and just hear me out for a second. Yes the plot is absurdly absurd (there is no other way for me to put it) and the acting is at time pretty shoddy, but there are some provoking messages dotted in the script. One of them being the above quote.

Materialism is so unfairly correlated to woman in a negative way, where all woman care about is what brands we own, how expensive our clothes are; how our material possessions are an indication of our own status, worth and meaning. I could never say that I am not the embodiment of what I just stated, but rather, should I, or you, be considered any less of an individual without our materialistic desires? Capitalism runs on materialism. There is no capitalism if there no continual ebb of supply and demand, over over and under accumulation of goods, of commodity chains, of product development.

How can anyone make verbose claims that they're 'better than us', that we're 'superficial' because we embody materialism and Capitalism; when in reality, we are all the same. Everything, as we know it, runs on an active acknowledgement of the Capitalism. Materialism bonds us to this Capitalistic ideology and keeps us functioning in this world, or else we need a radicalised ideological revolution to shift the way we think.

Food for thought (also, though not entirely relevant, thought I might share the below video)

xx

Chill Vibes

With the beginning of this brief mid-sem reprieve from uni, I'm back slogging in retail, scrambling to fund exchange adventures and shenanigans. But at the same time, the robotic movements of unpacking stock, and repeating of the phrase "hey, how are you today" oddly provide a nice change of scenery from the typical treks into uni, of continually assessing, thinking, stressing, or (as was the case recently) going to all costs to try and avoid eye contact with the campaigners who infiltrated every main entrance and exit of USyd.

So amongst the frantic applications of makeup prior to running out to the train station to make it into work on time, I've managed to fit in good, solid hours of Scandal binge-watching (#Olitz forever, I've never felt this absurdly obsessed about anything; it's quite unsettling to be honest), breaks spent in the backroom at work reading over articles about the narcissistic tendencies of current young generations, a near-obsessive tendency to continually re-apply holographic nail polish because I spend too much time admiring the rainbow colours in lieu of remembering the sizes a customer has asked for; and times chilling out to music.

So my daily glazed over train rides into the city have been dominated by these tracks (with a couple of good ol' Chinese ones thrown in because, you know, cultural awakenings and all that)

xx

Unpredictably Beautiful

I know it's a bit blasé titling a post 'Unpredictably Beautiful', but it is interesting how I seem to be very affected by short little films about social justice. Some make me a bit weepy, others are just eye-opening. Some are advertisements about some of the most superficial things (case in point, an ad about Lynx deodorant), and some go a lot deeper.

xx

Interim

In this day before my International Global Studies essay is due (an essay, I should remark, that I've barely started), I find myself questioning the authenticity of the 'blogging' world or how the concept in itself has evolved in such a proliferated rate.

I started blogging near the latter part of 2009, as an outlet maybe, an exclamation to the world, a dialogue with myself; for the rambling angst of a 13 year old girl. There was never any end-goal, never a constant monitoring of blog statistics (although a blogger would be lying if they said they didn't expect anyone to read their blog), en bref, never a desire for the blog to mean anything more than an online documentation of spur-of-the-moment musings.

At times I feel like blogging in this age has become tainted by the mass pursuits of young somethings like myself who want to amass the same attention and publicity as what some might regard as 'blogging greats' - the ones who lead jet-set lifestyles, who flood their Instagrams with sponsored designer goods, the ones who are flown to the global fashion show meets; I'm sure you know a couple.

Although by no means should these pursuits be regarded as futile (and I don't excuse myself for partaking in some of these), I think the large majority lack the authenticity that made these initial 'blogging greats' so successful. We now live in framework dominated by "like for likes", "follow for follow", "tags for likes", "subscribe now". I understand that self-promotion is a necessary means to an end, but I've always felt (call me lame) that things should be done with intrinsic meaning to oneself. 

We should be doing something because of the process, rather than deluding ourselves with the end-goal. To some, this type of 'life logic' isn't always applicable; I know many who used an absolute goal as constant motivation for something else - whether it be setting a desired ATAR as your desktop or planning for yourself a thirty year plan to become a CEO of some type.

Life is never linear enough that a certain set of planned actions will allow you to obtain a goal (although take this with a pinch of salt, I'm a barely two decade old human being). The adjustments, the luck, the perceptions of the time all factor into how and when you obtain a broad goal. On the same strain, we shouldn't be limiting the content we produce on our blogs to conform into just one model - who says you can't have both a food and fashion blog? Who says that you can't write about your personal life events? Who says that you can't upload the odd rant against humanity every once in a while?

Well there's some procrastinatory food for thought. 

Over and out.

xx 

Dinner at Din Tai Fung, Chatswood

Don't be put off by the (relatively) poor Urbanspoon rating, I was almost in tears for the most part of this dinner because the food was so good.

Tofu with pork floss and preserved duck egg

The food comes out exceptionally quickly and following Asian food tradition, everything comes as it comes and there isn't really a set structure of entree/main/dessert. Ordering the tofu with pork floss and preserve duck egg (8.8), I was skeptical given that I (to put it mildly) don't enjoy pork floss; but lo and behold the dish was pretty damn good. The tofu was fresh and the combination of preserved duck egg, pork floss and tofu was strangely really nice. Of course, not a dish for everyone, but the flavour of preserved duck egg was incredibly mild in contrast to everything else - the pork floss is the flavour that seems to come through the strongest. So for me, not my favourite but it wasn't as bad as I thought it could be.

Spicy shrimp and pork wonton

Now we should note that I am extremely picky about wonton. Since I was born (no melodrama here I swear), I have never liked any wonton from any person or restaurant that is not made by my lovely mother. It's something to do with the flavouring, the amount of meat, the flavouring of the meat etc. etc.; but wow the spicy shrimp and pork wonton (9.3) was delicious.If I had a stronger chilli tolerance I would order bowls after bowls of this stuff, but alas I knew I had full dishes to myself to consume and so I had 4 of these and relinquished the rest to my sister who gladly gobbled them up (in conjunction with her own bowl). 

Fried pork dumpling

I will probably never say no to deep fried anything. The same was the case here with the fried pork dumplings (5.8). No fault, the serving portion was just the right size, the Japanese mayo (I'm assuming) was a lovely addition, the meat inside was juicy and sweet. No faults.

Pork xiao long bao 

I won't say too much about the pork xiao long bao (12.8) because there's a lot about them on the food blogosphere but wow they're worth the hype. The skin is thin and just right, the soup juices hot and delicious, everything everything was just right. 

Chicken fillet

My sister was incredibly skeptical that this would turn out really nice, but there was this beaming 'specialty' indicator next to the chicken fillet (10.8) so I got it and no regrets at all. Given this came out at the same time as the xiao long bao and the fried pork dumplings, I went into a bit of a delicious-food-shock having been presented with so many delicious things at once. It was also around about this time that I started tearing up because the food was so good (it might help to add for context that J and I had been surviving on tacos, instant pasta and everything in Heston for Coles food range so all these delicious, fresh things came as a bit of a hit in the face)

Vegetarian bun and Vegetable Pork bun

In all honesty the buns were probably the biggest let down for the night. Mum makes the best vegetable buns (and meat buns) ever, so really, this was sort of a doomed from the beginning.

When we went, wait time was very brief at about a few minutes and we were in. Upon being seated, you're presented with both a 'menu' and what looks like a take-away check list. You proceed to order through checking off what you want off the 'list' and then hail the waiter once selected. Wait time for food was a little longer but it didn't really matter in the end because the quality of the food was such top notch. We were also given a bag-stand-carrier (how does one even explain this?) which was very nice and hailed back to meals spent in Japan.

Anyway, point of everything is go there, go get a food baby, it's very much worth it.