10 things I learned from Korean dramas

1. Men do most of their brooding while showering.

2. You can be in a coma for two years, but you’ll be up and walking in a few days.

3. Someone who doesn’t share DNA with you can look exactly like you.

4. A piggyback ride from a guy is as good as a proposal.

5. I may have lived in America since forever but I speak perfect Korean and shite English.

6. If anything major happens – like, you know, you marrying the wrong gal, mum/dad/grandma/grandpa will faint/have heart attack, so you might as well have 911 on standby when you make that shocking announcement.

7. Heirs of conglomerates are gorgeous by default.

8. If you’re an orphan, your biological mum/dad is probably some rich CEO.

9. If you’re in love with some rich CEO’s kid expect to be kidnapped/blackmailed/threatened by sister/brother/mother/father/ex-girlfriend/wannabe girlfriend.

10. There will always be one person in your life whose main purpose in life is to screw up your love life.

Bonus point: The girl always ends up with the jerk. It’s the rule of k-dramas, dudes.

The trouble with our libraries

Interesting article in The Star‘s Kuala Lumpur Metro today. Reading at book stores the rage now (strangely, the online version said “book sores”) basically says that Malaysians prefer to read at book stores than libraries.

Honestly, this is old news to me. I used to spend every Sunday curled up in the MPH Reader’s Lounge reading a book. I’d try to ignore the snoring dude that always seemed to be there whenever I’m there, and read a book on interior decorating or the latest bestseller. The ambience in MPH’s Subang Jaya store is the best – way better than the one in Mid Valley where there is barely a place to sit, but I digress.

The state of Malaysian libraries – at least the ones in Klang Valley – is pitiful. Why do people not go to the libraries? Here are the reasons:

1. It’s inconviniently situated – the National Library for one, is located on the busy and difficult-to-access Jln Tun Razak.
2. The books there are old, old, old. Bestsellers, new books etc are just plain hard to find. I didn’t even realise that libraries buy best selling books (until I read book blogs from overseas). I used to think libraries just buy books that you don’t see in bookstores!
3. Dress codes. No wearing singlets, slippers, short sleeves, short skirts in a library. Didn’t know libraries became the moral centres of the universe suddenly.
4. There are just too few of them!

Malaysians don’t read much. I think below 10% of us read regularly. The first reason is probably the most obvious one: books are damn expensive-lah! Sometimes, if I go berserk, I could spend 1/4 of my pay on books! Honestly, if they want a reading nation, they’d have to give libraries a budget for books, and not shelve the expenses for buying books under ‘misc’!

Our only saving grace is from Pay Less Books (a place for 2nd hand books) or rent-a-book stores.

I’ll be in dreamland if libraries:

1. Are found within the residential area instead of out there in the city somewhere. The more accessible, the more readers you’ll get! Walking to the library! What a dream!
2. Have new, current, best-sellers on their shelves so that I can save my money.
3. Don’t have all the nice books under reference section.
4. Don’t have those silly dress code rules anymore.

I live in Subang Jaya, and I think it’s just absolutely appalling that we don’t have a library. (We do have a Multimedia library, but I don’t like reading books on computer screens!) If only the powers that be would spend $ on a well-stocked library instead of building useless gardens with giant bird sculptures.

The best-est library I’ve ever been to was the library in Johor Baru. That was like, more than 10 years ago (oh no, I really feel my age suddenly). They had Asterix & Obelix comics, for goodness sakes! I used to count the days where I’ll get to visit the super-secret adults’ section. Too bad we moved to KL – where libraries are so few and far in between – before I could.

Any bigwigs listening to this rant? If so, please do something about our libraries!

Comments from the old blog.

Bad bosses make good stories

Am currently reading Toby Young’s How to Loose Friends & Alienante People and have decided to put aside Marion Zimmer Bradley’s stories about Darkover for the tale of the fall of a great man (in his head, that is).

In essence, How to Lose Friends is a long, well-written gossip rag about the glitzy going-ons behind Vanity Fair, a particular magazine I’m rather fond of. And we all love gossip – especially one that mentions a certain well-known draconian Vogue editor.

I’m talking about Anna Wintour, in case you’re not in the know. Some of us in the journalistic world take perverse pleasure at novelists ribbing editors, especially those with a reputation like Wintour’s.

Wintour is one difficult lady, according to Young and to popular legend. It is suspected that the author of The Devil Wears Prada based her portrayal of her novel’s cruel boss on Wintour – she was once one of her assistants.

Indeed, after reading Young and Lauren Weisberger’s account, I find some similiarities. But I can’t remember them off-hand now to list them for you right now. But I can tell you what makes Wintour so “ballsy” to say the least.

According to Young, Wintour lives like a Queen (she is paid a cool US1mil a year) and uses the company’s petty cash account like her own Swiss bank account, she doesn’t ever ride in the elevator with anyone (except maybe the Queen of England or anyone worth sucking up to, I suppose), gets annoyed if anyone talks to her without her permission, yada yada yada.

She makes one of my old bosses – the one I worked with once upon a time in an ad agency not so far away – look like my fairy godmother.

But hey, maybe Wintour will one day rise up and write a tell-all biography on how wrong Young and Wesberger is. (Shrug)

For now, we common folks without Prada to wear can enjoy the gossip.

PS: Another book on bosses behaving badly worth checking out could be The Nanny Diaries. It’s currently sitting in my library, unread. But after Young’s deconstruction of the politics in Vanity Fair, I’d possibly be more hungry for Bad Boss Lit – so it’s probably next on my To-Read list. Also, Sydney Morning Herald has a piece on Bad Boss Litt. Is it the Next Big Genre? Chick Lit, after all, is so yesterday.

When you’re out of money, read fanfiction

Well, that’s not necessarily true, of course. I read fanfiction even if I have money to buy more books! It’s free, it’s there, and it’s utterly fun. Fanfiction.net is a great place to start your fanfic hunt, though there are some sites out there, run by adoring fans, that can be leagues better in story selection.

If you’re a wee bit clueless what fanfiction is, it is fiction based on the characters of a television (usually) show. However, fans have written fanfiction based on certain books as well, such as The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter and even comics like X-Men.

Wanna see Aragorn ditch Arwen and hook up with Eowyn instead? Never fear! It’s merely a fanfiction away!

I discovered fanfiction through my sister, who was reading Sailor Moon fanfiction. I thought the whole exercise was incredibly weird at first, but nevertheless curiosity won out and I tried my hand at reading Star Trek fanfiction, and I got hopelessly hooked from that day onwards.

The one fascinating thing about fanfiction, and the whole addictivness of it all, is that you see your favourite TV/Book characters placed in situations you would never see on television.

Like seeing Chakotay and Capt Janeway having a wild, romantic night out in the holodeck. Or Gil Grissom (of CSI) doing the liplock with Sara Sidle.

I’m not much into the whole romance thing, but am more interested in the action/adventure aspect of fanfic.

But finding good fanfiction can be a painful endevour at times. Since most fanfics are written by fans, not all of them are great writers. Some fanfics are downright painful to read. Characters are out of character, and although I’m very forgiving of spelling and grammatical errors (since I’m no Grammar Queen myself), these errors do get tiresome after a while.

I notice that certain shows attract better writers and stories for some reason. Shows like X-Files, Stargate: SG-1 and Star Trek have a wealth of good stories. Don’t be surprised to find novel-length stories. But for some shows, especially those with a big teen audience like Buffy, Angel, Smallville and The O.C., finding good fanfiction can be an incredibly frustrating endevour. Maybe it is for me since it’s always about who is with who, who is in love with who, and who wants to sleep with who.

Yes, there’s a whole debate on whether fanfic is legal or not. However, fans are not stopping anytime soon, worshipping their favourite characters on stories they’ve created, placing them in weird, weird, weird situations.

And when I mean weird, it’s usually in the pairing department. Fanfic writers love to pair up their favourite characters. Sometimes it something all of us want. Sometimes it’s something few of us ever want (Boromir + Faramir [Lord of the Rings] love relationship anyone? Incest is not taboo in the fanfic world). Fanfic writers can sometimes speak in code, and for the first-timer, they’d probably get confused by the various terminology used. Such as:

• slash: male and male relationships
• UST: Unresolved Sexual Tension. Used a lot in the X-files universe!
• Hurt/comfort: Where a character gets hurt, and another comforts the poor fella
• Smarm: Imagine tough-looking guys talking about their feelings and dreams around a campfire and you’ll get the idea.
• sibcest: Let’s not even go there.
• fluff: A story of little substance, but read/written merely for the heck of it.
• Smut: I don’t think this needs translation

Pairings are indicated by “/”. For example, if you have written a story where Scully and Mulder are lovers, you indicate: S/M.

Fans have even invented cute little names to indicate their favourite pairings. In the smallville universe, the Clark and Lana Lang pairing is “Clana”. Hehe.

Well, since I’ve joined a gym, and my expenses will inevitably go up, one of the first things I’d have to cut from my spending bill is books. So … looks like it’s a raid at the fanfiction archives for me from now on!

Can’t stop reading

Michael from Eyeris may have started a trend of sorts! I’m picking up the post started by Michael and continued by Grace Shu: Where/when do I read?

Yes, us voracious readers just find time to read a few words here and there. On average, I read about 4 to 5 books a month. Unfortunately, I buy twice (or more) the amount of books I read!

In bed as I’m about to nod off
I absolutely cannot sleep if I don’t read first. It’s a rite I’ve begun goodness knows since when and it’s a rite I cannot seem to break. Even when I’m bone-dead tired, I will still grab a book to read for a few minutes before nodding off.

At traffic lights when the lights are red
Definitely not when it’s green. ;P As Michael says, kids (and adults) don’t try this. I rely on the car behind me to honk me into awareness when the light turns green. I have not cultivated the necessary skills to read while in a jam like Michael though.

While at a long line at the supermarket
Sunday/Saturday grocery rush is never a drag when you have a book in your bag while waiting for that lady in front of you with a few hundred items in her cart to finish paying.

While in up-market coffee shops like Starbucks or Coffee Bean
Curled up in an oh-so-soft sofa with a good book is a thrill. Unfortunately, by the time I’m done sipping that iced blended chocolate (I can’t take coffee) I’ll be so cold I find it hard to concentrate!

In the public jacuzzi at my apartment
Hmmmm. The epitome of loveliness. With the water bubbling around me, I would indulge in a mystery or two. Of course, the book getting splotches of water here and there is a casualty of sorts.

In other places where it’s too delicate to discuss about it further
In the loo lor …

Kids’ stuff

I visited MPH Midvalley in Kuala Lumpur with some friends, and eventually our conversation turned to children’s books.

I remember, as a child, that the library was the world’s most fabulous place. We kids would beg our dad to visit the Johor Baru library as often as we can, and Saturdays are a special time for my sister and I.

The selection at the children’s section was interesting to say the least. For some strange reason, it didn’t have the usual ‘children’s stuff’ like Enid Blyton, Hardy Boys or Nancy Drews. Or perhaps I gravitated instead towards the books like biographies of famous people (written for children of course) and Shakespeare in comics form.

I loved those comics. By the time I was 12, I’ve read almost all of Shakespeare’s plays. I believe they were the one that helped me appreciate Shakespeare when I sat for my Literature unit during my A Levels. (See, there’s a place for comics in a child’s reading list!)

The other books I read when I was a child was Asterix & Obelix. They were so hilarious, that till this day my sister and I still thumb through our worn-out copies.

When we shifted to Kuala Lumpur when I was 13, we never again did find a good library like the one in JB. I mean, how cool is a library that has Asterix & Obelix and Shakespeare in comic form? We were spoiled!

The only substitute was my school library, where I finally discovered Enid Blyton, Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys!

Now that I’m all grown up, I don’t understand the allure of reading children’s books anymore. Perhaps it is because I like more detail in my fiction. Or perhaps, because I never did get to read a children’s book through a child’s eye, I don’t understand its magical allure.

Still, when I saw the selection of children’s books in MPH yesterday, I was awed. My hands were itching to buy some! (It was the covers, you see. I’m always a sucker for colourful covers.) And surely, thousands of adult readers of children’s books saw something in them.

Anyway, perhaps Daphne could recommend me a small list of children’s books to start off with?

How about you? Do you have a few recommendations?