In Continuum.

Shiny Golden Statuettes

When sitting around the dinner table with a bunch of my father's friends or close relatives from Taiwan, the common conversational topics would usually revolve around their lives and our own. The scope of the topics sort of starts from the big picture of life, zooming in to more personal topics. Everything from taxes to politics in the initial stage, to their own married lives and then ultimately, inevitably: Yourself.

They will probably start to ask about me, where I study, what I am going to do in life and stuff like that. Most of the time they will ask my parents instead of me, which was rather rude of them because like any other people, I hate to be talked about like I am not even there in the first place. Thankfully, my parents would always divert the attention to me, allowing me to answer those questions about life with life-defining answers of my own.

"So, what do you want to be when you grow up?" most of them would say when I was much younger than I am now. It is one of those question that as a kid, you thought that they were genuinely interested with who you want to be, and you answer them with such enthusiasm. But now that I think of it, they probably were trying to be nice to me because, how many people actually have their dream careers at the age of eight come true by the time they really have a career of their own? They probably just asked for the sake of it, but it is not like I knew back then. So with much enthusiasm and pride I blurted out in numerous restaurants all around Singapore, when my aspiring ambition would be when I grow up...

"A movie director!" I would say, sending the people around the table into an eruption of laughter. I must admit, it wasn't a very common dream for average children. Most of them probably wanted to be policemen or fire fighters, superheros for the really ambitious and delusional ones and probably a couple of doctors and lawyers here and there. There is an American friend I know who claims that he wanted to be a porn star since he first saw porn for the first time. Well, that is an usual career and dream at the age of thirteen so, good luck on that.

When I was younger, that was the career I truly wanted to live. To be a movie director to me was everything that I ever dreamed of, though I knew nothing about movie-making or the directing business. I've always had a sharp eye while watching movies, my mother used to tell me, taking note of not just the plot or the actors, but other technical aspects like the cinematography, the score of the movie, editing and lights, etc. Basically, I was the geek at my age concerning movie, and that was sort of how my friendship with Krishna grew in the first place. He was my very first movie-geek buddy, and still is in numerous ways.

At the end of every dream is a destination, and the destination is of course the highest honor: The Oscars. I've dreamed about my movies winning the Oscars, or even myself standing upon the world's stage receiving those shiny golden statuettes. Of course, most of the so-called 'movies' never made it past the thick skull upon my neck, but still I deemed the storyline of those 'movies' to be good enough to win something, anything.

I experimented on my Lego toys mostly, making imaginary movie trailers for my movies and they were mostly action packed. I wasn't sure how many Hollywood blockbuster-type movies ever won a Best Picture but, now I know: None. Still, I was confident about it, and in one of my greatest efforts, I used boxes as the buildings in my imaginary city and had toy cars running through the streets - or the spaces between the boxes - and with my eyes as the camera I zoomed in between the buildings and then away from the city itself, creating an overview. I was proud of my 'work', though it never saw the light of day, not even my family knew what I was working on. It was my dream, and a childish one at that.

As I watched some of the processes in film making after I got older, I saw the amount of efforts put in to create a film, as well as the amount of resources needed that can never be found in Singapore, I was dismayed. That childish dream of mine was utterly dashed, and I found myself giving up the dream, tucking it into the back of my head like the way I tucked the toys back into the boxes and into the dark corners of the storeroom at the back of the house. There went my Best Director and Best Picture dream, with the brutal reality of growing up.

Despite all those, I still watch the Oscars every year, seeing those shiny golden statuettes being given out to the winners, I envied them but at the same time, respected and celebrated their works. Because really, movie is one of the greatest passions in my life, and like books, my movie-addiction is life controlling. I am probably never going to stop watching movies, never going to stop appreciating them, and never going to stop dreaming about being a movie director myself. Because really, there is so much more than watching a movie blindly an for that two hours, be transported into that fictional world with a $9.50 ticket.

So instead of saying that I am living a childish dream, let's just say that I am a stubborn person when it comes to something I love, or I hold dear. I am the sentimental type and never romantic, and I can never give up something that I've held on for so long ever since young. Somebody asked me what hobbies or passions I have for life, and I simply replied," Books, music and movies". Because movies are timeless, and less expensive than diamonds, they are forever.