papirfugl

Lost in Translation

One of the reasons why I came to Hong Kong was Lost in Translation. In fact, the plane ticket aside, the movie practically brought me here.

Last year, I lived in Denmark and did design, drank and danced to brilliant music. We also ate hell of a lot of Danish bread with delicious spreads. What we’d do when we weren’t consuming either liquids or food, or sitting in the studios sketching logos while the beat of Handsome Boy Modeling School was jumping across the room, or cutting out new designs from sheets of paper still freshly hot from the printer, like hot bread - when none of that was going on - my friends and I would get together in someone’s room and listen to music, talk or watch a movie. In other words, Denmark was good fun.

One night in early February, while the ground was still frozen and we’d get the occasional snowflakes falling, we cuddled up on Momoko’s bed and watched Lost in Translation. It was so wonderful, I remember, sitting there in that little town at the centre of Jylland, Denmark, suddenly seeing all that lay ahead if I only had the bravery to reach out, grab hold and drag myself towards it. It was more than just the colours I think, but they definitely had something to do with it. The lights too, which is sort of funny, because now there’s nothing that disgusts me yet fascinates me more than the artificial lights that make places like Tokyo, Hong Kong. They make them appear like pathetic little light bulbs glowing in the middle of a forest, screaming for attention and shining, as if trying desperately to compete against the moon. Yet, in a blurred shot of Hong Kong’s neon signs at night, all the little rays of light, however artificial, still turn into soft circles after they’ve passed through the lens. It’s how you look at it, I guess. And don’t we still find ourselves swirling around them like brainless night bugs? What’s more, you can still find places, even in Hong Kong, that are lit only when the sun is up.

Later, I remember searching, that very same night, for somewhere I could study in Asia, preferably in Japan. I looked through the art colleges there, jumped to Hong Kong. Found nothing. I’d done the Hong Kong part before in fact, but because I was always looking for graphic design studies I’d never found anything that suited me. Still, upon seeing that world again in the movie, I felt, if not full of hope, then perhaps half-full of curiosity, and I was motivated to try again to step into that world. This time, I looked in other places than I had before, and I eventually came across HKU, their BA, the Comparative Literature studies, and I knew I had to go. I applied first thing in the morning.

The movie is showing on HMC 2 right now. We’re in that scene where Scarlett Johansson and Bill Murray are lying on their backs on the hotel bed. It’s in the middle of the night. None of them can, or has to sleep, and a black-and-white movie is playing on the telly but after some time, they turn it off. Then Scarlett Johansson says, almost with a sigh, “I’m stuck.” What follows is the dialogue that probably best sums up why I like the film so much. No, it sums up why the film makes me feel brave. There are other reasons to why I feel mellow watching it, or fascinated, or calm, but the part that makes me feel brave is this.

S: I’m stuck. Does it get easier?

B: No. Yes. It gets easier.

Oh, yeah? Look at you.

Thanks. Themore you know who you are, and what you want, the less you let… things upset you.

Yeah. I just don’t know what I’m supposed to be. You know? I tried being a writer, but… I hate what I write. And I tried taking pictures, but they’re so mediocre, you know. Every girl goes through a photography phase. You know, like horses? You know? Take, uh, dumb pictures of your feet.

You’ll figure that out. I’m not worried about you. Keep writing.

But I’m so mean.

Mean’s okay.

Yeah? What about marriage? Does that get easier?

That’s hard. We used to have a lot of fun. Lydia would come with me when I made the movies, and we would laugh about it all. Now she doesn’t want to leave the kids, and… she doesn’t… need me to be there. The kids miss me, but they’re fine. It gets a whole lot more complicated when you have kids.

Yeah. It’s scary.

It’s the most terrifying day of your life the day the first one is born.

Yeah. Nobody ever tells you that.

Your life, as you know it, is gone. Never to return. But they learn how to walk, and they learn how to talk, and… and you want to be with them. And they turn out to be the most… delightful people… you will ever meet in your life.

Hmm, that’s nice.

Where’d you grow up?

Um, I grew up in New York, and I moved to Los Angeles when John and I got married. But it’s so different there.

Yeah, I know.

John thinks I’m so snotty.

Hmm. You’re not hopeless.

Watching this is like having, literally, an older, wiser, more experienced person tell you that whatever stage you’re at right now, whatever you’re doing, whomever you’re with, and however lost or stuck you may feel, it will work out. You’ll do just fine. Because Scarlett Johansson’s character so perfectly encapsulates the fears and dreams I have, both those I admit to having and not, it feels like there’s no shame in being where I’m at, because it tells me I’m on the right track already. If my situation is even remotely like hers, then, if nothing else, I’m not hopeless. Then, you know, Bill Murray might as well be talking to me, and I might as well listen, and feel a bit brave after having listened. And I could, if life lets me, just go to Hong Kong or something.

That toxic arrow through

He smokes her dope most willingly
and delights in losing touch
of blankets cold and fears so old,
of questions dear to those who say,
“who knows what girls might come my way?”
He does not even try the drinks 
chased by every man who thinks.
I ask him why, and he replies,

“I’d rather smoke her poison now
and dream her poisoned too,
than to not remember how
it felt to lose and win and twist
and feel her shoot
that toxic arrow through.”

Shanghai/America

One month later, I was sitting in a taxi with my sister towards a train station in Shanghai. The city was moving past me, fast, and while looking about the streets it suddenly dawned on me, I was in America. I was in North America somewhere, moving through a coffee shop, slower this time, walking, and I was serving people coffee. Even had an apron. 

Seconds later it was suddenly dark and I was inside a noisy, little bar, talking to randoms, laughing. I remember seeing a neon sign displaying perhaps the bar owner’s name or the name of his first lover. I turned around and smelled hot sand. Interstate, insert digit. I was in a convertible, communist red, moving faster, thinking less, but I wasn’t driving the thing. In the front seat was a girl and a guy. They were faceless to me now. but I knew them, I’d been here for seven months already and knew they weren’t the type to listen. They’d do the talking while I would listen, not so much because they didn’t care about what I had to say but because they were genuinely talkative and I liked listening to their stories. Instead of wanting others to ask me, I asked the questions and opened my ears, proving something to myself, I suppose, that I could be detached from my own shit, or whatever I thought was my shit. I could walk into a room just to listen.

Suddenly I hear the car door slam. My sister’s standing outside the taxi, gesturing furiously. I’m in Shanghai and I don’t listen, obviously. “Get out already,” she says. “I want to grab a coffee before we go.”