Yes, yes...I know I'm like SUPER DUPER UBER late in making my second post to my blog. You see, I've been so bogged down by work (repaying all my colleagues for their previous swapping of shifts with me to accomodate my degree course studies, and the clearing up of all the accumulated work that piled up during the period of my overseas leave), then there was my falling ill repeatedly to gastric flu (I got better, then fell sick again, and that cycle repeated for FIVE TIMES!!! I was practically green in the face from coughing up all the green phlegm, snorting out yellow mucus and puking my guts out every other day! Thankfully I have finally recovered from it all!!!), and last but not least, I had the much dreaded task of cleaning up my bedroom which was beginning to look like a warehouse storeroom (yeah, I finally managed to get it more or less tidied up, wiped up a horrifying thick layer of dust from each surface area, threw away a whole load of useless crap, and did some major reorganization of my files and DVDs, in the span of one whole week, which finally was done two days ago!!!)
But anyway, thanks to all the prompting, prodding, and playful jibes from my best friends (you know who you are lah!), I'm finally posting the first of few parts of my second blog posting! (Can you believe I've been toiling over the perfecting of this piece of write-up for two whole days?!?!? Blame it on perfectionist streak in me lah, ha, ha, ha...)
As most of you would know, I am not treating this blog as my online journal, but more of a personal webpage, so my first few posting are all going to be ultra lengthy, detailing my person in general. So do bear with the long reading for the meantime ok? After my personal profile is done, I would go on to more interesting write-ups about film, food and of course, you all, my dear friends!!!
So here goes...
25 Things You May or May Not Know about Me
1) My name is Sung Yao Zong Jonathan or 宋耀宗. According to my parents, my name was derived from the Mandarin saying 光宗耀祖, which means to bring honor to my ancestors – Sounds pressurizing, right? Well, it comes with the burden of being the first-born in the family – I’m not just the eldest of three sons in my family, but also the eldest of all the grandchildren too – so that means, since young, I’ve been pretty much expected to be of the best behavior, have the best grades, in short, to be a sterling example to my younger siblings and cousins! I guess this probably gave rise to my perfectionist mentality, being that since young, my parents never seemed to be ever satisfied with whatever I did – If I scored 90/100 for my test, they’d say why couldn’t I get full marks, and if I DID attain full marks, they’d say well they wonder if I’d be able to sustain that standard for my next test. Thankfully, their ridiculously high standards eventually got readjusted over the years to more realistic ones, but because of those impossibly high expectations during my younger years, I often find myself growing up never being satisfied with my personal achievements, whether at school or work, and always hankering for recognition, whether be it coming from my parents, classmates, lecturers, colleagues and superiors. But I digress. Anyway, back to the subject of my name. With the exception of my primary school and secondary school friends who still address me using my Chinese name 耀宗 (yaozong), most of my friends these days call me Jon for short.
2) I was born on 27th October 1977, and as much as I hate turning a year older annually, the celebration of my birthday every year still means a HUGE deal to me. It just gets me ecstatically excited at the thought of my Mum whipping up my favorite home-cooked dish (北京薄饼) for my special dinner, or my Grandma 奶奶, aunts and cousins treating me to my favorite restaurant dish (蒜茸炒鱔), or getting together for presents and dinner treats from my best friends!!! Another benefit about growing older is that now it doesn’t feel so embarrassing telling people what you’d actually like or at least what to avoid getting for your gifts, so you could avoid having to open up your gift in front of them, and then “gushing” about how “wonderful” and “lovely” the item that you’d probably never had and never would ever make use of is! These days, I prefer typing out my personal Birthday Wish List and then discreetly directing my family and friends to it, so they’d know what to get me that would really get me floating up on Cloud Nine!!!
3) Speaking of birthdays, from my date of birth, you would probably have figured out by now that my zodiac sign is that of the Snake, and my horoscope would be Scorpio. My friends often joke about what a lethal combination that is (蛇蝎心肠), since those two creatures are so poisonous in nature, ha, ha, ha… Anyway, even though I don’t really believe in the daily, weekly or monthly horoscope predictions, I do find it very interesting and coincidental that many of my personality traits match that of the character profile described of individuals born in the year of the Snake and/or belong to the Scorpio horoscope! In a nutshell, much like what is described of a typical “Snake” or a classic “Scorpio” …
- I rank rest and relaxation very, very, VERY highly on my list of priorities.
(If I don’t get enough sleep, and by that I mean at least eight hours of proper rested sleep undisturbed by nightmares, I’d end up being a real pain in the ass. Ultra “black face”, ugly scowl, vicious and sudden snaps at the slightest provocation by anyone, and no mood to do anything, be it work, school, gym or even leisure activities, are just some of the symptoms I exhibit during such occasions. Believe me when I say that you wouldn’t want to be anywhere nearby me during such times. This is why I often specially make time just purely to sleep and recuperate, so when I awake, I would be rejuvenated with optimum energy to face the day ahead with optimism and be at my best!)
- I strongly believe in the equilibrium of working hard and playing hard, which is why during my spare time, I love to spoil myself and my loved ones with the fine things in life.
(Nothing makes me happier than to see the smiles on my family and friends’ faces while they’re enjoying the treats I give them. It just doubles my joy to share the things I personally enjoy in life with the people I love. That’s why I regularly bring my Mum and youngest brother out to try out delicious food fare at new food joints, catch the latest critically acclaimed films in the cinemas, and attend popular stage performances at the Esplanade. It is also why I relish the experience of planning elaborate birthday surprises in terms of parties, handmade cards and elaborate gifts for my friends and family!!! My next “project” would be to bring my Grandma奶奶 out and treat her to delectable restaurant cuisines, go out shopping with her around the island, and bring her to Asian fine arts performances which I’ve known her to personally enjoy (from our previous trips to China) on my spare time. It’s just my way of making up to her for not having regularly visited her since I started my degree course studies for the past two and a half years. I’ve been feeling so guilty about it. Especially when I was not there to comfort her at the passing of her beloved pet Chihuahua named Bit.)
- I can be unbelievably stubborn and rigid in my thinking.
(This could swing both ways as either a good or bad thing. The good thing is that once I made up my mind to commit to something, I would pursue it persistently and energetically with a one-track mind. This would be evident from my previous commitment to my weight loss regime and also my fervor in striving to trump everyone with my call statistics in the initial two years of my current job. The bad thing however, is that even though I frequently seek the advice and opinions from my family and close friends, I seldom readily accept suggestions or criticisms offered by them, especially if they go against my personal beliefs. It is only until, upon further personal analysis of the situation, when I eventually convince myself that what they are saying makes sense to me, then I would finally take in their words. What can I say? I guess, I’m just WAY more obstinate than the average person in ever admitting that I am in the wrong.)
- Admittedly, I am not the most emotionally secure person and can be rather jealous and possessive of my family and friends.
(Possibly because I was the first-born amongst the third generation in the family, I had six years of undivided attention from my grandparents, aunts, and my parents, before the next grandchild – my middle brother – was born. So later, when all my other cousins and my two younger brothers came into the family, and naturally the attention went to them, I felt as if I was suddenly neglected and lost a great deal of affection previously showered upon me. So throughout my growing up years, I began to latch onto my friends in primary and secondary school, hoping to seek affection which I felt was no longer as abundant as before in my family. Hence, when two of my best friends, whom I’ve known from primary and secondary school, severed their friendships with me in my early adulthood, due to personal differences, it instilled a sense of fear and slight paranoia in me about personal relationships. I began constantly worrying if my remaining friends and the new friends I make were going to do the same to me eventually, and that was when my jealousy and possessiveness escalated. The sad thing was that because of this I ended up losing even more friends, because many of them felt so emotionally drained from pandering to my neediness that they wanted to quit me, or some of them were even scared off by the speed and intensity of my trying to rush and push new friendships to be as similar or familiar as my old ones. That was when I finally realized that I had become this scary, green-eyed monster and decided that things had to change. So since then, I have toned down drastically from my previous controlling and manic ways, learned to give my family and friends their personal space, and now not only have I grown closer to my family, I have also got a strong circle of close personal friends who care and love me dearly. I still do have some personal quirks though, like when I go out with my family and friends, I often prefer to go out one-on-one or in small groups of not more than five people, so that the attention would not be too sparsely spread out amongst the group. The same rationale also applies to my preference towards one-to-one personal fitness training sessions instead of group coaching. Also, I have shared my hopes with my friends that should they get attached or married or have kids, I hoped they’d still make a little room for us to still occasionally go out or chat in person or even via telephone or emails. This is also why I enjoy one-to-one tuition and even personal fitness training sessions, compared to group coaching.)
- It is often difficult for me to come clean with people on my true feelings, especially about sensitive subject matter, because of my private and secretive nature.
(Typically, if I were to be in a situation where I am upset with someone or some people about something, I tend to bottle up my unhappiness and pretend that what happened did not offend or affect me. This is because I really hate in engage in conflict with anyone. However, the unhappiness would not usually go away, but instead fester inside of me. And because I would be secretly upset with the person or people who upset me, during this period of time, I would often give them the cold shoulder or worse, stage a cold war against them, and they would find this puzzling or distressing, because they did not know what they did to have me act this way towards them! And eventually, when I am unable to keep my feelings buried any longer, it would result in a dramatic outburst, may a times with lots of shouting and hurtful words. Ironically, this sort of consequence was why I kept mum in the first place. To date, I am still working on how to be more honest with my family and friends when I am unhappy about something. It has not been easy, since I have been in the habit of keeping things to myself since young. But I figured it would be beneficial to me in the long run, as it not only would minimize shouting matches, but also it cannot be that healthy keeping all that negativity stifled inside oneself.)
- I can be quite an extremist in my actions. Hardly am I able to find middle ground with what I do, I tend to either go all out in pursuing something, being compulsive and obsessive about it, or choose to abstain from doing it completely.
(The few prime examples of how this was clearly evident in my personal history would include one, my steadfast discipline and determination in sticking rigidly to the Bill Philip’s Body-for-Life fitness regime for a period of ten months during my National Service days, and losing up to a whopping total of 48 kilograms, going from 128 kilograms with a waistline of 48 inches to 80 kilograms with a waistline of 30 inches!!! The other instance would be when I completely cut myself off from the use of my hand phone for two full months, in an effort to quit an addiction to text messaging cold turkey style. Also, initially when I started work in my current job, I was so bent on being the best, that I would push myself to the limits everyday to achieve the highest call statistics! The bad news was that I was always unable to keep up that level of enthusiasm and commitment, and once I got derailed or off balance or “lost steam”, often due to lack of positive reinforcements or being “forced off the routine” by natural causes such as succumbing to a bout of illness or physical injury, then I tend to give it up almost, if not completely. The most apparent display of this would be my yo-yoing fluctuations in weight, from my frequent alternating between commitments and giving up halfway of my diet and fitness regiments.)
- Although I may be mild-mannered and easy-going most of the time with everybody, but do not assume that I am easily bullied. Back me into a corner, push my “hot buttons” or double cross me in any way, and you’ll be sorry you ever did.
(One of my personal mantra is that if someone is good to me, I’ll be twice as good back to him or her, but if anyone antagonizes me, they better watch their back, because I’ll make damn sure that he or she will suffer my payback twice or more in return. I never forgive people for maligning or backstabbing me, but I do make exceptions for those rare instances whereby close friends unknowingly hurt me and are genuinely apologetic upon their realization. However, bear in mind that like an elephant, I never forget past grudges or grievances. To me, every little fight or argument I share with my family and friends is like a learning curve, helping us to deepen our understanding of one another and thereby strengthening our bond as such. Having said that, do try not to re-commit the same actions again, for I may not be quite as easily forgiving the next time round and it would seriously further tarnish my opinion of the person.)
- Personal relationships, whether be it kinship, friendship or love relationships, will always take top priority over everything else (including school and work) in my life. With every relationship, I invest a lot of my attention, emotions, time and effort into making each of them as meaningful and fulfilling as I could both for me as well as my family and loved ones.
(I strongly disagree with the cynical point of view that most people have nowadays that close-knit families, sincere friendships, and true long-lasting love relationships just do not exist, and that everyone including your family members are all out just to make use of you or each another, and when there is no more “value” in a person, he or she would be dumped just like garbage. I just do not believe that is true. Also, I’m just unable to accept having superficial hi-and-bye friends or one-night stands. I mean, why settle for shallow relationships when you can have some with more meaning and emotion to them? Call me a dreamer or a romantic, but I personally trust that it truly is up to us to prove that there can be true personal relationships in this world! All it takes is for everyone of us to have a little faith and hope, as well as not be afraid to put our hearts out there to genuinely show care and concern for our family and loved ones, without motive or expectations for anything in return, and also not to give up when the tough gets going or if we get hurt along the way, then you will see that true personal relationships can be real and not just an impossible dream. And it is because of this personal belief system I have that I maintain my optimism and never lose hope that as long as I put in enough heart and effort, I would be able to sustain strong and close ties with my family and best friends, and also that I will eventually find my true love in time to come. With all my idiosyncrasies and shortcomings, it isn’t always easy making and staying friends with me, but I can guarantee that once I set my heart on being friends with someone, it would be a friendship for life and he or she could always count on my die-hard loyalty, trustworthiness and limitless care and concern.)
3) Presently, my area of residence is at West Coast Drive. Perhaps it might be that I’m getting older or lazier or something, but unlike during my younger years when I would gladly and enthusiastically go traipsing around our sunny island, venturing new grounds for yummy food outlets, exploring different cinema experiences, and hunting down new shopping locations, these days however, I much prefer either staying at home accompanied by my faithful TV set and DVD player, watching the latest in DVD movies and TV shows, or at most hanging out with my family and friends in the vicinity, like Clementi, Holland Village, Jurong East, Ghim Moh, Bukit Timah, Harbourfront, or at most on occasion take a ride down to town (i.e. Orchard Road, the CBD, Tiong Bahru or Tanjong Pagar) either when the craving strikes for some chow that’s only available in those areas, or to meet up my pals who stay on the other side of the island, since it would be unfair to expect them to travel all the way to the west just to meet me. Another reason as to why I prefer not to stray too far from home might be that I do not enjoy staying out too late at night. Since I am not into the clubbing scene at all, I rarely return home late, except for the occasional nights when I go for my movie marathons or late night stage performances. Otherwise, I am usually back by the primetime television timeslot, ready to hop into a bath, then snuggle into my warm bed, and drift off into dreamland, in preparation for a brand new day tomorrow.
4) Ask anyone who knows me well what would be my number one passion in life and you can be sure he or she would tell you it is most definitely going to the movies. As far as I can remember, since I was a mere toddler, I have been fascinated by the silver screen. Most of my fondest childhood and teenage memories revolved around the cinematic arts, such as how I’d look forward every weekend when my Dad would never fail to bring my Mum and I out for late night screenings at the old Lido and Orchard cinemas, or what a thrill it was to go to the open air cinema at Taman Jurong with my parents and watch movies while munching on keropok in our car, or hanging around Orchard Bowl, on the ground floor of the old Orchard cinema, for a game of bowling with my Secondary School classmates after school, before heading into the cinema for a movie with our handfuls of kachang putehs and Orange Julius burgers and smoothies in tow, or even sneaking into Yangtze Cinema back then to catch award-nominated films such as “Red Rose, White Rose” (红玫瑰白玫瑰), “Temptation of Monk” (诱僧) and our infamous local production “Bugis Street” (三画二郎情) which were hatefully rated R(A) back then, or rushing from Temasek Polytechnic down to town every night during the Singapore International Film Festival and then cinema hopping from one to another in an attempt to catch as many international art film selections as possible, or going either on my own or with my younger brother for movie marathons, which generally entailed six to eight movies at one shot, with only a couple of short breaks in between to squeeze in mealtimes! Sigh… those sure were some fantastic memories, but yet again, I digress.
Anyway, unlike the average cinemagoer who watches movies as a form of temporary entertainment or as a way to pass their leisure time, and often promptly forget the film afterwards, I on the other hand, not only would remember the plot development but also key lines of dialogue as well for most of the films I watched. In addition to that, as I grew older and became unsatisfied with just watching films on their surface level, I began using the analytical skills picked up from my English Literature classes in Secondary School, as well as information picked up from film review magazines by the likes of “Premiere”, “Empire” and even our local “i-weekly”, “8 Days” and “FiRST” to further analyze themes, cohesiveness of storyline flow, execution of direction, character development & performance by the cast, cinematography, art direction, make-up & costume design, and score and song composition of each film I go to. As a clear indication of how devoted I am in following the film industry, believe it or not, I actually would take leave every year without fail, just to catch the `live’ broadcast of both the Golden Globes and the Oscars ceremonies, just to witness first hand who would be the lucky winners of each award category! Yes, yes, much to the incredulity of many of my family and friends, that’s how mad I am about films!
At the same time, I also began my personal collection of Video CDs and DVDs of films that I deemed memorable and fantastic enough to be ranked amongst my list of “All-Time Favorite Films” – these are very often films that I can repeatedly watch hundreds of times without ever getting sick of them! To date, I have close to 1,000 DVDs, including both English and Asian titles, neatly shelved accordingly to category (Horror & Thriller, Musicals, Chick Flicks, Drama, Animation, Fantasy & Children Films, Action, Comedies, Alternative Lifestyle, TV Series, and Chinese Pugilistic & Martial Arts), alphabetically arranged in each category, and ALL original - Mind you, I strongly abhor buying pirated film DVDs! I mean, those film companies invested millions of dollars in the film production, DVD design and manufacturing, so the least we could do is to respect their efforts and purchase original DVDs, so they’d be able to generate considerable profits and be able to produce more top notch films as well as high-quality DVDs in the future! You know, one of the happiest days in my life thus far was when my Dad actually custom designed a DVD cabinet that occupied my entire bedroom’s left wall, with sixteen shelves in it, each measured to the average height of a DVD cover stood vertically upright, and able to accommodate up to two rows back to back, the equivalent of about 2,000 titles! Yes, it never fails to bring a smile to my face every time I slide open its wooden doors and admire my full range of DVD collection. Hee, hee, hee!!! And because I treasure each and every single one of my DVDs dearly, I am often reluctant to lend them to others, unless it is in the case of my closest friends whom I feel would be trustworthy enough to take excellent care of my discs. The only exception would be if the title they would like to borrow is out of print already, or of a special edition, then it would be an affirmative no, even if he or she is my best friend or intermediate family member! I’ve had too many bad experiences lending my discs to people, some of whom were even close friends, and then either having my discs lost, never returned (and I’d lose contact with the person), or worse, damaged when returned to me! So now, I’d rather be safe than sorry and reject requests to borrow my DVDs. At most, if my friends and relatives really, REALLY love that DVD title so much, I’d rather buy a new copy for him or her as a gift when his or her birthday, or Christmas came along.
In terms of my favorite film genres, I must admit that they have evolved over the years, and I have somewhat mellowed down in my choice of desired films. In the past, I used to adore tragedies – the gloomier, the bleaker, concluded hopefully with a depressing ending, would automatically rank very highly in my books back then. But as I grew older, and experienced my own fair share of personal trials, tribulations and woes in life, I began leaning towards films with more of a heartwarming nature, or with a more positive message, and hopefully closing on a not too dismal note. But don’t assume that I would shun those dark films though. I still DO dig a good, dark film, particularly if it was executed excellently by the likes of great directors such as Christopher Nolan (“Memento”, “The Prestige” and “The Dark Knight”) and Brad Anderson (“El Maquinista”), but these days, to keep myself sane and not spiral into depression, I’d try and balance out my personal intake of sad, twisted and miserable film fare with an equal dose of uplifting, inspirational and hopeful ones too! These feel-good films often come from the animated (especially from Disney and Pixar), musical, or chick flick genres, many of which now rank amongst my list of all-time favorite films and have already made their way to my personal DVD collection! Besides those three genres, I am also a horror and thriller film fanatic! Regardless of whether it was Alfred Hitchcock from the 60s, or John Carpenter, Wes Craven, John Carpenter & Tobe Hooper from the 70s and 80s, or the latest horror masters on the block, Hideo Nakata, Takashi Shimizu & Takashi Miike, each of them, amongst numerous other horror-and-thriller-helmers within the film industry, boasts the most impressive portfolios of films, most of which I adore, and seek to purchase for my DVD collection! As a general rule, I do not make it a point to avoid any films, even if it may not fall into my favorite genre/s or have been widely slammed by the critics. To me, I would rather make the judgment for myself after watching the film personally, because from past experience, I have found that there are certain times when I would disagree with reviewers about the rating of some films.
Having gushed in lengthy detail about my passion for films, it should naturally not come as any wonder that reading up, watching and discussing films and their production, takes up the majority of my life. This also means that I tend to click with and make friends with people who share my passion for films, and that sadly, for others who knows zilch or does not care to chat about movies, we’d really have nothing much to talk about. In fact, because my life practically revolves almost completely around films, my biggest dream would be to establish and build my career in this field, whether be it as a film reviewer or as a Marketing or Public Relations Executive in the cinema line!
(To be continued...)
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excited
