Saturday, February 28, 2026

Thoughts After Home

I was thinking the other night when I got back in Singapore (rather dramatically like in the movies) about mistaking the illusion for the real thing - like where's the real thing and where's the illusion. I spent one week plus back home for Chinese New Year and I guess I just had surrounded myself with a lot more people than usual (the usual being just me), ate a lot, slept a lot more, and I haven't fully processed the whole experience so weird thoughts came. Another thought that came to my head while I was home was that Indonesia is intense. Initially I thought of it when I thought about the food I ate there, things have taste and an intense one at that, but also about how things are, the emotions that people feel. When you watch Indonesian TVs and see how the society is doing, well there's some crazy shits that people do - like are we okay? But are everyone okay, everywhere? Gosh, I turn to despair quite fast? :D

Anyways, time back home was great. On Chinese New Year day, I couldn't help feeling astonished that me and my closest cousins all wore green, like were we unconsciously telepathic? My mom was of course, couldn't you wear something bright and red and I was like no. As expected (and I was really excitedly expecting), there were more babies and toddlers coming. It made me also think, like there's a period in our lives where me and the extended family are just like in the teens and above ages and for that stretch of time, there's no baby. Now all of us are grown and having babies, so we're seeing babies. I hope there'll be more in the years to come, but who knows, again just like everywhere having kids are expensive. We finished Chinese New Year earlier than last year actually, I think by 6 - 7 PM there's no more visitor, but it was really good. My cousin's aunts who I haven't seen in the longest longest time all came and it's funny how it made the house full with their kids and grandkids, but I really treasure this. I will still not recognize them if I bump into them in the mall, but it's great to have this short moment of meeting them. I'm really thankful. Then there's new people. Somehow my mom has made friends with the neighbour's kids and they came too. My mom mistakenly has been calling the son, Kevin, but his name was not Kevin. It's so funny when we found this out when we heard his sister called him. Kinda nice that my mom sometime has these kids to interact with. My mom is really very social, a trait that I wish I could emulate but I'm like my dad. It's because of mom I guess, the neighbours came. I got ang pow from the neighbour's kid who's married, who doesn't even live there anymore, who's way younger than me! Yes, that was kinda embarrassing, but I don't refuse money :D Is it embarrassing that there's a lot of child in me? Yes sometimes, but I cannot help it. One of my cousin's kid brought 3 balloons as she brought her baby and who's excited with those balloons and played with them? Me! :D

So Chinese New Year was on a Tuesday. We knew that Ramadhan was coming after and it started on a Thursday. What I didn't realize was Ash Wednesday was on the Wednesday and some of the Catholics family needed to go to their mass. It's very interesting living in a place where such different events have a lot of emphasis on people's lives all coming at around the same time. Other things that I did while home was getting new glasses done. I think it's cheaper than in Singapore, but now that I've tried it, I don't think it fits me well :( Then of course I met with the BFFs, always good meeting them, and the the conversation was good. It was so great to be able to meet with Indonesian friends, speaking in Indonesian, and they understanding just because we're Indonesians with our quirks and point of view. Then I also went praying with mom - three times. The most memorable was visiting 8 temples on the 8th day of Chinese New year. I didn't know this was a thing, I never grew up with this, but apparently my mother has been doing it for a few years. This was the day before I was supposed to retun to Singapore and since she promised we wouldn't be back too late, maybe around 4 pm, I decided to join her. It was a long day, we got back at around 7 pm :( I was glad that we made it. It was really a thing, we saw other tour buses bringing people like us. On at least two of the temples, I was full on crying because of the smoke from the joss sticks and I couldn't keep my eyes open. I do not understand how my mom was just okay. The temples we visited were the ones in Jakarta and Tangerang. It was quite amazing for me to see these old temples in Jakarta, because the only one I usually visit with mom is the one in Petak Sembilan, so to see these others just tuck into a normal neighbourhood was something for me. I was thinking if I had gone to one of these with my dad when I was young, but I couldn't remember. I didn't have the brain to take note of the temples we visited, but from memory and searching in Google some of the temples we visited were: Vihara Avalokhitesvara (the first one we visited and located at the end of a road) - the temple provided us with porridge for breakfast and snack, Vihara Bahtera Bhakti in Ancol (established around 1650), Boen Hay Bio in Tangerang (established around 1694), Boen San Bio in Tangerang (established around 1689). I cannot find the other 4. Then what else, I also visited Jakarta Aquarium with mom and her friend. I remember being at its entrance years ago with mom and we're like should we go in, but in the end we decided no, we should bring dad next time. Unfortunately that never happened since dad had to go and die. Anyways, it was my first time seeing capybara and I think axolotl, meerkat, and lemur too - I couldn't remember if I had seen them in Singapore Zoo. Was Jakarta Aquarium great? I wouldn't say so - the one lone meerkat made me really sad and upset. I think the previous Jakarta Sea World was better, but for the price that Jakarta Aquarium in - I'm comparing it to Singapore Oceanarium - I think yeah you do get what you pay for, which is also to say visiting these places in both Jakarta and Singapore are pricey.

Last thing to talk about - TV. I happened to be flipping to the Chinese TV channel, CCTV, on Chinese New Year day thinking of dad who most probably would have been watching it and caught parts of the Chinese New Year Gala. This thing is so well produced that you cannot deny that China is awesome. A thing that shocked me was on one part that I caught, I saw Lionel Richie singing with Jackie Chan and I was like what the ... I can't help thinking this is how Trump has actually made China great. It's the contrast. As we're seeing the US under his leadership creating drama with everyone, looking down at other countries, and thinking they're the king supreme; China appears sane, they're embracing everyone and they're so advanced in many areas that yeah China has become cool. Another thing that shocked me was something that I saw on the local TV. I was shooketh, shooketh I tell you, when I saw in Trans7 that they did a retelling of Indonesian folk tales all in AI. I couldn't believe my eyes because when I first caught it; I happened to be flipping the channel and was in the middle of an episode and didn't see that they did write it in the intro that it was all done in AI, so I had to google it and made sure. Here we are still discussing if it's ethical to do things like this and this TV channel just did it. I was also googling which company did this, but according to Google it's done in-house. I am super curious how it's done, do you get the whole finish product by entering prompts? My guess is it's scene by scene and someone put these scenes together because when I watched the episode on Malin Kundang, he looks a bit different in different scenes. Which AI? How much AI was used? Did they even use AI from the beginning to fix the prompts? What's the iteration process look like? I'm super super curious. I felt uneasy watching it, but I had to admit the production is not bad and you cannot deny it will cost a whole lot more if we're using real people on actual locations, BUT I do not, I DO NOT like replacing human things with AI just because it's the easy and cost-effective thing to do. I had to tell my mom things like this are not real, these are not real people and a lot of things she sees on TikTok may not be real too. Oh my God, explaining AI to your older parents is not easy. I also don't think I did a good job explaining to her why AI can be bad and how it's bad for the environment :( I wish she has a better intuition in suspecting if things are AI, but I'm not sure.

Still about TV, just wanna talk a bit about the things I managed to complete before I went home. I finished Alice in Borderland and I can't say I like it. I watched it following recommendation from la Gioia when we were talking about Squid Game. I actually was very intrigued after the first episode, but as it progressed and I found out what it's about, I didn't like it much. I couldn't understand why the Japanese title, 今際の国のアリス, is being translated to Alice in Borderland but as I watched the episodes, I came to understand that the Japanese title represents the premise of the story better than the English. My Japanese level really struck me watching this series - bad as it is, it is not that useless. Subtitles don't always translate what's being said word by word and when I found that I was hearing different than what the subtitles were putting out, I was surprised at myself. It didn't change the story, but I kinda like my understanding of what's being said than what the subtitles put out. I feel nuances are often gone with translation and it always feels good when I understand a bit more than what the subtitles put out watching things in Indonesian, Italian, French, and English. Another thing that I managed to complete before going home was The American Revolution and I love it a lot. It was such a great production and the whole tone of it was kinda comforting that it makes one relaxed. My knowledge of the American revolution is so little and so it was great learning new things. Like how Lafayette was so so young, at 19 years old, when he joined the American revolution. George Washington was of course significant in the American revolution, but reading the letter he sent to one of his general about pretty much going Daenerys on one of the Indian tribe - well it's ruthless, because it's kinda genocide level. Then I have heard the name Benedict Arnold but again my knowledge was so little that when he changed side, I did gasp a little and was like plot twist! Before he changed side, he did a lot, like even going to invade Canada so when he went full on to the British side, I was stunned. Watching this series, I wished such high-level, unbiased, fully researched production could also be made about Indonesian history, but alas I don't think it will happen in my lifetime.

:) eKa @ 7:50:00 PM • 0 comments