Oh you cannot imagine how excited I am for this year's Chinese New Year. It's an inexplicable feeling... I don't know why I feel an insurmountable surge of excitement for 2015's CNY! Maybe it's been a build up.

But yesss I am sooooper excited for CNY man, I can't wait to wear new clothes, meet all my relatives, get angbaos and more angbaos before I become too old and paiseh to receive any (hehe).

Alas, I am still in hall today. But of course I'll be heading back home for the all-important reunion dinner. I'd head over to my aunt's house for a gathering with my mom's side, cousins and all. It'll be a feast : ) I. can't. wait. EEEEKKK.



Anyways, the past week I met up with my Hall 3 fellas after 3 years of practically zero catch ups.


Soooo good to see them again.

It isn't the entire OG, but still I give a round of applause for the turnout.
Guess where we met for our BBQ session? Hall threeeee! Back to where it all began.

What I love about my hall friends is how we're all from different faculties in NTU. So it's like a conglomeration of the best brains of every sector of NTU. The United Nations of my University basically hahaha. Science, engineering, business, sport science and of course the bestest of all, Communication ; )

I hope this ain't the last time we're meeting coz it really was quite a fun catch up.




Also been busy with...


FYP{}{}{}{}
The past week : )

Yay yay I'm happy that things are in progress now~
My mates are worried about the eventual product but I dunno why I seem to be extremely calm and confident about it. I really dunno why. That's good eh!

Can't help but feel like the energiser bunny among us.


But I'm gonna talk about something a lil more serious right now.

Ya know, after Monday's shoot, I started to think about the nature of my work and the documentary film making industry in general. Our role as documentarians.

Our FYP is about understanding what a child thinks about and goes through when his/her parent is incarcerated or put to jail. There are a lot of aspects in the child's life that gets affected - academic, financial and most of all, emotional turmoil.

On Monday, I had to ask our interviewee personal questions about his feelings and thoughts about it. While asking, I felt like it was my role as a documentarian to have to delve deep and try to understand my interviewee through the questions I posed. This would help the audience to empathise with the person whom they're watching through his answers.

It applies to the rest of the work I've produced so far. To ask and ask so that you'll get to the core of the issue. So, I've always felt the need to persist and get to the heart of the matter.


Then after the interview in the afternoon, I followed the boy to fetch his sister from school. Every day, he'd walk 30 mins to and fro their primary school to get her (she's in the afternoon session) and he'd carry her schoolbag for her.

Whilst walking to get her, he talked to me, told me about some day-to-day stuff, what he liked and children stuff. Gradually, he started to be more friend-friend with me. Became more noisy, more talkative, more... happy. Even showed me some of his parkour moves, which were pretty damn amazing.


Here's one where he jumped over a concrete bench:

Hahahahahahahahaha, he's one crazy fella!
Can't show any pictures of his frontal view or face to protect his identity.

But anyway, after getting his sister, the both of them became such a chatter and fun bubbles to be with. I laughed while walking with them and called out to them when they threw caution to the wind while crossing the road or jumping around, making a fool out of themselves and being...... kids.

Then I realised something about how I was feeling... I realised... I was starting to care for them, for him especially.

And it was when he asked, "So when are you all coming back again?", which tore my heart into a million pieces. It wasn't just me who felt like a bond was created. He too, felt it.

I had built this little friendship with him after talking and walking with him to school. It was so young and fresh and new... so precious and delicate.

It was then, when it hit me... What am I doing?

Why the hell am I doing this. Entering his life and asking him questions that sometimes really shouldn't be dug out. My maternal instincts just kicked in.

I've always felt strongly for working in the media industry but this is one of the first most important points in my, albeit short, time of producing documentaries that I've felt this way. That I've felt that I may not be positively contributing to society by unearthing private matters that perhaps could be better off remaining unravelled.

What am I putting both him and myself through? Becoming friends and then perhaps not seeing one another ever again after our shoots are done? How bloody ethical is that.

I'm still trying to grapple with this.

For the projects that I've done on vulnerable situations and cases, I realise I'd have built a bond with my interviewees and then feel a bit exploitative. Even Darren Tan the ex-convict lawyer. I became friends with him during my shoots and after the show was aired, I wrote him a long email thanking him and told him how it's sad that we won't be in much contact anymore. He replied along the lines of, 'aiya, we'll still be friends after that'. But I'm sure we both knew it was sorta working friendship/relationship and what must end, will end.

I think this is one of the dilemmas that documentarians face... having to reconcile with what is personal and working. How to act as a professional, yet be sensitive to our interviewees.

So you see... right now, that's what's troubling me. In this case, it's even more touchy because we're dealing with a minor, a child. With people entering and leaving his life constantly, it really isn't much good for him. At least an adult may be able to comprehend what's going on, but him.. not yet.

I'm starting to have mixed feelings. Trying to work as an ethical documentarian and being a friend to him.

It can get a bit frustrating sometimes, having to build these short-termed relationships with people and then realise you will leave them eventually. Not even knowing whether you helped them or not.

That's why some of my friends and I are wondering if there's anything more that we can do, other than just film and that's all. There has to be something.

With regards to film making, I'll try my best to think of positive outcomes. As long as I know that I'm not deliberately harming the child, and being conscious of my actions, I think things will work out all right.


Children, I realise, have formed a special place in my heart. I realise it goes aflutter when I have fun with them. You'd want to teach, nurture, as well as protect and shelter the young ones as much as you can...


I really hope I don't cry on our last day of shoot with him.

Here's nice light captured at a void deck. Some parting words:


Let the light shine on every being out there, who feels out of place and lonely.
This world was made for all of us and we're here to be there for one another - to co-exist;
No one being is ever greater than another, and the light will always shine on you, no matter where you feel your place is in society.

Always, always, remember that.



Happy Lunar New Year everyone : )