Good amongst Evil 7/31/2008 09:38:00 AM

As much as I love Doraemon, there's a time when I couldn't help feeling how kids-oriented it is. In fact, it is, but does it have to be that naive? The sentiment is more pronounced every time I read Dai-Chohen Doraemon (Doraemon Great Story). For who knows what reason, the series often present stories about aliens, extra or intraterrestrial, trying to seize the earth from evil clutches of humankind. "Evil clutches", that's the keyword. And then Doraemon, Nobita, and company would prove them wrong, showing that good humans--them--still existed on the face of earth. Seeing this, the aliens would always call off their plans eventually and then everyone would live happily ever after.

Even though I enjoyed the stories, I always wonder why this topic emerges again and again. That "evil clutches" thing. Why not use motives like aliens being greedy that it's natural for them to try rule the universe or their having the desire to take control of earth's natural resources? I mean, they're much more "real", considering that you can draw the parallels between them and events that had happened in the world. Isn't it an obvious fact that good humans are still to be found everywhere? Did they have to emphasize it continuously through the series?

It's only recently that I realized how true those stories are. Yes, good humans still exist in this world. But once you look around, check out the paper or turn on the TV, you get the feeling that it's the bad ones that dominate this planet. It's the bad ones that produce the most prominent impacts. Wars, terrorism, the rich getting richer by trampling on the poor, destruction of natural world, and so forth. If aliens were watching us right now, they would laugh at humankind for the damage that they have caused upon themselves. Or probably they would arrange an emergency meeting to save the earth from evil clutches of humankind, like aliens in Dai-Chohen Doraemon did.

And as the idea of choosing a tyrant and asking him to vanquish all darned men started to seem less ruthless to me, it's impossible for me to not admire the writers of Dai-Chohen Doraemon for their positive way of thinking. As one gets older, she's more prone to the "been there, done that" attitude that makes her cynical about the world, about people. Yet, they didn't lose their faith in humans; thus, the stories.

In Nobita's world, the task to save the world from fellow humans' wickedness upon returning to his day-to-day life was made easier by Doraemon. When developer planned on turning the hill at the back of his school into a new building site, Doraemon came with his sophisticated gizmo and scared the hell out of the developer, keeping them away for good. In the real world however, we don't have Doraemon to lend a helping hand. Hence, we have no choice but believe that human kindness would eventually prevail, like the series' writers did. I really wish I could do so.

Finally! 7/26/2008 10:50:00 AM

Finally!! Finally!!! After two months of stumbling over my words, I finally finished the project I've been working on. It has been a bumpy ride, with constant help from Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary along the way, but I'm somewhat pleased with the result.

However, I'm still anxious because I know, as a person whose first language is not English, and who's not formally trained in English, the chance of my making mistakes was rather big. During the translation process, I kept worrying about whether or not I used the right tenses (there's no such thing as tenses in Indonesian), prepositions, suffixes (imagine using ‘s behind the name of a person ended with s; well, I think I should've used ...s's instead of ...s', but I decided to choose the latter due to aesthetic consideration, which is probably going to be slashed by the editor later on), the right words (like the time I used "bat" instead of "club" to refer to the thing people use to knock down thugs; I realized it too late, because the script, which was handed down in installments instead of in complete form like I used to do, had been sent to the editor). You could say that I'm worried about every possible grammatical/structural/whatever mistake one could make in English.

My greatest fears are the editor grumbling as he/she sees my work, saying, "Does this translator even know how to use English properly?" since there are so many mistakes and the book's author crying, "What has she done to my work? She had butchered it!" as he read my transliteration. I pray to God that such thing will never happen.

But I have to say that the project was very enjoyable since the book is a really good one (despite its heartrending aspects, which I have mentioned in my previous piece of writing). I just hope that people reading the English translation would find as much joy as I did reading the real thing written in Bahasa Indonesia.

Note: By the way, the movie version of the book is in production. It'll certainly be a fresh alternative, among local cheap horror flicks, lovey-dovey craps, and perverted comedies that roamed around the cinemas these days.

How to Disappear Completely 7/12/2008 03:03:00 PM

What's worse than being overwhelmingly busy that your mind's so confused you don't even know what to think about anymore? Having nothing to do, that's what it is. Because if that should happen, your mind would take matters into its own...erm...hands, and all of a sudden weird thoughts would start swimming about in your brain. Those weird thoughts might or might not be important, depending on whom you're talking to or what book you'd been reading recently. But regardless which, they're all very worrying; take questions about the futileness of life and the purpose of one's existence, for example.

Despite their being less real--or at least that's how they seem to be--compared to your day-to-day business, such as paying the bills, the effect they cause to your brain is just as real, making you restless, confused, helpless. Truth of the matter, they're even worse because there's no definite answer to them. Who knows for sure how to answer those questions? Some people spend their whole life looking for the answer and ending up never finding them; some people discover them just like that, somewhat by coincidence; and some don't even realize that such questions exist in the first place. At least, bills are simpler, you just have to wait until your next payroll to pay them out.

That's why it's good--for me--to turn the TV on although there's nothing interesting on it, to play the game I've played many times again and again, to read a fantasy story set as far away and as detached as possible from the life I've been living right now. Doing so gives me the chance to escape from myself, to forget any uncomfortable realization for a while. Drugging me, that's what they do. As my mind goes deeper into the inanimate object I was facing at that moment, I lose my sense of self. I'm not conscious of myself anymore.And then, there's always THAT. Sleep. The natural painkiller. Sleep. It's good. It's good.

Note: Before anyone gets the wrong idea and tries to sue me, here's a disclaimer for you. The words "How to Disappear Completely" is snatched off from a song's title, whose copyright belongs to Radiohead and Warner Chappell Music Publishing Ltd. “How to Disappear Completely" appears in Radiohead's fourth album, Kid A. Buy it if you wish to.

Endless 7/05/2008 07:24:00 PM

A blue sky under which I can live in
That's all that I need

Productive herd, and weatherproof tent to sleep in
That's all that I need

A patch of land, and nice warm hut to settle in
That's all that I need

Condo, top class car, chains of gold
Savings account, a closetful of shoes, a trip to Singapore
Flat screen TV, multimedia cell, cute-looking iPod
...
...
...
That's all that I need