Me: Yeah, I'm planning to go back to Canton City early July.
Mom: For what?
Me: For the Japanese exam.
Mom: Why Japanese exam?
Me: You know how I learned Japanese all those years ago?
Mom: Yeah?
Me: It's been more than a decade and I still got nothing to prove that I did, so I'm planning to get a certificate…
Mom: Oh, that's good.
Me: …could be used to fill my CV, you know?
Mom: Yes, yes.

– A phone call I had with my mom before the Dragon Boat Festival this year

The way I spend my money is truly tragic. Like, what do you mean that you plan to stay in Canton for an extra day just so you can visit places like the Shameen Island and the Jiangjundong Electronics Appliance Market? As I sat in my hotel room with the somewhat-broken aircon (the wind it made wasn't cold enough) I do curse myself. The room is small, the table is small, the window is small, the stool (they have no chair) is uncomfortable, the wallpaper is moldy, and my coughing fit somehow came back for encore. This is clearly mostly meant for middle-aged men who have been seeing worse their entire lives, or casual sex, considering there's a small cabinet at the end of the desk filled with packaged condoms and masturbator sleeves (that you obviously have to buy online first and I obviously didn't). This is my first time seeing a hotel room having any of these, and it definitely ruins the mood for me - but what mood? With a room this shabby, there's no mood to be had.

After the exam I came back to the room and I was already thinking to myself that maybe I don't want to stay here for another night, and maybe leaving early for Shenzhen would be a good idea. So I did, but I forgot it's Sunday, and you don't get to casually book tickets for a train to Shenzhen on a Sunday when absolutely everyone also needs a ticket for a train to Shenzhen as much as you do; when I realized that, I've already returned the room key and on my way to the train station, so it's either buying a late-night ticket (which they still have) and staying at the train station for 7+ hours, or book another hotel nearby. This naturally calls for a cigar to lighten up the mood, but unfortunately I didn't bring one with me.

I chose the second option. Now you know why I call my spending habit tragic.

Me: Excuse me, is there a public laundry somewhere in the hotel or?…
Receptionist: Sorry, we don't have that here or nearby.
Me: But how am I meant to wash my clothes?
Receptionist: With hands, I suppose. (laughing-crying emoji)

– A conversation I've had with the second hotel over WeChat

You know it's definitely going downhill when you only realized that the elevator isn't in the same building as the reception area after you've checked in, but I do need a place to stay, so I doubt I had another choice. When you're sleeping in different hotels in the city where your family is living like I do, especially for a city as big as Canton, you would be forced to notice that there's so much places to explore while somehow having absolutely no desire to do such exploring.

So as ordered I left the reception hall (another red flag) through the back door to go into another much taller building with a much more expensive hotel. I went up via the lift and after passing a few doors with one of them somehow having the adhesive residue left from putting on and then removing (what's possibly) traditional Lunar New Year decorations (???), I've reached my room.

And the moment I walked in I was creeped out a little. If you have a dirty mind like me you'd immediately notice what this room is designed for, especially with our good old friend the small cabinet filled with packaged condom and masturbator sleeves (that you obviously have to buy online first and I obviously didn't). At first I couldn't understand why that's my immediate verdict on the room; it was only clear to me after looking at it for a good while: the room's aesthetic is inconsistent with no core motif and only implicit hints of overtly-domestic feel; it feels like someone's living room with a big master-bedroom bed. That's just how modern urban studio apartments are, you might argue, but the bedboard is pink and all curvy-like… It has both white and light pink art-deco-feel furnitures with all the curvy bits and modern minimalism-feel furnitures with all the straight lines, austere colors and geometric shapes within the same room. You can't have both, it's a serious assault to my eyes. This naturally also calls for a cigar to lighten up the mood (dubious thing to be needed in this context), but unfortunately I didn't bring one with me.

I do have to admit, that it is kinda bad when I walked into the room and saw the bed with the luxury-like bedboard design I immediately realized all of this in my subconscious and thought of 10+ ways that we (who?) can do the thing, and if I write it down even only the fact itself it would absolutely reflect very poory on my character, but I suppose it's what living in rowdy and messy neighbourhoods for almost your entire live does to you; an unquenchable thirst for living quality and visual elegance, like I've always imagined as a child when listening to Arto Lindsay's soft and quiet murmur in his albums… I thought to my self. If I ever had a girlfriend, I very probably am not going to want to have her here, no no no; if I'm going to have it all, I'm going to have the absolute premium, so that the memory alone can act as a crutch for a person with a broken ankle or a mint lozenge for a sore throat on the very probably not-very-elegant-at-all lives we're about to endure next…

Speakers, while playing the test audio: 天気がいいから、散歩しましょう
Speakers, while playing the audio for the exam: (Japanese voices that started clipping into the realm of incoherency during the most important parts)

– The speakers in the exam room, for whatever reasons

I don't think I'd pass because I only did the minimal amount of preparing, which is (nearly) no preparing at all; but my intuition (I am able to understand most Japanese texts and speeches after all) did get a few questions right, so we'll see how it goes. Aside from the listening part (which was absolutely awful, partly due to how Japanese talk, partly due to the reason stated above), the kanjis somehow wasn't the part that gave me the most trouble (I know it sounds rich coming from a Cantonese, but you have to understand that kunyomi exists and kanji having onyomi does not imply you'd always get them exactly right), it was the grammar. The reading comprehension part was brutal too - midway through the problems I was all like "there's still more? when will this end??"; I still got ~35 minutes left when I finished them, but I feel like the old age (26) is probably getting to me when I have to force my brain to comprehend…

Tangent - I suspect some people would try to memorize the entire fixed phrase when they study their grammar. Most of the time this is inefficient; it's better to break them down into pieces and understand how these pieces are strung together via basic grammar to form that phrases, that way you only have to memorize the basic pieces, and you'd have better accuracy when trying to guess the meaning of fixed phrases that you've never seen. It do take a bit of effort to establish the intuition for this, and sometimes this doesn't work because the phrase is derived from Old Japanese or other reasons, but most of the time I found it very effective.

Fuck me, there are other places that I could've chosen, I don't even know why I even choose here. This University Town has become more and more like Shenzhen, and the campus is gated everywhere. How am I supposed to have my nostalgia if I can't get in??

Next time I'm gonna stay up for the whole night just so I could grab a seat in Shenzhen. I'm not going to come back here.

Don't be like me and let your tinted memories fog your eyes.

…I suppose it do be my fault. God did ask Lot to not look back after all…

– Something I've posted in WeChat

The day before the exam I walked around my old undergrad school campus (where the exam's goona be) trying to find a way in, and my attempt have resulted in nothing but utter failure. It used to be very open where you could just walk in as if you're just another student, but now it's all gated with fences and security guards and you have to be a student to be let in (or else you have to go through the whole process of applying for a visit and things). For some reasons I genuinely hated this; things have changed so much it just looks foreign to me.

Look, I get it, it's not about COVID or anything (they were already setting up fences when I was still there as a student), it's probably the school board liking the idea, but it somehow still stings. "My old school" that I can get in still feels like my school, but "my old school" that I couldn't get in feels like any other random old school that I don't belong; I could care about DCU because I know they're not gated with guards and they'll probably stay that way, but I couldn't care less about any random school, much like after my childhood home has been put on government's demolishment list a part of me realized it could no longer call Canton City my "hometown". Now I'm just wondering if there's any good ol' memories that I should also promptly remove from my brain lest they become nostalgic so that I won't be making the same stupid mistake again thinking the past is something that you can always revisit.

---

Back

Last update: 2026.7.6