just minishorts.

Image taken from Helloziyi.us.

Eric and I caught Memoirs of a Geisha a week back. I'd do a review of the show but then again, reviews just aren't my cup of tea yah, and btw, I thought the show was entertaining, and Michelle Yeoh is so pretty there (for her age she's damn hot, okay?).

So anyway there's this part where Dr Crab (Randall Duk Kim, the Keymaker in The Matrix Reloaded) successfully bids for Sayuri's mizuage. The night where he gets to enjoy his prize, we see the dirty old man earnestly and carefully preparing the bed. He lays out the sheets (all white), and there's a thin piece of white muslin that he lays in the middle. And oh, btw, in cantonese, Dr Crab is translated literally as 'Hai Yi Sang', which sounds freaking crude to me.

After the show, I spoke to Eric about it, 'Eh some old Asian families can be pretty fervent about their sons marrying virgins hoh. Many Chinese films have shown the son getting a piece of white cloth to put on the bed on his wedding night.'

Eric said, 'Yeah mah. When cherries pop, juices should flow.'

'Eh, not all virgins have hymens that are unbroken ok? It's not right. I mean, if hoh, I don't bleed, are you going to say that I've done it? That's like so not true ok? Everyone knows that the bleeding virgin is a myth.'

He grinned, 'Anyway I think that's why the term "popping her cherry" came to be lah. Its how the hymen tears and the juices flow, it's about the blood flowing.'

Crapper. Then I said, 'It's stupid if you ask me. Not all virgins bleed, and YOU KNOW IT. That's a damn stupid practice. So if the cloth comes clean, Sayuri's done it lah. Cacat like hell. If I ever marry you and you get that piece of cloth… I'll… I'll…'

'Hehe… actually hoh, I'm not so silly lah dear, so you don't have to worry.'
'You do?'
'Yeah, I think hoh, preserved cherries don't bleed.'
'Uh?'
'Yeah, technically, most preserved fruit is dried, dry-dry like dried prune like that.'
'And your point is?'
'So if you're damn-well preserved, you won't be able to pop at all, there won't even be a popping sound. No juice either. Nothing red to see. It will be DRY DRY-one.'

'….'

So just a while ago when Agagooga messaged to ask me why my comment on MSN was 'Cherries don't always bleed when popped', I told him about Eric's take on the cherry.

Then he came up with this other theory, 'Rotten cherries don't bleed either.'

Which obviously isn't true lah, and I told him so, because they do, rotten cherries ooze yucky juices. And they do so on their own. They don't even wait for anyone to do the popping job. After rotting for a bit, they just pop. And their juices just flow out liddat. All by themselves.

I'll never look at a cherry in the same way. Ever.

I don't know, maybe I've got high expectations. I happen to expect the people whose duty is to educate younger people to be of a certain quality. Educators ought to be dignified individuals who deserve the respect people want to give–they have to know their stuff, so to speak, and be able to present their views eloquently, IDEALLY, to be able to convey their opinions in flawless English. But then again, this isn't always necessary.

And then they've got to know things beyond their expertise, at least, on a touch-and-go basis. You want your Accounts teacher to know that Leonardo Da Vinci was one of the greatest artists and thinkers of the Renaissance period, you want your Science teacher to know that Jane Austen was a famous female writer who wrote in English, you want your Mathematics teacher to realize that 'practise' and 'practice' are two different words. And then, you also want your English teacher to realize of course, that drugs don't really kill, it's drug-abuse that does the job.

To put it simply, you don't want your lecturer to be crapping you and not realizing that half the time she doesn't know what she's talking about. You want her to be AWARE of her misgivings, and her weaknesses, and you want her to be able to identify and admit that there are some topics that she is just NOT qualified to comment on, simply because she lacks general knowledge.

I don't know about you, but if I stumbled upon my economics lecturer's website, and then find out that she's talking about interesting non-economic related topics like sexual reproduction, and dangers of smoking, and the effects of second-hand smoke, I'd be delighted. And then of course I'll move on to find out what she's got to say, my lecturer mah, I wanna know what makes her tick. I would be looking for opportunities to engage in some kind of intellectual discourse with her, of course, I've always respected her for the exciting classes she gives, and that pleasant smile of hers seems to always give her a glowing aura.

And then when I find out that she comes up with something like, 'I feel very strongly that we should not ask smokers to quit smoking, it is after all their human right to do whatever they want,' I'd be very, very, disappointed. I'd be SHOCKED to know that my lecturer actually writes down that 'The essential passport to a better relationship is knowing how to have sex and practising sex.'

And then when I read more and I realize she quotes from sources like Ezyhealth & Beauty , I'd be quite aghast. You don't have to profess to lecture in a private university to KNOW that Ezyhealth isn't exactly academic material.

Honestly, I expect better of lecturers. I'm not asking them to be PERFECT, I realize that they do not have to know everything under the sun, but they've got to at least, demonstrate some kind of self-awareness, and definitely not ignorance. Teachers ought to be confident of what they know, but if they really don't know something, I feel that they've got be confident to ADMIT that they don't know their stuff, not act all holy and mighty and walk around making fun of the teaching profession, one that is SUPPOSED to be noble. And it isn't always about how some lecturers can't even string English words together to form a proper sentence. It's not about the form, it's the substance that matters.

I don't think this is too much to ask for.

Related link:
When superficial thoughts rule…