This is my old blog. New blog here: Lieh.ae | Lieh-always-enough

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Lasam Lieh

Main Label: I, Me & Myself
Sing (Your Love)
It used to be darkness, without You.
I lived my life in blindness, but now I’m found.
Found me in weakness, broken.
You came to me in kindness, and now I live.
And I’ll sing, sing. I love You so.
And I’ll Sing, because the world can’t take away Your Love.
I’ll give my life for You Lord, for all You’ve done.

Yes~! Finally... A long-promised blog entry about my name, Lasam (Lieh). As I had mentioned in my first blog that I had promised a girl or 2 to write about this when I ever started to blog. Well, after much time has passed, finally I had fulfilled one of the promises that I ever made~! However, I doubt the girl whom I had made this promise to, will ever read this... :(

This entry is also the first one that I added a picture as the entry's header, and a song (with 2 versions: Mp3 / m4a which can be played with Quicktime, and Windows Media Audio, i.e. wma) with the lyrics written. I feel that it is kind of cool~ to have a picture as a header thing, like the blog headers, like the newspaper headlines thing... And a song that is so relevant with the entry's topic that you can listen to it while you read along! Haha... I will try my best to include a header and a music for some of my blog entries... XD

Okay, let's get started... The meaning of lasam is "trash" in English, 垃圾 in Chinese. It was direct translated from Hokkien dialect "la-sam". I came into this conclusion that my life as a complete "lasam" or trash when I was in Nanyang Polytechnic, taking the Diploma in Digital Media Design. At that time, it was also an "era" of developing "Singlish", where people in Singapore started to speak English with combination of other languages, mainly from lots of Chinese dialects. And every sentence also tends to end with "lah", "leh", "lor", etc. etc. Not long after, "PCK Pte. Ltd.", an icon for Singlish, was debut in the TV... And So I was trying to be "creative" and "unique" to contribute to the Singlish vocabulary mah...

But my "lasam" didn't become an iconic vocab leh... Only my best friend, Ah Fer will keep on mentioning and supporting this name... Haha... Thankz, Fer. Anyway, there are other identical words that people tend to use more often, such as "zha-ba-lang" and "bao-shua-bao-hai" (包山包海 in Hokkien I think) or "Bao-gak-liao"(包到完 Take care of everything). All those words have the meaning that you are doing things or tasks that are not much specialized, miscellaneous stuff that has little meaning. And are often easily neglected and unappreciated. I find this quite true in my life... That I always do lots of miscellaneous, hard-to-categorize stuff... Even the courses that I took in my life were all generalized. What I mean is, the courses have a lot of wide-ranged subjects / modules where we only managed to touch the topics and sub-topics on the surface or superficial means. And we seldom go into much deeper discussion and details. Because the lecturers would expect ourselves to do further research on our own if we are interested about those topics... Haha...

Btw, if you are wondering what is the picture all about. It was a desktop wallpaper that I created while doing my Final Year Project. About my Final Year Project, was another event that reflected my life as a "lasam". Because I was assigned to involve in 2 projects! The first one was a game based on the PCK Pte. Ltd. Sitcom, where the players were “Paparazzi” who shot photos of this family in order to score. I was assigned to create a 3D version of the character, Rosie. So the picture you see was the texture of my cute 3D Rosie.

Ok, come back for my nick... Why then is my life a complete trash? When I was in Secondary School, I was always the ‘A's student. And I was the Drum Major in the school's band. I was some teachers' "favorite student". Everything was so beautiful in my life. But when I came into Poly, it was a complete different things. Probably because of the lifestyle and culture between secondary schools and polytechnics are much different. And that was the time I realized that I wasn't much talented in arts and designs when I was in this design course. It was like a sudden “王子变青蛙的感觉。("Prince turned into a frog" feeling.) That everything in life becomes incapable and incompetent. All of my results were only on the passing bench, except of those are in theory. I was better in theory stuff also. Therefore, having the mentality that all of my design works are not that good, I started to call myself "Lasam"...

Hey there! I wasn't that negative actually, though I sounded like. But on the contrast, I am very positive one... Being "Lasam" has its own advantages also... My father was in Waste Paper Collection Business, a Recycling Business... Again, what do we collect? Lasam~! Even my home business is about collecting lasam~! My mum used to teased about my father. She said my father "worked in the big trash can"! Haha... So really, this name suits me the best man I tell you.
The customers who will buy the waste paper will use them to make into other paper products such as paper plates, toilet rolls, tissue paper, carton boxes, and even the "dead people's currency". Those money that Chinese will burn to the “好兄弟” during the Lunar 7th Months. These are the people who had given those waste paper a brand "new life and new purpose"~! Sometimes, you may find it interesting and surprising... Stuff that seems like no more usage to the mankind, happens to be the key towards restoration of the world's ecosystem. So don't think that "Lasam" has no value hor! Scrap metal has the highest buying values among those recyclable products. But too bad, we ain't touching that... Really, recycling is a good business IMHO, it is like an evergreen industry. It can goes on and on... One cycle is good, but then we got re-cycle! Then lagi better! It is a key to infinity~! Eternity~!

To me, being "Lasam" also reflect one's creativity. Why? It was like "Garang-Guni" who collects and buys at a lower price of those used, unwanted and broken items. And then fix them, or put those good parts together and throw away the broken parts. Finally able to re-use them in a great way or simply sell them away for a small profit. I tell you, it is a brilliant idea. Sometimes, when you are limited in certain areas or aspects, that is the time you are able to come out with brand new idea! Because when everything goes on smoothly, you will not attempt to look for a better ideas or alternate ways. But when things occur in an unusual way, sometimes trigger an end of existing method, that is the time people will think of a new way, or better system.

I had this Studio Project at the end of my first semester of the first year in Digital Media Design. Each student was assigned to an animal for us to study about it. By that it means to do a research about the animal, went to zoo to observe them and record down the observation by means of drawing, sketching and taking down of photos. Then we had to do a report also by drawing and sketching, a full color painting of the animal, a design technique of using only points i.e. these ...................................... . . . . . ... . . . .. . . . . . . . . .... . . . . . . . . .. to illustrate a picture of the animal. Lastly, a 3D model of the animal using any items you can find to assemble the animal. But with one condition, i.e. the items must be in used condition, cannot buy brand new items for it. And this is part that I am stressing about. It was like the idea was to recycle the old, used, unwanted items. Though there were student who cheated by buying new items...

I was assigned to one kind of cat, I forgot the name... Actually, I didn't do well for this studio project. During the presentation, my drawings were being criticized as not up to the standards... this and that... And eventually, I failed that project... I was sad of course. But then not long after, the lecturers started to display some of the best projects on the displaying windows, for the students and of course, visitors to appreciate. To my highest surprise, my 3D model of the cat was being displayed!!! But of course, display as being the best and creative, not of the "Worst Project, Don't Do This in the Future" stuff... Also, it was only the 3D model being displayed and not my those failed and not-up-to-standard drawings. I was very happy then but I was thinking, how ironic... They decided to fail my project, but still, they would display my 3D model. Why not might as well gimme a "just pass" back then? Anyways, this is how I got the idea to link Lasam and creativity together.

One more thing... Though the word "Lasam" doesn't sound nice at times, especially when you know its meaning, the word itself still looks nice! If you look at the picture, it doesn't reflect anything that is "trash" lor... I feel that the word is like a foreign language word... maybe from French, Spanish, etc... especially with the initial is 'L'. With a little symbols may make it looks more like it... such as "La'sam"... Ahaha... Don't you think so? Erm... Haha...

That's much about me, the Lasam Lieh... But until now, you may wonder what is the relationship with the song and Lasam leh? At one of the lowest points in my life, when I thought myself as useless, lasam, totally no value, rejected by the social world, no one in the world would really understand me and not even family members, no close friends, got problem didn't know who to turn to, etc. etc. I felt like I was left alone in an isolated, dark garbage land, with drizzling of rains... That's the time, He found me... But the fact is, we found each other... Who is He? My God and my Jesus of course... God has seen the values in me that everyone in the world has neglected. Because He had created me, He knows me the best, He knows the potential that I possess... When no one in the world will wanna be friend with me and I feel so lonely, Jesus has come and be with me... When I am in the utmost helpless situation where no one in the world can really help me, that's the time I will cry out to God, and to my utmost surprise God will answer me and resolve my problem!

My Jesus... He picked me up from the great garbage land, washed me clean, took away the weaknesses and broken parts of me, and replaced them with something else... That's my God and my Jesus... Through Him, I had revelation of this:

"It is not useless, but depends how you use it!"
“不是没有用,看你怎么用!”
or:
"It is not useless, but it is you don't know how to use!"
“不是没有用,是你不会用!”
Lieh (Before 27/05/2008)
Do you understand the essence of these quotes? I hope this phrase will encourage when you feel that you're being misused or abused, verbally abused and etc. You can tell your boss (if you dare) this phrase of mine~! Haha...

My God knows me the best. He knows the best in me, the best of me, and the best for me. I know that He will reserve all the good things that are the best for me. And of course, He loves me! So really, it is just like this song's lyric... In the beginning, it is darkness and we are blinded over much mindsets and knowledge, thereby creating some weaknesses in us... But there will be time when you are found and then be embraced in the unfailing Love of God that the world can't take away, the abundance of joy that make you sing and dance wholeheartedly, the peace of mind that world has lost theirs...

Yup yup... That's all about it. Finally, a burdened has removed from my heart as I finished writing this... 终于可以放下心中的一块石头了。。。

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