Filth in Beauty  

Posted by Vicky Zhuang Yi-Yin

We live in this filth that we call beauty, how ironic is that? Honestly, we keep trying to make everything all peachy, but what is the truth? Pain, tears and even sorrow have been hiding in the depths of all the happiness that we see pouncing around everywhere.

Murderers are allowed to live, while those they killed are just buried into the dirt and dust where they will erode away from even memories. But murderers will still live on, breath, and maybe find more victims if they so please. We only hope and pray that they would find redemption. But really will they?

The rich are allowed to get richer, but the poor, they just get poorer and poorer. While we sit and blame it on lack of awareness, nothing is being done to help them. They cry. They plead. They scream. But their voice is just so tiny, not even a bat can hear it.

We live in a place where everything is supposed to be beautiful but everything beneath it is just dark, drab and dismal. The base of it all is just so weak, yet what makes us think that this euphoric state will be permanent? Hope? It is just like the Titanic, when everyone used to believe that it was unsinkable, but really, what happened? It was just another boat that had its imperfections.

We're all imperfect. We all just love to put into our minds the ideas of a euphoria that will never exist. So what we do is, we project that euphoria into our real worlds, and forget the implications. Honestly, who cares what will happen to the third person. The externalities have never ever been considered and only theoretically put in play. If we know something bad will happen, we brush it away. And then we just say what a beauty.

Everyone builds their own happiness, through money, through laundering, through whatever means possible. The human race is such an intelligent and beautiful race, but we don't fall short of filth either. With this intelligence we have greed, lust, pride, envy, sloth, gluttony and wrath. Making us so despicable. We are ready to pounce on others to get what we want, even if it is not a matter of survival. We as humans are ready to kick and bite and kill even the hand that feeds us as part of our gratitude. We've been horrible people. We've destroyed ourselves. We're filth.

Only hope brings us the salvation to think of the beauty of our euphoria. But no one will take a step to change it all, and even if one does, the hardships and obstacles towards the goal is so harsh, that it would take just will power to break through. But until then, we live in this filth that we call beauty...

By Vicky Zhuang Yi-Yin

6 comments »

Vicky Zhuang Yi-Yin | WritersCafe.org  

Posted by Vicky Zhuang Yi-Yin

Vicky Zhuang Yi-Yin | WritersCafe.org

0 comments »

Survival Kits - Surviving Earth in the 21st Century  

Posted by Vicky Zhuang Yi-Yin

When we learn about the necessities in life, people always answer the three basic necessities, and honestly that cliched answer is becoming more and more monotonous each time one hears it. It's like it's on a tape recorder and each time the question is asked, the player plays it automatically on voice recognition - in this case vocabulary recognition.

"Food, Clothing, Shelter."

Really? Are those three things the only basic necessities? Here's my list of the basic necessities of human survival in today's world:
  1. Food: Which in my definition is anything we give our stomachs. It also includes clean drinking water, and all those commercial drinks that we chug down, and all that dumb junk food
  2. Clothing: Yes, we do need to be clothed, not only to be warm but to be human
  3. Shelter: this means a house, not a box in the street near a dumpster. This means solid walls that do not get blown away like the ones in the Three Pigs and the Wolf story
  4. Money: anyone who says money does not mean anything, needs to be kept in a mental institute. By money I don't mean you need to be a millionaire or a billionaire or anything on that line. By money, I mean a means of being able to purchase at least food. Why am I saying this? Simple. No money, no food, unless you can grow your own vegetables and grains, but then that would deprive you of meat, which you would need to buy anyway!
  5. Education: No education? No job!
There's more where these necessities came from. It also includes electricity, communication and etc.

I stand by my five basic basic necessities, but even getting these necessities is so hard, it becomes a challenge for people to get them. No matter how basic these may be, the procedure for attaining these things are so complicated, and so interlinked, that they all become one big necessity.

0 comments »

Child Soldiers and Basic Facts  

Posted by Vicky Zhuang Yi-Yin

Child soldiers is a common notion describing the position where a child or a minor has to wield a weapon and fight in a war. However, it has been accepted that this is not the only meaning of child soldier. The definition given by Unicef based on the Cape Town Principles 1997 is as follows:
"... a 'child soldier' as any child - boy or girl - under 18 years of age, who is part of any kind of regular or irregular armed force or armed group in any capacity, including, but not limited to: cooks, porters, messengers, and anyone accompanying such groups other than family members. It includes girls and boys recruited for forced sexual purposes and/or force marriage..."
Imagine while reading the above definition that you were going through those atrocities while you were a child. Even thinking about it sends chills down one's spine. How can a child be brought to face such issues? Isn't it unfair? Aren't we supposed to protect their innocence? 

There is no exact figure of how many kids are involved with war, but the range is between 250,000 and 350,000, in about 30 conflicts of today altogether. The amount might be small for us as compared to the 6 billion people in the world, but think of it this way, these children are supposed to be our future. Stripping them off their innocence is going to give them a dark future. Some may not live to see the future, others may continue on with the darkness, surviving through the only thing they know: violence, and the rest may only be forgotten.

Think about it... they are the children of our future, the future that we so desire to protect. Let's take steps to create awareness about this issue along with all the other issues. They may not know who we are, and how we helped them, but giving them hope for a better future is reward enough for all of us.

0 comments »

Little Mindless Soldier - By Vicky Zhuang Yi-Yin  

Posted by Vicky Zhuang Yi-Yin



Little Mindless Soldier
By Vicky Zhuang Yi-Yin 

Curled up on the floor, dying
Loneliness around you
Holding onto dear tiny life,
Young boy, do you want your revenge?
I want to hear an answer
I want to hear a ‘Yes, sir!’
Or do you want to die
Like everybody else?
I will close your wounds
All you have to do is obey
Here is a gun to shield yourself
Kill our foe and heed my orders
I want to hear an answer
I want to hear a ‘Yes, sir!’
Or do you want to die
Like everybody else?
Take my hand and do not fret
Strip your innocence, cast it away
I will save you, while you decay
Turn into my little mindless soldier
I want to hear an answer
I want to hear a yes, sir
Or do you want to die
Like everybody else?
Yes, that’s right, that’s right
My little mindless soldier
Take this little offer, and never forget
That I am now your caretaker
No longer child, no longer human
Broken, battered then bred for war
Dangling from the bonds of his master
The one now in possession of his soul
~~~*****~~~
 By Vicky Zhuang Yi-Yin

3 comments »

Social Issues and Their Understanding By Vicky Zhuang Yi-Yin  

Posted by Vicky Zhuang Yi-Yin in , ,

Everyone says that there are tons of social issues going on. But my main issue here is do we really understand what social issues are? We say things like, "Oh, the politics is a big issue!", or "Poverty is a major social issue which needs to be tackled,", and even, "We have an identity crisis." Don't get me wrong, I'm also one of those people. But it really got me thinking, do we really understand them?

I mean we talk a lot about it. We gave it a name. But if we know that there is this thing that's called an issue, then don't you think we should have an answer by now. I mean there are scholars out there who talk about it for years, but has there been a practical response towards it so far?

Poverty, for example, being on one of the main social issues' agenda, hasn't been internationally given a proper standard yet (there are different views to go about it, and different organizations and even countries have their own definition, A Dollar A Day is one of the most basic definitions used to define poverty though, and I'm sticking to that for now). Despite being defined 'A Dollar A Day', many find this standard as not possible to be the same for every country - which I believe is true, in most manners. If we know poverty is an issue all over the world, why don't we first define it comprehensively, find a base line to start off with. I'm not an expert, but it doesn't take an expert to understand that we need a starting line in order to fish out the solution to a problem.

Why is it that we just point out problems and not the solutions? Is it our nature to play the blame game? Most of us say, (another example), "If the politics of a country is stable, only then the economy will be stable". My friend, could you tell me how the politics of a country could become stable, instead of just ranting on a subject? I would just like to know one more thing and that is how do we understand an issue?

Do we look at an issue from just one point of view or from different sources and schools of thoughts? What is it that needs to be done? I don't think I can come up with a conclusion for this one. I'm just saying what's pouring out of my mind, and I think this is fairly good for me so far.


Another rant ended... by Vicky Zhuang Yi-Yin

0 comments »

Should Kids be Fighting Our Wars? By Vicky Zhuang Yi-Yin  

Posted by Vicky Zhuang Yi-Yin in , , ,

Well, I really don't know much about wars yet. But I do know that in some places, even in today's world, there are young children who are fighting wars for their country. Is it because they want to do it themselves? Or are they forced to wield a weapon against other soldiers who maybe more experienced in battle then themselves?

For me, the definition of a child is someone who has not yet reached maturity, who is supposed to carefree and most importantly the one whom should be protected. They are not the ones to protect us. Imagine hiding behind a child, I can see the humiliation in that. To push a child to protect oneself is the most cowardly act anyone can think of committing.

I am thinking of writing more about this topic, but first since I have done no research on it, I will not say much except for what I feel is wrong about having a juvenile hold a gun and kill someone. Where do they dump the child's innocence? What happens once a child has seen the evils of society at such a young age? It just doesn't seem right at all. This was the reason why I wrote the poem Porcelain Child and Little Mindless Soldier (which I will post a little later, although it is on StoryWrite.com), from my own opinions of this topic.

Let's get together and be the ones to protect the ones who actually need us: the children. Give them the life that children deserve, a happy one. No one wants to reflect on an extremely harsh childhood, we all know that by now. So let's get together.

By Vicky Zhuang Yi-Yin

0 comments »

Porcelain Child By Vicky Zhuang Yi-Yin  

Posted by Vicky Zhuang Yi-Yin


Porcelain Child 
by 
Vicky Zhuang Yi-Yin

An angel of innocence
Running down the street
Ignorant to insolence
Carefree and in bliss

Puerile porcelain child
Once pure and divine
Now broken and deviled
Poor porcelain child

Dark desires’ harbinger
Brings forth all hate
Now tainted, stained avenger
Frowns, scowls and irate

Puerile porcelain child
Once pure and divine
Marching on with weapons
With no more smiles…

By Vicky Zhuang Yi-Yin

0 comments »
<< Newer Posts
Older Posts >>