The Career Road: Latest Updates, June 1, 2013

Posted by Vicky Zhuang Yi-Yin in iron man 3, life, my life, personal, tamanna, the great gatsby, the reluctant fundamentalist, trailer, vicky, vicky zhuang yi-yin, work, yi-yin, zhuang

So, the film I was working on last year with Concordia Productions (Pvt) Ltd has a trailer! And it's being played in cinemas in Lahore, Karachi and Rawalpindi before movies like Iron Man 3, The Reluctant Fundamentalist and The Great Gatsby.

Here's the link to it if you want to support Pakistani films, would love the support and appreciation:

Tamanna's trailer

It was so exciting to see something that I was a part of on a big screen. So many first times for me this year, I'm just ecstatic. Let's hope that this becomes an awesome part of my life!

More essays to come soon, although I know they are sometimes really dark, but hey, if I get inspiration to write something nicer, I will. :)

Realizations

Posted by Vicky Zhuang Yi-Yin in Chronic Kidney Disease, CKD, Dialysis, Help

My father was recently diagnosed with CKD-5, and the worst part is finding a place to treat him in the city of Lahore. A major part of his treatment is dialysis, for which he has to go to the hospital/dialysis centre twice a week. During the past few weeks, I have come to one realization, one sad realization.

There aren't enough dialysis machines to cater to the staggering number of cases for people who need dialysis.

What I'm talking about isn't just about how many machines the city has, but also how expensive it is to get one session done. With an average of Rs. 3,500/- (around about $35) per session, I don't understand how people are going to get their loved ones treated. Many patients have to go between two to three times a week, that makes expenses sky rocket.

Even centres that want to provide free treatment to those who require dialysis cannot help these people with waiting lists that are year long, and the only way to get them out of it is to wait till a current patient on dialysis died, or chose to go to another hospital.

I can't afford to buy a machine, but I would love to let people know that this is something that a lot of people need, and waiting too long in the line is not an option, if anyone can help hospitals increase their number of machines or help people who require dialysis, please, I urge you to try and help them.

Reminiscing 2012 and 3 Highlights of 2012

Posted by Vicky Zhuang Yi-Yin

Wow, it's been such a long time since I posted anything on this blog. Honestly, I feel really bad about it. Last year was kind of an interesting year for me. 2012 was the year of the dragon, and while it is going to be ending soon next month, I thought I should take sometime to write here about how 2012 really turned out to be.

For the love of writing, I told myself that 2012 would be the year I challenged myself, quite a bit. After writing three poems in two months (Jan and Feb), and while working on a theatre project as writer and co-director, I decided that I should write a 100 poems in that particular year. And then, for some unknown reason, I thought why not try writing a poem a day in April.

So, in April, I wrote not 30 poems, but I wrote 44 poems!

I believe that if it weren't for that month of April, I don't think I would've been able to finish my challenge because by the end of July, I was able to get the job that I really, really looked forward to working on. It's not that the job that I was working at at that time was not fun, or stressful, it just wasn't what I wanted to do. I wanted to be a film maker. And I was quickly immersed into the whole business of pre-production of a film, and finding very little time to write poetry, or even short stories (I failed my 10 short stories in 2012 challenge so haha, not everything went well).

After a month's internship at Concordia Productions, I was offered to join in permanently. It was the best feeling of the year for me at that time. Here I was, a newbie who had no idea of the film process, except for what she saw on the television, being given a chance to work with film makers, who did not judge me based on my background in everything but film. They were working on a film called Tamanna, which had already created buzz at the London Asian Film Festival and other renowned newspapers.

Now I won't go any further into talking about Tamanna, instead I'll move on but I will say that this experience and writing a 100 poems in 2012 were the best highlights of my year.

Other than that, I also worked on a play. I wrote the script in November 2011. The play was staged in March, I co-directed it with a friend Hamza Ghaznavid. It was a fun little project, and I hope to do more later on, but my focus for now is film.

So that makes three highlights.

There were others too. But I don't want to start a rant here and so I shall begin to fade this post out:

One of my New Year's resolution is to write more this year. Not only for poetry, not only short stories, or other longer ones, but also try to update this blog more often. I know it has been stale for quite sometime, and I'm hoping that I can find more ideas in my head to write about more things here. Until the next post.

What Electricity?

Posted by Vicky Zhuang Yi-Yin

I've always been the kind of person who tried to see the good in governments, even if I usually am typecast as a negative sighted person (it's not really my fault, but hey I'm not going to keep going on about how positive I can be either. You chose to label me, I did not). Just a few days ago, I was talking about the immense potential in this country, even despite the problems that it is facing. But lo and behold, what thanks I get, a twenty minute glimpse of electricity, and then poof! Into the darkness. (The only thing I needed at that time was background music: crickets chirping)

I'm not one for supporting protests either. I believe that it is a waste of time, and most of all effort, because the end result is usually a ton of arrests, and a lot of mediums gaining from the air time showing all the chaos. Instead of focusing on the real issue, it's more about the violence - which by the way, proves to the world that we are a bunch of barbarians, a view that many are trying to negate.

You see, usually I am a person who doesn't care if there is no electricity, as long as I know I can either read a book, or write something (irrelevant to the blog). But seriously, in this situation where LESCO (the designated electricity provider for this region) has decided to cut off electricity for a majority of the day, how the hell are people supposed to divert themselves to other activities? It's over forty degrees - scratch that - over forty five degrees!

Nobody wants to do anything. The heat is getting to everyone, forget toddlers crying about the heat, adults are doing that too! (Except that their way is to snap at everyone and everything) People can't even take naps any more, and forget about that good night's sleep. There isn't enough electricity to charge the infamous UPS, and so the fan annoyingly buzzes in the sweltering heat. While this keeps up, people are already turning into zombies (no reference to the face eaters in the US). Proof?

No sleep. Heat - smouldering hot heat. Inability to calm down (stress). Being disappointed repeatedly. Bad business. I'm sure you get where I'm trying to go. It all adds up to people not performing well in the society. I mean look at it rationally, if a person is deprived of sleep, is constantly thinking about when they're going to see the light of um... light, coupled with the persistent heat that does not go away, then obviously the stress is going to gush out somewhere right? So it happens at social situations, parents yelling at kids, kids yelling at parents, parents yelling at parents, kids yelling at kids, friends yelling at friends, you get my point. It happens at work, lack of sleep, means person can't perform at optimum level, thus reducing productivity, which then translates to an angry boss that you already don't want to cross. Then all of that just spells disaster, forget only the economic implications of not reaching potential GDP, think about it, people are literally snapping at each others, attacking whatever pulls the trigger!

To top it all off, here's a rough estimate of electricity timings: for every two hours of electricity, we black out/brown out for four to five hours.

I'm not going to protest, neither am I even in the mood to suggest a solution, since that's not going to see the light of day anyway. So yeah, currently, the mind of mine is just too busy. Busy ranting about the situation that I am in. I wish I could get out of it, but well who am I kidding.

More on me soon.

Sad Goodbyes

Posted by Vicky Zhuang Yi-Yin in Good life for kids, Kids, Pakistan, Teach, Teach for Pakistan, Teacher

The first profession that I chose when I was a kid was to be a teacher. Yes, a teacher. Although a lot of people have weird perceptions about this profession, I think, now because of my extremely short lived 3 week experience, it's, what I feel, actually the most rewarding and the toughest profession ever.

Yes, I am now on the road to becoming a teacher, since I have been selected by the Teach for Pakistan organization. I believe that the experience was much better than the experience that I had in my college. Like really.

During training, we were teaching kids in summer school for a short period of three weeks. It was crazy. It was a roller coaster of emotions. But the last three weeks would now be ranked at top five of my best moments in my life.

As a Teach for Pakistan fellow 2011, I have to teach at government schools in Karachi, where most of the students come from low income backgrounds. What pains me is the fact that I see a lot of people ignoring a huge amount of talent that these kids have. I was teaching science to 4th graders, and I saw a lot of talent and a lot of thirst for knowledge, that the three weeks were just not enough for them, and honestly for me too.

My kids - yes, it has come to a point that I have started calling them my kids - were cute. My kids were learning all that I was teaching them, even though they were disruptive in many occasions, partly because I tried to show that I was a fun teacher, and partly because of many reasons that I reflected back upon. But all in all my kids dreamed.

The last day of summer school, I believe was so emotional, I never thought it was going to be like that at all. The students at the school and the my fellows were sad to say our last good byes to the children. Although I know if a friend of mine was reading this she would think, "Oh you hated this this student, and now you're all proud and stuff?", I really have to say that I am PROUD of those kids. Bottom line though, WE ALL CRIED. Some students cried more than the others. (Ok, most cried)

One of the most memorable moments of the day was when all the kids from three grades formed sort of a goodbye committee, and were following the bus till as far as they could. One of the kids ran all the way till the turn to see us off, and that just brought tears to my eyes.

I never thought it would have ended that way. I really did not. I did not expect that we would cry the way we did. I did not expect the children to care about us leaving at all. But they did, and that translates to a lot of things. And even though I think I felt bad about myself for not succeeding at many times, what the student actions were, really makes doing what I am doing right now so much worth it.

I just have to say to these kids to be AWESOME, GREAT and not to forget their dreams...

The New Chapter

Posted by Vicky Zhuang Yi-Yin in Harbinger's Day

Here's a little update on my life. I've finally come to another city, and now I am no longer in the comfort zone, where I had my friends and family taking care of me. Where they don't have to bear my idiocy and my childishness, even my scolding and bickering.

I took my first plane ride alone - the last one I had was when I was 8 and I barely remember anything about it. It was bumpy, and Lahore's "tears" delayed my flight by more than an hour. I still stand that Lahore was sad to see me off. Haha.

So now, I'm here, in Karachi. It feels like a really really big city. I got this really really interesting job, and now I am getting trained for it... Looking forward for Monday to see what it can throw at me. I'm completely cool with the arrangements that the organization has done for me and other out of station fellows. And to all those who think that it isn't safe here, more on that later. :P

Signing off...
Vicky Zhuang Yi-Yin

Losing it All...

Posted by Vicky Zhuang Yi-Yin

I just did something really stupid last week. I thought of moving all my poetry and stories into my external hard disk, which I thought was a safer place to put them. As it turns out, I pulled the USB cable before the transfer could be completed, and so, I lost everything. EVERYTHING!

I spent half of today trying to figure out how to fix the mess I got myself into.

For the stories I could restore most of the work, but for all my poetry, let us just say I was lucky to have made back ups of my completed poems, and unlucky for not doing the same for the poems that I had typed down so I could work on them a little more...

I feel like I just killed my own kids. I feel horrible, not to mention I had a major panic attack because of the idiotic stunt that I pulled on my own work. URGH!

Silence...

Posted by Vicky Zhuang Yi-Yin

Note: I wrote this a really really long time ago... in 2005 for a class assignment... so excuse the immaturity if any

___________________________________________________________________________________

To me silence is threatening...

Before every storm there is stillness and silence in the atmosphere. Every animal can smell it but humans can tell it.

It is always silent in the dead of the night. This is the time when thieves think best to raid venturing people in the streets. A dead man says nothing and is silent as people bury him. In a funeral people silently pray for the departing person. When a person wants silence it must be because he or she is sad. Remember, both silent and sad begin with the word ‘S’.

People say “How can a person stay silent forever?” When they know that the other is upset about something.

This is true. A person’s emotions always make the best of him and he can never stay silent.

There is noise everywhere. There is the jungle music in the jungle, the buzzing of busy bees, the chattering of a lady and the busy streets of the city, the list goes on and on. A human is filled with joy when he or she hears the voice of a companion. A mother, at the time of birth giving is never happy about silence.

As a child, I remember I used to put on music before sleep because I could not stand the silence before bedtime. I would not be afraid of the creaking of crickets at night. Instead, I would be afraid of a room without the whirring of the fan, the scrapping against cardboard made by rats and the wonderful sound of my mother.

How can one live in silence? Thinking of it sends chills down my spine. The ghostliness of an empty silent house has no movement inside and no life. A silent house is always targeted to be a haunted house. Silence, in my opinion, signifies lifelessness.

I remember once, when I went to Murree, the place where I was staying had children. But at night, when they were sleeping like little angels, I felt as if something was behind me. It was because of the silence of the house.

I understand that silence is also peaceful but even when the hippie style was ‘in’, I guess that the people who loved silence, must have put on slow and low music in their homes.

A graveyard and my house share the same wall on the side. I dare not look at it whenever I cross it because of the silence. I do wonder how the people, who live in it, tolerate the silence.

What silence is; I do not know. What I do know is that my sixth sense always clicks when it occurs. The big mystery of what silence is will always remain a mystery, just like life itself. It is not a thing, it is not a feeling, nor is it human or an animal or a spirit. Perhaps one day philosophers might figure it out. But I care less. The thing I do not feel is yet a feeling and that I cannot stop. Silence is silence and it will stay like that forever.

Yi-Yin Means...

Posted by Vicky Zhuang Yi-Yin

1. A woman with really strong moral character (my dad revealed this to me only recently)

2. Dew drops on baby grass at dawn (my dad told me that when I was younger)

I'm Chinese, but born in Pakistan, but my family is still very traditional, and insisted on giving me a Chinese name, and thus Yi-Yin, from Vicky (Victoria) Zhuang Yi-Yin. It is also the most difficult to write characters in the Chinese writing, and rare names, apparently my dad told me it was a name only royalty used in ancient times. I chose this user name because it was unique and just me and I liked the name. The Chinese characters of this name is also very interesting. It consists of two characters. Yi's character contains the heart and human characters in it. While Yin is written in such a way that at the heart of the character, there's a character symbolizing 'big', and I call it big heart. So, I kind of feel special about this name, and am proud to be named that. I wish I could show you the characters but it's impossible because I can't find the characters anywhere online.

The Best 23rd March EVAR – An Epic Tale of Epic Randomness

Posted by Vicky Zhuang Yi-Yin in Best Day Ever, Corpse Bride Family, Just for Fun

23^rd March 2011: I just can’t believe that I would ever say this. It started off when the entire team decided to hang out on a Sunday, but apparently someone figured out that there was a holiday before that. Although some people couldn’t make it, it turned out awesome.

We did all those things that desis do on a public holiday and hung out at places where desis do. I truly had a Desi day in my last semester, without having the need to dress up though.

Detours and delays made us late, but it was worth it.

We had an addition to our team today: little Shakir from Shakir. I miss Aamna’s epic face when we all had a glimpse of Shakir’s new look, oh and Sarah decided to look like someone from our near history. Awais had his hair pinned up for some reason, and his contagious disease of confusing left and right got to me and Sunny at the end of the day. Amel’s surprise was an epic fail, due to poor miscalculation of time, but then we went straight to her home to make the day complete. Welcome back to Lahore Amel!!!

Amin was sleepy as usual, and Sunny was enjoying his Gay Shah ways at his hostel, and wouldn’t come out until Hamza called him. Samara and Fatima ditched us at Jinnah Gardens, and Hashim was trying to be a model at Shalimar Gardens. And we shouldn’t forget Shakir’s spontaneous randomness. Oh and the paper chicken surprise for Mathour was the funniest.

Everything we did was random and spontaneous. Who could ever forget Shakir jumping into the filthy canal.

So here’s how the story goes:

Shakir picked me up at 10 from Main Boulevard, and then we went to Hamza’s place
Made a detour, and went to Aitchison to pick a kid up
Went to 14 Tollington
Went to Multan Road to pick Awais
Went to NCA’s hostels to pick Samara, Fatima, Mathour and Sunny
Went to Badshahi Mosque for breakfast of Halwa Puri and Lassi (Shakir drank two glasses! And for some reason Fatima was competing with him on who could drink the fastest.)
Said goodbye to Amin, Umer, Sarah and Hamza, apparently Hamza’s stomach was upset, and Sarah and Amin had to go home
Went to Mariam Zaman’s mosque, where we took pictures, while Shakir was praying
Shalimar Gardens! Epic funniness, and realization that 10 year old kids are way too advance than we were, when we were 10
On the way to drop Arham, the Aitchisonian, and Shakir randomly, purely randomly, stopped the car and said, wait a minute, and then jumped out of the car, walked across the road, and took off his kameez and jumped into the canal, which by the way, according to Awais, is filled with sewage water from the near north. Oh and Mathour followed
Dropped Arham at Aitchison
Lawrence Garden’s tour, and the quest to find the epic-est gol gappas, and that’s where Fatima and Samara ditched, when we climbed up the hill to see the TREE!
Then Hashim and Sunny had this weird urge to eat Chinese food, and after discussing what to do, and whether or not to give Amel a Daewoo surprise, we went to Tao Yuan Chinese Restaurant, or as bhaiya puts it Humayun Restaurant
Went to Readings after sending Awais and Aamna in the rickshaws to their preferred destinations
Went to Daewoo for the epic surprise which turned out to be an epic fail, because we were 10 minutes late
Went to Amel’s place
Home
Chatted for almost another hour with Shakir and Amel on Facebook

And that’s how my day went. I’m not going to give too much details, because all the epicness is in my brain right now. Thanks guys for a wonderful day, made me look at Lahore in a different way. Oh and Awais’ history lessons and architecture lessons were interesting too!

Random quotes of the day!

Making awesome since 1989 – Shakir
Right! (while pointing left) – Awais
They could be land rich bankrupt aristocracy without a penny to their name! Just like you… and me (while walking down the steps, spoofing Hamza) – Hashim

At Shalimar Garden: Apparently there weren't enough poles...

Warning

Posted by Vicky Zhuang Yi-Yin

Alright guys, so the previous entry "Flipside of Friendship" was just a thought about friendship. I was thinking about the dark side of friendship, following the recent themes of this Harbinger's Diaries.

Flipside of Friendship...

Posted by Vicky Zhuang Yi-Yin

When I click on the word friendship, this is what I get on the synonyms’ tab: companionship, amity, acquaintance, comradeship, camaraderie, closeness, familiarity and alliance. But the true meaning of friendship is just the horrible truth, and the horrible opposite; it means hurt, it means pain, it means being ready to be put down by your own friend, and it could also mean being ready to be back stabbed, and in the most painful manner as well.

The main thing that causes most of the problems is the fact that one friend could ask for the other to give in to a sort of trust. However, that’s not true. This trust is in fact the key that opens up the Pandora’s Box of all friendships. It opens up to expectations that are to be broken, secrets to be exposed and all in all, pain of loneliness. Friends aren’t there to be forever. We all know the meaning and the phrase really well by now: everything comes to an end.

There’s not one thing that is not immune to this ending disease. Even friendships are ended. A friend is someone whom a person gets really close to. A person learns to look up to his or her friend. A person trades secrets with a friend. He or she also learns to expect that the friend would be there for him or her. What happens when it all comes crashing down?

Everyone knows what happens, yet we are all prepared to accept that downfall, or do we? Some people would just crash and burn, withdraw themselves from ever making friends. Others, who don’t give a damn, just seriously don’t give a damn. To them, it is a person who enters into their lives and leaves. True there might be some sort of disappointment, but it can be shaken away easily too for them. Those who cannot shake it away are the crashers and burners. They can stay hurt forever, and never move on.

What if Vampires were Real?

Posted by Vicky Zhuang Yi-Yin in Economy, fantasy meets reality, financial crisis, humans, Paradox of Thrift, problems, problems of the economy, Recession, Social, Vampires

If vampires were real, what would our world be like? Would we be cowering in the shadows, masking our scent and donning religious symbols all over us? Would they look like what they have been designed to look like: colorless, faint, beautiful but dead?

For all we know maybe they really do exist. They're already in our systems. They're already sucking on the life blood of our economies. And the major blame of this so called "recession".

It's us.

We're the vampires of this so called fantasy. We've been sucking away the blood of the economy, hoarding it and not allowing it to flow. Our collective logical thinking brought about one big problem, the paradox of thrift! And still we won't start to let the blood flow unless we see others do so. No one will start the move. We all want to save it for ourselves. That's what we are. We are vampires in this world economy.

Ode to Ye, Oh Wagers of Wars By Vicky Zhuang Yi-Yin

Posted by Vicky Zhuang Yi-Yin

Ode to ye, oh wagers of wars

Lakes of blood and ponds of tears

Cries come thundering to your ears

Yet ye wish to start more wars

What is the logic behind your heart?

Bring forth the requiem for the dead

The innocent, the people all full of dread

They shout their fears yet ye dost not hear

Their voices quiver to your hushing words

Oft not reaping desirable results

Oh pray, oh wagers of battles for long

What about the graves piling day by day

Of the men and women and children long gone

What of those who still survive seeing today

Souls now shaken and hearts left fully astray

Seeing with eyes and hearts all open

Pain; our price to see it end

Oh wagers of conflicts, see the strife

And please doth lead us to hope and peace

Oh pray you dost lead us to a better life…

By Vicky Zhuang Yi-Yin

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

Vicky Zhuang Yi-Yin | WritersCafe.org

Posted by Vicky Zhuang Yi-Yin

Vicky Zhuang Yi-Yin | WritersCafe.org

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:

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
Clothing: Yes, we do need to be clothed, not only to be warm but to be human
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
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!
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.

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.

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

Social Issues and Their Understanding By Vicky Zhuang Yi-Yin

Posted by Vicky Zhuang Yi-Yin in Issues, Social, Understanding

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