qiaoz and me

despite the fact deyi and me are the same person. we have different experiences with qiaos.

indeed i dun really dislike him (touch heart sompah), just bittersweet memories of a wasted chance, a failed acquaintance. in a way, i am deeply jealous of deyi....(horh)

we started off well. he was telling me how he took my essay and shared it with his british friends in Arts faculty and had a discussion over tea. he was telling me how excited he was looking forward to my studio. he was telling me how good the NUS system has offered him and us. he was brimming with enthusiasm.

then he started slinging the "some pple can only write but cannot design". and the rest of the personal vibes.

i tell katie. i could feel his disappointment. i wondered if his uncharacteristic angst directed at me is reflective of some innermost feelings. feeling that this young student represents the other extreme he had once sought. that this young rebel is moving down a path that he had himself saw it and knew it was wrong. in this young student he saw the someone he could and never would be. he saw the similarity in the passion for academia, but he refuse to believe that he would coach a student so similar to himself but yet showing total ineptitude for design. he cannot LIKE me. he cannot ACCEPT that. he wants to think we are DIFFERENT. katie gave her usual roll eye ball look.

i could sense not anger, but frustration. like a zen master seeing a student so close to enlightenment veering hopelessly away and trying desperately to bring him in line with obvious but overtly simplistic hints. only to see the student week in week out moving further and lost. a student bent on achieving HIS enlightenment but not THE enlightenment which qiaoz had seen and been brought up to. an impudent rebel against qiao's maverick hann (haha forgive the dramatisation hann). in one semester he could bring the salvation of only one. it is an obvious choice. I would have done the same.

i could feel confusion. if belinda's words that she often discusses abt their students is real, and thats y qiaoz thinks i am year rep or something (working in the self taught messianic duty of scalebar), he gets different versions of me from belinda and his own eyes. he would be thinking this student who professes his love for fay jones architecture (just like belinda) is unworthy to be brought to even some form of recognition by his wife. that SHE is wrong and he is out to prove it. it is not simple chauvanism, it is merely the fact that it is ME who advertised myself wrongly.

i could feel sympathy. his eyes said it all. "am i being too harsh on you?", "i am sorry lets start this discussion all over again" he is tired of what the studio had thrown to him whole of 3 hrs then here comes along his antithesis of a favourite student to push him over the top. as alvin notes, zihao always come student chirpily at the end of qiao's worst sessions with the other students who are habitual "make him pek chek pple". he is deeply apologetic. but the hurt is done.

i could feel desperation. that qiaos is not one good with feelings. a student from tsinghua means a strict upbringing in eliticism and ethos of hard work. that criticism will come harsher than favour. the belief of cane over the carrot. think about the contrast. belinda's exuberance and expressive demenour. qiaoz contemplative and controlled dignity. he struggles to find the kind words of advice, but he is not one of the sweet tongue. when he does, it is usually well prepared and deep down he feels it. he is merely blunt.

it was the worst crit. his eyes dispassionate and detached.
i was not his product, fend for urself...
i stammered.
only the kind eyes of ruzy's car and cheekiang held me up from breaking down...


at the end of the semester after return from melbourne. i bumped into him on the quiet long corridor. there is no escape.

we chatted. 15 minutes? casual. jovial. well wishes for my 4th year. well wishes for his hongkong stay and lauren.
we shook hands firmly. no sense of guilt. no sense of adversity. (perhaps from me, if there was any)
i saw him depart down the corridor.
it has come a full circle.


thanks for the teaching qiaos. i have learnt things more so than if u had treated me kindly.