Shinjuku Incident / Departures

Shinjuku Incident was so-so. Departures was inspiring.

Japan is beautiful. In particular the city it was featuring in the film. I wanna live in a town like that. Fresh air, greenaries. Down to earth people.

I had feared the dead. Whether it's an animal, or human. I feared because I did not understand it. And because I did not understand, I may have portrayed disrespect in circumstances where I was supposed to be paying respect.

Two instances in particular.

The first, was granddad's. I was about 7. In Chinese funeral tradition, we're supposed to serve tea to the dead as some sort of paying our last respect. I simply refused. It's only fair on my part. I was 7. What the heck did I know.

The second, was Bambie's grandma's. We wanted to give condolences to Bambie. I remember one of her relatives asked if we would like to take a look of Bambie's grandma. I was apprehensive. I felt my whole being unwilling to accept that someone has passed. That this someone whom Bambie (whom we're closed to) was closed to has passed. In my desperation to show my utmost respect and at the same time so unwilling to accept death, I had muttered something along the line of "I wouldn't even dare to look at my dead hamster".

In my world, I'm pro-animals to humans. So what I was really trying to show was my utmost respect in comparison to what I thought was of my standard, which could have been easily misunderstood.

And now come to think of it, it was my ignorant and immaturity that led me to behave in such manner, even though I honestly did not mean to disrespect.

I hadn't been able to get over that mistake I made until Departures. Now, I've accepted that I was ignorant, and shall never make the same stupid mistake.

Fear feeds on ignorance. Stupidity feeds on fear. We need to learn to understand before we can stop our own fears. And I'm all for learning.