GANGWON STYLE!

Last Fri (13 Jan 2013) was quite an eventful day.

As part of my training in the Weapon X project, I went for yet another operation on Fri (a minor one this time: it was the affixment of abutments).

Since it was day surgery, I tottered home from the National Dental Centre after my surgery in some degree of pain.

But before I entered my home, I checked my mailbox out of habit, and I found I had mail.

Ergh, I thought. Bills and the like.

But wait – it wasn’t just bills. There was a letter from the National Arts Council.

Was it the reply I had been waiting for?

Letter of Offer: Participation in the 2013 Toji Writing Residency, Wonju City, South Korea

It was! Ladies and gentlemen, I am going to Korea from 1 Apr to 31 May 2013 as a Writer-in-Residence at the Toji Cultural Centre!

I’m extremely happy because my career plans/plans in general for this year are slowly falling into place.

I’m also very excited because I’ve been reading what others have said/blogged about Toji and it sounds extremely awesome!

Check out:

I’m looking forward to Korea and I’m also keeping my fingers crossed that I get the next residency I’m applying for.

Wish me luck!

P.S. I forgot to mention this: another good thing about receiving the letter on the day of my surgery was that it helped quite a bit with the pain.

Well, I might’ve imagined it, but hey – a little bit of endorphins never hurt anyone (pun intended)!

P.P.S. An ex-colleague had a very interesting contribution to make following my announcement about me being awarded the Residency on Facebook:

OPPA GANGWON STYLE!

Lollerskates.

On culture.

Eight Plays by Huzir Sulaiman.

Found the bit that I like the most:

It angers me when after hundred years of importing aspects of other people’s culture some politician in a 4,000-ringgit Italian suit complains about Western values and such-and-such a thing is not from our culture. Our culture is everybody else’s culture. We’ve never had our own. You can’t arbitrarily draw a line to freeze its change and growth. And it angers me when people like Thomas Thomas expect me to be original, when in fact to be Malaysian is to be derivative. Deal with it and grow up. Would you like some coffee? No? It’s Colombian.

    — Huzir Sulaiman. “Notes on Life and Love and Painting.” Eight Plays. Kuala Lumpur: Silverfish Books, 2002. 135.