I Saw Maggie Cheung (and other gloatings)

All right, just a general update because nothing deeply exciting has happened of late, just a lot of the general pleasantness that is my life. First off, in case there's anyone I know who I haven't told yet, it is fully spring in Edinburgh. There are crocuses everywhere, and daffodils, and buds on the trees... and tons of rain, of course, but I'm coping by reading Ottawa weather reports.

This week there's a Chinese Film Festival happening this week in Edinburgh, and Maya, Helen and I have bought week-long passes, six films for £12. On Sunday we got to see the exquisite Maggie Cheung, in person, introducing the even-more-exquisite In the Mood for Love and the most entertaining part was how completely different she looks in person. I mean, she was still stunning, but wearing an oversized t-shirt, baggy carpenter jeans and a paper-boy cap, she sort of looked like a 13-year-old tomboy.


Tonight we saw a three-and-a-half epic that you all must search out immediately, called A Touch of Zen. It was sort of a precursor to Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon except made in 1969 so secretly hilarious. Or not so secretly. The best part was the super-monk who saved the day and made the main villain go insane. Also, the fact that the review referred to one scene as "the flight of the Buddhists."


In fact, my life in general has involved a lot of cinema lately. There are two really good independent cinemas in Edinburgh that play a lot of international and local films - pretty much non-American, with a few indie or artsy exceptions. Last week I dragged Helen and Maya to see I'm Your Man, a Leonard Cohen documentary that completely counts as international cinema here because I'm totally not in Canada. It completely reinforced my abiding passion for all things Cohen, and also went some way toward legitimizing my country of origin to my much-cooler-than-me European friends. It's an uphill battle.

(I like to pretend this is still what he looks like... mmmm...)

Finally, Easter is upon us, which means a three-week vacation (or revision period) - two weeks of which I'll be spending traveling. I'm going up to Northern Ireland with my friend Anna to spend a few days at the Downhill Hostel, which is at the Norther-most tip of Ireland, on the longest beach in Ireland, with access to a nearby stable where you can arrange to go riding on the beach. After that, I'm going to Paris to visit Luc, my compatriot in nerdiness, with whom I will hopefully spend some more time in the Louvre. He's also been in Paris since September, and knows all sorts of hidden sides of the city that he's going to show me. Finally, I'm going to London to visit with Jessie's parents (who I have secretly adopted as my own) before coming back up to Edinburgh to study and pretend to be a real student for a while.

Well, that's it for me right now. Really the whole post was to brag about seeing Maggie Cheung in person. The rest is just incidental.