Rolleiflex Mistake in Nouvelle Vague (2025)

Nouvelle Vague (2025), directed by Richard Linklater, is a movie about a movie, reenacting the making of Jean-Luc Godard's landmark 1960 film, Breathless (French: À bout de souffle, literally: 'out of breath').

Frank Cicurel plays Raymond Cauchetier, who was set photographer for Breathless and many other French New Wave films. You can see some of Cauchetier's original photos here, shot with a Rolleiflex twin lens reflex (TLR) camera.

As this Guardian interview relates:

Later when Henri Cartier-Bresson suggested he work for Magnum, [Cauchetier] refused to buy the required Leica, sticking with his trusty Rollieflex [sic] that had so often survived being dropped in the Mekong river, thus forfeiting his chance to work for the agency.

Linklater's movie is obsessively attentive to period detail, and of course, Cauchetier is shown using a Rolleiflex (the still below – and all others in this post – are from Nouvelle Vague).

We then see the scene he is photographing:

...and also the image through the Rolleiflex's waist-level finder:

But wait! A TLR finder is laterally inverted, and this image is not. Aubry Dullin, playing lead actor Jean-Paul Belmondo, is on the left – both in the actual scene and in the finder.

Funnily enough, a subsequent scene doesn't have this error.

Here, Belmondo, in the white shirt, is on the right in the scene:

...and on the left in the finder, as it should be.

I'm guessing the TLR finder image was composited in post, but I have no explanation for why it would be correctly oriented in one scene but not in the other. Maybe they left it in just so that pedants like me could discover it and feel smug.

In This Economy? (Uno Reverse Edition)

I recently posted about the meme phrase, "In this economy?" The meme's implication, as KYM puts it, is that "the state of the economy is too negative to take part in a given task."

While watching this Japanese movie called Thermae Romae, I came across an amusing (unintentional?) reversal of the phrase. The hero, a bath-house architect in ancient Rome, is worried about finding work, and his friend says:

* * *

Two years ago, I pondered starting a new blog, perhaps on Substack. And I said that if I were to do so, it would be a photography blog.

Well, I have indeed started a new blog, and on Substack, but it's about videography – something I hadn't yet gotten into when I wrote that post. I already contribute to 35mmc, which serves as an outlet for my writing about photography, so I don't feel the need for a photography blog. But these days I'm dabbling in videography and video-editing, and I sometimes have things to say about it.

I'll continue to write here as always, but if you want to check out my Substack, here's the link.

Immigrants

Voja Mitrovic – a darkroom printer who printed for the likes of Henri Cartier-Bresson and Josef Koudelka – was born in 1937 in Foča, in the former Yugoslavia. His father was killed in the war when he was only four, and he arrived in Paris in 1974 with one hundred French Francs in his pocket and a backpack full of clothes and sausages.

Photographer Peter Turnley has a great story about how Mitrovic helped him get a job in a Paris photo-lab. Helped is an understatement; if you read the post, you'll know what I mean. Anyway, at the end of the story, Turnley says:

I took Voja aside, and said, "Thank you. I will find a way one day to thank you for this!" He looked at me and said, "I was an immigrant also. I know what it means to need work – we need to help each other!"

I've been an immigrant in various countries for most of my adult life. I was fortunate to have a vastly more comfortable financial cushion than Mitrovic, but I have frequently received help, in many different forms, from fellow immigrants. I like to think I have helped them too, when I could – both friends and strangers.

Last year, I asked my college friend Indro – who, like me, is an Indian immigrant to Singapore – if I could stay with him for about a week. I followed up with something along the lines of "No worries if not, I could stay with one of my other friends too. But I thought I'd ask you first coz you have a spare bedroom."

Indro said, "Even if I had just one room, you're always welcome to stay with me."

The dynamic between us being what it is, I deflected with silly humour: "If you want to sleep with me, you can just say it!" But privately, I almost teared up, and I know I'll remember his reply for a long time to come.

(See also, People on the Corner.)

Fuji X-E5 Video Settings

When I got into videography two years ago, I had to absorb a lot of technical information in relatively short order. At the same time, there were various other topics which I knew I should know about, but which I put off to a later date because they seemed less interesting, or in some cases, mind-numbingly boring.

One such topic was the question of video settings – the choice of resolution, frame rate, codec, bitrate and so forth. For a while, I got by using my camera's default settings with some tweaks, but this week I finally decided to take matters into my own hands and did a deep-dive.

My goal was to figure out the best video settings for my own needs (emphasis on my own), set up my camera (Fuji X-E5) accordingly, and hopefully leave them largely untouched for the next few years. Set and forget, as they say.

That said, I don't want to completely forget this hard-earned knowledge, so I thought I'd set down what I learned in a blogpost. The topic is frankly rather dry, but as with my mechanical keyboard posts, this post is mainly for my own future reference. If it helps anyone, that's a bonus.

The video settings that I was looking into are resolution, frame rate, codec, chroma subsampling, bit depth, format and bitrate.

The way I went about this was to (a) do a bunch of internet research (the best sources I found are Video Bitrates and Export Myths by Jarle Leirpoll, Pal2Tech's guide to shooting video on the Fuji X-T5, and Understanding Video Formats and Settings by Canon), (b) shoot a series of 6-second test clips of my cat at various settings, and (c) analyse and compare. You can see two of the test clips on my YouTube: Full HD and 4K. And here are thumbnails of all seven clips:

Some caveats: These are short clips, with soft, consistent lighting and relatively little movement. The camera was on a tripod, and the microphone was muted. Results can and do vary when clips are longer and have more going on. Also, my comparison is based on my own camera, display environment, hardware resources and subjective preferences. Your mileage may vary.

As an aside, did you know that you can right-click on a YouTube video and bring up "Stats for nerds"?

Going forward, the settings that I plan to use on my Fuji X-E5 are:

Resolution: 1080p Full HD at 16:9 aspect ratio

Playing back the straight-out-of-camera video files on my monitor (Dell E198WFPf 19-inch 1440×900px widescreen LCD), I actually can't see a difference between FHD and 4K. When uploaded to YouTube, I can see a slight difference – see the clips linked above – but not enough to make me want to shoot 4K for personal projects (as opposed to paid work).

Shooting and editing 4K requires significantly more storage and processing power. For example, my 6-second-long 4K file is 139 MB, whereas my FHD file (other settings being identical) is only 51 MB. 4K also requires faster memory cards, drains the camera battery and increases the risk of overheating. So FHD it is.

As for aspect ratio, the only two choices are 16:9 and 17:9. The former is more common, and anyway if I want a wider ratio, I can always crop.

Frame rate: 24fps

Online video content on platforms like YouTube and TikTok is often shot at 30 or even 60 frames per second. Some people feel that faster frame rates look smoother or cleaner. Higher fps video is also more forgiving of camera-shake. But I prefer 24fps for its more cinematic look and smaller file sizes.

One downside is that my phone (Google Pixel 6a) shoots video at 30fps by default, and doesn't offer 24fps. So if I use both phone and camera footage in the same video, I might need to slow down the 30fps phone clips to 80% speed, or risk dropped frames. But such is life.

Codec: H.265 Long GOP

When it comes to codecs (video compression formats), my camera offers a choice between H.264 and the newer H.265 aka HEVC. H.264 is more common and widely supported, while H.265 compresses more efficiently, resulting in smaller file sizes with the same quality. H.265 does require more processing power for playback and editing, but so far, my computer seems to be up to the task. If I subsequently run into problems, e.g. with longer videos or more intensive editing, I might switch back to H.264.

My Fuji X-E5 only offers Long GOP, while some other Fuji models also offer All-Intra. That's okay, because Long GOP would be my choice either way. There's one situation, though, when All-Intra would be nice to have: when I want to shoot at a shutter speed slower than 1/24 sec for a step-printing effect. This can be done with All-Intra, but not Long GOP.

Chroma subsampling: 420

The choices here are 422 and 420 (often written as 4:2:2 and 4:2:0). With 4:2:2, you get slightly better quality – a negligible or perhaps indiscernible improvement for my purposes – at the cost of slightly bigger file sizes. More importantly, the free version of Da Vinci Resolve, which I use for video editing, only supports 4:2:0, so that seals the deal.

Bit depth: 10-bit

H.264 is 8-bit while H.265 (my choice, see above) is 10-bit. Higher bit depth (not to be confused with bitrate, see below) means more tonal detail can be recorded, allowing for smoother gradients and more flexibility in editing. I suspect the difference is negligible for my purposes, but my H.265 file, as I mentioned, turns out to be slightly smaller, so there's no reason not to go with 10-bit.

Format: MOV

The only other option is MP4, which is also fine. But on my camera, H.265 encoding only delivers MOV (H.264 offers both MOV and MP4). For what it's worth, Pal2Tech also favours MOV because it includes slightly better quality audio (LPCM as opposed to AAC), but I'm not sure how much I care about that.

Bitrate: 50 MBPS

With the aforementioned settings, my camera offers bitrates from 8 MBPS to 200 MBPS. Online recommendations vary: Pal2Tech recommends using the highest bitrate available, but many others seem to think that 50 MBPS is plenty for FHD.

My file sizes for 6-second-long clips shot at 8, 50 and 200 MBPS (other settings being kept constant) are 12, 40 and 51 MB respectively. Much to my surprise, I can't actually see a noticeable difference on my monitor between even the highest and lowest bitrates. So I was tempted to just roll with 8 MBPS to save on file size, but it's possible, even likely, that higher bitrates will prove their worth in other shooting environments (e.g. more movement or challenging lighting conditions) and when colour grading. As such, 50 MBPS seems like a safe bet.

It makes sense to have good quality footage to begin with; later I can choose to export the edited video at lower bitrates if I want to save space, and if I can do so without noticeable degradation. On that note, I like this comment from u/CNCcamon1: "Your goal should be for the YouTube encoding to be the bottleneck for visual quality." Jarle Leirpoll says something similar, under Myth #4 about YouTube uploads.

To sum up, the video settings I plan to use in most situations are – say it after me – 1080p Full HD at 16:9 aspect ratio and 24fps, with H.265 Long GOP 10-bit 4:2:0 at 50 MBPS.

* * *

Blog note: A blog like mine should ideally display differently on desktop and mobile (responsive design). I didn't like Blogger's default options for "mobile view", so I left it in "desktop view" for mobile browsers too. But that makes the text-size very small on phone screens. In my mind, this was an interim solution – I thought that someday I would code and set up the mobile view myself. But realistically, I don't know when, if ever, I will do that, so tonight I picked one of Blogger's default mobile themes (Dynamic view). I still think the desktop theme, which I extensively customised, is far better. But if you're reading on your phone, as I often do myself, the blog should now be more readable than before.

2025 New Things List

Last year I wrote a post about a few first-time experiences and new things that I tried in 2024. This year I thought I'll do the same, but whether this will become an annual tradition remains to be seen. Some of the categories are repeats from last year (food, sports, videography) while others are new.

Black chicken

I had seen black chicken on sale in wet markets, but I hadn't tried it until my friend made this stew for me. Silkie chickens, as they are called, have white feathers, but their flesh and even their bones are black. They taste like regular chicken, just a bit gamier because they are usually free-range.

60 kg (132 lbs)

One time at a house party, my friend, who was a few drinks down, was describing the ideal body type that she aspires to. Legs like X, boobs like Y, and so forth (all celebrities, though I don't remember their names). After running through the list, she paused and added one more: "And Sroyon's metabolism."

All my life, I've been lucky enough to be able eat whatever I wanted and still be a healthy weight. I was underweight in college, but for the last ten years, I've been in the 57–59 kg range. But I always told myself that if I ever hit 60 kg, I'll do something about it.

In the last two months of 2025, I was socialising and therefore eating out a lot, and not playing sports as regularly as I did before. And sure enough, in December, I clocked in at 60.4 kg.

It's not concerning by any means – I did a body composition analysis recently, which said my recommended weight is around 63 kg – but if I do gain weight, it should ideally be muscle and not fat. So now I stopped taking sugar with coffee, eating fruit for breakfast, and exercising more. Nothing drastic, but this is the first time in my life that I am actively trying to lose weight. My metabolism is still fast, but alas, not what it used to be.

Badminton coaching

As kids, many of us went to classes for music, painting, etc., but it's less common for adults – at least the adults I grew up around. But the cool thing about being a grown-up, if you are fortunate enough to have some disposable income, is that if you want to learn a skill, you can just pay someone to teach you.

I generally like to learn stuff on my own – I'm doggedly sticking to self-study for Spanish, though I know I'd make faster progress if I had a teacher – but with badminton, which I play recreationally, I realised last year that I had hit a plateau.

My friend recommended a badminton coach, and after a few sessions with Anthony, my game has improved a lot. I have more to say about it, but maybe that's a topic for another day, and a standalone post.

I like the different flavours of shuttlecock motion-blur that you can see in the sequence below: an instant of stillness at the apex, slightly blurry as it drops, and a streak as it leaves my racquet.

MRT station video advert

I've had photos displayed in public spaces, but not video. Until last year, when my friend Emiri spotted – and reacted quickly enough to record – this advert at an MRT (subway) station. It features a clip from a video which I made for Sigma Contemporary Dance. Blink and you'll miss it!

Malaysia

I went to Malaysia for the first time last year, to play pickleball in the border town of Johor Bahru. In the older parts of town I saw some interesting signage and typography. Maybe I'll compile them in another post, but meanwhile I wanted to share this one which I particularly liked – a random metal plaque outside a Commissioner for Oaths office. The Chinese text, apparently, says the same thing.

Singapore, 6:55 am

A Malayan water monitor in Macritchie Reservoir, just before sunrise:

BTS phone pic by my friend:

Later in the walk (7:25 am, to be precise):

* * *

I've written before about songs which have what I call a subtle upping of the emotional stakes.

And then there are songs whose climax is not-so-subtle, or some might say, on-the-nose. One such song which I've been enjoying recently (sorry if this is too cheesy) is What It Sounds Like from the KPop Demon Hunters OST: My voice without the lies / This is what it sounds like.

Flycatcher Rescue

I was picking saga seeds in a dry gutter when I found this female yellow-rumped flycatcher, curled up against some dead leaves and only moving feebly.

She had no obvious injury, but seemed very weak, or perhaps in a state of shock. I found her just outside my condo, so I picked her up and brought her in, put her in a cardboard box lined with towels, and gave her some water in a little plastic tray. She drank it, but only when I brought it very close to her – almost dipping her beak in it.

I then called ACRES, which is a wildlife rescue NGO. They said they had no capacity, and suggested contacting the National Parks hotline. In less than an hour, NParks sent someone to pick up the bird and take her to a vet where, I hope, she will make a full recovery.

While I waited for the NParks guy, I took some photos.

Two years ago (to the day!) I had a dream about taking photos of a wild bird in my apartment. I told my friend about it at the time, so I'll quote my texts verbatim:

Had a funny dream
A duck flew in through my bedroom window
Mallard duck. Male, because he had a green head
I quickly closed the window thinking I would interact with him for a bit
Then I had the idea that when I opened the balcony door to let him escape, I would take photos as he flies away. On burst mode, multiple frames per second. To see the flight/wing pattern
So I was standing by my bed, changing my lens to a zoom
Meanwhile the duck was chilling next to me. I patted his head
And then he was doing something on my hand with his beak. The thing that cats do – biting but not actually biting, more a show of affection
But then suddenly he bit me 😳 And again I could almost feel the serrations in the beak and pain in my hand. I probably even moved my hand in my sleep. And then I woke up.

Labours of Love

Sometime back I saw a tweet by @pervocracy (the account has since been locked):

types of websites that exist anymore:
- algorithmic feed of whatever makes the rat keep pushing the lever
- we hope you enjoyed your 3 free articles
- ENABLE NOTIFICATIONS? SHARE LOCATION?? GET NEWSLETTER???
- labor of love by an actual person, last updated 2009

Fortunately, some websites from the last category still exist. And some – praise be! – are even updated.

Here's an off-the-top-of-my-head list of labours of love by an actual person:

• Pink Floyd's The Wall: A Complete Analysis by Gerald Scarfe
• The Fish List (fisheye lenses database) by Luca Vascon
• Coconut Stamps by Lin Yangchen
• Sheldon Brown's Bicycle Technical Info (now maintained by others)
• Typography for Lawyers by Matthew Butterick
• Ian's Shoelace Site by Ian Fieggen

I focused on websites made solely (or primarily) by just one person, as opposed to, say, Wikipedia, which is a collective effort. I also didn't include resources which are not websites per se, like this Google Sheet about mini PCs. And finally, the list reflects my own interests, but I'm sure there are many such labours of love which are still out there. If there are any that you know of – whether existing, or late lamented – let me know in the comments!

Singapore, 7:20 pm

The two photos were taken just a few minutes apart on Punggol beach, looking out across the Johor Strait (the lights on the right are from Malaysia). I used a 10 sec exposure for the first photo, and 1/250 sec for the second.

These are the first photos on this blog which were taken with my new Fuji X-E5 camera.

The Bronzeback and the Viper

I wouldn't call myself a herper, but I do often go on nature walks where observing and photographing snakes is one of my main objectives. When I first got into it, my herper friends were a lot better at snake-spotting than I was, so I mainly relied on them. But with practice, I've gotten better at spotting them myself.

I recently took my friend's daughter on a night walk in Pasir Ris Park, and in three hours we spotted no fewer than seven snakes (four different species: Oriental whip snake, painted bronzeback, dog-faced water snake and crab-eating water snake).

The photos in this post are from solo walks earlier this week.

An elegant bronzeback at Thomson Nature Park:

...and a gorgeous Wagler's pit viper just off Old Upper Thomson Road:

Cropped to show a close-up of her eye, as well as the eponymous pit organ (the hollow just to the right of her eye) which allows pit vipers to "see" radiant heat:

The photos above were shot with a Laowa 65mm f/2.8 macro lens, which I got last year. This year I also got a Guage macro diffuser, which I use with on-camera flash. Good lighting makes such a difference!

The shot below was with a wide-angle lens – not a common choice for photographing snakes, but when your subject is cooperative as this viper was, it can produce striking results. I used a Sigma 10-18mm f/2.8 with Raynox DCR-250 macro converter.

Singapore, 7:33 pm

We occasionally play pickleball at these very nice public courts at an HDB (social housing) estate in Ang Mo Kio. They're multi-purpose courts, so in the photo there are two sports being played in parallel: pickleball and sepak takraw.

The courts can also be used for badminton. I actually prefer badminton as a sport, but pickleball has contributed more to my social life – I've made some new friends and had fun experiences.

This is the first photo I'm posting which is taken on my new phone, a Google Pixel 6a, which has a 0.6× camera. I'll say a bit more about my new phone later, perhaps, and more on badminton too.

Movie Night

Muzi and I set up a projector and screen in a random muddy field, and watched a short film: Yi Yi (Time Flows In Strange Ways On Sundays) by Giselle Lin.

We were initially going to screen it at home, but it turned out that the projector we borrowed from my friend – Toumei C900 – is a portable model with battery life of over an hour, so we thought why not just watch outdoors.

We projected on a $10 foldable screen (also borrowed), strung up between two tripods.

It was a memorable experience – well worth carrying all this stuff, plus picnic mat, bug spray, snacks and drinks. Next time we should bring a power bank too, as all our devices were running out of battery (though we just about made it to the end of the movie).

It was a public space and we weren't breaking any rules, but somehow there was a sense (which added to the thrill) of doing something questionable or even forbidden – a bit like nightswimming.

There's something special about projecting a movie, as opposed to watching it on a display, even if the display has better resolution and colours.

Another friend who saw my photos said "this in itself looks like a scene straight out of a movie".

I shared the photos in my Instagram stories, and Meta AI suggested "adding a few friends to the woman's movie night."

I generally avoid using AI, but this time curiosity got the better of me, and Meta AI spat out the cursed image on the right.

The "friends", magnified for your viewing pleasure:

The Number of Hours We Have Together

The other day my friend Muzi and I were going to a mall for dinner. Her place is on my bus route to the mall, and we were trying to coordinate so she could get on the same bus.

The mall is about four stops from her place, so all this frantic coordination was for an 8-minute bus ride (as opposed to simply meeting at the mall). We should have known it was bound to fail, given Muzi's lack of yuanfen with the 145 bus.

I have another friend, Juliet, with whom I play pickleball at various venues around town. She has a car, and often suggests I go to a bus-stop near her place from where she can give me a ride. In some cases it would have been just as easy for me to go to the court directly, but if she gives me a ride, we get a bit more time together, which is nice. Maybe I'm growing sappy with age, but I find it rather touching – these little things people do to spend a few extra minutes together.

All this reminds me of these lines from For M by Mikko Harvey:

The number
of hours
we have
together is
actually not
so large.
Please linger
near the
door uncomfortably
instead of
just leaving.
Please forget
your scarf
in my
life and
come back
later for
it.

* * *

From anything by Adrianne Lenker: "Carol has a little if we need some / Joa has a ride if we wanna come."

The first line is probably a drug reference, but it makes me think of close-knit groups where you freely borrow and share and exchange stuff.

The other day Juliet messaged me at 7:30am, asking if I want to join a game at 8:30. I got out of bed, quickly showered and left the house. When I got there she handed me chocolate milk and a banana, saying "I figured you didn't have time for breakfast."

* * *

There are a couple of companies which send me photography gear to test and review. My contact at one of these companies made a passing reference to "other influencers", which tickled me because it implies that I'm an influencer too.

I told a few people about it, and they all said something along the lines of "Face it, you are an influencer." But Abbi had a different take:

Abbi:	Look at you moving up in the world Actually, I think this would be a downgrade
me:	😳 Downgrade from what?
Abbi:	Who you are and what you do

It's another example of seeing the best in me.

Hornbill

I see hornbills often enough, but somehow I never seem to have my camera on me, so in all this time I hadn't managed to get a good photo. This morning, one of these majestic birds came to perch on my bathroom window – so close that I didn't even need a camera. I took this photo with my phone:

I then ran to get my camera, and luckily he was still there, now perching on the rail outside my window – an even better location, with more light on his face.

Previous photos of birds at windows: sunbird and crows.

Trees and Mushrooms

Been a while since I posted, but you can always just decide that you're so back.

* * *

Years ago, when I visited Hyderabad as part of the Biryani Leg of my travels, I stayed with my friend Rao, who was nice enough to not just host me, but also show me around. He even took a day off work for a trip to Golconda Fort.

Rao said he hadn't been to the fort since he was as a kid, but he remembered a tree with a hollow in its trunk, so big that you could climb in. I was privately skeptical – many things seem bigger and more wondrous when we are kids, and revisiting them as adults can be disappointing.

But what do you know: the tree does exist, and is indeed big enough to climb into.

I later learned that it's a baobab, nicknamed Hathiyan ka Jhad (Elephant tree), and is over 400 years old. Baobabs are native to Africa, so this particular tree is believed to have been planted by Arab traders or wandering fakirs.

First we had to climb over the metal fence – Rao said it wasn't there when he visited as a kid – and then the tree itself.

...and then we climbed in. In the photo above, I'm sitting on the lip of the hollow, and in the one below, Rao has already climbed in. The hollow is even bigger than it looks from above – it widens out, and was big enough to accommodate us both.

* * *

Speaking of trees, there is a big one next to our pickleball court, which you can see in this post.

Tommy asked me what kind of tree it is. I wasn't sure, so I said I would check next time I went to play. Conversation from a couple of weeks later:

me:	I went there a few times since you asked, but I keep forgetting to check.
Tommy:	The tree will still be there :)

It's a rain tree, in case you were wondering.

* * *

I saw bioluminescent mushrooms again, this time on a night walk on the Mandai T15 trail. Unlike last time when I only had my phone, this time I had a camera:

We also saw a super cute moth. Unfortunately I didn't get a photo of the wings, so it's hard to identify the species.

Shunbun no Hi: Animals by Night and Day

The first colugo I ever saw in the wild was on a night walk in Bukit Batok Nature Park, led by my friend Xiaoyun.

Since then, I've seen several other colugos including this one, with a baby, in Lower Peirce Reservoir:

Lower Peirce Reservoir is also where I saw this female Wagler's pit viper, on a night walk with another friend, Kwang Ik.

A male Wagler's pit viper (they're much smaller than the females, and a different colour) was featured in a previous post.

Wagler's pit vipers are ambush predators, often staying in the same spot for days until they catch some prey. So I went back the next morning to get some daytime shots, and luckily she was still there.

Happy equinox, everyone!

Piscivore Coincidence

In Bishan Park the other day, I saw a grey heron standing in a stream. I was just thinking that if it took off, it would make for a good photo, and indeed the heron obliged, but alas, too promptly – before I had a chance to adjust my shutter speed. At 1/180 sec, there is enough motion blur that it's visibly unsharp, but not enough to look artistic. Oh well.

I saw some other piscivores including a stork-billed kingfisher (I took photos, but none good enough to be worth posting), other types of herons... and otters.

The otters and the heron were competing over the same stretch of water. I even managed to get them in the same frame.

I sent the photo to my friend, and that very same morning, she sent me a pic of a book that her daughter was reading (I Am Oliver the Otter by Pam Ayres, illustrated by Nicola O'Byrne):

Yuanfen

When friends who don't speak Bengali hear me talk, e.g. on the phone with my parents, they often remark that I sound more animated and expressive compared to how I talk in English. (I also think I'm more likeable when I speak Bengali, though it's hard to test this theory.)

Last night my friend Muzi and I were saying random sentences, first in English and then in our respective mother tongue (Bengali for me and Mandarin for her, even though we don't understand each other). Muzi also sounds more lively and eloquent in Mandarin, and it's especially evident when she says the same thing in English immediately followed by Mandarin – it's like her whole personality comes out. It makes me sad to think that unless we learn each other's languages, which is very unlikely, we have to resign ourselves to a lifetime of second-best communication, lacking some of the warmth, wit and nuance that we can express in our native language.

Muzi on my balcony

Sometimes with a concept that's particularly hard to translate, Muzi will just use the Chinese term without translation, trusting that I will get her meaning from contextual or other cues. One such example is yuanfen (缘分) which means a predestined relationship, fate or chance that brings people together. Wikipedia says:

although yuanfen is often used in the context of lovers' relationships, the concept itself is much broader and can refer to any relationship between people under any circumstance.

In fact, it's even broader than that. The context in which Muzi used it – my first encounter with the term – was, "I don't have good yuanfen with the 145 bus."

2024 New Things List

I've never done a year-end wrap type of post, but I was thinking back on first-time experiences and new things that I tried in 2024. I wrote about some of them already, like mechanical keyboards, dengue and kombucha (surely the first time that these three things have featured on the same list), but here are five more.

Eating durian by the roadside

I've eaten durian many times before, but not freshly-cut-open durian by the roadside. Since moving to Singapore, I'd sometimes see people eating durian at roadside stalls, usually at night, and it always seemed like a Cool Thing to Do. In 2024 I tried it not once but twice – first with my friend Muzi, at Wonderful Durian in Geylang:

...and later with three other friends at a stall in my own neighbourhood. It's every bit as fun as it looks. They give you plastic gloves because durian has a very strong smell (famously, it's not allowed on Singapore buses).

The durian experience with Muzi was right after we watched a fire-dragon dance at a Taoist temple (where I took this photo). It was also my first time watching a fire-dragon dance.

Crying in English

This one's a bit more sombre than eating durian.

Last summer, one of my close friends was diagnosed with stage IV cancer (she is still doing okay, and I'm an optimist – we both are – so we will see).

The day after her diagnosis, I was doing a publicity shoot for a contemporary dance company run by my friends Chiok and Guofeng. I'm friends with the other dancers too, and photoshoots are always lively and fun. But that day, during a break, I was sitting quietly on my own. Chiok asked me what happened. I told her, and she gave me a dramatic hug.

I think this is the first (and so far only) time that I cried in English. I don't cry much in general, and when I do, it's often on my own. I've occasionally cried with other people, but they happened to be Bengali, so I would be talking (and crying) in Bengali too.

Anyway the photos turned out well, and Sigma (the dance company) used them for their ongoing production, Streams Where Deer Drink.

Videography

It was also thanks to Sigma that I got into videography. It's a long (and somewhat amusing) story which I won't get into here, but in the space of one week, I went from someone who used his camera exclusively for stills and knew next to nothing about video, to shooting the dance trailer for Streams Where Deer Drink. And using a gimbal, which was also a first for me.

I then went on to shoot the trailer and some rehearsal footage (screenshot below) for another Sigma show, and I have some more video projects lined up in the next couple of months. Fun times.

Mini PC

I had a desktop computer in college. Laptops were expensive back then (or seemed that way), and I only bought mine after I got a proper job. Since then, I only used laptops.

My current laptop, an Asus Zenbook, is over nine years old. It's still fine for work (which is document-based), emails and browsing, but it struggles with photo editing, and video is virtually impossible.

I was initially thinking about getting a replacement laptop. Desktop computers, in my head, were either big and clunky, or petite but relatively expensive like the Mac Mini. But then I discovered the world of Windows mini PCs – a development which I was completely oblivious to. You tune out of the PC world for ten years, and look what they come up with. I feel like Rip Van Winkle awakening to a new world order.

I immediately went down a rabbit-hole of research, as one does, and emerged with a Beelink Series 5 Max.

I already had all the peripherals, but in my home setup, I used to plug them into my laptop. The Beelink, which sits under my riser, takes up even less space, and is more than enough computer for my needs. I can edit videos in DaVinci Resolve or large multi-layer images in Affinity Photo, all while listening to Spotify and with multiple browser tabs open. Ryzen 5 processor, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD, pre-installed Windows 11 – all this in a device the size of four CD cases stacked on top of each other. The future is here.

Pickleball

Finally, 2024 was the year I got into pickleball.

My friend Li Ling, pictured above, introduced me to a group which plays every day (though we go about once a week). I've never played sports in a group that has so much age diversity – we have people of all ages, from teenagers to retirees, and they are a fun, warm and welcoming bunch. We played with a guy in his twenties who used to be on the national badminton team, and a woman who is 74 but has a fearsome forehand smash. I might also start playing with another group in a different part of town.

Blog note: Last year I wrote that 24 blogposts a year is a good number to aim for. This year I wrote 44, which is the most since 2012! Still I will keep my targets modest. Once again, I would be happy with 24 posts in 2025. Happy new year!