My reflections of 21 April 2011 talk

I have just attended the talk on the anthropology of Hwa Chong first literature published book, in collation of every bit and pieces of writing of our seniors two to three years back. They named this book-TowerHill reclaimed but the original title is actually “Parnassus”, which is the hilltop home of Greek Muses, and the home of music, poetry, learning. But it is too difficult for non-poetry readers to understand this abstract meaning of the book. The front cover of the book is only plain black and white as they think that this looks elegant and simple. There is another picture of a person at the front cover of the book, with his upper part of the body having a clock face, resembling from the past to the future. Since this is a collation of works from two to three years ago till now, it would be a clever choice of an abstract art that stands out the entire theme of the book.

The book is split into 2 parts, the first part is talking about things that have more earthen elements such as our cultures and traditions whereas for the second part, it is talking about the natural progression elements for many writers, from a bad piece from the start till a good piece in the end. Remember the clock face that I have stated above? It is also got to do with this special point that I have stated. As a person progresses, they would be times they would look back. They would reflect on their doings? Is it beneficial to others? How can I be better? And many other questions that will come up to our mind. This is when a true learner would go through as we slowly see how naive and "horrible" of ourselves.

I have not known that a literature could have so much meaning after Joel Chang, one of the speaker asking us to flip to a page of 56 and look at that piece of work. It is talking about the culture of Chinese people dying off and I think it had succeed, especially the last sentence, when it speaks about not the clothes of the people, but they themselves. I was astounded by what we could learn, in terms of language, writing and lessons of life! He said that our senior got it from a inspiration after he went to his grandfather urn. Therefore, inspiration could be gotten from the experiences you have been through if you could think out of the box. With creativity and realism, a literature piece could be formed in no time!

There is another thing interesting in this talk. The publishing of the book is the same day as the arrival of the Japanese disaster. Therefore, they took this opportunity by asking us to buy the book at $10 so as to lend a helping hand to Japan and make us have a very deep remembrance of this book. Also, this action also shows an act of kindness that a Hwa Chong boy or any other person should have when there are such situations happening to other countries, and we do what we can to help others when they are in need.

There is one thing that caught my attention when I was flipping the book and saw the back cover. I saw this sentence, "Beauty and significance can too be shown from even the simplest expressions". It was then I was enlightened that a writing full of bombastic words and phrases may not be a very good piece of work. It is when a piece of writing with nothing but simplicity that a reader would really understand the meaning, experience and feelings when they are taking the author's perspective. This is what every writer wanted, bringing the reader for "a ride in the story."

Actually, although everything is ready for publishing, there is one more a writer must possess when they want to publish a book. That is nonetheless courage that one must have. Courage in a sense that you must not be sacred of being mocked at when readers read your piece, instead accept that you are not good enough and how could you improve from your piece that you give. It is when you overcome such fear of being mocked at, when you could truly be a professional writer as you have taken the first step out for success.

This is a very fruitful talk that I have been to and I am not regretting of having 30-40 mins on such a wonderful talk. It would be always stuck in my memory as I awaits for the next collection of TowerHill to be out. Stay tuned!