ramblings on Li Ming (and Heart) and homosexuality
moonlight chicken has so many things to offer in terms of technical beauty and interesting themes but what i cannot stop thinking about is the different ways they approach homosexuality in the story.
we have Wen who has a rainbow flag on his desk and pictures of him and Alan on the wall. Wen, who openly flirts with Jim and has no qualms talking openly about his one night stand. Wen, whose step father knows about his sexuality and is close enough with him to discuss his love life.
Kaipa we don’t know too much about. But his mom knows and is supportive and some of the vendors and the chicken family seem to know. But if anyone was questioning in what reality this show is set with all the class discussion and corona featuring, his part of the story shows that homophobia exists and he is worried about how he fits in with his own family, the expectations of his mother and possible the awareness that he makes the family he has “different”.
Jim is arguably even more visibly gay than Wen in terms of what we see throughout the show. He opened the shop with his ex, they prayed at the temple together and even though he objected due to proprities sake eventually they loudly declared their love to each other and the whole neighbourhood knows. Wen somehow feels like he is living in the remnants of a bubble: his circle of friends seems very queer, his closest friend and the whole gym seem to be all part of that as well. This only might change now with him questioning his work and breaking up with Alan: some gatherings he won’t attend anymore apparently.
And finally, we have Li Ming. At school he doesn’t seem to open up to his classmates on most things and additionally is in the closet. While there wasn’t anything alluding to homophobic rethoric being spread at school we can see how the heteronormativity gets to him and feel that there must be good reason as to why no one knows. And it could just be how Li Ming is judging the situation based on vibes, we don’t know. His mother is or at least was homophobic but at the same time he is raised by his gay uncle who is surrounded by other gay people. And I love how it feels like this might have given him enough security to be comfortable with his own sexuality but how it also isn’t enough to shield him from the world at large.
With so many great shows coming out of Thailand and most of them getting more and more political it just feels so real and 2023 to me that Li Ming is part of a generation that knows who they are but still have to battle with the shadow that homophobia has cast way before they were born.
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Your essay on Joong's underrated acting skills deepened my Joong appreciation so much, that I watched Mafia the Series, I'm watching Ploy's Yearbook (even though there is a serious lack of Joong so far), and I'm planning on watching The Warp Effect too. I haven't watched het shows in over ten years, so this is a big deal! 😂 I really liked him with Dunk in their shows, but MTS gave me another facet of him, because he's so timid in it, unlike in SIMM and HA, where he's (seemingly) very cool and in control. So thank you for making me a full time Joong (and Dunk) girl 💜
i saw this message first thing in the morning when i woke up yesterday and it instantly put me in a good mood!!! <3
YESSSSSS I'M SO HAPPY TO HEAR THAT
mafia the series might actually be my absolute fave thai het-show, it's just SO funny!!!! and the entire cast is so great, like, not just joong but the entire cast plays off each other SO well. and don't even get me started on gina virahya and her portrayal of anna kondra!!!!
you know, when i went into mafia the series i saw the poster and was like "ughh i really am gonna have to sit through this standard (overly) dramatic mafia show just for joong, huh. the things i do for my boy..." and then. AND THEN. you can imagine my surprise. i was crying tears of laughter throughout the show and i was actually laughing so hard that my mom made a comment about how she could hear my laugh in my room
beam is my loser boy and joong portrays him in such an adorably awkward way, i love it <333
and yes there IS a serious lack of joong in ploy's yearbook so far :((((
it was quite funny tho bc in the one scene where joong does show up i immediately recognized him by the back of his head, like!! i saw this:
and instantly went "OH there's my boy!!!!!" 😂😂😂
and i can't wait to see him with film bc film did extremely well with gun in not me and i feel like film and joong will also work together really well
you know, i'm always happy to turn people into full time joong (and dunk) girls!!!!!!
i've adored them ever since simm which i watched live from ep2 onwards. fun fact, actually: when i started simm i actually had no idea who they were (even though technically i'd seen dunk in bad buddy already, except i wasn't paying attention to the random high school bandmates and so i didn't actually recognize dunk and only realized later on ahahah)
aaaanyway, i had no idea who they were, right? and so in 2022 my mom and i spent two nights in prague during easter and in the evening we were in our hotel room and we were kinda looking for something to watch. and i was like "hey look, gmmtv has a new bl out and it looks kinda cute and fluffy judging by the thumbnails?? and like something that doesn't require too much brain power?? plus, there's also only two eps out so far, so we'll be caught up right away" and so we watched the first two episodes and then the two of us ended up watching every new ep together every week hahaha
i actually didn't really talk about it on tumblr back then and when you go back on my blog you'll see that there are hardly any simm post. but really, with every new simm episode that aired i liked joongdunk more and more. and especially once the characters started dating i was actually so in awe about just how comfortable joong and dunk were with each other and how they absolutely weren't afraid to touch? like, their physical affection was just so casual, like it was the most natural thing in the world to them in an "i'm-not-even-thinking-about-it-bc-it's-so-normal" kind of way and that was just soooo refreshing to watch?? i was (and still am) truly amazed
and when just a couple of months later, at the end of 2022 gmmtv announced joongdunk were gonna get another show together i got SO excited!! and also when it was revealed that simm was included in our skyy 2!!!!
and then hidden agenda started airing and then i was tagged in that tag game and then i went to watch joong's entire filmography and then i ended up falling into a joongdunk rabbit hole and here we are...
anyway, i have multiple agendas and one of them is turning people into joong fans and dunk fans and joongdunk fans sllksdfd
and my other agenda is getting people to watch mafia the series, bc it's truly a gem of a show!!!!
(speaking of agendas: the only thing that's missing in your message is you telling me that you approve of my fight for a sexy joongdunk vampire bl, like... that would have made the message and the influence of my joong/dunk/joongdunk blogging complete 😂😂😂)
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I think I cried harder today over my dad's jackets than I did at his deathbed. That was a miserable time of course, a memory that will likely be seared into my brain until I die, but I cried... I think a normal amount, all things considered. More than I ever usually do of course, but I typically don't cry At All. All this free crying is certainly surreal.
The jackets, though. I was put in charge of doing his laundry, because we don't want to pack up dirty clothes. I was expecting it to be unpleasant bc my dad's dirty clothes - gross. But really, it was much more unpleasant in that... those were his. It felt wrong to touch them. Felt wrong to treat his jackets as gross. Because they were just his jackets. They weren't even in the hamper. And then I was remembering him wearing them, and then I was crying. Again. And again. Weeping over these damn jackets.
Then I found a shirt on his bed that still smelled like him. It smelled like a Hug From Dad. And that set me off crying even harder.
In total, I think I cried like 6 times within 40 minutes. It took me that long to finish sorting the damn clothes bc I just. Was a wreck. Like, what are you supposed to do when you're living life like normal, vaguely hopeful bc you're taking steps to secure your own happiness, and then 4 days later you're sorting your dad's laundry because he fucking died. Suddenly. Without a goodbye.
And you have to worry about his lack of a will (even under an ideal situation, only 2 heirs and no conflicts between us, probate's a fucking Bitch), and arranging the funeral, and prepping his obituary, and picking out pictures, and writing a speech bc you want to talk at his funeral, of Course you want to talk at his funeral, but even just thinking about anecdotes you could share has you crying yet again.
I've cried more times in the past 3 days than likely the entirety of last YEAR. And that's WITH my cat, and uncle, and family friend dying. Those all hurt, my uncle most of all, & I was real fucked up over it. But this? This was my Dad. Likely the person I'd have named 2nd closest to me in my life, second only to my sister. He wasn't perfect, but he did so much for me throughout my entire life. All he wanted was to raise us to be happy and independent. And he accomplished it, we're getting by without him, but we still wanted several more decades with him. He was only 57. We should've gotten several more decades with him.
But here we are now. Playing investigators to his life, digging into all his shit, trying to find documents and take inventory of all his things, and learning Many things about him in the process. In his lockbox of sensitive documents, like his SSN and birth certificate and all that stuff, we found an old letter. About a decade old now, written in my hand. Right at the very top, we found that he'd kept the letter I wrote to him telling him frankly about my struggles and the things I wanted him to do better. He kept it. He tried to take it to heart. He looked at it again, sometime more recently than all the rest of the documents. That was on top.
His love for us is evident everywhere. The pictures he has hanging up all over the place, majority of them with us in them. The old fathers day cards placed on display in his bedroom bookshelf. The gifts we gave him, even stupid little knick knacks, placed around his apartment with pride. I wish we'd taken more videos of him. I don't want to forget the sound of his voice. I don't want to forget his smell either, the smell of a Hug From Dad, but I still tossed that shirt into the wash even though it felt like saying yet another goodbye.
It's the suddenness that hurts the most, I think. We were planning on having him help me finally get my license this year. My final words to him, the last thing he would've seen from me, were messages asking up on whether he'd called his car insurance company to make sure there wouldn't be problems. I should've called him more. I don't know if I'm going to learn from this.
I cut my 2 weeks off early to have time to grieve and to work on things for the funeral and settling the estate. The last thing I'd wanna do right now is selling fucking bubble tea in a job I already decided to leave. So here I am without a job, though with potentially two life insurance policy payouts to come. Inheriting half his 401k. Inheriting couches, knickknacks, keepsakes, paintings, art pieces, maybe even his guitar and other furniture if we can figure out what to do about space (I don't have room for this furniture, I don't know if I even have room for the couches, but God do I want to keep so much of this furniture). It has me even considering keeping one of his guns, just one. A tiny little revolver, it sits so comfortably in my hand. I don't even want to use it for anything. I just want to have it, keep it stored in a drawer with its ammo kept separate. I don't like guns, but this is a part of him. He loved collecting guns. He was about as responsible with them as someone can be, keeping them locked in a lockbox and impressing upon his children the importance of gun safety (I've known the basic gun safety rules ever since I was a little kid. Of course, of course, of course.) It reminds me of him. It's horrifically easy to have a gun in Indiana. I apparently don't even need a permit to carry anymore. (I have no intention to ever carry this in public.)
It's all a cycle. Business, grief, thoughts about my future. Round and round, like the most nauseating carousel in existence. I don't know how I'm still so functional. My skills with compartmentalization have been my lifesaver.
And im just thinking about the story my dad's best friend shared today. About a friend of theirs who lost her father. She reached out after hearing about my dad to share his words with her: "it's okay to grieve, but don't make his death your life".
He explicitly referenced himself in this, saying if he were to die suddenly that he wouldn't want us to define ourselves by it. Grief is expected, but he wants us to be able to move on. He's always wanted us to establish ourselves and make ourselves happy. He wouldn't want to be a weight holding us back from that.
So every time I start to feel guilty for thinking about having nicer furniture or using his life insurance payout to fund the rest of my college, I remind myself of that. Thinking about the material isn't a bad thing. I'm only human. And in the end, he'd Want me to be thinking about it. He never intended to die, certainly not without warning like this, so he would've only encouraged me being pragmatic about it all.
He only ever wanted us to be happy. So I need to do what I can to live up to that.
I love him. I miss him already.
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