Creative Arts Programme
Portfolio
Joshua Choo (3.10)
Theme: Progress
Anglo-Chinese School
(Independent)
Creative Arts Programme Portfolio 2014
Index
Prologue- page 2
Poetry (I)
Work in Progress- page 4
Reflections- page 6
Eulogy in ‘F’- page 7
Reflections- page 9
Prose
Birthday- page 10
Reflections- page 12
Poetry (II)
Running- page 13
Reflections- page 15
Deluge- page 16
Reflections- page 18
Epilogue- page 19
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Creative Arts Programme Portfolio 2014
Prologue
Progress = regression?
I am Joshua Choo from Anglo-Chinese School (Independent),
currently in Year Three. This is my portfolio for the Creative Arts Programme in
2014. The theme for this portfolio is progress.
When I say ‘progress’, what do you think of? Of course; progress has
good connotations. In the Merriam-Webster dictionary, it is defined as:
Noun
1: a forward or onward movement (as to an objective or to a goal), advance
2: gradual betterment; especially the progressive development of
humankind
Verb
3: to move forward; proceed
4: to develop to a higher, better, or more advanced stage
Sounds good, does it not? But I would like to explore the uglier side of
progress; has progress, or can progress, lead to regression? Now, I am not talking
about technological or infrastructural regression; I am referring to the idea that
progress may mean losing things that make us human, or the idea that progress
may not even be necessary (when progress is defined as technological
“progress”). This portfolio covers and addresses these topics, among others. This
portfolio’s purpose is not to put progress down, or act as if it is something to fight
against. This portfolio is exploratory of the negative effects of progress.
The works in this portfolio include some work I have previously done,
along with some newer ones that I wrote quite recently. The first of these, Work
in Progress, is close to home; addressing the plight of foreign workers.
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Creative Arts Programme Portfolio 2014
Second is the poem Eulogy in F, which I wrote after reading about
Huaming, a city in China. Third is Birthday, the edited version of a prose piece I
won the Flash Fiction Contest 2013 with. Running is fourth, and reiterates the
messages of previous poems. Last, but not least, is the poem Deluge, which
covers an idea of connectivity meaning isolation from people.
I hope that this portfolio will be a good read.
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Creative Arts Programme Portfolio 2014
Work in Progress
You need us. You need our labor,
Our sweat fuels the growth of your roads,
Your buildings, your factories
And endless scaffolds that clamber into the air.
We flesh out your sterile plans
Into realities of steel and cement
With the days we spend manning metal machines.
We toil, trading time and tearing our muscles
For money, which we send back home.
And yet
You people
Stare,
And mutter as we walk past.
You people
Glare or shrug us away, like we're animals
Or something useless and gross and unwanted.
You people
Dismiss us as uneducated, poor, dirty.
Not all of us are uneducated
Or backward. Being less rich than you
Because of birth isn't a crime,
Last I checked,
And we're not dirty by choice.
I've seen the blogs, comments, posts
Slamming us because they're anonymous
And we can't fight back.
Slamming us about our continued presence
And what we do.
Oh, so being underpaid and having
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To break our backs for you,
To do every job you don't want makes us
Despised?
What sort of logic dictates your actions?
In any case,
We feed your insatiable quest
For progress, feeding your hunger,
Our families back home,
The growth of your roads and
Buildings and offices and malls
With our sweat, our blood,
Our tears.
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Creative Arts Programme Portfolio 2014
Reflections
This first poem was written in the persona of a foreign worker. There
has been some recent excitement involving them, namely the riot in December,
so I decided to write something that looks at their situation from their point of
view. I do not think that we should disrespect them, seeing as how they have built
so much for our country. They have fuelled our progression in recent years,
helping us to erect many buildings all over the island.
And yet, many of us sneer at them, complain about them, and write
discriminatory blog posts about them- many of whom are ill-treated despite the
best efforts of the government. I believe that the Little India riot might have been
a sign of their fermenting discontent coming to the fore.
So, how does this link to the theme?
We have regressed as a society if we ignore the plight of these people,
who fuel the growth of our nation’s infrastructure- and hence, progress. We
cannot dismiss them as less important. They are still human. They have
contributed a lot to our society. We could at least show them some gratitude.
If not, we’ve all regressed as people; and all for the sake of progress.
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Creative Arts Programme Portfolio 2014
Eulogy in ‘F’
Freed farmers flee fertile fields
For freshly fabricated flats.
Former farmland flourishes into
Flashing ferrous flesh, foundational frames
Filling formless, hollow furrows.
Full and fleshy like fresh fruit, faith
Fills the farmers' minds.
Free from farming, toil, labor. The
Flats are new, free for the farmers who
Freed their fields for progress.
Futures open, look optimistic as
Fresh flowers, full and fleshy with life.
Finally, the flats are full with
Families, friends. Fellowship.
Finally, modernization is here, as are
Fully-formed buildings, offices, hospitals. In the
Following days, weeks, months, years,
Ferrous skins flake and peel apart,
Fresh paint falls away. Once
Fresh, hope has now fallen, fractured,
Fled. Nothing more now, other than
Futile pleas for renovation, or for the old times.
Forlorn farmers stare out of the windows,
Failed expectations rotting away at their
Feet, full and fleshy with decay, like moldy fruit.
Gone now are the expectations.
Here are the tough realities, like rusted steel,
Unemployed children in internet cafes, and they can’t pay rent, or
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Thick metal sheets diverting gazes,
Gazes that would find
Those old, abandoned fields. The fields that
Fallow and fester beneath the city lights.
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Creative Arts Programme Portfolio 2014
Reflections
I wrote this poem after reading a news article about the Chinese town
of Huaming, which suffered an improper form of modernization. It was rapidly
developed into a city, but the residential apartments began to decay and fall
apart, and futures began to look bleak.
Granted, it may not be entirely fair to use the decaying apartments to
study the idea of progress, given the corruption that led to the houses being
flawed. However, this is a case of regression in progress. In my opinion, the
government ignored the people in their attempt to modernize and improve the
town. The government didn’t seem to take them into account when carrying the
modernization out; easing the transition in slowly would have been a better idea.
My point is that progress is supposed to address problems, to help
people. When progress is carried out, we cannot afford progress for the sake of
progress, or profit. The human factor involved cannot be ignored. Progress is
supposed to help people; in this case to improve living conditions and the quality
of life. The opposite cannot be allowed to happen in society.
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Creative Arts Programme Portfolio 2014
Birthday
The moon was orange that night. It was a bronze sickle in the air, a crescent
hanging in the murky sky. It seemed to be aimed at the green-painted house that
sat at the top of a road that ran up a hill, wedged as it was in between two others.
The moon’s cruel light joined with the streetlights’ sodium glare, illuminating the
old man sitting in the porch outside the house.
The old man struggled out of the red plastic chair that sat in front of the
door of the house. The orange light fell across his shoulders as he stood,
emphasizing every line and liver spot on his face. His feet shuffled into their
places in his threadbare slippers, and he limped forwards, painfully reliant on his
walking stick, until he reached his car.
Its black skin, once smooth, was pitted and dusty. It was despondent in the
moonlight, parked outside of the protection the porch would have afforded it. It
was old and rusty. Obsolete.
The letter had come that morning, informing him that he was unfit to drive;
the car was to be removed.
Ironically, it was his birthday that day.
He got into the driver’s seat, his hands trembling, legs stiffly folding into
place. He shut the door. The air grew stale, but he didn’t mind. He was
remembering everything it had been; a symbol of independence, freedom, the
fruit of his ventures. The memories of driving his children to school, his wife to
the market, then his grandchildren to parks. He only had memories now.
Those memories were failing him. So were his children.
Nobody had visited that day; everyone was too busy, too ready to ignore
him. All caught up in themselves. His sons, whom he had provided for, spent
sleepless nights on… all of them had left him behind for other things. Muttered
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excuses over the phone, promises to visit later. As if he was some triviality, an
irritation.
But he needed them then. He needed an explanation for all the legal jargon,
the footnotes. He needed to know if he could do anything for the car. He would
have been angry with their absence, but he was just too tired.
He clutched the steering wheel, reliving all those hours, days, years, on the
road. How he’d grown into the car. It was a part of him now, like any of his
organs, but of metal and rubber rather than flesh. Painfully, he couldn’t do
anything about its death.
He relived the morning; the feeling of moving through thick gauze, not
eating. Relived sitting outside the door the whole day, staring at the car. Relived
the sensation of his lips moving slowly at times, as if trying and failing to form a
eulogy, and that of moving to the car time and time again, tapping it vaguely,
imprinting himself into the dust on its skin. His wife insistently begged him to eat,
something in her voice broken and afraid. He would not look at her.
He could hear her now, inside the house, muttering. He could hear her low
voice, like the shudder of an engine, from somewhere, far away from him.
The old man stared, unseeing, out of the car’s grimy windshield, inhaling
the stagnant air. His stiff face shuddered, his eyes crumpling; and suddenly he
wept, crying for himself and his dying memories, his sobs caving his chest in, his
breaths exploding into the dead grey lung of the car.
The moon smiled sardonically, floating mockingly over the dead car, the
dying man, both ignored by the world that rushed around them.
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Creative Arts Programme Portfolio 2014
Reflections
This short story was my first attempt at writing flash fiction- a short
story of under 500 words. I edited it slightly to better suit this portfolio. The old
man in the story was inspired by my grandfather, who nearly lost his car. The
events in this story are entirely invented.
The central idea of this short prose piece is that of somebody who has
been left behind by others who are too wrapped up in themselves, in their own
progress. It is something that is all too commonplace now; we have become more
self-absorbed as people. We spend our time shooting off details of our lives into
social media, and some people are even losing the ability to socialize properlywhich is ironic, considering the fact that social media is one of the main culprits.
Those are topics that I will not elaborate on, though- there are enough articles
about this online.
I wanted to explore the situation of someone who’s been left behind
by his children, who have moved on and away from him.
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Creative Arts Programme Portfolio 2014
Running
He used to run to get fit.
He used to run to see how fast he could go,
to see what would change around him.
The scenery blurring and shifting,
as his steps hit the ground like a drumbeat.
He'd run, his breaths filling the airit was a canvas; his breath was paint.
He'd make masterpieces, trailing away into
The starting line, which was less
than an atom in the distance.
He’d stop,
panting breaths like waves, lapping and tidal;
An artist out of paint.
Then he'd run again.
The paintings fill the spaces
he runs through;
Many say it's an improvement.
His shoes hit the ground, once
twice, thrice, once, twice, thrice
To the beat of the wind
in his hair, his face, his lungs.
He doesn't stop, even now.
The waves break against the shore
he runs on. Sand hissing away into the wind,
Trailing tiny whispers.
The wind slaps his hood
Against his ears, clamping it to his face,
shutting his ears to the sea's
Shouted pleas: pleas for him to stop.
His muscles are now pistons,
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Tendons are cables. Steel made stainless and idolized.
His breaths paint over the scenery,
graffiti made easy. Remaking the world.
He runs, never looking back at the driftwood
he crushes underfoot,
or the natural art his breath covers.
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Creative Arts Programme Portfolio 2014
Reflections
This poem was originally supposed be written in the point of view of a
farmer’s son, one who ran, set in Huaming (see Eulogy in ‘F’). The metaphor and
the poem grew and twisted, and this was the result.
I cannot say much about the topic that I have not already said, as I
have already spoken on the problem of having “progress” for the sake of change.
To me, change for the sake of change is a very materialistic ideal, and a
very shallow one. We cannot ignore the constraints of our natural resources. We
have to keep in mind that they are finite, and that we cannot simply keep using
them up for unimportant things- such as new waves of smart phones.
The global volume of electronic waste has been steadily increasing
over the last few years; newer phone models are constantly being released,
leaving older models likely to end being discarded. Phones are thrown away by
the million every year, or are left unused. Hardly any are being recycled, and
shortages of rare-earth elements- which are utilized in smart phones and other
electronics- for future generations of electronic equipment are likely to occur.
This is one example of a finite resource we have; this sort of “progress” is
definitely a problem.
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Creative Arts Programme Portfolio 2014
Deluge
The invisible signals slice through the
air, clear creepers
winding and growing into
long braided tributaries, like nerves,
a sinuous sensory network.
Steel vertebrae knit your signals into
knots of broadband.
Everyone has a signal now, a veritable net, pulsing into
their sleek plastic screens, their
slick silicon wires.
This web of connection ties
everything together, binding you
such that you are free
to see anything you wish to,
to upload anything you want to.
Everything is so searchable, you don't
even have to waste your time
burning brain cells away.
Just type your question in
or use voice recognition if you
Don't want to type.
Your phone winks back at you.
Other people's lives, stories, knowledge
shower like water
off your face, pools cooling in your shoes.
All you want to do is
Send your own cloud into that
invisible, atmospheric weave,
rain your stories like
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a tropical shower into someone else's mind.
Disperse your photographs like water droplets
as if you're irrigating
a dust-crusted desert.
Isn't that all that matters?
No need for deep thoughts.
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Reflections
I wrote this poem after considering how connectivity might not equal
to human contact. The world is more connected than ever, but if we cannot make
proper contact with other people, it does not really mean anything. Everyone
being connected through social networking will not mean anything if we are
reduced to commenting on others’ lives, basing our happiness on how many
people “like” our statuses.
I am not complaining about social networking, or how much access we
have to the world around us. I appreciate it, and I’m not criticizing people who
use it. I am just trying to imagine a more dystopic near-future, where people are
only focused on themselves, and barely care about other things.
The internet is a great mass of information, overwhelming in its
volume, and is a helpful resource. I do not deny that.
However, we have to think less nowadays thanks to our “smarter”
smart phones, and we are less self-reliant. When we need to remember
something, we make a note of it in our phones. When you have a question, you
do not need to think- you search it up with your phone. Smart phones have also
altered the social norm- it is “acceptable” to stare at a screen when others are
talking.
This is what “progress” has done to society. I’m not trying to complain
or act as if I am above this, but I am simply bringing this forth as food for thought.
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Epilogue
Progress≠ regression
So, is progress a kind of regression? No. I do not believe that progress
is altogether bad; I obviously cannot put progress down, which is still a good
thing. Developing technology, science, or ourselves obviously is not bad. I am not
against progress.
However, progress can result in regression. That is the premise of the
works in this portfolio; that progress has nastier areas, and its own downsides. I
think that there are cons to almost everything. There are always two sides to one
coin; progress is both good and bad- though you cannot say which side outweighs
the other. It is both a guardian angel and a destroying demon. Sacrifices are
always made in society for progress. It is undeniable that humankind is a changed
creature when compared to what it was, say, thirty years ago, and that the world
has been altered by our efforts on a vast scale.
I believe that it is important for us to reflect on how things affect us
and the world at large- and that is what I’ve attempted to do here.
I trust that this portfolio has managed to highlight at least some of
the issues progress has caused, and has been a good read.
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