ttheng's casual blog.

_Time to take off!_: Project Sekai Event Story Review (plus some comments)

Tue, 27 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

For a brief introduction of the game in question here, you may refer to this article.

The following review is a reproduction of the one I previously posted on the (unofficial) subreddit of the game, with some minor adjustments.

Some introduction about the event story

This article discusses an event story in the game titled Time to take off!, which was recently released on the global server of the game. It is one of the key stories centring around the street music unit in the game known as Vivid BAD SQUAD, and having Toya Aoyagi, who is one of its members, as the focus character of the story.

An archival recording (in original Japanese) can be found in the official YouTube channel of the Japanese server of the game, which is linked here and below.

The review

Initially, after I finished reading Episode 6 which is where Lloyd told VBS about Harumichi’s unfortunate first encounter with street music, I was kinda angered by how it paints street musicians as elitists when musical elitism in real life tends to revolve around classical music instead; it’s like blaming the victim. It also felt unsatisfying due to how lacking in context that recount was, especially how it may lead to the conclusion that Harumichi’s street music hate was just because “street music got the short end of the stick”, which would be really underwhelming.

However, I think that we should give the writing team a benefit of the doubt here.

Maybe Lloyd was actually an unreliable narrator who didn’t properly convey the full context of the incident (he’s not Harumichi after all, so perhaps he might’ve misunderstood what went through his mind back then).

Even if what Lloyd said was fully true, there is a massive time gap between that encounter and present day, so other things may have happened that contributed to this – frankly – drastic shift in Harumichi’s mindset. Even maybe, just maybe, (at least) when Toya decided to pursue street music, Harumichi already became a classical music elitist who hates every other musical genre.

Also, a sidenote, but while lots of the fandom think that Harumichi’s harsh teaching towards young Toya was because of his hate towards street music, I actually don’t think that it makes sense, as Toya actually liked classical music that time (as mentioned in Toya4¹), and only chose to quit and pursue street music (to get on his father’s nerves) when he was in junior high school because he’d had enough of the brutality.

I think Harumichi was just plain ol’ mean in his teaching LOL, but his street music hate was not the cause; I don’t even think they’re related. What actually soured his and Toya’s father-son relationship was, again, when Toya decided to quit classical and pursue street.

Another sidenote, I think that purism and elitism in classical music are two different concepts, as shown in young Harumichi: he’s already been a purist during that time, but (seemed to have) developed elitist attitude as time passes.

Nonetheless, whatever established so far in terms of Toya’s backstory and Harumichi’s character during previous events has been affected by this event; I think that’s for sure. However, considering the gaps in explanation of developments after that encounter, they’re still salvageable (in [the upcoming] Toya6² perhaps) if the writing team manages to fill in the blanks and justify the existing inconsistencies in a convincing manner – most importantly, keeping the previously established characterisations intact.

Some other comments

The following comments are my replies to other users’ reviews of the story. They were originally posted on the subreddit and reproduced here, with some minor adjustments.

I agree, they actually did a good job in resolving Toya and his middle brother’s relationship and making them come back to good terms. They really could have explored this newfound bond even more deeply, considering how LITTLE Toya’s actual siblings related content there is so far in the event stories.

~~The Tenmas are almost taking over man what are you two brothers doing~~

I don’t think that [Vivid BAD SQUAD (VBS) were] surprised by the jam session because it’s multi-genre, but because of the fact that the students responded by only playing musical instruments, instead of singing which VBS was used to.

Maybe this is because playing musical instruments is a whole other skill, which makes translating musical ideas in mind into actual instrumental performances in real time generally more difficult.

That’s my take on it anyways.

This is a common shorthand among the community to indicate a key story. In this particular case, it means the fourth key story event that focuses on Toya Aoyagi, which is titled The first concerto. ↩︎
Ditto, referring to the first footnote. ↩︎

Explore the Mind-Boggling Worldbuilding of ∃NA via _ENA: Dream BBQ_

Sat, 10 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This article is an entry for the January 2026 edition of BlogBlog Club Party, with the theme being ‘recommendations.’

Introduction

Just in case you, dear reader, are wondering why that capital E was written like that: yes, it’s on purpose. Nonetheless, the symbol ∃ and the normal capital E will be used interchangeably throughout this article.

This article is an introduction of ∃NA, which is a… well, I wouldn’t call it a ‘franchise’, instead it’s more like an online series. It also places the focus on the latest instalment of the series: a first-person adventure video game called ENA: Dream BBQ.

About the ∃NA series

First released online in 2020, ∃NA is an online work created by a team that is led by Joel Guerra, a Peruvian artist and animator, and is initially presented in the form of animated videos. It is renowned for its unique combination of webcore and weirdcore aesthestics, featuring the artistic style of computer operating systems and the Internet during the 1980s to the 1990s, added with a weird, surrealistic touch. Unnerving, but simultaneously fascinating.

Another notable characteristic of the ∃NA series is its incorporation of diverse languages and multicultural elements. Besides the English language, ∃NA also features characters that speak Japanese, Korean, Latin American Spanish and Russian, as well as an abundance of alien-sounding fictional languages. Speaking of dialogue, the conversations between characters in ∃NA are seemingly nonsensical, but after putting some thought into them, some meanings can still be deduced (well, more and less — at least those that matter enough in properly understanding the main plot), and this makes me highly commend the writer’s imagination and writing skills. As for multicultural elements, both Western and Eastern examples including Turrón, Korean masks and stone lions can be found in the videos.

Currently¹, the animated video series of ENA has released a total of four full episodes, with their stories being independent of each other. The series’ namesake is its very main character, a humanoid entity (not a human!) that resembles a black-haired young woman, bearing a signature Picasso-style double-coloured face.

Each episode of the video series mainly revolves around ENA’s adventures as she explores the bizarre world she is in, and we, the audience, get to experience the wonders alongside her through her first-person perspective. We can also watch the playful interactions between ENA and her Moon-like friend, Moony.

The following is the most popular video of the ∃NA animated series, titled Temptation Stairway. It is also this video that introduced me to this series when it showed up in my YouTube recommended video playlist one day.

With that said, in the game ENA: Dream BBQ, which this article will discuss in greater lengths, the main character ENA is controlled by the player (us), and features a different appearance, colour scheme, costume choice and personality, basically an alternate-universe ENA.

Background of ENA: Dream BBQ

After almost four long years of developmental period (counting from the release date of the game teaser video), ENA: Dream BBQ finally received its first release on 27 March, 2025 in the Steam platform (it is currently also the only available platform). The game has cross-platform support of Windows, MacOS and — most importantly — Linux; even on my Pop!_OS laptop, the game still runs perfectly fine!

The overall aesthetics and worldbuilding of this indie game, and, by extension, the entire ENA series, draws heavy inspiration from the exploration-adventure video game LSD: Dream Emulator, which was first released by Asmik Ace Entertainment in Japan in 1998, and is known for its freeform gameplay (i.e. no rules whatsoever) and psychedelic art style. As an experimental work that treats video games as a medium for purely artistic appreciation, LSD: Dream Emulator was considered well ahead of its time, and can be said to be one of the predecessors of open-ended exploration games as a whole.

However, unlike the entirely aimless gameplay that allows players to explore the psychedelic world built in the game without restrictions as in LSD: Dream Emulator, ENA: Dream BBQ introduces a twist to such gameplay by incorporating mechanics such as a pre-determined story and elements of puzzle-solving as well as main and side quests that help in progressing the plot.

Gameplay Walkthrough

So far¹, only the first chapter of the game (Lonely Door) has been released, and the subsequent chapters are still in the developmental stage. The first chapter is currently available for free, but the developers are planning to release the future chapters in the form of paid downloadable content (DLC). Thus, here, I will mainly only discuss the content of the first chapter, while minimising spoilers.

Once entering the game, the player is then directed to make some simple initial settings, before being brought into the very first part of the in-game world:

What’s next? That’s it. Yup, I’m not joking. The game really leaves no further explanations afterwards, basically telling the player, ‘Good luck, have fun exploring!’ What a bold gameplay design decision! Fortunately, thanks to the brilliantly crafted level design, (hopefully most, if not all) players will not get stuck there, and just quit in anger. Furthermore, this beautifully fits the philosophy of ‘freeform exploration’ as intended by the developers, which serves as a(n)² homage to LSD: Dream Emulator, their source of inspiration.

The player explores the in-game world with the role of ENA, while discovering key objects in the process. After interacting with these objects, the player either gets transported to another area, or is able to collect them for the purpose of completing quests.

Although the main character ENA is controlled by the player, players actually do not have absolute agency (or free will, one may say) in the game, i.e. it’s not the player acting within ENA’s body. More accurately, the player is supposed to experience what ENA is facing throughout the gameplay via her first-person perspective, albeit the exact sequence of actions may vary. In other words, ultimately the player’s actions are subjected to ENA’s thoughts, if that makes sense.

Besides, as ENA, players will encounter various non-player characters (NPCs), some of which don’t carry much narrative weight, while some others serve key roles in pushing the story forward and providing quests to players. Players can also experience the signature ridiculous dialogue, which contribute to the humour and fun of the game.

Just like that, players continue to explore this in-game world, where one could expect ‘anything’ to happen. As they interact with the NPCs and the objects scattered around it, they try to figure out how to progress the game based on the obtained clues.

As someone who rarely plays video games, the overall difficulty of this game to me is pretty above average. Without relying on guidescheats, I already got stuck during the early stage of the game when I was trying to clear the second or third main quest, and consequently was unable to continue… Still, after referring to guides, I then realised there was more to it than that.

Some spoilers: regarding the ending and the storyline…

Even though there is only one ending to the story, depending on how one plays the game, the plot can be developed in two different directions. The first one occurs after the player completes all main quests and then follows a certain NPC's instructions to go to the final area.

The second one occurs when the player gets transported to an entirely different area by another certain NPC when clearing one of the main quests, and gets stuck there afterwards due to the way going back being blocked, causing the player unable to finish all the main quests. However, there’s actually still a way out that leads to the final area and complete the game.

Not only did I have to wander around the entire vast in-game world in order to obtain all the clues, I also had to keep the cogs in my mind moving to solve the puzzles. One of the important stages was so difficult that I had to keep retrying for quite a long while. Despite all the challenges though, I had a lot of fun immersing and enjoying myself in the fantastical world built in the game, so I cannot say that it was an unpleasant experience!

Conclusion

If the only thing you could say after finishing the game was, ‘What on actual earth was going on?’, then that’s great! It’s what the game intends to bring to the players, and part of its very charm 😆!

Although the overall gameplay experience is likely to give players more questions than answers, what matters is the process of exploration around the weird and mesmerising world, wandering around the in-game area, while admiring its artistic style. This is what the game wants the players to take away from, at least in my personal opinion.

The pace of the entire game is also quite balanced to me; I didn’t feel underwhelmed nor overwhelmed during any moment when playing it. Moreover, there are a lot of easter eggs, big or small, hidden throughout the game, waiting for players to discover, and I won’t be spoiling them here.

If I have to rate this game out of five stars, I may be biased towards it as a fan myself, but I certainly would give a full five-star rating! I highly recommend you all to give ENA: Dream BBQ a try, treating it as a gateway to experience the nostalgic yet still wonderfully strange worldbuilding as presented in the entire ∃NA series.

Sigh, I can’t wait for the release of the future chapters…

Further reading and resources:

Video playlist of the ∃NA animated series
Joel Guerra’s personal website (Even though this website mainly acts as a marketplace for merchandises, it’s still a fun site to explore; not only does it have an artistic style that evokes 1990s Windows nostalgia, as well as an audio player that features webcore music, one can even register an account to obtain his/her own ENA avatar and profile!)
ENA: Dream BBQ Chapter 1 OST album (Also highly recommended! Fun fact: the main motif of an area BGM, The Hub, is actually referencing YMO’s classic, Simoon!)
LSD: Dream Emulator gameplay video
Webcore article on the Fandom wiki
Weirdcore article on the Fandom wiki

As of the first release of this article. ↩︎ ↩︎
Depending on how you pronounce the word (/ˈhɒmɪdʒ/ or /ɒˈmɑːʒ/). ↩︎

Set up a new microblog site

Tue, 14 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

As the content published on this site usually tends to be relatively longer articles discussing more serious subject matters that may require prior research other than occasional casual life stories (or rather I’ve decided to position this site as such), I’ve set up another microblog site with a more minimalistic layout to publish my microposts whose contents may be a bit useless but still interesting and entertaining (at least to me).

Link to the microblog site:

https://microblog.ttheng.com/

That site currently has 54 posts. Besides some recently published microposts, I’ve also migrated some older microposts (or ‘useless posts’) to the microblog site. It may also be more frequently updated than this site due to its spontaneous nature.

Do come see see¹ if interested!

A character-by-character translation from the Chinese phrase ‘來看看’, ‘come see see’ means ‘have a look’ in Manglish or Singlish. ↩︎

Self-cooking at Home (Sept. 2025)

Wed, 24 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

At least for these few times, the resulting food looks more appetising than the earlier attempts, I think.

Cooked some stir-fried vegetables with soy sauce and garlic, egg fried rice and an onion cheese soup with beef Bovril added. Photo taken on 16 September, 2025. The soup was made based on a recipe featured on this YouTube video by @ladyflavor_brain. As for the black thingy on the fried rice, I’ve forgetten what that was supposed to be.

Another dish for the same meal on the same day: black pepper roast chicken, using a pre-made black pepper paste available in supermarkets. Photo taken on 16 September, 2025.

Stir-fried vegetables with soy sauce again, and egg fried rice with prawn. Photo taken on 17 September, 2025.

Fried rice again, but this time a spicier, Malay-style paste was used; vegetable was also added straight in when cooking the fried rice. The drink was a Vitamin C supplement with passion fruit flavour. Photo taken on 19 September, 2025.

This is a fried rice dish with vegetables, mushroom and egg, cooked using a ‘Chinese Muslim flavour’ (whatever that means, to me it’s just some sort of umami flavour) paste and served with a sunny side up (with tomato sauce), as well as the same onion soup as before (sans the cheese and the onion has been sliced beforehand without wrapping it using a cling film), whereas the drink was just a pre-made fruit tea purchased from a supermarket. Photo taken on 23 September, 2025.

A Review of Some Recommended Music Albums (Sept. 2025)

Fri, 19 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This article gathers a number of my favourite music albums that I’ve listened to recently and want to recommend to more people out there. For each of these albums, I’d suggest listening to the entire album from start to finish, following the preset track sequence of each album.

Just like what Wiwi said in a blog post, listening to a whole album is like enjoying a complete concert. Furthermore, it’s also the best way to experience the artist’s (or artists’) intent; I’m sure that the artists behind the scenes who decide the sequence of the album tracks have put at least a fair amount of thought into this.

Without further ado, here are the three albums¹ that I’m featuring in this ~~article~~ ‘listicle’.

Yuu Miyashita’s Hakuu no Moto (白雨の下)

Cover art of Hakuu no Moto, nicked from Yuu Miyashita’s official webpage. Illustration by none other than Yuu Miyashita himself!

Date of initial release: 20 December, 2023

Album playlists: YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music

Active online as an ‘utaite’ who mainly covers Vocaloid/virtual singer music, Yuu Miyashita (宮下遊, miy_yuu) is an extremely talented Japanese male vocalist and one of my absolute favourite musicians.

Not only is his vocal range insanely flexible and wide, his masterful execution of various singing techniques, combined with tasteful mixing and post-production, makes his voice almost feel androgynous. Fun fact: when I got my parents to listen to one of his covers, they initially thought that it was a girl singing 😂!

He has become (even more) well known internationally after his popularity skyrocketed when his cover of Niru Kajitsu’s Wozwald² became viral on YouTube and garnered tens of millions of views; this was also how I knew him and became one of his fans!

He has so far released five studio albums, with Hakuu no Moto (白雨の下) featured in this section being the fifth and currently the most recent one. Speaking of his albums, I actually own the physical CDs of the first two of them, namely Tsumugi no Ki (紡ぎの樹, released in 2016) and Ao ni Aruku (青に歩く, released in 2018) respectively.

The physical CDs of Yuu Miyashita’s first two albums that I bought in 2019.

What’s also interesting is that if we compare his earlier albums with the more recent ones, it seems like we could put a dividing line between his first two albums and the rest, whereby the first two comprise mostly his covers of pre-existing Vocaloid songs in addition to a handful of original songs or commissioned songs written by existing Vocaloid producers (Vocalo-Ps), whereas his third album onwards consist of almost entirely commissioned songs and/or his original works.

Anyways, back to the main topic, Hakuu no Moto itself. Just like his third and fourth album, he has commissioned a number of (former and/or current) Vocalo-Ps to write songs for the album. Of course, this album also includes songs that he himself has originally composed.

Other than his amazing as usual vocals, what makes this album an enjoyable listen is how diverse the genres of the included songs are, as well as how refreshing they sound. Some of the songs are musical-coded, some are more pop-rock in style, whereas some others are heavy with electronic sounds. Regardless of your musical taste, I’m sure that you would find at least one or two songs that you prefer from this album, and be mesmerised by miy_yuu’s stellar vocal performances.

Which is your favourite track of this album? Deus Ex Machina (composed by Somari). I like the dynamic, action-heavy science fiction vibe that this songs evokes through the utilisation of electro-synth and punchy rhythms. This may sound silly, but this song kind of reminds me of the movie Tron: Legacy, especially its combat scenes.
Do you have a physical CD for this? No, but I’m gonna get it some time!

Hikaru Utada’s Science Fiction

Cover art of Science Fiction, obtained from Wikipedia. Design by YOSHIROTTEN, Junpei Inoue and Mirai Shikiyama.

Date of initial release: 10 April, 2024

Album playlists: various platforms

Among the fans of J-Pop, Hikaru Utada (宇多田ヒカル) surely is a household name, with their popularity and musical influence spanning multiple generations. A singer-songwriter with Japanese and American roots, Utada is best known for incorporating rhythm and blues (R&B) and Western dance-pop styles into their songs, contributing to their uniqueness.

Older fans (who may now be in their 50s) may know Utada through their early songs in the late 1990s such as First Love. Not-so-old fans (who may now be in their 30s) may know them through songs such as Hikari (which incidentally is also the theme song for the classic video game Kingdom Hearts) and Goodbye Happiness, which are released in the 2000s or early 2010s. As for younger fans (who may now be in their 20s or even just 10s), they may know Utada through their newer works in the 2020s such as One Last Kiss and BAD MODE.

Even though it’s been 25 years since Hikaru Utada’s debut (I was still not born yet 😂) and rise to fame, with their first single (Automatic/Time will tell) being released in 1998, currently they are still making new songs and they still do not lose their charm!

If you want to have a captivating listening experience of an authentic encapsulation of Utada’s music across decades, Science Fiction is certainly a good pick. Science Fiction is a compilation album released in commemoration of the 25th anniversary since Utada’s musical debut, and features their famous songs throughout the years, as well as their relatively recent works.

Which is your favourite track of this album? Electricity. First released in 2024, this song is in house music genre (one of my favourites!) with a somewhat airy feel, and its incorporation of jazz elements here and there (such as the groovy flute and saxophone solos!) just makes the song even more elevated!
Do you have a physical CD for this? Yes, thanks to my dad who bought it in Japan!

Jacob Collier’s Djesse Vol. 4 (Deluxe Edition)

Cover art of the deluxe edition of Djesse Vol. 4, nicked from Apple Music. Design based on a dedicated glass sculpture (!) made by Dustin Yellin.

Date of initial release: 29 February, 2024

Album playlists: various platforms

Jacob Collier, an exceptional musician who is sometimes dubbed ‘the modern-day Mozart’, of course I have to mention him here! His most iconic works include his choral arrangement of In the Bleak Midwinter, which is famous for modulating to G half-sharp major halfway through the song, a very unusual key centre, as well as his ‘audience choir’ improvisations. He is also well known for his unique mix of multiple modern and traditional musical genres that blur the lines between them.

Djesse Vol. 4 is the fourth and final album in his Djesse series, and just like the other albums in the series, it showcases his musical prowess and ability to play around with multiple musical styles and produce signature sounds that are heavily associated to him, with pop as the base genre. The version that I listened to was the deluxe edition, which includes extra tracks that are not in the ‘normal’ edition.

Which is your favourite track of this album? Box of Stars (both parts; in fact they have to be listened continuously in sequence for the sake of completeness). What an 11-minute long of mesmerising soundscape! The fact that he manages to blend so many music genres, from pop, rap/hip-hop, choral, gospel/soul, jazz, symphonic-classical, Afro-Cuban traditional rhythms, to even electro-synth together so well to produce this tasteful masterpiece, is just mind-blowing 🤯!

I also like how the beginning of the second part bears some resemblance to, if not directly referencing, the opening of Gustav Holst’s Jupiter from the orchestral suite The Planets, as well as John Adams’ Short Ride in a Fast Machine, both of which are important 20th-century classical works.

I recommend watching this surprisingly detailed sheet music transcription made by Yvelluap to better understand the wonderful musical ideas behind this song, especially the fascinating application of microtonality.
Do you have a physical CD for this? Yes! I bought it from a local HMV store in the UK at a discounted price.

If you’re asking, “Surely you have way more favourite albums than just these, so why these three albums in particular?” The reason is rather simple (and perhaps silly): it’s because I just happen to have written a (brief) review of these albums previously, so it’s easier to put together this article by only focusing on them 😅. ↩︎
In fact, this cover is so well-received that it even gets its own single in collaboration with the original composer afterwards!

As a sidenote, I think miy_yuu has once again surpassed himself with his cover of Heat Abnormal (熱異常), which is totally worth a listen! ↩︎

About

Wed, 03 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Just a grumpy (soon-to-be) old man born in 2002 who uses this casual blog site as an outlet for expressing my thoughts and opinions, rambling, reminiscing and discussing topics about or around my life.

Born in Sandakan, studied in Singapore, now pondering about my next phase in life, while dabbling with my ~~side projects~~ hobbies.

A picture of the coast at downtown Sandakan. Photo taken on 14 May, 2023.

Links

Wed, 03 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Personal blogs

Name	Description
./chunyu.sh	My university friend’s personal website.
Seth Godin	A blog site full of useful life advices.
Matt Might	A computer scientist who currently works in University of Alabama at Birmingham. Contains useful advices on life and academia, as well as technical articles on programming, computer science and mathematics.
Paul Graham	Co-founder of Y Combinator, which runs Hacker News. Contains useful life advices.
Terence Tao（陶哲軒）	Australian mathematician Terence Tao’s personal website. Contains technical articles on mathematics and advices on academia and writing.
Lim Chee Aun（林志安）	Malaysian web developer based in Singapore. Contains casual life stories and behind-the-scenes articles about his web projects.
Gregory Gundersen	A researcher in New York. Contains technical articles on mathematics and some retrospective articles.
Math ∩ Programming	Personal website by Jeremy Kun, a software engineer who is working at Google. Contains life stories and technical articles on computer science and mathematics.
Frozen Garlic	American-Taiwanese political scientist Nathan Batto（鮑彤）’s blog site that discusses Taiwanese politics.
Kev Quirk	A British infosec executive’s blog site that contains life stories, rants, book reviews, useful tips (tech-related or not) and so on.
Zeitbach	A blog site that contains technical notes, as well as interesting foreign-language book reading notes and some music- and mathematics-related articles.

Not-so-personal sites

Name	Description
Rice Media	A Singaporean independent online media that explores culture and social issues in Singapore and Southeast Asia.
Scoring Notes	A website that reports new developments and discusses topics about music notation software.
Libre Arts	A blog site that reports new developments and discusses topics about free/libre creative software.

Podcasts

Name	Description
Lateral	A panel game podcast hosted by British presenter Tom Scott featuring niche questions of various genres with unexpected answers.
Ghibliotheque	A podcast hosted by British broadcasters Michael Leader, Jake Cunningham and Steph Watts that discusses films and shows produced by animation studios from Japan and beyond.

Travel

Wed, 27 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Family vacation

Year	Location	Escorted/Self-guided
2007	Malaysia (Melaka/Malacca, Kuala Lumpur)	Self-guided
2008	China (Chengde, Beijing)	Escorted
2009	South Korea (Seoul, Jeju Island)	Escorted
2010	Hong Kong	Self-guided
2011	Thailand (Pattaya, Bangkok)	Self-guided
2012	Indonesia (Bali)	Self-guided
2013	Malaysia (Kota Kinabalu, Kundasang, Lahad Datu and Kudat, Sabah)	Self-guided
2013	Taiwan (Nantou, Alishan in Chiayi, Hualien, New Taipei, Taipei)	Self-guided (private tour)
2014	Vietnam (Sa Pa, Ha Long Bay, Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City)	Self-guided
2015	Malaysia (Pulau Langkawi, Penang, Kuala Lumpur)	Self-guided
2016	Cambodia (Angkor Wat in Siem Reap)	Self-guided
2017	Japan (Kyoto, Kobe, Fuji, Nagoya, Osaka, Tokyo)	Self-guided
2018	Dream Cruise’s Genting Dream (via Surabaya, Indonesia and Singapore)	Escorted
2019	Japan (Osaka, Tokyo)	Self-guided
2025	Thailand (Bangkok)	Self-guided
2025	United Kingdom (London, Leeds)	Self-guided

School activities

Year	Location	Purpose
2012	Malaysia (Seri Kembangan/Serdang)	Primary school competition
2013	Malaysia (Kota Kinabalu and Tawau, Sabah)	Primary school competition
2014	Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur)	Primary school competition
2014	Malaysia (Kelantan)	Primary school graduation trip
2016	Malaysia (Kundasang and Kota Kinabalu, Sabah)	Secondary school CCA¹ trip
2019	Taiwan (Hsinchu, Taichung, Taipei)	Secondary school CCA and trip
2019	Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur, Perak)	Secondary school CCA competition
2019	Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur)	Secondary school competition

Study abroad, exchange

Year	Location	Purpose
2021-2025	Singapore	University
2023	Taiwan (Taipei, New Taipei, Keelung, Taichung, Kaohsiung)	University exchange and personal vacation
2024	Malaysia (Penang)	University interest group vacation

Others

Year	Location	Purpose
2010	Malaysia (Sibu and Kapit, Sarawak)	Attend relative’s wedding

Refers to ‘co-curricular activities (group)’. ↩︎

Glockenspiel with Pedal

Sat, 16 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Recently, I had the privilege of joining the Mus’Art Youth Wind Orchestra as a percussionist and rehearsing for an upcoming performance with them. All the percussion instruments — even mallets and sticks — are already provided by the band, so I need not worry about forgetting to bring my own sticks, which is great!

Anyways, I’m writing this article just to showcase a concert-grade, 3.3-octave glockenspiel that they have. It’s my first time playing with a band that has such a fancy (positive) glockenspiel 😂. It has a more extended pitch range, being able to play notes as low as C3 (written) and as high as E6 (written). Wow!

When I took this picture in the scene, it didn’t occur to me to check the brand and model of this glockenspiel (oops), but after some searching online, it seems like a Yamaha 3.3-octave Symphonic Glockenspiel, model YG2500 (2025/08/27 update: I remembered to check the brand during another rehearsal session, and yes, it is indeed the model).

It even has a damper pedal, just like a vibraphone! This is so convenient, because with this I don’t have to stop the reverb by hastily pressing the glockenspiel keys after hitting them. Instead, I just need to release the pedal after stepping on it when needed, like playing a piano! That’s pretty cool!

Your browser doesn't support HTML5 video. Here is a link to the video instead.

It even comes with its own stand and wheel, so there’s no need for a table to place it on, nor to constantly carry it up and down.

As someone who is only used to playing 2.6-octave (F3-C6) glockenspiels, it was indeed an eye-opening and exciting experience, which I think deserves to be recorded in the form of a (personal) blog article, even though it may end up sounding like a country bumpkin going to a big city for the first time.

13 Ringgit Japanese Set Meal

Fri, 25 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

An Unexpected Find

After three days straight of lunch and dinner cooking at home by myself as a way to reduce spending, I decided not to give myself further hassle, so I rewarded myself to a dine-out.

I initially was planning to find a random eatery around my place of stay but changed my mind afterwards and headed to the AEON Mall¹ nearby instead to buy some supermarket pre-cooked meals.

I then stumbled upon this Japanese style set meal package with a surprisingly complete combination of component dishes, consisting of:-

two (!) carbs: white rice with some Japanese seasoning sprinkled on top (which might be furikake?), and some pasta cooked with some sort of tomato sauce;
meat: grilled mackerel² (or saba shioyaki for a more Japanese-sounding name) with (supposedly) teriyaki sauce (though it tasted more like unagi sauce to me);
some steamed vegetables (carrot and broccoli);
slices (dices?) of fruit (cantaloupe)³, and
two mochis (one with a sweet green bean paste filling, another with a sweet red bean paste filling) as dessert.

Here comes the best part: after waiting until the late hours, near-closing 30% discount kicks in, it only costs RM13.25⁴! You don’t get such a bargain price for a full set meal (excluding drinks) like this in major budget Japanese restaurant chains in Malaysia, or even kopitiams nowadays!

It really worths the extra 5-minute walk and the wait for the discount⁵!

Appendix

For the curious, here are the photos of some, but not all, of the meals that I’ve cooked for myself during the said three days.

I won’t say they are spectacularly delicious, but at least they’re edible (yes, the bar is just that low; cut me some slack!).

A plate of stir-fried mixed vegetables, a bowl of vegetable soup that comes from the said veg mix, and some noodles (which are actually angel-hair spaghetti…) stirred with a black vinegar, soy sauce mixed condiment and some raw garlic.

A plate of tomato fried eggs, and a bowl of noodles (that angel-hair spaghetti again…I’m sorry Italians!) with a prawn shell stock broth and some steamed lettuce.

Although it has significant presence in Malaysia and its name sounds Western, it’s actually a Japanese company. ↩︎
Technically it’s Indian mackerel, or ikan kembong in Malay as the locals like to call. ↩︎
Cantaloupes have usually orange flesh, and are not to be confused with honeydew, which has green flesh. ↩︎
Equivalent to around 3.14 USD, 92.37 TWD or 4.01 SGD, based on the rates on 25 July 2025. ↩︎
To be fair, the wait was not too boring to me; the entire mall (which includes the supermarket itself on top of various other stores!) was pretty big for a good old window-shopping anyways. ↩︎

_Star of Your Own Story_ Takeaway: Appreciating the Professionalism of Acting

Fri, 13 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Background

For the readers to make sense of this article, I think it’s necessary to provide some background information beforehand.

I recently started playing a mobile rhythm game called Hatsune Miku: Colourful Stage (also known in Japan as Project Sekai: Colourful Stage feat. Hatsune Miku).

As a long-time Vocaloid and rhythm game fan, this game hits both of my sweet spots, yet for some reason I only started playing it two months ago despite its global version being launched since around 2021. Nonetheless, it’s better late than never, and I’m instantly hooked by the game for multiple reasons.

The variety in its game mechanics makes it appealing to a wide range of audience, regardless of age and preferences. In particular, its rhythm game mechanic is engaging in the best way possible: easy to learn yet challenging to master. The game also features a massive cast of 26 characters, featuring five original music groups, on top of the Cryptonloids¹, that represent a diverse range of musical genres. Their personalities are portrayed very realistically and compellingly, which are presented via a surprisingly prolific series of excellently written in-game stories (with more than 178 of them and counting), and this - the story part - will be the main focus of this article.

The story

Content warning: contains potential spoilers.

To be precise, this article focuses on a very specific part of the in-game stories, which is a particular event story called Star of Your Own Story, and how it provides us, situated in the position of an audience member, a valuable lesson in appreciating the hard work put through by actors behind the scenes, without judging their skills solely based on the characters they play.

This event story is just one of the many key stories in the game that talks about the journey of each member of one of the original music groups called Wonderlands×Showtime (or ‘Wondershow’ in short) in pursuing their respective dreams which are related to the acting and entertainment industry in some ways.

In this story, we learn that the Wondershow crew aims to gain further experience in acting by having an exchange training with a nationally renowned acting troupe called Shunmeiza. This story puts emphasis on one of the Wondershow members, Tsukasa Tenma, who is the troupe leader of the group, and his challenges in playing a minor character in a play - a book editor named Nakayama.

This story puts focus on one of the Wondershow members, Tsukasa Tenma, who is the troupe leader of Wondershow, and his challenges in playing a minor character in a play - a book editor named Nakayama.

This was a first for him because before that he had only played fairly major characters in shows with hundreds if not thousands of lines of dialogue and lots of screen time. However, in this play, he only gets to appear for seconds and say merely three lines.

Upon seeing this, my initial reaction was, “This should be trivial to him,” which then led to, “Did he get looked down upon by getting assigned a minor character?” This brings us to one of the reasons I love this story: it plays with the readers’ potential stigma towards actors playing narratively insignificant roles, then subverts it by showcasing how Tsukasa later went to great lengths just to polish his performances in acting that said character, because the limited amount of material is the very reason that makes portraying this ordinary character in a realistic and emotionally impactful manner such a challenging task.

The limited amount of material is the very reason that makes portraying this character in a realistic and emotionally impactful manner such a challenging task.

As expected, this is also given by the director of Shunmeiza, who holds a high standard, as Tsukasa’s task to be completed in this exchange training.

The director of Shunmeiza, who holds a high standard, gives this to Tsukasa as a task to be completed in this exchange training.

Throughout the story, we witness Tsukasa’s struggles in grasping the character’s personality and nuances, desperately looking for ways to act them out convincingly.

As you can see from the dialogue in the screenshot above, this story also features a side character who plays an important role in its development: Reki Bakuno, a troupe member of Shunmeiza and a highly talented actor, who interestingly only wants to play minor, supporting roles, despite multiple offers of major acting roles due to his immense acting skills. In the later stage of this story, we learn that his upbringing and introverted personality are the main factors that lead to such thinking.

In the later stage of this story, we learn that his upbringing and introverted personality are the main factors that lead to such thinking.

Eventually, by taking advice from Bakuno and his Virtual Singer companions, Tsukasa arrived at a solution, i.e. he needs to approach the character from a different angle: instead of treating Nakayama as a negligible background element, he needs to place the character into the spotlight and imagine a full life story in order to shape a more realistic image of his.

Instead of treating Nakayama as a negligible background element, Tsukasa needs to place the character into the spotlight and imagine a full life story in order to shape a more realistic image of his.

In a nutshell, as we watch from a third-person perspective, we get the chance of seeing an actor’s thought process of perfecting their job and striving to portray a character to its fullest, regardless of its narrative significance. By seeing the effort paid into achieving these goals and how such efforts play out meaningfully in the story, we are able to gain respect towards the acting profession as a whole without brushing off such efforts as unnecessary overthinking.

In fact, at the end of this story, we get to see how Tsukasa’s hard work paid off. On top of that, we also learn that Tsukasa’s determination and unwavering resolve towards perfection has changed Bakuno’s attitude towards acting in a way. If you want to know what exactly the change is, instead of spoiling the surprise here, do play the game, read the whole story and see for yourself.

Conclusion

These two lines by Bakuno summarise the main theme of this story pretty well.

These two lines summarise the main theme of this story pretty well.

From this story, we also manage to get a glimpse of the amount of thought put into the plot of the game stories by the story writers which results in such masterful writing. They manage to make us empathise with the characters and become emotionally attached to them, via details that are supposedly small, obvious and easy to disregard, yet on second thoughts, we realise that they are actually significant to character development and serve as useful life lessons for us. The stories somehow have an ability to change our perceptions, sometimes even without us realising it, and that’s what I call natural storytelling.

In a world where actors and celebrities are often reduced by so-called ’entertainment news’ and paparazzi to simple-minded caricatures and merely subjects of gossip and ridicule, this story provides a breath of fresh air to us, as part of the audience. It’s a reminder for us that acting is in fact a profession not to be taken lightly: even a few seconds of screen time requires a serious amount of thoughts and effort to be executed well, and this is enough for them to deserve respect.

‘Cryptonloids’ is a term that refers to the six Vocaloid characters which are owned by Crypton Future Media, Inc. and form the main cast of virtual singer characters in Vocaloid-related games produced by SEGA, namely Hatsune Miku, Kagamine Rin, Kagamine Len, Megurine Luka, MEIKO and KAITO. ↩︎

RHMP 2024: _En Route_ Review

Sun, 10 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Disclosure: I worked on the musical featured in this review, specifically composing some songs for the musical. I have also worked with the scriptwriter of this musical multiple times in different occasions, and learnt a lot from those experiences. This article is purely a personal opinion on the content of the musical itself from the perspective of an audience member, and not a personal attack towards any individual. I respect and appreciate the effort and hard work behind everyone involved in the making of this musical and hope for improvements in future iterations of RHMP.

This musical gives me mixed feelings, pretty similar to how Hbomberguy felt after watching the web series RWBY.

The execution of the cast’s acting and singing, as well as the quality of the music, is significantly better than the iteration of RHMP last year (Oil). Not only was the music performed with minimal mistakes, the songs and background music (BGMs) featured in the musical integrate well with the story and are coherent as a whole. Yes, even the unusual-sounding Limbo that features dissonant harmony and irregular time signatures, which accompanies the otherworldly part of the show.

The structure of this musical is creative: it explores the concept of diverging storylines and offers the live audience a choice that decides how the story develops after the intermission. However, the execution of this structure is limited by practical reasons such as time constraints and logistics. One may expect this idea to be presented in an improvised manner, but this is actually not the case. Rather, the choices are binary and predetermined. With that said, as an audience engagement technique, it is a clever one.

After watching the musical, I was initially puzzled by the overall direction of the plot, especially how the characters’ dynamics and interactions develop. Many questions were raised within my mind, such as, “What is the ’taxi driver’ doing here?”, “Why is the main character acting so indecisively? Is he even serious about his aspirations?” and “What is the significance of the buddy character in the main character’s development?”¹

However, after spending some time digesting the plot of the musical, I still struggled to find any thought-provoking message or social commentary within the story. Although the philosophical topic of life choices is the main theme of the musical, I find it a shame that the jokes that are mostly irrelevant to the central plot of the story seem to have overshadowed the core concept itself.

When I first heard about the synopsis of the musical and that the musical would be piano-themed, I expected it to explore real-life struggles that aspiring musicians nowadays face in establishing a professional career due to the increasingly competitive environment and saturated job market, as well as information overload in this online era where lots of people are vying for the limited amount of attention available. Alternatively, I was also looking forward to an emotional story about a teenager with a pianist dream who manages to overcome his unique personal hardships and grow as a person, akin to the plot of the manga Your Lie in April.

Instead, what I actually got was just yet another slice-of-life story about a young man called Asher with an aspiration that does not align well with the expectations from people around him, and faces difficulty in juggling between chasing his dream and paying attention to the loved ones around him. This genre by itself is not problematic, but in the context of Singaporean student musicals, it is an increasingly overused trope. We should explore other potentially interesting settings instead of churning out yet another portrayal of a stereotypical Chinese Singaporean nuclear family. In this regard, the production in the previous year (Oil) has put a more commendable effort.

The messages it conveys, which is that while chasing our own dreams, we shouldn’t forget about the loved ones who are equally important, is wholesome, but again, pretty cliché. Nevertheless, it’s still presented decently, especially the inclusion of the mysterious ‘taxi driver’ character, who acts as a ‘life advisor’ to the protagonist, that makes the story more eye-catching, though it takes time to understand the purpose of this character.

In addition, there are sudden plot twists in this show, from which I expected dramatic changes in the characters’ personality. However, this expectation was not fulfilled. The characters are written in a logically consistent manner, but they are rather one-dimensional. Iris, a side character who is the main character’s girlfriend, is a character with a typical bossy, tsundere archetype. Murphy, another side character acting as the main character’s buddy, is also just an archetypal joker character. Beyond that, their relationships with the main character are not explored in-depth throughout the show (other than the one song that expresses their admiration for the main character).

Although there are changes in some characters’ attitudes, the change is so expectable that even though it technically is character development, it is hardly considered captivating. For example, Mr. Li, who is the protagonist’s father, is just yet another example of a stereotypical Asian parent character, a borderline cliché trope. The only character development we see in him is his change in attitude towards another side character Bernadette, the protagonist’s childhood friend and an established pianist, from hostility to guilt due to a misunderstanding. It’s a happy-ending development, but it’s an expected one. The same applies for Asher’s change in attitude towards the end of the show.

Some of the characters may possibly even exhibit out-of-character behaviours. For instance, Mr. Li referenced, though without directly mentioning, something that may raise some people’s eyebrows and one hardly expects to come from a stereotypical Asian elderly when complaining about his son’s career choices. Iris and Murphy, who are not established to be well-versed in music, are somehow able to recite the full title of a classical piano piece at some point. Although one can justify that this is because they have heard the main character doing the same thing so many times that even they can memorise it, it still feels so out of nowhere that such explanation sounds rather far-fetched.

On that note, the protagonist also recited the full title of a piano piece as a running joke in the show, in addition to rushing around for piano practices in the show, and unfortunately, these are the only musically inclined traits we see from him. Other than these behaviours, the main character hardly shows any more realistic or relatable trait of a piano enthusiast character. Besides Your Lie in April mentioned previously, other great piano-themed stories such as Forest of Piano and Nodame Cantabile could have served as sources of inspiration. We could have seen him passionately sharing the history and compositional techniques behind a piano piece, or practising the piano tirelessly in the way actual piano learners would do: scribbling the score, playing a section at a slower tempo with a metronome, and so on. Sadly, these are absent in the show, making the characterisation underwhelming, lack depth and provide limited engagement.

As for the dialogue, they are overall decent. The jokes scattered throughout are mostly funny, if you understand the context. While there are some jokes that acknowledge and make fun of the ridiculousness of the development of some parts of the plot or certain choices made by the main character, which makes a potential plot hole not quite a plot hole, as well as meta jokes that reference plot devices themselves, such as ‘plot armour’ and ‘breaking the fourth wall’, some other jokes to me feel too niche: they are either RHMP-specific in-jokes (e.g. one that references, again, Oil, the production last year), or Singaporean-specific (e.g. one that references an old news report about a hail storm in Singapore). Understandably, the primary target audience of the show is almost entirely Singaporean, so perhaps it makes practical sense for the jokes to be more localised, though it is still quite a shame that there are not as many jokes that resonate internationally and are relevant to the central plot of the show.

Treating this show as a typical life-oriented musical, there are still parts that deserve some credit. The flashback scene, accompanied with a well-structured BGM, is a good direct portrayal of the main character’s inner thoughts. The plot twist that brings the main character to a near-death situation and thus leads to that flashback scene is also fairly noticeably foreshadowed, so it’s not particularly confusing.

However, the subplots within the show, such as one that involves Mr. Li’s misdirected hate towards Bernadette due to a stupid move made by Asher (which, to be fair, the show acknowledges), one that involves Iris and Murphy talking (and singing) about how much they care about the main character, and one that features Iris’s younger sister’s graduation, do not seem to integrate well with the main plot. In fact, they seem to distract the central plot and look like merely fillers. Nonetheless, they are still decent to watch in isolation.

In summary, this musical is a fun watch, but it’s also a wasted potential as its piano-themed premise could’ve been an opportunity to explore questions that resonate better with pianists or musicians in general, which is sadly absent in the actual show, thereby reducing the piano theme to a replaceable plot device.

Here are some of my personal suggestions that hopefully can improve this show:-

Provide a clearer exposition of each character’s background. For example, make the main character’s girlfriend select, play and explain about the CD recording of a classical music by a specific orchestra to demonstrate her understanding and interest of classical music.
Feature plots that allude to real-life struggles of present-day musicians. For example, we could introduce a competition judge character that only cares about the music schools that the protagonist has attended or is unfairly judgemental towards the protagonist’s piano piece choice to bring about the issue of musical elitism.
Dedicate more show time for and put more focus into the central plot instead of introducing too many subplots that distract the main theme.
Minimise the number of narratively irrelevant jokes. Jokes should aim to be witty, in-character and align to the main premise.
Explore other forms of characterisations. For example, the protagonist’s father could be a locally well-known jazz pianist instead of just a stereotypical Asian parent.
Introduce more substantive challenges to make the character developments more impactful. For example, the protagonist could lose a piano competition that could secure his enrolment into his dream world-class conservatory, say, Julliard School, and has to find ways to deal with this devastation and reignite his passion through a new motivation, say, playing music for those with special needs.
Make piano-related events such as piano competitions or piano masterclasses a major scene of the show, and portray them with greater detail.

For a brief description of the major characters involved in the musical, see here. ↩︎

Some thoughts on a TAWOG meme

Mon, 22 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

On 21 July 2024, I reposted a Reddit post about a meme based on the cartoon The Amazing World of Gumball, which was originally posted on the official Twitter profile of Cartoon Network and touches on the Generation Z label and the passing of a TikTok ban bill by the United States House of Representatives, onto the Gumball subreddit.

The meme in question. The use of the rioting scene from the episode The Vision accurately depicts the intended message of the meme which describes the perceived, possibly stereotypical, reaction of Gen. Z people towards the TikTok ban news, but this message can be controversial to some who view themselves as the earlier batches of the generation. (Image source: Cartoon Network’s Twitter; Commentary and criticism in fair use, The Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University, CC BY-NC 3.0 US)

In the repost itself as well as its comment thread, I expressed my thoughts and feelings on the underlying message of this particular meme, and how it relates to the subject of generational gap and identity, as well as the development of distinct cultural experiences and memories towards the same show among different age groups.

Here are the comments I made under the repost (with minor edits for clarity).

Kinda feel offended when they assumed TAWOG viewers (especially those growing up with it since Seasons 1-2, who belong EXACTLY to the generation they’re referencing) would be THAT obsessed with TikTok…

– repost title

To be fair, I agree with this comment here. Since technology has progressed way faster than before, even Gen. Z can be divided into so-called “pre-COVID/TikTok” and “post-COVID/TikTok” eras (I’d say the former is more in 1996-2003 born whereas the latter is 2004-2012). So is it a misrepresentation? Perhaps not entirely. Still I’d find myself in the “pre-TikTok” generation so I can’t relate well with this meme.

With the surprising amount of recent Gumball-related memes (that just look so new to me; don’t get me wrong, I like them, it’s just that they’re not something that can resonate with my childhood memories) circulating online, I can see what you mean.

It just feels intriguing to me that the Gumball fandom has a somewhat clear-cut generational gap (within the same demographic cohort even LOL): people watching S1-S2 as kids (“pre-TikTok”) vs. people watching S3 onwards as kids (“post-TikTok”). This might even be the line that marks a(nother) major shift in the style of the show itself LOL.

I don’t think that’s a bad thing to have different generations of viewers enjoying the same show and have different sets of cultural experiences and trends as a result, as it’s just how life goes. I’m just having issue with this particular use of the “Gen. Z” label in this specific meme, which I am personally attached to, and then associating it with TikTok, which I feel very detached to. However, interestingly, as per my previous comment, this association is not entirely wrong (it kind of fits into the “late Gen. Z” group).

To me this may be a testament of how generations nowadays have, largely due to Internet, evolved so quickly than it ever was before that a single demographic cohort label is starting to fail in clearly defining one specific age group with a single set of common life experiences and opinions, resulting in some sort of disagreement in generational identity that happens to me personally when I see this meme.

Maybe it’s also because unlike older generations like Gen. X, Gen. Y, etc., Gen. Z is a particularly unique generation, in the sense that it kind of lies on the transitional phase where generational gaps are just starting to occur between age groups in an increasingly narrower range.

Contemplation

Fri, 12 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Just a random poem that I wrote two years ago, with some minor edits.

This is not my first time,

and it won’t be my last.

I have been doing this,

ever since my own past.

Contemplating life choices,

I wonder when it’ll last.

Will it shed me some light,

or any shadows it will cast?

Some More (Human-made) Study Music to Get You Focused

Fri, 15 Apr 2022 00:00:00 +0000

10 March 2026 update:

This article was originally written for a student content-production group in the university I previously studied in, and published here on The SuRHge, the group’s online article website. It is now reproduced here on my personal blog website, with some minor edits made to better suit the context of this blog, as well as fix broken links.

The initial version of this article was written during the ‘pre-ChatGPT/pre-Suno era’, so I guess I can proudly say that all the writing here is my own doing (though admittedly, the wording may sound clunky at times), and the recommended music here are all made with love by human artists!

Cover photo by Jonathan Formento on Unsplash.

Introduction

The mid-terms week is finally over (hurray!). While we seize this opportunity to take a sigh of relief, most of us, I presume, can still not help but be aware of the finals week that ensues. Even if finals are not taken into consideration, lectures, quizzes and assignments that are lagged behind and haunting us can still give us a stark reminder to buck up and study. This might explain why it’s not uncommon to see a number of industrious bees mugging in the study lounge, UTown or Central Library.

While taking the initiative to study is commendable, staying in full focus mode continuously for a long time can still take up a great deal of our mind energy, causing us eventually to start zoning out or get distracted by other stuff like YouTube videos, social media or even food. There are various methods to keep us focused while studying, and one of them that I will recommend here is to let study music accompany your journey of study, and maybe many of you reading this article may have already been using this trick to maintain focus.

One of the most commonly adapted genres of study music is of course lo-fi¹ hip-hop music, popularised by a video livestream featuring the anime lo-fi girl.

However, perhaps you might’ve already done with that anime lo-fi girl and want to try out something new as your study music playlist of the day. You’ve come to the right place then: allow me to recommend some other sources of study music that I personally like.

Chillhop Radio series

Chillhop Radio series is a series of lo-fi hip hop music compilation or livestream videos which are under Chillhop Music, which is a Dutch record label that specialises in the distribution of lo-fi hip hop music. Videos in this Chillhop Radio series often feature the signature cute raccoon mascot. There are different variations in the selection of music played in different videos of the series, some having a soothing feel while some having a jazzy twist. I do recommend this series if you want to feel sort of ‘authentic’ as a lo-fi hip-hop music listener.

Links:-

lofi hip hop radio - beats to study/relax to 🐾

Chillhop Radio - jazzy & lofi hip hop beats 🐾

There are even lo-fi hip-hop music collections which are remixes of video game soundtracks, produced in collaboration with the corresponding video game company.

Links:-

🎮 Chillhop x FINAL FANTASY EXVIUS UNIVERSE [gaming / lofi beats] © SQEX

Chillhop x OlliOlli World 🎮 [songs to skate to / gaming beats] 🛹

lofi.cafe

If you are tired of constantly searching for your study music of the day on YouTube and want an easy-to-remember portal that allows you access to multiple lo-fi music livestreams, then lofi.cafe would be the right choice for you!

Lofi.cafe (with its URL literally being https://lofi.cafe/, easy to remember right?!) is a website developed by Fabrizio Rinaldi and Marianna Di Vito, which integrates several popular lo-fi hip-hop music livestreams (also referred to as ‘radios’) into a single website so that people can switch between different ‘radios’ conveniently.

There is even a handy feature called Pomodoro Timer, which allows site visitors to manage time efficiently using the Pomodoro Technique.

Do have a try if you want to experience the feeling of having access to multiple study music radios at one go!

Diverse System’s work music radio

Diverse System is an independent Japanese record label that is famous within the realm of music rhythm games. As its name suggests, it houses a diverse range of instrumental and electronic music, from classical, metal to dubstep. Among its huge discography, it has an album series called works., which features upbeat electronic music that are tailored for use as background music for study and work.

To cater to people’s needs to continuously listen to study music online, the record label has released work music radio livestream on YouTube, which features music from the works. album series. If you want to have a try on a more varied style of study music, this may be a suitable option for you!

Links:-

Official livestream: “works.” 24/7 stream : work music radio²

An unofficial YouTube playlist of the music in the works. series

Square Enix Music Special DJ Mix

Ah yes, Square Enix, the famous video game company behind lots of video game masterpieces, including the Final Fantasy series, Chrono Trigger, Legend of Mana and many more. Apart from the game story lines themselves, the game music soundtracks featured are also long-standing gems.

Recently, Square Enix Music, the record label behind those game soundtracks, has made an unprecedented move to release two study/working music compilation videos which form a series named Square Enix Music Special DJ Mix on their recently opened YouTube channel. These two compilation videos are remixes of famous Square Enix game soundtracks which are of very different styles, one in a relaxing “Mellow Minstrel” style and another in a more energetic “Airship Cruise” style.

For those who are a fan of these game soundtracks, do check out these two videos which both bring a unique flavour twist to the soundtracks.

Links:-

Mellow Minstrel Mix🎮Game Music to chill, study, work

Airship Cruise Beats🚀Game Music to hype you up

Birocratic’s beets series

Birocratic, an American electronic/hip-hop music producer, is one of the iconic figures in the domain of lo-fi hip hop music. He has released at least 20 electronic hip-hop albums and contributed tracks for the record label Chillhop Music.

Many of Birocratic’s works incorporate certain elements from other music genres, and they work very well and help in adding interesting flavours into his music. One notable example of this, and also my personal favourite, is Corporate Japan from his album beets 4, where elements of traditional Japanese music blend well with electronic hip-hop genre to form some sort of ‘modernised Edo’ atmosphere.

Links to the beets series:-

beets

beets 2

beets 3

beets 4

Flamingosis’ Mood Provider series

Another shoutout to the equally talented American music producer called Flamingosis, who has produced a number of ‘chilled beats’ albums, some of which even used as the background music of various online videos.

One of his album series that I will recommend here is the Mood Provider series, which the producer himself has released full album compilation videos of them on his YouTube channel.

Links:-

Mood Provider

Mood Provider Vol. 2

Mood Provider Vol. 3

Mood Provider Vol. 4

Mood Provider Vol. 5

Mood Provider Vol. 6

Ginger Root

City pop is a music genre that originated from Japan in around the 1980s and once spread globally, influencing Cantopop and Southeast Asian pop music during that time. Recently, thanks to the out-of-nowhere algorithmic recommendation of Mariya Takeuchi’s Plastic Love by YouTube and the meme craze that ensued, city pop music has seen its revival in popularity among the younger internet generation.

Partly due to this internet trend and of course their own admirable musicianship, an American indie band called Ginger Root, which produces music that are reminiscent of this city pop culture, has received popular acclamation among the internet world. The mood and also the deliberately vintage sound quality of their music make them really suitable to be used as study music.

I recommend listening to Loretta for those accessing their music for the first time; it feels heartwarming to me, no joke.

Here are some full album playlists/videos of their music that you may use for your study session.

City Slicker

Rikki

Conclusion

That’s all of my recommendation list of study music! Hope these music do help you in staying motivated to study (or just listening to them as a casual pastime), and may the CAP 5.0 god be with you.

Random trivia: ‘lo-fi’ is the abbreviation for ‘low fidelity’, which describes the signature ‘vintage’ sound quality of lo-fi hip-hop music. ↩︎
Due to technical issues, this link might not work after some time, in that case consider navigating to its YouTube channel and look for the most updated version of the livestream. ↩︎

Digitalisation is not everything: a re-evaluation of digital inclusion

Thu, 28 Oct 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Digitalisation trend

Recently, more and more industries are digitalising¹ their existing products and services. When something is digitalised, it is only accessible using electronic products, most commonly smartphones.

The phenomenon of digitalisation is particularly noticeable in Singapore, partly due to government initiative. In particular, the use of QR codes in Singapore is increasing in prevalence, entering almost every aspect of people’s daily lives.

Ubiquity of digitalisation

There are several examples that illustrate how commonplace digitalisation has become nowadays.

While there are still a fair number of shops and food stalls in Singaporean hawker centres that operate cash-only, many stalls have started to adapt contactless payments via QR codes. Payments via QR codes can also be found in healthcare, government services and even vending machines.

QR codes were also used by the Singaporean government (as well as several other countries) for COVID-19 contact tracing. Even the redemption of COVID-19 test kits and meals, as well as student cards, are made digital in the form of QR codes.

Other forms of digitalisation can also be found. One notable example would be the digitalisation of vital documents issued by the government, such as entry permits, immigration passes and identification cards², some of which even entirely replacing the physical versions. COVID-19 vaccination certificates are to be obtained digitally. A plan to roll out digital currency is also reported to be underway in Singapore, following China’s digital yuan policy³.

And the list just goes on and on, from virtual credit cards, online supermarkets to even digital Starbucks gift cards. These just show how deeply digitalisation has entered our lives.

…but is digitalisation always the best?

Many people see the trend of digitalisation as a sign of improvement in life quality. Some even admire it so much that they view it as the only way to a brighter future⁴. This then leads to a question: should we digitalise everything?

My take on this is: of course not. I’m not saying that digitalisation is always bad. Indeed, it does provide us convenience and access to things that may otherwise be physically inaccessible. However, just like snows, when things go too far, it usually brings more harm than good, and digitialisation is indeed no exception to this.

Here are some reasons that I think there should be a limit on the extent of digitalisation.

Digitalisation is not (always) accessible

Seriously? You are saying that digitalisation is not accessible? Don’t you know that more and more people own a smartphone now?

– you, possibly

Some of you dear readers may find this argument ridiculous, and may even say that we could just make more people own smartphones so that digitalisation is more accessible.

Well, you may be right in this sense, but here I’m interpreting accessibility more specifically as the feasibility of accomplishing something without relying too much on a single method. The versatility and portability of smartphones have made them a highly preferred medium of digitalised products and services, but it also makes a highly centralised working environment. This can cause people to increasingly depend on their smartphones to complete various tasks.

Eventually, this may lead to what I call gadget dependency, where people find themselves having to hold their smartphones all the time so that they can do their things properly.

And I think that such over-reliance on electronic devices like smartphones is bad. It makes smartphones a (metaphorical) ticking bomb: what if we lose access to our smartphones, either due to battery running out or an unexpected theft? Such a scenario can be pretty unbearable if our daily tasks can only be done via smartphones. Imagine not having a smartphone to make payment at a vending machine that only accepts digital wallet, or breaking the camera lens on your smartphone which renders you unable to scan any QR code, or worse, being locked out of our own room for losing access to a mobile key and you couldn’t even use a physical key as an alternative. At this point, it’s not just inconvenience; it can be a nightmare to some people.

In addition, there are still people who cannot afford to own a smartphone at all, which causes issues when they need to use certain products and services with no physical approaches available.

Digitalisation is not foolproof

If we don’t care much about the issue of gadget dependency, then it makes sense to say that we can make normalise digitalisation by giving out smartphones to more people. However, I’d say that this is only sweeping a deeper problem under the rug: what if people don’t know how to use a smartphone even if they do own one? After all, smartphones come with a lot of functionalities, some of which may not even be immediately obvious. This makes digitalisation not as foolproof as some people may think.

Indeed, there are efforts to increase digital literacy, particularly among the elderly, by teaching them how to use a smartphone. However, to some people, it can still be a steep learning curve and even if they overcome it, the use of smartphones can sometimes be a fiddly and unnecessary extra step when, as discussed before, a more straightforward physical method is available. This then leads to inconvenience, which defeats the purpose of digitalisation.

Digitalisation can lead to more wastage

We can see that some industries brand their digitalised products as a way to contribute for environmental sustainability. If we assume that no more people will own a new electronic device, then this makes sense. However, it can be an issue when more digitalisation leads to an increasing use of electronic devices, thereby leading to more electronic waste.

To me, in terms of environmental sustainability, this is why we should carry out digitalisation more mindfully, instead of just for the trends. It has been shown that digitalisation can impact environmental sustainability, at times negatively. Therefore, if the decision to digitalise causes unnecessary use of electronic gadgets, then perhaps we should think twice about that.

And not to mention power outage…

Things can get worse when we account for the possibility of power outage, which is not low in some places. In this case, even knowing how to use smartphones can’t help us.

I guess this doesn’t need much explanation. Hopefully, it’s undeniable that electricity is the very prerequisite before even considering about digitalisation. Thus, if we digitalise things so much that only digital tools are available for even the most fundamental things in daily live (good luck China on your digital yuan policy), I do hope there is infinite supply of electricity there.

Security and privacy concerns

Although digital tools are generally more convenient and lightweight to use, it can be more susceptible to malicious exploitations as compared to physical approaches.

A case in point is QR codes. One of the major risks of QR codes is its lack of transparency: we are unable to foresee what we are accessing until we actually scan the QR code, which can be too late if the QR code contains some malicious code injected into the website or text encoded by the QR code. This in turns produces potential security issues.

Things get more complicated if we consider the fact that QR codes can do more than just redirecting users to a certain website. Nowadays, QR codes are also used in making e-payments and tracking records (as in, say, COVID-19 contact tracing), things which involve some behind-the-scenes work and aren’t so straightforward. In this case, unless we are the tech-savvy bunches, we often don’t know or just can’t examine what kind of URL or source code is actually encoded in the QR code. It is possible that there are some tracking or data-mining code hidden within the QR code, but we just don’t know. This forms a bigger issue of data privacy.

In addition, it is generally difficult to hack into a physical tool (unless someone has actual physical access to it), whereas digital tools are more susceptible to hacking and intrusion, which are often done remotely. Malicious actors don’t even need to directly hack the digital tool owned by the users themselves, say, a smartphone. If technically possible, they could just hack the company servers that manage the digital platform itself (like e-payment portals) and the users will then be victimised by bad things like data leak and mass service disruption. Such security risk can be even more critical if we consider things at way greater stakes, such as large-scale voting, not to mention the lack of accountability in this matter.

Conclusion

To quote Tom Scott, “There’s a lot to be said for a solution that just uses physics.” After all, we are actual humans made of flesh and blood living in the physical world. If the more convenient, foolproof and accessible solution is actually right in front of us, why digitalise something to potentially make things unnecessarily complex? Long-term accessibility should be our priority, instead of the chase of so-called technological trends.

If the industries are really keen in digitalisation, sure, go ahead, but please leave the options open to the users. Don’t get rid of the physical alternatives that are already there and still perfectly functional. Backup plans are always good for worst-case scenarios. Being something that doesn’t depend on electricity, physical solutions would stay stronger than digital ones most, if not all, of the time.

Regarding the terminology, there are other similar terms such as ‘digitisation’ and ‘digital transformation’, and they can easily be confused with each other. I decide to adapt the term ‘digitalisation’, based on the explanations in this Forbes article. ↩︎
There are even some advocating for the total phase-out of physical identity cards, which I think is too much. ↩︎
It’s worthwhile to note that digital currencies are different from cryptocurrencies. While they’re both digital, they are very different in terms of the means of distribution. Cryptocurrencies are decentralised and dictated by algorithms, but digital currencies are no different from the usual centralised currencies like the US dollar, just that they are, well, digital. To me, the notion of digital currency seems to contradict cryptocurrency supporters’ vision of an independent, decentralised financial system, but cryptocurrency industries nowadays are not better in any way. So, well, maybe we’re just too idealistic? ↩︎
Just like how some people view artificial intelligence after the release of ChatGPT. ↩︎

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Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

ttheng's casual blog.

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The review

Some other comments

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Background of ENA: Dream BBQ

Gameplay Walkthrough

Conclusion

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Travel

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Background

The story

Conclusion

RHMP 2024: _En Route_ Review

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Some More (Human-made) Study Music to Get You Focused

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Chillhop Radio series

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Square Enix Music Special DJ Mix

Birocratic’s beets series

Flamingosis’ Mood Provider series

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Conclusion

Digitalisation is not everything: a re-evaluation of digital inclusion

Digitalisation trend

Ubiquity of digitalisation

…but is digitalisation always the best?

Digitalisation is not (always) accessible

Digitalisation is not foolproof

Digitalisation can lead to more wastage

And not to mention power outage…

Security and privacy concerns

Conclusion

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