Series of bad decisions and bad luck brought Credit Suisse to this situation. Ah well, there is no honor among them anyway. While some regions within APAC would not be that affected as CS hasn’t been active in recent years (e.g. India), this could spell some changes in Southeast Asia.

Anyway, this mega-deal is out of my purview so I’m not beating myself up for missing this. Such move happened during the weekend when markets were sleeping.

But anything could go wrong you know, until a deal is signed.

Still haven’t gotten in touch with any of them. They could still be in limbo.

Let’s see what happens in the next few days.

Suzume 凉芽 no Tojimari

My friend L and I watched this earlier tonight with my girls at UP Town Center. L and I sort of made a pact that we would watch all the anime shown in local cinemas. Through the years we swapped copies of anime (movies or series) across media centers, coffee shops, or wherever we can set our laptops down to copy each other’s hard drives. We fangirled at the cast of the live action movie of Rurouni Kenshin when they were here to grace the Philippine premiere in 2014. I was already on terminal leave with my old TV network but I still volunteered to cover the event because I was a fan. I had an all-access pass as an erstwhile entertainment journalist just for this three-day event.

Anyway, L and I last watched a movie together was in… 2019??? It was a Mokoto Shinkai movie as well, Weathering With You. That movie made me tear up a bit at the scene when the the main adult in the movie supported the main protagonist in his quest to free the female protagonist from the bonds of being a sort of shrine maiden who has been sacrificed for the good of mankind. Suga (the crazy detective, the main adult that has not adulted at all) said he understood Hodaka’s desperation to hear a loved one’s voice again and will do everything to be able to hear it again. At that moment I was in a relationship that I thought was steady and good. But at the back of my mind I knew if I was put in the same position as Suga and Hodaka, I would be desolate when I know I could never hear or reach that loved one forever.

Well, this blog knows the rest of what happened to me.

But I digress.

In Suzume, I was moved by the scene where Suzume finally had closure 12 years after her mother died/disappeared following the Great Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami of 2011. For years she never understood and accepted the death of her mother, along with 20,000 people who never got home on 11 March 2011. Suzume herself was half-living, half-dead while she looked for her mother, roaming around the apocalyptic landscape. She always told herself that she had to find mama because mama would be worried and would be looking for her. She was half-frozen when her aunt found her hugging the wooden chair her mama made for her.

I also caught something in my throat during the scene where Suzume’s aunt and Suzume had a shouting match, unleashing 12 years’ worth of pent-up fury, for being forced to have each other because of the difficult circumstances. “Give me back those 10 years I lost!” shouted Tamaki.

I felt that. It’s not easy to be a single parent, whether it’s your own child or not. Your child is your burden alone. Only love gives you the strength to carry on; the road is very difficult and sometimes you just want to give up but you have no choice but to go on and move forward.

Hence the kanji 凉芽 for suzume, with 凉 = sadness/sorrow/grief and 芽 = to sprout/the beginning of something.

It’s about your personal grief and again the sorrow that permeates over the places that had been destroyed and became desolate. All the memories of people who never got home or saw their loved ones again.

Suzume 凉芽 = moving forward from grief.

Finding closure to start a new beginning.

How very apt.

It’s like the hardships of more than two years will be culminating into this event in May, opening this new life that I will be building in my new house with my children.

Suzume 凉芽 = from sorrow to moving on